SomaCow

SomaCow Media, Inc. is proud to present SomaCow, brought to you in this hour by Copper Rocket. From Psychobilly to Comedy, this club has it all, plus a decent beer selection.

In this hour we discussed J and I’s visit to Open Mic Night, Comedy and Hecklers, and Book to Movie translations.

We headed out last Thursday to Copper Rocket, located next to the tracks that separate Eatonville from Maitland north of Orlando. It’s a good bar, the kind of place where the bartender has a Hunter S. Thompson shirt on and the seats are all knifed up by revelers past. We snuck into a decent seat right near the stage, and my pregnant wife Jen and I began the arduous task of pushing the table back and forth between our bellies. I was at a loss as to who should win, because, on one side, the table crushing her belly might mean the permanent disfigurement of our child, whereas if it were crushing my belly, I might be discomfited for a while. Thankfully, J arrived and we both opted to shove the table into his rapidly shrinking belly.

So, the comedy started up, and it was good. The emcee was a mic shouter, but in a club full of assholes that turn their back on the stage, that’s sort of to be expected. In all we saw about 10 comics, 5-6 of which were chicks. Some were fantastic, like Uncle Ray, Alicia, and Katie, and some were… well… They were working out the kinks of their act, let’s just say that. I found the room to be oppressive for comedy, and I think that went a long way towards showing the skill of some of these people. To generate laughs when you have a dull crowd, a weird lighting system, and one f^%$ed up redneck heckler can’t be easy.

And that heckler guy exercised every Floridian Redneck Retard Trait you can imagine. What? You’ve never heard of an FRRT? It’s how you spot the natives, people! Allow me to clue you in, so that you can keep an eye out for this truly rare and special breed. He frequents bars, clubs, Denny’s, and truck shows.

1. Hair – disheveled, lengthy, sweat soaked and yet buoyant. This guy may be balding, but he doesn’t let it faze him. Look for what appears to be a mid-eighties South Eastern Championship Wrestling style haircut, kinda like Sammy Hagar, but with no hint of product.

2. Skin – Slightly resembling Trashcan Man from The Stand by Stephen King. All visible areas will be lobster red, with deep seated melanoma from spending day after day toiling in the brush. This guy works hard, and it shows. Sure, we’ve had silly things like sunscreen, hats, and shirts for a few decades or so, but he is hesitant to change, cause chicks dig a nice dark 3rd degree tan.

3. Clothes – If you have ever been to a gas station on the wrong side of town, and seen an enormous box with what appear to be dirty shop rags spilling out of a funneled slot near the top, you have seen the FRRT boutique. Usually there is a strength in teals and yellows, but the occasional shirt sans sleeves is always appropriate, even on a 50 degree night. The gooseflesh really helps the blisters stand out, you know?

4. Shoes – Flip Flops or sandals. The bluer and rattier the better. The goal of all FRRT’s is to showoff their busted ass feet, which have had countless drills, bricks, car tires, and bottles smashed across them. Typically, an FRRT will grow hobbit fur on their toes to cushion the blow of these many accidents, and this fur they will groom fastidiously if given a second stool to hoist them up upon.

5. Accessories – Ah, here is where the FRRT shines! From the puka shell necklaces they got on Spring Break 32 years ago in Daytona before dropping out “for one semester”, to the sweat stained cigarette or blunt behind their ear, this guy knows how to bring an ensemble together. Look for sunglasses, even though it is 10:30 at night in the bar equivalent of the goddamned Bat Cave, a Firebird or Camaro keychain, and bus transfer tickets. I would say that the frothiest, most spillingest, stankest foamy beer you can imagine is also an accessory, but no FRRT has even been seen without one, and if he spills one, you can be damn sure he was two-fisting.

6. Eyes. Always vacant, they stare in a way that perfectly indicates how many miles of edging and blowing this one man has done in his life. Also, yellow. Very, very yellow. Jaundice, or gonorrhea? Something. Do not maintain eye contact with an FRRT exhibiting individual, for any reason. If you are a male, it will indicate your desire to fight, or discuss “The Mexicans”. If you are a woman, it will indicate your desire to copulate with him, and your need to also discuss “The Mexicans”.

Hope that helps!

Anyway, the gals and guys did a good job in the face of such adversity, and we’d definitely go back, and I think J wants to do a set, which would be a hoot that I will be sure to videotape for you all. Have you ever done an open mic night? How did it go?

We wrapped up with some discussion of Where the Red Fern Grows, which J and Mickey never read. I am beginning to think that the book topic may not be such a hot item, seeing as I work with two guys that spend more of their time staring at porn than they do anything else. Maybe I should do Porn Reviews, instead. At any rate, J hated Frankenstein for the dumbest reason I have ever heard. I actually bought him a puka shell necklace.

See you guys here next week, or, come join us in the Ustream for our show, Sunday at 2pm, Eastern. We’ll be giving away the iTouch live, so if you entered, good luck, and if you didn’t, well… damn.

We yukked it up to the following great musics in this hour:

• Straight Outta Junior High – Happy Fun Song
• Snog – The Happy Song

And check out some of Katie Hughes work:

Myspace Video from Bonkerz

Tags: alicia, bellies, booth, comedy, copper, crush, eatonville, flip flops, frankenstein, frrt, hecklers, high, hunter s thompson, independant, independent, internet, itouch, junior, katie, mic, music, open, orlando, outta, Podcast, porn, pregnant, radio, redneck, rocket, sammy hagar, snog, sojh, somacow, stephen king, straight, table, talk, trashcan man, uncle ray, ustream, where the red fern grows

SomaCow Media is proud to present SomaCow, brought to you this week by They Might Be Giants. A phenomenal band doing remarkable things utilizing a modicum of skill playing various instruments.

In this hour we discussed Producer Jen and I’s two concerts in one day. As she gets frothy talking about TMBG, I will allow her to explain further:

Hi! Jen here. I’m still giddy about that day… I started listening to TMBG back in the late 80s and was an instant fan. The first song I heard was Cowtown, and I just thought it was so different and quirky. About a year later, I went to my first TMBG concert and what an amazing show (Thanks Janus Landing in St Pete!). I have almost always known every song by heart at every show. Over the last 20 years, I have seen them every time they have come to the state. Geoff and I started talking on MucheDumbre because I had “Blue Canary in the Outlet by the Lightswitch…Who watches over you? Make a Little Birdhouse In Your Soul” as my signature. We married 5 years later, and were introduced at the reception as a couple for the first time to Birdhouse. So this band has a deep meaning to me.

We found out the day before the shows, that Geoff won tickets to see a small intimate showing at a local radio station. We got there early, per usual for us, and sat downstairs as instructed. One by one we identified them…the other winners. There is something about a TMBG fan. While we all might look different, you can just tell a TMBG fan from others. I had my camera there, just in case we could take pics (it ends up we couldn’t) and then my sensors went off. OK, that just sounds dorky, I really just looked to my left and saw John and John getting out of a van. They were walking them through the front door with the fans just sitting there? I mean we’re not a crazy bunch, but I have seen J & J yell at many a Florida crowd for being too rambunctious (seriously, mosh pits and crowd surfing to Birdhouse in your Soul??), but this crowd was calm. I mean yeah, I had my camera pointed through the glass taking pics, but why not?

So we filed upstairs, with me pushing forward and, having scoped out where the little studio was, got to be first in line. It ended up that it didn’t matter though, as Geoff’s winning was “special” so we were in the front row anyway! They played 4 songs, “Mesopotamians” off of their new album, “Dr Worm”, “Istanbul (not Constantinople)”, and then “New York City”, so all great songs. They were a little off, though. We had been warned that one of the Johns was sick (to be revealed later-hold tight!), and Linnell stated he had just woken up. If only I could have snuck a shot of his bed hair!

Ooh, I got it! So the sounds were a little off and they stumbled on some words here and there. Not their best show, but still cool as shit. I think the best part was during a commercial break when they broke out into the themes from Barney Miller and The Rockford Files.

So after this 1 hour show, they start packing up and said they had to go to get ready for the HOB show that night so they couldn’t stick around. Some douche kept begging Linnell for an autograph pointing out he had Flansburgh’s but not his. Linnell said, “how about if I shake your hand. That’s more personal than an autograph, right?” and the guy said no! So I took this opportunity to quietly move my sympathetically pregnant belly up to the Johns and quickly ask, “We do a podcast/internet radio show and would love it if we can play your music on SomaCow” and I got a quick “sure!”. I was about to pass out I was so excited. They also do a podcast you can download on iTunes (or your iTouch you can win here!) for free.

So fastforward a few hours and Geoff and I are on our way through beautiful Thursday afternoon I-4 traffic to get to Downtown Disney and the House of Blues. HOB is probably one of my favorite venues we have in Central Florida… We get there to find out that to get in the front line you have to eat at HOB or buy something in the store. Well, the store had crap in it. We were all prepared to buy stuff at the concert, but not from HOB. So we were 2nd in line in the ‘regular people’ line. My only issue was I had to find a table. Between my being all knocked up and Geoff’s toe (see the next SomaCow Episode), it was just necessary. We had a plan. Sis and her friend go to the bar with drink orders, Geoff goes to the table with the stuff to scope it out and I find the table. I run (yes, literally run) to “my table” only to find it is taken. I look and see one. I pass someone whoosh! and scoop up the table. Geoff sees me, smiles, and grabs two extra barstools on the way over. Victory!

Now at this show, they did their thing. John Flansburgh came out and announced to us all that he had the flu (so it was him!), and that he had taken every OTC flu medicine known to man and was ready to put on the best show of his life thanks to all of these pharmaceuticals! He didn’t disappoint. He was funny all running around the stage. You could tell he felt no pain but would the next day! Every single song was AWESOME. They have the best concerts. They will play about 80/20 if not 90/10 of old to new songs. They know their audience and why they are there. Have you had that experience? Or the opposite? TMBG knows that they have a babillion hits (to their fans), and they always throw a new one or two in there you haven’t heard in a while. They get their new stuff out there, too, but focus on the old. They make their fans happy. And happy we were! Oh man and Dan Miller on acoustic guitar doing his 10 minute intro to Istanbul. Just amazing and the SomaCalf went nuts! She was flopping left and right, she loves that guitar! We were both prepared to leave early if need be, due to physical pain, as we’ve seen their show, but there was nothing that would take us out once it started…except when the lights came up.

Brilliant show, and since this will probably be our last concert for the foreseeable future, it was the perfect one.

Mickey shares his wisdom on following the styles of Information Society and speaking your mind.

Oh, and this is also the I Love You episode (if you don’t know, they’ll explain it) so Geoff gives us all 5 great tips to keep love alive and we definitely do!

And we also played this great music:

• They Might Be Giants – Cowtown

• Enter the Haggis – To the Quick

• Straight Outta Junior High – Love Song

Tags: birdhouse, coaching, comedy, dan, enter, flansburgh, haggis, high, independant, independent, internet, john, junior, life, linnell, miller, music, orlando, outta, Podcast, radio, somacow, straight, talk, they might be giants, tmbg

SomaCow Media, Inc. is proud to present SomaCow, brought to you this week by the fine folks at Rational Riot. It’s sort of like that Candlebox song, but without all the emotive rocking.

Okay. Shocker episode this time around, because we talked about food, and drinking, and rude. We were champing at the bit to get down to Texas de Brazil, and so we raced around. In a valiant effort to get the goddamned subject off of eating for once, we discussed the finer points of shaving. I seriously need to, and ingrown hairs are just plain nasty. What a horrific flaw in the design of man that is, and proof positive that shaving is an unnatural and weird act.

I find it humorous that people consider shaving to be a sign of culture and etiquette, considering the irrational ideas behind such behavior. You pluck hair from a horse, and make lather from alkaline death, and sharpen steel and place it by your jugular… How barbaric.

Look… I will shave. I really will. I just have to spread out the time between shaves, with the average being about two to three months. We discuss in this episode what happens if you do more.

We also talked about drunken behavior, and cell phone behavior, and why it is incredibly difficult to not walk over to the counter at seven eleven and pick up the happy yellow coffeepot and smash it over the guy next to you in line’s head repeatedly, until he collapses into a heap of bloodied skin, broken bone, and smashed bluetooth. I’m not violent, but I am willing to learn, you know?

Weekly Constitutional focused on Henry Rollins’ The First Five, a collection of his earlier narratives and verse from the 80s. Gripping stuff, and I highly recommend it if you are intelligent and somewhat mad. Then again, you listen to this show, so you are obviously intelligent, and quite mad. Buy the book, support the show, free your mind, eat at Joe’s, and all that razzamatazz.

This hour also features the oddest, and most frightening thing I have ever been asked by a listener. I don’t even want to go into it. It’s just… odd. I want to believe the person asking was a woman, and joking, but I am pretty sure that neither was the case. Just go listen. The Horror.

You know what would be good to listen to on a Free iTouch, courtesy of SomaCow? The following great artists, THAT’s what. Chicken Butt.

• Straight Outta Junior High – Meatheads, Douchebags, and Me
• Dirty Wormz – Top of the Food Chain

Oh, and apologies to Mickey for the Dane Cook reference. I just can’t control myself. My. SELF.

Tags: 7-11, all, all you can eat, ayce, bluetooth, boobs, brazil, can, candlebox, constitutional, cook, dane, de, dirty, drinking, drunk, eat, eleven, first, five, food, free, henry, high, independant, independent, internet, ipod, itouch, junior, meat, music, orlando, outta, Podcast, radio, rational, riot, rollins, rude, seven, sojh, spaghetti, straight, talk, texas, tickle, weekly, wormz, you