can we say, astrobi seksu!?

wow, asobi seksu put on a great performance last night. i was impressed with their live show -- their songs really come alive... especially with their strobe light endings, though that got a bit epileptic after a while -- for one or two songs, it's a great effect, but after four or five, i start seeing dots and dots and dots... yuki looks like she's in the throes of ecstasy on stage. she just kind of throws her head back and closes her eyes. i wish there were more songs with james on vocals too. he's got a great voice that kind of reminds me of the mink lungs. hot damn!


mellowdrone exceeded my expectations. i had only seen jonathan bates do his solo mellowdrone thang before, but this time it was pretty awesome -- the sound is obviously much fuller with a band backing him and his wild stage antics. his voice travels from sweet jeff buckley-like notes to low sexy drawls -- and it all seems so effortless for his skinny ass. i've never seen someone that skinny. he kind of threw his slim frame all over the stage, pushing mic stands over, stumbling over himself and then finally at the end just falling onto the floor in front of the drums. very mellow-dramatic.


and for those of you who stayed for au revoir simone, i know you were not disappointed. the girls put on a solid show with their dreamy soft melodies. and they looked pretty cute while showing off their catchy fast songs and then falling into their more numbing, romantic electronic ballads. they get better and better every time!

sidenote: dude the line from the killers outside mercury lounge was just ridiculous. it was a mile long, and full of "hipsters." are you a hipster? get in line, right here. haha.

oh my, that billboard scandal

ok i've met keith girard a couple times through my job (most recently at sxsw), so when i'm reading about this huge billboard scandal, it's even crazier!

According to the formal complaint, "gender and race-based discrimination, sexual harassment, retaliatory firings, intra-office sabotage, and other wrongdoing ... took place in the offices of the music industry's leading trade publication."

The complaint adds that Girard and Chang "found themselves in a newsroom culture in which corporate management readily sacrificed editorial integrity for the sake of financial interests, [and] sexual philandering among senior and junior-level staff members was not only condoned but encouraged."

"Schlager frequently and repeatedly made inappropriate remarks to Chang of a sexual and/or erotic nature. ... During all relevant times, Schlager maintained a green phallic vibrator, of the type normally intended for sexual use, in full view on a shelf in his office. On at least three occasions, Schlager removed the vibrator from the shelf and showed it to Chang, and on at least one of these occasions he turned the vibrator on to show Chang that it still worked."