St Andrew @ Larimer Lounge 3/18/11

Los Angeles based DJ and producer Andrew Swanson, who plays under the moniker "St Andrew" is one of the brightest young talents in the U.S. electronic music community. Supporting himself with a job at a record store for the past few months, Andrew has not been touring much under his personal title. He has been ghost writing for some of the biggest names in the game for a couple years now as well as building his own impressive collection of upbeat party clap, electro and dubstep. He has recently left his 'day job' because people were asking him for 'too many favors' and has coincendently started writing awesome music for newer and snazzier clients.

A promoter from SF brought him out for a show at Denver's Larimer Lounge under head liner Gladkill. Although the Larimer Lounge is a tiny spot, they certainly rig up alot of lights. St Andrew tore up one of the bar's finest fold outs for an hour.

Arapahoe Basin October 2010

The Colorado Rockies were blessed with about 2 and a half feet of snow, early in the week before Halloween of 2010. Arapahoe Basin and Loveland Ski Areas opened up to the public with pretty stellar conditions. We went up to A-Basin today and enjoyed soft, packed powder snow and the mountain's new express quad!

Conditions did get a little more firm and slick later in the day as the snow surface was scraped and swiped by the throngs of shralpers that navigated the one open run. The terrain park so far consists of a short flat box and tall short down rail with landings that became quite ravaged by noon.

The lift line dies down considerably by 2:00 so if you are looking to ride, stick it out all day to get the most turns in; that is unless you go this weekend, which will obviously be spooky crowded all day.

LCD Soundsystem @ The Fillmore 10/20/10

LCD Soundsystem came through Denver with the british act Hot Chip last Wednesday and performed at the largest sized, traditional music theatre in Denver, The Fillmore Auditorium. The show was listed to start at 8:00PM with doors opening at 7:00. A 8:15 arrival yielded the LARGEST line we have personally seen at a theatre ever. Five heads wide and going almost half way around a major city block, the line was evidence that showgoers were very excited to see opener Hot Chip, who, rarely perform in the United States. However, Hot Chip started promptly at 8:00PM and played their set while at least a thousand people missed it in line.

This disappointment for theatre goers left most puzzled as traditionally there is at least one local act warming up the crowd for the first hour or two of showtime. After Hot Chip there was 40 minutes of intermission while the stage was re-set. LCD Soundsystem then played a great set, which ended at about 11:15PM. Since the event we have seen on LCD's Twitter that this early start time for Hot Chip has been happening many places so if you have tickets for one of their duo shows, SHOW UP ON TIME!

RedLine Gallery Denver

There is an especially shiny gem in Denver's Five Points neighborhood. It's called RedLine Gallery and it is one of the more impressive open art rooms in the city. The floorplan is spacious, with rolling monolith like exhibiting walls peppering the perimeter of the space.

As a registered Section 501(c) charity, RedLine is a community place with many of it's showing artists keeping studios in the gallery. Laura Merage, the founder is in the business of helping emerging & mid-career artists develop their portfolios and build their careers.

The gallery is at 2350 Arapahoe Street in the city of Denver and is open to the public 9 to 5 Monday thru Friday and 11 to 5 Saturday & Sunday. Swing on by!

Eyes On Jack Boyd Photography

This week our good friend Jack Boyd graduated from the Art Institute of Denver. With a focus in action sports photography, Jack will be entering this coming work week as a full fledged adult, currently doing work with Spyder in Boulder, CO. He has received some extra hype on the blogosphere recently with recognition from the Denver Egotist who called him a "grad to grab." Check out his website for some beautiful Colorado imagery.

"Right Back Where We Started"

This past season the Jiberish Clothing Company produced their first ever team movie featuring skiing, snowboarding and skateboarding. "Right Back Where We Started" The film runs 40 minutes and features an especially memorable 6 minute skateboarding section that is impressive for a company that had no athletes outside of snow sports just a year ago. It is a complimentary film that has been hosted on one of the most promising and popular creative commons viral video sites, Vimeo, for less than one month and has garnered 59,000 views. The movie is also slated to be released on the Level 1 Productions 2010 DVD of their movie 'Eye Trip'. Level 1 is arguably the best modern ski movie company around at this point, and has been a partner with Jiberish for years. The two brands collaborate on cut and sew clothing and athlete relationships.

4/20 Boulder, Colorado Panorama

For another year, one of the most staggeringly massive unofficial events passed at 4:20PM on the University of Colorado campus in Boulder. It was overcast almost all day, until about 3:30, when the clouds broke to lighten up the green and lush, spring, Rocky Mountains; proving once again, that the sun gods smile fondly upon marijuana.

The demonstration ended without serious incident, as police and smokers coexisted peacefully in the Norlin Quadrangle for about an hour. Following this session, there was the customary mass exodus from the commons areas to respective eating and drinking establishments.

I took my Mamiya C330 Medium Format and shot a triple paned panorama on Provia 100F Color Slide Film. Click here for FULL PANORAMA


>> Click HERE for Panorama <<

Mayor Hickenlooper Jiberish Visit Video

Jiberish Clothing has spent months supporting local designer and construction man, Drew Witmer, while he renovated a dull, sand tone wine shop in the Lower Highlands Neighborhood of Denver into a vibrant and stylish garment showcase suite. Part of this was made possible by a creative loan from the Denver Office of Economic Development, which helped out Jiberish with lending during a time when traditional lending institutions were not doing so.

As a result Mayor JohN Hickenlooper made a stop by to cut the ribbon at the grand opening. I was told that news cameras and reporters would be present for this but when I showed up, I found otherwise. I ended up being the only person with a video camera there that day which was quite exciting. I took Hickenlooper aside for a few of my own questions, and finally got to put my University of Colorado Journalism degree into action.

2010!

The first decade of the new millennium is in the bag. Drag yourself out of the post holiday season party slouch and start making it happen. May you excel at your passions and thrive with the company of friends and family.

ChwYrVtmns

My good friend and colleague Matt Yerman has started dabbling in the DJ world like so many young computer savvy individuals who have embraced the exploding new technologies that empower them to wildly manipulate digital music. He has launched a music blog called ChwYrVtmns, a hilarious quip on the brain bending chemicals munched on by so many party goers striving to maximize their techno genre enjoyment. While him and his fellow CYV blog authors are profiling works of any and all artists in the electronic genres, Yerman is sure to start offering some fantastic, exclusive, original music on the blog. From a few teasers I have heard of his work, hot offerings are in the near future. He is also a stunning graphic designer, now operating under the trade name MadeService, meaning all posts are accompanied by graphically stimulating images.

MYFDB

Los Angeles based My Fashion Database company has been quietly building an impressively massive, motion adorned and graphically razor sharp, online fashion directory. Following in the footsteps of an internet giant, IMDB.com, which pioneered the concept for the film industry, MYFDB sets itself apart with a honed and beautiful website that is going to put it's older, movie industry comparable to shame. It is also filling a vacant online networking site niche, and those are hard to find these days. The site is finally ready for full fledged traffic, and has been getting tons of media chatter at places like the Wall Street Journal.

I was commissioned to do a screen captured 'sizzle reel' of some of the features of the site. It finally is on the front page, and MYFDB is go for lift off.

Colorado Art Wire Logo

We put together a little logo for the blahg. Some people love the Colorado flag, others hate it. We think it definitely needs an overhaul. It looks like something designed by a stoney Nederland Native in the 70s. Perhaps a statewide flag contest? Colorado is artsy enough, there could be some real treasures out there.

Jiberish 09/10 Lookbook

Denver based Jiberish Clothing has posted a 22 page lookbook peek at their upcoming 09/10 Fall Line. The drop will be a large one, featuring over 50 items, from crewneck pull over hoodies to jeans and plaid button ups. There are a few samples floating about the Denver/Boulder area and from checking out the improvements in cut and sew design and production, huge strides have been made since last year. Big ups to the epic Denver dudes at Sans Clothing for continuing to empower a small emerging company like Jiberish to make these production advancements. The items should start showing up at retailers in early November. You can find the full collection for purchase online at ABSTRACTmall. first.

Work Timer by gersh.no

If you find yourself struggling to monitor your internet dabbling in today's hyper saturated interactive webbing while needing to be on the computer all day, productively self motivated enough to actually work 8 hours, we feel your pain. Perhaps the free Work Timer app by gersh.no is worth a try for you. It takes some dilligence to actually start and stop it every time, but there is a great little editable spreadsheet attached below that can be tweaked for ball park dabbling reductions. Find it HERE on Version Tracker. Only by scrolling all the way down past legal mumbo jumbo could I see who was responsible for graciously distributing this Freeware trinket. It's Gerhard Sletten from Norway at http://gersh.no Thanks GERSH!

Wikipedia Presidential Debate Jokesters

While casually enjoying the third presidential debate between Barrack Obama and John McCain in the company of my roomates, the term 'litmus test' came up at least 3 or 4 times. Enough times for me to realize, I really had no idea what that jargon means in political discussion. So where to but the first hit on google for concise and complete informational tidbits but, Wikipedia. But when I got there, the first sentence read a little different than it should have, and I took a screenshot.
Everyone be cruising the net on their laps during TV time these days, especially the web 2.0 practical jokesters. Well played guys, well played.

Adobe Type Contest Romania

I came across this adobe typography contest entry on Behance. Spectacular. The humble broken passage from artist Stefan Lucut makes me even more pumped on it. "Adobe is one of my favorite typography project. I've made it for the Adobe contest / Romania where we need to redesign the "A" from the Adobe identity. Of course I didn't won but for me remains one of my favorite projects because of the hard work I put into this type.

*I was trying 6-7 months ago to convert it into a font, but is a pain in the ass. Sorry guys."

I haven't seen the winning type, but if I were judging this would be a winning contender without a doubt. Check the full series.

07/08 Reel

Scope the hot video clips below.

High Dynamic Range

This amazingly unique and vibrant photography technique was unknown to me until I was turned onto it by a friend just a year ago. Basically, the process works by compiling anywhere between 2 and upwards of 15 tripod identical shots set at all different exposure levels ranging from very under exposed all the way up to highly washed out.
[An example of an exposure series for input into an HDR algorithm. Wikipedia/CC]

The pictures are compiled using programs like Adobe CS3 or Photomatix where a new image is created which highlights the correct exposure on a huge array of differently exposed areas. The brightest bluest sky exposure is apparent alongside the richest color textures of the darkest shadows of a tree. The result is breathtaking, almost taking on the appearance of an illustration or painting.
An HDR shot in Del Mar California by my BOY, Dillon Morris.]

Often times HDRs have very useful applications other than just making a picture look epic. Photographers use HDR to capture the inside of churches to show the detail of the very bright stain glass with the much darker inside architecture in one image. HDR images are also used to render ultra enriched 3D gaming environments found in many of todays first person shooter games.
[Church detail illuminated by HDR. Photo digitalcameratracker.com

The Changing Nature of Online Music

The online music landscape is changing quickly and thoroughly. Music blogs are a great source for finding music from like minded individuals that meshes with your style. However, tracking down blogs is sometimes difficult as the best content can be unprofiled, tucked deep in the sprawling blogosphere. But sites like HypeMachine have offered a solution by coalescing syndicated embedded music on a series of blogs and putting it into an easily searchable interface. Most of sites like HypeMachine stick to one genre offering users a hub for delivering a style of music they can count on. HypeMachine in particular has a diverse series of electro and hiphop remixes that will get stuff popping. iTunes and Amazon integration helps the artists by encouraging the legal monetization of online music.

Pandora is another unique music interface that disc jockeys for online visitors based on a formula called the 'Music Genome Project'. Based on a number of criteria including melody, harmony, arrangement and lyrics, stations are created by typing in an artist after which the system shuffles through a series of songs from different artists most corresponding with the style and sound of your initial launching point. Paging through the songs too quickly will give you an error as Pandora has secured the rights for only a limited amount of listens designated per hour for each user. In the battle between the effort to use free file sharing and record companies selling music for outrageous prices, interesting compromises have come. Pandora is one of those innovative and groundbreaking compromises. People listen for free, and find music they like, which they then can purchase, with just a few clicks.

Dissapointment in the 4th Branch

It seems that every presidential election that comes by I have a whole new perspective on life, our nation and the political process. Four years is just a number until there are recurring events to put that amount of time in perspective. I feel as if the way I view the world at this presidential election as opposed to the last is incomparable. A combination of journalism major with a poli sci minor has sharpened by awareness to a point where I view political coverage today with a hyper sensativity and suspicious awareness about what the media and candidates are telling me. With that ability I have felt that this latest contest for our next Chief Executive has been especially shallow. I often feel as if my heightened, alomst paranoid awareness as to the flaws of our news system and new dysfunctional trends in politics has stemmed primarily from my education. Even more so, that anyone exposed to the progressive teachings of a liberally acclimated institution like the University of Colorado will be doomed to these low persepctives of our political and news infrastructures for the rest of our lives. However, after watching this Wednesday's democratic debate I in fact know that there is grounded reality for the direction our media is headed in.

My roomate started up the debate on YouTube in our living room this morning and listening to it from the other room I was quickly keen to the words reverberating through the house. For the first 10 minutes I can remember listening, the moderators George Stephanopoulos and Charlie Gibson asked some of the most irrelevant questions I have ever heard spoken at a political debate function. From Hillary's exxagerated accounts of the dangers faced in her Bosnian visit, to questioning why Obama doesn't wear a flag on his suit, it seemed that an immense amount of time was spent on issues having nothing to do with presidential policies or pertinent political issues. Stephanopoulos later called these questions 'electibility questions' which he believed very important to the political process. In reality 'electibility questions' are incidental, minor issues that have little to do with the overarching leadership qualities of the candidates and our petty attempts to highlight controversy and boost voetship. The cutting edge blogging super center the The HuffingtonPost has a great collection of stories on the issue as well as immense comment feedback from everyday Americans. Politics sucks.