Sam's Blog

Link: http://www.flaminglips.com/main.php

It’s been a busy few days. On Friday night, Josh and I went to watch Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride with Rob, Michelle, James, and Ashley. Though it was short (now that I think about it, most animated films tend to be short due for obvious reasons) it was a great movie. It was a good mix of macabre and lighthearted comedy at the same time. I was worried because there were a lot of kids in the audience and I thought that it was going to frighten them, but I was wrong. It sounded as though they enjoyed it. I am sure they didn’t understand a lot of the references and a few other things, but it was overall a great animated musical comedy. Danny Elfman was awesome, as always. His version of “March of the Bride” was brilliant and I am now thinking that I will use it for my wedding.

Yesterday was an all day music affair. We left LA at 9:00am and got back at 1:00am. All day long we heard great music. I was thoroughly entertained. I went with Angie, Jasmine (Angie’s roommate from freshman year, who I later found out was the person that took away my student ID card when I became a full time employee at UCLA. I miss my Bruin card.), and Nate to the annual KROQ Inland Invasion in Devore, CA (909 baby!). It was HOT during the day, not as bad as I expected, but still very hot. I got a tan, which I knew was inevitable and spent way too much money on drinks and food, etc. but had a wonderful time. The last time I went to Inland Invasion was 3 or 4 years ago with M. We had seat in the stadium last time, but this time we were on the lawn, which was pretty much the earlier you got there, the better choice of grass area. We got a pretty good location right in the center. The lineup was very good:

• Fishbone (finishing up as we walked into the stadium, but sounded pretty good while we were waiting in line)
• Bloc Party (Excellent, very excellent! Loved their accents.)
• The Bravery (Probably the worst performance of the day, I wanted to like them, I really wanted to.)
• Cake (They didn’t perform during the day and instead went on at the very end, but we left.)
• The Arcade Fire (I love the band, great performance, but had a lot of technical problems perhaps due to the many instruments that they played, unfortunately.)
• Live (Even though they are old, they were fantastic, I can tell that they’re pros at this.)
• Garbage (I [heart] Shirley Manson, electrifying performance, great stage presence.)
• Jet (They were a lot better than I thought they would be, though I wasn’t too fond of a cover of a Cure song that they did.)
• Madness (FUN! I really liked their energy and bazillion instruments. Brought me back to high school!)
• 311 (Same as always: all of their music sounds the same, but they were pretty good)
• Beck (I am a huge fan, he gave an exhilarating performance and brought the dancing kid out on stage for a few songs. Did a remarkable cover of The Flaming Lip’s “Do You Realize?”)
• Weezer (I will always love them, even though I don’t like their new album. The audience all loved their drug-related songs. Rivers didn’t wear his trademark glasses and Nate and I were thrown off a bit by it. They were awesome! They pulled out someone from the audience and had him play the guitar part for “Undone.” Very cool. They also did a superb cover of The Foo Fighter’s “Big Me.” And now my life is complete because they played "El Scorcho" live and that is all that I needed.)
• Oasis (They were very boring…no energy on stage whatsoever. They did play my favorite songs from “What’s the Story Morning Glory?” so it was worth it. They also did a great cover of The Who’s “My Generation.”)
• Travis Barker & DJ AM (Left before they performed, Nate and I wanted to stick around to see if Skeletor (Nicole Richie) would make an appearance, but we were all too tired.)

It was an extraordinary day. I am glad that I was able to go. Thanks Angie!

I woke up today semi-early to go to the Basquiat exhibit with Matt and Mike at the MOCA. There were a lot of fabulous pieces there and I soaked it all in. Here's one of my favorites:

I don't know why I like it so much, but I do. It’s a shame that he died so young. He had so much potential. His paintings had a lot of references to food and by the time we were done, we all were starving. We hopped over to Chinatown and grabbed some pho and spring rolls. It was yummy. We hung out a bit there, but we were all beat. I am still tired from yesterday. The sun drained all of my energy or something. I am just going to hang out and watch the Emmy’s later. Not too exciting, but I am too tired to do anything else, I suppose.