The first 91 days.

The first 3 months. Gone. Every year when i think and try to remember what I liked I struggle with what happened at the start of the year. So while it may seem a bit silly to recap 1/3 of the year I am doing it cause i know i wont remember at the end of the year.

So lets get started! Here are some of my Favorite records of the year! ( in no order)

Lupe Fiasco--The Cool--Atlantic

 

So this record came out at the very end of 2007 but was out too late to be included on any best of lists so i have included it here ...  For more info on Lupe go here

Man Man--Rabbit Habits--ANTI

If i had to name a favorite for the year thus far ... I think this might be it. For more information on Man Man go here. 

City and Colour--Bring me your love--Vagrant 

 

I found this record by accident. One of my Music Directors called me and asked me when I was going to send him the new City and Colour record because he is Canadian and I work all the Canadians. A few days later I had the record on my desk and I absolutely love it. 

For more information go here.

The Raconteurs--Consoleurs of the Lonely--Warner

Well this record seems to have come out of thin air! While I have only had this record for about a week I love it and think it will be in my playlist for some time to come! 

For more on the Raconteurs go here

The Loved Ones--Build and Burn--Fat Wreck

My favorite punk rock record of the year. I saw them open up for the Mighty Mighty Bosstones in December and was an instant fan. They take the torch from Hot Water Music and keep going. Such a fun and catchy record. For more on the Loved Ones go here. 

Be Your Own Pet--Get Awkward--Universal 

I got this record a few months ago and I absolutely loved it. Apparently the record I got was not the record that the rest of the world would get. 3 songs were deemed to "violent" and were removed. I am not sure I am buying that but regardless they are getting a lot of free press out of it. The record everyone else got is good but I fell in love with the other version so it's almost like a completely new record for me to get used to. So if i were you I would track down those "violent" songs. Put Black hole at #1 and you are good to go. The other missing songs are Becky and blow your mind.  For more info on Be Your Own Pet go here. 

The Black Keys--Attack and Release--Nonesuch 

Simply put I love this record. Just put it on. Sit in your favorite chair and leave in about an hour. You will feel better because of it. I could write forever on this record as there is so much to say. But this is a simple list. For more information on The Black Keys. Go here. 

I am sure there are going to be records that are going to grow on me, or records that I have missed. but as of  March 31 2008. Those are my favorites. 

I went looking for reminders of what has come out so far and came across some great sites to help you pick your favorites. 

Rateyourmusic.com has the top 1000 records listed. (apparently Meshugah is #1)

Amazon.com has their favorites with the Raconteurs taking the top spot 

New Music Nation loves the new Vampire weekend record. 

some guy in Michigan loves the new hot chip. 

Metcritic may not have them listed yet but the best score of the year so far goes to Protest the hero 

Rabbit Habits.

What a crazy last 2 weeks its been. Texas, Jersey and back to NYC. This past week Christine from KSLU was in town and we lived life like it was another SXSW . Going out every night of the week. Bowling, Karaoke, and margaritas! Whew.... and the NCAA tournament and well trying to live life as well and then easter and easter Brunch....takes a lot out of you. But there is NO rest for the weary! This week marks RED SOX OPENING DAY!!!! Tomorrow morning at 6am! You will find me at Professor Thoms on 2nd ave and 14th street watching the Red Sox open the 2008 baseball season in Japan! Am I excited? HELL YES I AM! Here are some photos from the past week! Next week will bring us April 1st and 1/4th of the way done with 2008! Seeing as last year i could not remember what records came out in JAN, FEB and March this year I am going to try and keep track and this will mark the top 10 of the 1/4th mark of 2008! Email me your best of the year so far as well!

Should be working or at the very least looking at NCAA scores

26

I am not going to teach him how to Dance with you.

What a a great 16 days March has been. It really has flown by and not a single day has been wasted! I mean I have been wasted but they days... they have been enjoyed to the fullest. As you can read about in the last few weeks. I was in Boston for 5 days and I got to hang out with so many friends. I then went to Texas and had soooooooo much fun, if you have not read the about the Kareoke on Tuesday please do and then REM on WED so much fun! Then on Thursday I stayed up all night and went to the airport for a 7AM flight! I flew home and had about 45 min before my friend picked me up and drove me down to my friend Sean's wedding in New Jersey. We got down there and by 11pm I was so freaking out of it.... So the wedding was on Saturday and that was a blast and a half and lots of dancing and drinking and just so much fun. On Sunday I got home and cleaned and got the house ready for a visit from Christine and Liz from KSLU so one day of rest and we keep it keeping on!   For those of you that went to SXSW I hope you had a good time. For those of you that did not go it is pretty much like an indie rock warped tour with lots of free drinks.   

So yeah, these weeks have been great. Lots of friends, lots of bands, lots of drinks. 

there are a bunch of places to look at photos 

most of them will be linked from here 

www.piratepirate.com 

you can also go straight to my page here if you like 

I put a bunch up on my facebook page as well if you are not friends with me yet. Just look for me and add me.  My world tour is just getting started though. I head up to Boston again soon. Then up to Toronto. In May I am heading out to Seattle! Then I want to plan trips to New Orleans, LA, San Fran, Chicago, and Detroit. Well I want to go to a lot of places!  Maybe I will come visit you, just ask! 

SXSW Day Two.... every day is a Friday.

What a whirlwind. I am sitting here in lovely Astoria NY waiting for my friend to pick me up and head to New Jersey for a wedding. I left Austin this morning at around 7 am and I stayed up all night to do it. Texas was a blast for my last day and I was very sad to leave. Our Party was yesterday and was for sure the highlight of the day. Weakerthans, Tim Fite, MAN MAN, Billy Bragg and Islands! It was part of the ANTI records showcase and was pretty much the best line up of the night.  I was running around all day yesterday checking out the KDHX, KSLU party then heading over to the Team C party and the SYN party and all those places once more. Got to hang out with pretty much everyone I wanted to see and am pretty happy about the day. I don't really have any photos from shows but I have a series I am going to call ... LOOK HOW MUCH TALLER BRADEN IS THAN EVERYONE ELSE. 

SXSW DAY ONE!!!

Well it was long wait... but yesterday SXSW started and it was fantastic. I started my day with a lunch at the Four Season with the band Electric Touch who i would end up seeing later in the night. Lunch at the Four Seasons is pretty fantastic if you were wondering! Then I headed to our friends at Terrorbirds party then over to the Fader lounge... many drinks were had... we also saw the WEINERMOBILE AND YES IT WAS FANTASTIC! Then we saw City and Colour, who if you have not checked out are one of my favorites as of late!  After that we did a brief stop back at Fader for The Kills then we headed over to see Canada who as always put on a great show. 

Next I went to try and get into Be your own pet but the line was crazy and I wanted to see Electric touch anyways so after that I went to go try and see REM. When I got their the line was out the wazzooo but .... lets flash back to Monday when I went to Stubbs for a Party. They gave me a Stubbs wristband and I left it on..thinking..well maybe if they have the same color of wristbands on Wed. I can get in.... Sure enough they did! So i was able to sneak in and see REM for the first time ever. They played an amazing set and really made my week!  After REM i really wanted to see The Black Keys..they were playing the same show as Be your own pet and the line was still...OUT THE WAZOOOOO so I went down to see Cadence Weapon who as always put on a great show!   After his show .... on the way to another bar for yet another drink... we saw there was no line for Black Keys so we got to see the last 3 songs!!!!! 

So everything seems to have worked out! Today is my last day here in Texas and I plan on living it up! 

SXSW day Negative one.

Dollar shots.

That is where i think it all started to go wrong. 

or well.  That is the way the night started and the way the night ended. 

Actually the night ended with a bottle of wine.   A ton of people came into town and we had a blast.  It was a good warm up night... I cant really think of anything note worthy . We drank on a roofdeck, drank at many bars and thats pretty much it. 

here are some photos

SXSW ... Day Negative two

Would that be right? Day Negative 2? Minus 2 days until SXSW begins for the Music part of the festival. So yesterday our Monday plan was to call radio and do our normal work thing but this year our Hotel internet was the crap and we could not do anything. So we found a nearby interweb connection and sent out some emails and went out to enjoy the day in Texas. 

Being in Texas and having had Mexican food on Sunday we wanted "the best" BBQ in Austin. Some people told us The Salt lick others told us Ironworks but we settled on The county line 

I decided to have the Brisket tacos and they were fantastic. Our Friend Elliot Lipp had their famous Deep Dish Pecan Pie for lunch and that was pretty damn fantastic.   We then hit up some thrift stores and tried to get into a free movie preview. The Thrift stores had no mens clothes and we got the shaft on the movie preview so we went down to the Pure Volume house to get our free badges and started the drinking.  We went down to Beerland and with out hesitation I can firmly state that this place has THE WORST KARAOKE in the whole world. No lie. 

Let me tell you the back story. Last year when we went we got there early and I would say that the place had 15 people max. Our group of 10 or so people put in some songs... more people showed up and slowly but as time goes...it passes... 2 hours later none of us have sang. So we as the feisty drunk group we were cornered the Karaoke  guy ..yelled at him... made him feel bad about his life and then we all got to sing... too little too late.  This year... the place was slightly more crowded and there were 2 jackasses instead of one running the karaoke  . We all tipped like he asked us ,to get our songs in but a few songs before any of us sang the machine ( a 30 dollar machine you could buy at wall-mart ) broke so they 2 drunken buffoons ran around trying to figure out how to make something work. The jimmy-rigged something so that music played and the mic worked...i think its called a CD player. So another 30 min goes by and i have yet to sing despite my bribe, and of course they "accidently" threw away my slip so I calmly ask where it is ...and they tell me to calm down and he starts going through the trash looking for the slip. ( I let him look for a little while before telling him i can write it down again... BUFFOONS! ) So i get up to sing my song... I know all the words to superstar from the carpenters so not having the screen with words was no big deal until one of them hits the cd player and it skips to the last verse and thus ends my song. By this point I might be a little drunk and I go off on a long diatribe on stage about how this place has to be the WORST karaoke place ever. They cut my mic of course but that does not stop me... My last line I think I said to them was.... " by acknowledging me you are only giving me Power"  And that was karaoke. The rest of the night was fun.  Some more drinking... we got to watch a married man hit on a 21 year old girl from canada it was funny.... he and she went home alone ...oh fun times..here are some photos from last night(i tried to put some up but my connection is not the best...so here is one for now) 

The Stars at night are big and bright ...clap clap clap clap.... deep in the heart of TEXAS .

Hello there my fairweather fans. I hope everyone is well. I am in lovely Austin Texas.
Got here yesterday and it was a lovely 72 and sunny. Today it is rainy but still warm so i will take it. Down here for SXSW!!!! This weekend was FANTASTIC I was in Boston and we did some Kareoke! I went Bowling! Then headed down here. Not much else to say... but I do have some fantastic photos from the past week i wanted to share.... I wanted to add a lot more but for some reason internet in Texas is slow. Its a simpler way of life...... you know iced tea. Lemonade.... Bar-b-Q and tacos.... but here are some of the good ones. We went to Border Cafe one of my favorite places in boston. We went to Kareoke as well. Good times! 

side note... someone just asked me if i was blogging..i lied to him.... i said no... to be honest...i feel kinda dirty ....

BOSTON FRIDAYS ARE THE BEST FRIDAYS

I came across this comic in the onion last week
and it made me laugh a bunch.
you can read more of them here
http://wondermark.com.

So i am In Boston today and tonight we are going to see the Boston Celtics play a basketball game vs the Chicago Bulls . Then after we are going to go and do some Kareoke. Last year we got Steve to sing so hopefully we can get him to do the same!

She wore a cowboy hat..in the middle of the hallway

Happy March My friends! I am so happy Feb. is over. FOr those that do not know i took off the month of Feb from drinking. I also got the Black Lung and tried out the raw food diet. So it was pretty much the most anti-fun month I have ever had. But now...now its March! and well Spring brings hope and joy.! Baseball starts this month! SXSW is this month! I am going to Boston 2 times this month! So this weekend I Broke Edge and had myself a lovely time.

Thursday Night was actually the start of all the fun as we go to bar that shows Lost on EVERY TV and people go crazy! Then we went out to see Apes and Androids!

Apes and Androids

They were rather Fantastic then on Friday night i went out to see The Acorn The Acorn and got some fine Mexican food in the city with brooke.

Saturday was our Fantasy baseball draft so we nerded out for 2 hours with that and then went to a birthday party...the party to be honest was quite borrrrring but ... we were able to convince the bartender to let us shotgun beers so yeah that happened...

Sunday i went shopping and bought some new shirts for TExas and saw Semi-Pro!
all and all a great weekend. This Wed i leave for Boston for a few days to see the Boston Celtics play basketball and try to get STeve to do some Kareoke. LAst year we were able to get him to sing Total Eclipse of the heart... oh man it was as good as you think it would be. Then SUNDAY ..... going to TEXAS!
see you there!

So yeah above are some of the photos from my weekend...including what i think is one of the most fantastic things i have ever seen.... A CAT ON A HAT!!!!!! The other photos are Me eating mexican food, shotgunning a beer, The Acorn, so yeah there you go!

OH and for those of you wondering the Title this week and last week were from whatever song was playing at the time...can you tell me What song this weeks title was taken from ...and last weeks monday post....