Honk TX Complete!

Honk Texas is OVER, and I’m safe and cozy in bed.

What a week!

You can get a play by play at http://facebook.com/bdtmusic or check out http://twitter.com/drinky_team. Lots of photos! Oh, and of course my facebook page:  http://facebook.com/kaistrandskov.

I got to see a lot of amazing music, and meet some incredible musicians and just all around awesome people.

Being a musician, first and foremost, is about people. Making  people happy, and being happy with people, and being made happy by people. And that’s what happened at Honk Texas.

I’ll write more when I recover. Right now I gotta get caught up with my day job.

Honk TX

Well, I’m on the train to the airport, and then… Austin! Bucharest Drinking Team is headed to Honk Texas for 5 days of hedonism. We’ll be all posting stuff online all week, so it’ll be just like you’re there.

Things kick off tonight at the Russian House, and then well be playing in the streets the rest of the week. Meow!

So far, I have discovered that I forgot my important sash that ties together my whole fashion ensemble. At least I have my tupan….

Gamer jam

My pal Sean Downey has set up a monthly Gamer Jam, where a live band plays the soundtrack to video games as people play them on a huge screen. There are also homemade games, and songs inspired by games, and some gamers like Louis who show their mad skills in games like Mega Man. I got to play in the “house band” last time, and took some major risks. Apart from learning all the music for Street Fighter 2 (including Thailand in 11/8), I organized the band to play two songs off of Katamari. Susan played the levels live! It was so awesome! But scary, because I had never performed as lead vocalist before. I really took advantage of the 80/20 rule to prepare, because there was so little time! But the other musicians, Steve, Louis, and Sean, totally pulled together and made the whole thing work! And of course, none of it would have worked without Susan on game controller. So here’s my first attempt at leading a band. Please be gentle. ;)

The next Gamer Jam is coming up on April 4th at the MIX in Georgetown (Seattle). I hope you can make it out! Come over and say hi.

Some good news about lyrics

While driving to the airport, getting ready to leave the big island of Hawaii after an amaaazing trip, I was dreading the inevitable long wait at an ugly airport (being in Hawaii does not do much to improve it) (As Douglas Adams once said, and I am paraphrasing, “In no human language can you find the phrase, ‘As pretty as an airport'”) and so I was already in a critical mood when I heard “One More Night” on the car radio for the zillionth time. That’s when it occurred to me just how really bad the lyrics are.

Like a river to the sea,

I will always be with you

And if you ever sail away,

I will follow you

These are not good lyrics. He rhymed “you” with “you”. And the metaphor is confusing, yet also cliche.  But seeing as I am no longer in the hating mood, let’s look at the good news: It did reach #1 in the US.

So maybe we shouldn’t worry so much about writing good lyrics.

In the meantime, Turn it On is a good song with a good message. And so is Land of Confusion. Good video, too. Really captures the height of the Cold War. Watch it to the end. Hopefully these two songs are how he’s remembered.