Giant Robot Store and GR2 News
In the old print magazine, Eric and I used to give our Top 10s about everything that we had been checking out or into during the production of each issue. The lists could be random, ranging from what was on Eric’s thoughts on business to me being a new parent, with art, music, cinema, and other things in between. This was always done at the last minute, and it turned out to be one of the magazine’s most popular sections. It allowed readers to get to know our personal interests, habits, and happenings and, in turn, get to know us pretty well–even more than the articles which were pretty transparent anyway. On the same page, we’d ask friends and contributors to provide more highly edited Top 5s within a specific theme (favorite vegetarian restaurants, must-have art supplies, best starting five basketball players, etc.).
This is kind of in-between the self-indulgent Top 10s and the tighter Top 5s, mixed with music reviews.
Holy crap! I got to see Bad Religion at The Echo. And Quicksand back together. And FIDLAR for free. But first things first. Last week was the closing of the Giant Robot Biennale 3 at JANM, where I got to see my friend (and rad artist) Jack Long play with his band, White Dove.
One of the things I really miss about editing Giant Robot magazine is assembling the reviews. Did you know that I actually purchased most of the movies that were listed in the TV Party section? I can’t really justify doing that any more, so I was stoked to receive a couple of interesting screeners from WellgoUSA. Back-to-back viewings of Tai Chi Zero and The Assassins doesn’t quite replace double features at the Kuo Hwa–which got me into Asian movies to begin with–but it’s as close as I get these days.
The only other time I put together a show was a San Diego Comic-Con party with Flattbush, Upsilon Acrux, and The Binges with DJ sets by Free The Robots way back in 2009. Looking back, that was a pretty rad lineup! So it makes sense that Bradley from Flattbush would facilitate my second-ever gig. He serves drunks at Alex’s Bar but also books shows now and then. This one came together at the last minute and I am very grateful to my friends who put themselves out there during the deadest part of the holidays to take part.
