I Am Gary Hampton.

I recently started a new music website with a friend from work, and of course it’s called Something To Write Home About. Today I posted my Top 9 Albums of 2009 list which you can see if you click these words right here.

On STWHA you can see my reasons for picking each album plus my top track from each, but here’s the list I settled on.

1. Manchester Orchestra ‘Everything To Nothing’
2. Weatherbox ‘The Cosmic Drama’
3. Phoenix ‘Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix’
4. Rx Bandits ‘Mandala’
5. Brand New ‘Daisy’
6. Thrice ‘Beggars’
7. Japandroids ‘Post Nothing’
8. Moneen ‘The World I Want To Leave Behind’
9. Say Anything ‘Say Anything’

This differs slightly from my previous list I posted, yes, but hey…that’s life.

-gh

I just watched the first and last 5 minutes of an episode of Family Matters, but missed the middle.

The Start: It’s Christmas. Carl and Steve are on the subway. Carl is very upset at Steve for ruining their shopping experience. Steve is very festive but nobody else on the train is, and everyone seems to hate Steve, or just hate life in general. An old lady yells at him and a man in a Santa suit reveals himself as a drunk. The train loses power and stops. Everyone is scared and/or upset.

The End: Everyone is huddled around a Christmas tree, still on the broken down subway train. I’m not sure where they found the tree. Everyone is happy now. The power comes back on and everyone starts shaking each other’s hands exchanging festive greetings. After shaking hands, Carl begins a spontaneous group choir rendition of ‘Hark, The Harold Angel Sing’. Everyone on the train sings along while exchanging pleasant glances. After the song is finished, Carl and Steve go home and the Winslow’s invite Steve into their yearly family group hug. Steve is honored.

…

How did that happen?

-gh

Go to the show and celebrate with the Audio Blood family!

-gh

How I Will Explain Current Technology to my Future Children.
(or: An Explanation of Current Technology for the Elderly in the Past Tense)

Blogging was for sending a long message to anybody.

E-mail was for sending a long message to certain people or a single person.

Twitter was for sending a short message to anybody, or to a single person publicly.

Texting was for sending a short message to a single person, privately.

Instant messaging was for sending a short message to a single person.

Facebook was for sending messages, photos and videos to people you know.

YouTube was for posting videos to anybody.

We used to do these things on computers, but then we started doing these things on our phones. This was around the same time phones stopped being used as phones.

-gh

As with my last list, we were asked at work to submit our Top 10 Movies of the Decade for an upcoming MTV News special. I quickly realized that a lot my favorite movies are from the 90’s (shocking…), including my original #1, Fight Club, which was actually from 1999.

Regardless, here’s the list I settled on.

My Top 10 Movies of The Decade (2000-2009)

1. Requiem For A Dream (2000)
Every single time I watch this movie it affects me, even when I know exactly what will happen, which definitely says a lot. Great direction, solid acting. The best thing Jared Leto has ever done.

2. Almost Famous (2000)
Reinforced and further motivated my desire to be a journalist. The same year I saw this movie, I started interviewing bands.

3. Memento (2000)
Enticing, intriguing, well put together in terms of direction and editing. Highly entertaining. Yes.

4. High Fidelity (2000)
Incredible mix of well executed character development and getting into the head of John Cusack. Love the breaking of the 4th wall.

(more…)

On Friday, at work, I received an e-mail asking me what my favorite 10 albums of the past decade were. The purpose? MTV News is doing a special about the past decade to air close to the new year and so they’re tallying up our votes to make the list. They gave us some suggestions and off I went to make my selections.

I thought it would be easier than it was. Out of the choices they gave me I had a list of 10, but also had a list of 10 that weren’t on that list and that I didn’t feel I should submit, simply because the purpose of the submissions was to tally up the choices for a final list, and my choices would not have made any sort of impact whatsoever to the final tally.

But it did get me thinking, and so I made a top 25 list of releases of the past decade. Even at 25, this list is so hard to do and I know I must have missed some key albums, so let me know if I missed anything. And truth be told, I’ll probably be changing/rearranging this list over the next little while.

From 2000-2009, my top 25 albums of the decade:

1. Saves The Day ‘Stay What You Are’ (2001)
2. Cursive ‘The Ugly Organ’ (2003)
3. Thrice ‘The Illusion of Safety’ (2002)
4. Say Anything ‘…Is A Real Boy’ (2004)
5. Rx Bandits ‘The Resignation’ (2003)
6. Manchester Orchestra ‘Everything To Nothing’ (2009)
7. Moneen ‘Are We Really Happy With Who We Are Right Now?’ (2003)
8. Glassjaw ‘Worship and Tribute’ (2002)
   
9. At The Drive In ‘Relationship Of Command’ (2000)
10. Brand New ‘The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me’ (2006) (more…)

I was a zombie for an MTV Live shoot earlier this week. We shot until the wee hours of Tuesday night/Wednesday morning for the Hallowe’en show yesterday.

Here’s the clip:

Lucky is brilliant, amazing at what she does. Thanks Lucky! If only this were done tomorrow it could double for a Hallowe’en costume!

-gh

I am going to see the Get Up Kids tonight.

That is all.

-gh