pandora.com

It has been a painfully long time since I last posted, and I'm going to reenter the fray with a (for me) rare music post. It's not about a band or a song or a concert but rather about an internet radio project/station/concept/etc that seems a completely logical outgrowth of the internet but hasn't been realized (that I know of) until now. You can put in a song title or artist name, and this little widgety player will put together a continuous playlist of music that shares characteristics with whatever you entered. It seems almost so intuitive as to be beneath mention, but it's a fabulous tool to explore broad swaths of music and have contact with lots of bands that you might otherwise never hear of. For example, I'm in the process of falling in love with The Blow, and I put them into pandora and three songs later I got introduced to the Buttersprites, a japanese Fem-Punk band that's fabulous (at least according to the one song I heard), despite my complete inability to understand them even when they were singing in English. The pandora concept is just the front end of a larger whole called the Music Genome project which seeks to identify "musical genes" in bands, songs, etc. It sounds high-tech, but I think it's basically just a bunch of music nerds who listen to TONS of music and classify it. That makes it sound fairly subjective, but that's something that I like about it. You could probably write a fancy algorithm to do the same thing, but this gives it a more personal feel, like there's a DJ out there spinning just for me... Although the song she just put on sucks ass. Don't ever listen to Animal Collective's "Project Hummer". I think it involves an autoharp...

farewell to mstislav

cello hero mstislav rostropovich has departed this world.

mixA_final and othermix_edit

My sister has a friend who sends out (or did send out) mixes to his friends each year (or some years). Usually, they're two disc, and the one that I stole from my sis that I like the most is "Day" and "Night", a two disc set with some apparent but inexplicable link to the the title's dichotomy. That's Long-words for, "the title is good for the mix." I actually played the entire mix for one session of Newfangled Wasteland on WRVU.
Anyway, the point is that I started, some time in October, to put together a mix of what I listened to the most in 2006. Usually, mixes are almost easy (almost being the operative term). Usually, I know who I'm making them for, and I'm in a certain phase in my listening habits. When I brought this charge to myself, I started with the stupid assumption that I had "plenty of time" before x-mas. I also decided I would try to send it to a lot of people, so I lost the focused audience. When I was DJing, I ran into similar listenership problems, but I was able to construct a "college-radio-listening-hoi-polloi" image from the phone calls I got and the other DJs, plus I could play to people I knew were listening. Now, I have this audience of my friends and family, who run the gamut in terms of music appreciation. The biggest issue is finding some neutral ground b/w the snobs and the anti-snobs (which is a bit of recursive nomenclature - the snobs are actually anti-"well-known-artists", and the anti-snobs are actually to some extent anti-anti-pop, so on and so forth. Sadly, the extent of this recursion runs surprisingly deep and means a lot to some people). Anyway, I want my music to be beautiful not realistic, and I want people to be at once confused and entertained by it. I'm hoping that the final result will have at least one song to offend each listener and at least seven songs to move each listener. That said, this is one of the most difficult undertakings I've ever undertaken, and yet, looking at my current playlist, I can't say that this is a "best of" or anything. In fact, it's not one of my "best" mixes, but I'm hoping that it speaks to the most people.
I'm hoping to work it all out before Laura comes back in about 30 hours, since it's pretty annoying for her hearing me play the beginnings and ends of tracks over and over and over.
After all that introduction, I've got nothing. (Teaser): I can promise you, however, that Pizzicato Five's "Roma" will be on one of the mixes.
Also, if you happen to read this, please send me your address immediately. Anyone who actually takes the time to read this crap is worth the shipping and handling.

Innis & Gunn Oak Aged Edinburgh Ale

On a recent visit to the local convenience-store-turned-liquor-store, I noticed an entire shelf full of this individually bottled and unfamiliar brown liquid. At first I assumed it was some fancy ass whisky variant, but it turns out it's some fancy ass beer variant. The name says it all. It's a typical Scottish beer (not "Scotch Ale" or anything like that) oaked in whisky barrels. Now, the Scots, in addition to being my boys by kin ("boys" also applies to girls of course), have an advantage from the start in that their whisky barrels are used to produce something with no comparison in the states (or Canadia), and old traditions are more tightly grasped. So, here you have a good beer dumped into good whisky barrels for 30 days and aged in some fancy way for a good 77 days, as ensured by the master brewer's authentic signature on the bottle...
we got 6.6% alky - which I think is a very happy medium.
As for the beer, it honestly tastes like butter, and nothing else really. It's like butter with maybe a hint of vanilla, toffee, oak, whisky (of course), and maybe something else. It tastes like a more typical Scottish ale in the first few milliseconds, but the butter aftertaste settles in almost immediately and melts on the tongue. I really don't know how I feel about this beer/butter hybrid, but I must say I'm impressed that it is so smooth with a good mouthfeel, and it has absolutely no 'bad' notes.
I don't know what exactly they were going for in this beer, but surely someone has wanted at some point to extract the butteriness of certain Scotches, and this beer certainly does that, with the bonus of tasting temporarily and feeling like a beer. I really want pancakes now... mmm. blueberries. So, I guess the next step is to combine this guy with a 'good' blueberry ale (e.g. Sweetwater's) and see if it works for breakfast.
Cheers!

company website: http://www.innisandgunn.com/thebeer_itsallinthetaste.htm
BA: http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/10272/12719/?sort=topr&start=0

beers of austria: puntigamer

"the 'beery' beer"...
myself i believe that most beers should be beery, but it seems the fellows at puntigamer want to emphasize this point. or maybe it's an austrian joke, they're a little weird.
the beer itself, while beery, was not my favorite of the bunch. typical helles, no real risks taken in style, but 'twill serve. in all fairness, it was warm when i drank it. so points for retaining drinkability while warm, but there are better choices.

Beer Summitt, 2007

For some reason, I like the word "Summit" with two "t"s. I made a sweet photomontage of the coasters I picked up, but I forgot to upload it before Laura deleted everything on her camera in prep. for Hawaii. This includes the Allagash "Musette." I'm pissed about that one, cause if I'm going to pay $15 for one 750mL bottle, I'd better get a picture out of it, but it's my fault.
Anyway, the short of it is that you're going to have to read this without pictures. I know no one likes stories with no pictures, but you're going to have to suck it up for this one.
SO the Boston Beer Summit is this thing put on by some unknown entity, presumably Sam Adams. To their chagrin, I didn't even stop by their place since I can go to the brewery and try their fancier beers any day for free. And this was a $30 ticket, so I wasn't about to waste my tolerance on that. The event comes with tickets. You get 10 tickets or something and you're supposed to use one for each tasting, but as the first pourer informed me, the tickets are about as useful as the president saying he's going to cut the deficit. The pourers were even more merciless than at beer fest, partially because the little plastic glasses are even bigger, with a line about 1/3 of the way up that was never even half the liquid level. Towards the end, we bought fancy glasses (Spaten Optimator, Stone Ruination (I think, or maybe double Bastard? I don't remember. It's on the shelf, which is not within arm's reach). Now Laura and I have a fancy stash of cold-one containers including those, a Delirium Tremens glass, and a Lowenbrau Ma♠ (spade = funny German letter that I don't know the code for...) Anyway, sweeet. The problem is that once you have a glass, they start pouring you full beers, which ended in me forgetting pretty much everything. All I have now is vague memories and notes written on the backs of coasters, so here's the summary of the findings:
I have a "Jenlain" coaster. It doesn't look like a beer I would like, so I'm assuming the writing on the back is the important part, "Long Leg", which with a quick Google search seems to be Cameron's Long Leg, a Golden Ale/Blonde with a 46% rating on RateBeer (http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/camerons-long-leg/37034/29087/). I'm guessing I was already drunk when I wrote this one down, or maybe I just felt bad for the guy pouring it. Anyway, it couldn't have been awful. So I give this one a hazy one thumb up.
I got an Oskar Blues coaster cause they rock, as well as a Left Hand.
Also, Hazed & Infused was better than I expected for something that's widely available in Boston.
Heavy Seas, who have impressed me with a few sixers, showed up well w/ Winter Storm and Southern Tier IPA, both of whose names are self explanatory.
Sebago's IPA and Heffe W. were both tasty, and the next door Ithica Red and Double IPA were nice, the former more than the latter. The red was surprisingly hoppy and festive. I don't know what festive means, but I think it's a good description anyway.
Magic Hat's H IPA was not as bad as I expected, given that their previous IPAs have not been impressive.
Sea Hag's IPA was good as expected, though I was not impressed by the lager or amber. Mainly cause I don't really go for lagers or ambers.
Lastly, from Stone Coast, I did not like the Knuckleball Bock one bit, but the 420 IPA was very nice, and they even gave me a little card with info about it. Munton's malts and Yakima-grown hops, whatever that means. 6.5% alky, and no info on IBUs. bastards. anyway, I liked this one enough to circle it twice. The imperial IPA was good, but I liked 420 better than 840 (do they really think they can just double 420 like that?) Anyway, they stole the name from Sweetwater (Atlanta).
There was a Polish stand that I remember vaguely. Zywiec was nice as always, and the rest were crap.
So that's all the info I remember. Hope it's been useful for someone!

austrian beers 1: kapsreiter hell

ah to drink a helles! it's not brewed in the rhineland and i really have no access to it. so i enjoyed this one even though mine was a little skunky. it was good, but not memorable.

name change

the blogger formerly known as aleph_0 will henceforth post under the name "wichtelwesen". plan accordingly.

The Books! concert, 2007-04-15, Somerville Theatre

So, as you might guess from the fact that I absolutely love The Books, I loved this show. I was literally on the edge of my seat the whole time, in spite of the relaxed ethereal ambiance. This first pic is their set up - you can't really see much, but there are two electric basses, a guitar, and a cello. Two mics, and maybe other stuff I'm forgetting. Also notable is the stack of old school amps in the back (presumably for the amplified "celloton" (cello skeleton) and who knows what else. Also, the screen in the back was used for their exceptional films, photo montages, etc. which were set to the music in various ways.

From BOS_webalbum

Zammuto joins de Jong on stage

Alphabet song intro

Zammuto sings, de Jong picks away. Snow-covered tree clip

The Books cover Nick Drake - amazing. They did the Cello Song, apparently as part of some big Nick Drake memorial collaboration dealie. Very cool moving colors film to go along with the song.

Nick's bro Mikey (Bass) joins the crowd, adds some impressive acoustic-electric bass-ing.

SO glad I finally got to see The Books in concert. It's a must - seeing de Jong do those things on his cello is worth the ticket in itself, and Zammuto is just a great singer and guitar player. The film adds a lot to the gesamtkunstwerke. I must buy the DVD as soon as it's available. Only complaint that the mix made it a little difficult to hear the samples, at least where we were sitting. Amazing show. I will see them every time it's even slightly possible.

Somerville Theatre

This is the cool venue where I saw Low and just recently The Books. I don't want to write up The Books concert yet cause it's late, but I thought I'd put the pictures up now and add words later. This place is an old theatre that shows good movies and artsy stuff, including Low and The Books concerts. The video you see in the background of the second to last picture is the video art for The Books' opener, who played a set of ambient noise that wasn't altogether pleasant or unpleasant for me. You can kinda see him in the last pic. Too loud, but interesting anyway. So, here are the pictures:

From BOS_webalbum

Camera Obscura

From BOS_webalbum

I guess I never wrote this post, even though we saw Camera Obscura. As you can see from the pictures, we didn't have the greatest angle ever, but it was a great show anyway. They rock a lot more than you'd guess from the albums, and accordingly the albums rock more after having seen them live. Anyway, the show was a while ago, but I thought I should mention that they're awesome and I hope to see them again.

beers of austria

i was in vienna over easter and i tried all the beers you see above. they were delicious. it makes you realize just how far you have to go to see any real variation in golden lagers. staying in one place, they pretty much all taste the same. 10 hours by train, though, is a different story. my beer mentor always maintained it was something in the dirt...
reviews of these beers to come.

Hitachino Nest Celebration Ale

From BEER_webalbum

This second picture does some justice to the turbid, muddy red.

This is my first non-generic Japanese cold one, so I'm quite excited. I'm poppin it open as a break from an all-night neuroscience presentation preparation party. I've got a poster to make in one night using data that is incoherently distributed, badly measured, badly analyzed, and best of all results that counter years of publications from my own lab. Sweet. Time to drink some 9% ABV beer.
So, the beer guy at the store said I had to try this. He said it's from one of Japan's best breweries and it's one of the best balanced beers he's had. I trust this guy, so I bought it despite the tag of about $4 for a 330 mL bottle. He also told me that the head is outrageous and there must be something wrong with it, so be careful in the de-capping and the pouring, which of course I wasn't, and now a precious few drops have blessed my coffee table instead of my tongue. I guess we'll call them sips on the concrete, but somehow it seems weird with such expensive sips and no brown paper bag. Anyway, the head is crazy. There must have been some ridiculous pressure changes and maybe some related bottle fermentation on the trip around the world. Thusly, the carbonation is very noticeable to the point that the beer is almost fizzy - you can feel it bubbling on your tongue like one of those powdered vitamin C things or headache medicine... but in a good way. The style is apparently "winter warmer," and I can see the semblance, (http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/697/27120), but this is far superior to attempts I've tried from Northeastern breweries thus far. Disappointingly, not much aroma comes off the top, but the taste is sweet and malty with a great hop edge that kicks in on the way down the pipe. I taste apple cider, but in a good way. like if good apple cider was instead beer. and not cider. not apple cider with liquor either. you know...
Anyway, I'm going to quit rambling and go back to embarrassing myself with bullshit statistics (did you know that everything correlates with everything else? it's a fact). If you can get your hands on this cold one, and I've heard people cellar it, which sounds great, I definitely suggest it. Plus it's Japanese and has an owl on it. What more do you need?

Ayinger Celebrator Doppelbock

From BEER_webalbum

It's hard to do this bottle justice. I think it's the coolest bottle I've ever seen, at least in terms of bottles with little goat trinkets.

I haven't uploaded the picture yet, but I'm drinking the last one and I don't want to write retrospectively.
This is, unsurprisingly, a great beer. It's won many awards, gets a 92 from BeerAdvocate raters (http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/39/131/?ba=bros), a 100 from ratebeer (http://ratebeer.com/Beer/ayinger-celebrator-doppelbock/1090/), and was suggested to me as 'the best doppelbock' by the beer guy at the beer-snob-store, who seems to know everything. I love the goat thing, and I now have them tied up in nooks and crannies around the house.
So, a little criticism since there's so much praise for this cold one: $12 is a lot for a four pack, even one of the best doppelbocks ever. I honestly still prefer Aventinus and some of the American bastardized double bocks.. (is that what we call them?) This cold one definitely does not match up well with fried chicken fingers and barbecue sauce. I guess that's fodder for a pils or even a smoked porter or something.
So, on to the praise: The head has great retension, though it's thin. Nice and fluffy. nice lacing all the way down. The strong, sweet malt doppelbock character comes through forcefully, but the hoppiness is what makes this beer for me. It's extremely well balanced with a great mouthfeel. I don't really need to try to explain the details, it's all been said before. Anyway, I'm glad I found this. It's usually sold out very quickly. I hope to buy it cheaply on tap in Germany.

berliner buergerbraeu: bernauer schwarzbier

this is the first of two beers i'll be reviewing from germany's hauptstadt (capital city), berlin. berlin is not known for its beer, or any other cuilinary acheivements for that matter. their claim to fame in the kitchen is eisbein or cold pickled jellied hog's arm, which is just as wretched as you think it is. in fact, beer from any brewery with a "berlin" in its name is known to be sub-par (e.g. berliner pils, berliner kindl). except for this one. this brewery is respectable.
their schwarzbier, however, cannot stand up to the gold standard, koestritzer. they call it a bernauer schwarzbier, which would be a schwarzbier from bernau. you haven't heard of bernau, because it's in that vast expanse of empty flatness, brandenburg. well, that isn't quite true. there are several bernaus in germany, but it's safe to assume they are referring to bernau bei berlin, meaning "bernau by berlin." they are not famous for their schwarzbier, even though the style springs forth from thuringen and pervades brandenburg as well. there's a little sweet malt in the nose with a slick mouthfeel. the body is thin and a little smoky.
though their other brews are quite good, i can't recommend the schwarzbier if you have the more prominent koestritzer available.

pilsners of all shapes and sizes

during my self-imposed hiatus from belgian beer, i sampled a range of pilsners. except for the flensburger. of the previous post, they were all so similar i'm not going to bother reviewing them individually. i tried bitburger, koenig, warsteiner, veltins, and krombacher.
they pretty much all taste like pils. high drinkability but keep it cool, conservative yet for germany high hop bitterness, standard malt filling out the body. in america, i always felt that a colt 45 was the closest thing to a german lager around, and damn good at that. some notes on the cold ones:
the krombacher was a bit thin.
the veltins i had was skunked, but nice and dry.
bitburger is the baloney of beer.

pils is an unerring default beer. you can hardly find a stand out, good or bad, in germany. if you order a pils, you're basically guaranteed to get a cold, drinkable, beer flavored beverage.

flensburger pils

you may have noticed that i haven't reviewed a belgian beer in a while. though i haven't mentioned it, it's because i gave it up for lent. without belgians, i've been touring the old standbys of german beer. and i'm getting pretty tired of pils.
most of them are pretty bland and nondescript, but flensburger stands out for it's saucy hop bitterness and perky carbonation. it's got a great herbiness in the body.
the difference isn't radical between flensburger and it's golden lager brethren, but it's enough that i prefer it to the others.