Karl's Corner - 05/15/2002

..today was simply a continuation of yesterday for the weez, as we boarded a 747 in Los Angeles at 12:30 in the afternoon on Tuesday 5/14, flew about 11 hours, and landed in Tokyo at 4 PM....on Wednesday, 5/15. Our chronological freind The International Dateline snuck in as it always does and stole a day away. But its ok, we get it back when we go back to the USA. The first show of the Japan World Cup Tour '02 is on 5/16 in Sendai, which is several hours away from Tokyo by train. So upon landing at the Tokyo airport, we got in some vans and cruised to the train station, where we boarded a bullet train to Sendai. We finally arrived in Sendai at about 9:30 PM, and got into a bunch of vans that took us to a hotel far from the city center in a very boring suburban area, whereupon everyone discovered that the only place to eat within walking distance, Mos Burger, had just closed. One of the all time most exhausting travel days, high fives! 
...highly organized traffic jams; Pat gets a 'capful'; whats this button do?... 
...updated 5/16 Maladroit listening parties/grassroots 'weezer-fests' list:
NOT a tour! No band appearences! These are events either hosted by people from the record stores and record label, or organized by fans for fans. Some of these will have weezer cover bands playing. Some of these are for charity. Most will have a lot of weezer music playing. There may be free snacks and stuff, and weezer givaway items. Each event is unique. If you have mors info on any event listed here, or if you are organizing a grassroots "weez-fest" in your local area, send me the details and ill add it to this list. Numerous fans have sent in various reports from their local events that have already happened, from big parties with free stuff and live music to a handful of kids camping out for a midnight Maladroit sale. Theres too many stories to list them all, but they are appreciated- its cool to get a "snapshot" of local weez action around the country and world!
City:....................Location:.....................DATE:........KNOWN DETAILS:
Minneapolis.......Electric Fetus................5/10-5/20..."Free Weezer stuff all week! Win an autographed & framed Weezer poster! Balloons! Anyone buying any Weezer CD gets a spin on the Weezer Wheel to win stuff!" [a pic of this wheel is on the way!]
Buffalo, NY....details are still sketchy for this grassroots Weezerfest, but heres what we know: "There's gonna be a ticket sale on the Corner of Kenmore and Niagara Falls Boulevard on Saturday and Sunday May 18th and 19th from noon to ten. Tickets are five dollars for food, beverages, and some great listening. Spread the word and the luv. The flyer says to E-mail this address: Andik@wzrd.com "for info"...The event itself is scheduled for June 13th (in honor of Rivers's birthday) "...we're talking to 103.3 the edge...to see if they can help us out..."
Olympia, WA Homemade grassroots Maladroit Release Party at a house. "...We just bought $70 worth of Weezer stuff, (pins, postcards, posters) for a giveaway, and for the grand prize we will be raffling off the Maladroit CD.
The party is on Saturday, May 18, at 8:00 pm at our house in Olympia. If you could help us promote our party, that would rock! The address is 412 Division St NW in West Olympia. People can email me here for details...we want as many people as we can cram in our house to show up!
...a small sampling of the many, many Maladroit/weezerfest stories that have been coming in...
*"...So, living in Dallas-Ft. Worth, I compulsively drive to Deep Ellum on a beautiful Monday night to go to Good Records, the only place around town that had a release "party" that I know of. And here's how the "party" went: I show up at 12am sharp, wander in and find a guy with dreads tossing a yo-yo up and down in front of the counter, and another guy that looked suspiciously like Pat Wilson behind the counter. I don't think he was a =w= fan, but we'll give him credit since he looked like Pat. That made two of us fans total. Maladroit was playing, and I was surprised to hear the new words to Love Explosion. I got the single for El Scorcho, and Maladroit # 61757. Maybe I'll tattoo that number on my ankle. They didn't have the vinyl blue album, which I was told they had; the guy who looked like Pat said they sold it yesterday. On the way out I remembered how, when I bought the blue album in '94, my CD was a sort of metallic blue instead of the solid blue that most of them are. I think it was because I ordered it from BMG. I wonder if anyone else got one like that. I lost mine. In the alley beside the record store, I tripped in a puddle. I got all wet, and there were no =w= fans there to laugh with me..." ----Mark
*"...RE: Soundwaves/Houston, 5/13/02: Not true. I took off work today (engineering firm, not Starbucks), drove across Houston to go there, had them call the other location, NO party..." ---dissapointed fan with 1/2 day less vacation, James V.
*"...up until a few days ago, shreveport louisiana was pretty 'weezer?-whats-weezer?', but today, i was listening to the radio, and they began advertising for free weez maladroit cds. i was like 'holy ****!' so i called in. I didnt win, but they did play burndt jamb, dope nose, hash pipe, and keep fishin'. All those other music fans were so bummed, especially because they realized weezer had songs on the radio that were like, rising to high billboard places even before the cd came out. I can't wait. In 24 hours, it will be very, very, good day." ---andrew sno=w=
*"...I just got back from the Maladroit Listening Party at Record Time in Roseville, MI. It was very cool. They played the album and had free pizza and pop. They had a drawing for a Weezer poster pack. There was two posters from the Extended Midget Tour. They had free Maladroit posters and stickers if you pre-ordered the album at the store. I had already ordered the album on Amazon.com. The party was really cool. 89X is having a 'Weez-it Before You Win It Weekend'. They were advertising for the Listening party for Monday in Dearborn. 89X is going to be there and give away a lot of stuff. Weezer rules." ---Steve
*"...hey, just wanted to let ya know that the tension for maladroit is huge here in philly - well, doylestown more like - and weezer's gaining so many fans it's uncountable. i reserved the cd in SEPTEMBER, yes, crazy as that sounds, cause i can promise you it'll sell out in most record stores. and did you know that the get up kids are releasing on the same day? weird but good, cause i'm planning to get both on the same day. but weezer is my favorite band, so i'm more worried about that. i'm definitely wearing a weezer shirt and listening to only the band cause may 14th is your day, weezer. oh yeah, and y100 radio played the entire maladroit cd at 11 on sunday night, not giving whether it was legal or not. now that's some dedication to the extremely-loved =w= in pa..." ---e.d.
*"...I just got Maladroit and it rocks SOOOO hard! It's like Rivers found a key to his guitar's Rock-Mechanism and unlocked it! I can't wait for album 5!" ---v.b.
*"...Despite having downloaded all the songs, thought I'd mail you just to say MALADROIT ROCKS! I'm very proud of the fact that we got it a day earlier than the states and that I was the first person in my town to buy it (I skipped school this morning to wait for the record shop to open!)" ---emma (the only Weezer fan in Stamford, UK by the sounds of it!)
*"...maladroit came out in Australia today, and although I had already heard all the songs it was still good to get my copy. The Australian Version has "island" as song number 14, must be a marketing thing. The green album didn't get much attention over here, as most people thought that =w= died with pinkerton. However it is a different story with maladroit , with people having album launch parties etc. All of a sudden people are starting to talk about =w= again and 'dope nose' is finally on the radio. (This may be partly due to the number of annoying emails that I sent to stations just to try and get them to play it)..." ---Neil.
*"...the new album is already in singapore though it isnt numbered...its apparently doing pretty well here in terms of album sales though there is ZERO airplay here...maybe you guys could do something about it..." ---Leonard
*"...I just got back from the weezer listening party in chicago and I must say to the guys the album sounds great. The guitar riffs are amazing. My friends and I met 2 girls there in the spirit of weezer. We then drove them back home but me being the smart guy that I am forgot a way to contact them. To the girls in Park Ridge this is guy who lives by the factories give me holler at kmravina@indiana.edu. The crowd seemed to love the new album and everyone was out to support it and hang out and just bowl." ---Kirk
...Video News...Dope Nose, etc...
*USA: the "Dope Nose" video is in rotation on both MTV and M2, and is now one of Much Music USA's "Oven Fresh Keepers".
*Canada: On Much Music, the "Dope Nose" video debuted at #29 on their countdown, and is in medium rotation. "It probably would of been "The Big One" [this weeks biggest video] but Eminems new video came out and got the title" Also, on the "Ed's Big Wham Bam" show, "Dope Nose was viewed as a "Smash" by Ed the Sock on MuchMusic's segment called "Smash or Trash". They pull in 4 people from the street who watch the video and vote it a "smash" (good) or a "trash" (bad). Dope nose received 4 smash votes but the comments from the vj were "that was the song, it looked like a long gap commercial" and "I only liked the video with the monkey"." Meanwhile the Spike Jonez 'island in the sun' video has been nominated for a much music video award, in the best video category.
*"...i saw the Karl version of the 'photograph' at Sega Gameworks in Cincinnati, followed by Island in the Sun version 1 on Gameworks TV (gtv)" ---Sean
...discographic note: You might not have known that there was another release by weezer on May 14th besides "Maladroit". The weezer song "Oh Lisa" [previously only available as an import b-side] is on the MTV/WWF Tough Enough 2 soundtrack that was released yesterday. The album is mostly a pretty "hard n heavy" compilation, which works best when staging backyard wrestling events. 
Listen to "O Lisa" via streaming here [realplayer] or here [wmp]. 
Category:Karl's Corner - May 2002