When you blink your eyes...

I'm very excited about the idea of a new Autolux record. I saw today they released a new single on myspace called Audience No 2. I listened to it several times on repeat. I like it quite a bit. It still has the distortion of the first album and the signature drum fills. I'm feeling the jump in energy on the hook. Let's see if it holds up as much as their first record once the lyrics sink in more.

I obtained tickets for the All Tomorrow's Parties festival in New York last week curated by My Bloody Valentine and one of the bands they chose was Autolux, that's all I needed to know to get tickets. I've been dying to see Autolux for awhile now.

I'm quite interested in how artists follow up a successful work. Autolux currently has the one album that I consider a great success. It wasn't maybe a huge commercial hit but I think they have continued to gain underground credibility. They've waited quite awhile to come with a follow up to Future Perfect and I haven't heard of them touring much at all. I hope they can do it and come out with another inspired record.

[UPDATE]
Here are the full correct lyrics Autolux has posted next to the track on the myspace page:

in between the thinking and the saying
threw away what i can't believe
tell me how you lose this feeling
all moods have been dealt and played
tell me how you lose this feeling
all hands have been cut and waved

i have always been your vegetable
and you my Swedenborg
i would drop myself through black holes
to end up at your door

there's no one else to get hung about
and there's nothing else makes you twist

you set yourself up
the lightening bolt hit
you watched yourself change
and no one's left to blame

the helicopter's spotlight shaking
hungry orson on the make
the less you put yourself in
the less you feel so fake

suddenly i'm alright
and it 's time for you to go

you set yourself up
the lightening bolt hit
you let yourself change
now everyone's to blame

and the gulf sign split the screen up
and the gulf sign split the screen up
and the gulf sign split the screen up
and the gulf sign split the screen up
and the gulf sign split the screen up

Last fall I spent several long weekends completing a photography portfolio website for my friend Carl Burton. Carl has become a very good friend since I've been in New York and his photography is an inspiration to me to keep pushing myself to do more. Among other goals, I wanted Carl to be able to manage the uploading and organization of all the photos, sets, titles, dates, ordering himself without having to require any technical knowledge of web design. In addition I wanted to allow for his wider panorama images to be viewed at a larger size yet still have square format photos fit in the same display mechanism.

I have a large print of the photo above and they are definitely more impressive printed large. Contact Carl if you're interested in any of these or any of the other photos on his website.
I ended up building a photo scrolling technique triggered by the mouse mouse hovering over the photo thumbnails based upon mootools javascript library. Mootools made sense to me at the time because of the documentation and the smaller library size. The layout of the page was challenging to fit both the thumbnails and fullsize image on the screen on lower resolutions. I decided on a minimum resolution of 1024x768. Even with that its still a bit vertically long at times depending on browser toolbar configurations. In full screen/minimal toolbars it fits perfectly. I felt this sacrifice was worth it for the larger image size it allowed us to display for higher resolutions. However, I do get the occasional feedback that people on older computers had to scroll a bit to see it all. I tested mainly with Firefox, IE 6/7 and Safari. I tested with Opera later and it seems to work as expected.

The front end of the site has no AJAX but I did use AJAX on the admin side to allow carl to re-order both the order of the sets and the order of the photos within the sets. He can upload a photo and it automatically crops to the appropriate max size. Also, he can change the caption and date among other attributes of the photo during or after upload.

I chose to teach myself CakePHP and use it for this site as I already knew PHP and wanted to get more experience with the popular MVC web development frameworks. I originally was thinking of using Ruby on Rails but I liked the performance of CakePHP and already knowing PHP made it an easier learning curve and easier deployment. Once I got the hang out of I did enjoy working with it and the ability to quickly make changes. After working with Django quite a bit recently I tended to like the application module approach they use slightly better than the more rigid layout CakePHP uses which is very close to the way Rails is laid out.

I ended up just extending and customizing the scaffolding for the models to create the admin site. Many of the base scaffolds were perfectly fine for him to work with, but others needed more advanced functionality and I needed to remove superfluous fields. It seems to be working pretty well as he's been able to add several rounds of photos without needing to ask me for help. While I don't mind helping, its nice for him to have instant gratification without having to wait for me to be available to make the change. It was definitely some extra effort but I always like to take the approach of doing a little more work up front to allow computers to do the work for you later.

http://carlburton.net/

I finally saw Dan Bejar play with Destroyer last night after being into him for a few years now. He has been one of my most played artists over the past year. Not only as part of Destroyer but with his other bands Swan Lake and The New Pornographers as well. It was great to finally see him and hear all the songs I know but the performance itself wasn't totally mind blowing.

Dan Bejar has a unique voice and vocal delivery that many people I know don't get into. I would say its kind of theatrical in a way. However, I think he is one of the better modern song writers out there. He is often compared to David Bowie which I can definitely agree with on some songs. I've found I'm into a lot of Canadian pop/rock music in general for whatever reason.

There didn't seem to be any roadies, they just set up their own equipment. I was pretty sure it was him when this skinny man with poofy Jeff Lynne looking hair and Clark's Wallabees came out and plugged in 2 distortion pedals. I went with my friend Lindsay and we got a spot right in front of the stage which happened to be at the perfect angle to see him.

The performance like I said wasn't totally electrifying or anything. The way he sang the vocals seemed different in not always a good way compared to the studio recordings I have heard. However, still enjoyable, especially knowing most all the songs they played. He kind of reminded me of some kind of a muppet creature made of felt and rubber. Definitely an interesting and odd character.

I did take my camera and get some live music shots for the first time in quite awhile. The shots came out decent I think with our vantage point and the lighting at the Bowery.

The full set of photos I took at the show can be seen here.

I finally took my camera out in the subway this morning and took a few pictures. I've been wanting to do it for a long time but couldn't make myself do it until now. I hope to keep taking some every day.

The camera can't just be in the bag, you have to have it out around your neck or you want get the picture when you see it. I enjoy when I take the photos but a lot of times I don't want to be a person with a camera. That's the thing, if you don't have the camera out and put it up to your face you can't capture what you see. I don't think its that I'm afraid of what they may do, I know generally most people don't care. Its more than I just don't want to bother people, in the end its not really a bother. I think most would even appreciate the photos if they saw the shots later.

I started with just a few this morning its a start. The last couple days I just carried it in my bag but made a promise to myself I would have it over my shoulder outside of the bag starting today. I must keep the camera out taking photos starting now, its been underused for too long.

A big inspiration to me about a year ago was Travis Ruse. I really appreciate his ability to have the camera out and not being afraid to put it in people's faces.

I walked into the office this morning and possibly my all-time favorite song was playing, Led Zeppelin - The Rain Song. I'm going to see Destroyer tonight, I'm planning on trying to get close to the stage and get some photos, haven't done that in awhile. I was looking at some old live music photos the other day and I miss capturing the shows. We'll see what happens. I just know I need to keep taking pictures and not allow the camera to gather dust.

The earth has thawed and given a glimpse into warmer days here in New York. I don't know if I've ever been this excited for the summer to come. Especially, walking around Union Square every day. Making it through the winter in New York makes you feel as if you really have earned the right for the summer weather. I don't feel like its any colder here in New York overall than in Oklahoma, its just the way you are in the cold more often having to walk and take subways more often than cars. Now, Its hard to stay inside. At least the office has a window to let the fresh air and natural sunlight in.

With warmer weather comes much more comfortable clothing. Much more skin can be seen around the streets. Oh my, its truly a blessing which I am very appreciative for.

The soundtrack for the start of the summer weather has still been this French Kicks album. I'm surprised I've had it going on repeat for this long.

Its been a challenging yet fun week at work. I feel like I really deserve the weekends more than usual lately. I hope to get into more photography/art projects soon. I've been thinking of trying to do a short video project or take a drawing class this summer as well. Also, I got some acrylic paint awhile back that I plan to try a few paintings with soon.

I'm optimistic about the summer and opportunities that are in store.

I went to a Black Book magazine party at 1Oak in Chelsea last night as I work near them with my new job. I was feeling kind of sick after some bad sushi but did my best to drink through it with the complimentary Skyy Vodka. I ended up having a good time anyway. I think I saw the guy who won the last Project Runway there. Around 11 I was invited to see the French Kicks @ Mercury Lounge. Its hard for me to turn down a concert opportunity so I went for it. I enjoy Mercury Lounge as well.

I had seen them probably like 3-4 years ago at Opolis in Norman, OK and hadn't really listened to them much since their first album One Time Bells. I keep hearing positive things about their new album but was kind of skeptical at first. I did enjoy the show quite a bit although it was a bit of a blur later in the night. We got there after they had already played a few songs. I recognized a couple of the old songs but it was mainly all newer material. It was a good show from what I remember of it.

I listened to the new album Swimmers at least 3-4 times today and it was much better than I expected it to be. They've really tightened up their sound and seem more experienced but not too forced or derivative of another band. Its nothing totally groundbreaking, but its inspired and has a nice cohesive flow to it. We'll see if it lasts but I'm really into it so far.

I've been enjoying the new Destroyer album quite a bit. He's been on the top plays list on last.fm for awhile now and this new album has only increased the lead. I've been wanting to see Dan Bejar live for several years and am excited that I have tickets to see him next week. There is just something about his songwriting and delivery that does it for me.

Speaking of Blue Flowers, I think that is my favorite Dr. Octagon song. When I'm in the mood to hear him that's often the song I start with. I put it on in the subway the other day when I was thinking of the title of the first track on Destroyer's latest album.

I have been planning and working on this new revision of my website off and on for about 6 months now. I decided to move to a new host and build everything in python on top of django. Its been a great learning experience. There are many features I want to add but I felt it was at a stage where it was good enough to transition over from the previous site.

I am now off of wordpress and created the blogging (hate that word) system I call Blink pretty much from scratch on django with the help of a lot of reading and trial and error. There are still some features I want to add such as full searches, but its mostly there.

The photography section is still running off of the flickr api. I had to re-do it with beej's flickr API instead of the version I was using before in PHP. I built a custom photo display system with the help of a few tricks from mootools and a lot of trial and error. I still need to streamline the javascript but it should work ok for now.

The music section is now fully automated off of all of the digital music that I play with the help of last.fm webservices. I plan on adding a lot more features to that area as time goes on. I just added the cover art over the weekend with the help of Amazon Webservices. Its not 100% accurate but generally pretty close. Part of it has to do with albums that are missing from last.fm or bad id3 tagging.

I'll write more in detail about these but I'm tired now and I need to finish my taxes.

The last couple of evenings I've been listening to Bob Dylan - Blood on the Tracks on vinyl on repeat (manual repeat). I've had it for awhile but hadn't totally absorbed it like I have until recently.

I've been on a big Bob Dylan kick recently. Trying to get most of his albums on vinyl when I can. I have found a few good record stores around the west village. The other day I was in one on Bleecker Street called Slider records I think it was. It was packed with records, the guy said he's not able to sell them as fast as he used to. I was look ing for the Dylan records I didn't have yet. He showed me a copy of The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. I had actually obtained it the previous weekend but he mentioned the album cover was taken on the same block we were on. I'm not too big on touristy kind of things, but it felt warm and inspiring to know that Dylan had walked those same streets.

My appreciation has grown for him more and more over the years. When I was young I used to think it was some weird man with a funny voice, I didn't understand it. Now I consider him one of the better artists of all time. Up there with the consistent accomplishments of someone like Picasso. Even if you don't care for their work, they deserve some kind of respect and admiration for how much they kept changing and challenging themselves while continuing to produce quality work.

I kind of prefer some of the later 60's and early 70's albums of his at present even though its all great. New Morning is probably near the top of the list. Blood on the Tracks is moving up quickly. It has an amazing feeling to it over all. Contemplative, warm, soothing, and personal.

I saw the Handsome Furs last night at Bowery Ballroom with Emily. I'm always up for seeing most any Canadian rock band and even more so if they have any relation to Wolf Parade.

The Handsome Furs are Dan Boeckner and his wife Alexei Perry. The music is much moreo stripped down than Wolf Parade as its just Boeckner on guitar and vocals and Perry on the drum machine/keyboards. I have only heard the album a few times and I did start to get into some of it. I enjoyed them more live than I thought i would. Boeckner has some excellent talent for song writer and singing.

I was impressed with the way they played the first single I heard a few months ago "The Handsome Furs Hate This City" from their album Plague Park. They started the first half of the song with both of them on the same tiny synth wiggling around to the music.

We didn't stay all the way through the entire set because it was getting pretty late and it was a school night but I enjoyed it quite a bit. I always enjoy going to the Bowery.