Model UN

Okay, I promise that our blog will go back to being funny again...

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 13:56:25 -0500

Okay, I promise that our blog will go back to being funny again soon.

The death of Mark Linkous (who recorded under the name Sparklehorse) is extremely sad news. Like Elliott Smith, his music is extremely hard to listen to so soon after the fact; the darkness and sadness is there in every song.

I remember the day that I purchased Sparklehorse’s It’s a Wonderful Life, because it happened to be the same day that I had taken the SAT exam. That album meant a lot to me in my late high school days, and I look forward to a time when I’ll be able to listen to it again without feeling overwhelmed by the sad circumstances of Linkous’s death.

My favorite song on the album is “More Yellow Birds,” which opens with this amazing couplet: ”Is your jewelry still / lost in the sand?” This simple lyric is like a tiny short story, and I know that many of the lyrics I’ve written for my own songs have been deeply inspired by Linkous’s work on It’s a Wonderful Life.

He was an amazing talent, and he will be missed.

-Warren

if you like puppies! come to san marcos and hang out with...

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 19:15:58 -0500

if you like puppies!
come to san marcos and hang out with Alex! 5129244948

landscapelifescape: Golden snub nosed monkey (via...

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 15:27:58 -0500

landscapelifescape:

Golden snub nosed monkey

(via floridapfe)

Oh man! That is a quality monkey.

-Warren

PEELANDER-Z? SPAIN COLORED ORANGE? MODEL UN? It must be South by...

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 10:51:06 -0500

PEELANDER-Z?
SPAIN COLORED ORANGE?
MODEL UN?
It must be South by Southwest time again!

Come out and join us for a free, U.N.-official South by Southwest day show @ Trophy’s in south Austin on March 18! More details pending, but we wanted to start getting the word out on this one right away.

Trophy’s Bar and Grill :
2008 South Congress Avenue Austin, TX 78704-4315

INSIDE

12:00 Glass Trees
1:00 John Biz
3:00 The Dirty Hearts
4:00 The Hickoids
5:00 Silvering Denizens
6:00 Keletiel

OUTSIDE

1:00 Vitamins
2:00 Behold! The Monolith
3:00 The Safes
4:00 Adrian and the Sickness
5:00 Spain Colored Orange
6:00 Peelander-Z <——————— Peelander-Z!!!

PORCH

2:30 Whisky Dick
3:30 Model UN <——————-We play at 3:30 pm
4:30 Shotgun Hustler

If you are on Facebook, the invite is here.

“Chill Fi?” “Glow wave?” “Glow...

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 11:33:01 -0500

“Chill Fi?” “Glow wave?” “Glow Core?” “Glow Fi?” “Glow Worm?” “Chill Worm?”

If I understand correctly, all the music blogs in the world right now are trying to come up with a universal name for a genre of music they should really just call Sounds Like Panda Bear.

Seriously, Sounds Like Panda Bear would work just fine, and would be much less embarrassing than “Chill Wave.” If you were trying to describe one of these bands to your friend Joe, and your friend Joe said, “What kind of music is it?” You could just say, “It Sounds Like Panda Bear.” And then, if Joe was like, “I don’t think I’ve heard Panda Bear, so that doesn’t help.” You could just say, “You know, Joe, Panda Bear is that music that your (boy/girl) friend with messy hair and glasses and converse used to play in (his/her) car all the time. Remember that song that sounds like the Beach Boys are singing up at you from the bottom of a well. They are going, ‘I don’t want to take pills anymore anymore,’ and all the songs are really long and repetitive?” And Joe will be like, “Oh, right.”

(At this point, I should point out that I am a fan of Panda Bear’s music; my frustration is aimed at the silly genre names that I mentioned at the beginning of this entry.)

I mean, why does everything have to be a genre anyway? I remember when I first heard the word “Emo;” I read it on a website created by a local high school band who sounded like Sunday Day Real Estate. I thought to myself in horror, ‘Oh god… if I ever have to describe the band Sunny Day Real Estate to someone, am I going to have to say the word ‘emo’ outloud?”

By this point, millions of people have said the word “emo” outloud, and no one has ever liked it. So please, let’s not bring another really embarrassing genre name into the world, fellow members of the internet. Down with “Glow Fi!” Down with “Chill Wave!”

If that genre does have to have a stupid name, I vote for “Chill Worm.”

-Warren

Hey! If you are going to be in Austin on Saturday, go to Oxjam....

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 13:45:00 -0500

Hey!

If you are going to be in Austin on Saturday, go to Oxjam. It’s a benefit show to raise money for Haiti, and the lineup is awesome. The lineup is so good that I would attend this show even if it were for an evil cause.

Murdocks are one of our Friend Bands. I would define a Friend Band as any band that rules that we have played with more than twice. The Authors are also one of our Friend Bands, though unfortunately, they aren’t playing at Oxjam. We hope to make more Friend Bands.

-Warren

aaronisnotcool: The Model UN @ The Parish more photos here One...

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 13:33:00 -0500

aaronisnotcool:

The Model UN @ The Parish

more photos here

One Day Alex will get into a picture…one day…

This is the driver in the car of my life! -Alex

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 00:03:29 -0500

This is the driver in the car of my life!

-Alex

Okay. Jeff used this blog to write about sports once, so...

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 18:55:54 -0500

Okay. Jeff used this blog to write about sports once, so I’m going to write about credit default swaps. This is the beauty of having a blog; no one has to read it!

The New York Times’ website is currently hosting an article entitled ‘Traction for Banking Regulations,’ which states that, ‘The prospect of a financial regulatory overhaul’s passing Congress brightened on Thursday.’ To say the least, the fact that an initiative like this is taking so long to gain support is really scary and absurd.

I really like the metaphor that a number of publications have used to describe credit default swaps (taking out an insurance policy on your neighbor’s house) and would like to play around with said metaphor for a minute.

Let’s say that you live on a suburban street in an alternate universe in which the house insurance industry is wildly deregulated. You start hearing rumors about a guy named Bob, who lives a couple blocks away. Your neighbors have been talking about how Bob supposedly spends a lot of time in his garage, performing strange scientific experiments; these experiments apparently cause smoke and explosions, and basically seem like major fire hazards. Because you live in a weird alternate universe in which the house insurance industry is wildly deregulated, you come up with a devious plan: you are going to take out an insurance policy on Bob’s house, in order to potentially receive a big payout from the insurance company if Bob burns his own house down. ”Genius,” you tell yourself. ”I can’t believe that I’m the only one who thought of this.”

(From here, the metaphor gets even ricketier. If you’ve read this far, I commend you. Please bear with me!)

A week later, Bob sets his house on fire. It’s not a huge, blazing fire, but the roof of the garage is being nawed at by a small cluster of flames. Bob heads across the street to ask one of his neighbors, Joey, for help. Joey comes to the door and finds Bob in a state of panic. Bob hasn’t been paying his water bill, so Bob needs Joey’s help putting out the fire. ”Can you get me a bucket of water to help me put out this fire?” Bob asks.

(We are also assuming that there is no fire department in this universe. *sigh* I know. Please stay with me.)

Joey’s basic sense of human decency compels him to help Bob, so Joey heads to the back yard to fill up a bucket of water while Bob waits on the front porch. As you may have predicted, Joey is just like you: he took out an insurance policy on Bob’s house because he heard the rumors about the experiments. So Joey can’t help dragging his feet; he fills the water bucket slowly, and he doesn’t fill it all the way to the top.

Bob takes the water bucket across the street and dumps it on the flames. Because the fire has had time to grow, and the bucket of water is not completely full, Bob is unable to exstinguish the the fire with Joey’s offering. So, Bob heads back across the street again, this time to a guy named Gerard’s house. As Gerard heads to the back yard to fill up the water bucket, he experiences the same internal conflict of interest that Joey did; Gerard also has an insurance policy against Bob’s house.

(Again, the metaphor is wonky here, but the basic idea is this: because so many of Bob’s neighbors have taken out insurance policies against Bob’s house, Bob is having a hard time getting the water he needs to put out the flames. All the while, the fire is growing.)

Another, crucial detail about the alternate-universe-suburb in which you live: the neighborhood lawns are covered in a unique kind of grass that is extra flammable. Which means that, if Bob’s house burns down, the fire could easily spread to neighboring houses. The fire won’t necessarily hurt you, because you live a couple blocks away from Bob, but it could definitely spread to Bob’s neighbors.

So yeah. You’ve probably figured out that Bob is Greece. Sorry about my clumsy metaphor; I’m no Wharton scholar. But seriously, I don’t understand why people aren’t freaking out about this. Maybe it will all blow over, like the whole Dubai thing seems to have? Only time will tell.

-Warren

As I cruised the crowded walkways of Texas State University, I...

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 19:51:38 -0500

As I cruised the crowded walkways of Texas State University, I noticed an alarming number of “Hand Sanitizer - It’s Legit” Signs.

The immediate response I had was that of overwhelming sadness which had its epicenter in the pit of my soul. This overwhelming underwhelmedness and pity for the human race was achieved through the ever so annoying catch phrase “Its legit”.

After collecting what little will I had to continue living after experiencing this tragic attempt at instilling school pride I contemplated this recent onslaught of alcohol based “sanitizers”.

As one who is thoroughly committed to enraging as many people as I can through conjecture and rhetoric I often take the stance that evolution is as provable as the existence of god. Atheists hate this. However, when contemplating actual day to day life I am forced to accept certain truths. For example, at one time when I was a small child I had what is commonly accepted as “The Chickenpox” (or the “Hocklaphagycitis” - as it is known in Canada). Theories about the immune system are numerous but the “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” motto seems to sum it up pretty nicely. After my bout with the chickenpox… I never contracted the illness again. If one was to a) accept that little white blood cells attack pathogens in your bloodstream and b) anti-bodies are created so that these pathogens can be eradicated before they harm the body, then, my body seems to have successfully immunized me from further bouts of the chickenpox.

Here’s my point. You receive a lot of antibodies from your mom when you are born. You also build your immune system IMMENSELY when you are young (body and metabolism in much better shape than when you are 80 and the years of uppers, downers, and hallucinogens have taken their toll). If we are giving our youth hand sanitizer , make them shower, tell them to stop eating their boogers, and forcing them stop eating chocolate covered pretzels while sitting on the toilet then I think that we are hurting our kids. True, they may be killing bacteria that may make them sick, but a) they are killing the weak bacteria so that the F***ing crazy stupid strong SUPER bacteria infect your sphincter and you have to start buying diapers way earlier (shopping with grandpa may save money) and b) our immune systems are so weak that we will get sick incredibly easily (actually probably good for the economy? no…. nevermind).

Parents, let your kids eat their boogers.

-Alex

Believe it or not, there’s something ridiculous going on...

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 16:02:00 -0500

Believe it or not, there’s something ridiculous going on on the internet right now. On Facebook, someone started a group called ‘Can this Pickle Get More Fans than Nickelback?’ The group’s concept is pretty self-explanatory: a bunch of people who hate the band Nickelback hoped they could persuade more Facebook users to click the ‘Become a Fan’ button on the ‘Pickle’ Facebook fan page than have clicked the ‘Become a Fan’ button on Nickelback’s official Facebook fan page. Though I also dislike Nickelback’s music, the existence of this group bothers me.

I have to say that, as far as comedy goes, this was a pretty lame idea.

I used to have a really awful job in which I had to talk to people from all over the country about problems they were having with their cell phones. While performing call-backs, I noticed a trend: people who lived in rural areas of Oklahoma and Arkansas were far more likely to have Nickelback songs set as “Answer Tones” on their phones. This is predictable; Nickelback’s music sounds like southern rock, so it stands to reason that their songs would be more popular in southern, rural areas of the United States.

It also stands to reason that rural, southern areas of the United States would have a lower concentration of people who own computers, and thus, there are probably proportionately fewer Facebook users in certain parts of Oklahoma and Arkansas than there are in, says, Portland, OR, a city that I imagine is not very Nickelback friendly.

My point is, creating a Facebook group in order to prove that a large number of computer users dislike Nickelback is kind of like listening to a middle-class, college educated, liberal person talk about how much they hate Nascar. My reaction is, “Duh! Of course you wouldn’t be interested in that. Where is the joke?”

Maybe I’m just bitter. Though I find Nickelback’s music bland, I don’t find it nearly as screamingly, god-awful unlistenable as the music of, say, Kid Rock. So, if people are going to go to elaborate lengths to diss a rock artists, their tastes should at least be aligned with my own.

-Warren

In completely un-Model UN form we’ve decided to do a cover...

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 20:27:14 -0500

In completely un-Model UN form we’ve decided to do a cover song for the show on Sunday (which is at the Parish, I’m sure you’ve gathered.)

We’ve had our issues with cover songs in the past. We’ve tried these in practice:

Sabotage - Beastie Boys; Tell Me Lies - Fleetwood Mac; The Sweater Song - Weezer (this one went ok as it was improvised but we all felt ill after finishing it)

Then there are the infamous ones we’ve tried live:

Celebrity Skin - Hole (worked in practice but I believe there were some equipment issues and the fact that it was a Hole song that ruined it)

Then there was the Green Day-Oasis mashup from the show that is never to be mentioned around a band member. We played this Brain Stew-Champagne Supernova mashup that went really well in practice and then nearly broke up the band at it’s pitiful performance live. Luckily for the band there were two (2) people at this show and they were both girlfriends. May we never speak of it again.

So the cover song we’re playing on Sunday?

It’s called ”Mandarino” and it’s by Jesus Sweat. It goes a little something like this:

My mustache has a name/My mustache has a name/My mustache has a name/Mandarino

(repeat chorus)

Don’t be scared/don’t be scared/it tickles (uh huh!)/it tickles (oh yeah?!)/Don’t be scared/don’t be scared/it tickles (uh huh!)/it tickles (oh yeah?!)

(repeat chorus)

Boys stand up, girls sit down(uh huh! uh huh!)/Boys stand up, girls sit down(uh huh! uh huh!)

I have a Dan Marino rookie card, jealous? Jealous?/I have a Dan Marino rookie card, jealous? Jealous?

(repeat chorus)

Awesome, right? SEE YOU ON SUNDAY!

-Jeff

When people talk about the bands they liked when they were in...

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 14:02:05 -0500

When people talk about the bands they liked when they were in middle school, I like to pretend that my ninth grade self had really good taste in music. Essentially, this perception of myself is based on a single fact: I never owned a Limp Bizkit album, and Limp Bizkit are probably the number one band that people born in the first half of the 80’s are embarrassed for having liked in middle school.

Recently, I’ve been using a website called GrooveShark to stream all kinds of music that I haven’t listened to in years. As I comb the archives of my brain, I find that, despite having dodged the Limp Bizkit bullet, I did in fact listen to all kinds of music in late middle school and early high school that most people would find questionable.

For instance, everyone I know seems to hate the band Phish. Conveniently, I seemed to have forgotten over the years that I used to listen to A Live One all the time.

I pulled up A Live One on GrooveShark the other day, secretly hoping that I could chalk my Phish phandom up to youthful indiscretion. Unfortunately, this has not proven to be the case. A Live One still sounds great to me. The fact that I like Phish seems strange to, because I normally don’t enjoy long-winded “jam band” type music. Still, I can’t help but think that Phish are the Miles Davis of the hacky-sack/Bonnaroo bands; just as most people who don’t listen to jazz might still like Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue, tons of people who claim they despise jam bands might still like A Live One. When you get down to it, Phish took classic rock to its logical, bombastic conclusion, and they did it with an infectious sense of humor.

The ending of “Stash” is really great. When the crazy guitar and samba piano snap back into the groove and that chorus of “maybe so / maybe not” comes back in? Really good stuff.

This just goes to show that, when you are really honest with yourself, your taste in music will never make any sense, ever.

-Warren

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXHwIrEpeSQ Editor’s Note:...

Sun, 21 Feb 2010 14:23:00 -0500

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXHwIrEpeSQ

Editor’s Note: This update was absolutely, unquestionably posted by Alex Tanton.

Today is a magical day. Today is the 4th Annual Beard and...

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 14:29:00 -0500

Today is a magical day. Today is the 4th Annual Beard and Mustache competition at the Mohawk. It is hosted by our friends at Misprint magazine. Please come join the Model UN in the reverie!

I’m sure we will tell you about our show at the Parish on Feb. 28th. Many times. Over and over.

-Jeff

The reason I put a picture of Heart here (besides the fact that...

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 12:42:09 -0500

The reason I put a picture of Heart here (besides the fact that HEART IS AWESOME and my dad had 8-track cassettes of them that we would jam in his Corvette) is that I’ve had the song “These Dreams” stuck in my head.

That, and I’ve been thinking a lot about dreams recently. Besides the typical dreams of being in this movie http://www.theroommovie.com (“YOU’RE TEARING ME APART, LISA!”) and of ex-girlfriends (d’oh!) I have dreams about playing shows.

There are two types of dreams. The best ones, of course, are ones of actually playing. Somehow the songs are either completely new to me and for some reason I am able to play along and it sounds FREAKING GREAT. I’ve had dreams about playing extended or rearranged versions of Model UN songs as well as playing completely new songs that I can’t remember when I wake up.

Then there are the bad dreams. These dreams involve being at the venue but not being able to set up and play. I would say it is akin to having a dream about being a waiter and being in the weeds. We’re trying to get our equipment set up or we are trying to convince the venue/promoter to let us on but there are always reasons we can’t play. I wake up frustrated and unfulfilled.

This has been the story of the band for the last 9 months. However, the bad dream will turn into a good dream on February 28th at the Parish. I hope you’ll come be a part of our good dream.

Sleep well.

-Jeff

Another show announced! Sunday, February 28th, 9 pm @ the...

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 11:18:51 -0500

Another show announced!

Sunday, February 28th, 9 pm

@ the Parish, Austin TX,

w/ the Authors, One Hundred Flowers

theparishroom.com

Hey Southerners and Southwesterners! And Travelers! Model UN...

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 13:35:00 -0500

Hey Southerners and Southwesterners! And Travelers!

Model UN will be playing at Trophy’s on March 18th, a day show during Austin’s South by Southwest Music Festival! This will be our first show in eleven months. New bass player + lots of new songs. Very fun.

“South by Southwest week / is the best week.”

Details soon.

(The picture above is a Southern hairy-nosed wombat.)

-Warren

Spoon’s new album is the worst album they have made in...

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 16:26:00 -0500

Spoon’s new album is the worst album they have made in years. I give it an A-.

I used to think that all bands should be as a consistent as Spoon, but clearly, being a consistently great band causes problems. If you make Girls Can Tell, then you make Kill the Moonlight, then you make Gimme Fiction, then you make Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, you end up in a strange position: you can put out a very good album that is somehow still disappointing.

The same thing happened to Radiohead. These days, some people will tell you that Hail to the Thief is a let down, even though no one was saying that at the time it was released.

The Unavoidably Disappointing Follow-up Album Conundrum (henceforth referred to as the UDFAC) works as an interesting argument against the album format in general. In the era of instant-access technology, a band that opts to let recordings trickle out onto their websites steadily rather than save the tracks for an album release effectively dismantles the anticipation cycle that contributes to the UDFAC. This idea works in theory; however, Radiohead recently released a single-serving tune through their website (“These Are My Twisted Words”), and the experience was as underwhelming as a gang of Pablo Honey’s at a Hail to the Thief convention debating whether or not “Pop is Dead.”

This subject is too big for one entry. I’ll get back to this later.

-Warren

Ok, since I’m the only person in the band that cares...

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 15:28:05 -0500

Ok, since I’m the only person in the band that cares enough about sports to admit to liking it (maybe Alex is, too) I am going to talk about it, dagnabbit!

According to http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2010/feb/11/big-ten-making-overtures-texas/?sports there are rumors of the University of Texas-Austin (my alma mater) moving to the Big 10.

The motivating factor of course would be $$$ but since I don’t really care about that as much as me yelling “EAT A DICK” at a TV screen when we sack some stupid overrated QB from Oklahoma I am going to look at the competition factor of it.

i’m only going to look at football as other sports don’t matter as much. What? It’s true! Right now there are usually 4 games a year that truly matter in UT Football:

1. Oklahoma

2. A&M

3. Bowl game

4. Random upstart in Big 12 having a good year (pending)

Now, imagine this. UT moves to the Big 10. Games that (might) matter:

1. Michigan

2. Ohio State

3. Penn State

4. Bowl Game

5. Maintain rivalry games with OK and A&M? (i’d hope)

Not to mention the increased visibility in the north and midwest for recruiting purposes I think this could be mutually beneficial. There is absolutely a benefit to the Big 10. I mean, you’re getting one of the biggest schools in the nation thrown into a conference that is struggling to keep it’s head above water.

Of course, this would send the Big 12 into a tailspin that would leave them amongst the Conference USAs and Southland Conferences of the world.

Oh well.

I have a feeling this won’t happen because of governmental involvement but you never know. Something to think about.

I’ll take my -100 indie rock points now.