i hope you still purchase your music, cause the death of the local record shop would create a pang in my soul. my earliest purchases of music can be traced back to this record shop in the Haight District of San Francisco. before I turned 18 and then 21, it was one of the few places i could catch acts perform. those in los angeles, can also check out the Amoeba in Hollywood.

on a somewhat related note, check out the Haight St. kids:

Firefox doesnt seem to like some of the coding on the page; if you ever notice the sidebar disappearing, then that means it's usually been displaced to the bottom of the page. as far as i know, it happens randomly. Rene suggested some changes in the div tags last week, i made em, and forgot to post an update. so if youre using Firefox and notice strange formatting issues, post a comment.

IE should be fine.

this is unrelated to the band, indie rock, and/or web design, but head over to Token Minorities to check out the tongue-in-cheek The 13 Hottest Men of Gaming, In Color. great idea for a blog (race + gaming), i think ive mentioned it before. to somebody anyway. i played through Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines again on the PC months ago and it cracked me up how "Other-ing" and orientalism informs even the supernatural world, as seen in representations of the (exotic and inscrutable) Kuei-Jin, who i guess technically arent "real" vampires, not like the others, and are approached with distrust and suspicion by the Western vampire world. never been a White Wolf gamer so i dont know the specifics of their undead nature, a quick search on Wiki tells me it's got to do with them being "revenants." ive always been a 2nd ed. Forgotten Realms guy, anyway. RIP Gygax.

quickly after moving to los angeles i learned that the best deal in town is a night in koreatown. for a mere fifty bucks, you can consume ample amounts of alcohol + garlic fries + kimchi fried rice + 1-2 hours karaokeing + post karaoke tofu soup at BCD. that would pay for only one round of drinks at almost any bar in LA. the following are pictures from saturday's exploits. note the thoroughly trashed tambourine that dave destroyed. he manages to trash one on every visit to the noraebong. i'm scared to find out what he's capable of doing to a hotel room. hopefully we'll soon find out.

i'm making an ad to be submitted to the Obama in 30 Seconds contest. featuring original music. here's a small preview.

so how does a band make it?

yeah, i know we actually wrote a "guide" for Koream but that was written from the trenches, right outta the cages, and not from the nostalgic (yet edifying) hindsight that comes from years and years of band drama, shady record deals, and misadventures on the touring road. i admire the irony of how that all worked out BUT the question still remains unanswered.

really, is it a matter of playing show after show after show at any venue you can get? practicing enough? social networking? shameless self-promotion? a combination of all of the above? or does it all come down to time and luck.

the real underlying question is probably whether there are shortcuts, to which im gonna guess the answer is NO.

(unless you have family ties in the business.)

introducing the official Monolidic mascot. don't let her small stature fool you. her bite is vicious.

fresh off the presses are the first Monolidic stickers ever. coming soon to a dive bar bathroom stall near you.