@-%--

I didn't go to my friend Mike's wedding, but I hope it was as sweet, charming, and fun as this video.

Every girl that I've seen since looks just like you when I squint.

I just hit song number 6666 on my computer's iTunes. The song is "Emily Kane" by Art Brut. I downloaded it after hearing it on Sirius radio in a rented Chrysler Town and Country, which is actually a much nicer vehicle than I thought it would be.

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Rollfast Bicycles

I recently bought my fourth bicycle ever. Yes, I've owned more scooters than bicycles. Here is my bike riding history:

First: Ross convertible cruiser. 20 inch wheels. Blue. Toptank model. I still own this bike and it hangs in my old "fort" at my parents' house, but is too small for me.
Second: Huffy "Dirt Water" orange. 24 or 26 inch wheels. 18 speed thumb shifters. Horrible bike. Long gone.
Third: Gary Fisher Mamba. 1997 model (I think). Flat grey. Gorgeous bike. 21 speed grip shifters. Double butted chromoly steel. Owned since new. Wheels were stolen a few months ago but I bought wheels off of some dude for $5 and just need new tubes to get back going.

Fourth: Rollfast Cruiser. I bought it about a month ago on a whim.
I love it for numerous reasons.
The paint looks rusty, but it's not. It's orange and faded and original. The decals are there and faded too. A lot of people have seen this bike and said it looks crappy, but I believe it to be a piece of art. That's why I like it. It looks fast standing still and is simple and beautiful.

Rollfast Bicycles was a partnership between the D. P. Harris company of New York City and the H. P. Snyder company of Little Falls, New York, which is where I'm from. I can't afford an Ira Ryan or a Mountain Cycle, the local bikes of now that I lust for, so I got a Rollfast.

I love the dual top tubes on the top top tube (does that make sense?). Most have the dual tube on the lower of the two top tubes. It's gorgeous. I am considering a fixed gear rear wheel for this. Would that make sense? The tires are not original, but are Cheng Shin (for Trac-Shin!) like every other crappy scooter I've owned.

I can't find a picture of a Rollfast like mine anywhere on the internet, so this is the first. I will write and post more pictures of the Rollfast as I ride it and fix it up. It is nice to have a coaster braking bike again.

Here is one of the few articles I could find on Rollfast Bicycles:
http://www.firstflightbikes.com/rollfast.htm

Popped Collars Are Lame!

This is overdue:
www.poppedcollarsarelame.com

(Don, I'm not a woman.)

A long time ago there was a band called the Castawaves.

Also, Happy wedding Mike Mahoney!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

New Honda Ruckus 125cc in the works.

Everyone knows I love the Honda Ruckus. It is the most original scooter out there - with rat / survival looks right out of the box. Problem is - the Ruckus is available in only 50cc (too slow) and 250cc (too expensive) displacements.

Fortunately, Honda has a 125cc Ruckus in the works, which would be the perfect displacement for the Ruckus. Here is a video of it.

http://www.honda.co.jp/HDTV/motorshow/Tokyo2005-NP6-S/index.html

Rocket Punch set to release "BLOOD ON THE UKELELE"

Rocket Punch is releasing the new record, entitled "Blood on the Ukelele" on Yellow Mica Recordings. Rocket Punch is the solo project from Brad, formerly of Geneseo, New York's synth-pop heartthrobs The Pink Cammies. Yellow Mica Recordings is a Swedish record label that has formerly released 7"s and CDRs of The Capstan Shafts, Boyracer, and Javelins.

The record is truly great and has five songs Brad that have been in the works for the past year. If you are the type to constantly compare bands, I would have to tell you that it sounds like Saturday Looks Good to Me, The Capstan Shafts, Pinback, and The Pink Cammies. However, Brad would say it sounds like Jonathan Richman, Brian Wilson, Jeff Gilbert, The Capstan Shafts, Ariel Pink, Kevin Shields, and KK Slider. Furthermore, my opinion is one of these songs is the best song Brad has ever written, though I'll let you guess which one that might be.

Blood on the Ukelele:

1. Pink Cashmere
2. Better Lives
3. Small Volcanoes
4. Michael Don't go to private school
5. Kafka on the S.

The first two songs can be heard already at:
http://www.myspace.com/rocketpunch/

Also, I should include the address for Yellow Mica Recordings:
http://www.yellowmicarecordings.com/

Yellow Mica Recordings is run by a member of the group Javelins, and this is my favorite song of theirs:
Javelins - "I Was Raised as A Polar Bear."

major announcement coming soon

New Kalpana track!

OMG! Geneseo/Rochester now Brooklyn, New York band Kalpana now have a new track! Although my reviews of "This Dead Horse" and "Hors de Combat" are long overdue, I'll just skip to it and go to their new song.

It's called "O Carcass! My Carcass!" It's live, and it has yelling. Chances are it will be on Kalpana's next record, which rumor has it will be one continuous piece of music from start to finish and will be called "How to talk to God (if you must)."

http://glassanimalindex.com/media/music/carcass.mp3

This track starts off slow-ish, like many Kalpana tracks do, but then speeds up a bit with double timed drums that are still slow. The electronics are really taking over the band too, and where the "Hors de Combat" songs had a metal influence, the ones on "This Dead Horse" have more of a glitch influence. At the half-way point the song breaks into a really emoish scream/breakout section. It must be Aaron singing on that part, I'll guess. Aaron kind of sounds like the dude from Sparta, if you like to think of singers in relation to each other.

At just over eight minutes, the song isn't short. But breaking it into two parts keeps it tight and actually cuts the fat. The screaming verse only goes for four times.

Listen and hear for yourself.

Rising Up / Rising Down

Dave aka Este aka the drummer from ROCKETS AND BLUELIGHTS is in a new hardcore band called Rising Up / Rising Down. He is wearing the same "GOOD RATS" T Shirt as seen in Rockets and Bluelights photos, so I know it's definitely him.

On their myspace page you may listen to three of their songs, but unfortunately not download them. The untitled one sounds the most like Rockets and Bluelights.

They refer to themselves as a "power trio," so they must be good! They also have a crappy geocities site like Rockets does, which does have this cool insect shirt logo, but no info on their recordings.
http://www.geocities.com/rurdweb/

IRA RYAN

Today In front of my office I saw the coolest single speed bike. It was marked "IRA RYAN" and I didn't know anything about it. So, I looked it up later today and found Ira Ryan is a bike courier here in Portland. He just started making his own frames and now makes bikes himself. Anyway, I thought this bike was so sexy and so awesome. Here it is. I am going to get a single speed or fixed gear pretty soon. I love them so much.
www.iraryancycles.com

Rockets and Bluelights

Rockets and Bluelights

Albany, New York's greatest band ever, Rockets and Bluelights now has a fan-run myspace page. It includes downloadable mp3s of "Now This Year" and a few other songs, although I've noticed "Forest Green and Autumn" is mislabeled. Anyway, it's fantastic:
http://www.myspace.com/rocketscats

Also, their website is back up, including some semi-infamous pictures:
http://www.geocities.com/rocketscats

Rockets and Bluelights, you are not only still very explosive, you are my favorite band of all time.

Since the Geocities site for Rockets and Bluelights is so unstable, and for a long time wasn't online, I have copied all the text from them here for posterity. Most of it kind of doesn't make much sense but I like it anyway.

july 15th once again forgot about this. we have been taking it easy. we have also compiled the two 4 song ep's we did at dead air recordings (first as rockets and songs from the 10") onto one music w/ new packaging and things. we still have copies of 10" as well. if you would like some music please email bluelights_tour@hotmail.com (cd's are $4 and records are $7) ask about postage please. full length extended play cd with 10 new songs should be out by the fall on peterwalkee records. also, we will be doing a split with once and for all that will be released by mike and oneohfive records.

last winter we got to tour with western sky, from new hampshire. there arent good words for how wonderful they are, but you should find out for yourself. at the end of the tour our wheels, the hacker express, had a stroke which he never fully recovered from. since then we've been living in albany trying to save and get a new van. trying hard but we're still pretty broke so if you want any music or patches or buttons or posters or drawings you can send us postage and maybe a donation or something and we'll really appreciate it. if you're into that you can send an envelope to :

treehaus 643 Morris Street Albany, NY 12208

if you include your email address it'll make it easy for us to get in touch with you if we dont have something

also, we have a 10:" record that we have to sell for 8 dollars so we can get more... the inside looks like this

on our first tour, two summers ago, we played a show in providence at our friend chris' house, the sickle. tin can fest was happening that night, which we couldn't play, so we flyered ours as a free after show. along with western sky, one reason and struction played. one reason are from mississippi and they love life and rock so hard with so much heart, and later brought us to our first waterfall at sliding rock. we love them very much. struction are amazing too. they're music is something very new that people will someday really appreciate. we just played two shows with them at the knitting factory in new york and the crack house in plattsburgh.

MUSIC:

we have an mp3 at this of a song called a smashed piano

we hope to have most songs here and alot of video as well...

we've put out 3 ep's by ourselves that all have 4 songs each, the first one under the name friendship isterrible, we called it unlearning the differences between... we wrote it and recorded it in rajesh's family basement in beautiful columbia county, ny, it goes a rambling discontent, father tells his son how to matter, what they made you mean to me, and junked up on chemistry... then we changed it to rockets and bluelights close at hand and made another version of this with a different picture on the front and one more song on the beginning called henchmen, that song was then put on an albany compilation by lin at losing face but, after that we went to North Amherst, MA and we recorded we are giants, henchmen, whatthey made you mean, and now this year (because we can't wait)... 2 or 3 of them may or may not be on the first one as well... then we came home, then we went back to Massachusetts and recorded a smashed piano, andee, forrest green and autumn, we bleed this in the winter and a song called wintermission that we haven't let anyone have yet, we put them on a cd at first but then we went to Rochester, NY and met Adam who put the aforementioned songs on a 10" record for us, which is nice... now we are finishing nine or ten new songs to put on a cd that our friend Matto is going to help us with thanks.

the day dan went to russia.

My friend Dan, who is also the bassist for the Get Awesome Ninjas, is now in Russia and I am really excited about it. He is blogging a bit about it on his blog:

http://foreign-lawns.livejournal.com/

He also reports:

I gotta get you some pictures of the Ladas and Zhigulis over here. Lots of Benz and VW sightings too. A few scooters here and there, and some VINTAGE Russian motorcycles getting everyday use still.

I love Ladas - I used to see them in Costa Rica. I don't know what a Zhiguli is. What is it, Dan? I would love to see some of the motorcycles and scooters they are riding in Russia, and what the Russia style for 2 wheelers is. Dan, can we get a report? What is cool in Russia? Sorry, guys, but this is much more exciting than me talking about how much I love ORGASM DEMENTIA, even though they are great.

Dan you are awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Movie Every American Must Go See

The conservatives have said United 93 is the movie every American must go see. The liberals have said An Inconvenient Truth is the movie every American must go see.

I say "WHO KILLED THE ELECTRIC CAR?" is the movie every American must go see.

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Volvo Update:

when I got the Volvo it had 161,xxx miles and now it has 170,000 miles. It needs an oil change, new windshield (cracked on route 26 somewhere I believe), a good interior cleaning, some summer tires, and a STEREO so I can listen to The Pine instead of 94.7fm!