Something New #21 – Bel Argosy

Monday night was a surprise when Will, an actor I met when I was down in Baltimore, called and asked if I wanted to go out to Otto’s Shrunken Head and hear a new band.

Hell yeah I do!

So we trecked out far and wide on the lower east side to a hole-in-the-wall Tiki Bar for cheap beer and new indi rock.  Turns out that Bel Argosy isn’t as new as I thought; but it also turns out that they’re pretty cool guys.  For a monday night in the back room of a bar that’s about the size of my living room, I was really impressed.

In my experience, mostly from my early days as a roadie for my dad’s audio production company (true story), most guys under 40 in a small room will have all their instruments turned up too loud because they think it sounds like rock n roll; but for the audience it actually sounds like pain.  What struck me first about Bel Argosy is the maturity of their sound and control; first in that I’d expected my ears to bleed, but later in how much fun they were having while still wielding their instruments.  All and all I enjoyed it and I would see them again.  Check out there website and you can download a track or two for free.

Bonus Something New:

We were in a Tiki bar, so it seemed wrong not to drink a mai tai out of one of there little tiki head glasses (which you have to give a $5 deposit for because apparently the whole world steals them!)

What’s In A Nano

Like most people, I came to appreciate the need for music and headphones much more when I moved to NYC.  The overwhelming sensory experience of the subway during rush hour makes them a near necessity.  So you can imagine my dismay when the hold button on my 4 year old nano (which has been on the fritz for some time) finally jammed ‘on’.  When it’s all hold, all the time you can’t push play.

So I tried taking matters into my own hands, and fortunately I’m not the only one.  Following the advice of this video I cracked the sucker open:

…and when I did it looked like this:

I isolated the hold switch from it’s external hardware; but sure enough it’s stuck.  There’s a fix, to solder the switch open, but I don’t have any teeny tiny screw drivers or soldering guns… so the question is: do I figure out how to get access to them, or pony up the $$ for a new ipod?

Reluctantly Crouched

Maybe you know the cake lyric… maybe you dont.   In case you dont:

A while ago I had this blog called Sausy Blue (yes, typo. I know); but the focus was on the Socio-political ramblings that I was prone to in my late teens and early 20s. It wasn’t really relevant and never truly did anything for me. But lately I’ve had the urge… the twitch in the tips of my fingers… if you’re a blogger than you know the one.

So I set it up and lets see where this whole thing goes. Maybe I’ll just be “haunted by something I cannot define“.