GET YOUR FIX PROJECT.

MANIFEST! Limited Edition...Only 30 made!
A great look back at the Las Vegas Fixed Gear Community. Props to House of Commons, Neek, Aaron Garcia, and everyone involved.

See you next year!

TOP 50 RECORDS of 2008

Below is my list! It took some time to make. Brandon Cox had one hell of a year...two of his records are in my top 10! Lotus Plaza (guitarist from Deerhunter Luckett Pundt) has announced a release date for 2009! Animal Collective, Andrew Bird, American Football (re-release) and a ...ton others are scheduled for winter releases! Records with ** I have purchased and listened to. Because I do not have a strong hip hop background...gettin into it...very few are on here. Yes, I know, I didn't put Deathcab on. Again, aside from Radiohead and Burial, these are only records from 2008.

1 Deerhunter - Microcastle/Weird Era Cont.**
2 Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes**
3 Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago**
4 Black Mountain - In The Future**
5 Crystal Castles - Crystal Castles**
6 Atlas Sound - Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel**
7 Autechre - Quaristice**
8 Cut Copy - In Ghost Colours**
9 MGMT - Oracular Spectacular**
10 Foals - Antidotes**
11 Radiohead - In Rainbows**
12 M83 - Saturday=Youth**
13 Holy Fuck - LP**
14 Destroyer - Trouble In Dreams**
15 Sun Kil Moon - April**
16 Volcano! - Paperwork***
17 Burial - Untrue**
18 Girl Talk - Feed The Animals**
19 TV on the Radio - Dear Science
20 Ratatat - LP3**
21 Fuck Buttons - Street Horrsing**
22 E rykah Badu - New Amerykah, Part 1 (4th World War)
23 Ra Ra Riot - The Rhumb Line
24 No Age - Nouns**
25 Okkervil River - The Stand Ins
26 Earth - The Bees Made Honey In the Lion's Skull**
27 Bob Dylan - Tell Tale Signs:The Bootleg Series Vol. 8
28 Hot Chip - Made In The Dark**
29 Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!
30 Of Montreal - Skeletal Lamping
31 Beck - Modern Guilt
32 Santogold - Santogold
33 The Roots - Rising Down
34 The Magnetic Fields - Distortion
35 Conor Oberst - Conor Oberst
36 Kings of Leon - Only By The Night
37 The Hold Steady - Stay Positive
38 Black Kids - Partie Traumatic**
39 One Day As A Lion - One Day As A Lion**
40 David Byrne and Brien Eno - Everything That Will Happen Today
41 My Morning Jacket - Evil Urges**
42 N.E.R.D - Seeing Sounds
43 Gnarles Barkley - The Odd Couple
44 Nada Surf - Lucky
45 Sea Wolf - Leaves In The River**
46 Thievery Corporation - Radio Retaliations
47 These New Puritans - The Beat Pyramid
48 Animal Collective - Water Curses 7"
49 Sun Kil Moon - Tiny Cities**
50 Belle and Sebastian - The BBC Sessions

dear snow that snows,

You're the snowiest...yesterday was the most snow Vegas has seen in 30 years!

HOLY FUCK

I am twenty one

This post should really be titled: not-so-weekly update post. Since I titled my last birthday post i am 20, it just seems appropriate. It's been more of a celebration week. I'm just now catching my breathe. I shared the same birthday birthday week with David Gamble, Jamesy, Matt D, and even Catherine Faris from AA Corporate. Crazy!!

8:36 am, November 24, I always get an anticipated and ecstatic phone call from my mother, wishing me a happy birthday. My parents took me out to the Peppermill for dinner, drinks, and gambling session. It was a great way to ease into my new freedoms.

The rest of the week was madness. The Fuckin' Party played their last show...for a while...downtown, and went out for drinks shortly after. Jamesy and I shared a small wine and cheese/birthday party the next day.

One of my best friends, Bryan Novelo, moved to San Fransisco last Sunday. He always inspired me to ride hard, push it to the limit, say 'fuck it' sometimes, and treat everyday like it's a new adventure. I can not recall when we first met, but he has always been there; good and bad. Novelo will always represent the positive side in my life. I'm extremely sad to see him go, but he's gotta do what he's gotta do. I wish him luck and hope he comes back with that dashing smile of his very very soon...

Matt's Cinelli Vigorelli

Save Your Generation

Blake Schwarzenbach, singer/songwriter behind awe-inspiring Jawbreaker and personal favorite Jets to Brazil, has a new project in the works. It's called the Thorns Of Life. Aaron Cometbus (Crimpshrine, Pinhead Gunpowder) joined the TOL camp behind the drums and Daniela Sea from The L Word is on bass! Sounds like quite the lineup.

They are currently recording a 7" in Brooklyn and plan on playing more house show on the East Coast. I'm keeping my ears open and fingers crossed that they venture over to the West. Hearing Blake sing live would be a check mark on my life-to-do-list!

Hats Off To The (Roy) Haper

the newest gem to my collection; it plays continuously.
Roy Harper- Stormcock

LA08

I almost forgot to mention LA. It had some unexpected twists of luck. Southern California in general has always been confusing and cluttered to me, but this was easily the funnest trip to LA yet. Spontaneous adventures have always been a key and essential part of my life.

We filled my trunk with track wheels and bags, but had to make room for our two shopping carts full of IKEA goodness.
Matt and I parked the car in Downtown LA, took out the bikes, tore up the streets, took some pics, ate some food, and ran into some friends.

We found an AA in Echo Park and ran into Nick, a very awesome merchandiser who was at our store a few months back. It was great to see him and he let us crash at the company apartment on Sunset Blvd.
We met some awesome riders at the Encino Velodrome and participated in the LAFixed Velodrome Day. The track was outside and the weather was close to perfect. It was definitely different from my past visits to velodromes; there was an instructor who conducted drills and provided useful, and at times sarcastic, tips for racing. Some fast kids...

change is good.

I woke up and texted my mother, who voted McCain, 'Change'. She replied, "Change is good."

happy halloween

TR476

I had hinted to AA to make a long sleeve V-Neck a few years back. Finally...and in Tri-Blend no less. Ohh fall, and all your layering-clothing goodness!!

MMJ Care Package.

My Morning Jacket canceled their Las Vegas date for their Evil Urges Tour last month. I was extremely upset about this. What made matter worse was Viva-Radio, an amazing internet radio program based out of NY- played in every American Apparel store, was doing a huge promotion for their upcoming tour and CD Release. After hearing about the news of their show cancellation, I emailed Neil from Viva and told him I was going to send back all the promotional items we were to display in our store.

I told him how excited I was to finally see My Morning Jacket and how disappointed I was to hear of their show cancellation. He replied shorty after, "Go ahead and send it to NY3 and we will work something out. Thanks!"

Last Friday, Brett and I were checking the store's mailbox and found a record box shaped packaged addressed: Attention: Ryan O'Keefe. I was completely overjoyed to find the box containing four, brand new My Morning Jacket LP's!!! There was no note and any e-mail prior to the package being delivered. Needless to say, I have been jamming on some sweet MMJ tunes for the past few days.

Not sure who was behind this, but THANK YOU...it made my month!

MS 150 Ride

Bike MS: Perini Building Company Las Vegas Gambler's Classic Ride 2008
November 8 & 9, 2008
165 Miles of Open Road Ahead

The MS Bike Ride provides an experience that tests your strength, your character, and challenges you to have more fun than you imagined. Two days, 165 miles!

I'm on the HOUSE OF COMMONS TEAM, with Brett, Kris, and Nick. That's our team so far, but we are always looking for more experienced riders to join! We are taking donations to help fight Multiple Sclerosis. If you donate even $5 it would help a great deal, and I promise to ride extra hard for you!

DONATE HERE

calm

Interbike Week is over. breathe.

All the training weeks prior paid off. The Vegas Drag Race was a massive success and there are so many people to thank. Top 10? well...maybe. I claimed if I got Top 5 I would be ecstatic. Your truly managed a respectable fourth place, and exceeded my own expectations! Matt managed to win second place, although he should have taken it all-if he only knew where to actual finish line was! Matt walked away with a Cinelli Vigorelli frame, a camera, and a bunch of schhwagg!

The Macaframa Premiere was insanity. Cyclist from SF, LA, Tokyo, etc. came out to watch the World Premiere of the newest fixed gear movie, that had well over two years of hype behind it. It was great to make new friends and see old ones. The movie was amazing, with great cinematography, insane riding, surreal HD Camera Angles, and a perfect soundtrack.

If I could have beeen two places at once, I still wouldn't have been able to go to all the places I wanted to go, and see all the people I wanted to see, and race all the races I wanted to race. It was completely overwhelming at times, and every year gets better!

Vegas was all over the place.

Check out
Neek's Blog
MASH