Photography by embnar…

Allo & aloo! And how are you? I’m good, thank you for asking. It’s Tuesday, so there’s that. Started it off with a pretty sweet 30 miler bike ride today. Now I know the safety folks won’t like this but, when I’m alone I tend to (but not always) ride with headphones on. We won’t go into the debate of whether or not it’s safe, but know this… I ALWAYS assume there’s a car behind & I ALWAYS assume I’m invisible to the rest of the world. Between that in always knowing my surroundings, I feel confident that “hearing” a car behind me doesn’t make me safer.

Anywhosals, my point was/is that today, due to apparently all my headphones getting rather crappy, I put on the new Apple Earbuds that came with my replacement iPod classic (120gb! WOOT!). My friends, I forgot just how much those headphones suck. Suck balls. Suck monkey balls after a feces throwing fight with a 800lb gorilla!!! Dem’s big turds.

Windy, tinny, and generally blah. If you are listening to music on these things anywhere beyond your desk where you need to hear your boss bellow at you at a moment’s notice and you have a few bucks to spare, upgrade yer headphones. You will not regret it. AND, on the plus side, you won’t look like every. body. else. with. the. same. damn. headphones. hanging. out. their. head.

It’s critical! One listen to today’s gem, John Frum Alaska by Mexican Elvis on the earbuds & my normal noise-cancelin’ Shure bad boys and oh my. One might have thought the state of today’s music is in a sad state of affairs!

This is nice. Basically folkish, but not always, pop. A bit somber at times, but still fresh & engaging. Add in the nasally, slightly whiny “indie” vocal, and yeah, I’m in! Kinda matches the cloudy weather yesterday that seems to be back this afternoon — Oooo… maybe a rainy ride home? Been a while.

Trying to think of who’s voice this guy reminds me of… is it The Mountain Goats guy? Ugh. Going to drive me nuts. Oh well, c’est la vie, and what not!

But yeah, this is that slightly melancholy / Sunday at peace kinda music. Quite lovely…

DOWNLOAD JOHN FROM ALASKA!!!

01 he spent 3 years trying to enter the eurovision song contest
02 the washington dc
03 drop hawaii
04 friends

05 gore tex jacket
06 atonement cover
07 street lights
08 amongst us there‘s a cannibal
09 something overheard at the bavaria filmstadt
10 at 6.30 you come to me
11 say you‘re wrong

Some Mexican Elvis love: Myspace | Label

Cheers,
T.

Heellllooooo all you beautiful Tsururadio listeners!! AdventurerNeil checking in here, from sunny/snowy/schizophrenic Colorado.

“Who the freak is AdventurerNeil?!?” You may be asking yourself, while quizzically furrowing your brow in consternation. Well, I’m the newest contributor to TSURURADIO! You may know me from such mixes as Quarterlife Recession and/or Bring Out Your Dead! (heart).

I must say, I’m honored Tsuru has invited me here…  and also quite intimidated to walk these sacred halls! I honestly feel like this is one of the best, most open, friendly, no-BS, uber-epic-quality music communities out there. And I’m so thankful to be a part of that! (Speaking of which, didja download walzac’s new mixtape yet? Pretty amazing! My iPod is gonna be so over-sexed after this mixtape week has its way with it! Hawtsauce!)

Enough with fanfare – this post has music! And video! And pics! And my experience of Tsuru’s Super Awesome No-Frills Ride For Breast Cancer! WOOOT!

Let’s get you rocking with some music that has lodged itself WAY inside my head over the last week…

Apples In Stereo – Told You Once (from the freakin’ amazing Eileen mixtape!)

Givers – Up, Up, Up

Generationals – When They Fight, They Fight

Cults – Go Outside

…RIDICULOUSLY SICKENINGLY CUTE MUSIC!! I can’t wait to buy the new Apples In Stereo album when it comes out on the 20th of this month!

Also, a co-worker shared this with me, and I thought I should post it for the community’s enjoyment. Please enjoy a live performance of the much enjoyed and bally-hooed Excuses by The Morning Benders! My favorite parts of this video include watching the lead singer, and hearing his thoughts on the meaning of the song before and after they play.

Hm. Well, WordPress somehow keeps eating my embeds and disliking anything other than youtube, so we’ll see if that actually ends up posting. If not, you can still watch it here! while I iron out the kinks.

…

So, after being a fairly fervent follower (yay alliterations!) of TSURURADIO for the last 6ish months, I decided to hop in my car, and then hop on my bike for TSURURADIO’S Super Awesome No-Frills Bike Ride For Breast Cancer this last Saturday. Huzzah! It was a fairly epic adventure, just getting out to Ohio, but I gotta say, the Midwest charmed my pants off in a way I had not expected. Columbus’ short north immediately felt like home, what with all the college kids, old victorian homes, bikes, etc. The people (aka Tsuru and Baby) were extremely nice! And hawt damn, if it wasn’t in the 70s, humid, and NOTHING LIKE COLORADO. Yay!

After arriving, meeting my hero, and eating some fantastic local foods, we made a toast to the following day’s ride: a toast TO NO FLATS!!! Well, the gods of riding must have heard us, because I don’t think a single person got a flat tire, which is pretty great!

The next morning, we were all giddy. When we got to Park of Roses, there was an impressive crowd, and I had the pleasure of blasting some Tsuru tunes via boombox. I wanted to go around, meet peeps, maybe casually sip a beer, but there just was not time – I had to take pictures and cram myself full of calories and liquids! Here’s Tsuru and baby, all suited-up and registering the crowds:

When we took off, I felt pretty badass, I must say. I was in the company of many clearly veteran riders, and I was the newcomer! On the Olentangy bikepath, we were an elite little group, a disciplined unit, like a dog pack racing across the Iditarod. Then, we found “the hill”. I hit it kind of unexpectedly, and in a much higher gear than I should have been, so I lagged behind and barely made it to the top without dismounting. My lungs were racing for the next 10 minutes… good thing Ohio is lower than Colorado! From there, we started heading north on some smaller highways. With plenty of energy and the desire to keep up with the big dogs, I was pedaling hard in my highest gear, zooming along at a zippy ~25mph! I felt much more comfy around the vehicle traffic than I’d imagined. When we neared Delaware, the northern point on our loop, we all stopped at a gas station to food and water up. Aaron mentioned what a nice tailwind we’d had (I didn’t even NOTICE it!), and noted that going back might be hell.

Well, if you read Aaron’s write-up of the ride Monday, then you heard about the wind. OH-MY-FREAKING-GOD THE WIND. It slammed into us at 40, even 50mph gusts and made us ache, long for a simple 10mph speed into the howling headwinds. At times, it felt like a gust could’ve easily blown me into a car trying to pass me. But then, I’d put my head real low, switch into a lower gear, and grit my teeth. Actually, if you must know, Told You Once by Apples In Stereo was in my head most of the ride back, and I was found myself laughing into the wind, “I told you once, I told you twice… I’m gonna treat your baby nice!!”

By the time we got back on the the Olentangy, my body was hurtin’ for certain. The wind, 4 hours of hard pedaling, a vague exhaustion from traveling, and the tail-end of a small cold completely overwhelmed me. Whatever energy I’d gained from my 4 downed energy bars was long gone. After what seemed forever, I finally cruised back into the park of roses, completely starved, but also completely happy. TIMBER!!!!

I would like to take this time to admit that I was definitely the last of the 50 mile riders to finish the route. I think Aaron and Tucker probably smoked me by a solid 30-45 minute window. But, but BUT. I ran with the big dogs! And I finished! And raised $200+ for the cause from myself and pledges from my family! Not bad for a first timer new to road bikes and races! I grew up a casual rider, mostly riding low-end mountain bikes, so I feel glad to have broken into a new scene. And honestly, I couldn’t have done it with any cooler people, or at any better time!!

Big thanks to Aaron and Baby for creating the whole sch-bang, being willing to host my roving ass for a few nights, and for being pretty awesome in general!

This is AdventurerNeil signing off for now!

Photography by badraggled

Howdy all!  I love that photo by badraggled.  Totally represents my normal impersonation of the ending of the weekend… at least for the first few hours.  But not this Monday…  Why, you ask?  I’ll tell ya.

First, what a weekend! It had pert-near everything!  Cycling (about 50 cold windy miles, oof!), arts, crafts, date night, and even sports?  Yeah, we don’t have TV so Sunday evening we sat in a shitty local bar and watched Canada take some GOOOOOOOOLD!!!  Haha!  We were the only 2 representing Canuckland in the place, though worrisome at first, everyone was quite nice (we could take ‘em anyway, Baby’s a fighter).

Saturday night found us at two Couchfire Collective events, Touch Feely where Baby’s piece “NSFW” & my “Scratch-N-Sniff Sharpie Porn” were quite the “hit” (if you judge “hit” by number of tilted quizzical heads).  Then it was off to Art Makes Noise at Junctionview where we saw wonder music related art & a great local band Super Desserts (more on that in a sec), along with some night caps at Apropos.  Heavenly.

As if the normal Friday evening to Sunday night wasn’t enough, this morning, it was off to Columbus Alive where Baby got interviewed for their What Are You Wearing? weekly feature (should be up a week from Thursday)!  Hot diggity!  The only thing missing this weekend was a photoshoot that got pushed  back to this coming weekend.  C’est la vie!  You can’t have it all, eh?

Speaking of Columbus Alive… If I told you that the local band featured in this article (the same band we say on Saturday night) had 12 current members, 7 songwriters, & 3 arrangers, with an all-time membership of 25+ and up to 15 members at one show, what would you think?  “A hot mess”, right?  Well you’d be wrong.  DEAD wrong.  How dare you make such assumptions!  You wouldn’t want someone judging you like that, now would you?

Would you???

I didn’t think so.

haha….  Anywhosal doosal, at the show on Saturday it was Super Desserts that stole our hearts and won my moneys when I purchased the vinyl copy (and got a free CD too!) of their album Forever Banjo!

Oh my…  how to describe this.  No drums, lots of school choir singing, harmonizing, & whistling.  Adorable songs built around ukuleles, guitars, violins, a cello, sax, xylophone, etc, etc, etc, and various percussion instruments that probably saw some time being passed around your 3rd grade music class.

There’s a quirk about each song that is reminiscent of TSURURADIO fave Jonathan Richman (if Richman were actually, like, 12 people, about 1/3 of which female and used about 12 different instruments), they are short, super sweet, but intelligent.  I think this is called “Twee” but I never really got what “Twee” is supposed to be.  Meh, who cares, to me this is just brilliantly composed & arranged pop where if you listen and don’t sway your head side-to-side with a stupid cake-eating grin on your face, well, you may just be broke.

You know, I don’t normally get around to seeing enough local bands — and for that, to you Columbites out there, I apologize — so it was especially nice to stumble on these guys Saturday.  Thanks Super Desserts for capping off a wonderful night!

Really love the whole album, but for me “Ibiza” is my fave and Baby really was all over “I Only Love You Because You Can Play Guitar” (you trying to tell me something there baby?), so here’s those.

1. Ghost Song
2. Ibiza
3. Falling Out of Fashion
4. Gotta Lotta Sun
5.Let’s Get Depressed
6. Mama’s Circle
7. Yr Heart
8. Banjo Forever
9. On Sunday
10. I Only Love You Because You Can Play Guitar
11. Faster Tea
12. Comfort in His Lies
13. Jump Out of the Way
14. Funeral

Super Desserts?  More like super yummy linkage: Myspace | Bandcamp | Twitter | Facebook |  BUY

Cheers,

Tsuru

How’s THAT for a Bike Ride name???   Awesome!!!  Exactly.

Today is World Cancer Day, so I couldn’t think of a better time to make this announcement.  On Saturday, April 3rd, TSURURADIO will be hosting a Super Awesome NO-FRILLS Bike Ride for Breast Cancer!!!

The Idea

I’ve been wanting to do this ever since my first charity bike ride, the Tour de Cure for diabetes.  There is something amazing about a bunch of people getting on their bikes, riding around together, making new friends, exploring new areas & routes, maybe discovering what they can do physically, and all the while raising money & awareness for a great cause.

Now, I’m just one guy so I wanted to keep this extremely simple & super-minimalist.  So here’s how this is going to work:

1. April 3rd, you show up BEFORE 9AM with your bike, your helmet, and $20.
2. You donate $20 and pick out a 10, 25 20, or 50 mile route map.
3. At or just after 9am, we all ride out together!
   
4. Follow your chosen route map, have fun, make friends, enjoy a nice April morning, until you are done.  YOU ARE AWESOME!!!
5. We count the money raised, announce it here, and give it ALL to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure group!
   

The Details

• NO-FRILLS? Yes, no-frills.  This is an unsupported, no pomp, no circumstance, NO SPONSORS, no free stuff, no prizes, no cowbells, & therefore no expense (except copying the maps), meaning more (actually ALL) money goes to the charity!

• LOCATION: PARK OF ROSES, COLUMBUS, OH!!! After much deliberation, we decided to meet at the Park Of Roses in Columbus, OH.  It has public parking, water fountains, and (hopefully) the porta-potties out!  It’s on the bike path, which most of the riding will occur and it’s a chance to take advantage of one of the best bike paths Columbus has to offer!!!   We’ll be over by the bike path, come look for us!  The official address is: 3923 North High Street, Columbus, OH 43214

• LINK TO SHARE: Main Page -> http://bit.ly/TSURURIDE Facebook Event Page -> http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=365775912497

• LARGE FLYER TO PRINT: http://www.tsururadio.com/tsururadiobikeride-UPDATED.jpg

• HELMETS? Yes.  You look like a dork?  Get over it, we will ALL look like dorks together.  This is for cancer, not for your ego.  And bring hydration, bring a spare tube, bring a working bike, bring your cell phone in case you need to be picked up. i.e. BE PREPARED!  The more prepared you are, the more fun you will have!  I promise that!

• HOW BIG WILL THIS BE? I have no idea.  If we raise $20 because I’m the only guy out there on April 3rd, or if we suddenly have 1,000 people trying to ride together, it will be a success in my book.  Let’s just do this!

• WHAT IF IT RAINS? Wear a rain cape and expect to get wet.  As my Mama Tsuru would say, HTFU or “Harden The Fuck Up” (she had quite the sailor mouth).  This is for charity, a little rain is NOTHING compare to what our moms, sisters, wives, friends, and even a few guys have to go through.

3/10 update!!!  MAPS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Well, we tried and tried, but there was just no way to get a good 25 mile route without making it a convoluted ride of back streets and switchbacks and god knows what else… SOOOOO we had to make it a 20 mile route, hope you don’t mind too much.  Here are the routes!

10 MILES!

Difficulty: Easy
Description: Enjoy a lovely ride along the Olentangy River and see just how far that bike path actually goes!!!!

20 MILES!!

Difficulty: Intermediate
Description: Take the Olentangy Bike Path up and out. You’ll have 1 little but nasty steep hill to contend with, but after that, some looping into a residential area and back down we go!!!

50 MILES!!!

Difficulty: Experienced
Description: Just like the 20, take the Olentangy Bike Path up and out, but after that little but nasty steep hill & a bit of residential, we head north to Powell & then to Delaware! It’s long straight-aways up with rollers to boot & potentially some traffic & railroad tracks. Definitely for those comfortable around cars. The way back south will show you some open fields, a bit of lovely riverside, then back from whence we came! A good hard ride!

I will send out updates to this page on the blog, Twitter, and Facebook.  So subscribe, follow, and/or friend us now!

Excited???  ME TOO!!  Stay tuned, okay?  More details to come!!!!   WE CAN DO THIS!!!!  WOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Cheers & let’s ride,

Aaron (aka Tsuru)