Earlimart rocked the "dinner crowd" Thursday night at the Mercury Lounge -- I caught the 8 p.m. earlybird show, and one can only imagine what went down for the 11 p.m. set, after the senior citizens had gone home to bed.
In all honesty, I hadn't seen Aaron and his crew play since 2002, when they opened for Lou Barlow at Southpaw in Brooklyn. At the time, the band had just signed with Palm Pictures, and they put on a solid show. But last night blew me away: They were relaxed, confident, and all of the fuzz and fury of their recordings were captured perfectly. Hoover High School would be proud.
Christian Slater, take your crappy Ham Radio operation and get the hell out of here. Podcasting is where it's at, bro. And the new leaders of the guerrilla radio revolution are Malcolm and Jarah over at Fresno Famous.
They were gracious enough to interview me for their latest podcast, which you can download here. We discuss everything from "Fresno: The Miniseries" to handlebar moustaches -- and there's some great music from New York's Giraffes (playing Howie's Pizza in Visalia tonight) and Los Abandoned. Loads of fun.
If that's not your thing, how about "The Shining," recut as a comedy?
What do Tom DeLay and Toledo all have in common? Why, they're the big Fresyes Losers of the Day! Fresno State pummeled the University of Toledo last night in front of a national audience watching on "The Ocho." Our resident sports columnist, Dr. Optimist, argues that the Bulldogs, with their 44-14 victory over the unbeaten Rockets, "showed why they should be ranked in the Top 25." I say, Why bother? The moment we get back in, we're going to choke anyway. So better to leave us off the list for the time being. And yes, I'm a grumpy jerk.
While I'm at it, one more thing, Fresno State: Can you cut out that damn siren noise every time we score a touchdown? It looks bad enough that our crowd is full of fat old boosters who just waddled in from their tailgate parties. Would it kill you to hand out a few more free student tickets? Criminy.
The big Fresyes Winners of the Day? Residents who enjoy things such as "infrastructure" and "public safety." The city sacked up and unanimously approved a hike in developer fees. Per the Bee's report, the park fees could raise as much as $110 million over the next 20 years, not to mention another $245 million for police and fire.
Fresno is invading New York this week. A couple of choice events featuring expatriate Valley Rats:
-Earlimart, your favorite band/city/name for a convenience store, is coming to NY's Mercury Lounge Thursday night for a rock twofer -- playing an earlybird show at 8 p.m. and then a late show at 11 p.m. for the non-AARP, non-industry demographic. Expect A&R weasels to ply the group with free beer, cocaine and prostitutes now that they have reportedly parted ways with Palm Pictures (which we always thought was a weird name for a record label anyway).
-Brooklyn artist and former Bullard Knight Brian Shabaglian is back with a new show, "Free From Now On," opening Saturday night at Built (7:30 p.m., 22 Howard St.). We hear good things.
-Neil Diamond rocked the Save Mart Center Sunday night. Our spies report that there were thousands of young mothers throwing their comfortable, high-waisted undergarments onstage.
-The Fresno Bee is sending another sports columnist to the Big Leagues: John Branch follows in the footsteps of Andy Katz and Adrian Wojnarowski -- he's jumping over to some fishwrap called The New York Times, where he'll cover the New York Giants. Branch says goodbye with this backhanded compliment of a column, telling Fresno it could be a great city if it got over its inferiority complex and residents shaved their goatees. John, that's not gonna help our self-esteem.
-All you Kevin Federline stalkers will have a good time with this site: OriginalDolls.com features a veritable mulletload of childhood photos, as well as some other familiar faces.
Apparently I'm not watching enough VH1, because I thought I was listening to Lauryn Hill. This white British chick, Natasha Bedingfield, is responsible for the song that's been stuck in my head for weeks. (It's called "These Words," doctor, and I don't recall how or when it first became lodged in there.)
According to the Bee, she's playing my favorite hometown concert venue, the Sierra Vista Mall Food Court, tomorrow afternoon.
Sports fans, here's your weekend preview of Fresno State football -- submitted by my dad via email:
To: [Governor] From: [Governor's Dad] Subject: Fresno State Football
Dear [Governor], Here's my analysis of Fresno State so far:
Versus Weber St. (Dogs won, 55-17): Fresno showed some solid running and good execution on pass routes. Occasionally, Paul Pinegar would miss a wide open receiver, but for the most part was pretty accurate. Running backs were hitting some pretty good holes. Overall, they looked good.
But I saw two problems: The first was the defensive secondary -- specifically the outside cornerbacks. The were allowing the wide receivers to beat them on the fly patterns and were wide open many times. The second problem was that our linebackers were not getting to the quarterback or doing any blitzing. Their quarterback had just too much time in the pocket, and he was pretty successful. They had to rely on the passing game, because we pretty much shut down their running game.
Versus Oregon (Dogs lost, 37-34): The second half was all Oregon, and we could not stop either their running game or passing game. Time after time, our defensive secondary allowed the wide receivers to beat them down the field. The Oregon quarterback just shredded the Fresno defense and showed just how bad we are.
After watching both games and seeing how bad our secondary is, I have come to the conclusion that without some real changes in the defense, we are going to really hammered by strong passing teams. We can't just score 50 points each time and expect to outscore the opponent -- we have to play defense, and defense means stopping the pass as well as the run.
My Pick:Toledo on Tuesday should be a win for Fresno, but if the defense stays in the locker room, then all bets are off!
So, how did I spend my summer vacation? Mostly reading Fresno Famous (ask me about developer fees and the Coconut Club) and building up my collection of Kevin Federline childhood photos. Here's the latest from Pink:
And, from the Fresnans at Linkfilter, this is supposedly Kevin at Clovis West:
Fresyes is a web collective whose current interests include (but are not limited to) rock music, the central valley, new york city, chipotle burritos, "granny gridlock" and people who hamper the flow of pedestrian traffic.
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