Here is a photo from Scares on 45. This was my first time checking them out live. They are from England so it was nice to see Des Moines get something new for live music. They sounded great and played pretty much everything in their music collection.

My goal is to control the music from our iPhones and iPad when I am out on the deck while streaming through a receiver from my iTunes collection. No wires or the need to go into the house to control volume or make selection was a must. I started by bringing up the Yamaha receiver from the bar in the basement. The receiver has been collecting dust since the home theater is operational. Next to our back door I setup the receiver. I will run the speak wire right through the wall and behind the siding outside to each speaker.

I have my Mac Mini in the basement with iTunes running. All my music is on that computer’s external hard drives so I need a way to get the music playing outside. To do this I picked up a Apple AirPort Express. I plugged this in right by the receiver by the back door. From the receiver I have a optical cable going into the AirPort Express. Once I setup the Airport Express on my AirPort Extreme network I configured the Express to work as a network extender. This simply allows me to have another point on my network that broadcasts a wireless signal. The Airport Extreme sits in the theater room and the Express is upstairs by the back door and receiver.

On my initial testing I only had so-so speeds outside on my deck with the Express inside the house. The network still has a hard time getting through the walls and glass to the outside deck. I normally get about 10 Mbps inside my house. With the Airport Extreme was inside the house and I was right next to the back door I am able to get about 3 Mbps. The walls kill about 7 Mbps and it gets worst at the far back of the deck. Luckily I have an outlet right outside my back door. I can take the AirPort Express and plugin it in outside. This allows me to get 7-9 Mbps out on the deck which is great.

It is super easy to just unplug the AirPort Express and plug it in outside when we are out there since it has no network wires. Here is a photo of the Express inside the house. You can see the optical cable going into the Express at the bottom.

Now here is a photo of the Express plugged in outside the house.

No other wires are need to plugin into the Express for me to stream music from the basement Mac Mini to the Express and out of the receiver that the optical cable is plugged into. I am going to have to run an optical cable connection to the outside of the house. I will get a plate and then run the cable through the wall to another plate inside. When I do have the Express outside I simple plug the optical cable into the wall and I am connected to the stereo inside the house.

I am using Plex on our iPhones and iPad set to AirPlay. This allows me full access to my music in a nice looking UI. I simply select the music I want to play, make sure Plex is set to output to AirPlay and the music plays wireless to the receiver upstairs and out to the deck. Here is a quick screen shot of Plex.

As soon as I have the deck speakers installed I will write up another quick review and a video of the entire setup so you can see it working. Now if summer would just come around and give us some decent weather I would be all set.

Good people, unfortunately due to circumstances beyond our control, the “clean” version of our new album, The Hot Sauce Committee pt 2 has leaked. So as a hostile and retaliatory measure with great hubris we are making the full explicit aka filthy dirty nasty version available for streaming on our site. We hope this brings much happiness, hugs, and harmony. Enjoy Kikoos for life!

So make some noise if your living and head over to http://beastieboys.com/preorder/ and listend to the entire album right now!

Anyway, enjoy. The video is parts of the 30 minute short movie to come out in May with the full record release. I dare you to name every big time actor that is in this video. I’d love to know the story about how they landed all of them for the video.

And with that….. Make some noise if you’re living!

Also, here is the full track list from the new album.

1. Tadlock’s Glasses
2. B-Boys In The Cut
3. Make Some Noise
4. Nonstop Disco Powerpack
5. OK
6. Too Many Rappers (featuring NAS)
7. Say It
8. The Bill Harper Collection
9. Don’t Play No Game That I Can’t Win (featuring Santigold)
10. Long Burn The Fire
11. Funky Donkey
12. Lee Majors Come Again
13. Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament
14. Pop Your Balloon
15. Crazy Ass Shit
16. Here’s A Little Something For Ya

Later that night we went to the show as The Beastie Boys kicked it off. The show was at the place the Milwaukee Bucks played their games. Can’t remember the name of the arena but it was packed like a NBA game. Counting the Beastie Boys there was only 8 white people in the entire arena that I saw that night. If I had to guess there was 20,000 people were there. We were a group of 4 (two girls and two guys) and then one other person way across the arena, who I found out later, also ended up being also from my high school. The first track the Beastie Boys played was Slow and Low to open the show. I can still remember how hard the bass was hitting. I couldn’t believe it. From the minute they took the stage I was hooked.

Fast forward some 25+ years later and I listen to them on a regular basis. They are my same age give a year or two. There is nothing that even comes close to sounding like them. There have been lot of rappers over the years but nothing like the Beasties. It is amazing they are dropping music that I still identify with and still listen too on a regular basis.

The Beaties have a new record about to drop and a short movie to go along with it. Check out all the stars that make an apprearence in this clip.

If you want to check out a clip from the up coming album titled Hot Sauce Committee Part Two head over two their blog and look for the post called Make Some Noise. It alwasy seems I have a great summer when a new Beastie Boys album is dropped. Can’t wait!

She plans to play this in front of her class for talent day. That is if her class gets enough point to have another one before the school year ends. She said that in the past kids have played the A chord and it took them 15 minutes to get it right. So she is pretty proud of herself for learning this so quickly.

The only thing cooler than a longboard is a girl riding a longboard. The only thing cooler than a girl on a longboard is a gang of girls on longboards. Here is a great video to illustrate my point.

Saturday morning cruising and rocking around Madrid with the Longboard Girls Crew.