3, 2, 1 Sendoff 3-1-2

312 Beer

312 New Cans

Walking into a bar this early in the day is a welcome rarity when it happens to be The Hideout for the annual South by Southwest Send Off Party opening with personal favorite Paper Thick Walls. This musical extravaganza held twelve awesome bands on stage spanning a near 14 hour music window starting at 1:30p.m. … which is when I pulled up a stool to the bar.

Awesomely enough, Chicago’s own 312 beer chose this event to launch their new cans. Just think! When they release the new can (that would be today, 3/12) you can have a 312… in can form. Now that you’ve had a beer back to Paper Thick Walls.

What mortar does it take to build a band with a unique, awesome sound. For Paper Thick Walls mortar blend Radio Head, Cat Power, Bat for Lashes and a hint of Regina Spektor then a hefty dash of Sufjan Stephans and voila! You hear infused mellifluous sounds building from this five-piece band. Lead voices and writers Kate Schell and Eric Michaels are accompanied by a kick-ass upright bass player, Roger Sherman, the jack of many instruments Jacques and killer drummer Andrew Sabo. Their debut album A Thousand Novels shares many beautiful, moving stories of melody. Speaking of stories, this bunch is never lacking source material for passion as our lead singers not only land lovely notes but are also very much in love. What a lovely way to open a party.

PTW's

Paper Thick Walls

The line-up included some amazing local talent including Redgrave, party sensation Hollywood Holt (these guys raised the bar for a good time) and stand out name Kids These Days! For a full list of talent and future events check out www.thehideoutchicago.com. And if you missed this year I say unto thee do not miss this awesome party in 2013!

Wishing everyone in route for SXSW in Austin TX a safe journey and a stay full of fantastic sounds. Enjoy today’s weather and the new 312 beer and for more on my recommended band visit www.paperthickwalls.com. Happy March and stay safe this St. Patrick’s Day!

Leaping Into March

nothing to do with this article

nothing to do with this article... just random

What an auspicious day, a day that was missing from last year and the year before that and if math serves me well, the year before that. Having been absent from my own personal writing for some time I felt it was only appropriate to begin with a rant… but yeah, it’s a rant about my life, so, I won’t edit it.

I paused before starting this sentence then remembered that I just needed to rant. Let’s see. Therapy is going well. It’s opened my eyes to a lot of darker demons that I had yet to look in the face and also given me more reasons to smile. I just got a call but I’ll dual process as we city folk are expected to do, which means more than likely the integrity of both my conversation and my writing will suffer.

Leaping without looking sounds like a dangerous action, unless you’re a ninja acrobat… ahhh, my final fantasy dreams. Anyway, dreams aside, focus is a good thing and this past almost year has been steps toward seeing more clearly in all senses of being.

random

again not relevant... just random like an extra day

I want to keep this short cause as people who hear me rant in real-time know, I will go on forever. And I’ll get sidetracked and start talking about this book or that book (like The Alchemist or Look at the Birdie) or this or that game (Deus Ex Human Revolution, Final Fantasy Tactics) or this or that or this or that or this… see I’m doing it… generically, but doing it nonetheless.

To continue in non sequitur fashion a fantastic team of video wizards, Awesomonster and myself have submitted our pilot to the New York Television Film Festival (in conjunction with Comedy Central and recently added notable names) and await the announcement of the finalists so keep your fingers crossed, pray, cast a spell, call an appropriate colleague or, you know, just use whatever your power happens to be and hope the Game Show of HELL finds its place on a matching channel.

See that last paragraph really had nothing to do with this whole little article, but that’s where my head went as they were supposed to announce today “or sometime around” today. Talk about vague.

O.K. I’ll talk about vague.

Shut-up you!

So, in short, I have good thoughts on this “leap day” that we may all be a little more aware and conscious of the time we have and how we deal it into our days… and I want us to be finalists in the festival.

It’s good to get back into the groove of writing regardless of how hard, rough or unfollowable (see, I’m making up words now) it may prove… oh, and happy birthday to all you people subject to grow by every four years instead of one… that’s alien.