:::2011 IS HERE:::LOVE IS THE ONLY LAW:::

It’s a bit of a shock to file away everything that happened this past year into memories.  But it’s official, 2010 is dead. Truly life is zooming out and 2010 showed me over and over just how small my position in the grand spectacle we call reality. This past year I made the move from the West Coast to NYC and was fortunate to get to do quite a bit of traveling: Los Angeles, Austin, New Orleans, San Francisco, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Paris, Woodstock, and ended it in Miami partying with all the legendary Club Kids at Susanne Bartsch’s extraordinary NYE extravaganza.

My year began focused on getting my play “Life on Mars: The James Bidgood Story” off the ground, but after I showed it at Poet’s Theater in SF last February, my life came apart in Los Angeles and I had to hit the road toward uncertainty. Looking back on the year, I’m able to see all the beautiful times that sprouted in a year that was heavily coated with pain, sorrow, loss and heartache. Unfortunately my anxiety level was at an all time high all year long, and looking back I’m acutely aware that I never seemed to fully be present, I was constantly worried about what was going to happen next and afraid my life would again come undone. It’s impossible to live fixated on worry or anxiety or whatever… So for 2011 I want to try to give up worrying about tomorrow, embrace the present and spray paint my visions gold.

2010 really proved individuals must accept change and be able to adapt to the changes life constantly evolves toward. 21st Century literacy is no longer limited to the ability to read and write. Now the literate person must also be able to adapt and constantly be able to learn and unlearn in order to relearn. Unlearning/relearning and change are difficult concepts because they inherent a sense of loss and me being an emotional person, I grieve each and every ending.

Here are a bunch of pictures of the NYE party my friends The Zand Collective and I rang in 2011 at:

SXSW PRE PARTY: ORGANIC FOOD, BEACH FOSSILS, THEE OH SEES AND OF COURSE, LOTS OF BOOZE…

Co written and with photos contributed by brokenbrooklyn

This year we started out our SXSW adventure with an organic home cooked meal courtesy of The Eastside Cafe on Manor Road.  The Cafe grows a lot of the organic veggies they serve in a garden behind the restaurant space and gets their eggs from the hen house out back as well.  This was by far the most civilized event of the week.  After  stuffing our faces with healthy eats we headed out to begin our pre festival partying.

We made our way to the 21st Co Op, an awesome labyrinth of a college housing complex and to House of Guys, a house venue across the street to see Thee Oh Sees and Beach Fossils. Sans this guy wearing a major “VICE DON’T” zebra suit, both parties were pretty awesome…

Light Asylum Comes to Los Angeles

I’m really excited to see Light Asylum play this weekend in Los Angeles. We’ve chatted about them here before… and recently they made one of the Top 40 Bands of Brooklyn List. They’re playing at Show Cave. My life has been really up in the air lately and I’m not sure how I’m going to get there though, so if you wanna car pool let me know!!

Also recently Bruno from Light Asylum posted an MP3 of a live Light Asylum song at Butt Magazine which you can find at the bottom of this post.. Anyway, I have two weeks left in the Los Angeles area.. hopefully I will see you at the show..

Todd P announces MtyMx, a three day music and arts festival in Monterrey Mexico with Dan Deacon, Andrew W.K. and 76ish others!

For those of you who don’t read Pitchforkmedia religiously and for those of you who don’t go to see bands play in New York City on a regular basis the name Todd P may mean very little to you.  Todd P is essentially the premiere DIY music event organizer in New York City and one of the bigger events coordinates of his kind in the country.  Though he’s done great things for the music community of New York City and has gone out of his way to get all ages of folks into his shows, some people find it hard to forgive his love/hate taste for bands, a trait that elevates some okay (or not so okay) bands to godly indie heights and neglects other great music artists entirely.

While I am sometimes hit and miss with Todd P’s choices of indie music champions, I can’t get angry at someone for promoting what they like and not promoting what they don’t, even if we differ in opinion. It is hard for me to get my panties in a twist over someone who has put on some of the better music shows I’ve seen since moving to New York and I have more than a handful of memories I’m happy to have that I wouldn’t, were it not for Todd P.  His blog is consistently updated and friendly in it’s anonymous layout and he continues to find unique and interesting, if sometimes unnecessarily half hazard spaces to put on live performances, adding a level of uniqueness to what could otherwise be just another indie show. His constant commitment to making live music a special event is perhaps my favorite thing about the way Todd P works and it is also why I look forward to the event he just announced so eagerly.

For the past four years Todd has put on free showcases in Austin during the week of SXSW as a free all ages alternative to the hopelessly expensive and sprawling official festivities, often offering some of the best up and coming bands to be playing the festival officially.  This year, he has announced something different, a split from Austin and it’s impersonal feeling festivities and an establishment of a three day festival of his own planning called MtyMx. It’s taking place south of the Texas border in Monterrey Mexico.  It’s three days long, at an abandoned drive in movie theater, it only costs 30 dollars, almost 80 bands are playing and most of us will be sleeping in tents and having dirty hipster sex for seventy two hours straight.  If this doesn’t sound like a good time to you, you most likely shouldn’t be reading this blog.

The line up so far is reproduced here after the jump

Cellist, Vocalist, Songwriter and Perpetual Optimist NAJEEB SABOUR on Community, Travel and making music in Austin Texas

Najeeb Sabour is pretty close to being a native Texan, but when you hear the music he makes for the first time, Texas would probably be about the last place you would guess him to be from. This is most likely due to his constant relocating. After being born in New Orleans, Mr. Sabour moved to Dallas, then from Dallas to Memphis, Memphis to Boston, Boston to Prague and Spain and then from there back to Texas, where he currently calls Austin his home. This said, I can’t help but think that he will probably be moving about again shortly. At first glance, Najeeb’s music and constant relocation reflect and romanticize the nomadic, but when I took the time to listen to his lyrics and talk to him about his travels I realized that the point has less to do with constantly feeling unsettled and more to do with a search for, and spreading of a common loving, creative community.

CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS???:I’M SO EXCITED ABOUT SXSW IN AUSTIN TEXAS

Dear Mr. Fantasy,
play us a tune
Something to make us all happy
Do anything take us out of this gloom
Sing a song, play guitar
Make it snappy

Ok, so I’ve been busy working on other projects and getting ready for a much needed vacation in two weeks to SXSW, which rules!!! I apologize to everyone for not updating as frequently this past two weeks. Here is my official list of free events happening that I plan on attending. I hope to see you there:::::::

SPAZZY ERUPTING NOISE: GAYBOMB

In my attempt to figure out who to see during my spastic week in Austin, TX for South By Southwest, I’ve been led to many new awesome bands that are creating music that touches me on some level. The next couple weeks, I’m going to be reaching out to the bands I’ve been discovering to try and get some of their awesomeness onto minorprogression. The first sweet find I’ve come across and have been blessed to chat with is Gaybomb. Gaybomb is a noise band from the East Coast that is the product of Andrew Barranca, he has been performing and making music since the early nineties. I’m pretty excited about seeing him perform during my week in Austin, until then, check out this interview, some video’s, and a couple MP3’s.