Mash-Ups Make Me A Happy Panda

"An hour of party-fest intensity sometimes followed by guilt because you're fist pumping to the vocals of a song that you probably talked shit on at some point in the past 5 months"

Sorry, couldn't resist that title.

For my mash-up heads, take note:

Get on that WHITE PANDA shit.

Confusion (quoted above) was the first one to plant the name "The White Panda" on my brain, and he recently had them on his "Underrated '09" list. Looking back, I clearly remember perking my ears up at Passion Pit vs. T.I. in "What You Know About Little Secrets" a few months ago, and even passing it on to a few people. Unfortunately, I have already fairly well achieved my resolution to repress most of my memories of 2009 - a year which I shall henceforth in this space and in conversation replace with "The Year That Was Naught" (TYTWN) - and The White Panda got lost in the shuffle.

But that was 'Naught. This is now. The new year has the mash-up duo of Procrast and DJ Griffi offering their debut mixtape, "Versus," to keep our fists pumping. Click play below to start the party, but only do so if you're fully prepared to battle. "Versus" is a hour-long assault, and you're going to have to beat back the beat to see the other side.

Versus (The White Panda Mixtape) by whitepandamusic


Or check out their web site for all the downloads and details. Get after it!

The Bonnaroo Photos, Vol. I: Sleepyhead

Like I said, Bonnaroo is a time warp. It's an altered state of consciousness, where time simultaneously stands still and flies by. You feel at once isolated from the whole world and enveloped in a seething mass of humanity. And although I got a great night's sleep on Thursday, there's no denying that arriving at Bonnaroo is akin to stepping into a bizarre sort of dreamlike consciousness. So, for those of you who are either too lazy to read or simply can't process a story without a visual aid, here's Bonnaroo, Day 1 In Pictures, appropriately soundtracked by Passion Pit's "Sleepyhead." If you haven't heard of Passion Pit yet, just wait -- you will. They kicked off the festivities Thursday night with a house-rocking dance party, and their ability to pump up the excitement and anticipation of a road-weary crowd to delirious levels illustrated why this jam could very easily become one of the massive club hits of the summer.


My beard grew down to the floor and out through the doors
Of your eyes, begonia skies like a sleepyhead, sleepyhead

The Bonnaroo Tales, Vol. I: Runnin' On Empty

Yea it's taken me a while to talk some Bonnaroo. It's taken me a while to talk some anything. Well...tough. Sorry, that's all I have to say about it. Oh, that, and you're gonna wait a little longer as I recap the festival day by day. You like it.

It's often said that life isn't a sprint--it's a marathon. For this guy, the past 3 weeks or so have been some sort of delirious mash-up of the entire race. There's been a lot of talk among my circle recently of racing and running and living lots of life in a short while, and I feel like that's what I've been doing since I last posted, lo those many moons ago.

In the last two weeks I saw Phish in New York and New Jersey, drove to freaking Canada and back (a return trip that took 12 hours door-to-door and a Baseball Roadshow that deserves its own post entirely), and ran my Yankee Stadium record to 4-0 on the year so far -- all while looking for a 3 bedroom apartment in Manhattan. All this immediately followed a week that had completely rocked my world. I found myself reuniting with slews of old friends, and even a couple of exes. I have crammed what feels like a lifetime's worth of chaos, stress, action, confusion -- and yes, fun -- into a relatively short amount of time. There are many tales yet to be written, but the big one - or at least the story that best encompasses all of what I've been feeling these last few weeks - is Bonnaroo.

Bonnaroo is a literal and figurative time warp. As you make your way to the festival – at least if you’re truly road trippin' it – the miles and hours pile up and the journey feels interminable. Though we arrived in Manchester around 7:30 Thursday evening and made it inside after only a short wait (leaving us exactly enough daylight to set up camp and avoid a torrential downpour -- 'Roo Success #1!), some unfortunate souls are made to wait upwards of 5 hours to physically enter the festival grounds from the highway. The whole experience can feel like a never-ending odyssey. But once you reach your destination, the opposite effect occurs. Time seems to simply melt from one music-filled moment to the next. By the time the festival hits full stride, you’re not quite sure where one day starts and the next ends, and the places you’ve come from and intend to be going to at festival’s end feel like distant planets from a bygone time. On top of this dreamlike state of consciousness brought on by the long journey, oppressive Tennessee heat, sprawling music schedule stretching from noon until 4am daily, and never-ending stream of wild and crazy people, the state of Tennessee spans two time zones. Apparently there’s a sign that indicates when you’ve crossed over into Central Time, but no one in our car got that memo, which made for a confusing start to the trip when we had to figure out what time to go see Passion Pit on Thursday night. So it goes. If the whole festival experience has a time warp element to it, this confusion was probably the most appropriate way to start. Passion Pit were jumping at This Tent, we danced around, unnecessarily circumnavigated the entire campground in pouring rain on the way back to our spot, dried off and went to bed. It was the best night's sleep I'd had in nearly a month.