One of my good buddies puts together a killer Top 50 music list every year, giving me enough listening material for a solid few months. Luckily for all of you, I pass some of the (many) gems your way. If you aren't into the double-filtered selection, head over to Spotify and give Zach Morrissey's personal channel a gander.
For now, a little Neon Indian and their new track "Annie", will have to do.
Happy holidays, beezys.
Touring around Mount Baker Ski Area on my birthday. November, 15, 2015.
Winter is all but here and that means everybody everywhere is going through their preseason checklist. Do I have my season pass? Is the workout routine ramped up? Where is my outerwear? What is that smell? Why is that smell coming from my outerwear?
But for a ski writer, it's little more than that. Bookending Thanksgiving are the pivotal few weeks where we decide what we're doing with our lives (okay, maybe just our winter, but still), presenting our finest ski ideas to our favorite publications and hoping that they think we're as cool as we think we are. Pitch season. It's a fun dance, but a time consuming one, so I'm thankful to have still gotten some writing done this month. I even made my debut in a new (to me) print publication, Coast Mountain Culture, which, if you haven't checked it out, is just about as close to art as you can get in the magazine world.
Thanks for checking it out guys. Now, let's get ready for the Niño.
Powder
Woof. Almost a month's hiatus on the blog and not even a good excuse to go with it! Sorry folks. Alas, fear not, as I have a brief respite from the horrible mundanity of Christmas music season. Tune into this track from Stwo and Sevdaliza for an all-too-welcome distraction. Cheers.
I'm not a huge birthday guy—presents aren't my thing, not a huge fan of that birthday song, and getting old, well, it feels weird. That being said, I hit 27 over the weekend and got to spend time with some of my favorite people in the world. And my other favorite people in the world? Yeah, well they called me, texted me, messaged me, and even emailed me from anywhere and everywhere. I'm really a lucky dude surrounded by some pretty amazing people.
And I digress. As for music this week, another local band that has been stuck in my cerebral is Deep Sea Diver, a catchy alternative group with shades of the Shins, Phantogram, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Press play.
Greetings all, happy Monday! After a little friendly prodding last week, I made it out to Neumo's (concert venue of Nirvana fame) for some local live music from bands Sisters and Deep Sea Diver. I have to say, it's been way too long since I've seen some good live music and this one-two punch was exactly what the beats doctor ordered.
While Deep Sea Diver absolutely blew me away, I'm turning to a track by Sisters this Monday. For their final track of the night, a pretty upbeat song called, "Back 2 U", they pulled up renowned Seattle rapper Sol to bring it home. It's the track that stuck with me, and now I'm passing it to you. Enjoy Beezys.
Got a chance to see/shoot the Northern Lights for the first time near Mount Baker. Maple Grove, 2015.
This is an experiment, so bear with me here. After having several people ask me where they can find some of my writing, I've realized that I don't really have a good answer. Sure, I have articles on this trusty little site, but it's often hard to update it fast enough to keep up with my current work.
Call me slow on the uptake, but I figure it's time to try something new. Instead of posting a barrage of social media content and pleading with people besides my mom to check out some of my projects, I've decided to list all of my work for the past month in a blog post. The goal isn't narcissism here, I just wouldn't mind making it easier to read, comment, rip apart, or angry tweet some of the content I'm putting out into the world.
So here goes. Read to your hearts content, or turn the page. Thanks for swinging by.
Powder
Passing Through: Crystal Mountain
Week in Review: In Tatum We Trust
GrindTV
Which Ski Pass is Right For You?
Is This the Most Creative Skate Video Ever?
Behind the Scenes of Sweetgrass' 'Darklight'
Thrillist
Why Japanese 7-Elevens Totally Kick Ass
While the days are getting shorter and the nights colder, days in the lift of a ski junkie are really heating up. The mountains are awakening from summer slumber and it's almost time to get up and out there. With the latest system dumping feet of snow in higher Cascadian elevations, we may have jumped the gun getting some early season turns up at Crystal Mountain over the Halloweekend, but damn if it didn't feel good to slide downhill again.
We even met a soul surfer named Eric at the summit, who proceeded to save our day with a screwdriver, a nip of whiskey, and the kind of contagious positivity that draws people like us to the mountain culture year after year.
I'll leave you with a tune, a few grainy phone pictures, and a promise to whip this blog into shape! B EZ.
Competition heating up in the streets of Havana. Cuba, 2013.
Well, it's Thursday and per social media standards my mind is turning the page back to one of the best places I've ever been: Cuba. I was lucky to visit twice, having the rare opportunity to make friends on the island nation and then return to catch up with them a second time. My time in Cuba was special and this little mix and its heavy Cubano influence brings me back to early Havana mornings, the city slowly coming to life as the sun announces itself through cracks in the concrete jungle.
Oh man, we've made it to #13. I'm not superstitious but I am a little stitious, so I decided to go with an artist who doesn't need any luck to produce quality music year after year. Beck has been pumping out jams for decades, so it should come as new surprise that his new album is another solid effort. Check out his track "Dreams" to see what I'm talking about.
Macklemore aside, Seattle has one heck of a hip-hop pedigree. Look at names like Blue Scholars, the Grynch, Sol, and even early Sir Mix-A-Lot (my posse's on Broadway!) and you'll understand what I'm talking about.
So when I heard The Physics, a new-to-me crew out of South Seattle, I was psyched to see they're keeping the rich tradition alive. Here's a track with a few Seatown references and an old school sample beat to get the noggin knockin'. Cheers, beezys.
Hey kiddos, hope your weekend was a good one. It may not feel like it, but summer is fading fast on us and the calendar is starting to point towards a dip in the mercury and the rise of Old Man Winter. Okay, we're still months away, but I guy can dream, right?
As for music, I found a re-work of a Phantogram song that has me all sorts of giddy on a Monday morning. The Fall in Love "re-imagination" by Until the Ribbon Breaks is a great new look at a great old song. Can't beat that.
Oh, and one last note: I took a deep breath and jumped off a 300 foot bridge this weekend. Really glad that bungee held.
Okay, maybe this isn't your idea of a humblebrag, but for me it's about as good as it gets. Sorry for missing posts last week, but I was on an island in Maine with no electricity or Internet connection. SCORE.
Before I left on that adventure, Capitol Hill Block Party rolled through Seattle, and with it a whole lot of good music. One band that I was particularly jazzed on was Broods. A nice little mixture of New Zealand brethren Naked and Famous and Lorde, they gave a killer show and enough haunting vocals to whip out my cell phone and write, "look up Broods tomorrow" in my notepad.
This track, Never Gonna Change, is a breakup song but damn it sounds good and is already helping me charge ahead this week. Check'er, send'er, give'r.
"How old would you be if you didn't know how old you are?" -- Satchel Paige
Somewhere between building a railing on a 50-stair stairset, hand-firing the propeller on his 1946 seaplane, diving into an ice cold Maine lake every morning, and bringing a clan together from the corners of the country, my grandpa found time to turn 83.
His physical scars point to a life lived, his smile to a life lived well.
Thanks for the motivation, Papa.
After graduating from a city school, and dedicating more and more time to the outdoors, I've been finding it hard to justify getting a gym membership. Don't get me wrong, I want to be fit, but I'm constantly feeling like just being active is my answer to the problem.
Recently I saw this awesome essay in Coast Mountain Culture, and suddenly my internal struggle all made sense. Give this a read—some sharp commentary and an all-too-necessary look back at ourselves.
So when I started posting music every Monday (and/or Tuesday) I said that it was in an effort to give you guys a better picture of what I'm all about.
That being said, I have a confession: I like Justin Bieber. Well, Biebs with a collosal dose of Diplo, that is. This spring Diplo, Skrillex, and Bieber dropped "Where Are U Now", a track that I can't get out of my head or off my playlist. Everyone knows I love my strings and Mad Decent claps, and boy does this bring it.
If this is goodbye, no hard feelings. We certainly had a good run, didn't we?
After a month of classy soccer across Canada, the Women's World Cup wrapped up in Vancouver this past weekend. Since Van City is in my backyard, I powered through the post-Independence Day haze and drove into a very different, fire-induced haze north of the border.
I didn't have a ticket, but soaked up the scene outside B.C. Place as the masses poured in to witness history. A U.S. win would give all-time international goals leader Abby Wambach her first World Cup trophy, while a Japanese victory would signal the first time a women's team has ever repeated as tournament champion.
The atmosphere was different than I expected. Unlike the crazy drunken street fest I'd experienced during last year's Men's Cup, the Women's Cup was cheerful, but surprisingly calm. The crowd was younger, families, and groups of young girls and guys that had grown up with these players and were here to watch soccer, not just look for an excuse to party.
Granted, there was plenty of that as well, and as the match settled in, I found myself at a rowdy bar just across the street. The flurry of goals shocked us as much as our Japanese compadres and I think we were all just a little glad that we were on the right side of the onslaught.
At halftime, I figured I'd try my luck scalping a ticket, banking on a tired scalper looking to dump his last tickets of a very busy tournament. Note to self, scalpers never get tired. Thinking I'd found my man, I negotiated a good price just to get turned away at the gates for having a fake ticket—a nice $30 lesson.
Regardless, the experience in the streets was well worth the price of almost-admission. The electricity around a stadium on game day is inimitable, and in a game that brings the whole world together for 90 minutes, the sense is that much stronger. The U.S. won, and now we have another holiday to celebrate in July. Great job, ladies. Vamos Estados Unidos!
Ah, I tripped up on the ocho! I'm blaming a long weekend of camping and a spontaneous trip up to watch our U.S. Ladies seal the deal in the World Cup Finals in Vancouver as my excuses on this one. Pictures and short recap to come!
As for our song, it's not an underground cut by any means, but that sax! How can you deny that sax?! Thanks to Saint Motel's "My Type", and its ridiculously catchy chorus for getting me up and out the door this week. Here we go, kiddos...
Not to totally shift the conversation, but totally shifting the conversation. It's Monday, it's a music day, and I have to say, I can't stop listening to this song. Call me crazy or just call me Kade, I can't get enough of "Multi-Love" by Unknown Mortal Orchestra.
Two Sundays ago, fathers got an extra helping of bacon from appreciative spawn around the country. I forewent the traditional in favor of spending Father's Day with my pops and Mother Nature in the Mt. St. Helens National Monument on a little out-and-back trail run. It was the first time since moving to the West Coast that I was able to spend either Father's or Mother's Day with the proper party, so I was really happy to get a little face time in the out of doors.
Needless to say, the trail (Boundary Trail to Harry's Ridge Trail) was more than we could have hoped for—360 views of the historic Mt. St. Helens blast zone while cruising along a narrow ridgeline in between wild flowers and three-hundred foot cliff drops. It's one of those experiences that makes you feel big and small all at once, Mother Nature showing off her awe-inspiring beauty amid reminders of her tremendous power. There are a few photos at the bottom, apologies for the gratuitous amounts of dad-running-off-into-the-distance shots.
Before parting ways, Dad and I washed down our run with some burgers and homemade cobbler and I hopped on the highway north feeling lucky and thankful to share something I love with someone I love.
As I floated up off the ground, Mother Nature was busy playing a very different role in a close friend's life. While I was picking my way through scree fields and scenic overlooks, my friend was receiving word that his brother had drowned in a rafting accident in Colorado. The same thing that was busy bringing me joy was also hard at work destroying the rock in my friend's life. Just like me, he had spent his day in the mountains, and just like me, he had moved across the country to get closer to nature and the inspiration it instilled in us both on a daily basis. Yet now that same natural force that has long been our church came crashing down on his head without warning.
So often the healing processes in our daily lives involves nature, but what happens when nature is the root cause of the pain? I don't have an answer this time around, and it sucks. All I want to do now is make sure that my buddy doesn't turn his back on the stuff that has made us tick for so long. I'm not sure how to accomplish that exactly, but I intend on being right next to him when we figure it out.
Hug your loved ones, call your mom back, and tell someone close what they really mean to you. This shit is precious, remember that.
Happy day-after-Solstice compadres! I'm hoping that all of you got an extra long dose of sunshine this weekend. We're officially halfway to winter again, but for now the sunshine will do just fine.
I know track six is not a new one, but it certainly brightened up my Monday, and maybe it'll do the same for you. Yellow Ostrich puts out some quirky cuts, and this gem, "Whale", is no exception. Still, have to love some DIY percussion. All right beezys, let's get after it this week.
