Light paintings.

Photography, more so than any other medium, always surprises me with its incredibly dynamic nature. I don't consider any art form truer than another, but I'm most often amazed at what people can do with cameras. The above photos were taken by Janne Parviainen, a photography from Finland who came up with the idea of tracing every surface in his compositions with a single LED light. (!!!). Captured with exposures of up to half an hour long, this tedious experiment resulted in a gorgeous series of light paintings. Check out the rest of his photos here.

Thom Yorkie

Thom Yorkie

Something silly to get your Monday going. Courtesy of the lovely people at Buzzfeed. No surprise(s), he makes a beautiful animal.

Make Rock Street Festival!

If you're in San Francisco today, come out to the Mission for the 2012 Make Rock Street Festival! Organized by The Bay Bridged, a leading source for independent Bay Area music, San Francisco-based power pop duo Tartufi and The Bold Italic, the golden standard for all things local, Make Rock brings together dozens of local vendors and bands for an intimate gathering of independent artists and the people who support them. Lo-fi noise pop outfit Kids on a Crime Spree will be there and its shoegazed, reverbed tunes will serve as the ideal soundtrack for today--Its 71 and sunny, so come meet up in the beer garden!

The Bots.

Considering the heap of mass-produced pop stars at the forefront of mainstream music, it's nice to see a pair of young kids creating their own brand of music. The Bots is garage punk rock band made up of brothers Anaiah and Mikaiah Lei, who were respectively 9 and 12 when they started writing music together. With Mikaiah, now 19 years old, on guitar and lead vocals and 15 year old Anaiah on drums and backup vocals, the duo creates some snappy, blues-inspired music--good old-fashioned rock that reminds me of another sibling duo called The White Stripes. These Southern California dudes are spending the better half of 2012 touring the world, and they managed to do so without the "Disney" label slapped across their foreheads. Bravo! Check out their 2011 tune "Northern Lights," above!

Thom Yorke and I are back in action.

After a month in blogosphere purgatory with the many unused, forgotten blogs on the internet, Rock Salt is back in action! A simple conversation with a friend re-inspired me to keep this baby going. So to all 5 of my readers: check in every now and then to see what I've been up to / listening to / thinking about / eating / creating etc. etc. [Preview-- I've been on a serious Vaccines kick, which is great considering the English band has a new album coming out next month, and I'm quickly developing a fascination with home made tattoos...]

Coincidentally, Thom Yorke's solo project / super-group Atoms For Peace is also back in action. Days after dropping their band's new single "Default," Thom and guitarist/keyboardist Nigel Godrich, also a longtime producer for Radiohead, surprised fans at their "DJ set" in New York City last Saturday with a string of new songs by Atoms For Peace. Check out the opening song from their set. Thom's funky dance moves get me every time.

FIDLAR Review + mint juleps + LCD soundsystem

Last week I witnessed FIDLAR play a ridiculous, alcohol-induced show at Bottom of the hill and it was the best set I've seen in months. Check out my review of the show and my friend Bryan's photos over at the eventseekr blog.

Photo by Bryan Banducci.

Reason # one for why today ruled: I got home from work today to find my roommates making mint juleps. We were enjoying our cocktails  and the last hours of sun out on the stoop when a friendly passerby gave us this a sunflower!

Reason # two:  the main event of the night... I'm off to watch the Shut Up and Play the Hits documentary that chronicles LCD Soundsystem's final show at Madison Square Garden.

[EDIT]: So inspiring! It really offers insight into James Murphy's mind and his decision to disband LCD Soundsytsem. I thought the journalist who interviewed James asked some thoughtful questions that truly made the artist pause and consider his career and retirement. $11 well spent!

The Phoenix Hotel

The Phoenix Hotel had an awesome hand-painted sign.

Yesterday after work, Ryan and I stopped by the Phoenix Hotel for a cocktail and a quick bite to eat. This little establishment was built in the 1950s as a motel and eventually remodeled in the image of Rolling Stone magazine to appeal to rock and roll bands. The exterior of the hotel is painted a great shade of light turquoise / sea foam / mint green while the inside of the connected bar and restaurant Chambers has a completely different vibe with much darker tones, dimmed light fixtures and records lining walls. I had my first pisco punch, so refreshing but still nice and stiff, and split the chicken pate with Ryan by recommendation from the bartender. The Phoenix Hotel is a perfect venue for hosting some friends or to kick off a night out in San Francisco. I'd love to spend my next birthday here, but with cocktails at eleven dollars a piece (eight during happy hour), it would have to be a one drink stop.

The open blinds covering the windows made for a nice foggy effect.

We hopped straight on the BART afterwards to visit Ryan's parents' house and to see his puppies, Sadie and Pip. They're the next best thing from seeing my pups back in LA and they're always as happy to see us as we are to see them.

This is Pip. He's the sweetest.

A solid week of good things

In the last week...

I witnessed the first perfect game from the Giants after buying an impromptu 5$ ticket. I'm not the biggest baseball fan in the world, but having been a part of the 2010 World Series win and now the first perfect game in franchise history, the Giants have no doubt drawn me closer to San Francisco. Plus I enjoyed the game with these lovely people:

My friend Bryan and my boyfriend Ryan. He's wonderful.

My roommates Emily (a proper Giants fan) and Chris (the token anti-sportsman).

I camped by the Russian River and spent the better portion of two days wading in the water. It was so nice escaping the city for a few days and sweating uncontrollably in 98 degree weather. For the most part the locals were friendly and left us alone to drink our beer and gawk at all the natural wonders like the city kids we are. The water was perfectly warm and the river bank was covered in colorful rocks of all sizes. The landscape resembled what I imagine the surface of a marian planet to look like, and the sunset on our last night there was one of the most intense and vibrant thing I've ever seen. The combination of the clouds and colors gave the illusion that there was a desert in the sky. If I ever become a musician, or decide to learn how to play an instrument, that'll be the name of my first single.

Ryan scoping out a campsite.

My pup Charlee was featured on Fuck Yeah Smiling Dogs. She's one of my favorite things in the world. Check out her photo here.

Charlee aka Black Squirrel, Baby Fox, Chahlay, Cheesey, Cha-Chi, and Charlee Cheesy Breakfast Burrito.

And last but not least, this past week has been a beautiful one in SF, with temperatures in the high 70s and low 80s, and I was reunited with some buddies who had been away from the city for too long. I hope your week was as good as mine. Here's to another solid one!

LA for the weekend // Summer kickoff party with the family

I spent this past weekend in Los Angeles to celebrate the June birthdays in my family and mine, my sister's and my cousin's graduations. Recently, it's been difficult to make it down to Los Angeles from San Francisco and even harder for my three sisters and I to be in the same place at the same time, so this weekend saw some much needed family time. I have a huge extended family in LA of titas (aunts), titos (uncles) and cousins, and when we all get together we throw the best parties in the Valley.

Our annual summer party was on Saturday, and as usual there was obscene amounts of food, plenty of boos and a lot of loved ones at my mom's house. Anyone familiar with Filipino food knows we love bold, satly flavors. The highlights of the dinner: letchon (roasted pig), lumpias (deep fried spring rolls), and spider crabs, which were repurposed into amazing crab bisque by my mama at around 1am (major drool). All of the amazing food available in San Francisco can't compare to the food I eat at home. So until next time LA, I will make due with spinach salads and frozen chicken cutlets from Trader Joes.

PS. Besides my mom and my pup Charlee (plenty of photos of her to come), my little cousins are probably the most excited to see me when I come home. I only get to see them every few months, so when I do they seem to age years at a time. The last time I spent more than a weekend in LA was about six months ago, and this little girl on the left still had chubby cheeks and baby fat. I picked her up from school on Friday to find a young lady waiting for me.

Greetings from San Francisco!

hi

Hello! My name is Lauren and welcome to Rock Salt, a digital space for my ideas, projects, and adventures. Here you'll find album reviews (I'm in a huge garage rock phase), photos, DIY projects, book recommendations, existential musings (yeah I've taken intro to philosophy. Sup Marcuse?) and other things I enjoy. I also want to use this space to capture San Francisco from my point of view and the point of view of my friends, who are equally as curious about the world as I am! This is a project that I've been wanting to start for a long time, and now that I am freshly graduated from school, I have no excuse not to blog the shit out of the internet. So here it goes. Feel free to stop by, anytime.

L