Matador Records. Back in my "indie is all" days...let's say 1995 or so, I was all about Matador records. Pavement, Guided By Voices, Pizzicato Five...this little NYC label had the best "Alternative" act roster out there. Hell, they even took out snarky ads in the back of Peter Bagge's HATE comics back in teh day. Then they got bought out by a huge conglomerate. I thought they'd gotten rolled up and forgotten.

Turns out they're still around, and maybe even still relevant: I discovered through Pitchfork's Forkcast that their "Intended Play" sampler, normally distributed in plastic & cardboard format to radio stations, has been released in digital form, for now-old-farts like myself to enjoy as well. Which is smart. 'Cause lord knows the radio stations I can get in my car don't play this stuff.

Which relates directly to why I named this blog "Idea Czar": To showcase new ideas, good ideas, or god forbid both. What do you do with a radio sampler when radio doesn't move indie records like it used to? Remove the "radio" (-exclusivity) from the equation and make it a sampler for everyone.

Haven't listened to it yet, but it looks like there's plenty for aged indiephiles like myself to relate to: Stephen Malkmus, Cat Power, some re-released Mission of Burma, and god forbid some new stuff to keep my decrepit music-taste synpases firing. Should be good to listen to while traveling. I'll save it for then.

...To quote the legend MC Hammer, whom I saw perform at the LA Forum years ago and who put on a FANTASTIC show, thank you. I'd gotten free tickets, one of the perks of my summer internship at a major US record company. Hammer made good use of the big stage, with A ten-piece band and something like 30 singers, dancers, BACKUP dancers...with Hammer orchestrating the whole thing. It was James Brown on crack, before James Brown discovered crack. The experience was like finding salvation at the Church of Parachute Pants.

Anyway, my wife and I are in the process of planning our trip to India & Southeast Asia. LOTS to do, but the main stuff, like plane tix, innocs, and visas, is taken care of.

I'm always worried about if we're going to do it RIGHT, you know? Like, what if we plan our itinerary "wrong," or book a train ticket "wrong?" We only have so much time abroad and I want to make the most of it.

Okay, I'm only going to allow myself one paragraph of whingeing per post. Bottom line is I'm CRAZY excited to be going away and going on adventures. Yay travel!

I'm looking forward to populating this blog with trav journal entries & photos uploaded to flickr. But in leiu of that, for now, here's a video I made for PINK STEEL. It's for their song, "Converter."

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9UuaFfHagk&hl=en]