[ Happy Veterans Day! As the son of a Vietnam vet and the grandson of a WWII vet, I have a lot of respect for the U.S. Armed Forces. Also, Hughes (the "quiet" half of Hosey) has a brother who has served in Iraq and is currently stationed... well, that's classified. Anyway, Hosey has much love for U.S. troops, past and present. ]
I suppose my internet activity has been lacking lately, but for once it’s totally not my fault. As some of you may know, there was a fire in my apartment building on October 23rd. Everyone and their pets, and presumably all their stuff is fine. The fire started downstairs at the (in)famous Otto’s Shrunken Head, a tiki bar that I reside above, at about 9:30am on Sunday the 23rd. It was just a few hours after they had shut their doors for their 8th anniversary party. Everyone in my building was evacuated for about an hour, and then we were without electricity for several more. Nothing a good ol’ Southern boy can’t handle.
I live immediately above the band room where the fire started so my apartment filled with smoke and gripped on to a smoky “flavor” which is still lingering today. Oh well, can’t complain. My lovely cat Samus is OK, although she was a little freaked out by all the excitement of being rudely awakened and stuffed into a cat carrier. All of Hosey’s equipment, vinyl, and computers survived unblemished for the most part. I’ve already mentioned the smell, which seems to stick to everything.
The only "serious" problem is that the fire melted a wire in the back of our building which severed my internet connection. Also, my land line. I know! People still have those?!
That’s it for now. I’d like to recap the fire more. Discuss how we finally made it onto the hip NYC blog EV Grieve, perhaps. But, we’ll see. Hughes and I are still busy cleaning up... oh! And we’re recording a new album:
Cavalry!... and I Don’t Mean Horses. So... yeah. Big news as a footnote in a pointless post. Gotta love it.
It's been a while since I've posted some of the "blueprints" for Hosey music. It's something I've been meaning to do, and I know people seem to enjoy picking at the nuts and bolts of the tracks. I'll try to do one of these posts for each Hosey track. Soon, I hope to put together a "vault" where I can upload master tracks from the songs so that everybody can have a crack at the fun.
I have been searching for a copy of this book for months! I'm so happy I've finally found it, and so far it doesn't look like it's going to disappoint. The Emperor's New Mind is an examination of the human mind as reflected by computers, artificial intelligence, and our understanding of quantum mechanics. The book was originally published in 1989, so some of the information is dated. But that doesn't seem to be of much importance, as most of the ideas are put forth from a hypothetical context that presumes the existence of very powerful and complex computers. It's interesting that the book cites speculation about the state of computer technology in 2010 and, as usual, the tech sector vastly over-estimates its ingenuity. Anyway, catch the back cover summary after the jump...
This week I had the opportunity to interview Patrik Phalen, one of two members that makes up the band Hosey. The other member, Matt Hughes plays the bass. In what is a very unique blend of hip-hop production and style, mixed with 80s post-punk–it’s easy for me to say that I haven’t heard anything quite like Hosey. Their most recent creative venture, “Goodbye Bikini Island” is available to stream online, with a very reasonable “pay as you wish” price tag. Pop-culture, sub-culture–Hosey truly offers it all.
The super cool website TheSilentBallet.com ran an awesome review of Goodbye Bikini Island. You can read it at their site...
Our good friend Wesley runs a cool blog called StaticTV and he posted some awesome pictures from our show at Public Assembly in January 2010. Check them out here.