José González is an artist that I stumbled upon in the iTunes store while poking around in the folk section and boy did this come out of no where. I can't say to much about the artist himself because I haven't really looked into is music aside from this one album. I can say, however, that the album I am reviewing here called Veneer is absolutely amazing. The whole less is more approach is used all to well with this album. In it's essence it is an acoustic, singer songwriter album and its one of those albums that seems so fragile and quiet that it could fall apart at any moment, not unlike albums like Nick Drakes 'Pink Moon' and Iron and Wines 'The Sea And The Rhythm.' His voice hides behind his guitar as it plays simple picked melodies. This is matched perfectly with the scaled back production quality of the songs which makes it all the more hypnotic with its lo-fi sounding recording and subtle reverb.

His song writing is what drew me in with its dark and thoughtful lyrics about the world. At first glance at his name I had almost expected the music to be sung in spanish but it is all english. Again, I don't really know anything about the artist which is kind of nice really. It leaves this anonymous feeling to the record as I listen to it which is nice sometimes. The music on here seems perfect for any relaxing moment in life. I walked through a busy downtown street listening to this and as I listened to it the world around me seemed to slow down a bit which was a welcome change in the middle of a work day. It's uplifting in one of those quiet secretive kind of ways, you know what I mean?

For anyone looking for a chance to close their eyes and relax for a while I would suggest you check out this amazing album.

Heres a link to the album in iTunes:

when i wrote about kyoto podcast yesterday i mentioned something called a facecast that the host is trying to put together. a facecast is something he came up with which will use the enhanced podcast feature of iTunes to let him have a podcast that features photos of people from all over the world. not only people but animals too! he is looking for images not only from listeners of the podcast but from anyone who may want to participate in this idea and be part of it. i think that its going to be very cool when its done and its something that you shouldnt miss out on being a part of so if you have a minute or two please mail a photo of yourself and/or your pet over to facecast@mac.com and be part of a really great project!

(the photos i posted above are a few of the ones that i sent to the project.)

so the wonder of having this personal weblog leaves me with the wonderful ability to stop being professional and say whatever i want. its a nice freedom to have. so that said...

what the hell is wrong with warner music? for those of you who may not be up on the latest happenings with their unrest with the iTunes music store ill fill you in briefly. over the past couple of weeks they have let it be known that they are no longer happy with the 99 cent per song model that has made the iTunes music store so very popular. They have decided that they want to charge more and less than that for songs stating that "all songs are not created equal," whatever thats supposed to mean. first off, yes, all songs are created equal. what has happened to music that has made it turn into such a lifeless thing? i dont get it. i think that is is amazing what the iTunes store has accomplished! there has been so much new interest in music that would not have normally been had otherwise. you see a little indie group stuck right up next to these robot bands and its such a nice thing to see. if you really did deep into the store you will find some really amazing music hiding away and this form of distribution is simply the future of music and the major record labels just need to realize this.

i remember years and years ago when i was younger and hanging out with a friend of mine he was telling me about how he heard that in the future you wont go to a record store to buy cds or tapes. you will take in this little chip thats a tiny little device that you plug your headphones into and pay to get it filled up with the music you want. i thought that this was just the craziest sounding thing i had ever thought of. "how cool would that be," i thought. boy was i amazed when i opened the box to my first ipod! i bought it just days after they were released, even among all of the people that were positive that no one would ever buy the things. it was soooo cool! the whole idea of the future coming into the present really started to settle in when i first held a shuffle in my hand. i had immediately thought to myself that this must be what they were talking about years and years ago. so off i went to buy digital music and fill up this little 'chip' with music. i remember having a conversation with my dad recently about how when he was growing up it was flying cars that people spoke of when they talked about the future and he was all excited about flying cars. he mentioned that it was no fair that the future that i had imagined when i was younger is coming true but the future he had imagined has yet to show face.

so back to the topic at hand, the whole world of digital music and its presence in the world today. it was pretty amazing when, after the whole napster fiasco, all of the major record labels decided to take part in this whole iTunes experiment. i was pretty surprised at first to tell you the truth but look at it now. it has grown to be this enormous thing. its amazing really. i didnt really mean to get into this here in this write up so let me get back on track here. as i mentioned before warner music has been the first label to decide that they were unhappy with the current iTunes model. they spoke out and apple spoke back recently calling the labels "greedy" which i find oh to painfully true. warner music stated that they believe that they want to start charging more for the new hot songs. after apples response it appears that warner has decided to pull out all of the stops and be a true ass and state that they are willing to pull out all together if apple does not cooperate. do they have any idea what they are doing? there is this amazing new form of music distribution that costs them nothing to utilize. there are no manufacturing costs here. how could they possibly think they are loosing on this deal? the whole medium has taken off, exploded and rained down upon the dried up world which has soaked it up and loved it! it has re invented the whole idea of an impulse buy all together. it makes it so easy to, when you want a song, to simply hop online do a quick search and click on a button to buy it. i think its going to continue to grow if it continues to get support and hopefully one day will open its arms to musicians that arent on record labels to sell their music on the store.

how could they possibly think cutting off apple could be a good idea? heres their most recent logic. they figure that because apple wont let them raise the price of songs then apple is hindering their ability to make the amount of profit they are used to making because people usually have to buy a whole album but now they are just buying single songs therefore they are loosing money. but thats not the funny part. turns out, they have decided that the reason apples ipod is so popular is because they have been marketing it along with the idea of the iTunes music store being the best way to fill it and because the iTunes music store is driven by its content (warner's music) then they should be getting a cut of the ipod sales because of this... yes, it is confusing and yes, it is stupid and desperate. what a sad attempt at shaking apple up.

“What if Jobs says 39 cents or 29 cents per download—what then?." yes, a warner rep actually said this. in all honesty and sincerity they actually think apple would ever do this? you call that an argument? they think that stands as a valad point??? come on! so on to the next golden quote: “The industry can say, OK we’ll cut him off—very few people people buy music from digital downloads.” very few people? hmmmm. if it appeals to such a few amount of people then why are they so worried about it??? 500 million songs is not exactly a drop in the bucket and that number is rising. heres a kicker, “[Jobs] will figure out another model." man, these guys really are off their rocker. its funny that they go along with all of this in the first place but once they discover that its actually working so they want a bigger piece of the pie. do they not realize that it would be insanely easy for people to just turn back to file sharing? there will always be a way for people to do this. always. it is silly to think that it will be stopped completely. and one last quote here: “The industry got together and said ‘We don’t want another MTV’. Well, now we’ve got another MTV, in Apple. And we have to deal with it." turns out they think apple has to much of a dominance over this form of distribution (but not at all in the same way they have such a dominance over the music industry right? and to compaire them to mtv? there is just nothing to say to that sad little comment. how could anyone in their right mind not look at this company and see just how sad it really is here.

i can only hope that the other labels dont stand up and decide they want to take this same mind set. as you may notice, none of them have... lets say they do pull out. i think iTunes would survive. just on a different level. they would continue on. there are a lot of other labels with a lot of great music on there and at the moment it is just the best overall solution to the problem of the whole music sharing era.

these guys need to wake up and realize that iTunes simply has the best model for digital music at the moment. if you look at the subscription services and compare them to iTunes you will find that iTunes has the upper hand for an obvious reason. when someone goes to a file sharing network, a lot of the time they are just looking to go grab a quick song that they wanted to hear and occasionally an album. its a collection that they own and this aesthetic is still there with the iTunes store. the whole virtual ownership of the subscription models is so silly and i could see how that might work for some people but overall its just not that solid of a model simply because once you stop your subscription, you no longer own your music. you are lect with nothing.

so warner, get your head out of your ___ and realize that this new digital distribution thing is working really well and to try and change it and shake things up like this at this point in time when it is just now gaining a whole lot of momentum is just crazy talk. i think that they are just pulling these little scare tactics to try and get more out of apple but maybe they have not been paying any attention to apple, maybe they dont realize just how stubborn they are. jobs isnt going to back down and so warner is not only making a mistake here, they are looking really really bad in the process. in fact, a lot of companies are doing this kind of thing when it comes to apple. every time a new ipod is released the rest of the industry wines and wines about how stupid it is and they have a product that blows it away. the simple fact of the matter is that the rest of the industry is sooooo over crowded with players that no one knows what other players are worth anything. no one can even remember the names of them (rdsfr-200, or zse 74 super duper player) more or less trust that they are up to par as far as quality is concerned. all of these little bells and whistles on other players are cheep add ons to make these products seem like they do more but it just bogs down the players and clutters the simplicity that needs to be present in them. the ipods simplicity is one of its strong points and its brilliant really, they have let third party developers make the add ons people want for it weather that be fm radio or voice recording. it saves them money and it lets people choose what they want to add to there player rather than cluttering up the device. the ipod accessories market is huge! it seems like its bigger than the windows service and support market which is a pretty impressive feat!

ok i have gotten way off my topic here, sorry about that. i guess only time will tell what will happen in the end. sure makes for a fun ride in the meantime though...

So far I have yet to mention any hip-hop favorites here and today thats going to change. I like a lot of hip-hop music but I can be pretty picky about it. I like it when it's actually a departure from the bling bling, bust a cap style of a lot of mainstream and hell even the majority of indie hip-hop that i come across. I like creative production and well written lyrics. To me this whole Kanye West craze and praise is not my thing. It's cute and all that he got Jon Brion to hop on and help with the production work but when it comes down to it thats all it feels like to me, a gimmick. (not that I don't love some of Jon's work) I really like it when a story is told in a hip-hop song. Right so anyways, I've decided to feature an artist that I've loved since way back when he was still part of the classic indie hip-hop outfit The Anti Pop Consortium. There is no one else out there with his characteristic swing that lies in all of his flows. His solo work has taken a very minimal yet damn funky approach and could be seen as weak and under developed but I feel as though its really amazing how it breaks the music down to its core. I will most likely be featuring more of his albums in the future because he is really amazing to me. This little ep that I am featuring is a newer set of songs and is a pretty simple intro to his style so check it out if you want to hear something new.

Heres a link to the ep in iTunes:

here is one last little bit from japan today. they just have some of the most interesting things over there. take these bus stops scattered about japan. they are big huge pieces of fruit to sit in while you wait, how fun is that? i for one wouldnt mind sitting in a big watermelon while i waited on a bus!

sometimes there is some really odd news that comes out of japan that and i noticed this story a few days ago. maybe i will start posting strange news bits that i find here because there are some odd ones. take this story for example. there is a woman in japan that is listed as the 19th oldest person in japan but there is one little catch to this story. she has been missing for 40 years... how does that work? turns out in 1962 (or 1963?) she went out for groceries but never came back and a missing persons report was never filed due to a 'complicated' family situation.

or maybe thats doesnt perk your interest? how about this story that simply tells a story of how a deadly yellow fat tailed scorpion was found in someones garden. thats pretty much it. there was some talk about how it may have been a pet and there has been two stories on this happening. i remember reading one a week or so ago and being kind of confused. so even bugs have their place on japanese news stands...

i have been meaning to post about this for a while now because i am very exited about it. i get quite a few people asking about how i update the site, what kind of software im using, this and that. well i designed a template for this amazing program called rapidweaver that uses ccs to make it easy as easy can be to update a website. there are a whole bunch of default themes available but as you can see you can make your own with some basic knowledge of cascading style sheets an an idea. this software turned my website into what it is today and allowed me to stop spending so much time making new pages and linking everything together. it makes it so very easy for me to update which lets me focus on the content of the site more so than the coding and all that.

so the reason that i am posting all of this is to mention that there is a new version that is coming out soon that looks amazing! i am very exited to get my hands on this great looking update to this already wonderful software. if there is anyone out there that is looking for some easy to use software that is secretly very powerful if you dig into it i would suggest you check this out! the new version comes out in early october.

here is a link to the product info page.

any guesses to as what this is? i give you a hint: its a game. ill have more on this mystery in the coming day or two.

i have a link to this great podcast on kyoto japan on the links page and it tells a bit about why i like the podcast so i wont get into that here. its an amazing listen and ive been subscribed to this one since episode three i believe. i decided one day that i might be able to help out and revamp the title graphic for the podcast as well as the title on the web page for the podcast. well, turns out is a really nice guy and he ended up really liking it and so i designed him a full set for both the english and japanese versions of the site as well as the album artwork main image for the podcast itself. i will also be making his graphic for a new podcast that he is starting that is about Cairns Australia. just thought i would point you in the direction of this great podcast and show off a little of my work. i want to post something here about something called a facecast that tim (the host) has come up with. more on that as soon as i get a chance to do a write up.

heres a link to the kyoto podcast page.

(check out the newest episode #13, he talkes about the new images and twistedsun.net!)

some researchers have finally found a giant squid alive in its natural habitat. they found this amazing squid nearly 3,000 ft under the surface of the north pacific ocean. it was roughly 25 feet long! how cool is that? there was no video of the occurrence but they did get 500 or so photos during what was evidently quite a struggle between the scientists and the squid. it started to sound like a botched steve zissou adventure after i found out that the poor squid lost a tentacle in the struggle to hold the squid down. until now giant squid have only been found dead or dying. its amazing that it took so long to find one of these mythical creatures in the wild. heres a link to the national geographic article.

Over the last few weeks i have come across a couple of painting / illustration programs for mac os x. (one of which is also available for windows) i think they are both a lot of fun to tinker around with and i thought i would share.


• the first is one i came across today actually, its called pixen and it is donationware that is made for creating pixel art. it features a relly nice, simple interface and reminds me of way way back when i first started getting into using a computer to draw when i was a wee little version of john. (kid pix was the best!) check it out here.


• the other app is a program that is reminiscent of the painter series that corel bought a couple years back and its called ArtRage. this is a really amazing program considering it is absolutely free. its very simple and you can get some really nice looking illustrations using this app. this app is available for both mac and windows and its free so you really have no good excuse not to try it out! its a lot of fun for anyone that loves to doodle so check it out! heres a link.

At it's heart this is a house album through and through with it's straightforward 4/4 time measures but it goes much deeper than that. I am not really all that into straight up dance music plagued by that wretched 4/4 thud that defines the genera but this is one of those albums that sneaks under my radar of annoying dance music and had landed, somehow or another, in a pretty distinct place in my mind. I hold this as one of the best electronic albums that has come out in long while. As I looked more into its origins I came up pretty dry. I can't even find a good place to recommend you pick it up at to check it out which leads me to believe that it is an album that only received a small run. Sometimes when you get into these obscure independent releases you find that some of these releases are hard to come by.

This record is solid all the way through. From what I understand with this project the artist would listen to FM radio and pull samples in the morning and then use the rest of his day constructing tracks from his favorite bits. It's great production work and well balanced mix make for a wonderful sound and it's irresistible to want to dance to this stuff.

So head out to your local shop or dig around online because it will be very worth your while to pick this up!

check this out! its a really amazing little flash game. the idea is that you start off with a big brown cube and you slowly add in various elements one by one to make the cube's world grow to its maximum potential. there are a ton of variations of what is possible to happen in the world of the cube so its fun to try all sorts of different orders with the objects supplied in the cube world. give it a try, heres a link.

what the...

if your running mac osx and love to use all kinds of fun little apps to make your computer life more interesting im sure you know of the dock space epidemic that can sneak up and take over your dock. there are all of those apps that do get used from time to time but dont get that everyday use that your core apps do. im sure you know what i mean. well i have tried all sorts of various little dock management apps, ones that add more docks, ones that stuff a bunch of stuff into one icon, and ones that are entirely new forms of the whole idea behind the dock in the first place. well i have finally come across one that i am really happy with and its called overflow. its a really simple utility that lives in your dock that launches a second bank of shortcuts to other apps and files that you may use from time to time but dont want cluttering your dock in their downtime. it is just the most simple approach to dock management that i have come across and thought i would recommend it to those of you who may be in the same position as me. the closest utility to this one that i have used is called drag thing and its cute and all but it feels bloated to me. i am all about the most simplistic approach i can find as far as using a computer is concerned and overflow is just that, simple.

here is a link to the product page where you can grab a demo copy and check it out for yourself.

im working a stage over at a latin music festival today and found that i have a really solid wireless connection where i am set up so i decided that i had to put this bit of good luck to use and post something here in the ol' weblog. i have been enjoying a great podcast from a music magazine called XLR8R for a while now and i thought i would share the wealth with anyone interested. it features 4 or 5 songs each week from up and coming indie and electronic musicians and i have found that they have been including some top quality stuff in there. it is an enhanced podcast which means that there are photos that change for each song as well as links to the featured bands web pages! the enhanced features work best in iTunes 4.9 so head over and check it out.

here is a link to the XLR8R webpage that has a little info about the podcast and other downloads available on their site.

and here is a link directly to the podcast in iTunes

I worked here and there all day to make one nice big update for the weekend. There are four new desktops in the desktop section, a new Podcast, a new review, some new favorites, and a new garageband song. all just a click or two away for your convenience. I am also working on reviewing a new backpack from an amazing bag company that you will hear about when that shows up here and plenty of other little updates to give you that twistedsun.net fix that you all know and love. till next time...

update: the podcast feed changed for some reason, sorry for those of you who subscribed. hopefully this little mix up wont happen again. sorry for the inconvenience. here is the new feed for the podcast: http://www.twistedsun.net/podcast/files/page15.xml

time for another installment of a quick little garageband composition for everyone. i featured this in this weeks podcast so check that out as well because its a nice way to hear some twistedsun.net content on the go. this time around the new track has a nice rhodes melody and some nice organ sounds. i dont think i like this one quite as much as my last couple but its growing on me. check it out and let me know what you think.

everything comes out in the wash

I reviewed Bonobos new Live Sessions ep and I had mentioned how wonderful his last two albums were and so I thought I would post them in the favorites section here. They are amazing relaxed electronic albums that have a wide range on influences. There are some amazing moments on both of the records full of some amazing bits of instrumentation. There are to many favorite songs to mention here so just follow the links over to iTunes and check them out.

Dial "M" for Monkey:


Animal Magic:

This week i have decided to review, as always, one of my recent favorites. This time around I have set my sights on a new mostly live ep by a musician that has, up until now, has released only electronic albums. I'm not to sure how long he has been around but I will have to say that his past two full lengths are really amazing as well and I have posted over in the favorites page a little snippet about those albums as well as links so you can check them out yourself. Bonobo is one of those electronic musicians that is fairly easy on the ears and I could see people from all sorts of musical preferences enjoying his music. Now, when I say easy on the ears I don't mean to cast out an insult. I am just saying that his music is so good that I feel as though a lot of people could really get into it. Right, so anyways, the album I have decided to review is a fairly new album called Live Sessions and as the name implies, it is an album full of live recordings. Well, almost full of live recordings. There is one studio track as well as a remix by four-tet.

The thing that makes this ep unique is the fact that the live material on the ep is played by a full band. The live tracks that are on here are from past Bonobo releases and are essentially covers of songs that were originally electronic songs but have been reworked and preformed live. At first, after being so used to hearing the original songs, I didn't really enjoy the ep all that much but as I gave it a chance and listened to it more it started to really grow on me. The songs performed translated strikingly well into this new format which housed a nice jazz feel to these reincarnations of electronic songs. The band seems to be right on with the songs they played and even leave room for a good bit of improvisation to liven up the mix a bit. I have seen other electronic musicians try this whole 'take your electronic songs and play them with a real band so i can get more respect in the indie rock world' approach and I have yet to hear a more solid attempt as this. Boom Bip had tried this on his last tour and I was pretty underwhelmed by the whole idea after hearing that. Bonobo has shown me that it can be done really well though and changed my views on the whole idea.

My only complaint about this ep is that it's so short! Four live tracks is just not enough. It makes me wonder if maybe these four songs are the only ones that were actually preformed live with a band. Its such a tease if you think about it. Maybe it's short because they wanted to use the type of cd they used to manufacture the cd. It is the size of a normal cd but only the middle of the disc is actually silver and contains data. Outside of this little silver ring the plastic is transparent and looks pretty slick. Im not to thrilled about the artwork and I feel like it was a waste of a cool idea that probably wasn't all that cheep to get manufactured but thats the designer in me saying that. Im just thankful that they didn't use those awful little mini cd's that are cute and all but oh so inefficient due to the fact that any slot loading cd drives such as ones in cars and some computers can not read these discs.

So onto the last couple of tracks which are a couple of b-side like tracks that seem to have been tossed on there to make the ep seem a bit more worth it. As I mentioned, one song is a new Bonobo track and one song it a remix by Four-tet of one of the live tracks I believe. The Bonobo track is a great song! Some of his finest work in my opinion. I remember when I first bought the album and was not all that into the live tracks so I just skipped ahead to this track because it was almost worth getting the ep to me. Maybe I'm making it sound better than it really is. The remix is pretty mediocre and its not at all four-tets finest moment. It is not however a bad song. Just not a stand out track. He seems to be remixing everybody these days!

So if your looking for a nice solid ep of instrumental semi electronic music look no further than 'Live Sessions' by Bonobo.

Check it out on iTunes:

i have been talking about this for ages and i finally got around to putting it up. as you may have noticed, i have added a donate button in the sidebar of the site. i spend a lot of time and effort to keep this site up and running with new content and although it is free to you it is not free to me.

i love my readers and all of the help they give to spread the word of twistedsun.net and i am sure you guys to throw me a few scraps from time to time to help out with server costs and future development of the site. what you see here now is just the beginning!

as a way to show my appreciation for your support of the sites development i would like to offer a gift to those who make a donation to the site. this gift will be dipping into a little something from the past. i have been releasing select images from my photographic work for years now free of charge so everyone can see what i see in there every day life and i love doing it!

as many of you know this site has gone through a few various versions and i have included version 4's desktop collection in this version of the site. i do however have a collection of desktops from version 3 that are no longer available, well all but a few old ones over at pixelgirlpresents.com. this old collection has nearly 100 desktop images from the past and i will give you access to this collection in its entirety just for donating to twistedsun.net and showing your support for the future of the site!

a little something from the past for helping me build for the future!

i have left the amount you wish to donate up to you so let me know what you think im worth.

in the future you can expect to finally see prints of some of my work for sale as well so look out for that!

so anyways, thanks again to everyone who has been there and helped through the years. heres to many more!

so i just read that the newest stop motion film by tim burton called the corpse bride (that comes out this weekend!) did not use film to film the movie. it used canon digital slr's to shoot each frame! its obviously the first widely released movie that used this technique in filming. they simply took the photos into final cut pro to edit the footage. its such a simple concept at heart and it would have been so much more elaborate and expensive to use film for this. it probably gave them a lot of flexibility and a really smooth and quick way to get the footage down and editable almost immediately. i wonder how many photos are in the movie? im sure this info will come out as the movie is released and people start to wonder such things but it seemed pretty cool to me that this is how the whole movie was shot. just another testament to the digital revolution.

also i should note that there is a really great comment on the post about digital photography that you should check out if you have any interest in the subject. it takes the whole idea of new technology rising up and causing a clash of new and old and applies it to other things and if you think about it you can see that this is how it has been since even the first cameras came into existence. anyways, check out the comments for more on that and leave your thoughts as well!

This billboard is brilliant! is uses shadows generated using sunlight so when the sun is out you see an image of a girl sun bathing.

"The billboard is made of 12,148 aluminium pegs, varying in length from 1mm to 27mm. Each different length peg creates a different sized shadow. The different sized shadows create a greyscale image of a woman sunbathing, when the sun comes out."

while i work on getting some new desktops up ive decided to go ahead and make my old featured desktop gallery available again. you can see all of the version four desktops now in the classics section of the desktops area of this site. enjoy!

This time around I have decided to review an amazing indie rock album by Des Ark called Loose Lips Sink Ships. This album is not one to be missed!

Des Ark is relatively local to my area (chapel hill area) and I remember seeing them play a show around here for the first time a couple years back and being really taken aback by how damn good they were and how much they could rock with simply guitar and drums and they played on the floor in front of the stage so there was this comfy feel to the rock show as all of the various locals crowded there little spot and moved there heads to and fro to the sound of the rock.

Although this is a pretty aggressive band at times they never lose control of a song and its always very tight yet just loose enough to give it a really raw feel. On the album they have taken there simple little set up and turned there music into a huge, lush sounding record stuffed full of long yet well composed ballads for the world. I remember hearing some of these songs on an older recording and ill have to say that they have come a long way since then.

I should mention that the guitarist is a girl and she can rock the guitar like you won't believe. Not that girls can't rock as much as guys can at all, I'm telling you this as proof that they can rock just as much as anyone. The drummer picks up and fills in tracks with a huge hard hitting style that is always right on. You can tell on the record and at there live shows that they have been playing together for a long time and have come a long way with there sound since I saw them in that little club years ago.

The melodies and guitar riffs are all very recognizable as there own creation and seem to come from all sorts of various influences to come together and form something very unique and memorable. Some of these tracks were stuck in my head after hearing them live and I didn't even realize it until I had heard them on this record. Each song has this feel to them that I can't seem to really put into words for whatever reason. Listening to them feels as though you are listening to a story of some sort and there is this progression in the songs like reading a novel with different chapters to listen through and explore. It all comes complete with a subtle drama that lines the whole album. Its a rock album at heart, a punk rock album at that but Des Ark does a great job of breaking it up with their efforts to make some really unique compositions. Also if your not looking for something too aggressive then check out the first song called Some Are Love, it is a really amazing opening track that shows that they can rock the acoustic guitar as well as they can the electric.

So if your ready for some amazing music plop down a few dollars (only eight bucks in iTunes!) put it on and turn it up.

Here is a link in iTunes:



Also, I was poking around and found what appears to be a description of the band written by the band and I found it pretty interesting so I thought I would throw it down here at the bottom of the review:

"The Des Ark Liberation Front and the Days of Prole Workers Coalition :: As a two-piece, guitar/drum duo we work hard to break down the confines of what is expected, or considered the norm in Independent music. With the mentality that absolutely nothing is sacred, traditional song structures collapse, standard tunings are made obsolete and the elitist dynamic of Performer/Audience relationship is made a little more equal by considering the implications of, and thusly refusing to, place ones self on a pedestal or stage. Des Ark absolutely refuses to rely on their past accomplishments for status or cred, Des Ark will never be one of those x-members of bands. What's done is done and the past is dead and gone leaving us only with the lessons we were given. Drawing on the past for a sense of accomplishment or worth will inevitably lead to complacency."

I have found myself considering this song as my favorite song on the latest album by kid 606 called Resilience which I have a full review for in the reviews section. It always puts me in this amazing state of mind because of the way it seems to make you glide through the world like liquid. I'm not speaking in some silly hippy talk or anything of the sort, well, reading that again, maybe I am but thats not how I mean to come across at all. It's just a really solid very very chill song and I think that if you buy just one little song from this album then you should grab this one!

Heres a link to the song in iTunes:

made some philly portabella and cheese sandwiches the other night. like philly steak and cheese only with mushrooms rather than steak. tasty marinated mushrooms at that. quick and tasty food. just the way it should be.

this is such an an amazing thing, these guys put out this free dvd magazine that features all kinds of amazing amazing content. i think they are funded by someone but i cant remember who and i just wanted to post a link up anyway so heres the deal. all you have to do is mail them a nice pre stamped padded envelope and they will send it back with a dvd inside. pretty good deal id say and trust me about the content, it is very very cool, check out the site for more details as well as little clips of some of the things you will find on the dvd.

heres a link.

...links for everyone. just thought i would poke my head in here and post a couple of links since i havnt posted much in the last day or two. ill have some new stuff to see on monday, new desktops, new blog stuff, new review? well see how it goes. until then...

• i referred to this in my links page but i really love this guys japanese food reviews, they are so well written and i cant help but laugh out loud as i read them. here is the latest from young fook. (its somewhat explicit for those of you who mind)

• this is the personal site of one of the two hosts of the planet japan podcast. she writes articles for a paper in japan and ive been enjoying them as of late, she has a newsletter that you can subscribe to to get the newest columns.

• for anyone running a mac and owns an ipod you have got to check out this amazing shareware app called pod2go. it will sync all sorts of useful things to your ipod for you such as gas prices, weather, rss feeds, text from web pages, directions, your email, and more! i have found this to be really useful as i am out and about to have some of these things there with me in my pocket. you can check it out here. it is very worth the 12 dollars that it costs.

thats all for now, till next time...

its a twistedsun.net podcast! check it by clicking "the podcast" in the navigation to your left. comments are welcome as always.

hey check this out. after all that ranting about the ipod earbuds busting and me wanting a decent way to store them along comes this amazing little carrying case for them!




this company also makes a really nice product for ipods called the pocket dock which is the best way to get a line out on your ipod with out lugging around a full sized dock!

are digital cameras slowly taking over photography as i once knew it? i remember taking classes on photography not to terribly long ago and we learned the ins and outs of taking photos and developing them in a darkroom. i remember the smell of the chemicals on my hands and the anticipation that would swell up as i got closer and closer to the moment when i finally got to lay my eyes on the photos that i had waited so patiently to see. there was a lot of emphasis on learning how to expose images correctly and taking the time to develop a good sense of composition. these staples of good photography are still taught today but it seems as thought they may be getting pushed aside to automatic camera exposures (which are getting smarter and smarter all the time) and classes on photoshop and printing your photos well on an ink jet printer. as i started getting more serious about photography i remember digital cameras being this crazy up and coming technology but any real photographer you might talk to would immediately dismiss the idea stating that digital photography will never replace real film. and to some degree it might never get to that point but it seems to be getting pretty close.


(this was the original photo i had taken for a desktop image on this site. i was kind of rushed as i took it because of circumstances beyond my control and the little things would not stay still long enough to snap a nice clear photo so this original image was composed a little sloppily and the exposure was a bit off...)

i should mention now that my family owned one of the early digital cameras on the market and it was made by apple computer. i still think we have it around somewhere. it was nice being able to take photos and store them on the computer but at the time that was about all it was really good for. the image quality really was pretty lousy and this new world of digital photography could not even begin to touch a traditional photograph. not even our second generation digital camera made by kodak (which does not even make film cameras anymore!), as impressive as it was at its full resolution could not compare.

as time passed i continued to use my film camera and my drawer full of photos kept piling up full of photographic experiments and the like and i began to notice a debate start to take place in the world of photography. the world of digital imaging had begun to lay claim of more and more and more photographic work. photoshop was starting to become more of a household name and it seemed as though anything was possible in photography because you could scan in your photos and alter them to your hears delight. more traditional photographers seemed to become more and more critical about the up and rising ability to go in and fix any amount of the traditional elements of photography that was once only accessible by those who had experience in the darkroom. this new digital darkroom had begun to take over.


(... but a simple bit of photoshopping can go a long way. this image was transformed into a nice desktop image just by giving the jelly fish some breathing room so it would be more functional as a desktop image)

but the debate didnt end there. to my surprise, i started to read articles that spoke of digital cameras that had begun to match the image quality you could get from a film camera. this seemed to raise question of how long it would be until we would see digital cameras out in the field in place of film cameras. i personally was really exited at the idea of taking all of the photos i wanted and not having to shell out money on developing costs. this and i would be able to automatically see my exposures, make adjustments, and re-shoot, therefore cutting some of that anxiety caused by that waiting period between taking a photo and developing it and hoping that it came out the way i envisioned as i tool the photo. the ability to see a photo directly after it is taken is the reason i decided to write this little article and ill get to that in a second. this whole debate slowly morphed into acceptance of this new digital world and although there are still purists out there it would seem that the vast majority of photo journalists out there today are now using digital SLR's. that whole transition seems to have snuck in there so seamlessly that a lot of people havnt thought twice about this new world of photography. in fact, it would seem that this has bread a whole new slew of would be photographers that have jumped onto the digital revolution of photography like there was never any such thing as film or a darkroom. sometime that seems really strange to me.



getting to the point of all of this... i have realized recently that a lot of photographers have developed a reliance on the little lcd screens on the back of every single digital camera. it would appear as though it has changed the way photography is handled completely. i now notice that every time i see a photographer take a photograph you can immediately tell if he or she is shooting digital. there is always that little pause now to look at the back of the camera and then there is that look on the face of the photographer that means either its a keeper or its one that will cause that second pause and the reach around to delete the photo and forget it was ever there. there are all sorts of levels of these kind of photographers. there are those with a pretty modest set up and those with huge elaborate remote flashes and fancy add ons. its like hot rodding their camera. i myself would like a new lens a battery pack and a decent flash but thats beside the point. do you know what i mean about this whole digital camera epidemic? are photographers loosing touch with the roots of the art form or are we simply using the tools available to us as means to push the boundaries of what is possible with a photograph? does using a computer as a tool in photography cheapen the over all art? i am inclined to be much more sympathetic to this new approach to photography.

i was trained traditionally in photography on the eve of these huge changes in the field and i have seen the ups and downs of both approaches and find that there is no real winner here. i have been using photoshop and been thoroughly addicted since version 3 before layers existed (man did layers change the game or what?? remember making something as simple as a drop shadow in version 3??) and i can admit to my love of the ability to make little changes to images at times. this said i also love the challenge to get an exposure dead on the first time and get a really striking image with out using photoshop as a crutch. nothing feels better than that kind of moment. so that said i can totally respect a photographer that has a strictly analogue approach but i can also see the endless possibilities of using the new tools in this digital age of photography to push the art up above and beyond what was previously thought possible. its amazing really that there has been this total upheaval within the art of photography and all within the past five years or so. i could go on longer and into more specific detail about my experiences with these two