>>GROUND CONTROL<< Raise funds, raise your voice

Tonight (7/14/08), join us as we raise money for "The Children Of Chiapas Foundation", a non-profit group dedicated to providing the children of the United Statesand Latinoamericas with basic human needs like food, shelter, clothingand education. All proceeds from the door will be donated to the Foundation,to help send their delegation to Marquez de Comillas Chiapas. You can readabout the trip in their MySpace blog.

All you have to do to help out is show up. Quite literally EVERY CENT helps,so your $4 admission will go a very long way towards salvaginga generation of neglected children.

We hope to see you this evening!

Ground Control
Alternative Karaoke / Eclectic Audiovisuals / More
Every Monday Night @ Jewel's Catch One
4067 W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles 90019
18+, full bar w/ID, $4 cover
Free secure self-parking (walled+guarded)
Doors open 9pm, dinner available
Free WiFi + Internet Terminals, Live Video Feed!

Official Ground Control Website - http://gc.darxxide.com
Jewel's Catch One Website - http://www.jewelscatchone.com

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Promoting myself and you!

I installed a cycling banner javascript on my sites. I need banners for some of you people.

If you don't have the means to make me a 468x60 banner to promote your band, club, or website at large, please post some assets here and I'll make a banner for you!

That means you, DARKWEAR, NOAH K / BATSDAY, GENTLEMAN JUNKIE, OF DESPAIR, TALES OF THE EXTRAORDINARY, and others.

And while we're on the subject, I have banners I'd like you to add to your site, if you please. THANK YOU!!!

Ground Control Banner:

please link this to http://gc.darxxide.com

Straylight Banner:

please link this to http://straylight.darxxide.com

MP3J Sark Banner:

please link this to http://www.darxxide.com/mp3jsark

3:27 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

STRAYLIGHT - My newest karaoke endeavor
Current mood: busy

If you have a spare moment, I can use a little pimp help.

STRAYLIGHT will be NO COVER for at least the first month. Roberto has already committed to making it a fun time, and helping to enhance the experience from the venue's side. I'm very excited to work with him and Doomie, and make this a very enjoyable event. If you want to help out, all you have to do is tell as many people as possible about it. Oh, and show up, if you want. :-)

Thanks!

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Soggy Friday update
Current mood: high

Woke up to yet another one of brokenheather's work calls. Poor baby, she needs a break so she can sleeeep.

I got up okay this morning. Unfortunately, while making breakfast for my hard-working girlie, my back cramped up something fierce. It's a dull but intense pain, like someone is driving the head of a hammer into the side of my spine, between my shoulder blades. Not really what I like to happen while I'm frying bacon.

There will be no Theory Radio show today. Instead, I will be spending my time organizing music, cleaning my office as best as possible with a crampy back, and finishing up the planning stages for a new net-radio project.

Breakfast has been consumed, I'm rather high on vicodin right now, and I'm feeling a little productive, if not a little chaotic in my thought processes. :-P

11:23 AM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Severance thoughts

We were done with Thanksgiving dinner fairly early. My niece took my son back to her house for a sleepover with his cousins. I was tired, and took a very short nap after we got home.

I remember thinking that I'd still want to go to Severance, even if I was sleepy. I got a spot of a second wind, so Broken Heather, Krieg and I got dressed up a little and sped over the hill into Chinatown.

As we parked on the corner of Spring and Ord, I remember thinking how very cool it was to hear the club music thundering down the streets. I had no idea the patio was in front of the club, and on the second story!!

We used the password to get in free, ran into Ed (Gentleman Junkie), and I immediately fell in love with the club and promotion. I sat on the patio, overlooking Chinatown all the way to the elevated rail, Metro trains trucking up and down the tracks all night. I leaned back in my chair, looked straight up past the hanging ropelights in the courtyard, and saw STARS! When was the last time I actually saw stars in the night sky at a club in L.A.?!?!

They had Heffeweisen on tap, Boddington in a tall can, and they managed to accomodate Broken Heather 's rum and Diet Coke mix without actually having Capt. Morgan rum. I bought around of drinks for four of us, and managed to spend less than $25, which included 2 mixed drinks and a good tip.

The music was everything I hoped it would be. Doomie played a great set. It's hard to play such serious music and still maintain a sense of whimsy throughout the night, and he managed just that. It was difficult to keep a good conversation going, because we all kept stopping and shouting, "wow, this is a great song! Remember this?" Doomie was holding up the fort, as Wednesday and The Baron had the night off. Krieg mentioned that he was staying less than 10 minutes away with us, and he could have hauled his records down. I mentioned to Doomie that if he ever needed to stash spare gear at the Haus for emergencies, he was welcome to.

Severance was amazing. This is the club I wanted to do with Vonn Ullman. This is the club the elder scenesters have needed for so long. I don't feel much at home at Perversion, and despite the best efforts of Amanda and co. to make me feel welcome, I'm just not feeling the bulk of the music played there anymore. Severance felt like the old school L.A. underground avante garde clubs I've missed for so very long. Care was taken not to play the exact same tracks that have been played over and over ad nauseum throughout the last 10 years. I felt equally at home sitting back, enjoying my drink and the music, or getting up and dancing inside the club proper.

I think I've found a new Thursday night home. They played the best ethereal / classic industrial / experimental out of ANY club in L.A.; If you guys let this club die, you're really screwing yourselves. As for me, I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts. Thank you, Doomie and friends, for a great club!

7:36 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Check out this event: 2007 Alt Holiday Book Bazaar

Hosted By: Rob Cohen
When: Saturday Dec 08, 2007
at 6:00 PM
Where: Wax Poetic
3208 West Magnolia
Burbank, CA 91505
United States
Description:
Rob Cohen

Click Here To View Event

12:46 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Busy times at the Catch!
Current mood: tired

Fighting off the plague that's going around, and had a fun but mildly exhausting day with Allan and his brood, and Heather and my monkeyboy.  Good times were had, but I came out to the Catch tonight a little early to get some things set up.

It's really a good thing I did! There's a new stand-up comedy / improv / small bands thing going on from 8pm-10:30pm here on Saturday nights, before the Hip-Hop club starts. We were told the stage would be small. It wasn't. We were told the stage would be off to the side, so that's why I set the overhead lights the way I did. It wasn't. We were told they would bring their own sound. They DID NOT.

There was some kind of party in the Retro Room, so that system was occupied. The restaurant was open, so we couldn't set up in there. The disco was absolutely off limits for this project, since we open our regular doors at 10:30pm. Luckily, Jewel reminded me there was a sound rig in the Retro Room, and to do what I could to get it set up in the Game Room.

It came together well in the end, but had I not shown up until 9:30pm like I normally do, they would seriously have failed for sound. As it stands, I still had to fish a microphone and MY mixer out of the trunk to get the sound working properly.

I like pulling little miracles like that out. It satisfies me to make things come together for people.

But now I need a nap, and the WiFi in the disco is not well tonight. Meh.

11:48 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Das Bunker - Year 11

Most people don't know how hard it is to breathe fresh life into a club on a regular basis. It's easy to get caught in the cycle of rehashing ideas, and very few promoters know how to dress them up before reusing them. And when someone pulls a club out of mothballs and tries to jumpstart it, the first instinctual thought of must of us old farts is skepticism.

Taking a retired club, planting it in a bigger venue, and actually filling each room with a unique vibe, now THAT is a feat.

Nobody can deny that Das Bunker is the cornerstone and heart of Industrial music in Los Angeles. No promotion can touch what DB have collectively accomplished over the course of 11 years.

Congrats to Das Bunker staff, friends and family.

Franck H-Bomb
Rev. John
Joseph
Shane
Krisz Klink
Amanda Jones
Erika
anyone I may have forgotten, and everyone who has supported and lent helping hands.

History is written by the victors, so get your pens ready. I'm honored to have been allowed to be a small part of that history.

1:24 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Ground Control 8.6.07

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Mixed emotions
Current mood: contemplative

With Falwell's high profile came frequent criticism, even from fellow ministers. The Rev. Billy Graham once rebuked him for political sermonizing on "non-moral issues."

I'm liking Billy more and more every day.

NOTE TO NON/ANTI-CHRISTIAN PARENTS: No matter what your polarization, if you push too hard, your kid will rebound. They say Falwell's folks were uberpsycho atheists, and look how he turned out.

This is why I'm not shoving MY beliefs down MY kid's throat. If my way is "right", it will find merit with him, regardless of me. ;-)

***************

I can't even begin to write out my feelings. It's all very messy and mixed up. I understand (and agree with, to an extent) his motives. But no amount of self-righteous indignation can justify victimizing untold millions. Not My God, pal.

In the end, you can only blame so much on God, for that matter. YOU, *I*, have a choice in how to manifest these things. No one gets to wash the blood off their hands by declaring "God's Will Be Done." Because, when it comes down to it, if God wants someone oppressed / carbombed / nuked, He's fully capable of doing it without me.

Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love  is the fulfillment of the law. - Romans 13:10

12:10 AM - 4 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment