Well, I’m back (for the moment) with news of what I’ve been up to these past few months. As I reported earlier, I’ve been working on another blog, which I’m proud to say has been up and running a full month now. That one was a little easier to get going since I had a basic template to work from. Still a lot of effort involved, and once again, I would like to pat myself on the back for figuring out some of the coding issues and plug-ins (and crap like that) that are still new to me. Overall, I’m very happy with how Reviews/Resist turned out. Now it’s just a matter of keeping up to date with the content and figuring out a way to attract readers (which seems to be the real challenge).

I also just turned live another 5+ year project… my design portfolio. I never really had motivation to work on this up until about 5 months ago, and as of 2 days ago, finally turned it live. I have a few more samples I could probably post, but meh… it’s up and at the moment, I’m pretty happy with that.

Not much else to report in my world, but exciting things are afoot for Kelly and Kiersten. Kelly and her mom are leaving tomorrow and heading to Japan to visit Stacy (her sister) for a week. She’s pretty stoked, and has been learning some basic Japanese over the course of the last few weeks in preparation. The question is… can one ever have enough raw fish in a week? (The answer is most certainly yes). Kiersten is currently back home here visiting (with a hidden agenda of scoping out neighborhoods in the city to potentially move to). Glad to have her here and very much looking forward to whenever it is that her and Wes can move back in the area. The big news in her world is the astounding popularity of her Seinfeld piece as of late. Over the course of the last two weeks, she’s gotten close to 50k views on her blog (at one point crashing her site completely), sold the piece, and landed a run of limited edition prints through Gallery 1988. Pretty exciting stuff.

Well… that’s about it for now. I’ll make an attempt to keep up on this blog a bit more often… (translation: See you in a few months!)

Some time ago, I auditioned as an extra in a movie that was being filmed in LIbertyville. Yes, it’s pretty pathetic that a 23-year-old could pass as a high school student, but hey… that’s Hollywood for you. It was neat experience. Lots of sitting around, but a nice insight into the world of filmmaking. The movie was pretty much a dud, but one of the saving graces was the absolutely brilliant soundtrack. I’d never really been too into electronic music up to that point, but after hearing the disjointed beauty that was Telefon Tel Aviv, the doors were opened. Over the last 8 or so years, I’ve followed their career pretty closely… with great expectations of new material… and was never disappointed. Their music grew into something more mature than I ever would’ve expected, and has continued to outdo itself every time around.

On the heels of the release of their new album, it saddens me to read this:

Hello, Everyone.

It breaks my heart to inform you all that Charlie Cooper, my better half in Telefon Tel Aviv, passed away on January 22nd.

We have been friends since high school, and began making records together a decade ago. We have been so fortunate to tour the world together, while at the same time having a massive amount of laughs at one another’s expense.

Aside from Charlie’s singular genius and musical gifts, I can tell you that he was a total sweetheart of a guy, and a loving friend and confidant to people everywhere. His musicianship was surpassed only by his greater gift to the world - his warmth, his generosity, his unquenchable humor, and his undying loyalty to those whom he loved. In the spirit of honorable mention, however, I should mention that he had a shoe collection that was marvelous, knowledge of hip-hop that was profound, and knowledge of wine that was subtle.

He is survived by a sister, a neice, a nephew, his mother, his stepfather, me, and more adoring friends than the Universe has dark matter. As such, his family and I ask for your discretion and consideration of our privacy during these extremely turbulent waters.

Yours in Music,

Joshua Eustis

I highly recommend this band to anyone who loves music.
R.I.P. Charlie… you will be missed.

If you’ve got any bright ideas as far as topics, reviews, concepts or other metal related goodness, let me know. I’ll keep you posted as we progress.

If all goes well, i will be devouring one of these in the next 5 hours…

So… I hereby proclaim… This Blog is Officially Live!

Let’s hope my next one whoops the shit out of this piece of crap.

: bangs head furiously :

Vote Early… Vote Often… It’s Time for Change.

I know ahead of time the show was sold out, and I’d swear I’ve been to a few sold out shows at DD before, but this show was SOLD the fuck OUT. Jam-packed, butts to nuts, sold out (rightfully so, I suppose, but still…). Anyways, I’d never seen Dianogah before, though apparently they’ve been around for almost 14 years. Good stuff (as I’m a sucker for bands with two bass players) though I definitely leaned towards the more aggressive 90s-sounding material.

TLAT were great as usual, though the sound was a little over-driven for my tastes. If you haven’t seen/heard them before, I’d highly recommend. Their new album Tragic Boogie comes out in April, and is already guaranteed to be in my top 3 of the year.

Hum hit the stage after and obnoxiously long set change, and simply destroyed the place. I haven’t seen them since the ELVi played a show with them back in March of 98, an they sounded as good or better than before. Extremely tight and crushingly heavy. Simply an amazing set. Isle of the Cheetah, The Pod & Iron Clad Lou were the first three songs, and they all were spot on. Despite the bulging crowds and my sore feet, an amazing show through and through.

Here’s a little taste for anyone not in the know…

TLAT – “My Last Hostage”

Hum – “The Pod”