During this time I didn't like dark beers like I crave now. This was a simpler time before I realized how good Guinness was. Hoegaarden is a light tasting beer(not in the bad low calories way) and has a hint of orange peel and coriander. I think this beer would be a good way to ease in any novice beer drinker into the world of great tasting beers. This white wheat beer has a crisp taste as well as a natural cloudy presentation.
I recommend that you try this unique white beer with a friend who doesn't like beer to see if this will sway them. If it doesn't get some better friends.
Skrillex blew my mind at 5pm at the Google+! There are no words that can describe there music but it got people jumping and grooving. It was definitely a change from the previous bands.
Sadly ACL's YouTube page doesn't have any of these guys songs. It is probably because Skrillex's music rocked so hard. The above gives you some of the songs they played there.
After that lesson of "Noises you didn't know you liked", we grabbed some food and caught some of Cee Lo. We didn't get to hear all of his songs but we did get to see him sing "Fuck You". That is something you can tell your kids. Again YouTube is no help here but I assume you know the "Fuck You" song.
I am so happy I didn't miss TV on the Radio, another face melting band, at the Google + stage.
Love this song
KXT plays this song but I didn't know it was this super band.
Yeah the music was kicked up a notched. The only way to do ACL.
We grabbed some beef sandwiches from Salt Lick *drooling*. It was actual beef and not some "sloppy Joe" concoction. T'was delicious with there secret sauce.
Like I said the park is huge and the stages are at opposite ends of each other. Google+ and Bud light are pretty close and AMD and Honda are pretty close but the rest of the stages you have to trek to get to. We high tailed it to AMD to see My Morning Jacket. I didn't know My Morning Jacket had such a southern rock sort of sound but it was very groovy.
There are no words to describe the epicness for this Saturday. My Morning Jacket was the rich dessert to this tasty day of music. In my opinion it couldn't have ended any better.
Rating: 10/10 a full day of great bands on a day that could have been super hot but turned out to have just enough rain to cool the crowd with out causing the whole place to be a muddy disaster.
Me and Andy got to ACL early so we could see The Antlers. They put on a pretty good show for a band I didn't know that well. We are even on a Youtube video but you can only find us if you are a pro at Where's Waldo.
We are at minute 2:43.
Andy is a fan of the Antlers and a fan of Young the Giant so we stuck around to get a good spot for Young the Giant at the AMD stage. In between the Antler's show to the time Young the Giant started the stage area got packed. You can see from the videos below.
Cough syrup is probably my favorite.
It was in the 90s F but luckily it started to sprinkle during the Young the Giant concert. We were grateful that the sky continue to drip on us for an hour or so. I am a fan of rain especially when it is hotter than 95 degrees Fahrenheit and you are surrounded by sweaty, energetic fans(people, not the cooling kind). The rain was sublime.
Antlers and Young the Giant make a really cool show by themselves. I think they have a similar chill groove and know how to please an audience. But I payed for 3 days of non-stop face melting, mind blowing, epic music. And so as the day stretched on these things continued to happened.
The Honda stage was close to the Young the Giant show so we voyaged over there to see City and Colour who had a tres bein Canadian show.
Can you imagine having the rain slowly drip on you and cool you while you are surround by a sea of music fanatics and while listening to the above song? I don't have too because I was there. But I still think about it.
We back tracked back to the AMD stage to catch Iron and Wine. Sadly we couldn't hear them that well but they are a good band. If you know there music it doesn't sound as cool on a big outdoor stage. It was still nice to see them though.
I do have beard envy of the singer, Samuel Beam. Keep rocking it Beam!
Saturday Part 2 will be up by the end of this weekend with the review of the whole show. Thanks for reading and I hope you found some cool new music.
These next few posts will be all about Austin City Limits and the odyssey I had. I encourage you to take the time and listen to all the music videos. Enjoy!
Friday: With my sunscreen and my flask of Jameson, me, Andy, and Lindsay headed for ACL. Luckily we got to the concert early enough to get some good spots. In fact we arrived in time to see some of Big Boi at the Bud Light stage.
It is hard to describe the size and the amount of people at ACL. Zilker Park is 365 acres of music, food, and people. Over 70,000 fans attend the festival each day and it was quite the sight to see that many people in one place. People brought their own flags which reminded me of South Padre. Some of the "flags" we saw there included a skeleton Stewie Griffin, A blow up doll, and an "OU Sucks" flag. There must have been at least 50 or more flags per stage.
After this we headed to the Google + stage to see Foster the People. Needless to say they put on a great show. When I started hearing "Pumped Up Kicks" on the radio 24/7 I thought maybe Foster the People was some one hit wonders that made it big fast. They easily proved me wrong.
Right after that we headed to the AMD stage for Bright Eyes, another great band to see live.
After Bright Eyes said their farewells we grabbed a bratwurst and headed back to Google+ to catch the last half of Pretty Lights.
Now if you can't tell from the above videos, Pretty Lights is a killer band. Sadly there is only some many hours in a day so we didn't get to hear a bunch of their songs.
Lindsay wanted to see Kanye West so we headed to the Bud Light stage to prepare. I didn't know what to expect but I was pleasantly surprised and entertained. He had most of his songs choreographed by professional dancers dressed up in "artsy" attire (it was hard to describe).Also the fact that he split up his show into 3 acts which was pretty pimp as well.
After that we went back to Andy's place and crashed.
Bands that I wish I could have seen as well: Santigold
Cold War Kids
ColdPlay
Rating for Friday: 8/10 I wasn't there the whole day so it could have been better but I would do it again in a heart beat.
A while back I went to the Hyena's Comedy Night Club with some good friends. I have been there 2 times and both times I had fun and laughed. The only problem with the place is they require that you buy 2 items during their shows. Most of the drinks are priced about how you expect any downtown Dallas "club" to price their drinks. So I ordered a Foster's since I needed a review for it and Foster's had the cheapest beer per volume ratio.
I have not had a Fosters for years. When I hear the word "Australia" I don't think of delicious brewery's, I think of koalas and bearded dragons(which are super cool). After drinking this beer from the oil can I realize Foster's isn't Australian for beer, it is Australian for domestic average lager. I would say this beer isn't much better than your Bud Lights or Miller's of the world. It is a smooth pale lager and probably good for tailgating since it is 5% ABV and the oil can is 25.4 oz but your average beer snob can go on living without trying this beer.
Also if my calculations are correct this post should automatically pop-up while I am at Austin City Limits. There will be reviews for some of the bands at ACL later on this month.
Baylor beats TCU! So naturally the whole stadium rushes the field. Good times were had by all.
I had a hell of a labor day weekend but I can't forget about how me and Preston kicked off the fabulously fun Friday. Our fuel was Mexican food and tasty drinks from an old Baylor hang out, Ninfa's.
You are given 2 types of free salsa before you eat. One is a mild red salsa and the other is a delicious avocado and tomatillo green sauce. The green is my favorite and I have on many occasions enjoyed just that and the mixed drinks. Ninfa's has any Mexican food you can think of including random meats such as quail and everything I have tried has met my expectations.
I have met the owner and his son an it has been and still is very much family owned and operated. This combined with the nice ambiance of the inside decor makes Ninfa's a must eat at restaurant for those who love Tex Mex or Mexican food.
Ninfa's Rating: 9/10
Ninfa's has many different and unique drinks. In fact they don't have margaritas they have Ninfa-ritas... GET IT! They are so clever. Though after having a couple of these you don't mind the "wittiness" of the phrase.
Before attending the Baylor game me and Preston ordered a Spiderman like we use to do during happy hour while we attended Baylor. This drink got me through good times and bad times. The Spiderman margarita mixture is a super drink that can save you from the terrors of sobriety. If you ever are in Waco and you don't really want to eat at Ninfa's at least treat yourself to this Texas gem. This appetizing avenger is almost a dessert due to its sweetness but I say this in the best way possible. It isn't too sweet to order 2, in fact that is exactly what I did.
How it was tasted: The picture to the right shows the actual drink. It has sugar around the rim and comes in a frosty mug.
So after dinner we ended up back at the tent. Even though it was only about 9-10 we decided to get ready for bed since we would be up at 5:30 or 6:00am at the latest. I took a shower at the only community showers. You can tell that this place was used to was cattle and may still be used for that purpose when the convention center isn't in use. So I hosed myself off and headed for bed. I ended up sleeping for a while until 3:00am when the music started blaring. Luckily I had my earplugs in because, according to my Dad, the music had been going on since 1am. To say the least my Dad didn't get any sleep.
I headed to where the music was playing hoping I could get them to turn it down. It took me about 3 minutes to get to the origin of where the top 40's station was comping from. After talking to someone about it they turned down the volume on the speaker and I headed out. Sadly the further I got the louder the music got. It turned out they had many different speakers there and there is a good chance they turned the volume back up on the other one as well. I head back to ask again and after talking to 4 different people I finally got them to turn it off... for an hour. This was probably one of my least favorite things about the race
The race itself was AMAZING! Though it is called Hotter'N Hell me and my Dad were use to biking in the middle of the day besides starting at 7:05 AM so we were fine. Though the race doesn't have the best scenic view I still had a blast passing by slower bikers and tailing others adding to the already long snake of fast bikers.
In the end I enjoyed the actually bike race a lot and I will be ready to go farther next time.
WHY DJARUM CHERRY CLOVES TASTE LIKE THE RAINDROPS OF A SHOOTING STAR by Brett
First off, under federal guidelines I must start off this review by explaining that cigarettes are whack. They have lots of ingredients in them which can lead users to do crazy things. However, history and scientific experiments by Stephen Hawking and Charles Darwin have proven time and time again that not smoking cigarettes can lead to angry rants at police officers about the how the Holocaust didn't exist. Likewise, second hand smoke can also lead to accidental pregnancies of retarded kids, but sometimes those retarded kids can turn out to be really cool people, like Leonardo in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? or Rainman from Rainman. And last, but not least, smoking can also cause ugly people to look like, ten times cooler than they actually are, not a shabby side-effect. But don’t take my word for any of these things, just absorb them into your brain.
Now if I had to kill myself slowly every single day, I’d like to smoke a good cigarette. None of that baby shit like Marlboro Reds or unfiltered smokes for me, no siree. Give me a pack of Djarum cherry cloves and up hook my breathing tube straight to the source of my emphysema-filled lungs. Also, please place my cats, Sir Thomas Gantroy III and Dexter “Dexedrine” Morgan beside my death bed, put some throwback season 2.5 Battlestar Galactica episodes on my telly while you're at it, and then let me peace the fuck out for eternity.
But Brett, you sound kind of batshit insane, why should I trust you when you tell me that Djarum cherry cloves are roughly the equivalence of shower sex with a young Brazilian boy in his prime? Well, they are one of the same my friend—both are full of stamina, girth, and body. Also, both have the aftertaste of sweet, delicious ass.
The best way to describe smoking a cherry clove is… who am I kidding? It’s beyond words. How can I explain this tangibly? Well… When the clover-y taste of cloves dances on my tongue, I feel like for one night, just one peaceful night, I may not have to masturbate as I cry to the sweet, sweet tunes of “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina.” And damn, that song can be INTENSE.
So next time you feel like you just want to stick a gun in your mouth and blast your brains to shit across your bedroom wall, ask yourself this: Have I smoked a Djarum cherry clove yet? If you haven’t at least once in your existence, your life will have been in vain. If you have in fact smoked a cherry clove before, well, just remember to leave a can of Spot Shot by your bed before you go. It’s just common courtesy.
RATING: 3.14159 (that’s pi you AP Calculus drop-out, and you know what? It goes on to infinity, just like the experience of smoking a cherry clove cigarette.) *** Brett has a wicked cool blog at http://www.crapthatwillblowyourminds.com/
That Friday evening after we toured the Convention center we decided to grab some Mexican food that was close by. Parking and driving anywhere was pretty out of the question since this small town was flooded with 14,000+ extra people. Luckily this place was no more than a 2 minute walk. Very ideal after a long day in the heat, fixing bikes, setting up tents, etc. Though it was late and we had not eaten anything besides the Clif bar samples for a while (that was one of the highlights of the trip, Clif is pretty good) there is no doubt that this was one of the better hole in the wall Mexican restaurants I have eaten at.
Though the place looks big the right side is for To-Go food and the left side is for sitting down. There were about 10 tables inside and they had a small TV with some Spanish soap running. The walls were decorated with a variety of items and the whole place definitely had the vibe of a whole in the wall Mexican restaurant. There were only 3 people working. One cook/To-Go guy, One waitress, and the waitress's kid who would help every so often. We were the only ones in there at first but as soon as people saw us go in about 10 others took the chance at this Spanish named venue. Sadly this slowed things down but in general the service was OK considering all of the above
I ordered a chopped steak melted with some white goat cheese and fresh veggies on top. It was very good and kept getting better the more I ate it. My dad ordered some Pork taco items that he said he liked. I order a Dos Equis but I was surprised they didn't have any Sol, one of my favorite Mexican beers. Then again it was probably more expensive and it didn't look like any beer advocate from Wichita Falls was going to El Norteno for a unique beer.
Rating: 8/10 Great
I will eat here again next year if I do Hotter'N Hell next year.
