Liars has become a darling of the indie world, especially after their 2006 record, Drums Not Dead—look no further than Pitchfork Media’s glowing review for confirmation. Their drum-based, drone-filled sound doesn’t make for an easy listen, and sounds nothing like the hacks that fill the indie landscape lately. Drums Not Dead is almost perfect, but it’s also been done before.

See, while you’ve probably already heard of Liars (the band opened for Radiohead during their 2008 North American tour), it’s much less likely that you’ve ever heard of This Heat. And Liars’ entire sound is essentially the application of a fresh coat of paint on a 1981 masterpiece by the name of Deceit.

Rather than accuse Liars of ripping off the forgotten 70s-era post-punk band This Heat, I choose to believe that Liars is paying homage to This Heat unless I find out otherwise. If you’ve heard Deceit, you’ll find Drums Not Dead definitely comes from the same place. Both records open with un-threatening, almost peaceful tracks, then pull the rug out and launch into tracks filled with menacing drum lines, screaming, and a caustic, off-balance feel that continues through the remainder of each.

That’s not to say that either record is a chore to listen to. On Deceit: “Cenotaph”, with its Joy Division-esque sound, would have made a fine single in 1981 (less so today; maybe on satellite radio), “Makeshift Swahili” is the most punk-like track on the record, and “A New Kind of Water” morphs from a beautiful, droning anthem into a proper rock song. And on Drums Not Dead, “Let’s Not Wrestle Mt. Heart Attack” is likely to be a signature Liars song for a while—when I saw them open for Radiohead in West Palm Beach, it was their set opener. “Drums Gets a Glimpse” is a slower, pretty track that wouldn’t be out of place on a Broken Social Scene record.

It’s interesting that where I heard a little of This Heat’s contemporaries such as Can and Joy Division (and on one track, perhaps Dead Can Dance) in their record, I heard a little of Liars’ own contemporaries such as (in addition to Broken Social Scene) The Microphones, and Radiohead. The only track I’m not sure about is Drums Not Dead’s closer, “To Hold You, Drum”, which comes off embarrassingly like a carbon copy of Deceit’s sound. While the rest of the record stays far enough away from This Heat’s sound for Liars to come off as merely on the same wavelength as This Heat, this track implies that the band merely listened to Deceit on repeat while they were dreaming up ideas for new tracks.

As I’ve said, I choose to believe otherwise. Give both a listen. But be warned: Deceit has been out of print for a while, so it’s basically impossible to find at retail stores and difficult to find at download sites.

Filed under: music, reviews on July 22nd, 2008 | 1 Comment »

If you have a Windows Mobile phone and an unlimited data plan, you have to get Dashwire like, yesterday. If you’re using anything else and/or don’t have an unlimited data plan, then I’m sorry.

Dashwire, recently out of private beta, lives as an app on your WinMo 5 or 6 phone (Symbian and BlackBerry support on the way) and dutifully sends out almost everything to the other half of this equation, a web app that lets you manage your phone from your computer. The data gets synced over the air automatically, so you know that nearly everything on your phone is also available on the web.

Backup to the Dashwire Cloud

Dashwire will pick up and sync your photos, your text messages, your contacts, your ringtones, even your call history and voicemail (via Callwave). And it syncs almost frighteningly fast: I had the web app open, and received a phone call; by the time I hung up perhaps a minute later, the call was already displayed in my call history on the Dashwire web app.

Web2.0 for your Phone

Dashwire doesn’t stop there, even though as an online backup for your phone alone, it would already kick ass. No, Dashwire gives you the whole web2.0 social networking aspect, like any good web app would. When you set your status on your phone through the Dashwire app, it sends the status update to your Facebook and Twitter status (and I’m sure more services are in the pipeline). Your phone gets its own little profile page, with a stream of all the photos and video you’ve shot posted up as a tumblelog. And you can view your text messages like an instant messaging conversation, a la iChat/iPhone. You can also send text messages or Skype any of your contacts from the Dashwire web app, as well as share anything with your contacts.

Verdict: Awesome Squared

So far, I’m in love. Dashwire has that feeling of something that does everything just right. The last time I was so smitten with a service was Google’s GrandCentral, which I still use constantly. Hell, it’s replaced my phone number. Did I forget to mention that Dashwire, like GrandCentral is completely free? It basically does 90% of Apple’s MobileMe service, except it costs nothing. Read: Killer app.

One final note: Apparently, Microsoft is already on the list of investors. And the start-up behind Dashwire just happens to be in Seattle. With Danger (the folks behind the Sidekick) in their company, I immediately thought that adding Dashwire to the Sidekick would be nothing short of perfect. If Dashwire can get their “cloud” to sync back to Outlook over the air, then, I’ll be in mobile heaven.

Filed under: reviews, technology on July 11th, 2008 | 1 Comment »

Panel Van, originally uploaded by ASurroca.

This is the first HHR panel Van I’ve seen. I almost thought Chevy had decided not to make them. And now that I know they did, I almost want to get one, slam it, paint it flat black, and have pinstripe artwork added to it. Almost.

Filed under: Uncategorized on July 6th, 2008 | No Comments »

Trampoline, originally uploaded by ASurroca.

So, I inherited a trampoline from my brother today. With three people working, it took all of 10 minutes to install it!

I also put in a firepit to go with the barbecue I already have there. I guess my backyard is really shaping up into something pretty cool.

Sadly, I won’t be actually usingthe BBQ or anything this 4th. This is Florida: it’s about to storm right now.

Filed under: Uncategorized on July 4th, 2008 | No Comments »

Painting my Door, Part 1, originally uploaded by ASurroca.

I’ve got sliding door in the computer room that’s still filled with drawings left behind by the previous owners’ kids, and I’ve decided to paint over them…not with paint, but with my own artwork, of course.

First of, I’m testing to see whether or not the Sharpie fades out on that paint. Either way, I’ll probably paint the door in a flat white…it’s cream colored right now, which I’m not OK with.

Filed under: Uncategorized on July 3rd, 2008 | No Comments »

When I saw the cover for the new Death Cab for Cutie album, I thought to myself, “hey, I’ve seen this before.”

Les Savy Fav, The Microphones, and Lamb all had similar album covers for their respective albums around the turn of the century.

The Microphones, in 2000
I would say the Death Cab for Cutie album cover bears the closest resemblance to this one, made from a few apparently hand-cut photographs.

Les Savy Fav, in 2001
The artwork consists of several photos that were chopped up and then spliced into one, creating a colorful, line-filled collage. It’s especially apparent on the album’s backside, where all the band’s members show up in the same space.

Lamb, in 2001
Rather than cutting out the band’s members linearly, the artwork here uses squares, but does about the same thing as the Les Savy Fav cover. The album’s 2003 US release was much less interesting, showing only the band’s lamb “logo” on a blue background. Boring, and two years late. Thanks, amazon.co.uk.

Filed under: artwork, music, thoughts on July 2nd, 2008 | No Comments »

Yes, I know Garfield Minus Garfield, or G-G, isn’t new, and I may lose internets cred by posting an old meme. Whatever. At any rate, I’ve always felt sorry for Jon Arbuckle. When you get past the humor in Garfield, what you’re left with is depressing. As evidenced by G-G:

Sadly, I’m finding that I can relate to Jon more and more each day.

Filed under: humor on July 1st, 2008 | No Comments »

Determining whether or not I have “grown up” using a random blog post from some site I’ve never heard of which apparently caters to women sounds like a reasonable enough course of action, right? Especially when it amounts to an e-mail friendly list of 25 items in the “you might be a redneck if” format.

Out of the entire list, I was able to find a handful which (kind of) could apply to me:

18. Eating a basket of chicken wings at three in the morning would severely upset, rather than settle, your stomach.

I’m quite certain that eating a basket of chicken wings would be a terrible idea. This has nothing to do with the 3 AM time and everything to do with the fact that I’ve been a vegetarian for half my life and could probably digest chicken wings about as well as I could digest a tin can.

20. A four dollar bottle of wine is no longer “pretty good shit.”

Last time I had bum wine was about a year ago. I think it was about $2.50 and tasted like Kool-Aid. For a little over four dollars, you could buy a bottle of Manischewitz, which does not qualify as “pretty good shit”. This means I’m growing up? Seriously? It has nothing to do with having properly functioning taste buds?

24. You drink at home to save money before going to a bar.

There is no correlation between being cheap and being mature.

That’s it: three out of twenty-five, and I’m twenty-seven. I’m already in a career, working at a real job, own a home, paid my car off years ago, and never liked going out clubbing until dawn to begin with. I’m all about spending weekends working on my home, going to IKEA is like going to Disneyland for me, and I get my ass handed to me by twelve year-olds when playing online multiplayer video games. But, apparently, I haven’t grown up.

Filed under: humor, rants on June 29th, 2008 | No Comments »

Bill-O Offensive? Hmm.., originally uploaded by ASurroca.

Came across this while perusing podcasts. If the image offends me does that count?

Filed under: Uncategorized on June 25th, 2008 | No Comments »

Marquee for Jesus, originally uploaded by ASurroca.

So, this truck in front of me has a tiny LED marquee under its license plate with a mesage about being saved by Jesus. Oh Bible Belt, you always find new ways to amuse me.

Filed under: Uncategorized on June 24th, 2008 | No Comments »