strangepulse.com

Taken in downtown LA above the 101 freeway.

Songs about moving…

“Moving through the bones of you”

“Keep moving”
(Song starts at 6:10.)

“Move your feet and feel united”

“She’s a mover”

“Come on, move this”

What else?

It’s a famous historical building in downtown L.A. A lot of movies, etc, have used it for filming–most notably, the movie Blade Runner. The lobby is open to the public.

I took Daniel there recently. He only likes modern design, all straight lines and no ornamentation, etc. But this lobby blew him away. When he told our son Nathaniel (who is studying architecture) about it later, Daniel said it almost made him cry, it was so amazing.

Here are some pics I’ve taken there:

It really is beautiful.

Last night we were watching some music videos from the on-demand music video channel on TV, and came across this Heart video that was filmed there:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPBY-B8pK1w

The awesomeness!

While Elijah and his dad were watching Power Rangers on TV.

Elijah: I think Buckethead is a fan of this show. He covered the theme song. I think he’s a fan of anything involving giant robots.

Daniel: (says something I can’t make out)

Elijah: He has an album called Giant Robot!

But that’s cuz he IS a giant robot.

I turned 40 a few days ago.

I should do a post about how I feel about it and maybe I will soon. But for now, here’s a birthday present from my 16yo son Elijah. I asked him to write me a doom metal song.

He’s not into doom metal and thinks it’s very simplistic. I told him to listen to some Graves at Sea to get an idea of what I like. So he did, and then he wrote this song.

He said, “The song is 5 minutes long and it took me 6 minutes to write it.” He composes music on the computer. When he made the video, he’d exported the song as an mp3 onto his ipod, which he plugged into his amp and then played along with it. I knew writing a doom metal song would be easy for him, that’s one of the reasons I asked him to.

Of course, it’s not as slow as I really like my doom metal, but I still think it’s pretty dang awesome. (I figured it’d be nearly impossible for him to make it as slow and as simple as I really like.)

Daniel needs to use our car almost all the time now, which leaves me with our truck. Our truck which has expired tabs because it didn’t pass emissions.

I never drive it far. Not because of the expired tabs, but because it’s not very reliable.

The other day I was driving to Santa Ana and a cop pulled up right next to me at a stop light. I had the radio on and didn’t really notice him for awhile. The song that was playing?

When I realized there was a cop next to me, I was careful not to drive ahead of him so he couldn’t see my plates. Fortunately, he was turning left and didn’t come after me. The line that was being sung as I drove away (at 2:54):

Oh mamma I’m in fear for my life from the long arm of the law

I just had to laugh.

Oh yeah. Avoiding getting hit or kicked or socked in the head. And having the time of my life!

One of my favorite bands, Converge, played a small all ages venue in Anaheim the other night. We got there early because I knew exactly where I wanted to be–next to the stage, but off to the side, behind a half-wall that would protect me from the mosh pit going on in front of the stage.

When Nathaniel, Dillon and I pulled into the parking lot, the singer, Jacob, was outside the venue talking to someone. We all freaked out. There he is! What do we say? I don’t know what to say! We have to talk to him! But of course by the time we walked over to where he’d been he’d gone inside, out of sight.

We waited in line–actually we cut ahead of some people who were there before us without realizing it. But it’s not like we were going to steal their spots inside, or anything. Here are pics of Nathaniel and Dillon I took with my cell phone while we waited:

Here is part of a text I sent to Daniel while waiting, also:

“BTW the trend in hardcore attire regarding cut off jeans is a little horrifying.”

I was expecting the opening bands to be lame, but I actually enjoyed all of them. I’m not sure of the first band’s name, I think they were called Nail. They were pretty good. Black Breath were good, too (in spite of their name). Gaza I think I’d heard of but not heard. They had some great slow doomy moments. Their singer is like, 7 feet tall. (Actually he’s 6’7″.) And super skinny. And doesn’t look very happy. I enjoyed them.

Coalesce were a pleasant surprise (in spite of their name). The guitarist, who just happened to be right in front of me, was a complete spaz, which is always great in a live show. I’d definitely see them again just to see him do what he does. Here’s video I took with my cell phone:

The sound came out as just gibberish so I replaced it with a song youtube provides. Mute it if it bothers you. What you want to watch for happens at :50.

I took three film cameras, including a pinhole I’ve been playing around with, which I made out of an old Holga. I was curious what would happen with a pinhole at a show so I set it on the stage and took a couple minute exposure. This was during one of the opening bands. The show was way too insane to attempt a pinhole shot during Converge. I knew I’d get nothing but the stage (with a couple minutes exposure time, anything moving becomes invisible, or just ghostlike fog), but was hoping I’d get the drummer somewhat. What I got was lots of ghosty blurs:

What I find strange is the way the lights on the right are all melting down the frame.

This is from a (non-pinhole, regular) Holga with a flash, opening band Coalesce:

I used Kodak Tri-X 320 film that a Flickr contact sent me a long time ago. It’s 220 film rather than 120, so I had to tape up the frame number window and just count how many times I turned the crank to advance the film. (I went one and a half turns for each frame which was more than enough room–got 18 pics out of it.)

What I did NOT do is count how many pictures I was taking. I went a little richter on opening band, Coalesce, because the guitarist was just such an awesome spazzy guy, I had to keep snapping him. So I ran out of film for Converge and only got a handful of shots of them with the Holga, dang it.

I did get this double exposure of Converge though:

And this is probably the best Fisheye shot I got of them (the other camera I brought):

I was worried people might try to stage dive onto where I was during Converge, so I got some kid who was behind a wall with no view at all to switch places with me. Then I just stuck my camera around the wall, blind, for most of the Converge shots. Of course by then the film had run out and I didn’t know it!

I took a lot of cell phone video. Mainly cuz I could hold it up over people’s heads and watch what was happening on my cell. I’m so short it’s hard for me to see anything if I’m not right against the stage.

Nathaniel took it easy, didn’t really go into the pit, because just before they came on he got hit in the crotch. Some short guy was doing the stupid hardcore whirlybird thing and Nathaniel’s pretty tall. Ouch.

Dillon got kicked in the eye (of course). He also got to sing into the mic a couple times and did at least one stage dive.Converge shows are VIOLENT–one kid crowd surfing got punched in the face–by the singer! haha. I saw it all right in front of me. The kid looked shocked. He came and stood by me later, I asked him after the show if the singer had punched him, he just said “Yeah! He punched me!” –Wasn’t bothered by it I don’t think. He was bleeding a little from it. I’ve seen video of the singer socking people before but never saw it happen live.

The singer sits on the stage right after they’re done and shakes people’s hands. All the hardcore kids were hugging him, it was cute. Actually, he was hugging them, I think. I waited till they’d mostly cleared out and then said “Jacob! You have to come back soon!” (They don’t play LA often enough.) He said, “Thanks, we will” and shook my hand. He was drenched in sweat–literally, during the show it was flying off of him. I turned to Nathaniel on our way out and said, “I’m never washing this hand again!”

Cell phone pics of the boys after the show:

You can’t tell but Dillon had big red circles around his eyes. As soon as I saw him I said “What happened!” He said, “I got kicked in the head.” He looked like he’d been socked in both eyes.

Setlist-wise, I don’t really remember what they played. I know they *didn’t* play Plagues or You Fail Me. Jacob said they were making a point this tour to do some songs they’ve never done live before, and then they played one: Orphans.

Here’s some video of Converge, again with the audio swapped out:

Just found some pics someone else took at the show on Flickr. I saw this guy taking pictures all night, and he got some great stuff. Here’s a pic with Dillon in it:

Dillon’s on the lower left.

You can see my hand holding my cell phone here, I’m behind the wall:

He got a bunch during opening bands with me in the background because I was directly across the stage from him. Here are a few.

Holding my camera in my hands:

Winding the film:

Waiting for Coalesce to come on (the guitarist sat right in front of me while they soundchecked–I was actually taking a pinhole shot right here–camera blends into my jacket–but it didn’t really come out):

During Gaza–you can see me between the dude’s legs, haha:

There was another photog there with stage access who was using a beautiful fisheye lens. I’m probably in a couple of his shots. But I haven’t found them online yet.

I tested out my cell phone video capabilities at a small skate park in Long Beach the other day. It did pretty good, considering it was dusk.

It doesn’t look as good on youtube as it does on my computer, though, since youtube compresses it. Youtube also messed up the sound (conflicting codecs or something?) so I swapped out the audio for a song.

I was driving in the car with my husband Daniel and this song by the Magic Numbers came on:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clVo2FQXjnA

(Embedding is disabled on that video.)

Daniel said, “Is this what you listen to when you want to feel sad? A Coldplay-sound-alike?”

Huh? The Magic Numbers sound like Coldplay? What do you guys think?

And I never in a million years would call that song sad. Daniel is so weird sometimes. I asked him if he’d ever actually listened to Coldplay.

To me, that song sounds like the Stars:

Ha. I love this:

Features one of my blogging friends, Suz.

I was totally planning on getting all my blogging friends to do a music video next time we all get together. Never thought about doing it apart!

This one must have been hungry. He didn’t even pause in his munching when I stuck a camera in his face.

I tried finding some great cannibalism quotes and was surprised at how few good ones there are. My fave:

"There is no cannibalism in the British navy, absolutely none, and when I say none, I mean there is a certain amount."
- Graham Chapman

Song about cannibalism:

Written by Rupert Holmes, who also wrote the Pina Colada Song. Do you like Pina Colodas? Eating people in the rain?