Polar Bear Club

Polar Bear Club is my favorite band from Rochester! Dan and I saw them a few months ago in Portland and totally surprised our friend Chris, the guitarist, who didn't even know we live here. Their sound is awesome sing along punk/hardcore. I just found this video of them playing The Get Up Kids' song "Ten Minutes" and another video of them doing their own song that I love, "To The Engravers."


Polar Bear Club - "Ten Minutes" (Get Up Kids cover) from Brandon Finnegan on Vimeo.


Polar Bear Club - "To The Engravers" from Brandon Finnegan on Vimeo.

Christmas song: Vermont "Santa Claws"

http://www.joanfrc.com/albums/santaclaws.mp3

Vermont - a side project of The Promise Ring, before Davey started Maritime - recorded this Christmas song, that I just found scouring Joan of Arc's website.

There are a lot of other mp3s on this site - you just have to go through the discography section.

THE END OF 2008.

I wanted to come up with some all-encompassing top ten list, covering the year in music and the year in everything else, but I don't think I can truly do 2008 justice. This was the year where I found out anything could happen at any moment.

There's only one song that sums this up and this is it: THE ESCAPIST by The Streets.



All these walls were never really there, nor the ceiling or the chair.
I am eking weeks of peace on a beach.
I see the breezes weave the trees,
these walls you find - they’re yours and mine
confined not by them I
I am in times that lie behind my eyelids,
the sunsets steal the rising silence,

I’ll not feel no fear, cause I’m not really here
I’m nowhere near here

Theres no rain on roof that grates and beats me
my favorite tree breaking lights to pieces
sprinkling, sharded light on me
throw a stone as high as you can and hearing with hand not hear it land
nothing taxing, dusting sand
my window and world spins and twirls,
the walls then fall, i recall the sore
white clouds white wash faded spotless
the weighty shadows, ranges of rocks
the cold is all illusion thought up
the stroll on the shore, snooze and explore
all possibilities in each new morning,
until satisfied reaching out, yawning
fish in a big dish, some rice and spice,
Salt over shoulder, never salt in soaked eye
the truth I’ve told was silence sometimes
but who soul does not hide any crimes
wrapped in walls, encircled by work
the walls fall - this story occurs
no barrier, no boundary, all hours I please
the freedom to stay all stray
be fiend or friend, cause no harm but charm - the peaceful end

I’ll not feel no fear, cause I’m not really here
I’m nowhere near here

Pale ancient woods, strewn white sandy bays
this ugly room pales away today
I am swimming, in the ocean
I sink slow motion, fingers, toes floating
every year til yesterday
seeing the eternal setting sea
I compare all this to me,
little fleeting momentary me
I blink my eyes, this is reminding me
life lies in the blink of an eye
the old die for reasons, new tide, four seasons
new life born is like changing
all these walls were really never there
nor the ceiling or the chair
I am eking weeks of peace on a beach
I see the breezes weave the trees
I am not here at all,
you dearly fooled,
I see busheling trees, the shush at the sea
the mischievous
fluttering seagulls
No!
I’m not trapped in a box, I’m glancing at rocks
I am dancing off docks
since this dance began - that's where i am

I’m not feel no fear, cause I’m not really here
I’m nowhere near

New Ride: Lemond Poprad

I bought a new bicycle a few weeks ago. I had been wanting a steel-framed road bike for a while, and have decided my bicycle is the one thing I will keep new-ish in my life filled with broken, vintage, and deteriorating whatnot.

I bought a 2004 Lemond Poprad off of some guy on craigslist. It was made in the USA of Reynolds 853 steel, presumably by one of Trek's bicycle factories in Wisconsin.

I really love this bike. Here are some of the parts:

Drivetrain: Shimano 105 2x9
Front Wheel: Bontrager Race Lite
Rear Wheel: Mavic Aksium
Tires: Continental Touring 28
Stem: Salsa
Brakes: Paul Neo-Retro
Fenders: Planet Bike plastic full fenders

Punk's Not Dead

Oh wow! Jawbreaker/Jets to Brazil frontman and CUNY literature professor Blake Schwarzenbach has teamed with the Kerouac of Punk, Aaron Cometbus of Pinhead Gunpowder to form a new band called Thorns of Life.

This has made my day / week. Their sound is superpop/punk with the trademark Jawbreaker heavy / introspective break sections.

Alternative Press Videos on Youtube

Click for hi res image of them playing

Dear US government,

Please just let GM die:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/13/business/economy/13bankruptcy.html

Sincerely,

me

New LUCKSMITHS album

The Lucksmiths, my favorite band that is still banded together, have a new album. It's entitled "First Frost" and it's hitting my Discman and headphones in November 2008.

http://www.indiepages.com/matinee/catalog.html?id=cd049

The track listing is:

The Town and The Hills
Good Light
A Sobering Thought (Just When One Was Needed)
California In Popular Song
South-East Coastal Rendezvous
The National Mitten Registry
Day Three of Five
Never and Always
Lament of the Chiming Wedgebill
How We Met
Song of the Undersea
Up With The Sun
Pines
Who Turned on the Lights?

The Lucksmiths cheer me up. I can't wait to hear this.

Proposed Wall Street Bailout is Unamerican.

This just in, I agree with a Republican.

Senator Jim Bunning of Kentucky states:

"The Paulson proposal is an attempt to do what we so often do in Washington—throw money at a problem.

We cannot make bad mortgages go away. We cannot make the losses that our financial institutions are facing go away. Someone must take those losses. We can either let the people who made bad decisions bear the consequences of their actions, or we can spread that pain to others. And that is exactly what the Secretary proposes to do—take Wall Street's pain and spread it to the taxpayers. The plan has not even passed, and already Americans are paying for it because of the fall in the dollar as a result of all the new debt we will be taking on.

I know there are problems in the financial markets, and I share a lot of the same concerns that our witnesses do. However, the Paulson plan will not fix those problems. The Paulson plan will not help struggling homeowners pay their mortgages. The Paulson plan will not bring a stop to the slide in home prices. But the Paulson plan will spend 700 billion taxpayer dollars to prop up and clean up the balance sheets of Wall Street. This massive bailout is not the solution, it is financial socialism, and it is un-American."

http://www.usnews.com/blogs/the-home-front/2008/09/23/sen-jim-bunning-the-bailout-is-un-american.html

Vintage VW Training for Vintage VWs

Today, this video helped me adjust my Volkswagen.

Renaults

Some of my photos were featured today on my favorite website, Jalopnik.com:

http://jalopnik.com/5042285/citroens-and-fuegos-roam-the-streets-of-portland

Honda Trail 90

On June 3, 2008 Dan and I went to southeast Portland and he bought this baby, a 1965 Honda Trail 90. You meet the nicest people on a Honda.

Of course, my head wraps itself around the Beach Boys' song "Little Honda" at the sight of this "little motorbike." Here is a great video of the original song:



Being an indie rocker, I much prefer Yo La Tengo performing the song:

Lifter Puller - "Nassau Coliseum"

Here is an incredible fan-made video for Lifter Puller's song "Nassau Coliseum." Lifter Puller broke up and sort of reformed as The Hold Steady. Lifter Puller was more noisy and abrasive, while The Hold Steady goes for more of a bar-rock deal in the best possible sense.

This video is incredibly weird, vulgar, and awesome. It should be presented with a South Park style disclaimer that states it absolutely shouldn't be viewed by anyone.

This song was inspired by a Grateful Dead concert at the Nassau Coliseum, on Long Island, NY, where the biggest drug bust in Grateful Dead history took place.

HOLD STEADY

I just stumbled on to this site, an index of Hold Steady lves shows and radio session downloads:

http://holdsteady.blogspot.com/

They even have Lifter Puller stuff.

VW Microbus Best of

Here is a link to some of the best pictures of Pre-1967 Volkswagen Split-Windshield buses, as selected by split window microbus fanatics of TheSamba.com

LINK

This is over 50 message board pages of pictures, but I highly recommend it. It is interesting to see people's perceptions of the car change over time. I believe the original VW Bus is such a subjective piece that people can place very different connotations to it. Hippie vs purely industrial, unsafe vs warm nostalgia; It's a strange psychological mirror of an automobile.

Above: 1. VW Samba as surfing icon, in garage surrounded by quiver of longboards. 2. VW Bus as American road trip icon. 3. VW Bus as chicken coop.

Megasquirt or not?

I have been seriously considering converting my VW to nasty sounding, yet quite non-aggressive Megasquirt Electronic Fuel Injection.

Here, at the Samba, I am discussing it.