MJDAOG

HalloweenHead Mix

This party is moving to www.matthewalanjohnson.com and my twitter feed. Check me out over there!

Some friends and I got together to throw a New Year's Eve-Eve party this year on 12/30. I'm planning on getting all of my end of the year partying out of my system that night and then just having a nice dinner/glass of scotch/cigar with the people who matter most to me for New Year's Eve proper on 12/31. If that sounds nice to you too, then join us!

All in all, a pretty weak year...

Good Stuff

1. Hercules & Love Affair- Hercules & Love Affair
2. Helio Sequence- Keep Your Eyes Ahead
3. King Khan & The Shrines- The Supreme Genius of King Khan & The Shrines
4. Kompakt Total 9
5. The Whigs- Mission Control
6. Juan Maclean- Happy House EP
7. Friendly Fires- Paris EP
8. Girl Talk- Feed The Animals
9. Cut Copy- In Ghost Colours (& the So Cosmic Mix)
10. Q Tip- The Renaissance
11. Walkmen- You & Me
12. She & Him- Volume One
13. Bart Davenport- Palaces

My smooth 70s groove playlist from last night at the Foggy Monocle Party...

1. Bob James- Amanda
2. Donald Byrd- Fallin Like Dominos
3. Lionel Hampton- Where Were You (When I Needed You)
4. Roy Ayers- Coffy Is The Color
5. Dillinger- Cokane In My Brain
6. Fleetwood Mac- Dreams
7. Lindsay Buckinham- Trouble
8. Paul Simon- Have A Good Time
9. Shuggie Otis- Inspiration Information
10. Amon Duul 2- Spaniards & Spacemen
11. The Bee Gees- Love You Inside Out
12. Steely Dan- Do It Again
13. The Doobie Brothers- What A Fool Believes
14. Kenny Loggins- This Is It
15. Bob James- Westchester Lady
16. ELO- Showdown
17. Kenny Rogers & The First Edition- Just Dropped In (To See What Condition...)
18. The Blackbyrds- Rock Creek Park
19. The Isley Brothers- Who's That Lady
20. Sugarloaf- Green Eyed Lady
21. Average White Band- Pick Up The Pieces
22. Chicago- I'm A Man
23. The Guess Who- These Eyes
24. The Eagles- One Of These Nights
25. The Rolling Stones- Miss You
26. Todd Rundgren- Sometimes I Don't Know What To Feel
27. Toto- Hold The Line
28. Heart- Magic Man
29. ZZ Top- Cheap Sunglasses

Got my new Daft Punk print mounted and up on the wall above my bed. Color me excited...

 

 

Not anymore you're not...

Last month I gathered some friends at Arrow Bar in the East Village to launch a monthly party called Genius Steals. Tomorrow night is the second installment so I thought I'd share some pix from round one...

Genius Steals... Arrow Bar (6th and A)... 11/21 10p-3a

Dear Internet- sorry I haven't called lately.  Actually I've been locked in my room practicing my DJ skillz. I think I'm getting pretty good. This week I have already done a friend's wedding on Saturday and Santo's Party House earlier tonight. Tomorrow I am doing Bowery Electric with Jon, Friday is at Arrow Bar with Jimmy, and Saturday is at Chinatown Brasserie. As you can see, I am a busy DJ, but it's OK because I like sharing music with other people. Anyways- I will try to find more time to talk to you instead of my new friend scratchlive. I still love you Internet.

- Candy Bear

Santo's Party House Time Lapse from Matt Johnson on Vimeo.

I've been horrible about writing lately, as I've been working on a few side projects and all of my weekends are filled with weddings. Seriously I had weddings in 4 out of 7 weekends.  The last of the 4 was for my good friend's Corey & Alex and they actually asked Jon and I to DJ, which we were happy to do.  It ended up being a blast and I think we might try to spread the word that we're open for business as wedding DJs.  Some good coin in that biz...

Here's a short time lapse vid of the crowd during Daft Punk 'One More Time' (the last tune we played). Some choice photos from the other weddings below that.

In Union Square after the announcement.

I got a chance to fly over to London for work last week and while there, was hooked up with some club level tickets to go see Arsenal at the Emirates (thanks Oliver). I grabbed TBov and we took the tube north to see the Gunners beat Everton 3-1 through 3 second half goals from Theo, RVP, and Nasri. Good times... especially the free beer (see below).

I started following and supporting his candidacy back in December 2007 and have been glued to the news all year long, watching him take on the Clinton and Republican machines and shrugging them off with class and style the whole way. I've been so inspired by this man. I can't wait until 11/4, to hear John McCain concede, and to run outside and get drunk all night.

With 25 days to go, the polls have Obama ahead by 5.6 points in the national poll and ahead in 7 of the 8 battleground states still in play, of which he only needs to win 1 to take the White House. His favorables are up. John McCain's are down. Barack and Joe Biden have won all 3 of the debates that have taken place thusfar. Everything is starting to point to an Obama landslide, with very little time left for things to change meaningfully.

Just Win One

Right now Barack has 264 electoral votes looking solid. He only needs 270 to win, meaning he needs to win 1 of the 8 final battleground states still up for grabs.  From West to East, they are Nevada, Colorado, Missouri, Indiana, Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida. George Bush won all 8 of these in both 2000 and 2004, but the polls currently show Obama ahead in all of them except Indiana. Obama only needs to win ONE of these 8 to win the presidency. I hope it's my home state of Colorado that puts him over the top.

A Silver Lining In the Economic Meltdown

More than anything else, Obama's surge in the past 3 weeks is due to an external force- the current economic crisis that has caused more than 69% of Americans to cite the economy as their #1 issue in this election. The perception, whether real or imagined, that John McCain is an extension of the last 8 years of economic policy has created a political landscape where it's almost impossible for him to win. By default, Obama is the beneficiary. You won't hear me complaining.

The Only Thing That Keeps Me Up At Night

There's still 1% of me that worries that a country that was able to elect George Bush TWICE is still capable of letting latent intolerance seep into their vote. Should we worry that a meaningful number of people are saying one thing in public to seem tolerant, but when they're alone in an anonymous voting booth, they'll suddenly feel less comfortable casting their vote for a black man? (exhale) I know I'm wrong on this... I better be.

This seemed appropriate today...

I'm no finance wiz but I'm also not totally clueless about the market, and when I saw that the bailout hadn't passed the House this afternoon I became legitimately concerned for the first time in this whole mess. From everything I've read, and everything I understand, there's a consensus among both parties that we have to do something as soon as possible to keep credit flowing in the US economy. The fact that both sides agree that we need to take action makes today's failure to pass the bill all that more frustrating, as it would seem that partisan politics is to blame for the hold up on this time sensitive issue. To fail to act by the end of this week could potentially lead to a depression, as credit will freeze up and credit isn't something you can just turn on and off... once it's off, it's going to stay off for a while, and US companies are going to have to downsize to compensate.

I spent most of the afternoon thinking about how this mess is all likely to affect me and my friends, and after talking to my Dad and a couple other people I trust I've come up with a few thoughts.

The Good:

1. No matter how bad this gets in the next 12-24 months, I'm only 28 years old, have a great job, and 30 years of earning power ahead of me. My investments aren't overexposed to this and will likely weather the storm. So all in all, any downturn right now isn't really going to affect me in the long term- I'll be fine and my friends will be fine too.
   
2. There will likely be great opportunities in the next 24 months to invest near the bottom of the financial services, housing, and insurance sectors. Assuming the US economy cycles back, as I'm confident it will, the people who use this downturn as an opportunity to get in low in some industries that have gotten killed lately will enjoy the rebound.
3. In particular, I wonder if there will be a dip in the NYC housing market that will allow me and a lot of my friends, who may be looking to purchase first homes in the next couple years, to get a good deal on a house. That's assuming we can get a loan in a credit tight market, but I think most of us have pretty bitchin' credit so we should be fine.

The Bad:

1. This is likely to adversely affect my adopted hometown of NYC more than any other place on the planet. I feel bad for a lot of my friends who work in finance who have seen their jobs and/or bonuses go up in smoke over the past few weeks. Their pain will be shared by the whole city, as all of the companies designed to service them (like my company SW) will get squeezed. Not fun times in NYC...
2. Our current government, and in particular our President, have once again shown an embarrassing lack of competence. Both parties agree that action must be taken and yet the bill fails by 13 votes? Are you kidding me? The crazy thing is that the Democrats have enough votes to pass it 5 minutes from now but their afraid to do so without getting enough Republicans on board so they can call this unpopular (but necessary) legislation a 'bi-partisan' bill and save their own political necks. FAIL.

The Other:

 

1. I like Fred Wilson' idea about a price index for the Assets the government bus if this all goes through
   
2. Pete Rojas is right about all of these people saying that this is the start of a socialist state
   

Anyways... here's hoping they get something passed in the next couple days. Obama came out today after the bill failed to pass and told everyone to chill out and be patient- that something was going to get done soon. I hope my boy is right.

I took the N train out to Astoria for the first time today (weird that I hadn't been there before) to meet a guy named Jon who sells custom made bikes on Craigslist.  He takes empty frames, builds up entirely new bikes around them, and sells them online out of a small garage off of 28th and Ditmars.  The bike that I ended up buying from him is a Fuji frame single speed with a brand new red paint job and black accents all around the rest of the bike. I'm totally psyched about it... 

Anyone close to me knows that I love AMC's show Mad Men.  Yesterday I saw that someone was posting under the name of the show's main character, Don Draper, on Twitter.  Of course I starter following his updates, and within 24 hours almost every other main character on the show was following me on Twitter, I'd assume in the hopes I'd start following them in return.  It's a really interesting marketing idea.  They are trying to create personas within a real world social network for fictional characters.  The reason it works so well is that one of the strengths of the show is its attention to detail, which draws you into believing that the story you are watching is really happening.  I'll be interested to see if other ongoing TV shows with cult followings get into this sort of thing.  It would have been perfect for The Wire or The Sopranos, and could even work for Lost.

So far this year my favorite two records have been the Hercules & Love Affair record and the King Khan & The Shrines record 'The Supreme Genius of King Khan & The Shrines'.  For the uninitiated (you probably aren't) King Khan & The Shrines consists of King Khan, a Canadian born Indian guy, and a bunch of white guys from Berlin who form a pretty fantastic funk/soul band behind him.  They sound like Stax-era soul/Nuggets-era rock mixed with plenty of freaked out psychadelica.  It's an insane mix of American retro, created by Germans, and fronted by a fat Indian guy who howls like a hippie James Brown.  In a word: fantastic.

This vid is super-duper weird but is worth checking out because it includes some live footage as well as some insight into the general aesthetic of the group.  Dig it... and dig King Khan & The Shrines.  Out.

Rage Against The Machine absolutely killed it on Saturday night at Lolla.  100,000 people were on the verge of riot for 2 straight hours.  This was my view...