Random Post #5

First.



Two days ago, someone jumped off Taipei 101, the tallest completed building in the world. That someone was an Austrian named Felix Baumgartner. He then turned to the camera and said "Fuckin' A, I did it!" and made a reference to his being "number 1." Then he got in a cab with his parachute on and left the country. He was in Hong Kong about two hours later according to sources. Now, footage of the fall edited to bad punk rock music is available on the intra-net. He is banned from ever entering the country of Taiwan again. Probably because of the bad punk rock. I of course had no idea any of this was going on.

HERE's his site. It's pretty extreme, so exercise caution. This quote from the site about sums it all up; "The renowned extreme sports star had to first overcome a number of hurdles with stylish moves that would have made James Bond proud."

Second.

I've seen some great local bands around the city lately. Below are the mice paces for two exceptionally baddass examples.

The White Eyes myspace

Sugar Plum Ferry myspace

The White Eyes were one of the best bands I'd seen in a long time. Thrashing around the stage as they scratched out their sloppy garage dance punk, they tore up the small smoky Underworld in Shida. Despite the messy riffs and spazzy digressions, they were absolutly in control of their whole cyclone at all times with a compulsive attention to detail befitting post-punk or progrock. Below is a video of them playing in a Taipei parking lot. And HERE is some weird live montage.



Sugar Plum Ferry is a 3 man post-rock shoegazer outfit from Taipei. Think Godspeed in a grungy garage or a no thrills, emo-ier ELP. Live, they hammer out their expansive riff rock with a beautiful intensity, slowly building to a shimmering pulsing peak.

Sugar Plum Ferry has a new album out on White Wabbit Records called Thanks For Reminding Me. The White Eyes supposedly have a new album coming out this spring.

HERE are a bunch of videos of Sugar Plum Ferry staring at the ground as they shred it up on stage.

Third.

San Francisco's Numbers have a new album out on Kill Rock Stars called You Are Now This. You can buy it HERE if you think they are awesome like me. You can also to listen to some tracks off it HERE. This album seems to find them a bit more subdued, and perhaps a bit less jagged around the edges. The abrasive tweaks now lovingly blurred in a general fuzzy far-out kinda way. Pretty and dreamy, but still rough and direct.

Here are three tracks off of their last lp We're Animals:

Beast Life - Numbers

Solid Pleasure - Numbers

I Love You Til' I Don't - Numbers