dennis yang dot com

So.. one of my favorite shows when I was growing up was Tour of Duty… it ran for 3 seasons, and followed a platoon of soldiers through the Vietnam war… So, I was pretty excited that Sony decided to release the entire series on DVD last year, which I then bought for Andy for his birthday since he was a huge fan of the show too.. We used to have to tell our mom ahead of time what TV shows we planned to watch that week, since she didn’t let us just “channel surf”, so.. Tour of Duty was one of those shows for sure..

Now, I understand that re-watching shows from your youth sometimes doesn’t really withstand the time. Like, when I saw MacGyver again a few years ago, man, I really didn’t realize just how cheesy that show was. But after a few decades, MacGyver looks soooooo cheesy.. And what’s up with the re-use of like the same asian actors over and over and over agian?

Anyway, back to the Tour of Duty DVDs.. I noticed something was wrong when I first started watching the show.. The theme song for the show was “Paint It Black” by the Rolling Stones, and it was such a perfect song to open every week’s new show.. On the DVDs, that awesome song has now been replaced by this cheesy, generic tune. Yuck. So, from the very first second that we started watching, it was all wrong.. I watched a bit of the first season, and then.. put the DVDs away for almost the whole year, and tried to start watching them again today.. I realized now that it wasn’t just the theme song that they’ve replaced.. but ALL of the period music from the original series has been replaced by super cheesy generic music. AAARRGH. How f’n frustrating is this?!? The show is marginally watchable now, but man, with the original music intact, I’m sure it would still be awesome..

If you don’t think music makes a difference, here are the two intros…

With generic cheesy music

And.. with the original music

Hmm.. which is better? (damn, that stones song is good)

Anyway, someone actually has put together a petition to convince Sony to release Tour of Duty with the original music, but I dunno.. maybe they don’t really care, they already have my money. And, would I buy the whole series again? I dunno. Argh. They should let me upgrade the crappy version that I bought already.

Ok, I’m done ranting.. but honestly, it’s annoying to have 14 DVDs that you don’t even really want to watch.. Serves me right, I guess I should have just Netflixed it.

My good friend Shooey has invited me to spin at her regular party at Anu tonight.. So, I’m dusting off my records and I’m gonna go spin tonight! It’s been awhile since I’ve played out, so I’m super excited to be playing.. It’s been on my list to get out there and start promoting myself to get more gigs and such, so maybe tonight will give me the necessary kick in arse to get that whole ball rolling…

I’m on at 10pm, so swing by and say hi, I’ll buy you a drink.

Here are the details:

7/27 Thursday
Cheeky @ Anu
43 Sixth Street b/t Mission & Market St
10:00pm-2:00am
NO cover!

Cheeky Productions newest residents DJs Scottino and shOOey (aka ScottOOey) are back to bring you an evening of booty shakin’ beats. We’re excited to once again share the spotlight with one of our favorite DJ’s you’ve never heard of! This week, Sinned will start our evening off with his ice breaking breaks sound that will surely heat up the dance floor! Come drink a drink and dance a dance with us!

:: Lineup ::
1000 - Sinned (MSG)
1115 - shOOey (In Deep / Cheeky)
1230 - Scottino (FiX / Cheeky)

I’m have an incredibly short attention span when it comes to music, so I consume a lot of new music… So, to fill my voracious appetite for new music, I’m lookin’ for new good stuff to listen to. I’m not really picky, gimme everything from breaks to ska to dnb to country to indie to bagpipes.. whatever, I don’t really care, as long as it’s good..

Right now, I’m finding most of my new music through Pandora, my XM radio (in particular channel 43: XMU), musically knowledgeable folks like my brother Andy and my friend Willo, the iTunes music store (especially user-created lists), and sites like Aurgasm.. But.. I need more..

So, I’m always excited when neat new sites launch, like musiclens. Parametric music search isn’t really new (anyone remember Music Buddah back in 2000?).. but it’s kind of a neat way to navigate the music that is out there. They basically give you a bunch of sliders on a bunch of dimensions (slow-fast, vocal-instrumental, etc..) and depending on what you pick, they suggest some songs. So far, I haven’t really found anything that groundbreaking, but the idea is sound…

In the past week, I’ve been listening to:

• The Album Leaf (who is coming to SF in a few weeks)
• Alexi Murdoch
• The Like
• Prefuse 73
• Mates of State

You always can see what my iTunes has been playing on my last.fm page.

Anyway — if any of you have any awesome music recommendations for me, please send them my way.. I’m all ears.

Just found this over at YouTube.. A Japanese punk band called Road of Major…

I can’t seem to find anywhere to get the mp3, so if you have it, let me know!

Happy summer solstice! It’s soooo nice here today in SF, so go outside and play.

But, if you can’t, enjoy this SWEET display of turntablism by these 4 french DJs, winners of the DMC World Team Championships..

kick ass. If you like that one, check this out too… spin dj is a god. Hooray for YouTube.

Last night Chromeo rocked the house Mighty — the show was originally intended as the grand opening party of the new Poleng Lounge, but due to some delays with permitting or something, the party had to be moved to Mighty, which was too bad since it would have been awesome at Poleng. That said, Mighty is a fantastic venue with a badass soundsystem, so all was fine…

Best known for their songs Rage and Needy Girl (which has an awesome video that was shown at ResFest a few years back) Dave One and Pee Thugg played an awesome set, energetic and engaging.. Pee Thugg is such a master of the talkbox, so it was pretty cool to see it live.. Chromeo actually brought along a drummer, who apparently didn’t come with a drumkit, so I had to bring up Kane’s drumkit which he’s had since like high school.. haha..

Bfamilysoundsystem played an awesome set to open, and it apparently was Joe Encarnacion’s final SF set before he moves to NYC.. Alan Keller spun in between the live sets..

Anyway, I was still in my cast, but I managed to dance one-legged just fine, although since I figured I wouldn’t be dancin’ crazy, I brought along my camera and took a ton of pics (man, i love that 50mm f/1.4 lens)… I go and see the doctor next week, so hopefully I get my cast off soon, it’s been 6 weeks already..

After that crazy first 30th year day, any normal person would have just stayed in and relaxed the next morning, right? Well, I didn’t really realize that and I had made plans to go for a big bike ride with Dana Saturday morning.. After a few hours of sleep, I met up with Dana at the Presidio and we headed out..

We met up with her friend Matt and decided to ride up the Marin headlands and cross the Golden Gate Bridge. I feel chills as I return to where I’d spent four hours the day before waiting for the AAA tow truck to come and fetch my battered automobile. Needless to say, after my birthday (and since I’d ridden 20 miles the day before on my fixie) I was dead tired. I made it to the top of the headlands, but instead of going down the back to Rodeo beach, I just headed home cuz I was dead tired yo.

To get ready for the next day’s birthday bbq, Steph and I headed over to CostCo, magical land of super fantastic deals on a whole bunch of stuff that you (a) probably don’t really need and (b) you definitely don’t need 250 pounds of even if you really did need it. Standing in line ahead of us was this older couple with the following in their cart:

Three (3) 25 pound boxes of Apples
Two (2) 2 gallon tubs of Mayonnaise
Three (3) 5 pound packs of American Cheese Slices

Stephanie likes to play a game called “What’s their deal?” where you basically people watch, and try and figure out what they’re doing and stuff. I had no idea what these people were doing with that stuff in their cart. Gotta love CostCo.

Anyway… after devouring the $5 CostCo rotisserie chicken that we got for dinner (that thing is DA BOMB).. we headed over to Jablow and James’ house for their old school hip hop party..

Yaaa.. old school hip hop.. I went as one of the kids from Kris Kross, not exactly old school, but it’s old enough (and that makes me feel old, which is fitting on my 30th birthday weekend…). I learned that pants are really designed to be worn forwards. Trying to buckle a belt behind you is damn hard. Dipasquo dressed up as Vanilla Ice, complete with the haircut and everything.. haha.

Yo.

Wahoo! so for alot of my friends’ 30th birthdays, it’s a big deal, so we’ve been going on a trip somewhere to celebrate and stuff.. Last year, Jo’s was in the Bahamas on a cruise, Korby’s was in Vancouver, Jablow’s was in Vegas.. fun fun fun.. So, since my birthday is coming up, i’m planning to hit up Austin for south by southwest. I was in Austin last year, but missed SXSW by a week, and it looks like mad fun.. 1,100 bands!!

In looking through the list.. Hmm.. most of these bands I’ve never ever heard of, but I guess that’s the point of SXSW.. I really want to see:

• The Avalanches
• Her Space Holiday
• Hey Willpower
• Morningwood
• Belle and Sebastian
• Mogwai
• Cat Power

Of course, Mongolian Candidate will be there.. so don’t miss their show, for sure. Uh, they’ll be playing at whichever hotel or house we’re staying at.

So, come on down to Austin and celebrate my birthday with me! And.. Let me know if there are any other bands on the list that you think I should see — 1,100 is a lot to look through!

Here’s some great links I’ve found about SXSW:

• The Unofficial SXSW Blog
• Great Forum Post about what to expect

Crap.. since I just decided yesterday to do this whole trip thing, I’m realizing now that most people have booked their accommodations like months ago. So, um, if you have a place for us to stay (as in, can we rent your house for the weekend), then let me know please…

Remember when MTV used to play music videos? Man, those days were the best, I especially miss walking up to the TV to change channel with that little slider box thing. Remember that? It was like a little plastic thinger and it would zip to the left and the right so that you could change channels. We didn’t have cable when I was a kid, but I do remember the kids down the street had that thing, and I remember it being da bomb. I mean, music videos on TV, that was a good idea, I don’t know why nobody does that anymore. I mean, even M2 is starting to play shows and stuff now.. grr.

Anyway, check out the Top 50 Music Videos of 2005… but, Willo got it right when she called this video the best one ever.

Good times. Good times.

It’s been a crazy month.. The Indians made a valiant effort for a playoff berth, but alas, getting swept by the White Sox in the last pivotal games of the season didn’t help out the situation at all. Ack.. it’s so sad to see them miss the playoffs, they had a fantastic amount of momentum these past few weeks, that fizzled just shy of the wild card spot. Grr.

Anyway, the torrent of amazing live shows continues this week… M83 played at Mezzanine on Thursday.. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from a live show. After seeing Royksopp fiddling with computers for an entire gig, I was pleasantly suprised to see that M83 actually plays live instruments.. The show was barely attended, I guess the promoters didn’t really get the word out enough.. That said, it was really cool to see M83 with a small, mellow crowd, since their music isn’t really that dancey anyway..

Saturday started off with Sigur Ros in Oakland.. Again, I had no idea what to expect, since Sigur Ros is really electronic-y sounding and a bit eccentric (they made up their own language for a lot of their songs.. and the other ones are in Icelandic, which sounds made up anyway). Sigur Ros was the first “rock” show that I’ve been to where everyone sat quietly in their seats. Kottke had a similar experience, but yah — they did a song where there was 30 seconds of silence in the middle, and it was dead quiet.. It was an amazing show, although admittedly I was quite relaxed, and I’m not sure at what degree of consciousness I was in throughout the show (ie.. I think I might have dozed off). But, as Andy rightly explained, Sigur Ros has some wonderfully relaxing tunes, which are quite appropriate as falling asleep music, so… if you’re conditioned to hear Sigur Ros before you fall alseep….. Pavolvian instincts kick in. But, yah.. Sigur Ros is awesome — I just got their new Album, Takk, and it’s solid..

After Sigur Ros, we hightailed it back across the bridge to Mezzanine for the Z-Trip show.. Z-Trip is on the complete opposite end of the energy spectrum of Sigur Ros.. He was just here back in August, but the last show was at the Regency, which is a cavernous ballroom.. Mezzanine is a smaller club, so the overall vibe was much better than the last show. We got there early enough to see Goldenchyld, Dj Zeph open, and they both rocked as well. Z-Trip is soooo good, I can’t recommend him enough — his show at DNA lounge two years ago, and last night’s show rank as two of the best shows that I have ever been to ever… He’s definitely one of the most talented turntablists out there, and to this tour, he’s added dvd decks and live drumming to his set. If anyone has a live recording of last night’s show.. please let me know… And, if you want to check out some of Z-Trip’s stuff, download them here (this link is from Z-Trip’s site, so it’s cool.. he encourages the sharing of his music.. which is quite enlightened of him, imho).

This week brings the American Express Golf Championships to Harding Park — I’ve got tickets all week, so I’m looking forward to seeing Tiger and Phil tear up the local course..

Ahh.. I do love living in San Francisco.. It’s been a fun filled few weeks.. Royksopp last week, Her Space Holiday and Stellastarr* this week (and all of those shows were during the week!).

Then, came the weekend.. Every year, the last weekend of September brings gorgeous summer-like weather and a fun-filled weekend of nonstop parties with the arrival of Love Parade and the Folsom Street Fair. It’s the second year of Love Parade in San Francisco, and this year’s route took the party right down Market street, ending up at the Civic Center (conveniently three blocks from my house). Hmm.. I find it a little odd that news.com covered it, but hey, that’s cool, I guess.

Anyway, it was awesome to be at a party in the middle of the day in the shadow of City Hall. Supperclub had a magnificent float decorated much like the Salle Neige, in all white, with two big beds on either end.. The Space Cowboys brought the Unimog as usual, and the good folks at Massive Selector put together a kickass float with Club Six. I spent most of the time with the Cowboys, who were playing sweet, funky breaks.. Crystal Method played on the supperclub float, which was incredible, so I was glad I got to see them..

Whoooo.. This week brings M83 at Mezzanine on Thursday and then Sigur Ros on Saturday in Oakland.. and then Z-Trip later that night at Mezzanine.. need.. more.. red bull… AND the new season of LOST has started.. so much to do!

All of my pics from loveparade are here.

Royksopp came into town last night, and played a show at Mezzanine.. Mezzanine was a fantastic venue for the show — I’ve only seen dj’s there, and the place sets up quite nicely for live acts.. The sound system was fantastic, so the rumbling bass that accompanies most Royksopp tracks was dutifully served — for most of the songs, I could feel my insides reverberating to the beat.. crazy. Annie opened for Royksopp — though she has a few great songs, the crowd didn’t really seem that into her, and for some reason, her sound was much more treble-y, and didn’t seem to work with the system there..

Mezannine has a few great shows lined up for the next few weeks — M83 on September 29th, then Z-TRIP is coming back to SF on October 1st.. .Z-TRIP’s last show was rockin, despite being at a crappy venue (the Regency).. I’m also seeing Sigur Ros on the 1st in Oakland, so that should be quite the busy night… The reviews of the Sigur Ros shows have been phenomenal, so I’m quite looking forward to that…

So much music.. so little time..

Last week Dana scored us some free tickets to the Snoop Dogg show down in San Jose. Turns out that our pal Murphstar was also opening for Snoop that night, so it was one of those small world things.. I’m not exactly sure how Murph got the opening gig, but from what I understand, Snoop is tight with Moby, and Murph played Moby’s New Year’s Eve party last year and rocked the house (as he usually does) so Moby recommended that Snoop give Murph a call.. Now Murph usually spins breaks, but he was all happy to pull out some hip hop for the San Jose kids.. Except.. Snoop was late.. and instead of an hour set, Murph had to spin for like 3 hours… which meant that some breaks records came out.. I mean, we were perfectly happy to dance to the breaks records down in San Jose, but man, those San Jose kids sure didn’t like them.. Granted, they were all impatiently waiting for Snoop to arrive and all, but still.. Booing? That kinda sucked, and by the end Murph did not look very happy.

Snoop finally did arrive, like 2 hours late. He said something like “Yah.. some people are telling me that I’m late… That’s not possible cuz I’m always right on time..” or something to that affect… Ahh.. that’s Snoop for you. He took the stage with his diamond encrusted microphone and everyone in San Jose was happy. From what I hear he was late because he had to coach his son’s soccer team. Man, can you imagine Snoop as your kid’s soccer coach? it’s notizzle if you winizzle or loseizzle, it’s howizzle you play the gameizzle.. Ice Creamizzle for everyoneizzle!!

So one really neat/geeky thing we saw in San Jose was this vending machine.. We parked in this hotel parking lot near the SJ civic center, and were stopped in our tracks when we saw this vending machine…

Yup.. You can buy an ipod shuffle or mini right from the vending machine.. right along side other hotel staples like condoms and toothpaste. Rockin!! Man, everything you need for a crazy party right there in the hotel!! Well, maybe not everything.. oh wait, there was one of those Sharper Image sound machines… that IS everything… Kickass!

The only thing is.. can you imagine if you bought the shuffle and it got stuck in the machine? Man, I’d be pissed…. Trying to rock the machine to get your stinkin’ shuffle… And then the next dude who came along would get the vending machine 2-for-1 deal of a lifetime..

good stuff… the video for “frontier psychiatrist” by the avalanches, is kinda wacky and crazy. perfect for a wednesday afternoon… and the song is quite catchy too. enjoy.

Can you think of anything else that talks, other than a person?
A-a a-a-a-a, a bird? Yeah!
Sometimes a parrot talks
Hello hello hello hello
Ha ha ha ha ha !!!!
Yes, some birds are funny when they talk
Can you think of anything else?
Um, a record, record, record !

So.. my friend Damian’s friend Jason saw Beck at Pancho Villa Taqueria in the Mission last night… he writes:

Taqueria Mariachi for a Night:

Last night Melanie and I went to Pancho Villa for the award-winning deliciousness. As you may know, it’s not unusual for somebody to be
standing in the back playing a guitar. However, the dude playing the guitar last night was Beck. The normal mariachi guy was there and was
looking PISSED (I should’ve gotten a photo of him sulking in the front).

It was neat because I got the sense that most of the people in Pancho Villa didn’t even know who Beck was. He was singing while people were
eating their burritos, making trips to the salsa bar, walking around him to get to the bathroom, etc. In fact, he was largely ignored, just like everyone else who sings in the back at Pancho Villa. The lesson here:
even a celebrity can’t distract you from a Pancho Villa burrito.

Haha.. good stuff.. Beck plays with Le Tigre tonight at Bill Graham..

I saw Her Space Holiday, Bright Eyes and The Faint last night here in San Francisco.. The show was at the Concourse at SF Design Center, which is this HUGE warehouse-like building.. It’s a magnificent space — for a convention or something.. NOT for a show. When you walk in, it feels like you’re in a huge airplane hangar or something. The acoustics were awful, the sightlines were atrocious, and oddly enough, for such a huge space, it was incredibly hot. The only good thing was that it was really easy to get a drink, albeit you had to stay in the “beer garden” areas off to the side of the stage. No drinks on the main floor, cuz that’s where all of the teenagers were hanging out, I suppose.

I really wanted to see HSH, but Phil (who had my ticket) arrived a little late, so I listened from outside whilst watching the ticket arbitrageurs (er.. scalpers) work in the rain. The show wasn’t sold out, so there were tons of people trying to sell their tickets.

The Faint put on a really good show — they play video behind them while they perform, and the video is sync’ed exactly to the songs they play.. it’s pretty cool. The Faint’s music is much more energetic than Bright Eyes, so when Bright Eyes came on, it was comparitively much more mellow.. And, Bright Eyes didn’t have as cool as videos as The Faint.. I mean, the bands share like half the members anyway.. that way, they’d build the energy up until the end…

wahoo.. weezer tonight at the warfield… this weekend is the wildflower triathlon, and i’m not really supposed to be going out, but.. apparently it didn’t stop me last year either.. so.. oh well… my goal this year is to try and beat my incredible time of 03:48:04… yah, i know, it’s not that fast.. i was 224 out of like 250 people in my class… but considering the winner finished last year in 02:04:30 — I’ve got to be able to close the gap a bit…. maybe i can hit 3:30 this year….

all i can say is.. last year, I was the only one I saw with a tortoise squeeky horn on their bike.

ok… so the kleptones are back at it with more masterful mashup… this time, it’s From Detroit To J.A. — bootlegg’in motown and hiphop… sweet! only available as a torrent, thus far… but i guess if you come find me, i can make you a cd…

ooo.. this song just was played on my Launch.. whoohoo! Ohio! Ohio Is For Lovers by Hawthorne Heights…

dj miss bliss will be playing at mighty tonight at 10, as part of the scion emerging artists tour. she’s gonna be at loft 11 tomorrow — mixed elements is throwing that party.. i’ll be going tonight since i’m really not supposed to go out, in preparation for the wildflower tri this weekend.. technically, i’m not even supposed to go out tonight, but what the hell.. miss bliss ROCKS.