pastepunk

Not that it will make you like your job anymore, but I absolutely love having a Panera near my house - not a bad place to grab some dinner after a busy day and toting along the baby and the four year old. Plus that Italian combo is sandwich is delicious and generally, the service at my location is "we care enough about our jobs to make it seem like we are not miserable"...

Saw him a couple times with the full band, 2002/2003, once at the 9:30 club, once at GW University, and also a taping of Conan back when he was NYC. The 930 club show was sold out and totally bonkers. One of the most fun nights of my life. The whole evening felt surreal.

I'll take the bait here (I'll be 32 in a few weeks). The new crop of growing independent labels is very impressive to me simply b/c they are thriving while handling immense twists and turns in their business model. The newer labels are more immediately horizontally integrated with revenue streams, more aggressive than ever in tying merch to their music, and placing huge value on customer service. The music discussion is subjective to taste, but the actual effort by labels like No Sleep, RFC is truly inspiring, especially since it is not perfect all the time and the labels have shown their ability to re-calibrate.

Mine: http://www.pastepunk.com/site/the-best-of-2011/ -- it's long, have a bagel...

I over-generalized there about private practice, you got me However, I will never forget that first year out of law school where a close friend of mine working a large firm got sent on a six month document review project in Hartford, Conn. and they didn't allow him to stay weekends. So every week for six months he flew up to Hartford early Monday morning, back to DC Friday night, worked at the firm's DC office Saturdays and most of the time got Sundays off. Professional hazing...

being an attorney for the government is great for people with kids. i hear that alllll the time from the attorneys i work with. they can leave early to pick them up from school or take them to the doctors, etc.. definitely less pay than in private practice, but it's a worthwhile trade-off, imo. Absolutely, and I work at home full-time. I still work 50-60 hours a week, but it's generally on my own schedule. IMHO, the quality of life difference far outweighs the financial gap between public service and being in private practice.

Attorney for a federal agency. I have two sons under four. Daycare is like having a second mortgage and usually puts the mental brakes on frivolous spending (but not always).

The area is still not great, but it's better than it used to be. In 2002, I ended up driving to a show there (one of the few times where I had to) and at a red light a few blocks away on 7th street, just north of the Convention Center, a prostitute walked up to my car and threw herself onto my hood and then rolled herself off the car, screaming that I drove into her. I had read about that ruse to get people of their cars so they could then rob you. I floored it out of there.

I definitely recommend the metro route. I'll be at the Thursday/MDAM show... it should be over before metro closes and NYE is a weekend so metro will be open to 3am. If you're coming from the south, you can park at the Franconia-Springfield metro station, which is just off I-95. It's about a 35 minute ride to the U Street stop, which is closest to the club. Parking is only $4.50 on a weekday.

Funny how this is always a one way conversation - 'trend hopping label!!!'... what about the band's decision? Gotta go where the action is...

New Senders is great!

It says a lot about the behind the scenes work of the label if they are able to keep signing quality bands at the pace they are on.

Full length is definitely worth $1. B9 wrote on Facebook in a comment "We wish Energy absolutely nothing but the best. But, we let them go because we put out 3 records with them, and didn't make the $ back. Couldn't do it a 4th time. Hopefully, things will work out for them in the long run, they are a talented band." I wish all labels were that honest in their dealings...

Just set up a really good Bandcamp page that you can link to on your Facebook page. Much better way of getting your music out.

Patron (and Loki) - great job you're doing w/ 1stFive, keeps getting better each month.

Good Riddance was not all edge. Reach the Sky had some edge members but Ian definitely wasn't edge. Was Indecision an edge band when Tom was on vocals? Hmm...

H20. Toby almost never mentions the fact that he's edge

Mozy online backup. Worth every dollar.

Can't imagine I'd ever go back to watching videos on TV... talk about a habit shift!

Just got a promo package from you guys, thanks so much!

Lobster Became Oort Records -- http://www.facebook.com/pages/Oort-Records/145513798811715. It kind of relaunched in October and then went quiet again. It's been a long road back for Steve and company since their distro messes of mid 2000s. I suppose you can blame it all on having one very successful Yellowcard release and having a lot of people who wanted to get their hands on it, and things not working out so great in the end. Kevin Wade was the label manager for a couple of years before the whole thing fell apart.

Took more than 2 months to get my order also when I bought that issue about a year ago or so. Never got the impression he was going to flake on it from my emails though. I'm surprised this was still available, I thought it had sold out already.

Love that Joystick release. Quality melodicore.

Had no idea they reformed. Awesome!

Album is bonkers. Expected nothing less.