Thursday, September 20, 2007

popscene sf Live - Hot Hot Heat @ Popscene Birthday Party | SF. Add balloons, candy in jack-o-lantern buckets, chocolate raspberry cake, and Hot Hot Heat together, and you have the makings for one of the best birthday parties on the West Coast. Indie club Popscene turned 11 last Thursday night, and the Canucks were in town to host the affair, complete with rocking synth keys and giant curly hairdos. Taking tracks from their first two albums and their newest Happiness LTD released last week, the band tore a solid 40-minute set for the club's birthday. The audience danced and blew party horns throughout the set, which featured new single "Let Me In" as well as old favorites "Good Night, Good Night," "Talk To Me, Dance With Me," and "Bandages," which first broke them onto the music scene. Lead singer Steve Bays continually enthused his adoration and love for all things San Francisco between songs, professing his love for Popscene during one heartfelt speech by thanking the crowd for following them for so long and coming out to support not only the group but indie music as well. While a slideshow of the club's flyers and live band photos throughout its history played on monitors across the dance floor, Bays and co. rocked mostly new material off Happiness LTD, the title track finding a more mature electronic sound and "Give Up" offering dance-worthy beats and the return of a more indie sound. Though I did notice the cowbell was missing, I forgave HHH by noting the supreme growth the band has taken on in the three and a half years since I had last seen them: they've been able to solidify a sound and voice all their own, and their focus to combine dance-friendly songs with more poignant rock-oriented themes pays off. I can only wish they'd be able to play my birthday party. Happy birthday Popscene! Hot Hot Heat MySpace Popscene [The Tripwire] 8:11:06 PM

paidcontent.org Media Storage Provider Nirvanix Raises $12 Million In Equity Financing B2B digital storage service Nirvanix has secured $12 million in an equity financing led by Mission Ventures and Valhalla Partners, with Windward Ventures also participating in the round. Nirvanix hopes to capitalize on the storage and delivery needs an ever-increasing amount of user-generated content. The San Diego-based company plans to use the proceeds to build out its Storage Delivery Service on an international business. Release -- CNET: The company, which launched earlier this month, is trying to position itself as a competitor to Amazon's (NSDQ: AMZN) Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3). The piece also noted that Facebook is getting into data storage as well. - David Kaplan (david(at)paidcontent.org) [paidContent.org] 7:14:12 PM

Lil Purp $5 bill gets a colorful makeover with splashes of purple and gray. The changes are similar to those already made, starting in 2003, to the $10, $20 and $50 bills. In those redesigns, pastel colors were added as part of an effort to stay ahead of counterfeiters and their ever-more-sophisticated copying machines. [azcentral.com | thebuzz] 7:11:34 PM

New York 1977-1981. Eugene Merinov.. Punk and post-punk photography, New York 1977-1981. Via Pink Flag. [The Cartoonist] 6:59:11 PM

Lots of Platform-Related Concepts Marc Andreesen digs into the Platform. As Danny highlights in the latest instalment of This Week's Semantic Web, Marc Andreessen has once more demonstrated that he's not content with co-authoring Mosaic, sneaking around in the 24 Hour Laundry and driving social networking Ning-style. Far from it, as he continues his recent practice of blogging thoughtfully on issues facing the industry of which we - and he - are part. Yesterday's post, The three kinds of platforms you meet on the Internet, touched on a number of issues that we've addressed here on Nodalities before, and it is well worth both reading and thinking about. As Marc suggests in his introduction; ... Technorati Tags: Danny Ayers, Marc Andreessen, Platforms, Talis, Talis Platform [Nodalities] 6:55:35 PM

Think.MTV.com News article by Kenneth Li. --- The site, Think.MTV.com, is designed to be a resource for social and political issues, aiming to inform as well as let users connect with other like-minded people on issues from the environment to sexual health and discrimination. --- 7:08:22 AM

Tom DeLonge Web Tom DeLonge Launching 'Revolutionary' Music Website. Rocker Tom DeLonge is launching a new website he claims will revolutionize rock & roll. Read more! [Starpulse News Blog - Music News] 6:51:08 AM