Rubin Recommends

(Part of The Weekly Check In series)

Sean Agnew runs R5 productions keeping shows in Philly great. I think he’s done an amazing job for a REALLY long time. I met him on the IRC when I was 12 on the #SKA channel and we both then went onto sXe hardcore, and here we are.

RR: What are you currently working on or just finished that you’re excited about?

Agnew: I am working on trying to open a legit real deal venue in Philly. It’s something that I have been trying to do for almost nine years now. I finally have some people with actual money willing to invest in it. Exciting! I am also working on a group of outdoor summer shows to take place in this magical forest and got permission from the town (seriously) .

I also just purchased this gadget called the “Popcorn Hour” – it’s a future machine that downloads movies directly from bittorrent sites and plays them right on your tv (no additional software or decoding or unzipping required). It even plays the audio files in Dolby surround etc. It sort of makes the whole process seem less geeky and practical. Even my girlfriend is impressed

I also have been planning how to move to Bali and Jakarta for two months. Well I don’t know if move is the correct term. I guess it would be a two month long vacation. I want to live in a town villa and just hangout by the beach and drink weird coconut wine all day. It’s amazingly cheap over there – you can live in a “Real World” type house (aka fancy “cool” decorated house with giant tv’s an arcade games) for about $1,000 a month.

RR: Where have you traveled so far this month?

Agnew: I was in Malaysia, Singapore and a few islands of the coast of Thailand. Amazingly we didn’t use any cars for the entire trip. Actually that’s not true. We used one car to get from the low cost airport to the “normal” airport in Malaysia. We were running late and were going to miss our flight – so I offered a total stranger the equivalent of $30 to drive us there. He accepted and then I started thinking about how my gf and I were going to end up murdered in a ditch so I began mentally preparing to defend myself with a bottle inside of the car. He was nice and did not attempt to murder us and we made our flight

South East Asia is my most favorite place in the world I think. Well besides Philadelphia. We went to a punk show, put lizards on our head, got lost in a jungle and pretended we were in the tv show Lost (that was seriously kind of scary and a snake attacked us), saw a lady shoot a dart out of her vagina to pop a balloon across a stage, ate so much amazing vegetarian food, fell in love with a lady boy, stayed in a hut on a private island with the prettiest blue water, I shot a gun for the first time in my life (in a mall of all places), had a gay man dress me in traditional Malaysian emperor clothing and gave me a sword to walk around with, watched ancient Hindu rituals in temples, drank weird green alcohol energy drinks that made you act like a maniac, snuck into tons of museums and zoos and made lots of new friends.

RR: What’s your favorite music right now?

Agnew: Right now I have been listening to lots of ambient or “home listening” music. Stuff that sounds like the background music for deep sea or outer space documentaries. It’s great music to go to seep to or have in the background while you work. Some of those guys include : Marsen Jules, Machinefabriek, The Caretaker, Jacaszek, Sylvain Chauveau, Koen Holtcamp. Wow that reads amazingly pretentious. To be honest I listen to more sports talk radio than anything else – but that makes me sound like a “jock” so I will just say that I am most excited for Timmy Fest this May in Austin where I will watch crust kids fight white powers dudes when Cock Sparrer plays.

RR: Best food you’ve had in your neighborhood lately or while you were traveling?

Agnew: In the Chinatown part of Singapore, well every part of town is basically Chinatown, but this one section where the biggest Buddhist temple is – there is a huge outdoor eating area with about 200 food carts all lines up next to each other. There is probably 1,000 people eating there at any given time but there is only room for maybe 600 to sit. So every time someone gets up there is a mad dash to get a table. It took us about 25 mins to get a seat. Anyways I had this delicious weird fake chicken and rice dish, with a fresh fruit smoothie type drink, one beer and this kind of ice cream/sorbet for about $4 total. Everything was so tasty and delicious and the environment was awesome. Highly Recommended !

RR: Anything else you want to mention?

Agnew: That we “met” in an irc channel for ska music. How weird is that? You were probably 12. If that happened now I would probably end up arrested for talking to a teenager. How did you parents let you do that ? Do you think I could steal Anna Lee from that Andre guys a few pages below me ?