Music

Music is a necessity. Though I focus mostly on alternative/industrial/EBM/electronic styles, my tastes are eclectic and wide-ranging.

Out at the Vogue

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Just got back from the Vogue. I don’t often go on Friday nights, as I’m generally a bit tired at the end of the work week, and I know more of the music on Saturdays, but getting out of the house just seemed to be the thing to do tonight. Besides, the DJ told me to. :)

Had a good evening, though. Mostly just kicking back and peoplewatching, with a little bit of bouncing around every so often. Even met a pretty blonde named Kim when she sat down next to me and we started chatting — no smooth lines from me tonight, but at least I didn’t trip all over my sentences, which happens all too frequently when I’m meeting people. Turns out she’s been going to the Vogue off and on for years, and we ended up talking mostly about music and swapping band names back and forth (and I need to remember to check out Morphine and local band Faith and Decay [if I’m remembering that correctly, I can’t find anything on Google for them], on her recommendation).

Anyway, not really much other than that. Just a decent night out bouncing around for a bit. ‘Bout time for bed for me, I think….

Moonshine Run

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The winter before I left Anchorage, my brother was playing bass for a bluegrass band called “Moonshine Run”. One evening they were performing at a coffeehouse in town, so I headed down to see them. I brought along a MiniDisc recorder, and they were kind enough to let me plug into the soundboard and record them. The next morning they were playing and being interviewed on a local radio station, and I added that to the end of the disc.

A couple months ago, Rick ran his MiniDisc player into the ground. Since I wasn’t using mine, I handed it to him along with a stack of MiniDiscs with one condition — that he get me a copy of that recording.

This weekend Rick stopped by for a bit, bringing with him a CD of .mp3s that he’d made from the MiniDisc. I just got them copied over to my Mac, and now I’m sitting here listening to Kevin and his friends play some good old down-home bluegrass. It’s great — every so often between songs I can hear Kevin laughing in the background.

Beware: You might be next!

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Beware!

Nice editorial cartoon from the New York Times looking at the recent lawsuits by the RIAA against people sharing music files over the internet via file-trading networks.

I particularly liked the disclaimer at the bottom of the cartoon:

WARNING: Do not forward this column through e-mail, make photocopies to send to a child in college, tape it to your dorm-room door or put it on a bulletin board in your office — or you may be receiving an unexpected knock on your door.

(via Anil)

Namedropper ;)

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Some people. I mean, come on…

My first exposure to the Pixies was when i was in Europe with the also now reuinited Skinny Puppy on their Mind TPI tour. Must have been 1987….

The Skinny Puppy guys were driving me crazy. Cevin was fight with the tour manager on a daily basis. It was just not an environment that i was particularly enjoying. I was helping to set up the stage and sell merchandise for Puppy. It meant i had a fair amount of down time during the day. So i wrote long notes to the Throwing Muses and the Pixies begging them to get me off the Skinny Puppy tour. I would write them on the back of the posters for our shows and then leave them a kind soul from the club to hand off to someone from the Pixies and the Throwing Muses the next night.

And if that weren’t enough…

Did i mention that i once had dinner with Michael Stipe? But by now, who hasn’t? He liked my shirt. I was tour managing the left wing of the socialist wing of the Democratic Party, Consolidated, when we were playing in Athens. The drummer for Consolidated (Phil) was putting together a compilation album for In Defense of Animals and Michael was contributing a song. He came and joined us for dinner.

As someone who, having listened to the Pixies, the Throwing Muses, Skinny Puppy, R.E.M., and Consolidated for more years than I can think of, but because of living in Anchorage — who nobody cool goes to when they’re touring — never having had even the chance of seeing these artists in concert, let alone having dinner with them, I want you to know that I say this from the deepest, darkest depths of my heart:

You lucky bastard.

;)

Sorry. Just had to get that out of my system.

(And yeah, R.E.M. does still rock — their Bumbershoot show was excellent.)

Pshaw. Rank amateur.

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I think I mentioned to Bob [Geldof] I could make love for eight hours. What I didn’t say was that this included four hours of begging and then dinner and a movie.

— Sting, admitting to exaggerating his abilities in the past.

(via Go Fish)

Universal dropping CD prices

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It’s about damn time.

Battered by online piracy, the Universal Music Group, the world’s largest record company, said yesterday that it would cut prices on compact discs by as much as 30 percent in an aggressive attempt to lure consumers back into record stores.

Under the new pricing scheme, Universal would lower its wholesale price on a CD to \$9.09 from \$12.02. The company said it expected retail stores to lower CD prices to \$12.98, from the \$16.98 to \$18.98 they now charge, and perhaps to as low as \$10. When CD’s first arrived on the market they cost \$15.98, and have climbed from there.

This has been far too long in coming — but at least it’s finally starting.

Bumbershoot '03: Mon, Sep 1

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Leftover Salmon

Finally, we made it to the end — day four of Bumbershoot is over and done with. After this post, no more Bumbershoot babbling until sometime next year!

I made sure to get to the Seattle Center right around noon today, as I was looking forward to both of the first two big acts in the stadium. First up was Leftover Salmon, having a blast with some good down-home bluegrass. They were obviously having a blast, and had a small lineup of three can-can dancers who came out on stage every so often to liven things up just a bit more. Not a bad way to get the day started in the least.

Nickel Creek

After Leftover Salmon left the stage, we had the requisite half hour wait in the sun as the stage was struck and then re-set for the next act. I was so glad I’d remembered to grab a bottle of water on the way out today, otherwise it would have been way to hot at that point. Eventually, Nickel Creek got onstage and started their set. Sara (their fiddle player) is quite the cutie, isn’t she? I was really enjoying their set, unfortunately, I had to take off about halfway through — I needed more food and less pot smoke (the clouds of marijuana drifting by were noticeable all weekend, and this morning I think I was surrounded by pot smokers, and it got a bit much for me).

Karsh Kale

I’d picked Karsh Kale as a possibility, so after grabbing some food, I headed over to the Bumbrella stage to check them out. Seemed to be fairly good Indian-flavored pop, unfortunately, it turns out that I showed up just in time for their last song. Ah, well — the one song was good, at least.

Magic Slim and the Teardrops

Since I’d missed Karsh Kale, I figured I’d head over to the Blues stage to catch the last half of Magic Slim and the Teardrops. Found a good open spot on the hill, kicked back, and half-dozed in the sun while listening to some good old Chicago-style blues. Not much better than relaxing to the blues on a good warm day, sometimes.

Carnival ride

At this point, I was starting to get overheated, so I figured I’d stop into the EMP and catch United States of Electronica. Unfortunately, the line to get in to their show was incredibly long, so instead, I just wandered around in the “Fun Forest” carnival area for a little bit, watching people on the rides. It’s a cute little carnival area — not much to it, but what’s there is at least decent. None that I was really interested in hopping onto myself, but entertaining to watch for a while.

Carnival ride

It had gotten to about 3:30 in the afternoon by now, and I realized that there was nothing on my schedule for the next few hours that I was really excited about seeing, and I’d about hit my overload point. After three and a half days, I finally hit a point where being in the middle of all those crowds in the hot sun was the last thing I wanted to do. Since I had a good five hours before R.E.M. came on stage (who I was excited about seeing) I figured that taking a break would be a good idea, so I hopped the monorail, came back to the apartment, and took a nap for a few hours. Very, very glad I did, too. I’m not sure I’d have made it through the rest of the day if I’d tried to stick it out.

R.E.M.

The nap did a good job of rejuvenating me, though, so roundabout 8pm I headed back out to the Seattle Center and got into the stadium about twenty minutes before R.E.M.’s set started. It took a bit of jostling through the first few songs before I found a decent spot, but eventually a good space opened up, and I was able to see most of the show pretty clearly (though the pictures really don’t do it justice). They filled the full two hours that they’d been given plus some, when they decided to toss in a few extra songs “just because we can.” Absolutely incredible show, and they finished off with “It’s the End of the World As We Know It (and I Feel Fine)”, which blew me away. Awesome show.

All in all, another really good Bumbershoot weekend. Tons of sun, tons of incredible music, and a lot of fun.

And that’s all, folks.

Bumbershoot '03: Fri, Aug 29

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A seagull on the International Fountain

Allrighty then — home from the first day of Bumbershoot 2003, pictures are downloaded to the ‘puter, and I’ve sorted through today’s set of 91 to find 10 to toss up here. Let day one begin…

I got to the Seattle Center around 12:30 or so, not long after everything got started, and spent the first couple hours just wandering around the grounds, figuring out this year’s layout. The International Fountain hadn’t been turned on full blast yet, and there were some seagulls hanging out on top of the globe drinking from the jets. I tried for a few shots of them, and I think this one with the Space Needle in the background was the best.

Le Petit Cirque

Le Petit Cirque is performing multiple times a day, with small fifteen minute shows throughout the day. This was the only one that I sat and watched, though I caught bits and pieces of other shows as I wandered around all day long. For this one, the pole in the center was constantly rotating around while the two performers worked their way up and down it. In this shot, the guy sticking out sideways was actually holding himself like that for one full revolution! Amazing to watch what these performers can do.

Wading pool

I think that this little wading pool has become one of my favorite places to kick back for a few minutes and cool off. Last year I didn’t come up this way, as I was only at Bumbershoot for one day, and the year before the pool was closed for renovations, so this was my first time actually seeing it in operation. It was quite a pleasant surprise to come across it, too — the water ranges from about six inches to maybe two feet deep, just right for wading around in (or swimming, if you’re young enough). I stopped by here a couple times during the day, both to wade around and to watch kids playing in the pool.

The first band I actually sat and watched some of today was Blues Orbiter. Not bad at all, good solid blues, but nothing really mindblowing, either. Made for a very pleasant time sitting in the grass and getting a little sun while I figured out what to do and where to go next, however. I ended up making a run through all the vendor booths and picking up a nice purple and black vest from one of the many imported goods stands. I’d been wanting a decent looking casual vest for a while, and this one is perfect — leaving it open leaves me cool and lets me get a little sun, but it’s heavy enough that later on in the night I buttoned it up and was quite comfortable.

Dragon!

Every year Bumbershoot has a giant puppet parade, and I’m always impressed with the imagination put into the creations. This dragon turned out to be quite friendly as I was taking the picture!

By this point it had gotten to about three in the afternoon, and I was getting fairly hungry. Rather than grabbing food at the festival, I caught the monorail into downtown Seattle and came home for a couple sandwiches, with a quick stop to pick up some shorts on the way. The day just kept getting warmer, and apparently the weather is supposed to hold throughout the weekend, so I wanted something a bit cooler than my standard black pants or jeans for my wandering. After eating, I caught the monorail back in, and took a quick peek at the odometer — the train I was on has clocked up 984,965.6 miles! As it’s roughly a one mile jaunt each way, that means that just one of those monorail trains has clocked up nearly 500,000 round trips. Blew my mind.

Jambalassy feat. Alex Duncan

When I got back into the Seattle Center, I showed up just in time to catch Jambalassy featuring Alex Duncan. While I’m not normally a big reggae fan (I don’t dislike it, but it tends to be a bit too downtempo to really hold my interest for very long), I walked up to the show just in time to catch two really good dancy upbeat numbers that were an absolute blast. Really good rhythms, a strong four-piece horn section, and Alex does a really good job of getting the audience involved and having fun with the show. After those two numbers they moved into more standard downtempo songs, and I wandered off again. I’m so damn fickle sometimes. ;)

Kids playing in the International Fountain

The International Fountain is one of my favorite places to kick back for a while on a sunny day. If you haven’t seen it before, it’s a huge area with a large dome in the center that has multiple outlets for jets of water that are constantly randomly changing how powerfully they send water out. Kids (of all ages) love to play in this, running in and out of the streams of water, dodging around them, and trying to run into the center and touch the dome itself without getting soaked (which they’re rarely, if ever, able to do). Being a sucker for watching kids play, this is perfect for me — and besides, a good breeze will often send some spray my way!

Kids playing in the International Fountain

After watching kids soak themselves for a while, I headed off to find the Bagley-Wright theatre for the Pizzazz! talent competition. On my way there, I passed a group of five girls, all about 17 or so, standing in the center of one of the pathway intersections. One of them had a fresh henna “tattoo” on her lower back that said “KISS THIS” with an arrow pointing straight down, which gave me a laugh. They were all laughing and cheering one one girl in the center, who was wearing a shirt with “BIRTHDAY GIRL” hand lettered on it. As I came up to them, they were saying, “Seven! That’s seven — we need eight!” Then one of them saw me as I passed.

“Wanna be eight?”

“Eight what?”

“Kisses for the birthday girl!”

I laughed. “Oh, sure, why not?” I leaned in, gave the birthday girl a kiss on the cheek as her friends cheered, and then headed off again, hearing them continue their search — “That’s eight! Hey, wanna be nine?”

Holly Chernobyl

Eventually I found the theatre, and after waiting for about half an hour, they let us in. Apparently this is a fairly popular event, as they were able to almost completely fill the theater before the show started. The show itself was a blast — and while my friend Holly didn’t win, she did get some of the biggest laughs from the audience with a combination stand-up and burlesque routine extolling the virtues of having a fat ass. Besides, I think that anyone who comes on stage in lingerie and immediately addresses her audience as “twatwaffles and cockknockers” is bound to get a few laughs!

I have to say, though, that the winning act was well worth it. Opera Diva came out and sang an operatic piece with supertitles projected above her that were flat-out hilarious — and, of course, being a bear of very little brain, I can’t remember any of them well enough to get them written down here. Typical, eh? In any case, it was a great performance, and she definitely deserved her first place win. Apparently she’s one of the performers for local performance-art-circus-burlesque-dinner-theater Teatro Zinzanni, which I’d really like to check out one of these days.

The International Fountain and the Space Needle

The sun went down while I was inside watching the talent show, and at night, the entire Seattle Center area is absolutely gorgeous, especially during an event. My camera doesn’t do incredibly well with low-light shots, but I keep trying, and occasionally manage to get something that I think is presentable — such as this shot of the Space Needle behind the International Fountain. Someday I’ll be able to afford a better camera, but for now, this one serves me fairly well, and shots like this aren’t too bad.

Maktub

My last band for the day was local funk/rock group Maktub. I’d read a lot of extremely good press about this group, but until now, hadn’t managed to catch any of their shows, so I was looking forward to seeing what all the fuss was about. Turns out that the good reviews were spot on — these guys were great. Very danceable funk/rock combination, incredible stage presence, and they were obviously having a blast and loving every moment of the show. The crowd was really good, too — I definitely got the impression that I was the only one there who hadn’t seen them before! Strongly considering grabbing one of their CDs before the weekend is over, but as I’d already done some shopping earlier, I didn’t want to blow too much money in one day.

Once Maktub finished up, I caught the monorail back to downtown and walked my way home — and that concludes day one of Bumbershoot 2003 for me. Three more days to go!