Now that the Olympics are over and you've seen all sorts of elite athletes in skinsuits, you might be thinking about getting your own "superhero costume" for the 2010 bike racing season. If you've got one or are considering, here's a trick to keep your racing numbers on tight.
Some of you may have seen me last fall "gluing numbers" with an aerosol can at cyclocross races. I use 3M "Super 77" to spray on the number, and just slap that puppy on the side of the jersey. It's that easy. Everyone who's seen this has been a little freaked out, but it's just like rubber cement, and doesn't damage your jersey. The number stays put, and doesn't flap around like a kite in the wind (sick of this from the usual safety-pin method?) And as others have told me at the start line, "Hey, it isn't a Brooks Brothers suit. Relax, you won't ruin it!"
Next you wonder what kind of gunky gummo mess the Super 77 leaves on your fancy skinsuit? It's pretty minimal, and you can remove it real easy-like. Just peel off the number, and use WD-40 for acing the sticky stuff. After your race and before washing your kit, spray some WD-40 on the gummy spots and gently scrub it in with one of those plastic nailbrushes that come with pumice soap. But go with the grain so you don't gouge the lycra when scraping. After laundering, almost all the gunk is gone. Another wash with the same pre-treatment takes care of it all.
Another cleaner that works even better is Goo-Gone. I did the same method and it worked like a charm. To compare the aftermath of the glue numbering method with the regular safety-pin way, the pins end up with more damage to your suit – they leave rusty spots that don't wash out, and stretch holes from where the pins tugged at the fabric. That's so not-pro.
In the pics, you can see a close-up with pinhole marks but no adhesive residue. If you're willing to give this a shot, you can find Super 77 at any Home Depot or Lowe's for under $10. Good luck this racing season, and now you'll look faster!
It’s Wednesday night, 6pm and the snow was throwing down in New Jersey. I had to dig my car out of the plowed-in spot in front of my house. While driving to the train station the only other vehicles on the road were dump trucks filled with rock salt, or anything else with four wheel drive holding a plow. There were about four inches of snow covering the secondary streets, and some of the inclines were a little sketchy but the “stealth wagon” made it to the station lot. The train was on time but only five people were on their way to New York. The snowpocalypse shook fear among the timid!
When I got to Le Poisson Rouge, there were a handful of children on stage. These kids were part of an electronic music group cooler than all of us put together. You gotta see it to believe it. The best part was while the next act Mountains was playing, I saw one of the kids walk by so I told him, “Great Show!” and he kept on walking, like, “Meh, I got no time for you, old dude!”
While Mountains drove some relaxing and lush droney textures, I was here for the Tape. Brothers Andreas and Johan Berthling together with Tomas Hallonsten make this trio from Stockholm known for light and catchy melodies supported by quirky electronics. They started their set with “Fugue 1″ from their latest LP of the same name. The famous Scottish composer Bill Wells collaborated with Tape for the studio recording, and he was well represented onstage, along with percussionist Andreas Söderström.
The second piece they played, “Beams” is from the “Luminarium” full-length on Hapna. The guitar melody sounded a bit like Loren Mazzacane-Connors, and the percussionist used brushes on cymbals to blend in the ambient organ and electronics backdrop.
“Parade” was improvised a bit by replacing organ parts with xylaphone, allowing for a different take on the keyboard meanderings.
“Moth Wings” kept the acoustic-style feeling of the set, peppered with less electronic warbles in the background than the original version.
The second-to-last track is unreleased and part of an album soon to come. The final song in this segment is ”Beams Out” from Luminarium.
Tape is certainly a well-kept secret, and I’m surprised they haven’t become more noted to date. As always, if you like what you hear, please support the artists and buy their music! You can get the MP3 of Tape’s full length “Opera” at Other Music by clicking the album art here:
Ordinarily I would love to attend a hip panel like the Digital DUMBO event sponsored by Carrot Creative last Thursday, but instead I braved the bitter cold to check out one of the best new ambient electronic artists at the somewhat-secluded Death by Audio venue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
Earlier in the day while mapping out my evening, I saw many comments in social networks about how dirty and scary this “DIY” venue was. People were advising, “don’t use the bathrooms” or, “bring hand sanitizer.” Considering the lineup, that was a non-issue. The one hint that mattered to me was that PBRs were the only beers available, so I “pre-loaded” at the fave Spuyten Duyvil a few blocks away.
I’m so happy I did, because I stumbled into their general manager Andy, along with Alex from Fette Sau. They just opened a bottle of The Bruery’s ”Hottenroth” (a Berliner Weisse) and poured me a taste to share. What a great way to get the night started! The Hottenroth has a great profile for such a low alcohol beer. After that and a belgian strong ale by t’Smisje, I was ready to go back to the freezing winds.
As expected, there was no sign in front of the venue, and I can’t remember if there was even a street number on the door. To me that’s a good sign – it kind of reminded me of loft parties in the SoMa district of SF during the dot-com boom. The two guys at the door were smoking cigarettes, just as other commentors suggested that DbA was a “smokeasy.”
Walking down the hallway I could already feel the music, and once in the main room the thick pulse of “Syn Toffs” was rattling my chest cavity. The next act “Autre Ne Veut” was very unexpected after a synth noise artist. This guy crooned love ballads backdropped by retro new-wave drum machines and keyboard melodies. He reminded me of early Gene Loves Jezebel, and when he got excited and cracked his voice, a bit of Frank Tovey, Quintron, and Glen Meadmore. The house was full with Autre Ne Veut’s local cult following. He was soft-step vogueing during “demoneyez” quite like a slow-motion Dale Bozzio from Missing Persons. This guy seems promising..
When Daniel Lopatin aka OneohTrix Point Never stepped on stage, he started with reverb analog synth washes, digitzed vocal stabs, and rainforest birdsongs. Pan-flute samples and chirps of mercury-colored CGI dolphins led into Daniel’s digitally delayed vocal chanting, quite like Steve Roach. This was something I hadn’t heard from his latest release.
0PN mixed in the second track with Kluster-esque arpeggios that faded into free noise warbling - sort of a Boards of Canada meets Pthalocyanine. He sampled in more vocal chants that were pitched up to sound like that synthetic dolphin was crying for help. Then the classic “Rifts” sounds began.
Since Lopatin’s father was a member of The Flying Dutchmen (a Russian Psych band), 0PN’s influences such as Kluster and Klaus Schulze are fairly prominent in his work. It’s quite refreshing to see that this sort of genre is being revived and revitalized by one of its descendants. Lopatin’s latest double CD from the No Fun imprint includes his first three sought-after LPs that are already fetching some nice cash on eBay. “Rifts” has charted on many “best-of 2009″ lists, such as #7 on Boomkat.com and #2 on The Wire Uk’s 2009 Rewind. Daniel’s use of the Roland Juno-60 synthesizer brings back forgotten sounds of early Tangerine Dream and Popol Vuh.
Although I also didn’t recognize the last song in his short set, this was the piece that brought it all together – classic Kraut drone, pre-new-age psych, and ambient electronica. Oscillating rhythms and textures produced a dreamy departure, with a few keystrokes like tropical birds flying away. Daniel faded it all out, and wrapped it up with slowed down hauntology styled vocal samples, possibly tipping his hat to The Caretaker.
Originally, I Flip Videod the 0PN’s full set and posted it all to YouTube. A few days after I posted, I got a direct message on Twitter from Daniel himself! He asked me very kindly to take down the three videos because he didn’t want to give away any surprises for his tour in Europe. Now there’s a few things going on here that I liked – 1) Daniel is listening. He found clips of his performance by keeping an eye out on video sites like YouTube (I’m not saying artists desrve this burden, but he’s on his game.) 2) Daniel valued the relationship with his fanbase – he could have approached me with a demand that I remove everything, and the content was “his”/not to be shared, but instead he suggested that I provide a short teaser.
If you do enjoy the video clip, I would urge you to buy “Rifts”, which you can buy at Other Music as an MP3 by clicking on this picture of the album cover below. Maybe after his tour in Europe we’ll get to show the full set here!
This beer brings me back full circle to the first craft beer I’ve tried – 1991 in Philadelphia, at the Khyber Pass Pub. The concert was some punk band like "Mule" or Philly’s "Serial Killers". At the bar there were all sorts of beers I never heard of, and a girl next to me said to try the Rogue Mogul Madness. She proceeded to tell me about how she made her own tahini and hummus, both of which I never heard of. I knew this would be an interesting beer recommended by an interesting character. After that, I couldn’t drink another cheap macro to save my life. And looking back, this isn’t so bad for a first microbrew!
Rogue Ales were definitely ahead of the microbrew curve, and they've done some fantastic beers over the years. They eventually stopped brewing the Mogul Madness but recently brought it back for the upcoming Vancouver Winter Olympics in 2010. Although their "Dead Guy Ale" sort of became their flagship beer, the "Mogul Madness" will always be the one I think of when I hear their name.
Commercial Description: A lively seasonal ale, assertively hopped, dark in color, and festive in taste. RE-Introduced in November 2009, in honor of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics. Brewed with 2-Row, Munich, C-120, C-150, Kilncoffee, and Carofa’s Special 2 malts. Hop bill comprises Newport, Horizon, Simcoe, Continental, Crystal 90, Amarillo, and Rogue Farm Willamette. Free range coastal waters and top-fermenting Pacman yeast complete the recipe. No chemicals, preservatives, or additives. 16.5P, 68IBU, 77.7AA, 36L.
The body is ruby-copper, clear. Head is thick foamy, lasts well. aroma is fresh piney hops, juicy, a little floral and perfumey. faint cat urine. flavor starts sweet and lightly roasted caramel malt at the back of the palate, kind of bready, then goes to spicy, bitter, resiny hops with a leafy bitter finish. body is mild to light, kind of feels thin because of the tingly carbonation. aftertaste is fresh peeled grapefruit pith. so many different hops are in the mix that the character gets a little neutralized.
There’s no #CraftBeerChat tonight, but that didn’t stop me from grabbing a holiday brew from the cellar this evening.
The “Nisse” is a traditional figure in Norwegian lore – a barn gnome who is never seen but known to get quite ticked off and play nasty tricks when a farmer forgets to leave a bowl of beer for him out at Christmas. In the old days, farmers were required to be brewers, and they would all compete to brew the best Christmas beer in the region.
The Nissefar is labeled as a Norwegian Holiday Ale, but technically the style is “Old Ale”.
Here’s the commercial description:
This beer is our premium X-Mas beer. This beer is full of all the dark malts that we have at hand and display a full and complex malt taste, almost reaching in to the porter style. It has a balanced fruitiness from hops with a good mouth feel and smoothness, and a lingering aftertaste of roasted malts.
500ml bottle, gusher. just slowly lifting the cap a tiny bit unleashed a volcano. body is black, foamy dark sienna colored head. aroma is sour roasted malt, charred oak, some beef jerkey, prunes, and yeasty. flavor is more tart/sour roasted malt, dry oak, and yes – a little salty cola. possibly infected, but it kind of still works – smoky bitter earthy malt finish and aftertaste.
Well I guess since I didn’t leave a bowl of beer for the Nisse this year, maybe that’s why the bottle gushed out once uncapped. While I’m at it, maybe I can also blame the Nisse for the broken waste pipe under the front yard too.
If you think it’s cold in the North Jersey/New York area right now, maybe this will warm you up a bit. I’d like to welcome you in to 2010 with a winter surfing video.
This clip was shot on the day after “Boxing Day” (Dec 27th) in the North Jersey shore, not that far from where they film the TV reality show. The waves were a little overhead and too scary for me. Plus I just pinched my sciatic nerve that morning so that’s my excuse for not getting in. Anyone who knows me will vouch that I’m not afraid of cold water.
In the first minute, my buddy John is paddling out through the current. Notice how quickly he gets to the lineup. The rip tides were so strong this day that people were getting swept out – which was a little hairy. Most were paddling all the time to avoid getting swallowed by the Atlantic.
At about 1’30″ in, someone drops in and gets some top/bottom turns. Payback!
