Original image found over on Heavy.com
The Shins have reformed… completely. New label and a new line up, with the only original member being James Mercer, who has spent the last few years releasing music with his other band Broken Bells, who I love immensely. That project with Danger Mouse cemented itself on my favorite album list quite quickly.
It’s been exactly 5 years this month since the release of their last album “Wincing The Night Away“, which gathered up new fans to their pop sound.
The new album comes out March 20th. Check out more updates from their official site.
I’m sitting in the airport now, blogging my from iPad, heading to Las Vegas for the CES 2012 trade show.
I used to go to trade shows for years. Sometimes I drove, sometimes I flew. For the times I flew before September 11, 2001, flying was an awesome thing. You walked through a metal detector, your bags were checked and you got on the plane in a reasonable amount of time.
Today, it’s a series of undressing yourself based on the reactive rules setup by the TSA. I get nervous each and every time I have to take out my laptop and place it into a separate plastic bin, keeping my eye on it each step of the way until I have it back in my hands and placed back into my backpack. I ensure that I have only my ID with me, leaving my wallet in my carry on luggage until I am out of security.
I treasure my years of positive flying memories each time I approach the TSA security area. It’s the one thing that can calm my nerves, event if it’s a small fraction of how I would love to feel.
I made it through today as I am sitting here with my shoes on, my laptop intact and my nerves much more stable than they were 45 mins ago. Of course, I also have to give proper credit to the gin & tonic I just sucked down.
Vegas, here I come!
My first step in transforming this site into something different is to borrow something from my main blog. The theme I am using here is one that regular readers of that blog know very well. It will be the theme I will keep in place for the foreseeable future. I may change it at some point this year, but that’s only if I find something else that is equally clean and easy to navigate.
However, I will be doing a major theme change over on Banal Leakage before the 5th anniversary in April. I have a few themes I am looking at now and hoping to find one in the next month that I can start tweaking.
So just a quick update. Will be posting more often here and on a regular basis in the next week or so. Stay tuned.
As I blogged some 14 months ago about this site changing, it will finally be happening during the month of January. Along with so many other of my online presences/sites/videos/projects and entities.
What kind of changes?
A few changes to look forward to on my sites:
- Updated themes on all sites, which for now is this site and Banal Leakage
- The official launch of martymankins.com, which currently points to my Posterous page. Along with the launch, all of my personal pages here on this site will move to that site. Makes sense.
- The official launch of Change Your Commute, my first commercial web venture that covers alternate forms of transportation, other than the gasoline powered vehicle.
There’s a few other things I will be working on as well, but I’ve let the cobwebs and distractions in my life get to me for too long. And while I tend to look back to see what I could have done, this is all about moving forward.
Specific changes to this site are still up in the air, but it will most likely continue to be an alternate blog posting site for a variety of posts I didn’t want to post over on Banal Leakage.
Maybe if I spiff things up a bit, I’ll garner a few more visitors here. Guess we’ll see.
The Foos are up for 6 Grammys
The Grammys nominations were announced last night. The actual award show is Feb 12, 2012. The Foo Fighters are up for 6 Grammys, including the top award of the night – Album Of The Year. And it’s a damn fine album, too. Recorded all in analog.
Pretty cool, huh. But that’s not the half of it. Animated creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone are nominated for their work on the Broadway play “The Book Of Mormon”. And if that doesn’t blow your mind, how about two nominations for another animated creator – Seth MacFarlane – one for the Family Guy song “Christmastime is Killing Us” and a second nod for his all jazz swoon album “Music Is Better Than Words”. Wow!
Here’s the list of the nominees for the main 4 categories
- Album Of The Year:
21— Adele
Wasting Light— Foo Fighters
Born This Way— Lady Gaga
Doo-Wops & Hooligans — Bruno Mars
Loud — Rihanna
- Record Of The Year:
“Rolling In The Deep” — Adele
“Holocene” — Bon Iver
“Grenade” — Bruno Mars
“The Cave” — Mumford & Sons
“Firework” — Katy Perry
- Best New Artist:
The Band Perry
Bon Iver
J. Cole
Nicki Minaj
Skrillex
- Song Of The Year:
“All Of The Lights” — Jeff Bhasker, Malik Jones, Warren Trotter & Kanye West, songwriters (Kanye West, Rihanna, Kid Cudi & Fergie)
“The Cave” — Ted Dwane, Ben Lovett, Marcus Mumford & Country Winston, songwriters (Mumford & Sons)
“Grenade” — Brody Brown, Claude Kelly, Philip Lawrence, Ari Levine, Bruno Mars & Andrew Wyatt, songwriters (Bruno Mars)
“Holocene” — Justin Vernon, songwriter (Bon Iver)
“Rolling In The Deep” — Adele Adkins & Paul Epworth, songwriters (Adele)
For the complete list, click here.
