Derwin's 7th Annual Band(s) of the Year Award

To recap, the winner is determined based on the following criteria:

- Did the band play a major role in some of the best moments of the year?

- How do they rank in my iTunes “Most Played” column?

- How often were their songs in my head at any given point in the day this year?

- How many times did I see them live? (This one plays a lesser role this year since I moved closer to Hollywood. Not as much effort required to see live music.)

Nada Surf, who won the prestigous award back in 2006 in a landslide decision, came very close to winning again in 2008. I saw them twice in ‘08 and both nights were rediculous. They were heavily involved in two of the best moments of the year. However, their new album, “Lucky,” falls way short of their previous work and barely got any reps outside of the initial listens. It wouldn’t be fair to push Nada ahead of other contenders based on hearing songs from previous albums live while other bands produced better new material this year.

I’m not one of those music snobs (oh I’m a music snob, just not one of THOSE music snobs), that downplays the significance of a band just because mainstream radio picks it up and the band gets popular. I think it’s just as trendy to start disliking a band because casual music fans have heard of them and “like” them, as it is to like the band because it’s the #1 most requested song of the week. That said, my pick for Band of the Year 2008 is MGMT.

I don’t remember what day it was or what was going through my mind, but I do remember where I was when 103.1 played “Time to Pretend” for the first time. The way the synthesizers kicked in with the drums and the almost cult-like vocals hooked me from the start. I was in my truck and immediately said, “I need to go home and download this album.” I’m glad I did. As someone who appreciates more mellow music, having these guys in the playlist when people come over helps keep everyone awake. Almost every positive situation this year, MGMT’s music was somehow involved. Even after I’ve heard the album so many times, it still stands up. I think time will prove this album to be a classic and I hope these guys don’t become one album wonders.

Looking forward to new music in 2009!

48 Hour Film Project 2007

Last weekend I had the pleasure of participating in the LA 48 Hour Film Project. The basic premise of the contest is every team is given a genre, a character's name, his/her occupation, a prop, and a line of dialogue. Then each team has 48 hours to write, film, and edit their movie, then turn it in. The movies are screened a week later and various awards are handed out based on merit. This year, the top film wins $10,000... pretty nice.

My friends and I used to make cheesy movies in my basement on weekends since we couldn't drive and weren't exactly the coolest kids in school. I usually wrote and directed everything. My friend Chris would be the star, and I'd play some kind of small role as my creative writing skills far outweigh my acting skills. The subjects were mainly inside jokes that made fun of friends in our inner circle. Personally I thought they were all gems.

My cousin, Steve, has been making movies since his son was about four years old, which is roughly 12 years now. Every Christmas, he would write a script that put his boy as the main character. I helped out a couple times but it was mainly his show. After my family opened presents on Christmas Eve, we'd all gather around the TV to watch my cousin's movie. They were pretty much hit or miss. I remember a couple being kinda funny, and many that I'd just shake my head at.

The other person on our team was this guy I've been working with for about six months but have only started talking to him in the last month named Robbie. Not coincidentally, that's when they moved his desk next to mine. Turned out we have a lot in common and especially get along when talking about comedy. He's actually a stand-up comic and aspiring comedy writer, so I invited him to join my cousin and I for the project. He happily accepted.

Last Friday we made our way to the Landmark Theater in West LA for the Kickoff event. This year there were 84 teams. That's a lot. They broke us up by screening groups. When the event starts, every team picks a film genre out of a hat. The three of us knew one thing. We cannot draw the genre of Drama. We all had comic minds and the thought of doing something serious made us cringe. So the time came to pick the genre and what did we draw? Yup... Drame. What a mofo. But, we learn that if any team is not happy with their genre they could stay behind and choose a wild card. However if you do that, the wild card genre you draw is final. While we kicked around some drama ideas, the guy in charge was ready to announce the other items for the film. The character we had to include was Frederick Laino, a foreign exchange student. The prop we needed was a bumper sticker. Finally, the line of dialogue was, "Hey, my mom gave me that." The starting gun sounded and the teams were off. We decided to stay behind and take a wild card genre. Two other teams and us ended up with "Sports Movie." We all got excited and darted out of the theater.

On the walk back to my place we tossed ideas back and forth about what we could do. Many good ideas came up, but we wanted to do something that hadn't been done before. I can't remember who, but someone said Racquetball. I immediately knew that was the one. My gym has a racquetball court and all the equipment. I knew we could secure a court for a couple hours to shoot the footage, and we could come up with some zany plot. So we all agreed that was the sport to use. My cousin even came up with the perfect title for a racquetball movie: "Blue Balls." The next step was to get some beers and go up to my roof to write the script.

Writing the script while tossing back beers & screwdrivers was one of the most fun things I've ever done. You know that if you are cracking up when you come up with ideas and put them down on paper, it's probably going to be funny on film. All we wanted was to keep it simple so filming wouldn't be so difficult. By 11:30pm, we had our script done. My cousin went to bed, Robbie went home, but I stayed up to write the theme song to the movie. I went to bed around 1:30am feeling confident.

I woke up at 8am on Saturday and my confidence was gone. All I could think about was everything that could possibly go wrong. Brothers and sisters, the old saying is true... what ever can go wrong, will go wrong. You always need a plan B. So before Robbie arrived, I sat down at my laptop and mapped out all the possible workarounds if we couldn't get our first options. Jim Derwin... always prepared.

At 11am, Robbie finally came over and we were on our way to buy some outfits and a few props. Our next stop was to pick up my buddy Tom so we could use his office for our opening scene. Of course we get to Tom's place and he's not there. I even called him when we left to tell him we were on our way. So without hesitating I grabbed the guys and we headed off to buy some more things that we needed anyway and weren't far from Tom's so if he called, we could get back quickly. Sure enough when we were a couple blocks away Tom called and said he was ready. I had to hold him off until we were done shopping. We got back to Tom's and picked him up to go to his office. We get to his office on 3rd St Promenade and there isn't one parking space in the whole garage. When I was about to get into another garage, he realized he wouldn't be able to get into his office because he gave his key to one of his editors. Unbelieveable. Here it was 2pm and we hadn't filmed a damn thing. Seemed like all the fun we had writing the script was going down the drain.

My cousin suggested that we head to the racquetball court and get all that footage and figure out what to do about the office scene later. We agreed and headed for my gym in Marina Del Rey. Robbie and I played a few rounds of racquetball to get a feel for the game (neither of us had played more than a couple times). Meanwhile my cousin was in the locker room changing into his character, Frederick Laino, a foreign exchange student from Spain, and the finest racquetball referee there ever was. Like champs, we got all of the footage we needed in about two hours. Then we sent Steve off to the Venice boardwalk to find a bumper sticker while Robbie and I went back to my house to film some "montage" footage. Steve was able to find a guy who made custom bumper stickers, so we had him make one that said, "Got Blue Balls?"

Saturday night, my cousin and I did as much editing as we could and dubbed in some voiceovers where necessary. All we needed to do was film the office scene with Tom, re-shoot some continuity issues back at the gym, and a shot of me driving off into the sunset with my bumper sticker on the back. I woke up again at 8am and we got all the shots we needed before Robbie came back over. Then we hit Tom's place and filmed everything there. That was a wrap! Robbie had to leave so Steve and I finished editing and turned our movie in around 7pm Sunday.

I'll let you all judge for yourself. Here it is...

Suns vs Spurs - One of the Best Ever

Keep in mind what I'm about to say is coming from the same guy who bet the NBA finals would be Suns vs Pistons with Phoenix coming out on top. I made this bet in DECEMBER, so I'm a little biased in this argument.

By now you surely have seen many replays of the end of Game 4 where Robert Horry body checked Steve Nash into the score table and a small skirmish ensued. Suns' stars Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw both leapt up from their bench to come to their captain's aid. The rule states as plain as can be that if you leave the bench during a fight, it's an automatic one game suspension. Obviously Horry should be suspended for the flagrant foul. All the Spurs lose is his 7 points per game average. The Suns would lose their 1st team NBA all star and an important role player for game 5 in Phoenix. That would easily take away the Suns' home court advantage and the Spurs would have a great chance at going up 3-2 heading back to San Antonio for Game 6. As a resurgent fan of NBA basketball, this series must go 7 games. And Phoenix must win. If the Spurs come out of this series, we're potentially looking at a Final 4 of Utah/San Antonio and Detroit/Cleveland. Next stop Snoozeville! So now what?

If you're going to get technical about the rules on leaving the bench, then you have to look to earlier in the game when the Spurs were up. The Spurs' Elson and the Suns' Jones got tied up and almost came to blows. During that fracass, both Tim Duncan AND Bruce Bowen left their bench. While they were rather calm about it, they still left the bench. So if you're gonna suspend Amare and Diaw, then you have to also suspend Duncan and Bowen for a game. If I'm David Stern, I'm going to follow the NFL off-setting penalty policy. Both teams are guilty of the same violation so the penalties off-set each other and those four players will not be suspended. How is that not win/win for everyone?

Unfortunately for Cheap Shot Rob, nobody on the Suns' team laid out a Spur so purposely so, he should be benched and fined. Besides if you look at the replay, even after his flagrant foul, he threw an elbow at Raja Bell after Bell stuck up for his teammate. Classless act by a normally classy dude.

I used to have respect for you, Rob.

San Francisco & Getting Clocked

I was in San Francisco last week for an advertising conference. I had a clear mission when I went up there: meet as many people as possible. Gotta say I think I pulled it off. I went to a ton of happy hours and parties. I visited practically every booth and looked for mutually beneficial relationships. It's hard goddamn work but it really was more rewarding than sitting in front of my computer all day. Although I did bring my laptop and had it slung over one shoulder so I could look like all those Silicon Valley wise guys.

I'm also about to go off on my latest side project: www.igotclocked.com

Rather than explaining what it is, just check this pic out:




I'm hoping this becomes more than a great gift and is something that can spread virally. I wouldn't have signed on if I didn't think there was potential for it.

Musings from the ATL

Just flew back from Atlanta and boy are my arms tired. Before I go over the highlights of my Final 4 trip, I saw a preview for the new Nic Cage movie. When did he inherit Tom Hanks' hair?

ANYWAY

Got to hang out with my buddy John, his wife, and my long lost friend Chad Blitz. I hadn't seen him since the last time the Final 4 was in Atlanta. As good as it was to see everyone, Chad Blitz is pretty much the pepperoni to any meat lovers' pizza. Can you enjoy pizza without it? Yes. How much better would the pizza be with it? A zillion times better. Can you eat pepperoni pizza everyday? Hell no. But for a couple days it's bliss. The Blitz highlights included (in chronological order):

- Friday night, we went to this bar called Loca Luna where there is a Taco stand inside. Still on PST, it was still kinda dinner time for me and I had a few myself. Not bad, but can't hold La Playita's jock. Chad, on the other hand, made sweet love to his:




And the glorious after shot:



- Saturday Morning I was awaken around 8am to hearing Blitz on the living room couch making noises like a grizzly bear coming out of hibernation.

- Saturday afternoon the three of us guys went to a park to play basketball. Since there wasn't anyone running game, we played a no holds barred game of "21." After about an hour Chad was so sweaty he decided to take his shirt off. That was the point where I decided to stop playing defense on him. One play he drove in and ran into me. I had a wet stain on my shirt in the perfect shape of Chad's siloughette.

- After the game we decided to get some smoothies. I got a Pineapple Juice w/ Blackberry, Blueberry and Banana smoothie. Hit the spot. Chad bought an Apple Juice with Peach, Wild Cherry and Mango. The jokes started to fly about how that's something my grandmother would drink if she hadn't taken a dump in two days. Coincidentally, after he chucked his smoothie he claimed to have dropped 8 deuces. Same ole Blitz.

- Saturday evening was game time. G'town vs OH St. We're enjoying Chad singing, "All By Myself." That may as well be our national anthem.

- Saturday night after the UF/UCLA game we hit a bar. Some dude is upstairs playing bongos and of course Chad has to get involved with that. Then this cougar comes upstairs and I saw that Chad spotted her. She kept bumping into him while she danced. Too bad he has no game. Two minutes later some dude stepped in and looked like he was gonna close the deal. Chad said he needs to get a blazer to wear to bars so girls will like him. Poor kid. If he only knew.

- Last but not least, we're dropping Chad off at the train station and as he's getting his bags he lets an awful story involving crust fly in front of the ladies. Classic Blitz bad timing.

Once we saw Chad off, the weekend was pretty tame. Boring stuff couples do when they go out together. But every minute was a blast. Hopefully it won't be another five years before we can do it again.

Final 4

It's that time of year again. The Final 4 is this Saturday and I'm going to be in Atlanta all weekend. Nice. I don't want to brag (yeah i do), but if you were to go back to my post last Jan 3rd, I made some bold predictions for the Final 4. I said UNC, Georgetown, UCLA, and Kansas. Now remember this was January, a full two months before the brackets were released. These four teams actually played each other in the Elite 8 so only two of them could make it to the Final 4. (G-town beat UNC and UCLA beat Kansas). I think that's pretty impressive considering the unpredictable nature of college basketball. OK, so pretty much none of my other predictions have or really will come true. Except my NBA prediction. I stand by that. When I get back from ATL on Monday I'll give a recap of the weekends craziness. I'll also give an update on everything that's been going on in my life since the last time I posted. This time I really have been busy and not just lazy.

Top 25 Albums Ever?

Top 25 Albums List

This fella decided to put together his top 25 albums of all time. I'm not sure if he was basing this on which albums affected his life the most, or which albums are socially considered the most influencial among Rock snobs. My opinion is it's the latter because if you look at where he mentions what he thinks the best songs are on each album, he doesn't really choose the deep cuts.

ANYWAY

I've read a lot of top 25, top 100, etc. lists of albums and this one, I think, comes closest to being correct. I don't really agree with his order. I think ording it is pretty subjective. As long as the albums are mentioned in the list, that's good enough for me. Rather than go down and say which ones I agree with, it's easier to say which ones I disagree with, why, and what I'd replace with. I'm basing this on how these albums affected my life and how I perceived they affected our culture during its heyday.

1. Replace, The Beatles' "Revolver," with The Beatles' "Help!": Gary argues this album is where the Beatles changed over from pop artists to revolutionaries. Nope. "Help!" was released a whole year before "Revolver." Look at the album right before "Help!," "Beatles VI." It featured pop songs like "Eight Days a Week." So with all the hype and craziness surrounding the Beatles and their US invasion, they weren't sleeping, not eating, just going mad. Then in '65, they release an album. You put the needle on the record and what's the first thing you hear? "HELP! I need somebody! HELP!..." This, my friend, is when the Beatles changed. At some point between Beatles VI and Help, they became friends with Bob Dylan. If you can't hear his influence on this album (Hide Your Love Away), you be deaf. This is the album that started them on the path toward masterpieces like Sgt Pepper and Abbey Road.

2. Replace, Led Zeppelin IV with Led Zeppelin I: LZ 4 is great. Top to bottom, it's complete and still stands up today. Does it belong in the top 25 based on my criteria? No. LZ 1 belongs in its place soley because when it was released in 1969, there was NOTHING like it. Could you imagine being a teenager and putting this record on with headphones, then the first track, "Good Times, Bad Times" comes on? I mean, what is your reaction to this in 1969? That is why LZ 1 belongs here over LZ 4.

3. Replace, Grateful Dead, "American Beauty," with Grateful Dead's, "Live Dead.": Everyone who knows me knows I'm a big Dead fan. American Beauty is probably their biggest studio album, sales-wise. I'm guessing that's why Gary put this in there. We Dead Heads know their magic didn't come from the studio, but from the stage. "Live Dead," is my favorite commercial Dead live album. Obviously there are bootlegs that destroy it, but you can't go to a CD store and buy a copy of the Dead playing Cornell University in 1977. So you can't put it on the list.

4. Replace, Crosby Stills Nash & Young's, "Deja Vu," with The Rolling Stones' "Hot Rocks.": Normally I'd say it's cheating to put a band's greatist hits CD on an all time best list to compete with another band's single work, but Gary left the Stones off his list entirely and I don't see how you can leave off one of the most important bands of our lifetime. The Stones were an odd egg. They have SO many great songs, but no single album really stands out. So I think in this case you have to make an exception and use this compilation album which contains almost all of their groundbreaking songs from '64-'71.

5. Replace, Radiohead's, "The Bends," with Guns N Roses' "Appetite For Destruction.": Gary already put "OK Computer," on his list. I think Radiohead was/is a significant band, so they deserve one album on here. Not two. Pink Floyd got two albums and Radiohead ain't no Pink Floyd. These two are their best albums, and if I had to put one on an all time list, "OK Computer" gets the nod over "The Bends." When GnR blasted on the scene in '87 (or 1988 if you didn't live in LA), they were the coolest mofos on the planet. They didn't act like rockstars to sell an image. That was them being them! There was no other profession for Axl or Slash. They were going to be playing music in a club on the Sunset Strip, or begging for change outside of one. It was either or. No in between. And "Appetite" is by far the most complete hard rock album of the '80s. Plus, if you were at a party here in 2007, and someone put this on, not one person would complain. Put "The Bends," on, and I guarantee someone says, "What is this?"

6. Replace, Jethro Tull's, "Aqualung," with ANYTHING!: Seriously. Who even puts Jethro Tull in their top 100 bands ever? That's like asking someone to name the top 25 movies of all time and putting "Throw Mamma From the Train," at #24. Some albums we can conider...

"Kind of Blue" Miles Davis
"1977" Talking Heads
"Velvet Underground" Velvet Underground
"Surfer Rosa" The Pixies
"Siamese Dream" Smashing Pumpkins
"Disraeli Gears" Cream

Others????