Ch-ch-ch-anges

site news

With the month of September just around the corner we are rapidly approaching 3 solid years of Protozoic. We’ve held 2 Protocons (soon to be 3), posted a glut of content, made a better follow-up to [The Wicker Man than Nicholas Cage](http://www.protozoic.com/2006/11/21/the-wicker-man-ii-fowlpurgisnacht/) and even started to collaborate with other websites like [The Disability Guru](http://www.thedisabilityguru.com/). Protozoic stands as the most successful site Tim and I have ever run, namely because our friends actually read it and contribute to it. We hope it stays that way.

With the rather momentous anniversary approaching, it seemed like a good time to reevaluate and redesign the site. This redesign will attempt to streamline things a bit, and cut some extraneous stuff, but retain the charming (or off-putting) randomness of the old site. The idea isn’t really to sell out just yet, cause no one is “buying it”, but we are going to attempt to do a couple things pretty well so we might actually get ourselves an audience. Changes will continue to occur over the next couple of weeks and if you have any suggestions, be sure to mail us or leave a comment. We’d love to hear them.

The Hold Steady – 8.9.07 Brooklyn, NY, Prospect Park

Comixxx Review, , , ,

Hold Steady

The Hold Steady – 8.9.07 Brooklyn, NY, Prospect Park

In a recent interview Iggy Pop talked about the difference between playing music in 1965, as opposed to 2007.

“In 1965, when great young white artists in the English-speaking world were successfully re-channeling hillbilly and black music– you know Bob Dylan, Ray Davies, Pete Townsend, Keith Richards– they didn’t get any money at first. They were all broke. All those giant people had to stay around quite a while to cash in because the industry ripped them off more efficiently. The information wasn’t as widely available as it is now. Now, like I’m sure the Killers have a great record deal, and a lawyer to track their publishing and a guy to renegotiate their European cash flow streams and all that. It’s just different. I don’t know why.” – Iggy Pop

Certainly, the statement must hold true for some bands. However, contrary to Iggy’s statement, in the era of internet boom, surely just as many artists (if not more) are getting ripped off by charlatans, bandits and thieves in that ephemeral dream of making it, cashing in and getting paid to do what you love. And of the bands who are out there, you get the feeling that The Hold Steady have paid their dues.

When singer Craig Finn thanked the audience for the opportunity to play for them at the free show in Prospect Park, NY, on August 9, 2007, one was left with the profound sense that the man was truly humble. And what a show. Not only was the band incredibly tight, but there was that wild-alive electricity between the band and the audience you get 1 in every 10 shows. So if, like me, you came 3 years late to The Hold Steady, my advice is go out, buy all their albums now and catch them live.

Click here to see photos from the show.

Iggy Pop quote taken from Pitchforkmedia</a href> interview by Bret Gladstone. Click here to read the full article.</a href>

All lined up and nowhere to go

the mindlab
All lined up and no where to go by ezwal

The lighting in this shop made these watering cans look like art. The lady thought I was a little strange for taking this picture.

Taken in a flower shop in Brooklyn, NY, sometime in February. The roll was dated from March, but it was a slow month for me and was left over from the previous one.

Untitled

the mindlab
Untitled by ezwal

This was taken over by the Hamilton Train station. It’s the old American Standard factory. When I was wandering around, they were in the process of gutting the buildings and turning them into office space. It was actually kind of cool. The buildings had these old kilns in them, which were being preserved and integrated into the office space.

On the train

the mindlab
On the train by ezwal

It’s always a drag on the subway. Even when you manage to get a seat and you’ve got a long ride, you can’t quite go to sleep because you might miss your stop. You just kind of drift… waiting… I never seem to have reading material. I think that’s the key.

I had fun taking this photo. It was pretty crowded. I had a 28mm lens on the camera. It was resting on my bag and totally in this guy’s face.

I watched a guy a bit earlier in the day obnoxiously taking a million photos with his big digital camera of this old guy. Shoot, look at screen, shoot, look at screen. On and on this went. Everybody was staring. Hope he got a good picture.

Where’s the beef?

the mindlab

In anticipation of my big July paycheck, I purchased a film scanner finally. As a result, I’m going to try to post a picture a day. I probably won’t hit my mark; maybe I should shoot for one a week, but that seems a bit low. Oh well.

First up, in preparation for the big bash at Thom’s house, I present to you a photo taken at the last gathering. To me, this photo fully represents gatherings at Thom’s place. In the words of Mike, “It’s a weekend of booze and meat.” I think this picture does a good job of illustrating that. I want to say the hot dogs shown here were for lunch or dinner, but it could have been breakfast…

When I go away for conferences, by about the 4th day of eating out every meal, staying out late, getting up early, and sitting in crappy talks all day, I start to feel a little disgusting inside. I feel like that at Thom’s after about 3 hours.

A general note: Feel free to click through the picture to look at other sizes. I should be providing all these pictures at a decent enough resolution to get nice looking 4×6’s out of them if you feel like downloading them. Of course I have higher res versions too. It’d be great if you wanted to leave comments as well – either here or over on Flickr.