New Music Video from Lady Gaga (feat. Lord Gaga)

I will touch the sun or I will die trying

I don’t think I can explain how passionate I am about Thrice – but I’m going to try. They are, without doubt or reservation, my absolute favorite band on the planet. They are so talented and so creative and, most importantly, they write songs that speak to me and pick me up out of dark places. While I don’t have a band that “saved my life”, Thrice is certainly the band that saved my career. Every time I have felt like quitting, packing all my shit, and running home to my parents, ‘The Melting Point of Wax’ suddenly pops up on my iPod and what I find in that song gives me what I need to keep going. I’m completely serious about this, too. It has, literally, been what has stopped me from getting on a plane and going home and giving up several times over.

They are the one band who I absolutely DO NOT want to get to know, be friends with, or have any sort of personal connection with. They are a band that I fight to remain totally unconnected from because they are the last band I can truly be a fan of. It’s really awkward to be singing your heart out and crying at one of your friend’s shows. So Thrice is my musical refuge – the band that I go see and cry my eyes out to and sing at the top of my lungs to and have that release in music that I have traded in to work in music. The importance of having a band where I can be a normal, faceless fan of cannot even be expressed. (This has gotten a little awkward since some of them are in my WOW guild but unless they dress up like Blood Elves on stage, I can separate it out in my head and be fine.)

I actually bought my ticket for tonight’s show, which is the first time I’ve actually paid for a ticket to a show in about 6 years. I don’t say this to be a snob. I say this to show how much I actually care about this band. I could have taken a guest list spot and not paid a dime easily but it was actually important to me to give something back to a band I care so much about – even if it was only a $20 ticket. For the same reason, I’ve bought all their records instead of downloading them illegally. I even joined the Thrice Alliance – and getting me to be part of anything that says “Alliance” when I’m Horde to the core is a big deal! Cold cash and colder hearts, indeed!

The funny thing about me and Thrice is I don’t really like the past SIX records. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I think Vheissu, The Alchemy Index Vols 1-4, and Beggars are musically brilliant, completely astounding in their creativity, and light years beyond what any of their contemporaries could ever dream of producing. But they just don’t speak to me in the way Artist in the Ambulance does. Every single track on Artist can literally pull me out of a downward spiral, shove my heart against my ribcage when it doesn’t want to beat anymore, and make me actually feel something. I’m so numb and disassociated most of the time that having anything that can do that is impressive. I guess its not that I don’t like the other records, because I do. I guess its that Artist moves me and means so much to me and speaks to me so perfectly that I can’t like the other records as much because they don’t speak to me in that way.

But that doesn’t mean I want Thrice to do anything other than make the records they have been making. They already gave me that one record that I need and their other records are so fucking genius in ways different from Artist that I want them to experiment. I guess, in a way, I want them to be happy making music because they already made me so happy with that record that I want them to just love their band as much as I love their band. They can do whatever they want and will always be my favorite band just because Artist means so much to me. That title will always be theirs even if they start making country records – which Dustin actually did as a solo project and I bought that too. That is what being a true fan is to me – loving a band so completely that you want nothing to do with them and nothing from them because you already have enough.

Even though they are my favorite band, I actually don’t listen to them that much. If you asked me what the top 5 records I’d take with me if I was stranded on a desert island, they probably wouldn’t be on the list. (The Used’s first record would be, along with Panic at the Disco’s first record. No idea what the other three would be, honestly. Probably Silence by Blindside, and Deja Entendu and Your Favorite Weapon by Brand New. Maybe Where You Want to Be by Taking Back Sunday. Probably a Cure or Depeche Mode greatest hits record, too.) Thrice is the band that I break out when I need them. I listen to them when my head is dark and I can’t find any light or anything to live for. They are the band that I listen to when I’m so angry I think I might actually split open with it. They are the band that I listen to when I am so scared, I feel sick. And, of course, they are the band I listen to when I need to remember to hold fast hope. Every time I listen to them, I feel swept away in their music because its always perfectly what I need.

Needless to say, tonight’s show was AWESOME. While I am madly in love with Artist, I’m actually happy at a show that is made up of songs from all the different records. They do such a good job of putting together a set that makes sense instead of just feeling like a jumble of tracks from different records. And considering how diverse their catalog is, that is a major achievement. But somehow they work their magic and put together a set of songs that you really want to see live, that make sense as a whole, that takes the crowd on a voyage, that brings us through an emotional journey, and ends on a high that no drug could ever recreate. All without playing any of their singles!! No ‘Stare at the Sun’, no ‘Image of the Invisible’! Crazy!

And live – FUCK! Other bands wish they were that good live. I actually don’t usually like bands live. Yes, I know that is weird for someone who has spent the past several years working in live music. But I really don’t like hearing bands live. I like seeing them, I like the antics, I like the unique moments that make a concert memorable. But the actual hearing part of the show, I hate. Most bands aren’t tight and even if they are, the sound usually sucks and it all sounds like someone gargling garbage in the middle of a car wreck. I like the nice, polished studio records.

This is not true for Thrice. I think I could probably see them play live every single day for a year and never get sick of them. They always sound amazing. Not only are they tight, they have chemistry together without having to do backflips on each other or set the drummer on fire or any shit like that. They can go on in brown tshirts and jeans and blow any big production band off the stage. How the FUCK they get sounds that good off a tiny Marshall combo amp is beyond me. And Dustin’s voice? Insane. I’ve seen him sing while he has been sick and losing his voice and he is still the best vocalist I have ever heard. The only thing better is Riley’s drumming. Seriously. He’s the best drummer out there that doesn’t play in death metal and might actually be better than most of them too. Considering I dated a drummer for 6 years and had to sit through what is probably a phD worth of drum training, that is high praise.

I guess what I am saying it that I really, really love Thrice and everyone should too. Buy the Artist in the Ambulance because it will change your life. I’m so glad I went to see them tonight because, like they always do, they showed up at a moment when I really needed them and swept me away and gave me something that I needed. I actually forgot I even had a ticket to the show until Karri reminded me last night. Like every Thrice show I have ever been to, they got it just right. They even played ‘Melting Point of Wax’ which, gentlemen, I completely needed and genuinely appreciate. It was, without a doubt and totally without shame, perfect.

Enjoy a few photos and videos from the show. I would have taken more but, honestly, I was more interested in singing my heart out than documenting the evening. I really videoed a few moments for myself because they are things that I look for in every Thrice show; the crowd singing as one to ‘Artist in the Ambulance’, one of the two lines that keep me going during ‘Melting Point of Wax’, and the harmony in ‘Earth Will Shake’ that literally makes my skin crawl because its so beautiful.

Thanks for a perfect night, gentlemen, and for the best record I have ever heard.

Thrice rocking a sold out show

Eclipse posters already? sweet!

garlic condom

ROBsessed

The Edward Cullen barbie – lllllllllllladies!

Twilight Rifftrax – you’ll laugh so hard, you’ll almost LIKE Twilight

From the cast of MST3K comes rifftrax. Here are two clip videos with some highlights. Amazing.

Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Pecans

I love brussels sprouts. I love them, I love them, I love them. They are one of those things that you either love or you hate and if you hate them, I hate you. So here is a really simple, really delicious recipe for roasted brussels sprouts for Thanksgiving. You can make them with pecans or walnuts. Personally, I like to do both a bit of walnuts and a bit of pecans to make it way delicious. Another very festive variation is to do it with chestnuts which is DELICIOUS.

2 pounds fresh Brussels sprouts, trimmed and halved
1 cup pecans, roughly chopped (or 1/2 cup pecans and a 1/2 cup walnuts)
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
salt and black pepper to taste

STEP ONE - Heat your oven to 400° F. Toss the Brussels sprouts, pecans, oil, garlic, salt, and pepper until everything is coated with oil. Turn the Brussels sprouts cut-side down on a large baking sheet and place in oven.

STEP TWO – Roast until golden and tender (20 to 25 minutes).

Butter Roasted Stuffed Turkey Breasts

Thanksgiving 2 years ago, I decided I wanted to make a turkey breast for thanksgiving about an hour before the grocery stores closed. So I quickly googled some recipes, tried to memorize the ingredients, and went running to Gelson’s to grab a last minute meal. I ended up not having all the right ingredients and sort of just made it up as I went along. It ended up being probably the best thing I’ve ever made and even super picky Jeffree wanted seconds. Unfortunately, I didn’t write down what I did and I can’t even find the two recipes I adapted to make my turkey. So I’m going to try to recreate my turkey recipe this Thanksgiving to hopefully similar success. This is, to the best of my memory, what I actually used and ended up doing.

2 large, deboned turkey breasts (I used skinless because I’m not a fan of turkey skin)
1 stick of butter
1 medium onion
4 large cloves of garlic
1 lemon (for the zest)
1 bunch fresh parsley
a few leaves of fresh rosemary, basil, thyme, and sage (a pinch of dried if you’re cheap, an italian spice mix if you’re totally broke)
salt and pepper to taste
An aluminum foil bag or just aluminum foil if you’re broke

STEP ONE - Have a total panic attack because you’re suppose to be at Thanksgiving dinner with your friends in 4 hours and you’ve never made a turkey breast in your life.

STEP TWO – Calm down and hop to it. Wash the breasts and set them aside. Chop the onion, garlic, and parsley. Zest the lemon until you have about a teaspoon of lemon rind. Throw it in a blender/food processor with the rosemary, sage, thyme, basil, salt, and pepper. Turn it into a fine chop – not a paste just a finer chop than you’re willing to do on your cutting board because you’re in a rush. (if you actually have knife skills, you can just cut everything into a very fine dice. I have shitty knife skills so I did it in my blender. Just be careful not to over blend. You still want it to be a chop, not a paste.)

STEP THREE - Cut a pocket through the center of  your turkey to stuff. Slide your mixture from your blender into the pocket. Add a few pats of butter inside the pocket. Add a few more pats of butter on the outside of the turkey. Melt the remaining butter and baste the outside of the turkey, reserving some to baste during the roasting process. (You can add spices and lemon rind to the butter if you like. Adding just the sage and the lemon to the butter and leaving it is pretty awesome.) Roll up in your aluminum foil/aluminum foil bag if you’re a baller and shove in the oven.

STEP FOUR - Roast according to this chart, basting with the butter frequently. Play video games and watch Food Network. Yell at the turkey for taking so damn long.

STEP FIVE - Yank out of the oven after having gotten caught in Iron Chef America and totally forgetting you were cooking. Slice it into pieces and eat half of it before serving it to your friends.

 

BONUS  - HOW TO MAKE SOME EASY GRAVY THAT YOU CAN’T FUCK UP!

1/2 stick of butter
1/2 cup of beef broth (or chicken or veggie or whatever)
1 tablespoon of flour

Mama Dope taught me how to do this. Its super easy.

STEP ONE - ignore the amounts of ingredients I just gave you because you’re going to kind of do this visually.

STEP TWO - Melt butter in a pot. SLOWLY add beef broth and flour, stirring until it mixture is as thick as you like it and as beefy as you want. That means tasting it as you make it and adjusting. Personally, I like it fairly beefy-tasting and about the same thickness as salad dressing. The good thing about this recipe is if you add too much of one thing, you just add more of the others (including butter) until it evens out and you get it how you want it. Just cook it all over a medium heat and stir constantly until it tastes right.

Vegan Sweet Potatoes so no one is left out!

Its recipe day today! So I posted Natalie’s UH-MAY-ZING whipped vanilla bean sweet potato recipe and a bunch of people were super stoked on it. But in the spirit of my vegan recipe post from yesterday, I wanted to share an awesome way to make creamy mashed sweet potatoes that are entirely vegan. My friend Sheila made these all the time when I was in college and they were AWESOME and super, super, stupidly easy! Plus there are a bunch of things you can add to it for different tastes. Its based on a hawaiian dish called piele (it took me like 6 hours on google to find out what the goddamn name was) and it has 3 basic ingredients:

PIELE RECIPE

3 medium sweet potatoes
1 can of coconut milk (about 3/4s of a cup if you’re using one of those mega cans)
salt and white pepper to taste

Note: like I said above , you can add a ton of stuff to this to change the taste. You could certainly do a spin on the vanilla potatoes that I just posted with just a teaspoon of vanilla extract. In college, we often put in 1 tablespoon of minced fresh ginger and it was AWESOME! The classic brown sugar is always good and lord knows garlic goes good in anything. I’ve also had it with curry and cayenne pepper and that was delish too! Try it normal the first time then start experimenting.

STEP ONE – Preheat your oven to 425.  Poke the sweet potatoes all over with a fork and place on a baking sheet WHOLE AND UNPEELED. Roast them until they are extremely tender (about an hour). You’ll know they are done because they should give easily when poked with a fork. Let them cool slightly. (NOTE: the reason this recipe is an hour is because we made this in college and didn’t have access to advanced technology like blenders and food processors. Roasting sweet potatoes for an hour should make them so soft that literally you can just mash them with a fork. You can also microwave sweet potatoes for 10-15 minutes if you’re short on time and its just as good.)

STEP TWO - When the potatoes are cool enough to handle, peel them and put them into a food processor or blender or just in a bowl so you can mash them with a fork. Its 2009, you figure out your own blending technology. As you mash/blend/process/beat with a hammer, slowly add the coconut milk, salt, pepper, and whatever other delicious extras you’re trying out. The coconut milk will give it the creamy consistency and fatty-like feeling while still being totally vegan and pretty low in fat (especially if you use lite coconut milk.)

And that is it! Two steps! Its easy and, like the other recipe, can be made in advance so you can refrigerate and reheat it at party time!

The actual BEST sweet potato recipe EVER!

So, I am obviously getting stoked for Thanksgiving and planning the delicious noms I am going to make. One of the things that is totally traditional in any Thanksgiving spread is sweet potatoes… but we never had it at my Thanksgiving growing up. I didn’t have a lot of things, like pumpkin pie and… well, just sweet potatoes and pumpkin pie, really. My point is, I have never been a huge fan of sweet potatoes. I only started eating them recently and I’m pretty picky about what I think is good. I’ll try them if someone else gets them at a four-star restaurant (or at Roscoe’s because anything there is AWESOME) but if you bring me home to feed me your mom’s sweet potato recipe, I’ll probably pass. They certainly aren’t something I’d ever order or make on my own.

With all of that backstory, your mind should be appropriately blown when I say that my friend Natalie made THE BEST whipped sweet potatoes in the history of food and I could happily eat them every day for a year and never get sick of them. When she debuted them, my office went from looking like this:

To this:

Well, it looked sort of like that. Just imagine the bloody, disemboweled corpse as a bowl of delicious sweet potatoes. It was still pretty bloody, though.

After devouring every last scrap of sweet potato-y goodness, we begged Natalie for the recipe so that we can all make it every day for Thanksgiving. It is so delicious that first I thought I could sell the recipe to Congress as a way to bail our nation out of this economic crisis but after the 5th congressional aide hung up on me for “wasting their time with an un-funny joke”, I gave up my get-rich-quick scheme and decided to share it with everyone! Viva la communist recipe!

Sorry, I’ve been watching South Park all day.

My point is, this recipe is totally delicious and pretty easy to make. The original recipe was printed in a Food & Wine cookbook but Natalie adapted it slightly to make it more delicious. This is her recipe which I endorse with giant gold stars. It is super simple and I tried to lay it out in easy to follow steps with pretty pictures to make it interesting. Trust me when I say that it is delicious enough that it justifies my long-winded prologue to the actual recipe.

Vanilla Bean Whipped Sweet Potatoes ala Nati

4 lbs sweet potatoes (The garnet or jewel varieties are highly recommended)
1 cup heavy cream
4 tablespoons butter
1/2 vanilla bean (or a 1 tablespoon of vanilla extract if you’re broke)
1/2 cup brown sugar (you can add more if you want it sweeter)
Salt and pepper to taste

Note That I Couldn’t Cram Up There: The Food and Wine recipe uses for heavy cream but Natalie used Half and Half and it was AWESOME. You could probably use whole milk if you are a super fat-conscious nutball but don’t use skim or low fat. The aromatics in vanilla are fat-soluble so you will lose most of the flavor. If you use the vanilla extract, you might be able to get away with it but stop being afraid of fat and buy some cream!

Another Note: Don’t try and save time by boiling or steaming the sweet potatoes because it sucks all the flavor out of them.

STEP ONE – Preheat your oven to 400F. Poke the sweet potatoes all over with a fork and place on a baking sheet WHOLE AND UNPEELED. Roast them until they are extremely tender (about 35 minutes). You’ll know they are done because they should give easily when poked with a fork. Let them cool slightly.

STEP TWO – While the sweet potatoes are cooling, place the cream and butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Split the vanilla bean down the middle and scrape the seeds into the cream and butter mixture. Add the pod as well (or dump the vanilla extract in if you’re broke) and bring the mixture to a simmer. Remove from heat and allow the vanilla to steep in the liquid while the potatoes finish roasting, stirring occasionally so that you don’t get a weird film on the surface. Remove the pod and rewarm before proceeding if necessary.

STEP THREE – When the potatoes are cool enough to handle, peel them and put them into a food processor. (You could probably do it in a blender too.) Puree until slightly smooth. With the machine running, slowly add the vanilla-cream mixture and process more. Add the salt, pepper, and brown sugar until it is as sweet as you want it then blend/process until completely smooth. Scrape it out and eat the hell out of it! You can also make it a day ahead of time and refrigerate it. It reheats REALLY well so if you are planning on doing this for Thanksgiving, like me, do it the night before and save yourself the headache.