Posts tagged “tangentbot”

Remember when I posted about how famous my pal Jason is? Well, he just keeps gettin’ more and more famouser.

After his appearance on the Today Show, that TV show 20/20 flew him back to New York to interview him. And they lubbed him so much they actually agreed to fly a film crew out to Seattle to film him performing his musics as Three Ninjas.

So @NatheLawver and @tacomachickadee and picked me up and we drove the 40 minutes up to West Seattle to see Three Ninjas & Tangentbot (and special guest Pop Star Shannon O’Brien) perform their tiny open-mic set at the Skylark Café with a 20/20 film crew filming it, then we drove all the way back to Tacoma.

From left: Tangentbot, Three Ninjas, Pop Star Shannon O'Brien

Total drive time was 1hr 20min. Total show time was approx 20 minutes.

TOTALLY WORTH IT.

So there’s a slim chance that I might appear on a soon-to-air episode of 20/20 in an audience reaction shot. No biggie.

I saw two major Hip-Hop shows in February: Busdriver at Neumos and Three Ninjas & Tangentbot at Chop Suey!

First off was Busdriver. I’ve talked about him before on my website, and seen him several times at Neumos. I went with Three Ninjas, Tangentbot, and HeartFeltRobots. Before the show Three Ninjas chatted a bit with Busdriver on account of having done a remix of an Open Mike Eagle & Busdriver song. My pal HeartFeltRobots even made Busdriver his very own felt Busdriver Bot!

Busdriver started his set with a very cool visual effect: all the lights were off, but he had a blacklight that also emitted lasers in such a way that they made a starfield on the background. Then he stood in front of the blacklight and starfield wearing all white. He made Tangentbot very happy by rapping over an Aphex Twin song for his encore.

Two of the opening acts were women hip-hop artists, Night Fox and Katie Kate. They were both very good, though I kinda liked Night Fox’s energy a little more. They were unlike many women hip-hop artists that I’m used to, in that they weren’t full of “even tougher than a man” bravado (even though there was a fair share of cussing). Night Fox’s voice periodically had an almost-Billie-Holliday warble in it, and at times sounded like an American Miho Hatori. Plus she was tiny and kinda adorable. Katie Kate was a much more polished performer and technical musician — I learned later that she’s a classically-trained pianist and graduated from Cornish with a music degree! Anyway, the point is they had a really fascinating style of hip-hop. I almost want to call it “Cutesy Hip-Hop” but that sound a little degrading. The point is, it was fun and inviting instead of angry and aggressive.

You can watch a Katie Kate music video here!

As for the Chop Suey show the next week, Threeni & T-Bo (as they will now be referred to in the rest of this post because it sounds awful) were the opening act for the Fake Four tour, which is the same tour that Open Mike Eagle opened for last year. Good company! And Carrie actually got to come with me because for once she didn’t have to teach on a night where there was an awesome music show!

They completely killed their set. The highlight of the whole night was when Threeni and T-Bo performed an absolutely epic cover of Jewel’s “Foolish Games.” For realsz! Ch-ch-check it out!

Like what you heard there? About to commit seppuku because you missed it? Stay your blade, I say! For Three Ninjas & Tangentbot will be performing a Mardi Gras party at the Skylark Café on Tuesday the 8th! THAT’S TOMORROW, HOMESLICE!

Carrie & I didn’t stay for the whole show because:

1. We live in Tacoma
2. I had to be at work at 8:00 the next morning
3. We’re old

But another excellent act that we got to see was Abadawn, a rapper with an extremely young countenance (he looked like he was 15) and a fascinating style. He had two vocalizations: a hip-hop voice that had inflections and flow that reminded me somewhat of Eminem, and a full-on death-metal screech/growl voice. He switched freely between them. Also, his songs were short, which I really appreciated (a couple were only like 45 seconds long, I swear). They were like a little nugget burst of energy, like a hip-hop haiku of rage.

So: February = good month for hip-hop shows.

I was just now thinking about the past 12 months and just how many of my good friends released albums. It’s kinda crazy.

Almost a year ago Three Ninjas released his P.Z. Meyers graced EP “Make Sleepstophers.”

You can get a physical CD or download it from iTunes.

Then in September 2009 tangentbot released not one, but two albums! The first was a re-mastered “Cyclops’ Lament,” which was originally created many years ago.

You can download it from Amazon mp3 or from iTunes.

The second tangentbot album was “You Are Used to This Kind of Advertising,” which collected his 40 songs from his “song-a-week” project that he did in 2006.

You can also get this one from Amazon mp3 and iTunes.

Also in September, Terrapin Productions released his first solo album, “Sketches of Perfect Landscapes.”

You can get a physical CD of this album or download it from CD Baby (more download locations are coming, too).

After that was a bit of a lull, but then suddenly within the last month or so was a crazy flurry of action! First came Julia Massey & The Five Finger Discount‘s much-anticipated “I’m Not Hollow.”

This is available both as a physical CD and as downloadable mp3s through CD Baby.

Hot off the heels of Julia Massey’s album came Three Ninja’s 2nd full-length LP, “Three Ninjas is Smarter Than a Lettuce” with brilliant cover at by @rabbiddogg.

You can get a physical CD or download it from iTunes. Three Ninjas gets more money if you buy the physical CD, so I recommend that.

Then finally Nathan Geyer’s Locust Street Taxi just released their latest, “Mr. Brown.”

Right now this album is only available as a physical CD, and is mailed out personally directly from the band!

Whew! That’s a whole lot of my friends putting out a whole lot of musics! It’s very inspiring, and I really want to join them before 2010 is out. I have fancy plans, and pants to match. Let’s see if I can do it, eh?

Addendum:
I knew I’d forget something: The Seattle Pro Musica choir put out a Christmas album called “Navidad” featuring J Howard Boyd!

You can order the CD through their website. It’s full of Latin American Christmas songs from the 16th century on up!

One thing you might not know about me is that I don’t listen to a lot of music, by which I mean I tend to focus on a small selection of music and then listen to it over and over and over again.

One of the things I do is I make Mix CDs that I listen to while I’m driving around—to and from work, to and from Fools Play, etc. Thing is, I only make one Mix CD about every three months and that’ll be pretty much all that I’ll listen to until I make another one.

Traditionally I go iTunes and organize my music by most recently added, then start pulling the best songs over to a new playlist as I work my way back in time through my music collection. This way my Mix CDs tend to have a handful of songs that I’ve acquired recently. I also try not to put in too many songs that were in my previous Mix CD. But I don’t add much music to my collection very often, so doing it that way only fills up a portion of the CD. So then I delve into my list of all-time most listenable songs. Y’know, the songs that I don’t really ever get tired of listening to (the playlist that I call “Ultimate Flawless Victory” in iTunes) and toss in a few of those. Then I look at all of the songs in my collection that I’ve given four or five stars and toss in a few of those.

These Mix CDs are both reflective and projective. I try to incorporate how my musical tastes have changed over the past three months while at the same time trying to predict what I’ll want to listen to for the next three months.

Here are the last two CDs I created:

August 2009:

1. Always Been There Anyway – Julia Massey
2. Around the Bend – The Asteroids Galaxy Tour
3. Brain Problem Situation – They Might Be Giants
4. Buddy Holly – Weezer
5. Cellars by Starlight – Kay Hanley
6. Golden Blunders – The Posies
7. Good Fish – Julia Massey
8. Have a F*****g Baby – Three Ninjas
9. Headphones on Your Heart – Leeni
10. House of Mayors – John linnell
11. The Last Thing On Your Mind – Lights
12. Little Fighter X – Fighter X
13. Lollipop – Mika
14. Lovebite – Order of the Crimson Wizard
15. Me + Yr Daughter – Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head
16. Over and Over – Leeni
17. Red Underwears – Three Ninjas
18. Say It Ain’t So – Weezer
19. Shut Up and Let Me Go – The Ting Tings
20. Soft Rocked By Me – Jonathan Coulton
21. Somewhere on This Couch – The Crazy Boy Floyds
22. The Way I Am – Ingrid Michaelson
23. You Don’t Know Me – Ben Folds (featuring Regina Spektor)

November 2009 (there is one repeat song from the August CD—see if you can spot it)

1. Dance, Dance, Dance – Lykke Li
2. Dirt Bike – They Might Be Giants
3. Doll Partz – Order of the Crimson Wizard
4. Heading Out at Dawn – Terrapin Productions
5. Jenny Towner – Julia Massey
6. Los Angeles – They Might Be Giants
7. Mario’s Café – Saint Etienne
8. Powers – Three Ninjas
9. Pride & Strawberry Wine – The Wastelanders
10. A Quiet Room – Tangentbot
11. Secret Skin – Busdriver
12. Spin Around – Josie & The Pussycats
13. Stairs – Locust Street Taxi
14. Starry Eyed Surprise – Oakenfold
15. Stop – Spice Girls
16. Sun Shower – Busdriver
17. Teenage Dirtbag – Wheatus
18. Theme from “Greatest American Hero” – Joey Scarbury
19. True Affection – The Blow
20. Ugly Girl – Fleming & John
21. Vancouver – They Might Be Giants
22. Veronica – Elvis Costello
23. The Way I Am – Ingrid Michaelson
24. What’s Golden – Jurassic 5
25. Your Love Is a Drug – Puffy AmiYumi

I have no idea what these songs say about me, so feel free to psychoanalyze me to your hearts’ content based solely on the content of these lists. Enjoy!

The hits, they just keep on a-comin’! My übertalented pal tangentbot has released his second album in the span of scant months:

I’ve been looking forward to this album. This is the album comprised of his “One Song a Week” project, which entailed him writing one song every week for 40 weeks. That’s right — there are 40 songs on this album. Most of them are between one and two minutes long, so each one is like a beautiful little haiku of electronic IDM goodness. I urge you to buy it from Amazon MP3. My favorite songs are “a Quiet Room” and “Video Gabe.”

Plus, that cover art is really, really cool. I dig it.

Link of the Month:
Chicken Nugget Lemon Tooty
An absolutely charming blog. Here’s the premise: Illustrator/Cartoonist Aaron Zenz has several children, and he encourages them to draw. A lot. They even participate in Illustration Friday and all that. For the past three years Aaron has posted over 400 drawings that his children have made. It’s fantastic to see the progression of skills and imagination. He recently had an open invitation wherein other illustrators could re-create some of his kids’ drawings, and the results are fantastic.

Album of the Month:
tangentbot: Cyclops’ Lament
Hey, I know this guy! This is actually a re-mastered re-release of his album of several years ago, but with a couple of changes. These newly-mixed versions are delightfully more crisp and deep, and there’s a very good remix of “8-bit Misfit.” Hey guys: listen up. This is good IDM. Good. Okay? Okay. Take a wissen with this handy MP3 player here:

DVD of the Month:
Avatar: The Last Airbender
I never watched this show when it was on because the commercials made it look like a lame rip-off of Dragon Ball Z and/or One Piece. But I was mistaken. Unlike those shows, this one is actually good. One thing I greatly appreciated was its sense of deadline: pretty early on in the series the characters learn that they have to accomplish the series goal by a set date that is rather disturbingly soon. It really gives the series a sense of urgency as well as the feeling that it is actually building towards a real ending. And, indeed, the show lasted for three seasons (or “books” as the show calls them) and told one full story with a beginning, a middle, and an ending that happened when it was supposed to happen, not because they ran out of stories or the show got canceled. Also, the characters grow and change slowly but surely, and there is never a single mention of “power levels” or “powering up.”
Avatar: The Last Airbender – The Complete Book 1 Collection
Avatar: The Last Airbender – The Complete Book 2 Collection
Avatar: The Last Airbender – The Complete Book 3 Collection

This story kinda starts a while back, quite a ways before Christmas.

I was up in Seattle hanging out with Tangetnbot‘s wife, waiting for him to get off work. She was prepping a dinner of pork katsu with panko bread crumbs and tonkatsu sauce. It ended up being delicious.

Then in her Christmas stocking(s), Carrie received both a bottle of tonkatsu sauce and a package of panko.

So a while after Christmas Carrie & I made chicken katsu for dinner with equally delicious results. The sauce and the crumbs were both from the inimitable Uwajimaya up in Seattle. I love Uwajimaya, but Seattle is just a bit too far away for a casual jaunt out to get some Japanese foodstuffs. So I started wondering if there were any Asian markets closer by.

A quick search told me that there was a place called East Asia Super Market (note “Super Market,” not “Supermarket”) just a stone’s throw across I-5 from us. Tacoma Mama gives it a sterling review (Tacoma Mama is, by the way, a great resource for things in Tacoma), so I’m curious to go check it out sometime soon. I doubt it can be anywhere near as cool as Uwajimaya, but at least it’s something, eh?

By the way, Tangentbot is posting some tasty recipes on his site if you wanna make some good food. He hasn’t posted a katsu recipe yet, though, so here’s what Carrie & I did!

Chicken Katsu 

INGREDIENTS

Chicken cutlets (or chicken breast halves, pounded until they’re as thin as cutlets)

All-purpouse flour

1 egg, beaten

Panko bread crumbs

Salt & Pepa to taste

Tonkatsu sauce

DIRECTIONS 

1. Set up three shallow dishes: 1 with flour in it, 1 with a beaten egg in it, and 1 with the panko in it.
2. Season the chicken to taste.
3. Dredge the chicken through the flower to coat, then through the egg, and then through the panko until it is thoroughly coated with bread crumbs
4. Heat about ¼” of oil in a pan over medium to medium-high heat. Fry the chicken in the oil 3-4 minutes per side (until golden brown and cooked through)
5. Let the chicken rest for several minutes, then slice on a diagonal (like you’re julienning a carrot).
6. Serve on a bed of steamed white rice and drizzle with tonkatsu sauce (you can add purple cabbage to the rice for even more authenticity)