HOBIE FISH SESSION April 2009 from SABATHIER Thibaud on Vimeo.
If anyone is in or around Santa Barbara, go see Gardens and Villa. They are seriously good at what they do. It's been nearly a month since I saw them play in Berkeley but I still have one of their songs stuck in my head and I can't/don't want to get it out. |
"You can fault Japanese Motors for many things on their self-titled debut, but you can't accuse them of pushing a product that doesn't actually exist. As fantastical as their depiction of West Coast surfing life is, they're only writing what they know. Frontman Alex Knost is a former pro surfer who appeared in the 2003 surf documentary Step into Liquid while drummer Andrew Atkinson's a former designer for the surf clothing company Hurley. To top it off, they look like the male cast of "The Hills".
As for the actual music, you could attach "West Coast version of-" to nearly any current "garage"-but-not-made-in-a-garage act and be accurate. There's the transparent Strokes rip "Regrets a Paradise", which features Knost borrowing Julian Casablancas' megaphone and pack-a-day habit. Carefree "Single Fins & Safety Pins" takes its cues from labelmates the Black Lips, keeping its sun-soaked guitar parts simple enough to play while drinking a beer. While those cuts are merely underwhelming and escapist, their more in-your-face retro tracks reek of posturing: "Coors Lite" and "B.N.E." are convinced there's still a Jet fan inside each of us. "B.N.E.", with its bluesy chorus of "She wants a brand new everything," gets wise to this whole superficial, materialistic SoCal culture-- an observation that's been made in like a hundred jagillion (I checked) works of art in the last century.
The rest of the album wades in even safer and more comfortable waters. You could peg ballads "Oh Brother" or "Misery & Profits" as doo-wop nostalgia channeled through T. Rex, but the band's beach-bum work ethic can't muster the energy to pull off glam. It's a double-edged sword, because while the band's lazy minimalism deprives them of possessing any real strengths, it at least prevents any Louis XIV-sized missteps. The debut's boring, not awful, but until the band stops sounding like they have a hundred cooler things to do than be in a studio, it's hard to imagine them as anything more than surf muzak."
— Adam Moerder, December 9, 2008
It's been like so long since I've been to a house party with normal and friendly people of my own age that this superhero-themed fiesta in Barcelona was the funnest thing I've done in like forever.
This dude was laying down some fat beats in spite of (or because of?) his Transformer costume.
Nature Boy and Nature Girl took the cake for cutest couple.
Everything was gravy until this dude showed up...
and I was forced to hit up the tourist hot-spots.
The view from not my window.
In general, I had a really shitty time.
The famous Upper Paleolithic cave painting from Lascaux, France, dating back to 15,000 b.c.
A painting discovered in Toulouse, depicting what is speculated to be some sort of prehistoric mating ritual. Note the traditional head adornment.
I usually try not to post too many pictures of myself but this one was just so ridiculous and exaggerated that I had to share it. Seriously, look at my pose! I don't even think the board is off the ground...but for the record, I stuck it.
I shredded the Marseille skatepark...when I played Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 in ninth grade.
There was this crazy snowstorm in England and my, uh, 'just for the weekend' Sweden trip turned into an exhausting week-long ordeal. On the plus side, I got to slip and slide around London for a day and take advantage of the favorable exchange rate.
Back to Sweden
Word
Steve Jobs?
This pic should be fairly self-explanatory.
If you're into the minimalist japanese aesthetic at all, welcome to Muji. I cannot stay away.
Yeah, it was as cold as it looks.
No matter where I am, my mind is usually elsewhere. Obviously someone had the right idea.
Marais
Marche Bastille.
The food at this place wasn't spectacular, but the ambiance was well worth the price of admission. We actually went twice.
Laura, salade. The yellowness of this place, inside and out, was a welcome contrast to the omnipresent gray.
When it's so cold, you inevitably end up doing a lot of this, which isn't so bad after all.
This is me on the train. I am so excited! The French villages were so picturesque it was like someone built them 500 years ago just for me to marvel at from a train window. But then I fell asleep.
This is my first real French quiche, and NOT, as some of you might have thought, a regional skin condition.
These are two of Blake's colleagues, Ana from Germany and Crystal from Trinidad. We found them at the train station and then they left us in the rain.
Here are some bomb-ass chickens roasting away at the Sunday marche the next day. Here's what happened: we bought a whole one of those suckers, took him to the park, and ate him with our fingers!
One of these gargoyles is an impostor. Can you find it?
A bridge.
Blake trying to make a new friend.
Pierre-Renee Labathier
