Interested in having us play your music? Send your bands .mp3s, band contact info, and a short band bio to our e-mail.







Monthly Archives: February 2012

What Society Has Come To Indeed… A Girl, A Camera, And A Serious Grudge On Leap Year

So while fishing news and blog feeds for something to talk to you guys about today I came across this which is sure to be viral by the end of the day…

My favorite part of this, is when she says (and seriously means it) “This is what society has come to” I spit out my morning coffee and knew I had my blog of the day…

I know a lot of people don’t really know why we have leap year, they just accept it, but every time we have one, it is explained on news and websites around the world, (and also… in school if you listened in class and um didn’t worry about getting two birthdays)

You see kids, our pesky little mudball you call earth, (but my home planet calls DC789F-JK scheduled for termination 2033) doesn’t play by the rules. It revolves around the sun at it’s own pace. While it’s pretty close to 365 days a year it usually comes in about 5 hours and some change off, making it fashionably late all the time. That’s right kids… your earth has got… swagger. (Ugh I hate that word)

So you see angry girl, if we didn’t add that extra day every four years… we would lose about 5 hours and change every year. After fifty years, (if you’re survival instincts could make it that long) You’re calendar would be off about 12 days, after 100 years, about 24 days.

As for the mad scientist who invented Leap Years, well it was introduced by some guy named JULIUS CAESER. You may want to look him up, he has a few knotches under his belt as far as getting stuff done. I mean, he’s no Lady Gaga or Drake, but he was the ruler of Rome, military badass, a writer of Latin prose, had a play written about him by some English guy and pretty much changed society as a whole whose impact we still feel to this day.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, if it came down to passing a bill or convincing the world to give you two birthdays… you might need to make more convincing videos.

Alright Kids, that’s it for the day. Here’s a quarter, now go tell your mom to slap you and for Pete’s sake, do your homework.

SWELL SEASON MOVIE IS SET FOR RELEASE IN MARCH

I don’t know exactly when I got into Glen Hansard or his projects, but I think a friend was introducing me to the Swell Season album and telling me I just had to hear it, I remember downloading a copy from him and playing it as background noise but nothing really jumped at me since I didn’t listen actively to it. One day, going through a bleak and depressing period, I happened to watch the movie “Once” and was blown away. It dawned on me later this was the same music and songs I had been passively listening to for weeks. I became pretty much a rabid fan, catching up on any of Glen’s projects as well as a YouTube hound searching his stuff out for days. When a friend told me about the Swell Season documentary, well lets just say I’ve been stoked for awhile. So the date for the US DVD release is March 13. Amazon is taking preorders, or you can go to the movie website… This will be one worth checking out.

The Millipede

Interview with The Millipede by Timothy Danger. [audio:http://www.meltedzipper.com/podcastMusic/millipede.mp3]

The Millipede — Austin, TX

Members :: Frank: Aural Oral Pleasurings Jack: Six Stringed Depravity/Axe Murderizin’ Stephanie: Golden Throated Warblings/T’Pau impression Dan: The Round Notes, The Brown Notes, The Deep Underground Notes Derek: Keeper Of The Almighty Beat.

Bio :: The Millipede: A shadowy flight into the dangerous world of a band… that does not exist. Five loners on a crusade to champion the cause of the innocent, the helpless, the powerless, in a world of criminals who operate above the law.

In a town full of game developers and other high tech types, they answer the call for a band with genuine nerd cred. In a genre associated with anemic vocals and cheap sounding synthesizers, they deliver to the masses what industry experts refer to as “Bad-Ass Rock And Roll”. Blending elements of Punk and Metal with subject matter such as the Karate moves of Captain Kirk, Cobra’s recruiting strategy, and the overly complicated rules of Dungeons & Dragons, along with a vocal style that has been compared to Jello Biafra, Lee Ving, and Gary Floyd of The Dicks by literally several drunken idiots downtown, [UPDATE-Now featuring lady singin'!] The Millipede is unlike any other band in Austin.

The band was formed by Frank (Black Panda) on vocals, and Jack (Black Panda, Get To Da Chopper!!!) on guitar. Later, Dan (bass, Lone Star Demons) and Derek (drums, Dead Haven) signed on when their former rhythm section departed to fight intergalactic crime, grow serrano peppers, and have babies. The band’s devastating awesomeness was now undeniable, but they needed one more member to form a proper Voltron, and so they added the adorable Stephanie to sing backups and give the nerds something to look at besides four sweaty, hairy dudes. Now, no power in the ‘Verse can stop them!

Contact :: Facebook Reverbnation

 

The Grammys Need To Get Off My Lawn…

I noticed on news feeds this morning that The Grammys were last night. I shrugged and went on with my morning coffee. Somewhere along my 3rd cup of liquid goodness, I sat on the balcony scrolling through posts and news of the event and thought to myself why it really wasn’t registering with me as this being a big deal. I figured it out pretty quick. We’ve never been fans of popular music, and to this day I have come to the conclusion that pop music, for the most part equals crap. I mean, if we trusted other people to make our choices as to what “good” is, we would be running a very different podcast. The problem with art is that it is really not as quantifiable as something like say… a business plan or the most fuel efficient car out there. I mean if we gave out awards for the best mileage on a SUV, it would be clearly printed on black and white, but dealing with music, film, writing, any of these things, we leave it up to popular vote, and lets face it… your friends at the water cooler wouldn’t know good music if it bit them on the ass. It’s not they’re fault really, I mean they only have the options that are laid out for them. They spend their time online reading other people’s facebook pages and comparing their lives to their neighbor and co workers, they don’t bother to try anything new or find something interesting they can call their own. You got to figure yourself pretty lucky in that respect, I mean, you don’t listen for just our drunken banter. I hope that we have done what we have set out what to do. We originally brought you this podcast because we thought that a lot of bands (our friends in particular) deserved to be heard. There are shows going on in your town regularly, and sometimes a band will come around that may never be in town again… They will never make it famous, and you may never get the chance to be wowed by them or meet them. There is also a chance that it may not be your cup of tea, but honestly I think I would rather spend my free time checking out a show meeting people and having an open mind than sitting on Facebook wondering what every one else is doing. As for me, I stopped believing in award shows the year Titanic beat both Starship Troopers and Contact for best special effects. I mean seriously… you built a model boat and sank it. Ugh. In other news: -We caught a hell of a show at the Texan Saturday night. Poor Favor, Toxic Fuse, Cherrybombers and Bertha ripped it up pretty good. You can catch 3 out of 4 of these bands’ interviews in our interview section. - Worlds Scariest Police Chases is coming out with their new album in April. It will be 80′s style hardcore songs themed about the po-po. Should be good you can check out their earlier demo on their bandcamp page.

Staple! Independent Media Expo.

Last year around the beginning of March, the Old Man and I made the trek to the mecca of music and culture known as Austin, TX for the annual event called Staple!  It was my first time going, so I wasn’t sure what to expect.  To top that off, the wonderful boys from Busygamer.com not only let us tag along on their massive drinking adventures, but let us share a table with them for OMBG.  It was a lot of firsts for one weekend. I wasn’t sure what to expect about Staple.  But needless to say, I was not disappointed.  A convention hall filled to the brim with independent everything.  There were comic book artists and writers, artists, indie media groups, comics, and a ton of amazing fans and con goers everywhere.  I was quite impressed with this gathering. And well, March 3 and 4 of 2012 it happens again.  This time however, OMBG will be going out on their own.  We’ll have a table full of swag (with the majority of it being FREE, a gift from us to you) alongside some other odds and ends.  We will also have some goodies from projects we’ve been working alongside and some cool things from a few of our featured artists.  Be sure to come out if you can and say hi! To see some of the major artists and events dealing with Staple! Check out the flyer below or go the website by clicking HERE.  

New Tumbledown Video “Great Big World”

You may remember Mike Herrera from band MxPx. His current alt country project, Tumbledown has a new video out. Personally, I like this better than anything MxPx ever did…

New Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Game In Development….But By Whom?

For those who don’t know, I am a huge Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fan. I grew up watching the cartoon, live action movies, more recently reading the comics, and most importantly, playing the video games. In particular, Turtles in Time. Now, the Turtles franchise has gone through multiple reboots over the years and there is yet another franchise reboot on its way. The franchise is now owned by Nickelodeon. Since Nickelodeon owns the franchise, they are taking the opportunity bring a new animated series to their network, a live action movie reboot is in the works, IDW has re-released the original comic books starting at issue #1, and now there is word of a new video game to go along with all of the other reboots. Now the question is, “Who will develop this game?” A few months ago there was a rumor going around that Rocksteady, who made the Batman: Arkham series, was going to be making the TMNT game reboot. To be honest, when I heard this news I was pretty excited. I love the dark, gritty feel that Rocksteady gave to the Batman universe in their games and could only imagine what the Turtles would look like in a universe similar to what Rocksteady had created for Batman. And I think the gameplay would be similar to that of the Arkham games in the use of stealth and quick attacks. It almost seemed like the perfect fit for the Turtles. There is a problem though. Rocksteady Games are owned by Warner Brothers, and Nickelodeon is owned by Viacom. Which would make things difficult as far as Rocksteady working on a Turtles game. Which is why there is now a rumor that Activision will be developing the TMNT video game and that it will be a tie in with the upcoming animated series. Activision would probably be the more likely of the two developers to be chosen to make the game, not only because Activision isn’t owned by a rival parent company, but if Nickelodeon wants to make a game based on the new series, then they’ll want a game that will appeal to the target audience of the new show, which will be kids. And I don’t think parents will want their kids playing a Turtles game that’s dark and violent. Then again, parents let their kids play games like Call of Duty and Halo so who knows? I’d personally like to the a Rocksteady version of a Ninja Turtles game, but I’m an adult and a big fan of the original comics which were dark and violent. But all I know is that the Turtles are coming back and I’m very happy about that. Although the show and game will both likely appeal to a younger audience, the original comics and upcoming live action game will be darker and will appeal to the older Turtle fans like myself. So who do you think should make the new Ninja Turtles game? Should it be targeted for the kids or the adults? Should they make a game for both? Let me know!!

Sumerian Lights

Interview with Jake Ramirez from Sumerian Lights by Timothy Danger. [audio:http://www.meltedzipper.com/podcastMusic/sumerianLights.mp3]  
Photography by Jake Ramirez of Sumerian Lights.
   

About the Artist :: My name is Jake My passion in life is Photography. I aim to create and express my self with the images I capture. My main focus is Light Painting aka Long exposure photography. All of my Light painting photos are Straight out of the Camera no photoshop, no editing. I love what I do, thats why I do it.

For the first few years of my photography I shot digital a canon T2i but due to a recent change my relationship status I was without a camera and was in dire need of some sort of camera to hold me over until I could afford to get another Digital. I walked in to Victoria Pawn and found a Minolta SRT – 201 with a Rokkor 50mm 1.7 lens for 20 bucks. Little did I know this 30 year old camera would drastically change my few on PHotography, don’t get me wrong I already loved photography but when i started shooting film only i realised that Photography is not just about pushing a button, its not just about taking an photo, its about capture life and creating the unseen. I used to take 100 photos to get 10 now I am to take 24 and get 24, Film has changed my view and I love it, its much more personal of an experience and I will never fully go back to Digital. Film is my Passion. Portraits are very new to me and for the time being I am taking them for free but I will eventually Charge a minimal fee to help fund my adventures in Light painting and Photography.

Contact :: E-mail — sumerian.lights@yahoo.com Flicker Facebook

 

And Here’s a Special Valentines Day Video!

Happy Valentines Day From M-Dawg And OMBG!!