I caught an amazing show in Chico last night. Three Portland bands played Cafe Coda. There were no local support acts, so the show wasn’t very well attended, but this didn’t stop Nick Jaina, Weinland and Norfolk & Western from putting their hearts into it and digging into their strings, horns, drums and woodwinds. Nick Jaina, playing as a seven-piece, stole the show….for me, my girlfriend, and three or four other people who were in there not working or playing in the band. Then Weinland tore it up as well.

Weinland had stayed at my house last time they were through Chico and shot a bit of video. I’m not much for sports, but drinking games? Solid. Here my room mate Paul Valadon explains to touring band Weinland (nee John Weinland) the rules of Putt-Putt Drink-Drink.

Be sure to check out http://www.myspace.com/johnweinland, as they will be on tour for the next seven weeks.

Denver Nuggets All-Star Carmelo Anthony was arrested yesterday morning on charges of drunk driving after weaving in traffic and failing to pass a field sobriety test.

The two-time All-Star, 23, failed a series of field sobriety tests and was taken to a Denver Police Department lockup where he consented to a blood test and posed for the [above] mug shot. The Smoking Gun

Carmelo was later released to a “sober responsible party,” and has a court dater set for May 14th. News of this incident shouldn’t come as any surprise. Anthony’s past is littered with controversy. In 2004 he was cited for marijuana possession, although his friend, James Cunningham, signed an affidavit assuming responsibility for the incident and in 2006 he took part in the infamous Knicks-Nuggets Brawl at Madison Square Garden.

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It’s no wonder that beer drinking can be dangerous, but Sam Adams drinkers now have more to fear than just cirrhosis of the liver. The Boston brewing company issued a voluntary recall of a number of 12 oz. beer bottles today after it was discovered that some third party manufactured bottles have to the potential to contain shards of glass.

During a routine bottle inspection at one of our breweries, we detected possible defects in a small percentage of bottles resulting in the random presence of bits of glass, most the size of grains of sand, but some small slivers in some bottles as well. Based on this sample, we quickly began testing bottles of Samuel Adams at all of our breweries and identified that the problem appeared to be isolated to a single glass plant of the five that supply us…

The potentially affected bottles are easily identified by a raised letter and number visible on the bottom edge of the bottle. Affected bottles are embossed with the digits “N35” followed by the letters “OI”. Please see the photo below. Bottles with this coding should not be drunk. SamuelAdams.com

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I think SXSW broke my brain a little bit. When I got back and I had a show to play that week, I started brainstorming. The result was taking two pages out of the Tony Clifton playbook, one page out of Neil Hamburger’s, and a paragraph of Bill Hicks, and roll them into possibly the best show I’ve ever played.

Drunk Not Retarded by Catlike Reflexes

Half of the audience loved it. The other half was calling for blood. I don’t think I’m going to get invited back to Nick’s Night Club, but fuck it, that place is over rated anyway, and it was worth it.

Be a trend setter, and the first to die, try Bacon Vodka!  For the bacon lovers out there this is for you. For the dudes who wake up smelling like vodka and bacon anyways, this is also for you. Finally a vodka that satisfies your deepest desire for being drunk, and having the taste of three week old bacon on your breath. I have yet to try it, but one time I did poor vodka on a bacon cheeseburger from Jack In The Box and it tasted wonderful. My only question is how the hell do I get it with cheese?.

Bacon Vodka

Makes up one pint

• Fry up three strips of bacon
• Add cooked bacon to a clean pint sized mason jar. Trim the ends of the bacon if they are too tall to fit in the jar. Or you could go hog wild and just pile in a bunch of fried up bacon scraps.
• Optional: add crushed black peppercorns.
• Fill the jar up with vodka. Cap and place in a dark cupboard for at least three weeks.(No need to refrigerate)
• At the end of the three week resting period, place the bacon vodka in the freezer to solidify the fats. Strain out the fats through a coffee filter to yield a clear filtered pale yellow bacon vodka.
• Decant into decorative bottles and enjoy

This is not Kosher or healthy in anyway possible. I estimate you will loose ten to twenty years of your life per shot, and yes you will die alone with diarrhea.

So I totally forgot to watch Dillinger last night on Conan, which is pretty much cred loss on my part. But at least I was getting drunk, which is about the best excuse possible. And besides, there’s always the INTERNET.

The songs kicks off on some pretty tame shit, at least for Dillinger, but alas, there is a bit of redemption towards the end, when the band starts to sort of go off a little bit. However, they could have used a little more of this: