Instead of taking pictures all night, I opted to use my precious time for drinking beer and smoking cigarettes simultaneously, without the constant pressure of moving and doing stuff that didn’t include beer and cigarettes. That was so much easier.

To be honest, I hadn’t been to the Cypress in years so I halfway expected to get stabbed in the parking lot or at least catch a bullet in the ass on my way out, so I was fucking stunned pleasantly surprised to see that the entire building got a ground up makeover and looks like an upscale lounge now. It was like seeing that old chick who sells newspapers by Target win the lottery and turn into Jessica Simpson.

I also got to meet Josh (Selarom) who is neither black, nor shaped like a square, so I’m more confused than ever by his profile pic.

Anyway, big ups to Drew who has been organizing kick-ass Christmas parties since Jesus was a baby. Good job capturing all three of my chins in that photo phucker. You will pay…

Call it disillusionment with humanity if you like, but it seems every time I leave the house, I come home wishing I’d strangled  at least two or three of the people I’d met that day, with the expectation that it would actually make the world a better place.

Perhaps my expectations are unrealistic. Perhaps I’m setting the bar too high. Maybe I’m just a dick.

But it’s cool, because Saturday night was like a breath of fresh air. The beats were tight, the sound was good, and the people were as laid back as they were diverse. Yeah, that’s my kind of crowd.

While discussing the event with a friend, I believe the question I rhetorically asked was “why can’t the rest of the Valley be like this?”. No inflated egos. No misplaced pride. No wannabe celebrities. Just solid talent and a genuine love for the art.

Props to the Ill-Oddeo crew and everybody who put this thing together. The music scene needs more events like this.

!!!UPDATE!!!ARGGG!!!WTF!!!BBQ!!!

More pics here!

Shout outs to Drew (Energetik.org), Claudia (I want my cricket bat back), DJ Kyzer, DJ-OPTX, Courtney, DJ Radar, Diana (who’s afraid of pictures), and those two girls dancing together who may or may not have been strippers on their night off (I’m just saying).

Shout outs to J-Gruv’s Joey and Danielle, Eric @ Fuego, DJ OPTX, Courtney, and Jasmine (just for being sexy.

I. Love. Lilly Allen.

Her brash style and funky music have earned her numerous comparisons to Pink, which I kinda understand except that she’s English and she wears girl clothes and I wouldn’t be afraid to put my penis in Lily Allen.

She’s also gotten a lot of attention as a result of her strong opinions and criticism of other celebs, but I wouldn’t know anything about that since I’ve been busy drawing little hearts and flowers around a stick figure with a picture of Lily’s head pasted to it. Its going to look great in the Lily Allen shrine I built in my bedroom closet.

Sure, call me crazy but that’s what the health department said about my slow roasted “kitty on a stick”, and I showed those bastards.

Anyway, here’s some live stuff from Stubbs, last Wednesday. Credit to bmkazar for the video.

After a few pages of photos, you may get the idea that the only reason I went to the Scorcher was to take pictures of girls in bikinis. This couldn’t be further from the truth. The real reason I went to the Scorcher was…oh wait you’re totally right.

Shout outs to Marc, Susanna, Fudge, Manny, Hector, and the rest of the Fantich Media crew. Thanks for the hospitality and congratulations for consistently putting on the biggest event in South Texas!

More photos at www.thescorcher.net

With all the recent talk about radio stations and music, I thought it might be a good time to highlight some alternatives to terrestrial and satellite radio.

No, not websites for listening to music, but rather, websites that offer you the opportunity to become your own Internet radio broadcaster.

Broadcast

Shoutcast lets you stream music directly from your computer to Internet listeners by installing a plugin for your MP3 player. WinAmp is the recommended player of choice.

Fair warning:You are still bound by the licensing terms of the music in your library, and that means most of your music is probably off-limits.

www.shoutcast.com

Podcast

Beyond traditional (on the Internet at least) streaming audio, the growing trend in Internet media is podcasting, which is essentially publishing pre-recorded audio and video files that subscribers can automatically download with free software like Apple’s iTunes. And no, you don’t need an iPod.

You can find podcasts related to music, sports, talk radio, etc., and the overwhelming majority of podcasts are free.

When you’re ready to start your own podcast, be sure to sign up at Gcast, an all in one podcasting website that offers, hosting, broadcast-safe music (through GarageBand.com), and all the tools you need to create and publish your own podcast. And of course, its free!

Now get to work and start cranking out those podcasts. Local radio is only getting worse by the minute.

www.gcast.com

It works like this: Specify an artist or song to start with and Pandora selects similar songs to add to your playlist. You tell it what you like and what you don’t like and Pandora customizes your playlists (called stations) accordingly.

Add different stations for different types of music. One last thing, Pandora is free!

www.pandora.com