Breath easy internet, I have returned to my blogging post. Over the last week and a half I’ve been journeying up the Pacific Coast with Bear Hunter . As it turns out, when I try and write on my laptop while in the van I start to puke all over my band mates — hence, my absence from Synthesis Blog. Over the next few days I will be recounting my harrowing journey (in between fascinating posts about pop stars getting busted for drugs, children with weird growths on their bodies and general paranoid-paranormal fodder). Get ready, dear readers. Get your asses ready.

Check out Synthesis Sweepstakes and enter the SPRFKR contest! You’ll get fitted in some artsy tee’s or win posters, buttons or stickers! The artwork is AMAZING and he is a Synthesis favorite:

More at his MySpace. SUPER + FUCKER = badass work. Love it!

This is a bit atypical of the bands that we generally choose for Synthesis Band of the Day. No horn-rimmed glasses, waifish broads with ugly indie-rock haircuts, ‘roid-bicep hardcore meatheads, striped sweater wussies or epic Dungeons & Dragons progressive metalheads. No, Phredley brings the funk-rock.

In my fledgling college days, back when tie-dye wasn’t as vomitous and my roommate’s constant Phish-Grateful Dead-Phish musical rotation didn’t drive me completely bonkers, I would have broken my left leg to check out a band like Phredley. Now bad photoshop effects kinda irk me, patchouli oil makes me want to hurl and hippie funk in general just pisses me off. But not Phredley. They’s alright.

Based around a brother-sister duo (Phred Brown on Vocals, Guitar & Horns; Alesha Brown on Keys & Vocals) and a rhythm section (Paul Loos, Drums & Vocals; Samuel Tobias Winn, Bass & Vocals) Phredley lays down funk that is far closer to the heart of nearby Detroit than that of longhair revivalists in Colorado or Vermont. And when they stray toward the pop side of the spectrum, it comes across more as radio-friendly than looking for a parking lot miracle. More importantly (for me at least), their lyrics hold water. With the aforementioned hippie-funk enthusiasts, it’s most often the lyrics that drive me to enraged hysterics; Phredley uses some clever (or nearly clever) turns of phrase. No, Phred’s not Leonard Cohen by any means, but in a sometimes poppy, sometimes rocky funk quartet, it works. Their track “The Truth About Capricorns” also has some pretty, Beatelesque, tonally complex passages. If you’re a big fan of Ben Harper/Jack Johnson/Maroon 5, or your ’70s R&B records don’t have much dust on them, do yourself a favor and look into Phredley.

I remember my first South by Southwest experience pretty well, considering the whole kid in a candy store / free music, free booze thing that happens in Austin TX every March. But the one thing I remember most was how much my feet hurt after the second day, and how happy I was when I visited the Riot Act Media party and found out that they were giving away free shoes. Saucony Jazz sneakers. I had brought nice-looking, but ill-fitting kicks with me, and once slipping into a pair of comfy shoes I was good to go for the rest of the week. It was like walking on the wings of sponge-angels. I podcasted something to that effect on the Synthesis radio site. In fact, since 2006, I’ve bought nothing but Sauconies (How’s that for good marketing, yo? You’re welcome for the free plug, thanks for the free shoes). Having saved my feet in 2006, David Lewis will forever be a saint to me.

This year, however, I failed to make it to a party featuring free shoes, and right now my brown Saucony Jazz sneakers, going on 6 months old, are in flattened shambles. It’s true, as outlined in my astute friend’s blog, musicismyboyfriend, there’s pretty much nowhere to sit at SXSW for more than a minute. You’re on the go from venue to venue to venue the entire time because, honestly, there’s just too much to see and so little time to see it. Sure, there are rickshaws (known in these parts as pedicabs), and I did use one after Chiodos‘ set on Friday night since La Zona Rosa is kind of a long walk from the main drag on 6th street. Otherwise I was on foot, and as of Sunday I’ve been developing the gnarliest athletes’ foot you’ve ever seen. If it gets any more personality I may have to give it a name. Updates as they come. In the meantime, Check out Video Matt being a drunk ass on a rickshaw. Hilarity! Snoochy Boochies!

We here at the award-winning Synthesis Blog recently reached a milestone in our adventures in in blogosphere. Last week I beamed with pride as our blog hit its 500th page. In the tomes therein lie amazing pieces of journalism that we’ve linked to, awesome YouTube clips, memes, and Synthesis blog personalities proclaiming a litany of gross and otherwise widely inappropriate things. I decided, in celebration to see just what we were writing about back in July of aught 5.

7/7/05: In a display of the kind of forward-thinking to come, our first post was not merely the word “Test,” but the iconic image above. I like to imagine this guy still working at Pete’s coffee, listening to Crass songs on his iPod, thinking about and hating that his most punk rock moment sadly occurred at the Warped Tour… Then I rub my wiener. (A picture is worth 1,000 words, but a mental picture is priceless.)

Since no one save your news junkie uncle wants to read an 1,000-word-long blog post, we found it’s easier just to post pictures of punk-lite rockers and YouTube clips. SECRET OF SUCCESS!!! So here’s to us giving ourselves a pat on the back, and to another 500 pages of stoking out the Google Index.

Here’s an Amy Winehouse contest!! (No, you don’t win drugs, sorry).