spread the venom

man, with the announcement just made....wait, there wasn't much of an announcement, but No Knife officially sold out their 1st show back in action at the Casbah.  Luckily, I might be able to pull the, "hey can you guy get me in since you practice at my band space and use my amp(s)....?" card in order to get in.

I feel super fortunate to have met the boys from a band that I loved and still love from back in the day.  I've been playing in GYDO with Brian for about 3 years now in some shape or form and I still remember the first night that I found out 'who he was' and 'what band he used to be in'. 

it was a chilly fall night and I had met Brian through Sean.  Brian wanted to be in a band and learn to play drums.  I've been playing drums since i was a kid so I figured I'd help him learn and I would play guitar in this band......then after a few practices, during a skate/slappy break, he picked up the Bass and just started OWNING IT.  I had never heard someone play bass that way and when I aske

d him why he wasn't playing bass in our little band, he just casually let out "well I used to play bass in my old band, No Knife, but I just wanted to try something new".

GYDO at Tower Bar with Planes Mistaken for Stars

Brian unleashes the 'demon eyes'

There I was, super embarrassed and psyched at the same time.........Needless to say, he jumped back on bass and we recruited my long time no see college friend John Foothills to play drums and GYDO was officially born.

SO....try to come on out to the Ken Club in San Diego this upcoming Saturday Night to catch us play some of our loud tunes and just have fun, doing what we do.  The lineup for the night is the following (headliner is the top band):

OAKS

Get Your Death On

Hellrancho

Sea Pansy

Check out some songs from our first demo/EP and other stuff at the myspace page.

GYDO in LA somewhere in 2006 or 07. Jon pre-two years of no haircut or beard trim.

Me with Sperry Top Siders and some cuffed jeans (wtf on the baggies)

can't catch a break

as you can imagine, I was super stoked to see the weather report calling for rain on Tuesday and Wednesday.  what's that ? you say... well its always pretty sunny and warm here and I miss those rainy fall days where you can:

Put on a rain jacket (non-insulated)

Get to work and turn off the lights (except task lighting)

Put your headphones on at your desk

Pull your hoodie over your headphones

Grab a cup of coffee (preferably in a STYROFOAM cup)

Lean back and work, staring at the bright screen

well, it rained finally last night, so nice to sleep to that sound and now the weather people have moved my glorious rain days to today and tomorrow.

BUT you can imagine my dismay when I woke up this morning and looked outside and saw blue skies.

hopefully, i will get my rain soon...

can't wait to cook

this little gem from Joseph Joseph definitely hits the nail on the head for 1) smart storage and 2) getting its owner to the kitchen.

best.motorcycle.souvenir.yet

i saw this....i laughed....i bought it....i can't wait to wear it....

scooters and motorcycles are a major part of everyone's lives that live in Taiwan, so I made it my point to get some sort of motorcycle memorabilia as a reminder for this trip.  not only did i find a sweet helmet, I found an amazing typo.   if you know me, you know I LOVES a' typo in Asia.

The Floral Lab

....just got a great little write up on local San Diego photographer Justin Lee's blog.

check it out here!!!!!!

keep it going, Leigh....

maintenance

yep, I'm still totally blowing it on updating this thing with pictures.  this trip has been way too busy for my liking.  just too much movement.

Finally, though, I'm at an amazing hotel in Taichung, Taiwan called hotel ONE.  Every room is set up for being away from home on a work trip.  Huge built in desk, flat panel TV, A/V wires to connect your laptop to the TV screen OR to connect to the surround sound Sony system that each room has...

Yes, Astrud Gilberto was nice to wake up to coming through the speakers and keeping everything mellow.

Met up with 3 fellow crankbrothers last night and today all 6 of us will be traveling to visit vendors together.  that should be interesting....i'm usually not a big fan of groups larger than 2 traveling around places together as everyone has to get organized and stuff, but it will be fine....just breathe....ok, it will be alright.

8:04 am and I'm just waking up and the crew is meeting to leave at 8:30 and I still haven't showered or had coffee yet.  AWESOME!

hopefully tonight I'll have some time to sit down at this computer again and get some of the pictures from the trip posted.

gettin' 'spensive

little bit of a travel update

....no photos right now.  I'm actually in a meeting with a vendor right now, watching Vincent argue with them....

all I can say is that China is getting expensive.

Hotel prices in mainland China have gone up 25% to 50%, costs at the vendors are going up for finished goods, and now, just now, a saddle vendor just told me that that its cheaper to buy Kevlar from Italy and import it to their factory in China than to just buy it from a local Chinese supplier....wtf.

On a lighter note, I've been visiting a lot of bag vendors lately.

Went to the makers of Acme Made, Head Porter, Burton, Nixon, Billabong, Kate Spade, Samsonite, Kipling, Oilily, and Incase....some overlap in there, but basically 3 different factories in 3 days.

Some amazing stuff.  Nice and clean factories, super advanced assembly lines and tons of manual stitching and hand-made sweat going into these things.  

china, a few days in...

there are certain things that will always make my trips to china easier.  one of them being typos or mis-translations.....lost in translation-isms.....

I've been in mainland China in the area called DongGuan for two days now.  At dinner last night, I sat down grabbed a drink menu and as I paged through the drinks, I found this gem on the Sherry and Port page....go ahead read....

yep, go ahead, get closer....

you can only imagine my astonishment when i saw that they offer a nice Dry Sack...mmmm

the other thing is that most chinese people love making connections with who you look like....unfortunately for me, this guy keeps coming up.....It's actually pretty acurate and haunts me every time I am here.

am I related.....?  sure seems to be.

back in Hong Kong

the view from my hotel room.

well, here I am.....back in Hong Kong.  crazy to think that it has been almost a year since i was last here, but that's the truth.  still feels like a home away from home.  

Staying in the trusty Sheraton in Kowloon.  but just for one night tonight and then I head into main land China to the city/provence of Shen Zhen for a week and I'll be staying in China the whole time.  Usually I like to do day trips into China from a Hong Kong "base camp" but this trip I'll just set up camp at a hotel in the main land.  Then next Tuesday I'll be heading to Taiwan for a few days and then back to Hong Kong for 3 days.

another few hotel room views:

straight out my window

Looking down to the left and to the right

history and a bright new day

right now, they are adding a new chapter to the US History books....and it will be a chapter that forever changes the country we live in.  I can only imagine how it will be like when our grandparents "remembered when Women gained the right to vote".  A time that would be hard to imagine before these changes took place.

Congratulations America.  I think alot of people will be pleasantly surprised that all of their fears about this man were nonsense, that he has what it takes to unite the country, and that he will be the leader that we need in this time.