STAYING TRUE TIL OOP

Tragedy

noreply@blogger.com (Alice) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:57:00 +0000

Definitely a must-go-to show!

another show

noreply@blogger.com (Alice) — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 21:19:00 +0000

My friends are setting this one up, everyone should go!

I missed a couple of shows this week because I've been really sick. Totally bums me out :(

Weekend Plans

noreply@blogger.com (Alice) — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 14:57:00 +0000

I posted about this show earlier, but here's a flyer. I'm not feeling so well today but I'm going to drag myself out of bed somehow to make it!

Also I got an email from Magic Bullet Records about their teamup with Gimme Sound. GS is a site that offers free downloads, and for each download the band gets a cut of the advertising that the user sees while downloading. I hope it's a business model that can work for everyone, it seems promising. I just wish their categories on the site were more indie/hc friendly, it's kind of impossible to find things right now.

AUGHRA
"Proof of Dark Matter | Light the Lights"
"Is There Anyone Else Outside?"

AUSTIN LUCAS
"The Common Cold"
"Putting The Hammer Down"

BIG CHINA & LITTLE TROUBLE
"Black Blood of the Earth"
"Fur & Teeth"

BOY SETS FIRE
"This Crying, This Screaming, My Voice is Being Born"

DISAPPEARER
"The Clearing"

EKSI EKSO
"I Am Your Bastard Wings"

FRODUS
"F-Letter"
"Radio Activity"

GOLDEN CITY
"S/T"

GOLDEN HOLY
"S/T"

LYMBYC SYSTYM
"Field Studies"
"Carved By Glaciers"

MOSH PATROL
"Is There Anyone Else Outside?"

ROMANCE OF YOUNG TIGERS
"I Have Supp ed Full on Horrors"

THE WAYWARD
"Overexposure"

THIS WILL DESTROY YOU
"Field Studies"
"S/T"
"Young Mountain"

Another show

noreply@blogger.com (Alice) — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 18:12:00 +0000

Forgot to post about this show next Monday:

Monday June 15th- Passive Aggressor, Fatal Erection, Iron Chic, Canadian Rifle, Daylight Robbery @ Tommy's Tavern (in Greenpoint)

Also I just got a bunch of records from Youth Attack and if I get time I'll be reviewing some of them here. (Can you tell I'm trying to get the front page of VLV back to current music stuff? Awesome, right?)

xo
Alice

I'm going to die from ink poisoning from too many show stamps

noreply@blogger.com (Alice) — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 20:00:00 +0000

Last night I went to Lit for Precious Metal. It was Praqtiss (minus their bass player, so it was only drums and vocals and I think they were just making up the 'songs' completely which is not their normal thing to do), Animals Killing People (vegan grindcore), and Wizardry. I went to see Animals Killing People, and they were indeed awesome (though not the most animated on stage), but Wizardry was the surprise highlight.

They dressed just like I do when I go larping, and the singer had the ridiculous Wizard moves down exactly. It was seriously awesome.

Upcoming shows:

Thurs June 11th: Trap Them, Victims @ the Charleston
Saturday June 13th: Comadre, The Saddest Landscape, Train Wreck, Black Kites @ ABC No Rio
Thursday June 18th: Olde Ghost, Tournament @ the Charleston

Also, Moon comes out on Friday. I'm so glad I live in NYC so I get to see it! I'm hoping I can figure out how to get tickets soon.

Too. Many. Shows.

noreply@blogger.com (Alice) — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 16:16:00 +0000

I went to Death By Audio three nights in a row this weekend and saw a TON of killer bands.

Friday: Hot cha cha, Rosetta, Architect, Biclops

Saturday: Sex Vid, Mind Eraser, Iron Age, Failures, Drunkdriver

Sunday: Boiling Over, Swallowed Up, Fatal Erection, Death First, Hinges

Friday's show was not so hot but Saturday and Sunday KILLED IT. I really can't even say what bands I was most stoked to see, they were all so rad.

Also I forgot to post but last weekend I saw Millions, Ottoman, Gods & Queens, The Neighbours, and Fist Fokkers at the Charleston. The last two bands were Icelandic and it turns out Bjork's son was in one of them and she was there! Crazy to see her in a snazzy dress just hanging out at the scuzzy Charleston. Millions was awesome and I was excited to see Gods and Queens but they had equipment issues so they only played a couple songs.

Tonight I'm going to play a couple games of MTG and then head over to see Animals Killing People (vegan grindcore!!!). Four shows in a row. sdkfjhskdfhs.

MDF pt2

noreply@blogger.com (Alice) — Wed, 27 May 2009 21:44:00 +0000

Now that my brain has settled down a bit, I can talk more about MDF. I had an amazing time! I was stoked that there were a good handful of powerviolence/hardcore bands mixed in with the grind and death metal and black metal. It was great to see a mix of people and mix of music. So often fests just book 100% of the same sound or the same scene, and in my mind metal and hardcore have always belonged together, so it was great to see it.

Highlights:

- Bolt Thrower - Twice. First time I watched them from afar, second time I was right up front getting pummeled from all sides, but it was excellent.
- Devourment - sounded SO TIGHT live. Total bummer that they called the women at the fest "pussys" and "sluts".
- Napalm Death - got the entire outside crowd to yell "Nazi punx fuck off!" - never thought I would hear that at a metal fest!
- BirdFlesh's glowsticks- hilarious
- Rotten Sound - never heard them before, walked in during their set, was blown away
- Spitter - awesome band
- Absu - the only corpsepaint I saw all fest, AND constant trollvoice banter from the drummer made it totally hilarious
- Mayhem - Atilla was doing some serious tibetan throat singing, it was intense! I later saw pictures of their performance in NYC on Thursday though, which involved corpsepaint, prop heads on stakes, and ATILLA SINGING WHILE STANDING INSIDE A TREE STUMP. I am so pissed he didn't do that at MDF. I understand the grind and death kids would have heckled the shit out of them but I felt like I really missed out on the majesty of Mayhem
- Pig Destroyer & Cattle Decapitation - always rad, stoked to see them again
- Sigh - ridiculous stage antics, just what I wanted to close out the fest

There were tons of other awesome bands too, I can hardly wrap my mind around how many I saw!

I also saw a kid in a death metal chicken outfit, and during Cannibal Corpse's set their weed mascot came out, that was hilarious. There were creepy matching triplet girls and sooo many great tattoos and metal vests. And I made one million new friends!

MDF = Total Success!

noreply@blogger.com (Alice) — Tue, 26 May 2009 16:01:00 +0000

I am too overwhelmed to type it all out right now but MDF 2009 was the most fun I have had in a very very long time.

This is the only good picture I got the whole weekend, but I wasn't trying to take pictures 99% of the time because I was having too much fun.

MAYHEM!

I also saw 230823 terrible tattoos that I'll post on my other blog.
I'll post more about all of this later when I've processed it all!!!!

Death to everyone

noreply@blogger.com (Alice) — Thu, 21 May 2009 17:16:00 +0000

In a funny twist of fate, I saw Bonnie Prince Billy last night. He wrote this great song "Death to everyone" which I have had in my head since I decided to go to the Deathfest, which starts tomorrow.

I'm super stoked, it should be awesome.

The hardest decision....

noreply@blogger.com (Alice) — Fri, 15 May 2009 22:10:00 +0000

To larp or to go to the Maryland Death Fest?

The fest won out but I am bummed about not going to the LAIRE 4-day next weekend.

I drafted!

noreply@blogger.com (Alice) — Tue, 12 May 2009 19:31:00 +0000

I drafted for the first time last night and won! There were only 7 of us, so I played three games, each one best of three. I won 2/0 each of the three games! I was undefeated! I'm stoked about it because really I had no confidence in myself at all. We played with alara reborn and shards of alara, and I decided on red/black/blue (which are my favorite colors, it just happened that I was getting passed good cards from those). I had lightning reaver and deathbringer thoctar, and somehow got one or both of them each game I played, which helped me immensely. The one time I got totally mana screwed my opponent did as well, and I inched out ahead.

I got a lightning reaver when I played the sealed pack tournament too, so I might build a deck around these guys. I have a couple other decent cards with fear and/or haste, which was what I was generally trying to do with this deck, so we'll see if I can tighten it up and have some kind of decent beast/zombie deck or something. Should be fun!

sicky sick sick

noreply@blogger.com (Alice) — Mon, 11 May 2009 16:14:00 +0000

I've been really sick lately and haven't felt like doing anything except get tattooed apparently! Probably NOT the best course of action, but the end result is pretty awesome.

Both crows are filled in now. I have one more session to maybe do some blue highlights.

I also got a spur-of-the-moment boneless wolf's head in a medieval helmet. Good photos to come soon.

ALSO: Star Trek was awesome. Really awesome. I made cardboard ears and a cardboard insignia and wore a red shirt. I made friends with the cutest older lady wearing spock ears who was working at the theater and made her a cardboard insignia too.

I got a spur-of-the-moment zombie last night

noreply@blogger.com (Alice) — Fri, 01 May 2009 14:37:00 +0000

Last night I went to Three Kings to hang out with Josh for a bit while Myles was working on his sleeve. I just planned to be there for half an hour or so and then head out, but Alex finished his last tattoo of the night and didn't have anything else to do, so I joked that he should do another zombie tattoo on me. Turns out he was up for it!

This zombie is so stoked that he's a zombie that he is ripping his face off!!!!!!!!

I am beyond excited about it. Best spur-of-the-moment tattoo ever! Alex rules!

try try again

noreply@blogger.com (Alice) — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 18:50:00 +0000

Yesterday we played Freemarket for the first time. It was hilarious!!! I love the people I game with, they really are the best. We're a bunch of terrorists with an interior design front, it's kind of the funniest thing in the world. I'm basically RPing my LARP character but in the future, which I find really amusing. I'm having fun!

Last night Ki slept on my stomach for a while, it was the first real snuggle ever! I was so excited!

Tonight I'm finally getting a night to myself, I can't wait! I'm going to read Preacher and go to bed early!

busiest weekend in the world

noreply@blogger.com (Alice) — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 21:57:00 +0000

It's Tuesday and I still haven't recovered from the weekend.
I went to a party on Friday and went home early, puked 4 times, and finally fell asleep.

Then on Saturday I went to the Alara Reborn MTG pre-release tournament. It was awesome but soooo nervewracking! I'm not used to building decks, and this was a deck from 6 boosters in about 30 minutes! I did okay, my deck was decent and I won a couple games but no matches. I had fun though! And I got a ton of cool cards, including this:

A couple of my friends got the new meddling mage card. I'm bummed I didn't get it but I probably would have ripped it up anyway because the card should have Chris's face on it forever and always!

After the tournament I went to ABC No Rio and saw a ton of bands play, including Ism who had my friend Javi playing drums. I saw a lot of teenage skanking to punk, it made me happy.

THEN I met up with a friend who had an extra pass for the Tribeca film fest, and we saw two movies which were just ehhh. One was Midgets vs Mascots, and while funny, it wasn't really what I seek out usually. The other was Hysterical Psycho which had not one, not two, but THREE cameos from the director. It was a horror movie spoof I guess, but I found it pretty self involved and boring.

On Sunday I got up and went straight back to see another Tribeca film, this time it was Don McKay. I liked that one the best out of the three, but it still wasn't mind blowing or anything. At least this one was shot and acted well.

After that, I went to Europa and saw Bane play with Have Heart and a bunch of other sxe hardcore bands. Crime in Stereo was playing too, but I left during their first song. 5 bands was enough, 6 was way too much. I'd never been in a room with that many other straightedge kids, it was kind of crazy!

Yesterday I went to Magic Monday at Fat Cat and could barely play a game. I added a couple cards I got from the prerelease into my artifact and goblin decks, but didn't have enough brainpower to do anything much beyond that. Tonight I may finally go to SCA fight practice at McCarren park, and tomorrow is hopefully our first play of Freemarket!

I'm happy that I've got so much awesome stuff going on, but it's kind of crazy and hectic and I honestly can't wait until I have a little bit of time to myself!

It's finally Friday!

noreply@blogger.com (Alice) — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 19:16:00 +0000

Well, we met up last night to play freemarket, but everyone was so out of it that we decided to go watch Crank 2 (Electric Boogaloo) instead. I have to say, I was really looking forward to our RPG, but Crank was AMAZING and definitely worth seeing! I went in expecting a dumb action movie with a lot of ridiculousness, which I definitely got, but I was surprised that it was edited so well. The pacing was really pretty amazing, and made the movie go from ridiculous to awesome.

It's supposed to be really warm and nice outside this weekend, and I fully intend to make the most of it. Tonight I'm hanging out with my old roommate and maybe going to a Forgetting Sarah Marshall/ Vampire/ Hula party? I don't know! Tomorrow I'm going to the MTG Shards of Alara pre-release with some friends, and then maybe seeing my friend play a show with my old roommate. And then on Sunday I'm getting brunch with a friend and maybe going to the SCA fight practice, or maybe going to the community garden. And Bane is playing tomorrow- I thought a ton of my friends were going (they all said they were!) but now they're bailing one by one, so I'm not sure I'm still going. we'll see. Regardless, it should be a really fun weekend! I'm definitely looking forward to it!

the best lunch ever

noreply@blogger.com (Alice) — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 19:40:00 +0000

I am sitting here waiting for a diet coke to be delivered to the office along with a bunch of my coworkers lunch orders, and it is taking forever! I don't think I have ever craved diet coke so much in my life.
I brought my own lunch today, because I made a huuuuge pot of Indian food last night: brown rice & lentils, with potatoes, onions, garlic, peas, and cauliflower with coconut milk and masala spice mix. I bought a new bag of brown rice and organic lentils and organic peas, potatoes, and cauliflower, and it was $15, for like 4 huge meals AND if I hadn't bought the rice and lentils it would have been less than $10, and if I hadn't bought all organic it would have been less than $5 probably. Cheapest easiest best most nutritious meal ever. I am so pleased with myself!

SCA didn't happen yesterday again because the guy running the fights in McCarren park is filming a movie or something. My good friend and old roommate Adam is coming into town this weekend, so I probably won't go to the Sunday fight practice in Bay Ridge, but I'm not sure yet.

Our project donut playtest was supposed to happen tonight too, but our GM had something else to do so it's pushed to tomorrow. I guess that means I can hang out at home with the cats and eat MORE Indian food and watch more bad TV and maybe start on a mixtape for Micah (who made me the best mixtape ever, so I owe him big time!)

metal tuesday

noreply@blogger.com (Alice) — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 21:36:00 +0000

I'm editing something at work and needed music and surprisingly was given some really awesome bands to check out:

The Final Prayer & Doedning. These two are straight up decent metal.
A Kid Hereafter In The Grinding Light. And this one is like An Albatross/ The Locust circa 1999, total throwback but I still love that stuff.

Things like this are part of why I still love my job.

I'm going to try to check out SCA after work, hopefully it's not rained out.

post-larp blues

noreply@blogger.com (Alice) — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 20:48:00 +0000

I went LARPing this weekend and had a ton of fun. I NPC'd all weekend, and just did a short 2-hour PC shift to get my character back in the mix. It was actually a really slow weekend, as far as the events usually go, but that was fine with me because it's been about 9 months since I've been.

The potentially coolest NPC I got to play was elder ooze, which is immune to everything, has 200 body, and was swinging 20 magic acid with 8 crits and some other stuff. Unfortunately I couldn't find any lower level characters to attack, so I only bumped into high level ones who knew exactly what the one thing is that could kill me. Total bummer.

Now I'm crazy sore and tired but in a good way. I'm not sure if I'll want to go every single event, but the next one is in my Barony and involves the lord of the deep I think, so it should be pretty rad.

the season of LARPing - kickoff weekend

noreply@blogger.com (Alice) — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 16:38:00 +0000

Soooo I totally thought I was going to stay at home this weekend, do some work in the community garden, get some cleaning done, do some gaming, and just relax. But! I got a ride to LAIRE last minute, so I guess I'm going larping!

I'm stoked, it's a gorgeous weekend, the weather is perfect because it's not too hot or too cold, I didn't have any super solid plans anyway, and I haven't been in ages. I'm just going to NPC and hang out and see how rusty I am at fighting (my guess: very).

Now I just have to remember what to bring!

April Showers

noreply@blogger.com (Alice) — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 16:02:00 +0000

It's raining, again, and still cold. It's supposed to be 70 on Friday though. I can't wait!

Apparently the Graham Norton show contacted the dudes at funvampires where I used to blog, and asked if they could show Gillian Anderson my x-files tattoo post on air! I really really hope they do!!!! I have a feeling they won't show her my d20 tattoo, because it's a pretty obscure X-Files reference and not easily recognizable like the "trust no one" tattoos or whatever, but we'll see I guess!

SCA didn't happen yesterday, which is kind of a bummer, but I hung out with the cats and watched this great BBC reality show called Hotel Inspector, which is exactly the right kind of junky tv that I enjoy.

It's a Mercyful Fate kind of morning

noreply@blogger.com (Alice) — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 14:43:00 +0000

Last night I went bowling. It was fun but I am SO BAD at it! I kept hitting only one pin on my first bowl and was told it's because I am #1, but I don't buy it!

I've been listening to ridiculous metal all morning trying to get myself pumped up for SCA tonight. It might be canceled though because it looks like it's going to rain.

another a+ weekend

noreply@blogger.com (Alice) — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 16:44:00 +0000

I had another awesome weekend! On Friday I stayed in and sorted through my cards and tried to build a deck, but didn't. On Saturday I had some friends over and we watched The Crow and ate a million cupcakes and got falafel, and then I watched Paranoia 1.0, which is a really weirdo movie that I have to watch again and try to figure out. On Sunday I went to my aunt and uncle's for Easter and ate more food and then we all went to Branch Brook park and saw these:

yay! Great weekend!

I'm a CyberViking

noreply@blogger.com (Alice) — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 14:55:00 +0000

Last night I met up with my friends to finish character creation and group creation for the science fiction RPG we're playtesting. I had this lame hacker character set up, but wasn't really happy with it, so I scratched that and created a CyberViking, which is basically just a tank. I have hands made out of metal (cue saying "DO YOU LIKE DEATH METAL?" while I slam my hand into someone's face). I'm much more excited about this one, I haven't played a tank in a while, and now I just have to come up with a name (which is always the hardest part for me). I think I'm going to go with Runa, but I still need a last name... something cyber-y.

puffy

noreply@blogger.com (Alice) — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 15:05:00 +0000

I got tattooed last night! Myles shaded in one of my crows. He still has to add blue, but I was so swollen that he left it for next time.