ips.com blog page

2010

noreply@blogger.com (innerpartysystem) — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 17:46:00 +0000

With the onslaught of work that has engulfed the life of everyone apart of the IPS family, I haven't had enough time to properly think out any blog rants as of late. Sorry to deprive everyone of a useless opinion, I'm sure you are all epically bummed. I've been spending a majority of my time combing through music for our next mixtape, as well as getting a few DJ sets together. Here's a few of my favorites right now.

Moderat "Rusty Nails" from Pfadfinderei on Vimeo.

This video is by Moderat. It's group consisting of the German electronic groups Modeselektor and Apparat. While the name is wildly unclever, the music and video that comes from this project, as well as both groups respectively are usually nothing short of amazing.

I've yelled about Apparat before on this blog, my personal fav is a song called Komponent, I particularly love Telefon Tel Aviv's remix of Komponent which you can hear on his myspace

Also check out Modeselektor, some of it can be super weird and little too German for me, but most of it I would deposit into the "slay" catagory.

I Stumbled across Bon Iver a little while back during one of my many thefts of Jesse's iPod. Listen to Flumes Love this guys voice.

Also been wanting to post this on its own. This is a remix of "She Loves Me So" by Anthony Green that Patrick did a while ago. I posted this a few months ago in a mix I made, but wanted to put it up for anyone that wanted just the song. That link is only good for a week. So get at it.

Here's a few more that rule

-jared

pactour

noreply@blogger.com (innerpartysystem) — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 06:20:00 +0000

It's been a while since I posted. I haven't forgotten about this blog, I swear. It's just been a long tour, in a good way, well in a bad way too. So it's been good and bad. Gosh! I sound so vague, it's almost like a have a shit load to say but can't! I guess I'll just stick to typing sentences with no real meaning, but still work as filler if I add a lot of exclamation points!! ZOMG!

There hasn't been a better group of dudes to share a van with than POS and his DJ Plain Ole' Bill. It's been ride after ride of excessive laughter, and nonstop bullying of our English tour manager, Danny Vance.

We are currently all in the same hotel room, arguing over what toppings we want on our 4 pizza's we are about to order. Needless to say things are getting heated. I can't type long. Here's a few pics I managed to snap over the last few weeks.

I ate 5 Guys for the first time today. Righteous Burgers
Before Face Swap App on my iPhone
After

BeforeAfter

Best looking set of cupcakes ever. Thanks Lucie Shelton!
Going....going.....

gone.

Another awesome batch of cookies courtesy of Livy in Pittsburg!
New toy.
Deadmau5. Fillmore. Detroit.

Chicago.

There's more to this I know....
Late night bummer.
Absolutely fucking nothing but Doom Tree.

Yeah, that all sounds pretty cool, but, where's the food.

noreply@blogger.com (innerpartysystem) — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 05:44:00 +0000

I've been trying to tape this downtempo set all week to show everyone, specifically the Waiting Time, but it has never worked out. We usually remember to record it directly after we finish practicing, and then its hard to recreate the mood once you have finished. I'm going to try and get it up before we leave on Thursday. But as usual, I can't make any promises.

This coming week will be a busy one for all of us. We are going to leave on Thursday to head out to play our two headlining shows in Cleveland and Iowa City, and have much to do before then. Most importantly, we have to hook up our PS3 in the van with a TV. I have to say, Playstation nailed it when they added a USB drive and a hard drive to their system. We have spent the better part of the last two months downloading seasons of all of our favorite shows onto the Playstation. We have literally every series one could possibly want to watch. There's almost no reason to even have cable anymore. If there is something remotely entertaining on TV you can believe some nerd somewhere took the time to organize and upload all the episodes in one convenient file somewhere for us and all the other cyber pirates to find and steal. Why anyone takes the time to make a torrent I don't know. There is no reward of any kind. You don't make any money off of it, and you want really gain any sort of Internet popularity. No one is going to praise you because you have the best quality movie bootlegs. Maybe people make media user friendly to steal solely for fun? I have a hard time believing that someone has nothing better to do besides convert and categorize MP3's. Who knows. At any rate, I'm certainly appreciative.

Consequently, stealing music is, in a round about way, starting to effect us. Since pirating became a normal thing to do, record labels have been making less and less money. Which in turn effects us because, now no unnecessary spending takes place. The days of some dude at a major label that is trying to sign us taking us to $1,000 dinners are over. With the budget crunches most labels have suffered, it seems they actually have to start spending semi-wisely. What a bummer. With every song I illegally download, another $50 spicy tuna roll disappears from my future. The new Rammstien album has leaked, but I feel that if I download it, I may never get to spend 400 dollars of Island Def Jam money at a strip club in Austin again. Next time I try to download the Hall and Oats discography I may think twice, for next time we sit with an A&R guy and talk numbers, it may be over a whopper with cheese instead of a plate of four cheese ravioli that costs more than my car. See what we have done? All this illegal downloading has sent the music industry into a frenzy of rational spending. Damn.

Onto things of less suckage. My favorite DJ's right now, Glitch Mob. Guerrilla Djing on the streets of San Fran.

Good tunes

aklsdhflkjahsdfkjhaslkdjfd

noreply@blogger.com (innerpartysystem) — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 05:43:00 +0000

Mohnton to Los Angeles with two stops on the way = 3,100 miles.

Two days off in LA = awesome.

LA to Chico = 500 miles.

Chico to San Fran = 250 miles.

San Fran to Portland 750 miles.

Portland to Seattle = 215 miles.

Seattle to Salt Lake City = 850 miles.

We are just finishing the drive to Salt Lake City Utah now. Directly after we play tonight, we must leave to do an overnight drive to Denver = 550 miles.

Tomorrow after we play we Denver, we must do another overnight drive to Kansas City = 600 miles.

I have spent the better part of the last two weeks of my life in the van. I can't complain though, it's not like we don't know how it is by now. The Western part of the country is really spread out, and hell drives are just a part of life. Laugh as much as you can, listen to a lot of music, or in our case, get Skate 2 for Xbox and play the shit out of it.

When you are crammed in the van with 7 other dudes, a routine thing like stopping for gas is always a treat. Hopefully there is a subway that has the veggie patty. Hopefully they have a full stock of Diet Mountain Dew, because chances are, me and Andy are going to raid that shit. I get really excited when there is a Flying J coming up, I noticed last night that corn dogs where 2 for 2 bucks. killer.

Another exciting stop is Guitar Center. Well, it's a blessing and a curse at the same time. Let me explain. For those of you who aren't familiar, Guitar Center is a music store Chain that is spread out all over the US. There is a similar competitor called Sam Ash which is pretty much the same thing, but for some reason we frequent the GC, I'm not sure why, maybe there is more of them. The fantastic thing about Guitar Center is that they have pretty much every normal thing you would need for tour. Like a Wal-Mart for instruments. It's great, in theory. You break a cymbal, need drum sticks, strings, cords, whatever, you can type this place in any GPS, and 99% of the time, there is going to be one on the way to the next town we are playing. The massive bummer about this place, and when I mean massive bummer, I MEAN massive bummer, a bummer of epic proportions. A bummer so big in fact it almost deters me from entering the building. A bummer, so bumming, that it makes me contemplate going into the woods to find twigs and whittle my own drum sticks instead of purchasing them from the store.

The are multiple parts to this bummer.

Bummer 1) The employees work on commission. Which normally I can take. When I roll into Stan's used car lot and I've got a some cash and don't know what car I want, then yeah, a sales man is something that appeals to me. But look, not trying to sound cocky, just speaking the truth. We do this EVERYDAY. We know exactly what we want. I always use to the same stuff. All the stores are set up almost exactly the same, so even know where to find what I need.

If you think you are rolling in there grabbing a drum head and getting right out, you are mistaken.

First you need to get past the 7 "Hello's"/"Can I help you with anything" questions that will hit you on the way in. A gauntlet of helpfulness that has no bearing on my situation. They could rid the franchise of this problem if they had some sort of name tag you could pick up when you walked in that said, "I KNOW WHAT I WANT, DON'T TALK TO ME". Problem solved? Wrong. After you pick what you need then the real problem starts. Todd the cashier is checking me out at the sales desk and asks for my name, if I am already in the system they have all my info stored. Once Todd the cashier sees I'm from out of town, I'm fucked. Dead where I stand.

"Are you in a band?"
"Yes."
"Are you on tour?" asks Todd.
"Yes Todd, I'm on tour."
"What's the band's name?
"inner....party....system"
"Oh cool"

They always give that same nervous nod/smile that insinuates they don't know who IPS is, and for some reason feel bad about it. I usually squash this awkwardness before it starts and say,

"We are called innerpartysystem, you haven't heard of us, it's cool, I'll be paying with credit. "

"Sooo, where are you playing tonight?"

I answer saying whatever venue we are playing that night, and EVERYTIME he replies with this. It never fails, as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow, this dude answer with this....

"Oh cool, my band just played there last week, Tell Pete I said hi."

What? Are you kidding? Again? I feel like I'm Bill Murray in Groundhog Day but instead of getting stuck in some small town in Pennsylvania with a slight chance of banging a hot news broadcaster, I'm stuck in Guitar Center perpetually getting asked the same question. And who the fuck is Pete? Whatever. Todd hasn't said the name of his band yet, but Im sure its called Desert Eagle or Misery Void or some shit, and judging by his long hair and soul patch, this dude loves to shred. I gotta get the hell out of here.

Bummer 2) This next bummer is a combo of a few bummers that interchangeably become one super bummer, and most of the time inhibit you from being able to ask any questions if you need too. These situations are always so right on, that we take bets in the van as to which one will occur.

Scenario One. Mr. Mills is an accountant, or a history teacher and knows nothing about music. He has noticed his 11 year old son getting interested in rock music, so he thought he'd purchase junior a a Fender Squire for his 12th birthday. While he's asking a bunch of questions he doesn't understand the answer too, his 3 year old son has wandered over to the drum department and has found that hitting sticks against drums RULES. He persists with his banging until I leave. I know that doesn't sound like a big deal, but I swear to you it happens every time, in every city. As if they have hired a father and son to stay in the store all day to make noise so no one would want to stay there too long. I guess it keeps the customers moving. Good call. I totally wanted kids before I started frequenting guitar center.

Scenario Two. If we have a few minutes to burn, its always fun to hit up the Pro Audio section and play with a few new pieces of gear. That's when you will most likely run into some dude killing it on a Korg Triton. Ripping the lead to "The Way I are" by Timbaland. Simultaneously dancing and day dreaming about sitting side by side with Timbaland or Dre, dropping the next hot beat. If you walk by closely sometimes you can hear him quietly singing to himself, " I ain't got no money.....I ain't got no car to take you on a date......"

Team this up with Scenario Three, which is another dude in the amp section SLAYING a BC Rich. And when I mean slaying, I mean slaying. These dudes are usually really good at shredding, some Joe Satriani shit. They have no thought of even buying the guitar they are playing, nor do they have anything pressing to do for the rest of the day. None of his bands have panned out, so he figures why not spend the better part of his Thursday serenading the friendly shoppers of guitar center. This personality type typically thinks its a good idea to cover an Ozzy tune as their encore if they were in a band, and definitely is wearing an Exodus t-shirt. For some reason these dudes are always super skinny and/or really into hockey. I haven't figure out the significance of that correlation yet. When I do I'll let you know.

That's all for now.

Grooveshark isn't letting me post a player here for some reason, so here is the LINK

ALSO, NEW WINTER MIXTAPE UP NOW AT INNERPARTYSYSTEM.NET

-j