señor taco’s travels

More new music, of course.

• Mudhoney - March To Fuzz: Many bands came from Seattle,
  especially during the “grunge” era. One of the ones that was making noise
  before the scene blew up was Mudhoney. The guys made some nice music and
  this is a collection of it. Disc 1 is a best of which is hard to put down.
  There are so many songs on it spanning their entire catalog and not a one
  doesn’t belong on there. Disc 2 is a rarities and b-sides collection. I
  didn’t know if I would get into this one, but I have really found it to be
  a great collection of stuff I had never heard. If you ever liked Mudhoney
  this release is one to get for sure.
• Misfits - Box Set: I like the Misfits. I hadn’t picked up this
  set in the time since its release so getting it now seemed like a good idea.
  Now that I have all the Misfits back albums I could ever want there will be
  no need for me to complain internally that I don’t have a certain song to
  listen to.

Last night I went with my friend Keith to his Landlord’s club, href="http://www.elisblues.com/">Eli’s Mile High Club for a mostly
unadvertised show by the band Cake.
I believe they told their loyal fan base because there was a line of about
400 people by the time we got in. Not everyone got in, but we got lucky
knowing one of the owners so he got us in early.

The band came on later than I would have expected and played some already
released songs and some new music that they are writing while working on
a new album. Of the new stuff I’d say it was on par with their albums, I
liked about half of it (same as the albums).

It was a good night, except for the getting home late and being tired today.

I have now pulled out of all Friend of a Friend (FOAF) services (Friendster,
Orkut, etc.). They don’t do anything for me and I manage my network much
better via email, phone, and good old face to face contact. If you know me
you know how to reach me.

Warren Ellis
and
Cory Doctorow have good verbage on the subject as well.

Okay, so they’ve met before, but yesterday it was announced that the Scrat
short Gone Nutty was
nominated for an Oscar in the Short Film (Animated) category. This is the
third project I’ve worked on that’s been nominated for an Academy Award (the
other two being Bunny which won the Oscar in 1998 for Best Short Film
(Animated) and Ice Age in 2002 (but lost to Spirited Away)).

All of this work was of course at Blue
Sky which seems like a lifetime ago already. Congratulations to everyone
that’s worked on it and best of luck to them on February 29th.

alt="Patches' last picture" />

My parents called me today to tell me that the family cat of 15 years, Patches,
had passed away. She had been living with feline diabetes for 2.5 years so
this wasn’t a shock, but I’m still saddened to hear of it.

My parents did an admirable job of taking care of her over the last several
years (they even watched my cats while I was first moving to New York years
ago) and for that I thank them. I’m just glad I got to see her one last time
in December. She was even nice to me and not as much her usual hissy self.
She even let me pet her for a while. So long Patches, thanks for being a
good and lovable cat. Ironically, this picture of Patches is the last and best
photo of her I took on my trip.

“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe
in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe
in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not
believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not
believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations.
But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with i
reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it
and live up to it.”

– Buddha

One of my favorite bands is the title="The Toadies Site">Toadies. I’ve mentioned them href="http://danimal.org/SenorTaco/2004/01/14#burden-brothers"
title="Burden Brothers entry">before but I don’t think I can express how
much I like them. Seeing them many times in Texas while I was in college and
the fact that they just have really great music helped to cement my love of
this wonderful band. Strong lyrics (albeit very dark at times) and catchy
hooks make listening to the music over and over very easy to do. The band was
also quite approachable (as opposed to other Texas bands of the era like
Tripping Daisy, bastards. However many bands were approachable and are some of
my favorites. Hagfish, Rev. Horton Heat, Beefmasters. They all love and
respect their fans).

So, There are four releases from the Toadies: Pleather EP (1993),
Rubberneck (1995), Hell Below/Stars Above (2001), and Best
of Toadies: Live From Paradise (2002). Notice the rather large gap
between Rubberneck and HB/SA. That’s a long time to wait for a
sophomore effort and unfortunately many people gave up on the Toadies in those
intervening years. They were definitely hot with a platinum album and
appearances on many soundtracks (Cable Guy, Escape from L.A., i
Basquiat, Crow: City of Angles, and X-Games Volume 1). Sometimes
I wish there was a collection of those B-sides, but I guess if I want them I’m
just going to have to hunt for them (ahhhh, href="http://danimal.org/SenorTaco/2004/01/05#amoeba-death">Amoeba

Music will be the death of me :).

I just recently picked up the Live From Paradise album and I must say,
it’s one of the best live albums I have now (It will easily rest at the top of
my live list along with the
Dropkick Murphys Live on St. Patrick’s Day). For anyone that liked
Rubberneck and has listened to it once in the last two years you should
so get this album. Also, if you like Todd Lewis’ vocals and singing you might
want to check out the href="http://danimal.org/SenorTaco/2004/01/14#burden-brothers">
Burden Brothers where he sings and writes some of the songs. It’s a bit
different though just so you’re warned.

And now I must start my day and wonder why some of the best albums I have are
all the final release from excellent bands with short careers.

I went this weekend and saw Big Fish and I liked it a lot. Tim Burton
is a great director, but sometimes his storytelling falls apart. Thankfully
Big Fish already had a good foundation of a story behind it so it didn’t
suffer from Burton’s often wandering eye (I mean, really, just look at
Sleepy Hollow, so much potential but without a strong story Burton
couldn’t save it).

The storytelling as a mix of present day and what we think is fantasy helps
paint a picture of the father that everyone should be able to grab on to. He’s
just someone that wants to make life interesting. The cinematography was
great because the lighting was on mood the entire time and the camera angles
always evoked the correct emotion. I loved the use of forced perspective to
tell the giant’s story and the deliberate under-use of the split-focus lens
only where it really helped (unlike in href="http://imdb.com/title/tt0272020/" title="The Last Castle @ IMDB">The
Last Castle where it must have been used in about 30 shots, bleh).

Some of the people I was with didn’t like the movie because of the slower pace
in the story telling. I however thought it fully connected with reality.
That’s the way the story should have been paced. I loved it. The mix of
what one thinks is fantasy with what is real is great. The way it was all
wrapped up at the end worked great too. A touching ending mixed with great
storytelling, go see Big Fish if you like Tim Burton and want to see
a good flick.

(update @ Tue Jan 20 16:39:53 PST 2004)
On further thinking one thing that really bugged me about Big Fish is
there was no reason to care about Billy Crudup’s character. You were so in
love with the Albert Finney/Ewan McGregor character that you didn’t care why
Crudup’s character had the feelings he did or acted the way he did. He just
came across as a bit of a whiney bastard.

“Those of us who love peace must organize as effectively as the
war hawks. As they spread the propaganda of war we must spread
the propaganda of peace. We must combine the fervor of the civil
rights movement with the peace movement. We must demonstrate,
teach and preach, until the very foundations of our nation are
shaken. We must work unceasingly to lift this nation that we
love to a higher destiny, to a new plateau of compassion, to
a more noble expression of humaneness.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.
February 25, 1967, The Nation Institute, Los Angeles

Dear New York Friends,

With the onset of such cold weather in your region of the country I hope you
now see the clarity of my decision to move to California. As much as I say
it I really do miss you guys, but I do not miss the cold temperatures. Were I
to still be living in New York at this point I have no doubts that I would be
insane (or more insane than normal) right now. I salute you for sticking it
out and I just want you to know that if you want to warm up and enjoy the
weather then there’s room at my place for your cold and weary bodies.

Love & Slugs,

danimal