More Hidden Beauty on Lake Street

Vampire Remembers 1,000 Year Old Law to Take Down Wells Fargo

Do yourself a favor and check out the comments.

More Urban Detritus on Lake Street

This street is just horrible. Like I was saying before, there are bums on every corner. Including this one: at Lake and LaSalle. A mean looking bum sits here all day and shakes a McDonalds coffee cup at passersby. I see him every time I go to Starbucks or the other office or any location west of LaSalle.

Anyway, I walked to Lake and Wells the other day and passed this guy in his usual spot with his usual cup. He was swaddled in dirty bum blankets with an assortment of bum equipment scattered around his spot on the pavement. After a short visit with Accounting, I started on my way back east. I had a red light at LaSalle and glanced back to see my man's spot vacant. Upon closer inspection, I found all his stuff gone. The only remnants were pennies scattered on the sidewalk by his spot. I thought "Are you shitting me? Who throws away pennies?" I was so angry at his wasteful ways that I went to reach for the lone dime next to the puddles he left. As I bent towards the filthy concrete, I thought better of scavenging this dude's dime and held out hope that maybe he'd been forcibly removed from his corner. Nothing worse than a choosy beggar, ya know?

A Couple People Have Been Asking...

I basically need to upload this video monthly because I'm so bad at explaining where my dog's name came from and this video is the perfect summary.

Challenger was Crazy

 

I Love These Real Simple Graphics

Lake street has got to be the worst street in Chicago. Aside from the trains roaring across the loop a few feet above, the sun never shines below the trestles so snow turns to icey slush and stays that way. There is an aggressive bum on every corner and government issued vehicles illegally and/or doubled park in every spot. Traversing the street between offices everyday is enough to make you agoraphobic.
However, I found this little glimmer of light at trestle number 420 and it brightened up my afternoon. Dig:

Albums I Just Bought

Due to a visit from the facist dictator of China, it has taken cousin Michael and I an hour and a half and counting to get downtown today. I don't know why he chose Chicago, but he is here messing shit up. Maureen lost an hour of her life to his motorcade last night and now he is rampaging me and Mike this morning. Bastard. Anyway, this time killing gave me time to listen to a sampling of my new albums. You see I was killing time in Wicker Park the other day and found some treasures in the dollar bins at Reckless Records. I buy a lot of alt rock from the Half Price Books dollar bins and Reckless has a lot of the same stuff. However, they also have some real gems that might not make it all the way to a suburban HPB.
I bought the first two Bjork albums for 99cents apiece because I don't think I ever owned a tangible copy of either one. It's been years since I heard Post all the way through and I don't think I ever heard Debut all the way through. Nothing too exciting here: I could've certainly copped either one at any HPB around. However, not for under a buck.
Let's see...what else...I got the Italians Do It Better compilation for a buck and even though I have most of the full-lengths advertised on this album, there's still a couple unknown tracks on there and I'll pay a dollar for 7 tracks from a label I trust. Plus cd audio sounds a lot better in the car.
I shelled out $1.99 each for the 3 disc Matador anniversary set and Health::Disco2. I got the Matador comp mainly just to have (ya know?) but also to throw on when I'm not in the mood to make decisions. And since I've been hanging with the two most indecisive people in the world lately (Michael and Maureen), I have less and less capacity for weighing options these days. Ordering dinner is a nightly battle that wastes way too much of my precious time.
Decisively, I love Health. I love everything they've ever done and I loved Disco::2 before I was halfway through the tracklist. I somehow slept on it when it came out ( I think I read about it, got a few songs from blogs and then stopped thinking about it before I actually acquired it) even though I loved Disco::1 so much. And after listening to most of it while waiting for Supreme Chancellor Jintao to finish mentally molesting the students at Walter Payton middle school and clear the roads, I like it at least as much as I liked the previous disco album. While the Salem remix is fire and so is the Tobacco one, the best song on the album is probably "USA Boys" by Health themselves. I'll post it eventually.
But the best score had to be King Kong's first album for 99 cents. Obviously, some foolish clerk at Reckless didn't realize what she was doing when she slapped that ".99" sticker on a totally cristine copy of the self-titled banger. I think I may have to post the intro track at least when I get home tonight. For those of you unfamiliar with King Kong, the dude from Slint is the frontman and I guess you could say they sound like a more showgazey(?) version of Pylon. I guess.

I Wanna Go Tanning to Cure My S.A.D.

I finally got around to seeing Black Swan the other night. It was just about superb, as expected. Portman was a freakshow waiting to explode and I kept feeling the tension build and build as she turned the most mundane activities into psychotic episodes. Ballet may be stressful and all but then why was Mila Kunis so normal? I guess it was supposed to be Black Swan and White Swan but it was more like a regular swan (kunis) and Portman's tiger-giraffe possessed swan. I kept wanting to like smash a thick 40 bottle over her face. But the plodding psychosis made the movie: she eventually figures out that she literally has to kill her self and/or others in order to dance with a little swagger?

I guess my main (only?) complaint is that the movie was not long enough and her descent should have been more brutal and much darker. It could have been infinitely meaner and creepier and even more salacious if they had just let the characters keep doing what they were doing. Maybe a few more dark sex scenes or awkward Portman social situations, you know? Like maybe her imagining a dragon or something at the Doctor's office while she is getting her mutated foot checked out. Or maybe she rapes a subway monster or something, ya know? Yes, the film gave me the creeps a couple times (the lovely feathers), created a few visually compelling circumstances (monsters in the darkened theater), and eventually blew me away when she died for perfection. However, it should have been much darker, erotic and thrilling because when you think about it, the stakes aren't high enough when the only lives hanging in the balance are indifferent to death anyway. Was anyone actually really saddened by the ending? Does it matter what happens to anyone after the last frame? Whatever.


My roommates and I (Maureen and cousin Michael) had been trying to see Black Swan for weeks but uncompromising show times (not to mention the wicked case of S.A.D. I contracted since moving to Chicago) conspired against us ever getting to the theater. Instead of seeing the darkly erotic freak-fest everyone promised, we had been staying home in the snow and working our way through the Wire Box set. While I can quote the dialogue from every episode by heart, I still manage to notice a couple new dynamics every time I re-watch a season. For instance, Sobotka telling Carver his boss (Valcheck) is a "gaping asshole" while Carver just smokes without using any hands opened up rounds of new speculation for Michael and me this time through season 2. Is Sobotka's response believable? Is Carver a gaper too for dumbly following orders like that? Why is Carver smoking like that anyway? How come the stevedores don't put up more of a fight? I envy my brother because he is still watching the original seasons for the first time.


I hate to keep harping on the weather, but I'm really not trying to go linger and waste time at nightlife spots for no particular reason. I've had it with the whole going out just to go out mentality and unless you're as good as me at convincing people to do things they don't want to do, there is slim to no chance of getting me off my love-seat. So we watch Wire episodes. If we're lucky, the Redbox round the way will have something decent and I'll find a way to convince everyone to watch The Expendables or some crap like that while we eat takeout. And you know what? I can't figure out what's wrong, let alone how to fix it.

But there are a few bright spots. Last week, a couple movies I've been aching to see came to the Walgreens on Montrose. I rented The Town, the Social Network, and the Owl Movie I've been trying to see since it was in the theaters. (Quick side-note: I tried to take a bunch of neighborhood kids to the movies so I wouldn't feel like a freak when I went to see the Owl Movie myself. It kinda backfired though because I'm pretty sure the dads all think I'm a pedder-ass and the kids think I'm lame for wanting to see the Owl Movie).

So I paid for the Town with the Ipad app and ran up there to retrieve it, encountering the Social Network (also freshly released) while at the store in a box. I'd forgotten about it since I'd scornfully dismissed it during the round of theater previews over the summer. But I figured I'd grab it anyway so I could be the first person to rent/watch that particular copy, ya know?





I forget what we had for take-out, but I remember how horrible The Town managed to make itself after the excitement of the opening scene bank robbery quickly faded. Literally, the movie is like a TV crime drama mixed with Point Break. But instead of surf culture, they just have d-bag Boston meat-head culture to invade and latch onto. Ohh watch out, the dude from Hurt Locker is a loose cannon. And Ben Affleck is different: he's a sensitive felon...but you already knew that right? And because they had to out-Boston the Departed, the final shootout is deep in the guts of Fenway Park. Which reminds me of the very first thing I thought about this movie: if this "town" is so famous for all its bank robbers, how come I never heard of the town or a single bank robber from said town. Did they make it up? Uhh, I gotta stop thinking about it because I'm boring myself with my memories.

On the other hand, The Social Network was a lot better than I had first thought. Initially, I had no desire to go anywhere near the movie. Not only did I not ever want to see it, I decided I didn't like Jesse Eisenberg because he annoyed me in the previews. Plus I had hated the whole college aspect of Facebook since I was in college (where are the grown-ups?). But David Fincher's film was actually incredibly entertaining. It was exciting, informative, dramatic, well-structured, appropriately sinister and just glamorous enough for my tastes. Timberlake was great as the fella from Napster and he earned his 7%, unlike the rich kid who felt entitled to ride Eisenberg's coattails because he had a checking account. Seriously, he couldn't even hang out with his buddy while he was working. I mean, you at least have to stick around while others work if you yourself aren't going to work, right? Like when I made the LA STAYBAD mix-tape a few years ago, that kid Brent at least made an effort to be in the same room as me while I worked on Ableton. I didn't really notice the Reznor soundtrack so I'll have to give it another go, as I didn't notice Johnny Greenwood's superb There Will Be Blood score until the third or fourth viewing.

And I fell asleep during the Owl Movie because it was too hard to follow...I think. No wait, I remember a battle and a giant tree. I knew I couldn't get behind Owls; totally overrated woodland creatures anyway.

Well that was a long year.

So I took the last year off from a lot of things. I moved around a bunch of times trying to get my act together and I'm finally satisfied with the results. I left Los Angeles a little over a year ago and crawled across the east coast like the walking death until I finally settled down in Atlanta around Thanksgiving. I saw some doctors, worked on fixing my chest pains and just about figured out how to stop being such a psycho all the time. It really wasn't as easy as that short description makes it sound but that's fine: I don't wanna bore anyone with the gory details. Bottom line is that I've been clean and sane for almost a full year now and I haven't felt this good since high school.

I'm in Chicago, once again, and determined to last more than a couple months this time. Hopefully, I'll be attending Loyola Law School Chicago next year and in the meantime, I'm the Office Manager at American Invsco Realty and I actually enjoy getting up and going to work everyday. While I'm totally weirded out by that fact and never thought those words would leak outta my grill, I guess it just means I'm finally sick of the angsty slacker life I've been committed to since college. Or simply that I finally found a job I enjoy. Totally never thought I'd be involved with the scam real estate industry but I'm just the Office Manager and don't actually do any renting or selling. And that's why I like it: I get to do everything from marketing to research to social networking to Adobe stuff. And I like my boss. She's in a band.
I also got engaged to Maureen and we're finally moving into our bungalow in Portage Park, Chicago next week. Since we got here in August, Spaghetti and I have been stuck sleeping on the floor at her mom's house and its totally a drag. But I guess I am trying to make up for the hell I put Maureen through these past 8 years and although it has got to be impossible, sleeping on the floor at her mom's is something a well-behaved young man would do and not complain about. And if I also let her pick out the kitchen cabinet colors, then that is a huge step in the right direction too right?

So what do I do now if I'm not out raging til 10 AM every day? Kind of a good question. Well obviously I've been catching every Phillies game this Doctober. But other than that, I mostly just read a ton and play with Spaghetti. I try to play with him for at least a couple hours a night because he's stuck home alone all day with Maureen's mom and she calls him Sparky or some such nonsense and never even plays with him. So between the dog and the Phils and the job and Maureen, I have very little free time these days anyway. Maureen and I ran a 5K a few weeks ago but that is such a lame hobby. I'd so much rather play team sports or something.

I was playing a ton of piano in Atlanta but now Maureen's mom yells at me when I touch it. However, I did get my exiled computer back when I came to Chicago and Maureen watches her "Gossip Girl" and WB re-runs elsewhere now.
So hopefully I'll be able to crank out a new mix one of these days when I'm all set up at the bungalow. I had the ill studio upstairs before and I have plenty of space to rig something up this time as soon as Michael Albert gets his ass out here and we get the original Audacity lineup back together.

Oh and I found out who the impostor "DJ Tom Hanks" was and he got his cease and desist. Like I said, it was somebody I knew from Atlanta (who actually went to Fordham too) and it was actually my brother Christian that cracked the case. Obviously, he admitted he ripped it off right away and now goes by some horribly lame name.

Anyway, that's what I'm up to these days. My act is officially together and things are looking up. So I'm gonna go and hopefully figure out how to catch some of this Birds game online. Holla!

hey someone was trying to talk to you on facebook the other day when you were...somewhere else...

THIS GUY! HOLY SHIT!



AND THEN THIS MOTHERFUCKER BIT THE HEAD OFF AN OZZY!



AND ALONG CAME HIS EVIL BUDDY....THIS...THIS....THIS OTHER GUY!
AHHHHHHH!!!!!!



I'm literally starting to believe all the Werepyre mythology I've been making up and as a result, I'm terrified of losing my blood to one of these freaks.

WEREPYRE. "LEAVE YOUR BLOOD AT HOME" EP: WE WILL EAT YOUR SOUL WITH THE FURY OF AN OPERA.

WEREPYRE . LEAVE YOUR BLOOD AT HOME






LEAVE YOUR BLOOD AT HOME

I. Werepyres Are Coming Down The Mountain
II. Leave Your Blood At Home
III. We’re Fucking Killing All The Kids In This City, First Born Or Die
IV. Werewolves Really Do Drink Blood…Your Blood
V. Summertime

30 Minutes of psychedelic blood shed by the full moon light from DJ Tom Hanks and The Crack Fox. Enjoy.

WEREPYRE . LEAVE YOUR BLOOD AT HOME

Sorry INTER-TRON, DJ Tom Hanks Has Bigger Fish to Fry

Yes, I know it has been a month since I posted anything on here. And yes, I am horribly apologetic. But as most of you know, I am on my way to becoming a hot shot lawyer that eats cheesesteaks for dinner and souls for breakfast and lunch. But before I can dump hot sauce on purgatory, I have to actually study for exams and whatnot around this time of year. So listen to the new Metric, download a 13th Floor Elevators album, and smoke while doing so.

Although I'm not done til May 11th, I turn 26 on May 7th and you can bet your ass there is gonna be a raucous birthday edition of POUNDTOWN at Footsie's next Wednesday the 6th. Instead of taking a test on my b-day like last year, I'll be half-shitfaced on Chimay by the time the clock strikes May 7th next week. Stay tuned for specifics but save the date...we're going to smoke lightning and stab unicorns at Footsie's next Wednesday. Holla!



To help get ready, download my 26th B-day theme song "Redlights" by Salem. It is just one of several slamming tracks on their "Yes I Smoke Crack EP" out now on Patrick North's Acephale Records

I'd bookmark that page and check back often because our boy North, in addition to being an all-around grizzled motherfucker, has better taste than literally everyone I know. I mean...shit...Salem? Listen to that fucking track up there! Who the fuck knows where to find goth-crunk kids in Echo Park, let alone Traverse City, Michigan? You gotta be kidding me!

But I guess we should have expected the realness from a dude who looks like Tad and posted my first mix before I did. Those of us scoffing at the Burbank police blotter are envious.

DJ Tom Hanks and Camerin P Kelly Present Poundtown at Footsie's

POUNDTOWN IS TONIGHT AT FOOTSIES.
COME GET PSYCHEDELIC WITH US!

any questions?
download Poundtown the Mix

NO POUNDTOWN THIS WEEK

Due to yet another mix up at the Pound City chamber of commerce, the rocket ship to POUNDTOWN will not blast off this Wednesday as previously indicated. Instead, we're chopping up the 1st class section to make way for more masses and rescheduling our maiden ascent. Basically, we're gonna keep hyping the fuck out of the party and push back til the aformentioned third Wednesday of the month. From then on, non stop service to POUNDTOWN will depart from Footsie's every single 1st and 3rd Wednesday of the month.
As a consolation, you can catch your favorite Junky Cosmonaut DJ Tom Hanks in action at KXLU 88.9 the next two Tuesday mornings from 6-10 AM. Mysterious Ways indeed. Keep on pounding.

DJ Tom Hanks and Camerin P Kelly Present Poundtown at Footsie's

Sorry about the mix-up: Poundtown is the first and third WEDNESDAY of every month. If the kick-off jammer on Sunday was any indication, this night is gonna go off hard. So join me, DJ Tom Hanks (KXLU, SLU Records, S.T.A.Y.B.A.D.) and Camerin Kelly (Akasa, Trademark Records) as we put it down for the cool kids and music snobs. Holla holla!
And once again, here is a small sample of how we get down.

DJ Tom Hanks and Camerin Kelly- Poundtown: The Mix mediafire

DJ Tom Hanks and Camerin P Kelly Present Poundtown at Footsie's

Yes, our much heralded psych and prog night finally begins at footsie's this weekend. While we are usually throwing down on the first and third thursday of every month, we're having a special "launch party" this sunday for our homies and avid psych heads. I mean, anyone can come but we're expecting what real promoters call a "soft opening." Meaning, our initial fan base will probably draw from the aforementioned groups of people we know and weirdo music aficionados.
Since our design man Cam'Ron was out of town, I had to draw from my minimal photoshop skills to produce the flyers you see here. Plus who the fuck makes flyers that advertise a launch party on a different night than the party itself? Shit, that sentence itself is confusing.



But come through if you like weirdo rock music from the sixties and seventies...than a big jump to today. While Ron is a purist and will probably only play old shit, I'm not opposed to hyphenating newer music that gets spacey. Basically, that means I'm playing new stuff and old stuff. Holla at me for some more instances of what we're trying to bring to the music snobs first...than the masses. And check my mix again, dammit!

DJ Tom Hanks- Poundtown: The Mix mediafire

jerusalem "primitive man"
king crimson "easy money"
arzachel "queen st gang"
black mt "modern music"
gravy train "ballad of a peaceful man"
parts and labor "little ones"
joseph "stoned age man"
iota "love comes wicked"
jd blackfoot "cycles"
caverns "this are syntax"
headband "goodbye mother nature"

DJ Tom Hanks: KXLU 2/17 @ 2AM

So...
Awesometown was dope last week and I kind of killed it. I mean, I didn't break new ground in terms of selection but I had the entire crowd dancing their asses off. And then everyone stopped dancing when I finished. I don't know why, but it is true. I brought a bunch of friends to Shortstop but literally none of them danced because they're cynical assbags. So yeah: DJ Tom Hanks makes all the girlies shake it shake it. And the dudes love it too. Check out Shadowscene's pictures from the night at Shadowscene.com.
And as a result, Terrel the boss man from Shortstop and Footsie's finalized my psych night. On March 1st, we will be having a launch party for Poundtown at Footsie's. Then Camerin and I will be doing every other Thursday night psych style. When we have the flyer/invite, it'll be here for your amusement.
Oh and one more thing:
KXLU TONIGHT/TOMORROW! 2AM-6AM
I'm not supposed to play too many of my own songs at first in favor of what they have at the station but hopefully, they will have a bunch of good albums for me to choose from.
I'm not posting any mp3 right now but check this: follow me at blip.fm and I'll be posting tracks all day.

DJ Tom Hanks: Tear da Club Up at Awesometown, 2/11/09

Yes, the rumors are true: DJ Tom Hanks will be crashing Anne Lee and Shadowscene's Shortstop jump-off tomorrow (2/11/09). In 24 hours, your boy Sir Hanks-a-Lot will be bumping up the population in Awesometown and getting ready to rampage all over some Dodger memorabilia. Why do I keep referring to myself in the third person? Ha, Sir Hanks-a-Lot...that is friggin dope.
Anyway, I'm not sure what I'm going to play yet because I haven't been to A town in a minute but rest assured: I will go the fuck off. As we say over here in Rage City: I'm going to go on (get it? so far off I'm on again? I know, Psycho Matt...).
So definitely come through for a minute because there will be A) cute girls (sorry ladies, the dude clientele is kinda hurt), B) cheap beers, C) a sweaty dance floor, and D) a psycho, red haired Rape Valley Records ALL STAR dropping sick mid-Atlantic club music. Damn, I've already said too much.
But yo: download a mix from the list to the right in case ya'll wanna know what I'm about. Oh and stay tuned for my brand new Glasnost remix on Rape Valley Records in a day or two.
Psychotown....
Shortstop Bar, 2/11/09
10-2 Echo Park

Mack Winston and the Reflections at Bardot Saturday/White Arrows at Temporary Spaces Friday

Alright, I just saw Diplo rip shit up at Dance Right and it reminded me that I gotta work on my DJ game before next week at Awesometown for real. So I'm not gonna go on about Mack this time because I've devoted enough djtomhanks.com jibba jabba to those dudes already. But, you should go to the show on Saturday night because A) they rule, B) I'll be there raging, C) it is free.




Also, you guys can catch Casper Adams in action at Temporary Spaces Friday night playing with White Arrows. Funny, if I was still doing first Fridays there the same band would be there. The scene is way too small sometimes. And it isn't just LA; it's everywhere. The same kids just batting each other back and forth. Whatever. See you at the rock party. Holla!

Yeah, I Don't Want to Bury Poundtown the Mix So Soon. DJ Tom Hanks at His Most Progressively Psychedelic

"Poundtown: The Mix" on mediafire. By DJ Tom Hanks w/ Camerin Kelly
Oh and this mix is brought to you by the good people at...




Poundtown: The Mix

Jerusalem "Primitive Man"
king crimson "easy money"
arzachel "queen st gang"
black mt "modern music"
gravy train "ballad of a peaceful man"
parts and labor "little ones"
joseph "stoned age man"
iota "love comes wicked"
jd blackfoot "cycles"
caverns "this are syntax"
headband "goodbye mother nature"