!Concerts!

So there are finally some awesome concerts coming around this area, of course theres the mega giant its self Bonnaroo announced its line up this week. Really hoping to make it out this year who I'm most excited to see is KOL, Phoenix, Damian Marley & Nas, Thievery Corporation, Manchester Orchestra, and Temper Trap. Other awesome concerts you should check out are

-Pretty Lights, March 31st, Lincoln Theatre,Raleigh,

-Manchester Orchestra, April 7, Cats Cradle, Chapel Hill

-Temper Trap, April 8, Cats Cradle, Chapel Hill

-Julian Casablancas, March 27, The Fillmore, Charlotte

- Phoenix, June 11, Koka Booth, Cary

I hope to see you out!

I love you 2009 but I'm not in love with you

Wow where does the time go? Sounds cliche but it's so true. It always takes major events for you to look back and put your life in prospective, which may or may not always be a good thing. For me as rough as I think I may have it sometimes it could be worse, way worse. I have my health, good friends, and a supportive family, there is not too much more in life that could be more important. One of the things I'm most thankful 2009 gave me was the ability to travel. Going to India and driving cross county are mile stones in my life that will never be forgotten. The people I met and the experiences I had made me realize what's worth valuing in life. For me it made me realize that what I consider to be successful in life has nothing to do with money. For me it's having an experience and stories that make life what it is, and by traveling you are opening yourself up to more of an experience than you would be just sitting at home. So I guess what I'm saying is GET OUT THERE! Do what ever it takes to see the world, where there is a will there is a way. Also do it now while your young and have the energy and no 'real' responsibilities. You grow so much as a person by trowing caution to the wind and letting the roller-coaster that is life take you where it wants. So get out there and see the world! Manifest your dreams! And remember that everything happens for a reason!

So on to Montreal. . .Oh side note: I forgot to include this in the last blog but yesterday Nate locked his keys into his locker ask him about it, it's pretty funny. After another very eventful night we dragged ourselves out of bed to try to make the 10am continental breakfast, its always rough. We then ventured over to this Vietnamese restaurant we saw the other day. I had spicy Pho, I have never had Pho before but I loved it. It's like soup on steroids, it comes in a huge bowl with big thick vegetables and a meat, not to mention the Pho noodles. Upon finishing lunch we drove around a little bit and made our way to Crescent street where the club we had booked our night at was. Practically all the night clubs are on this one street and from the outside you would think no way is this a night club it looks too small, but man do they open up. Also right by Crescent is more stuff on St. Catherine, so we walked around and made our way to their under ground mall. This thing is huge, you go down a little bit like you heading to a subway then bam! it opens up to this huge mall. So we made our way around there for a little bit then headed back. I also had a first for me, I got offered weed, pills, and X but the guy had a card! A drug dealer with a business card, and he also delivered! what a guy. Once we get back we notice we have new roommates. They are boring and not cool, so we ignore. We then walk around for probably a good hour trying to find dinner, seems a lot of places are closed on new years eve, who would have thought. We make our way into this Thai restaurant and celebrate an end to a good year. Now it's time to rage. We go all out, geled hair, spray tan, muscle milk, push ups, man liner, were fucking ready to fist pump our way into 2010. We consume some adult beverages and catch the metro over to Crescent where the club we booked our night at was. We wait a little bit in line, but not too bad, enjoy the pleasure of bar tenders grilling girls IDs, poor girl didn't know the area code for the town she was 'from'. We check our coats and head straight for the bar. Ultra Light is pretty official when it comes to night clubs, its 2 floors, 5 bars, vip lounges, the whole nine yards. Clubs like this usually aren't my scene but hey it's new years. The music started out with hip-hop but quickly changed to the years biggest fist pumping anthems. By now the place is slammed so we make our way onto the dance floor to make asses of ourselves. Several gin and tonics later and many hours of house music later, its time to go :(. We go to coat check to pick up our coats, oh ok nate got his coat alright mac your up, mac your up, mac where is your fucking ticket for coat check. In all my new years rage i had lost my ticket for my coat. So now we have to wait until the club closes so I can describe how my coat looks. Luckily several descriptions later I get my coat, yay. Now were out side, its cold, and snowing, and every taxi is full, EVERY TAXI. So what else can we do, we start walking. About 20 minutes into our battle with the tundra we find a taxi, these things are worth their weight in cold tonight. So we try to find the after party but every where is closing at 3, so were shit out of luck. We return to our hostel and get some well deserved sleep. Tomorrow is the dawn of a new decade. . .

I hate when I get drunk and start speaking with an accent thats not mine

So after a highly intoxicating first night in Montreal we woke up some what early for what we did the night before. All the asians in our room left :( so were all alone at the moment. Funny side note the city shut off the water at our place, and I found that out a little too late, good thing the asians left. We gear up and venture over to St. Denis Rue where we spent a little bit last night. We walk around checking out all the shops, which all seem to have this hippie/eastern vibe going on. We eat at this indian restaurant for lunch, it was ok but Dale's is better. After realizing my sanuk's are completely soaked, like my socks are wet, we head back to the hostel. After re-grouping we head over to St. Rue. What do you know there are sex shops every where, this should be fun. After getting our fill of dildos, flesh lights, sabian machines, celebrity genitals, and more porn than a 13 boy watches in a day we move on. One amazing thing about Montreal is there are so many places to eat, each street has about 10 really amazing places to eat of varying styles and flavors. On our way back we stumbled into a head shop and met Sebastian. Sebastian is one cool dude and he kind of looks like jesus. He gives us the low down on the cannabis scene in Quebec and answers all our burning questions about burning. Pretty much in Montreal unless you blow smoke in a officers face they could care less what you smoke, we can attest to this seeing we've walked down the street and seen people just blazing as they go about their business. Sebastian tells us that the cold stresses out people out so they are lax about smoking. Turns out that Sebastian will be in Jamaica the same time we will be for spring break so hopefully we can get up with him. Upon our friendly exchange with Sebastian we get some beer and kick it at the hostel for a while. Following some beers we go out to get some mexican food (of course!). We had seen this place on St. Denis called "3 Amigos" that was always crowded so we figure we'd give it a shot. Canadians do mexican food pretty well, the food was good and fairly affordable. We land back at our hostel and start drinking with all the people we met last night, of what I can remember. We have a group of about 15 of us kicking it in the lobby, before we all decide lets start new years a little early and go to this bar and rage. We had to explain to them what "rage" or "to rage" meant, it was pretty funny to hear their reactions and by the end of the night they were using it too. We all head over to a bar called "Yer Mad" and continue to 'rage'. One of our new friends Tim is an Australian (there seems to be a lot of them around) who has not been home in 8 months. He loads us up on all his crazy travels which have literally been all over the world. He does some writing for lonely planet and tells us he should be in Austin, TX but he flipped a coin and it landed on him being here, pretty interesting philosophy if you ask me, i hope to be like him one day. After several, several, several pitchers of beer later most of them thanks to our philly friend Lawrence. I am on my way out when I make my way over to a table where one of our Australian friends is sitting talking to two montreal girls. Well I was going over to say good night but some how that led me to taking tequila shots with these girls. And for some reason they only had lemons to bit so thats what we did, salt+lemons=not the best combination. These girls live about 40 minutes and tell me they get drunk and then wait around till one of them sobers up to drive home. They also tell me that most the french spoken in montreal is a fucked up combination of french and english and most the time they don't understand it. Several rough tequila shots later they offer to walk me back to i don't get attacked by the out of control crack head population in montreal, such nice girls. We bid adieu and i crash hard. Tomorrow is the big show! Get ready montreal loose tingles is coming at you!

What does the inside of a polar bear's ass feel like?

After our way too long of a stay in York, PA, $800 and a new alternator later, we left around 5. Oh did I mention that when they put in a new battery that Audi's have this great security feature that locks it the radio rendering it useless, yeah. So we started driving, in silence, on our way to Kelly's place in Mechanicville, NY because there was no way we were going to make it to Vermont, so we'll hit that on the way back. 5 hours later of driving through blizzard like conditions we make it to Mechanicville. A small town but never the less it gets us off the road and with good people. We spend the rest of the night enjoying the fine taste of LTD and trading stories. We wake up remotely early, enjoy a fine breakfast, and head north naturally. 3 hours laster we find ourselves eating balloons full of heroin over the boarder. We finally arrive in montreal, and let me tell you this is the coldest place I have ever been in my life, and I know what your thinking "duh its december in Canada" and to you I say shut the fuck up i know. It's really not the temperature that's the problem it's the wind that will whip up and shatter your frozen testicles. So we enjoy some Thai food (naturally) and start wondering around the city. Lesson 1 we learned was always go out with a plan of attack it's too cold just to go out wondering. Our hostel is nice, good location, and clean. Despite us manifesting the hottest porno scene ever once we enter our room it's filled with a bunch of asians. Come night, we start wondering around, noticing that we were wondering around the gay district and that for obvious reasons our chances of meeting girls is very slim here we wonder in a different direction. We make our way in to a dimly lit mellow hookah bar and have a couple of drinks. We then venture over to a bar called St. Bock which has an enormous beer selection. We get a pitcher of a brew they make in house. It's a pilsner with a light color and a sweet finish. Afterwards we occupy some beer and head back to our hostel. We meet interesting people from Norway, Australia, the Czech Republic, and of course France. We all share stories of our travels and why were hear, cultural differences and what not. They are all fascinating people, after copious amounts of alcohol we head to bed to prepare for round dos.

Montreal? Don't mind if I do

Were back! In the next installment of the Loose Tingles saga we find two thirds of the group heading to our neighbor to the north, more specifically Montreal, but not before stopping in my homeland of Vermont, also we winging the ride back. For 4 nights we will be let loose in the only providence in Canada thats stubborn and wants to speak French, but first our adventure at the Redskins game. After a hair splitting dash to the DC Metro we enjoyed a 30 minute ride with the most interesting characters the city has to offer. Upon our arrival to FedEx, with no tickets, Nate tells me of his uncle's tailgate spot that is the Mecca of all tailgating spots, being one that has to see in order to believe I doubt. The only tailgating I have ever done is at ECU games which I think is more like a circus. After arriving at FedEx field I still have to agree that ECU still takes the cake when it comes to tailgating. After tracking down Nate's uncles spot like trained hurters stalking a cheetah, we hit it the mother load of all tail gating spots. There must have been 100 people at this spot. Once we arrive we notice the friendly man handing out beer in the back of his truck. Not any beer mind you but such favorites as Sam Adams Winter Lager, Peroni, Becks, Dos Equis, Dog Fish Head, and many more lovely selections. After we grab two beers, one for each hand of course, we make our way over to the monstrous grills surrounding a buffet, and of course not any buffet mind you. We gorge ourselves on crab soup, italian sausages, wrapped sandwiches, needless to say were in tailgate heaven. Several beers later and tons of trips through the snow over the guard rail to relieve ourselves we get a call from Nate's mom, who just happened to stumble upon box seat tickets for us (can this night get any better?). Being the saint Ms. Bounds is she agrees to meet us at the metro stop we got off at. So after filling our pockets with Coronas for the road we head back. Some drunk sprints and pissing behind peoples houses later we make our way back to the station. Once we got their I noticed a problem I had beer, but no way of opening it. So I asked one of the kind metro employees if he had a bottle opener, he told me he did (and what a kind gentlemen he opened it for me too) but told me I couldnt drink it in there, this doesn't stop me. We grab the tickets and head back to the field. We get in and take our private elevator up to our suite right on the ten yard line. We are greeted with more free food, which we indulge in, and a witness the Redskins at their finest. We leave early (like everybody else) and catch the metro back to prepare for our travels to Vermont the next day. Next day we wake up at 7am and hit the road. An hour and a half in Nate's Audi completely shuts off and leaves us on the side of the road some where in Pennsylvania. After dealing with AAA's bullshit an hour and a half later a town truck shows up. The guy takes us into York, PA. After waiting for next to an eternity for the shop to look at our car, we found out we need a new alternator and battery, not to mention it won't be ready for 5 hours. So here we are now sitting in a horse race betting facility waiting, the people here are pretty seedy (I guess you have to be if your betting on horses at 2pm in the afternoon on a monday). So it can only go up from here! Next stop: we don't know yet.

Wale's "Attention Deficit" and Julian Casablancas "Phrazes for the Young"

WALE "ATTENTION DEFICIT"

7.5/10

After hearing Wale's mixtape "Back to the Feature" I was really excited to hear what this D.C. rapper had to offer on a major release. The album starts out strong with the horn heavy "Triumph" which really captures Wale's unique voice and flow. The thing I really like about this album is a can really hear it coming across great live with a full band. As much as I like rappers that rap about things other than drugs, cash, and hoes some of the tracks on Wale's debut album come across as weak. The bulimia inspired "90210" seems like we should feel sorry for a girl that has it all but still suffers, I don't buy it. It sounds like any other ring-tone rap out there and is probably my least favorite track on the album. Wale needs to keep appealing to the alternative rap crowd like he does with "TV in the Radio" which features K'Naan. Thats really where he shines, I really hope he doesn't fall prey to the over produced synth heavy tracks that are already on the radio. All in all you should for sure pick up this album, minus a couple of radio/pop friendly tracks Wale really shines and I can't wait to hear more from him.

JULIAN CASABLANCAS "PHRAZES FOR THE YOUNG"

6/10

The Strokes have always been one of my favorite bands, minus the fact they suck live, but they still write good songs. After hearing other Stroke's members side projects such as Little Joy, which I recommend checking out, I was interested to hear what front man Julian Casablancas could bring to the table. This 8 track synth heavy album sounds like a futuristic 80's version of The Strokes. Casablancas still keeps his talk-sing style like he does with the Strokes through out the album. For only being 8 tracks long you would figure they would all be solid, not so much. My favorite tracks off the album would be: "11th Dimension", "Out of the Blue", and "Tourist". Other than that you can really over look the other tracks which sound like b-sides from an 80's disco. Not saying they are all bad they just lack re-listening ability and sound almost half assed. Maybe Casablacas felt like he needed to keep up with the other Strokes members that were doing their own thing but he should have waited till he had something really solid together. I hope The Strokes put out another album before Casablancas does.

Welcome to this groove

Well since the last time i kept this blog a got a positive response from people about the adventure and about my writing. Don't worry this blog isn't going to be about what I had for breakfast and my favorite colors. Everything I post hope you will find relevant and entertaining. I will also be posting videos I'm working on, any music that gets created, ideas for future productions, anything I find relevant. I hope you all enjoy it and keep up with it. As for now I have just finished up a production called "Great Moments in Hazing History". Its part of the improv group I work with on campus. The idea sprung from a conversation we were having about fucked up things we heard frats/sororities making their pledges do. So our idea was to do an exlax mile challenge and thats all I can say for now. I hope to have it edited by the end of the week and i promise you it will not disappoint. I'm also taking suggestions for future great hazing moments so if you have any really good ones feel free to send them my way. Thanks for reading!