Well, after two ridiculous 900-mile days, my dad and I find ourselves in Iowa City, Iowa. Yesterday we drove to Rawlings, Wyoming, a city which left something to be desired. My dad may or may not have been quoted as saying “the chamber of commerce gave the motel a citizenship award for managing to put a coffee maker in every hotel room,” and of course, “if James Dickey had lived in Wyoming he would have renamed his classic, Rawlings.” Ahh literary humor. Anyway, we’re way ahead of schedule here and I’m just chillin’ at the hotel bar havin’ a Guinness with my dad. Tomorrow we only have about 540 miles to Traverse City, Michigan to meet up with my sister. I’ll probably have another update before making the drive down to Chicago to see Andy/a White Sox game.

I’m particularly enjoying the increased vigor with which comments are being posted to vdov.net. We just need to write more stuff. For “Mamafisch” and other associated fisch, I’ll be arriving in West Lafayette on Thursday the 4th, moving into my apartment on the 5th. I’m taking my dad to the airport (Indianapolis) early on the 7th, so if you’ll all be around then I’d love to stop by. I’ll be in touch …

I am now a 20-nothing college graduate, stuck somewhere between real adulthood and 4-12 more years of school. I am moving out of my ancestral home… for real this time, and I am starting my first for real job. This, of course, is the perfect mix of factors to throw anyone into an apocolyptic fit of introspection. Seeing as music has become one of the “Five Pillars” of Andy I have recently began to wonder how I really ended up where I am today as far as musical taste. Most people just think I am weird and somehow missed the music boat and ended up taking some kind of fanatical jihadist red-eye into “weird music” territory. So this is the Introduction to my autobiography, specifically tailored to music. I will try to avoid outright self-importance and narcissim but I am making not promises. The only thing that you can count on is that I will keep this from becoming some kind of emo-self-bemoaning rant, which shouldn’t really be that hard, because I am happy with where I have ended up in the music spectrum. I am convinced that the indie community is one of the few areas of music that is still vigorous and fresh. I am constanly amazed by the music that is being put out by people that may never be known by more than 500 people scattered all over the globe, but staring at the same site on the internet. As much as I hate the indie community and all of their hipster, holier than thou, pretensions, I realize that I am one of you and that there is nowhere else I would rather be. I am hoping that this project will engender some lively discussion, because I am truly curious where everyone else’s indie roots lie. Enjoy…

Well kids I’m off to Indiana by way of a number of fun things, and I thought I’d let everyone know what I’m up to. This Saturday at 4:30AM PDT I’ll be leaving with my dad en route to somewhere in Wyoming. We’re planning on doing about 12 hour days, so we’ll see where that gets us. Tentatively, this is the plan:

Saturday: Bend, OR –> Rock Springs, WY (793 miles)
Sunday: Rock Springs, WY –> Omaha, NE (751 miles)
Monday: Omaha, NE –> Traverse City, MI (782 miles)

Here we’ll take a one day respite at Interlochen to see some rehearsals (orchesetras and other groups I used to be in), and visit my sister Claire, who is currently studying voice there. Then:

Wednesday: Traverse City, MI –> Chicago, IL (328 miles)

Here we’ll stop, have some dinner with Andy (see his new place), go to a White Sox game (v. Blue Jays) on Thursday, and then book it down to West Lafayette (123 miles). We’ll travel a total distance of 2777 miles. On the 5th of August (Friday) I get to move into my new apartment. Yay! Perhaps I’ll have updates along the way, who knows.

I would like to point out that my filmmaking friend Jaron Henrie-McCrea who I haven’t seen in 3 years is pretty much the man. I would check out his site Jash Pictures for a small taste of his goodness. He has definite flair. It is more the kind of filmmaking that lends itself to commercials or music videos than it does feature films. His films are often bizarre, but always slick and packed with hipness. He pretty much has taken a franchise out on cool… and the dancing can’t be beat.

Although before you go whole hog on this guy remember that I watched this guy lose a directing award to a movie of a kid fighting a chair.

Here at vdov.net we have always prided ourselves in quality not quantity. The music we endorse we endorse because we think it’s quality. We have never, nor will ever accept payment to promote music we thought was crap. Although, who am I kidding no one cares about us… and if The Decemberists asked me to say that Castaways and Cutouts was the dag nastiest album of the year for $50… I would.

However, if Sony offered me $1000 to play J-Lo anything I would like to think that I would be fabulously wealthy enough to spit in their face. However, it turns out not all radio stations are as scrupulous as we here at vdov. Music giant Sony has recently run afoul of the FCC for violating federal anti-payola rules.

So now prepare for the tidal wave of “I knew hit songs sucked for a reason” articles from pretty much anyone that writes about music. I doubt this is only Sony either. Maybe the FCC will put a jihad out on payola and all of a sudden we will find Good Charlotte tanking and J-Lo going down in flames… where they belong. The best part is that acts like Good Charlotte and J-Lo were actually losing airtime despite Sony paying radio stations to play their songs. Hilarious! Could this mean that artistic quality will make a comeback in the pop music world? I remain skeptical. It looks like the indie crowd was right all along… appreciating music because it doesn’t suck is actually a better philosophy than appreciating music because Sony says you should. Who knew Sony doesn’t have great taste? So are we taking back the airwaves or slapping Sony on the wrist?

So in conclusion I would just like to say, “I knew top 40 songs sucked for a reason.”

I am a firm believer in the excellence of the internet. I am really glad we invented it. Unlike other things such as 8-tracks and Smurfs I think the internet has some real staying power and people might still think it is pretty cool in a few years.

That being said I want to praise Google a little bit for making my internet experience better. I can’t really tell how many times I have wanted to look up scientific papers online only to find them mixed in with a bunch of shi* from psuedoscince websites and highschool biology power point presentations. So Google has once again come to the rescue. Scholar is the newest addition to Google’s online tools. Despite the fact that it is still classified as “Beta” it seems to be fairly rock solid, which is often the case with Google releases. For all of you out there with science jobs… take a look.

I have two blogs of note that I want to put out there. Both of them are music oriented. The first is Rebel Jukebox which is the creation of my good friend Bob Merriweather. Bob is a native Hoosier so I basically gloss over all of his flaws, making him the bastion of music critique and recommendation on the web. You will notice upon first glance that Merriweather has style. From the name of the site to the hot pink, highschool bopper, scrapbook ambiance to the high-tech RSS feed everything seems streamlined for hipster success. Although Mr. Merriweather would probably roll in his grave to hear himself called a hipster in a way as authentic and irrevocable as an internet blog, I must say that it is apt. So keep checking for more mp3’s and music review from the illustrious Merriweather.

The final phase of this update is Dopefulhopfiend’s blog. This is the personal blog of Costa’s good friend, and my mere aquaintance from Bowdoin, Evan McArthur Wheeler. The blog is a melange of links to mp3’s and interesting sites around the internet. What it lacks in style it makes up for in excellent linkage. There are also some fun stories from Evan’s personal autobiography.

Speaking of mp3 blogs and podcasting… keep yourselves tuned here because the time is coming.

EDIT: I also just read this which is Newsweeks hilarious run up against the burgeoning “porn casting” arm of podcasting

So I was going to write this whole big how-to on setting up a Linksys WRT54G in client mode for the reasons detailed below. But, after having written the first section on choosing the router, it became pretty obvious to me that I just wasn’t going to do a full write up. The information in step 1 is still good, but past that, just go read the documentation at openwrt.org about setting up client mode. It’s pretty sweet and not hard to do. Enjoy.

Recently I have been faced with the challenge of having less than adequate authenticated wireless internet access in my apartment. Being used to Bowdoin’s network, this was a problem. Further, I can only have one MAC associated with the network at any one time. Obviously, this wasn’t going to do. I was able to find a linux distro called OpenWRT (openwrt.org, thanks Jason), which supports a variety of low-end wireless routers. I chose to go with Linksys, and I’m glad I did. I figured I’d write up a nice how-to for those of us moving away from our sweet sweet networks into a more mundane public-sector life. Much of the following information comes from the documentation presented at openwrt.org, I’m just going to clean it up and make it logical for those of you who want a client-mode AP.

STEP 1: CHOOSING A ROUTER

This table of hardware shows all of the possible routers one might or might not be able to use, along with some other useful information. I had decided to go with a Linksys WRT54G. Most of these are supported (except v4.0), so it’s important to know which version you’re buying. This version number is written on the underside of the router itself. Upon visiting my local Best Buy, I realized the less-than-informed sales staff wasn’t going to let me open up their routers on display simply to look at the version numbers, so I had to find another way. Luckily, someone had posted the serial numbers (first four characters) of each individual revision (which are located on the outside of the boxes).

CDF0 — WRT54G v1.0 — ADM6996L Chip
CDF1 — WRT54G v1.1 — ADM6996L Chip
CDF3 — WRT54G v1.1 — ADM6996L Chip
CDF5 — WRT54G v2.0 — ADM6996L Chip
CDF7 — WRT54G v2.2 — BCM5325EKQM Chip
CDF8 — WRT54G v3.0 — BCM5325EKQM Chip

CGN0 — WRT54GS v1.0 — ADM6996L Chip
CGN1 — WRT54GS v1.0 — ADM6996L Chip
CGN2 — WRT54GS v1.1 — BCM5325EKQM Chip
CGN3 — WRT54GS v2.0 — BCM5325EKQM Chip

With new confidence, I drove back to Best Buy and found they were selling the WRT54G v3.0, which was just fine with me. In fact, any of the above serial numbers will function well, just don’t go buy the v4.0 (not listed above). Remember that by installing OpenWRT on your router (third-party firmware), you void any and all warrenty you might have had on the router.

STEP 2: READING THE DOCUMENTATION

You can get OpenWRT installed and running here, here and here. Setting up client mode is pretty simple after you get it booted. Enjoy, it’s definitely worth trying out.

July 16th and 17th in Chicago a new music festival was born. This is not the Woodstock of our parents generation nor is it the Woodstock of the current generation (thank god). The aim of The Intonation Music Festival seems to be more annual. I for one am all for an annual indie festival. I think that indie rock in general is just about due for it. This year the festival was held in Union Park in Chicago, and whether that holds true next remains to be seen. It would certainly be a boon for the music culture of Chicago if they were able to establish a yearly confluence of indie artists and fans. The best part about this festival is that it was completely homegrown. It was an excellent testament to the hard work of fans and promoters in the indie rock world.

I will confess up front that I missed a lot of the acts due to a lightning fast apartment procurement, but I will tell you all what I do know. The first day was very relaxed, and nothing really stood out… that is except The Go Team! These guys brought down the house. These crazy Brits brought huge amounts of energy to the stage and were the first act that really got everyone on their feet. The lead singer known as “Ninja” is a sexy high energy diva with a huge voice. She really whipped the crowd up with a lot of dancing and her monstrous stage presence. The Go Team! definitely had the prize for day one.

The second day was almost completely missed by yours truly although I have it on good authority from several people that The Wrens were in top form. The final act of the day (and the whole festival) was The Decemberists. Now you might think that there could be nothing better that the royalty of quirky indie rock blowing the crowd away with every ounce of their carnivalesque antics. However, it didn’t turn out that way. They seemed kind of flat. I don’t think it was a problem with the band. I think their sound is just not made for spacious outdoor settings. They are more appropriate in a small blues bar or a pub. That or the setup wasn’t quite right. A lot of bands that are so rich in their recordings and small shows seemed to be a little flat on a stage in a park in the middle of Chicago. This didn’t really stop the show though. The Decemberists took the stage just as a storm wind began to blow. They played into the wind looking mighty on the stage. The new drummer they have added to their lineup is quite good.

So despite a few minor hitches that are probably pretty common for a first go round the festival was a rousing success. I look forward to next year and now that I will be a Chicago resident I hope it stays in the same place.

The official review from Pitchfork can be found here: Intonation Review

I am back from the Windy City. The Intonation Music Festival was excellent. Sadly I have no pictures due to a camera problem. However, I will have a review and some random commentation on Chicago up soon. For now you should all know that I have an apartment in Hyde Park, which is beautiful. The south side of Chicago is a crazy place and I will be moving there August 1st. Intonation was excellent. Chicago seems to be an excellent city. It has a very different feel than New York and not altogether an unpleasant change from New York, Brunswick, and Indianapolis. It is very much a midwestern city, which means it is friendly and people love talking to each other. I don’t think you can ever match the vibrancy and style of the Big Apple but Chicago defenitely has a good feel. It has the big city style of New York but the midwestern twang of Indianapolis. More later…

Dreadful Snake [aka Rabbit's dad] has his very own podcast which I plan to emulate in indie rock form. I highly recommend a listen even if you think that alt. country and bluegrass might not be your bad. It is great to hear this kind of thing happening. I am all for local/personal musical expression and as far as I am concerned this is why the internet exists. So go ahead and check out Dreadful Snake Radio you might just like it.

Looks like I got lucky. I got hired for the job I really wanted. I will be working at University of Chicago in a virology laboratory studying hepatitis C virus. I went in for my interview and afterward the PhD hiring me told me that it was pretty much down to me and one other guy. It turns out that he was able to hire us both.

So I am gainfully employed as of August 1st.

As soon as I get back from here (New York) I am headed up to Chicago to go to the Intonation Music Festival with my trusted companion and foil Robert Q. Peach. I hope to stay after the festival a day or two to find a place.

Anyone have any housing tips for Chicago?

A sampling of the 4500+ pictures taken in Africa. The photo credits go to myself, Jimmy, Katie, Tom, and even Maribeth. All pictures are completely copyrighted by me and if you want to even download them send me $10 per picture… (right). Anyway enjoy!