Thursday, December 25, 2008

Merry Christmas From Double Crown Records!

Hope you all are having a wonderful holiday season! It's Christmas evening and it's about time to put away all of the holiday music for another 11 months or so. Here's a little last-minute chestnut for you all - enjoy!

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Christmas With Heino

My family has some close friends that live in Germany that we visit every few years, usually during the holiday season. It is absolutely my favorite place in the world to spend Christmas - lots of delicious sweets, outdoor Christmas markets, snow, Gluhwein (a spiced holiday wine that you can get with Jaegermeister, Amaretto, or straight-up) and Heino. Each holiday, whether I'm at home or in Germany, I have to listen to some holiday Heino at least once. Well, I just stumbled across a whole Heino Christmas special on YouTube - 23 minutes long!

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Crappy Skymall Holiday Gift Ideas

The Skymall catalog sucks, but it passes the time (well, about 10-15 minutes or so) while on an airplane. If you're looking for a last minute gift there are far better places to shop, but if you insist on ordering from the Skymall catalog here are some gifts to avoid.

Saturday, December 13, 2008

New York Times Book Design Review - Favorites Of 2008

The New York Times Book Design Review has posted their favorite covers of 2008. The books cover a wide variety of topics and are a mix of fiction and non-fiction. What they all share is gorgeous, innovative design - these books look so amazing I'd love to get them all, even if their content doesn't sound terribly interesting. It'd just be fun to look at them on the bookshelf. Click here.

Tuesday, December 09, 2008

Star Wars Holiday Special

A while ago, back when eBay first started up, I bought a VHS copy of the Star Wars Holiday Special. At the time I watched about 15 minutes of it, but after endless banter between the wookies in Chewbacca's family, I just couldn't take it anymore (there were no subtitles). Well, I have a couple of kids now and they both like Star Wars, but my wife and I feel they are a bit too young to see all of the movies (we caved and let them watch the original Star Wars, but it'll be a few years before we let them see the more intense Empire Strikes Back). However, I thought the time was perfect to dig out the videotape and watch it from start to finish. Now my wife has threatened to divorce me and the kids won't speak to me. The thing is 90 minutes long! It's got Jefferson Airplane, without Grace Slick. It's got wookies going "whaaargh" at each other. It's got Harvey Korman in drag. The only thing that saves it is Bea Arthur doing a Kurt Weill-esque tune in the cantina....whaaaahhh?!? This clip shows another painful moment - Princess Leah singing about the Wookie Life Day. Sit back and enjoy!
Speed Racer: The Complete Classic Series Collection

I was a pretty big Speed Racer fan as a kid, then once I had kids myself, I was able to watch it again with the newly released DVD's that started coming out a few years ago. Each DVD had 6-8 episodes in cool packaging. The only frustrating thing was that the DVD's were somewhat out of order, so you couldn't watch the series from start to finish. Well, that problem is a thing of the past - you can finally pick up the whole series in one package! It's a little frustrating that this came out after the single-disc releases, but I guess I can always sell them on e-Bay and pick this up later. (Click here to purchase through Amazon.com)

Monday, December 08, 2008

Christmas Time For The Jews

It's that time of year - here's one of my favorite Christmas videos - a classic featuring Darlene Love that I converted to MP3 a few years ago and play it alongside the tracks on the Phil Spector Christmas album.

YouTube has taken the video down, but here's a site that has it (click here)

Tuesday, December 02, 2008

A Christmas Gift For You from Phil Spector At Amazon For $1.99

Most of you probably have this in your collection, but if you don't, Amazon has this available as a digital download for just $1.99! No Christmas goes by where I don't play this at least 10-15 times - it's definitely in my top 3 holiday albums of all time.

A Christmas Gift For You from Phil Spector (From Amazon.com)

Cool Lego Tiki Bar

My kids are 6 and 9 and we spend hours each week building things with Legos. This is a project I'd like to try sometime, or perhaps an easier project, like a freestanding tiki statue. Check out more info on this here.

The Concussions w/Eddie Angel & The Volcanos

Okay, you have less than 2 weeks to book your plane ticket to see the biggest surf show of the year - Eddie Angel's Guitar Party, The Concussions and The Volcanos. The show is free!!! If you live anywhere near Michigan, you must see this show!!!






HOLIDAY TWANG BANG!!!

SATURDAY DECEMBER 13TH HOPCAT 25 IONIA DOWNTOWN GRAND RAPIDS MICHIGAN

Show starts at 9 o’clock sharp! FREE!!!

THE VOLCANOS (SURF AND DRAG FROM DETROIT) www.myspace.com/thevolcanos
THE CONCUSSIONS (TANKED UP AND TORRID TRASH FROM MICHIGAN’S WEST COAST) www.myspace.com/theconcussions
EDDIE ANGEL’S GUITAR PARTY!!! (WORLD FAMOUS GUITARIST) Eddie Angel is the grammy nominated guitar player for Los Straitjackets. Joining Eddie for this fantastic show will be Jason "Teen Beat" Smay (Los Straitjackets, The Hi-Risers) on drums and Greg Townson (The Hi-Risers) on bass. www.myspace.com/eddieangelonguitar

Untamed Youth - 2008 Reunion "Pabst Blue Ribbon"



Unfortunately I couldn't fly to Spain to see the most recent Untamed Youth reunion show, but thanks to Youtube, you can catch some of their performance. There's other UY vids there too, but you really can't go wrong with "Pabst Blue Ribbon". The go-go dancers are a nice touch, and Deke's "beer volcano" is unrivaled.

The Kilaueas Are Back!!!

The Kilaueas Are Back!!!

The Kilaueas celebrate "10 Years Of Magmanautic Twang" and the introduction of their new guitarist, Matze Kilauea, with a show on December 12th in Stuttgart. They have a few other shows in Europe, and hopefully they can start work on a new set of recordings. They have won many fans over the years with their CD's, frequent shows in Europe and their 3-week US tour in 2006, so the news that they are back in action is very exciting!