Monday November 23rd
(jump earlier)

Slacker! I've been being lazy on the journal front again The last couple of weeks have been consumed with my parents' kitchen & bathroom renovations and whether or not the contractors could possibly be so massively late on their work that they manage to ruin Thanksgiving. So far it's looking like things will be OK. Although the guest bathroom currently has no door, which could put a crimp into having six guests. I went down to NY last weekend and put in a lot of work helping Mom out with the kitchen. It was not finished yet but we were able to start doing some work like washing and putting away all the dishes and glassware as well as measuring/cutting and installing about 40 shelf liners. Plus putting away all of the food, spices, pots and pans, so on and so forth. While I was there I (of course) headed into NYC for a concert with a friend (Beat the Donkey, Edom, and Wollesonic). It wasn't the most spectacular concert I've ever seen, but it was good and it was a lot of fun - we had a really good time. Edom is a kind of guitar-driven instrumental noise-rock, Wollesonic is an absurdist 30+ piece marching band led by a guy wearing a lab coat, and Beat the Donkey is a wild Brazilian-influenced percussion-heavy band with everything from tap dancers to a keyboardist wearing a chicken hat. As I said, a lot of fun Looking forward to Thanksgiving (and a few days off work). Much cooking will be done in the coming days.

Monday October 26th
(jump earlier later)

Birthday Extravaganza: an unqualified success Got back last night from NYC where my mom's ?0th birthday party took place. (Number withheld to protect the innocent and because you're only as old as you feel ) But as you can see it ends in a zero, and numbers that end in zero are important. My dad, in a fit of absent-minded insanity, accidentally booked a business trip to Japan on her actual birthday, so he decided to throw a no-holds-barred birthday weekend extravaganza to make up for it. We planned it for months. Although most of that time was taken up with my absent-minded dad forgetting to answer our e-mails Friday we all descended on the Ritz-Carlton on Central Park in midtown Manhattan. Thankfully my dad was paying for everything because there is no way in hell I can afford to stay there! The hotel was really nice and the staff there is unreal. We occasionally wondered if they might be psychic or have some kind of brain implant that let them communicate with each other without us noticing. Really a lovely place to stay. I was the first one there so I went up to my room and took a nice long shower in the gorgeous marble bathroom. My parents checked in shortly thereafter and we went down to the "Club Room" and had drinks and snacks while we waited for my brother and his family to show up. They came along eventually and as usual baby Max was a big hit when he showed up We were meeting my sister-in-law's sister for dinner at 6 (early so Max could come along before his bedtime) a couple of blocks from the hotel at Rue 57. They let us sit down in the basement where there were hardly any other customers (the main floor was very loud and busy) so we didn't have to worry too much about Max being quiet or his stroller being in the way. He was very good that night, though, and slept through the later part of dinner which went past his bedtime. We had a celebratory bottle of champagne to kick off the evening and all of the food was excellent. We headed back to the hotel to put Max to bed. In the lobby one of the hotel staff stopped us to give Max a cute little stuffed horse as a present Very sweet. I think they picked a horse because of all the horse-drawn carriages around Central Park, there are always a few outside the hotel. When I got to my room someone had come in and dimmed the lights, put on some soft music, set out chocolates and bottled water by the bed, and left a birthday card and a bottle of champagne in a bucket of ice with a pair of champagne flutes. Beautiful, although clearly meant for my mother I gave my brother a key to my room, because we were next door - they could let Max sleep in their room and hang out in my room with the baby monitor so they wouldn't have to worry about waking him up with the TV or the phone or anything. My brother ended up going out for a drink with my dad while my SIL stayed in my room and had a nice long soak in the tub. My mom and I went to a concert at the Village Vanguard, which was fun and I think she really enjoyed it (#1 priority!). I got back around 11PM and my brother and his wife were kicked back on my bed drinking the champagne and watching a movie (they were nice enough to save me the last glassful, although that may not have been on purpose because they thought I'd be out later ). The next morning my mom and sister-in-law went to the hotel spa for pedicures while the rest of us took Max to the Central Park Zoo. He didn't really notice the bigger animals (which tend to be farther away and in a bigger cage) but when we took him into the tropical rainforest building where you are right up close to everything, he really liked that. He kept reaching out his hands to all the colorful birds, frogs, and snakes. (Not sure if it was an "I want it!" reach-out-and-grab or showing off his newfound "waving hello" skills.) We met up again with everyone for lunch at a pizzeria near the hotel, and then Max went off for a nap while the rest of us went shopping. My dad took my mom to Bergdorf Goodman to pick out a birthday present for herself (she ended up with a nice Chanel shoulder bag, I don't know how much it cost and I'm afraid to find out). My brother and I went - in the pouring rain, I might add - to the Leonidas chocolate store where I was picking up a pound of their fabtastic truffles, and to the Hermès store where we had a silk scarf picked out and paid for and we just needed to pick it up. We felt like jackasses when we walked into the Hermes store dripping wet and looking like a mess, and everyone in the store looked like they just stepped out of a fashion magazine. I wouldn't really care except they treated us with such obvious suspicion. It took a long time for them to give us the scarf - first they kept saying they couldn't find it and had no record of it, and then eventually they found it but said we were not allowed to pick it up because we didn't place the order. They had to call my SIL on the phone to confirm it even after seeing my brother's ID which has the same last name and address. Oy vey. We managed, barely, to get the bags back to the hotel without getting more than a drop or two of water on the boxes inside (I was focusing on holding the umbrella over the packages and not myself, so I got soaked - my brother, with a short rain jacket and no umbrella, got even wetter). After I got back I stripped off all the wet clothes, got into another hot shower, and then after leaving Max with his babysitter (my SIL's sister again) we headed down to my parents' room for champagne and birthday presents. I'd had the bright idea of getting all of us kids to get one or two extra little things in addition to the scarf - even though the scarf was super expensive, and she got the present from my dad earlier, I thought it was a little sad to only have that one box to open and nothing else after we've built up this big super fantastic birthday weekend. So we got the champagne, some birthday cards, one of my brother's famous mix CDs, a framed picture of my mom holding Max, a bottle of my homemade cherry-infused gin and the Leonidas chocolates to round it out a bit without breaking the bank too badly. She really loved all of her presents I was worried the scarf we picked wouldn't be exactly to her taste (it's hard to pick out that kind of stuff for other people) but she really loved it and put it on immediately. Miraculously, it perfectly matched both the outfit she had on, and her new Chanel bag My SIL had gotten us a reservation at Blue Hill down in the Village (which is not that easy to do). We managed to avoid getting soaked, largely thanks to the hotel staff again, and got a car to drive us down there for our 7PM dinner. Everything was very nice - it was not too noisy of a restaurant, so it was relaxing, and the waiter we had was just unbelievable. He knew everything about every dish, and it is the only time I've been to a restaurant with my SIL where the waiter was able to list all of the gluten-free dishes without having to even think about it, let alone having to check with the chef, which is what they usually have to do. The food was really excellent, and I think my appetizer might have been everyone's favorite dish of the night (a smoked tomato soup with fresh ricotta - it was kind of like a really good BLT in creamy hot soup form - so delicious!). The desserts were very creative and unusual. Really good stuff. After we got back to the hotel that night I took advantage of the early evening (it was only about 10:15) to have a nice long soak in the tub. I even braved reading my Kindle in the tub because they had this genius book rack that sits securely on the tub and keeps your book dry Next morning we had a brunch reservation at Bar Americain (obligatory NYC Food Network chef restaurant ) which was good - the food was not 100% across the board spectacular but most of it was very good; the space was beautiful, and the waitstaff were really nice and very understanding about Max (e.g., telling my brother not to bother picking his cereal up off the floor where he dropped it because they are happy to clean it up afterwards). It can be a little dicey bringing a baby to a nice restaurant - some of them are really nice and some of them are obviously thinking "who the hell would bring a baby here??" I probably wouldn't bring him there for dinner but for brunch it was fine. After that, everyone went their separate ways home - my train was a bit late (track repair/construction this fall, there are a lot of delays) so I didn't get home till about 8:30PM last night. I am pretty tired, but it was a great weekend and most importantly I think my mom really had a great time and feels really special She has some more stuff planned with her friends later this week/weekend so she still has things to look forward to, as well...

Saturday October 17th
(jump earlier later)

Insomnia is a cruel mistress Haven't been sleeping well since that last journal entry. Last night I was able to fall asleep at 1:30 or so without any kind of medical intervention (an improvement!) but I woke up at 6:15AM and haven't been able to sleep since Official notice: I am going to be pissy today.

Saturday October 3rd
(jump earlier later)

Another busy week I had a very concert-heavy week... started on Sunday with the Mark Sandman Memorial Concert - I wasn't going to go since I was leaving for NYC the next morning and it was a 6-hour outdoor show.. with rain predicted. But after three faraway friends urged me to go (and one begged me to record it) and they switched the venue to something indoors, I relented and went to the last few hours of the show. It was pretty nuts since it was a mid-day all-ages free show... full of frustrated adult music fans who can never go out because of their kids. So the place was overrun with small children who have absolutely no idea how to behave at a concert. Luckily I didn't really care since they weren't bands I am a big fan of or anything. That said, it was a really good show. There is an excellent tape of the three sets I saw here: »bt.etree.org/details.php?id=528540 One of the best non-soundboard live recordings I've heard. It sounds better than it did live. I was pretty exhausted when I got home, after standing for three hours and once again getting soaked in the pouring rain (it seems to always be raining when I go there). But no rest for the weary I had to get ready for my trip to NYC in the morning. I headed off to the train station around 10:15AM on Monday, feeling really good about not going to work. I had decided, as an experiment, to bring my ginormous full-size headphones with me because they sound so much better than the IEMs I usually use for travel. (I would not do this on a plane since it's so much louder but for the train I thought it might be OK). It actually worked out pretty great They are absolutely ridiculous looking but no one asked me about them or looked at me funny. And it made the train ride a lot more enjoyable. I'd made a special 5-hour Marc Ribot mix to listen to in preparation for Tuesday's concert. Yummy. The train was 30 minutes late, which was not a good thing because I was supposed to be meeting my mom pretty soon after I arrived. I ended up getting to my hotel at 4, changing my shirt, washing up a little, using the bathroom, and running back out the door to meet her uptown at 4:45. I was starving since I hadn't eaten anything since 11AM, so we went to Bouchon Bakery and shared a dessert and glass of wine. She fished for hints about her upcoming secret surprise birthday weekend, but I wasn't telling I just teased her by saying she should be prepared to be whisked away at any moment without notice. Afterwards we headed further uptown to meet my dad for dinner. We went to Nice Matin, which I've been to before and don't love or anything, but my dad likes it and it's close to where he works so it's convenient for him. And he was in a grouchy mood this weekend so we went where he wanted to go It was pouring rain again so we had a somewhat damp dinner after we all were caught in the rain. Post-dinner I headed back to my hotel to change back into my first shirt because the 5-hours-of-Amtrak funk was preferable to the damp-and-sweaty-in-a-subway funk I achieved with the second one. Some people would put on a clean shirt, but those people are not going to a show with a bunch of indie posers at the Bowery Ballroom I got to the Bowery Ballroom (which is a great little venue) at about 9:30PM, partway through the opening band (Maserati). I wasn't super excited about this show but I figured an OK show is still highly preferable to sitting in my hotel. Maserati was better than I expected, they had a good guitar player. The main band was Mono, a Japanese band who I heard described as "avant noise" but turned out to be not really avant at all. They were OK. Very loud (I wore earplugs). It wasn't a bad show but maybe a little duller than I was hoping. You can turn up the volume all you want but it doesn't actually make your music more exciting. It was also a standing show and after the show the day before my feet were killing me by the end of this one. I headed back to my hotel after the show, stopping at a Walgreens to pick up a gallon of water and some snacks for the room. I got back after midnight and finally got to kick back and put my feet up for a couple of hours, geeking out by listening to my ginormous headphones while reading my Kindle and eating Doritos. Next day I tried very hard to sleep in since I stayed up reading till 3, but it turned out my hotel room was on a very loud street and I didn't sleep very much past nine But I dozed on and off and lounged around until lunchtime when I went out and got myself a really good falafel sandwich. I did some window shopping, stopped by my now-favorite Belgian chocolate store, and just generally walked around for a few hours. I had two shows to go to that night, the first one was quite early and pretty far away in Brooklyn, so I left a little after 6PM. It ended up being really peculiar because the venue, which I hadn't been to before, was ridiculously tiny (15-20 seats) and I am pretty sure I was the only person there who wasn't friends with someone in the band. They actually commented on the fact that they knew everyone there several times, and I was a little afraid someone would ask me to introduce myself But it was a nice little show. I've seen a couple of the musicians before and liked them so I figured it would be good. It was like a regular indie rock band (guitar/bass/drums) except the lead singer/songwriter played the cello. It's hard not to like a cello, it has such a beautiful timbre. She kept joking with the audience about the songs - "this is about a bad breakup, ha ha, you all know who THIS is about" and everyone but me would groan/laugh and make snarky comments about whoever the guy was that they all knew. I was starting to feel a little like I'd sneaked into someone's dinner party. The second show (Marc Ribot's Ceramic Dog) was on Bleecker Street so I hopped back on the subway and headed over there. I was a bit early so I walked around and stopped somewhere for dinner. I ended up with a pretty good seat, second row with a great view of everyone except Shahzad Ismaily (which was OK since he was sitting in the back wearing a big coat with a hood the entire time anyway). Extra bonus points to this venue because they were having some kind of Hendrick's gin promotion and were giving away free cucumber gin & tonics all night Awesome. This was easily the best show of the week - the drummer, Ches Smith, was having a particularly good night. Well, aside from knocking the cymbal stand onto Marc Ribot that one time They did one of my favorites that I haven't heard them play before live, "Maple Leaf Rage." I love the drum breaks in that song, he does something with the tempo that totally screws with my head. He also did a really good version of his song (title unknown, it's not on any recordings) about searching for the love of his life, which is really snarkily funny in a very self-deprecating way. The premise being that he always assumed the love of his life would be "the reflection of me, as a girl" - but then when he finally finds the girl version of him, "this did not make me happy - in fact, I was disgusted" and he runs away as fast as he can and lives a life of quiet despair all alone. Poor guy. Other highlights included some very cool covers - a completely fantastic version of Serge Gainsbourg's "Un Poison Violent C'est ca L'Amour" (and yes I know I don't have the little accent mark on the c, I'm lazy). A monstrous Doors cover, "Break on Through." And a somewhat hesitant, but sweet version of "When Something Is Wrong with My Baby" which he dedicated to a friend in the hospital. I recorded this set with my new Audio-Technica mic, which cost a little more than I wanted to spend but came out quite nicely A bit heavy on the drums, but that was probably due to my mic placement. The bass extension on this mic is really remarkable for such a tiny little piece of hardware. The kick drum has serious punch. It's a nice change from my old mics which tended to be bass-light and tinny-sounding. It would be a much better recording if Marc would learn to sing into the mic instead of just near the mic, but I guess imperfection adds to his charm Wednesday I had lunch in midtown near Penn Station and headed home on the train; after getting to my apartment around 7PM, I decided not to go to the show I was thinking about that night at TT the Bear's, because I was freaking exhausted. I have been ridiculously tired all week (I got into a staying-up-late schedule and now I can't sleep even when I get up early) and will continue to be exhausted because I am flying out to melissa 's wedding tomorrow morning and coming back late in the day on Sunday. Busy busy busy... next week should be a little quieter since half the office is going to be at a convention out of town, and I have no concerts and no commitments other than work and sleep.

Monday September 21st
(jump earlier later)

More fun than games The last few days have been pretty fun. Thursday was the Jolie Holland double show and dinner with my SIL. We met up at Harvest, which is right next door to the venue where we were seeing the show. We had a quick, but excellent, dinner at the bar. It was a 10-days-early birthday celebration for her so I picked up the tab and the concert tickets. We grabbed front row center seats, which turned out to be less good than expected because the sound setup was weird, and in the center you got too much guitar and not enough vocals. Not a huge deal. The opening act was not something I particularly enjoyed. I might have enjoyed one song but all his songs kind of sounded the same (and as my SIL pointed out, they were all about horses for some reason). Even when Jolie Holland came out with her fiddle and did a duet with him, it sounded kind of awful - they have utterly incompatible voices and it just sounded all wrong. He only played for about half an hour though, so not a big deal. He headed off and Jolie came on with some other guy - I hadn't heard about what band she was touring with and figured it was probably the same band she had when we saw her in November. Now, over dinner we'd been talking about various things including past concerts we'd been to - I was telling her about the concert I'd been to in May at the Stone (documented right here in Sarah's Hazardous Journal) where there were only eight people who showed up for the Marc Ribot tribute show, because Marc Ribot had gone and scheduled a show nearby on the same night. So, imagine my surprise when a short time later, this guy walks on the stage with Jolie Holland and it's one of the guitarists from that obscure and unattended show that I was JUST telling her about! Grey Gersten. It makes sense, since she had said in an interview that when she looks for guitarists she always asks for someone who sounds like Marc Ribot. So she ends up with a guy who not only played at a Ribot tribute show, but I believe was the organizer of the whole thing. (And as you know I highly approve of anyone who wants to sound like Ribot...) They did a really nice set, some obscure covers (obscure to the point I can't tell you what they were), some songs from her album coming out next year, and a couple old and a couple newer songs from her albums. Grey Gersten turns out to have a really nice voice, and better yet, it sounds like the two of them were born to sing together. Really a wonderful surprise to hear them break out a duet. After their set, I headed outside with my SIL, since she was only staying for one set. We walked across the street to grab some cold beverages and I got my taping gear set up in my backpack. We said goodnight and I headed back to the venue for the second show. It was still a half an hour before the second show was going to start so I was towards the front of the line. When they let us in, Mr. Gersten was at the merch table so I went over to say hello, figuring I had a really good conversation starter with being in the audience for that tribute show. We ended up chatting for a couple of minutes and he skillfully sold me one of his EPs by latching onto a band I mentioned and saying he recorded his EP with the drummer from that band... it has a couple of good songs on it and one that I really love, so I'm glad I picked that up. And hey, I'm a sucker for supporting underappreciated musicians anyway. Some other people walked up to the merch table and needed attending to, so I headed off to pick a good seat (with taping in mind as well as watching). This time I had a good understanding of the weird sound system and was able to get a pretty perfect spot where I still had a perfect view, but the vocals and guitars would be more balanced (and the difference in sound was night and day from the front/center seats we'd had). I had to sit through the same-songs-about-horses guy again but he played an even shorter time the second time around. The second Jolie Holland set was mostly different from the first set - just a couple of songs the same. This one I recorded so I don't have to rely on my fuzzy memory - they did three obscure covers (all of which were good, two of which were beautiful duets), six songs from her various albums including an old obscure one, plus one of hers I hadn't heard before. The recording came out pretty well, not as well as others I've made but very listenable and I'm very glad I recorded it since I've been listening over and over to one of those cover song duets in particular. (I sent a copy to a friend who is a fan of hers and he said that song gave him goosebumps!) So Thursday night was a big success... Friday I was really tired and didn't do much of anything. I don't think. I don't really remember Friday, which generally means I didn't do much. Saturday I did laundry and then went out with my brother for a big night out since his wife and baby were taking a weekend trip to visit family in New Jersey. We met up in Central Square and went to Green Street Grill, mainly because (aside from it being a great place) they had a free table in the bar at 7:30 on a Saturday night. The plan was to have drinks and a snack there and then move on to bigger and better things, possibly venturing across the river to Boston. We had a couple of cocktails and some appetizers (chicken & bacon croquettes with salsa fresca - which is much less fancy than it sounds - and oxtail terrine, which is more fancy than it sounds and came with tiny grilled toasts, a mustard quenelle, and cornichons). Everything was very good. The oxtail terrine was slightly weird, but good. We ended up having such a nice time there that we were loathe to leave and try to find a table at a good restaurant at prime dinner hour on a Saturday, so we stayed for another drink and entrees. He had the "lobster bolognese" which resembles a bolognese almost not at all ("well.. there's tomatoes in it") and I had the schnitzel with mashed potatoes and salad, which was really delicious. Although I think they need to rethink serving the salad on top of the mashed potatoes. That's just weird. Ooh, a cherry tomato! With potato on it. Ooh, arugula! With potato on it. Etc. After our entrees we decided to head over to Craigie on Main, which is a very very nice bar with really high-end food (expensive enough that I've never had dinner there) and absolutely beautiful cocktails. We ended up having a brilliant dessert + wine pairing, and then sticking around for another cocktail. I asked for something "a little girly" in comparison to my brother's cocktail since he gets the weirdest, darkest, strongest, funkiest drinks you can think of. She ended up bringing me this lovely cocktail with about eight ingredients in it (one of those drinks where they tell you what's in it and you almost can't taste any of them because it makes this whole new creation when they're mixed perfectly) and to make it "girly" she floated three perfect little edible flowers in it. Really quite a beautiful thing It was almost midnight by the time we (somewhat reluctantly) headed out of there and headed home. Miraculously I had almost no hangover this morning, although I woke up and fell back to sleep four times starting at 7:30, each time having a nightmare Mostly I don't remember any of them although I do recall one vivid nightmare image of my father gushing blood after some kind of accident. Ugh. Not a good way to start your Sunday. But nothing bad happened today that I know of, so I guess I wasn't being clairvoyant. (Whew)

Sunday September 13th
(jump earlier later)

Killer show, as expected The show at the Middle East on Friday was pretty spectacular. Sadly, the occasional showers turned into absolutely fucking torrential rain just as I needed to walk over. In spite of carrying an umbrella, I was pretty much drenched below the knees and elbows by the time I got there. That really improves on the whole packed-into-a-basement-club-with-hundreds-of-people-for-4-hours experience Wasn't so bad though since it was quite cool outside, it didn't get too hot and muggy in the club, which would have been gross with wet clothes... and my electronics survived in my backpack, which also got drenched, so, whew. I didn't make it there in time for the first band (the one I'd seen before and thought was OK). The 2nd band (the one I'd never heard) was mediocre, so during that set I hit the merch table. I wanted to get a present for a couple of friends of mine (JJ & L. who I spent a lot of time with in Paris) who are fans of these bands as well. The merch was all extremely reasonably priced ($10 for shirts and CDs) so I bought them a couple of shirts and a couple of CDs. It was L's birthday last weekend so I'm calling it a birthday prezzie I bought the same two CDs for myself - one being Beat Circus' brand new release "Boy from Black Mountain" which is really fantastic, the other being a limited-edition hand-numbered Reverend Glasseye disc. I got 96/100 and 97/100 for them and me. This disc is only OK, and kind of sounds like it was recorded in someone's bedroom, but hey, for the price, I'm not really complaining. And it will be a real collector's item if the band ever makes it big Can't tell you how happy I am with the Beat Circus album though, there are some really gorgeous songs on it. I like it about five times more than I like any of their previous CDs. Highly recommended. Check it out on their website where they have some free mp3s. I stashed all the merch in my backpack and headed to the (foul) ladies room where I headed to the handicapped stall - less chance of accidentally touching something since there's more room - and got my stealth taping gear set up. Pretty simple - turn it on, hit record, hold switch, and then I snaked the mics through the built-in rubber "headphone port" which is at the top corner of my backpack near the zipper. The backpack is black with lots of odd dangly parts anyway (it's one of those one-strap/two-strap convertible jobs, plus a luggage tag and a handle on top) so two 1/2" black mics aren't too noticeable in dim light. I got myself up to the front row, not quite halfway between speaker stacks (they crank the volume there so you never want to be too close to any - I had earplugs anyway). The next set was Reverend Glasseye, which I was quite looking forward to. I haven't seen them since their epic and fantastic all-request farewell-to-Boston show 2 1/2 years ago. Kind of a fun surprise was that instead of just using his new band from Austin, which is him and 2 others, he got his old Boston-based saxophone player, plus the violist from Beat Circus as well as the lead singer/multi-instrumentalist Brian Carpenter. So they had something better than the sparse little band I was expecting. The set was OK, I wasn't expecting anything phenomenal, but it seems like moving to Austin has turned him awfully melancholy Their first couple of albums were really fun and energetic and the new stuff is all full of misery. Poor guy. I mean, OK, the old stuff was full of misery too, but the music was fun. Now the music is miserable as well as the lyrics. He kept saying how proud he was of all his new songs, though. Shrug. There was also (sort of expected at a RG show in Cambridge) a really annoying girl standing right behind me who really hit all the bases of being annoying at a concert - loudly and badly singing along, trying to engage the singer in yelled (and foul-mouthed) banter, screaming at the top of her lungs to show her enjoyment, etc. For the sake of her friends and family I really hope she was very intoxicated. I can't imagine having to spend time with anyone who is like that while sober Luckily for all of us, she has been immortalized in my concert recording... After the unnecessarily-depressing Glasseye set, it was time for Beat Circus. It was a fairly short set, 40-45 min - everyone had a short set since they fit five bands in 5 hours including all the set changes. But in spite of that it was really the best of the four times I've seen them, not a single song fell flat or didn't come together, just really consistently great. I could tell Brian Carpenter was really enjoying it - having such a huge crowd turn out for their CD release show must have been a rush. It was so good I decided to take out my earplugs for the full impact of it (it wasn't too horrifically loud anyway). My recording of this set is just about as good a recording as I could hope to get, I am really pleased with it. I will probably keep taping them, they seem to get better and better... The last set of the night was a band called Mucca Pazza - I really knew nothing of them except that they were described as a "circus punk marching band." Their set was INSANE! They had about 25 people, including tuba, violin, xylophone, 3x trombone, 3x baritone sax, alto sax, many drums, several cheerleaders... all of them were wearing what appeared to be a random (unmatching) collection of secondhand or homemade band uniforms, including a lot of ridiculous hats. It was as much performance art as music - some of the musicians had a kind of "part" to play - the troubled trombonist, the simpleton xylophone player, the worried violinist, etc., and they were constantly interacting with the audience for laughs. I would probably not buy a CD but I will 100% for sure go see them again next time they're in Boston, just for the pure fun aspect of it. Especially from the front row. The cheerleaders kept shaking their pom poms in my face, the trombonists were (I think on purpose) constantly narrowly missing hitting us with their slides, they would jump down off the stage to march around in the audience, and the tuba player spent most of the set on the floor with the audience with the nearby audience members trying to point a mic stand at his tuba while he marched back and forth in front of the stage. I haven't listened to the entire set I recorded from Mucca Pazza, but I imagine it is kind of terrible even apart from when the cheerleader accidentally kicked my backpack/mics and it hit the floor (scrapescrapethudBANG). They could barely fit on stage and only a few of them were really near microphones, so it was very unevenly amped (not really a problem for me since I was close enough to hear everything unamped). But with all the instruments constantly moving around the room and the generalized noisiness of it all, it was kind of a cacophony. But a fun cacophony I think I got a hangover from osmosis the next morning - I wasn't drinking but woke up at 10 (after being up till 4AM) feeling really sore with a terrible headache. Possibly just the after-effects of standing in front of the trombone trio. Also, I awoke to find that there was a plumber replacing pipes in the basement all day. Really would have liked to know about that in advance "Hi! We've turned your gas off, and also, there will be power tools being used to cut thick metal pipes directly underneath your feet for the next 6 hours. Have a great Saturday!" It was still raining and I had a splitting headache all day. I finally was able to get a hot shower later in the afternoon so I went out and had a big pile of Mexican food (the good kind made with certified real food ingredients, not fast-food junk). This was an instant cure for my headache - one of those strange times when your body tells you what it needs even though it makes no logical sense. I hadn't been to that Mexican place in 3 years and just suddenly had this feeling - "I must walk a mile through the rain to Picante at 4:30 in the afternoon and have one of those giant combo plates and drink lots of water." Some sort of black bean deficiency, no doubt Unsurprisingly, while I was eating the rain showers turned once more to absolute fucking torrential downpour, which I waited out for about 15-20 minutes until it died down some. This week will be busy at work (deadline Tuesday) and I am looking forward to two sets of Jolie Holland on Thursday and dinner with my SIL Good stuff.

Thursday September 10th
(jump earlier later)

Getting excited... Tomorrow is night the start of my awesome September-o-concerts. Five bands at the Middle East, two of which I love, one of which is pretty decent, one of which I've never heard but has a band member in common with a band I love, and another I've never heard but which sounds, from descriptions, completely awesome. I'm thinking of dusting off the old stealth taping rig since it seems like such a night to remember. Extra credit for being a CD release show for an album I'm really excited about, which I'll be able to get 2 1/2 weeks before it hits stores. Only downside: my back and feet will probably be killing me since it's such a long show. A week from tonight we have Jolie Holland at the Brattle - I just found out she has a new album on the way which I had no idea about. Thrilling! Her last album is one of my most-listened-to discs in the past 2-3 years. I'm taking my sister-in-law since it's a few days before her birthday and she wanted to go. Really excited about this show too. (Two shows, actually, since she's doing two sets and I have a ticket to both.) After that I'm heading to NYC for a couple of days for a Ceramic Dog show... (no matter how many shows of theirs I attend, I can't help but picture some kind of Westminster Kennel Club thing with tiny dog statues on leashes) And you know I'm excited about that one because it's Marc Ribot. It's a late show so I think I will see if my parents want to have dinner with me beforehand. They're having their kitchen remodeled so going out to dinner is kind of a given anyway. I booked two nights just out of a desire to have something resembling a vacation and not one of those rushed "9 hours on the train, 8 hours of sleep, one concert and two meals" overnight trips. I was scouring listings for my other NYC night to see if there was anything good, and I may not have the willpower to resist the all-female accordion orchestra playing "Girls Gone Weill"... I mean, come on, how could that be bad.

Sunday August 30th
(jump earlier later)

Summer almost over (whew) I know everyone else has bitched endlessly about the "summer that wasn't" but this was maybe the best summer I ever had, weather-wise. I hate the heat and humidity. This week is supposed to be all 70s I can't wait till it's 50s and 60s every day and I can wear my favorite jackets... I got the Alessandro headphones I mentioned in my last entry. I absolutely love them I had to back off listening to them so much because it was starting to hurt my ears (not from volume of sound, but from the pressure of the headphone on my ears). The perfection of detail is amazing, and the bass, without being overly heavy, goes much lower than any other headphone I ever had. I actually discovered that one or two songs I've heard many times before had ultra-low bass lines in them that I never knew existed And I already had some pretty decent headphones, too, it's not like I was upgrading from iBuds. Everything just sounds much more "real" on these headphones. I went to a fun show last night - for some reason I just felt like getting out and going to a concert, so I looked around the local venues' websites and this was the one that looked like the most fun. It was a benefit show, too, so even if I hated it I figured at least my $12 was going to a good cause. They had taken 40 local Boston musicians from various unknown indie bands, mixed them up, and randomly assigned each of them to eight different bands of five musicians each. They were assigned to these bands yesterday morning and had just the one day to write three songs and choose one song to cover, rehearse and be able to perform them by last night. I didn't stay for the whole show because it was something like five hours long, but of the five bands I did see there were three that I really enjoyed. They had a good sense of humor and had fun with the whole thing. The place was pretty packed, which was cool - one of the band's lead singers said he'd never played to this big of an audience before in his life, and was all indignant because his regular band rehearses all the time and no one will come to see them, but when they spend half a day putting a random band together, hundreds of people will come I have a feeling that having 40 musicians bringing their friends/significant others/families to a show will make up a pretty big audience in a club that size, so that was probably a big part of it. They also had big bags of free stuff that you got with your ticket purchase, so my $12 bought me not just a concert but 8 CDs, a T-shirt, and a bunch of stickers, postcards, etc. The shirt doesn't fit me and the CDs are probably crap but hey, they're free

Thursday August 13th
(jump earlier later)

My life continues unabated The show I went to with my boss turned out to be really good - although the Holmes Brothers were good it turned out to be the opening act / first act that I really loved - Naomi Shelton. What a great voice and a fun show! Check her out if she comes your way and you're into that sort of thing (soul/gospel/Mavis-Staplesy kind of stuff). This weekend I finally talked myself into getting some full-size headphones for myself to listen to at home. I ordered a pair of Alessandro MS-1s and I am completely impatient for them to arrive They are built by Grado, which are known for being particularly good rock/electric guitar 'phones, and they were made especially for Alessandro, which is a guitar amp company, so they are presumably even better for electric guitars than the regular Grados. I believe they will go quite nicely with my Ribot fixation. From online reviews some people find them terribly uncomfortable, so let's hope I'm not one of them... I also picked up an inexpensive second-hand USB DAC/amp to run them off my laptop (basically it digitally transfers the music via USB, converts to usable signal with the DAC, and the amp gives the headphones a little boost in clean power which a lot of full size headphones can benefit from. It also has a good crossfeed option which supposedly improves spatialization and lessens that mental fatigue you can get if you listen to headphones too long). Laptop headphone outputs are generally poor quality so I think that will make things sound even better. I am also supposedly being given some Sennheiser 'phones but I am trying not to get my hopes up about those being any good (or even coming at all). Other than the music-related stuff I've been hanging out quite a bit with my brother, SIL and nephew (who is starting to scoot around the floor pretty well now). Everyone is doing well. I made some plans to go out with my SIL a couple of times while my brother stays home with baby Max, which I think will be good for her - she's getting stir-crazy doing the stay-at-home mom thing. She is going to come see Jolie Holland with me in September. My laptop came back from Lenovo ridiculously fast - they swapped out the system board and overnighted it back to me the same day they received it. Now that's service. And I was able to return that hateful netbook minus the 15% restocking fee. I can think of better ways to spend that $300, for example, on headphones and a USB DAC/amp (Actually it was only $191.70 all told so I'm up over $100 on that exchange.)

Thursday July 30th
(jump earlier later)

Here I go again, a month between entries... Nothing really all that exciting has been going on here. I've been working hard and finished a couple of big projects at work; then my laptop had a video-card freakout 10 days before its warranty ran out and I (after some issues with IBM and UPS) have successfully shipped my laptop to them. In the meantime I am working with this horrible little netbook at home. My hands are too big for this sort of thing. I am hoping that my laptop comes back within the return period of the netbook so I can get my money back That would be pretty quick turnaround though. If I haven't gotten it back in time I might have a barely-used netbook for sale in a few weeks My concert drought since May seems to be clearing up a bit... (I'm including the John Zorn concert sans John Zorn as part of the drought, FWIW) I'm going to see a Holmes Brothers show next week with my boss - I'm not a super big fan but she wanted to do something after work and I thought she might like them. I like them pretty well, but it's not something I would have gone to see on my own... it should be fun though. Then in September I've got tickets to a Jolie Holland double set at the Brattle Theater (awesome!) and a Beat Circus / Reverend Glasseye double bill at the Middle East (super awesome!). All that is in one week, it's going to be a killer week! I'm also toying with the idea of going to see the Builders and the Butchers this weekend. It is in my neighborhood, cheap, and I saw them open for another band one time and thought they were good. If I feel like going out Saturday I'll go, if I'm feeling lazy I won't (no smartass comments about the odds of me feeling lazy, please...). Otherwise, not too much going on. I'm kind of craving a vacation, in that sort of "I desperately wish I were going somewhere this weekend but have no plans" sort of way. Meh. Maybe I'll go trawl Kayak for a bit and see if there are any miraculous fares somewhere fun

Sunday June 28th
(jump earlier later)

You won't be surprised... ...to find out that I managed to catch some kind of virus while I was in New York. This is getting out of hand even for me. I figured out that I've been feeling unwell for nearly 7 out of the last 12 weeks. Impressive. Luckily this one seems to be just a bad cold, although since last night I've had very bad laryngitis, that's probably a product of being outdoors all day yesterday in the rain talking up a storm with my friend who was visiting, on top of the sore throat from the cold. Meh. My trip to NY was great, we went to Tarry Lodge which was really excellent - the location in Port Chester is pretty lousy but the restaurant itself is nice, and it's surprisingly affordable considering the high quality of the food. If you're in the area, it's highly recommended. On Saturday I went into the city for the "John Zorn and many special guests" show I mentioned in my last entry. It was a miserably rainy, muggy evening but nothing I couldn't deal with. Unfortunately about 10 minutes before the show started, word came in that John Zorn had injured his ankle and would not be able to get to the show, leaving us with "and many special guests." (I wonder if it even happened on his way to the show since no one at the venue, even the other musicians, knew about it until 10 minutes prior.) Since it's NYC and he's John Zorn, he managed to get another saxophone player to get there in time for the show, and though they did offer us refunds, most of us decided to stay anyway. I was disappointed, of course, but it was a benefit show so I didn't feel bad about spending the money, and there were a couple of musicians there that I did really like. (Including Eyal Maoz, who I was really impressed with at the Marc Ribot tribute show.) The show was decent overall. It's the second time I've ended up meaning to see, but not seeing, the Zorn improv night at the Stone, so I'm starting to think it's just not meant to be For Father's Day, my mom and I made a nice brunch for my dad - French toast, breakfast sausages, and some fresh fruit. Then I headed home on the train (sitting across from a Catholic priest, which seemed apropos on father's day). This weekend I had a friend come visit - one of my friends met via Tom Waits concerts (I have an endless supply of those...). We hadn't seen each other since we were in Atlanta almost exactly a year ago. Yesterday was her birthday so I felt an extra responsibility to show her a good time The day started out nice and sunny, even on the hot side, and we met up at our designated meeting spot in Central Square (she was driving in from NH so I told her to just park at Alewife Station and take the subway in so she wouldn't have to worry about her car). I took her to lunch at the All Star Sandwich Bar here in my neighborhood - both for a little local color, and because it's really great. Sandwiches, lemonade, iced tea and onion rings. Then we popped over to Christina's for dessert, since she'd remembered me mentioning some months ago that I lived close to a really great ice cream place, and she is a big ice cream fan. She had a birthday assignment from a mutual (slightly crazy) friend of ours in the Netherlands, which was to take a picture of her standing in a tree. I feel certain that there is a fascinating and humorous story behind that, but I unfortunately do not know what it is I suggested we take a walk in the Mt. Auburn Cemetery, which is an arboretum and has many beautiful trees and is just a lovely place to walk on a nice day. We got some nice pics of her, and ended up walking around for several hours and climbing the observation tower and all that. Unfortunately, right after I'd gotten enough sun to get a sunburn, the storm clouds blew in and the rest of the afternoon was a mix of drizzle, mist, and rain. (Thankfully we were not in the line of any heavy rain or lightning - we could hear the thunder from a distance.) We met a couple of other friends of hers in Harvard Square for dinner and a few drinks (I think the noisy bar was the death knell of my vocal chords) and I headed home around 10PM. She had to drive back to New Hampshire so it had to be a relatively early night, especially compared to the last time I saw her when we got back to our hotel at 5 or 6 AM I got in my jammies and settled in for the night, realizing that my voice was gone when I tried to sing along with a little music on the stereo and merely croaked. I was also really tired and feeling kind of crummy from the sunburn and remnants of my cold. I was half-dozing on the couch a little after midnight when the doorbell rang. I ignored it since I figured it was sure to be one of the neighbor's friends - I get a fair amount of mistaken bell rings because they don't look carefully at the doorbell labels. But it rang again, so I went out, cracked the door since I was only in my pajamas, and croaked "I think you might be ringing the wrong bell"... but then I noticed there were several police officers standing on the porch. I am still confused about what was going on - it seemed like they were looking for my neighbors because they seemed to be interested in the second floor apartment, which I can't access, and told them so; but then they seemed very suspicious of me and kept peering around me and looking around my apartment like they thought I was hiding something. They said they'd had reports of crying or screaming children at this address. Now, there are no children living here, and I hadn't heard anything since I'd gotten home a couple of hours earlier (and I would definitely be able to hear that). I don't even think the 2nd floor neighbors were home because I hadn't been hearing any kind of footsteps or doors or voices or music. I figure they just had the wrong address, which makes me worry that some poor kids are being abused somewhere near here My other thought (not realistic, but amusing) was that someone had partially overheard when I was telling my friend about a nightmare I'd had recently about being asked to take care of a baby, and then forgetting about it, going to work, and when I arrived home in the dream I couldn't find the baby in my apartment anywhere and was in a complete panic... note to friends and family: please don't ask me to babysit. Thank you.

Thursday June 18th
(jump earlier later)

Chugging along... Things have been going pretty well, aside from the awfulness of the meds I was on (as mentioned in my last post - the side effects went on for another 5 days, ugh). I am finally back on the meds I used to be on and aside from a couple of lingering oddities I've been feeling tons better. It is hard to believe that a medicine approved by the FDA can make me feel so horrifically bad for so long. It was much worse than the symptoms I was trying to treat ever were. The nurse at my doctor's office told me it was not that unusual and "a lot of people can't tolerate it." My brother and I ended up going out for a "just us kids" birthday dinner/night out a couple of days after the family party, which was fun in spite of my still being in some pain. We went to a couple of bars we like for a few drinks and then ended up (not necessarily by choice, but by default and after some difficulties with public transportation) at Harvest in Harvard Square for dinner at the bar, which was good. In spite of mixing an ungodly number of liquors/liqueurs/wines that night, I didn't really have a hangover at all the next day. Miraculous. I thought for sure that the bourbon/vodka/tequila flight of infusions with dessert would put me way over the hangover line! Served in shot glasses made of ice, which is sort of straddling the line between sophisticated and frat-partyish. On one hand, it's just neat to have glasses made of ice. On the other hand, it's kind of stupid because they melt and the drinks got watery pretty fast, plus you have to drink them right away for fear of the glass actually dissolving. And as the ice melts the glasses get extremely slippery. It's sort of a typical thing for them. Harvest tries really hard to have a cutting edge bar but their drinks often end up being slightly disappointing - I ordered something that, if I'd made it at home with the ingredients listed, would have been a really great, elegant cocktail in a martini glass. It had infused brandy, limoncello, and housemade lemon sour mix. Now, that should not be a very sweet drink, and it should be very strong... but they somehow made it super sweet and served in a pint glass. Like a girly drink at TGI Friday's or something. Tasty but not what I was looking for at all, and since it was enormous I couldn't just drink it down and move on to something else without giving myself alcohol poisoning. Aside from my nit-picking it was a really fun night, though In other news, my Kindle DX came in the mail (belated birthday present) this week, and it is super awesome. I love it. It's not perfect, there are a few minor quibbles, but it is really a fantastic device and it's going to be great for traveling and just generally eliminating book clutter in my life. I'm hoping I won't regret buying a lot of books in a restricted format - I figure I'm less concerned with DRM than I would be with music, since the majority of books I read don't get re-read. I was given a free train ticket which had to be used up right away (the ticket-giver couldn't use it in time and was going to lose it) so I booked a last-minute trip to see my parents for Father's Day even though we already had a FD party along with our birthdays party. We've got a reservation at Tarry Lodge, which I'm excited about - not just for the celeb-chef angle but because it's gotten a lot of buzz about the pizza being really outstanding... and you know how I am about pizza. I'm also hoping to catch a John Zorn show Saturday night, he's doing one of his monthly improv benefit shows at the Stone. I've never managed to see one of them before so it would be fun. It's just listed as "John Zorn and many special guests" so there's a surprise element of who might show up. Chances are probably slim that it would be anyone I'm a particular fan of, but you never know. And of course I'm a JZ fan, so it's all good no matter who shows up. I've had some great baking success recently with the somewhat controversial America's Test Kitchen vodka pie crust recipe. All I can say is - it's super easy to make and the texture is fantastic. I am a convert and will be insisting on making the Thanksgiving pie crusts this year. I used half of their pie crust recipe and adapted Alton Brown's pocket pie recipe and made some little single-serving sized apple pies. Fabulous, and now I have about ten different things I want to make with this pie crust in single-serving size hand-held pies...

Saturday June 6th
(jump earlier later)

Birthdays party Today was our joint birthday/father's day party for me, my brother and my dad. (My brother counted double because it's his birthday next week, and he's a father.) Things went well aside from my pizza dough, which - either by me adding too much water or due to the high humidity - turned out a hair too wet, and I had a lot of trouble handling it. In the past I've flattened out the mini dough balls into discs and laid them between sheets of parchment paper until we were ready to grill them, and it worked great. This time, between the wet dough and high humidity, the parchment got kind of wet, and stuck to the dough, and it was a complete and total mess. I managed to salvage it but I spent most of dinner frantically scraping the dough off the parchment and re-making the discs. The pizzas were particularly ugly since I was starting with random scraped-off wads of dough instead of a nice round ball. One of them was shaped almost exactly like South America. (I ate Chile and Argentina.) Anyway, aside from dough issues, everything was great - the pizza was excellent in spite of the sticky dough. My mom made a gluten-free birthday cake which was pretty good. (I mean, for gluten-free, it was great! For cake, it was pretty good. And my SIL was super-psyched to be able to have a piece.) I got a couple of cookbooks and a DVD, but my main birthday present is a Kindle which is going to arrive in a week or two Sweet. My dad really liked the travel blanket-and-neck-pillow set I gave him and the card I drew for my brother was a big hit, he and his wife thought it was really hilarious. I have zero artistic ability, so it was a stick-figure picture of my brother and I (identifiable by his sideburns and my ponytail and glasses) eating slices of pizza and drinking cocktails out of martini glasses, with baby Max next to us holding his bottle (no martinis or pizza for him just yet!). My brother said he had my card "commissioned," by which it turned out he meant he had a co-worker photoshop it for me It was, suffice it to say, bacon-related. I stopped taking that new medicine because Thursday night and Friday morning I was a complete basket case - severe insomnia, sudden inexplicable depression and crying jags, abdominal pains... all of which are listed side effects. I talked to a nurse at my doctor's office (of course the doc was not in, figures) and she agreed I should stop taking it until I talk to the doctor on Monday and can get something better. Hopefully I can just go back to what I used to take which was fine. In the meantime I'm still feeling kind of crummy - not sleeping, still having pain, still kind of pissy, but not nearly as emotionally miserable as I was Thursday/Friday. So that's good, I guess. I am praying I can sleep normally tonight after two weeks of 4-6 hours of sleep every night except one or two where I managed 7. Last night I was tired but I still managed to stay up too late - not because of insomnia necessarily but because I managed to get my hands on some great John Zorn bootleg DVDs and I couldn't help but watch both of them after I finished downloading. Great stuff, although I am a little sad that I had to download them from a Russian bittorrent site because even in Siberia (!) they have better arts programming on TV than we do here in the US...

Thursday June 4th
(jump earlier later)

Tuesday May 26th
(jump earlier later)

Still a bit dull. Not much going on here lately. This week might be marginally more interesting as I am supposed to be going out to dinner with my boss on Weds. and then I have a Secret Chiefs 3 show on Thursday. I was a lot more excited about the SC3 show but then I found out that my two favorite band members won't be there, plus they are not (if previous setlists are any indication) playing a single song from their last album which is by far my favorite thing I've heard them do. Who tours and then doesn't play anything from their awesome last album? I can at least forgive the two band members being missing, because they have a conflicting date playing in Marc Ribot's band Can't fault them for that. Well, I can fault them a little, because damn it, I was looking forward to seeing them I've switched to some new medication this week at the behest of my doctor, who claimed that a 120/90 BP during a very stressful week was enough evidence that my current meds, which I'd been on for years, were giving me high blood pressure I'm kind of pissed off because the new stuff, from what I've read, is both less effective and very sensitive to taking it a couple of hours early/late, which is hard for me not to do occasionally (e.g. when traveling). I'm just hoping for minimal side effects. But if I seem especially cranky in the coming weeks this could be why

Tuesday May 19th
(jump earlier later)

Listlessness I'm a little depressed to be sitting home on a Monday night with nothing to do after my four-days-o-fun in NYC. At some point you just get used to having an incredible concert to go to every night, and I can't quite believe I am coming up on what is apparently a huge dry spell of shows. I've got one show next week and one the week after, both of which I am only kind of "meh" about, and after that there's not a single show on my radar screen for the foreseeable future. Arg. I've been spending my time browsing through the pics on downtownmusic.net - he photographed three of the four nights of concerts I went to and posted them all today. And I was sitting next to him on the last night so it's almost my exact POV from the show Work today was interesting. I came in to find that 4 other people (out of 6 co-workers) took multiple days off after I left last Wednesday due to either illness or travel, and during that time, our database developed some kind of corruption issue which I can't figure out, and everyone in the company completely forgot that the mailing list for the magazine was supposed to be sent to the press on Thursday. Which is, you know, really important. The person at the press was ALSO sick so she couldn't call to remind us (and honestly if she had, no one with half a clue was there to do it anyway!). Tomorrow my nuttier boss will be back in the office and I have a feeling chaos will ensue. I will be tempted to close my office door, play some soothing Marc Ribot music, and crank away at my data entry...

Monday May 18th
(jump earlier later)

Fantasticness (warning: long!) My four nights of concert goodness were a smashing success. Let me regale you with details... (upon re-reading, I apologize in advance that I'm a bit sloppy writing this tonight... my brain is a bit tattered.) Wednesday I had a nice, easy ride down on Amtrak Wednesday afternoon. Got to Penn Station, hopped on the subway three stops to my hotel, checked in, no problem. Room was fine (or, if you consider the price, the room was excellent). I took a walk around because I had a bit of time to kill, and had a cheeseburger at Five Guys for dinner. Around 7 I headed down to the Stone, where I had decided to see the double set of Marc Ribot tribute shows instead of the actual Marc Ribot show that night. I had my reasons, which I won't bore you with, but I was one of only about 8 people in the world who considered the choices and ended up at the Stone. Heh. The first set had four musicians and eight audience members. The first musician (Marco Capelli, solo guitar) was interesting and very good, he covered some Book of Heads which was fun (and other stuff.. my memory of the first show is a bit hazy after all these shows). He had some kind of crazy looking 12-string guitar with two sets of strings crossing each other in an X shape, and as far as I could tell one set played electric and one acoustic. It looked like a regular guitar except for the extra set of strings attached to pins on the top and bottom. Could have been some kind of homebrew thing. Anyway, it was cool Second musician I was a little bored with (Anthony Coleman on piano) but I guess it's a bit strange to have a pianist doing a cover of a song by a guitarist. I dunno. Third was a duet of Billy Martin (of Medeski Martin and Wood) and Grey Gersten on guitar. They were good. After those three, there was a second set, but we had to leave and come back and buy a second ticket (which was a bit silly with there being so few of us - you'd think they could just walk around and take our ten dollars) so I had to go find something to do for 40 minutes while they kicked us all out and set up the new bands and all that. I walked around for a while since it was a simply gorgeous night, just a perfect spring evening. I headed back and got there when they were about to start, this time there were actually more musicians than audience members (sad!). This set was much more fun than the first - I'm not 100% on the names since not everyone was introduced but I think I've got them all down... first up was guitarist Roger Kleier with Trevor Dunn, Ches Smith and Annie Gosfield. They did a classic old Ribot song and really rocked it pretty hard. Hard not to with that rhythm section Then it was Eyal Maoz. He did a solo version of "I Fall to Pieces" with solo guitar and voice samples, and it was amazing. Plus he did some stuff with a group. The final group was Jon Madof's Rashanim - they did a really fun set of covers from Ribot's Cubanos Postizos albums. Loved those. (edited 5/19 to fix musicians that I mixed up). Thursday Next day I had a lunch date with my dad - he took time out of what turned out to be a really busy week at work to take me to Bouchon Bakery for a really nice meal. (If it isn't clear already, my parents are usually pretty awesome ) It was raining and I was feeling tired so I ended up napping away a decent part of the afternoon after our big lunch. (Hey, I'm allowed - it's a vacation!) I needed the energy for that night, anyway - the first night of actual Ribot. I knew it was going to be a high demand show, and they don't sell advance tickets, so I showed up around 7PM for the 8PM set. I was third in line, but the first two rows were mostly reserved for family and friends and people who worked at the venue and photographers and so forth, so I ended up in the third row. I purposely sat behind this short old woman, thinking that it would be good for my sight lines, and it turned out that she was Marc Ribot's mother. And next to her, of course, was his dad. They are probably around 80-85, not really the kind of people you see at the hole-in-the-wall avant jazz venues. The people next to me were also around 80 but it turned out they were just fans, which kind of blew my mind So much for my stereotypes, right? He and Marco Capelli (same guy from night 1 with the double stringed guitar) took turns playing the compositions of Frantz Casseus, who was Ribot's childhood guitar teacher and a friend of his family. I heard his mom telling someone that Ribot was his "spiritual son." The music was very, very beautiful - really peaceful classical-style guitar, complex and lush and gorgeous. Between the two of them they played all known compositions by the composer, and then he told us that he had recently (presumably upon Casseus' death which I read about some time ago) found another notebook of his music, so they might be doing some more recordings. Exciting news Some friends of Casseus were there and they spoke up at the end of the show and told Marc and Marco that Frantz would have been very proud. It was really a special show for many reasons. The audience was, as always at the Stone, extremely respectful of the music and so quiet you could hear a pin drop. After this set we all had to file outside again, and since it was another popular Ribot set coming up, there were already people in line - so I got back in and waited for another 40 minutes or so (this time in the pouring rain!) until they let us back in. There were more people in line, but no reserved seats for family this time, so I ended up with the exact same seat I had for the first seat, which I was happy with. The second set was a new band of his doing interpretations of John Coltrane free/avant jazz. This time he was on electric guitar, with a second guitarist, someone on electric bass and a drummer. It was a pretty great band and they were loud and made some good noise - the encore was especially fantastic and I left feeling really pumped and feeling like those two sets really exceeded my expectations - I wasn't sure how the Coltrane one would be (since it was a new band of his, I had no idea what they would sound like) and I was a bit worried that the Casseus set could be either a bit dull or even difficult to hear if they didn't amp the acoustic guitars enough (it can be a problem in that venue). But it was all just perfect. Friday Friday was another lunch date with a parent - this time I met my mom in Grand Central Station, and she'd made us a reservation at a place in Greenwich Village called "Little Owl" that she'd heard about at some point. It was very good. We walked around a bit afterwards because she realized it was just a few blocks away from where she had visited a family friend as a child and had some really good memories. (They lived in Tennessee at the time so to visit NYC was a big deal, and their friend was an actress so she took them to shows and introduced them to famous people and all that - very impressive to a little girl!) So we walked down to the street where she'd been and reminisced about that a bit. Then I realized we were only a few blocks from where my concert was that night, and I figured that it wouldn't hurt to walk by since I'd never been there before and I always like to scope out a venue in advance. It is right on Bleecker Street so it was easy enough to find. I dropped my mom at a subway station that would take her back to Grand Central, and headed back uptown on a different line. I wanted to stop by the Leonidas chocolate store, because my friend J. in Paris got me addicted to them with that one gift box But now I have an entire pound of them which I will savor and enjoy I've had them for two days and haven't touched them yet. It's all about the anticipation. Crap, now I'm thinking about them, I might just have one right now. Maybe I'll wait till I'm done writing this and have one while I'm proofreading it... Anyhow, the Friday show started mysteriously and almost unbelievably early (doors at 6PM, show at 7PM - really? on a Friday? In NYC?) but there was NO WAY IN HELL I was going to get stuck in the back of the room for this particular show, so I got there just after 6PM. I was feeling a bit queasy (unclear why, possibly just nervous excitement because I was super excited about this show). I went inside and got a Sprite and stood around like an idiot by myself for a few minutes. Hardly anyone was there. Suddenly this guy with an Australian accent comes up to me and says "Hey, it's Sarah, right?" Why yes, yes it is... turns out I met him at a Tom Waits show in Ohio three years ago, and somehow he remembered me. Well, how about that We immediately started reminiscing about all the Waits and Ribot shows we'd seen in the past, good times we'd had, and before you know it the place was starting to fill up. I staked out a spot near the stage and he went to wait by the door because he was waiting for a friend to show up and wanted to be there to flag them down since they were coming late. I ended up front and nearly center, and the place was completely packed - I haven't been packed into a standing show like that in years. First up was the Cotito Trio; they were good, had a nice groove, pretty mellow - guitar, upright bass, and a cajon player (billed as a "master cajon player" and I'd believe it - he was damn good). For those of you unsure what a cajon is - it's a box drum used in I think African/South American/Cuban kind of music. After a few songs Marc Ribot came out and joined them, and since I don't believe there's anything in the world he can't make better by playing guitar, he stepped it up to a whole new level with some really sweet electric guitar. Next up after a short intermission was La Cumbiamba eNeYe, billed as a Colombian "party band," which again - I believe... they were really fun, they had a couple of singers and lots of bongos and maracas and people got dancing (including me). Once again, Marc Ribot was invited to join them after a couple of songs, and this time they brought out Shahzad Ismaily (multi-instrumentalist and all-around awesome music dude, this time he was playing bass). The band gave Ribot and Ismaily some of their colorful straw hats to wear, which was really a ridiculous effect with Marc's suit and Shahzad's, well, with Shahzad generally. In short, I LOLed. They played a good long set together, really fun, dance-able stuff, and just, well, really damn fun mixed with Marc's wild guitar solos which never fail to impress me. I swear I have a Pavlovian response to his solos - I hear that big intro chord and a big smile comes to my face, because every time I heard him hit a big solo-starting chord in the past, I've ended up enjoying myself immensely. They took a moment towards the end to thank Marc for donating his work to their upcoming CD (which I will be sure to buy). They finished up a really outstanding set and I had a hard time believing the main band was yet to come - Marc Ribot y Los Cubanos Postizos... or some approximation of it, since Shahzad Ismaily was there and I think they were missing some of the originals (I never saw the originals so I am not sure). The Postizos started out a touch slow and I was worried that they made a horrible mistake playing the last set after the almost unfollowable Columbian dance party we'd just finished. But after a couple of songs they really came together and Marc started playing his socks off and the last two thirds of the set was completely, over the top, ridiculously good. More dancing, spontaneous audience-instigated clap-alongs, it was just deliriously good stuff. They did a big long encore and played some of my favorite songs of theirs. Shahzad stood up towards the end and wished Marc a happy birthday (since it was his birthday week retrospective concert series and all that) and invited us all to come back again the next night. Of course I had bought my tix for the next night weeks earlier The show ended eventually and I checked the time and found that the show had lasted for three and a half hours (holy crap!). I also realized I hadn't eaten in 8 hours and was very dehydrated since I couldn't (and frankly wouldn't) leave the front row to get a drink during the show and had been sweating like crazy since it was so crowded and hot. I went down the street to Pizza Box and grabbed a slice and a bottle of water. I then continued walking down the street a block or two before realizing that was completely insufficient and stopped at Joe's for another slice of pizza and 20 more ounces of water. That was more like it. My original plan had been to see the 7PM Ribot show and then cab it over to the Stone for the 10PM John Zorn show - but the Ribot show was so long (and I wouldn't have it any other way) that I wasn't anywhere close to being able to get to the Zorn show. Instead I headed back to the hotel and since my feet were screaming bloody murder at me after over four hours of standing and dancing, I climbed into a cold bath with a book and some more water to drink and tried to soak my feet, cool off, and rehydrate before bed. I couldn't stop smiling for the rest of the evening because the show was just THAT. Fucking. Good. Saturday The next day I was meeting my parents for a matinee play down in Chelsea. The play was good but I didn't think it was as good as the last two we've gone to see. (I know, how spoiled am I?) Afterwards we stopped for a little bite to eat since I'd still been a bit queasy I hadn't eaten anything all day, and you know how parents are when they hear you haven't eaten I was a bit worried about the show that night since my feet were really in BAD pain from the night before (I had some different shoe inserts which I think were a major mistake). I bought some gel insoles in the hopes that they would be a bit better and headed over to the show around 7PM (it was a normally-timed show, doors at 7 and show at 8 - I had figured out that the reason the Friday show was so early was because it was so long and there was another event going on at 11PM after their show). I was again one of the first people there and once again got myself a Sprite. (I never really drink at shows but when you're there alone it helps to have something in your hand to give you something to do instead of staring at the wall.) I staked out the dead center spot on the stage and sat on the edge of it, figuring I might as well get a good spot and save my feet at the same time. A couple of other people (two of whom I recognized from the Stone) came over to hover around center stage as well. Then, as if by a miracle, the venue employees started carrying out tables and chairs and placing them where we'd all been standing and dancing the night before. Now, normally I'd be kind of pissy that this particular show would be seated, because it's not at all sitting kind of music, but I was in so much pain that it was a godsend. I immediately grabbed the best seat in the house, and invited the couple of people I had seen at the Stone to sit at the same table since we all were there alone. It turned out one of them was a photographer whose website I've been to many times (he does a lot of music photography of the Zorn/Ribot/etc. scene that I'm into) and in fact everyone at the table knew who he was, which he said made him feel like a celebrity. Then as we were all chatting I found out that the guy next to me (A German, working in Switzerland, visiting NYC on vacation) had been to those concerts in Rome that I went to back in 2007, and we had one of those music bonding moments as we reminisced about it. Then the Australian guy from the night before came by to say hello and I was starting to feel like I actually knew people for once instead of just showing up to a concert alone The first set started up, the Young Philadelphians (who I don't think ever released an album and I'd never heard even a note of their music) with a couple of guests. The original trio was Ribot on guitar, Jamaaladeen Tacuma on electric bass, and G. Calvin Weston on drums. Anthony Coleman and Mary Halvorson (not in the original lineup) also joined. I'd seen Weston one time before at the show in Rome where he played with Ribot in a different trio. They were a GREAT trio - Philly style funk with Ribot's avant edge. The bassist was really great (maybe the best electric bass player I've seen) and Weston is a killer POWERFUL drummer who just slams on those drums. I was sitting right at the edge of the stage (one elbow actually on the stage) and I could really feel that band through my whole body between the heavy, funky bass line and the crazy drums. I was really enjoying the set and mostly watching the drummer since he was right in front of me and Ribot was kind of behind a music stand and hard to see well. Now, this all happened in about half a second, but this is what I remember - I noticed something light-colored flying at me really fast, and had just enough time to close my eyes and flinch slightly before I felt two hard objects hit me square in the face. I open my eyes and see two halves of a split drumstick lying on the stage in front of me, and seeing the sharp broken wood I quickly ran a hand over my face where they hit me to make sure there was no blood or splinters. I figured out pretty quickly that I was fine and looked back up at the drummer, who was staring at me looking completely horrified that he'd just hit me in the face with his drumstick from ten feet away. When he saw me looking at him he mouthed "I'M SORRY!" and I smiled and mouthed back "It's OK!" All this while he's grabbed another stick and continued drumming and the band didn't miss a beat. I then realized that some people around me in the audience were staring at me and I gave them a smile also to let them know I didn't lose an eye or anything. The photographer at my table mouthed "Keep it!" and pointed at the broken drumstick, which was a good idea, so I nabbed the two halves for a souvenir. After the set (which was excellent throughout) the drummer came back out to talk to me, and he was really cool - asked if I was OK, and apologized, and shook my hand. I told him I really enjoyed the set and said I was honored to be hit in the face with his drumstick (which in retrospect sounds kind of dirty but at the time it was perfectly innocent ). After a quick intermission, it was time for the last set, both of the evening and of my vacation - Ceramic Dog. I love me some Ceramic Dog. I saw them do a brief set last year which was kind of unsatisfying, but this one was MUCH better and about twice as long. They did a lot of new songs (which meant I didn't get to hear some of my favorites, but still, new songs are always cool) and absolutely murdered their cover version of "Break on Through" (murdered in a good way, that is). Ches Smith was the drummer for this band, who is one of my favorites - he isn't a super technical drummer, or a really powerhouse drummer like Weston was, but he's a kind of crazy passionate wild drummer who is really fun to watch and really adds a certain indefinable something to the music. It's a wild band and they make noise in the sense of "noise music" - noise music is a fine line to walk, but for me if a musician can do it just exactly right, it's practically orgasmic. I don't know what it is and can't even come close to describing or defining what it is that gets me, but there are some musicians and some songs that just plug into some part of my brain like no other music can do. A good swath of the Ceramic Dog set was like that and I loved every bit of it. Unfortunately after the long set the night before, I guess the management had given Ribot a talking-to, because when they came out for an encore he said he only had two and a half minutes because he was under a very strict curfew tonight "but it will be a two and a half minutes you'll remember!" And then he played this fast, loud, wild electric guitar piece that I just wish had been longer than two and a half minutes They encouraged us to "leave promptly" since they had another group waiting to come in for the 11PM set, so I scooted off and wandered around the village for a while since it was a fairly pleasant evening out and I was all wound up. I ended up grabbing the subway up to Times Square (where my pricelined hotel was, sadly - Times Square can be really obnoxious) and getting some ice cream and just generally enjoying walking around and being in Manhattan. I won't bore you with my completely uninteresting travels to Boston via Hoboken (PATH > brother's car since he happened to be in Hoboken this weekend, he offered me a ride home). It's 1AM and I have to work tomorrow so it's about time to wrap this up anyway...

Saturday May 9th
(jump earlier later)

Breaking news: Fridays still good I managed to get the magazine off to the press today, which is great because I should be able to get our proofs in on Tuesday and I will have a totally stress-free day on Wednesday. If I didn't get it done today I would have had to work on the weekend, plus on Weds. I would have to check proofs in the morning and then rush to the train station, getting to NYC with relatively little time to spare - basically the whole day would depend on nothing and no one being late or delayed. But with the proofs coming Tuesday I can move my train a bit earlier and I will have nothing much to do at work in the morning. Much better. Last weekend's NY trip was good, we had a good cookout on the grill Saturday night (beautiful steaks cooked by my brother, perfectly done and he even managed to get those criss-crossed grill marks on them) and went out for a nice brunch on Sunday. Spent some QT with the family. Baby Max is doing well - he got his first piano lesson from my dad. He seemed to like banging on the keys, so I figure that's a good sign of future musical prowess He kept looking up at me as if for approval; I think my reputation as a fan of atonal music has preceded me. I mentioned a month or two ago that I got a new Cowon S9 mp3 player - they ended up releasing a 32GB version shortly thereafter so I sold the one I had at a slight loss and ordered the 32GB instead. I got the new one today. It's just as shiny and cool as the old one except with twice the storage Now I feel like it was a real upgrade since I only had 16GB before. There are some pretty sweet UCIs being developed for it. Cowon really did a good job with that side of things - they made it really easy for flash developers to write new interfaces, and they made it really easy for the end user to implement them. In less happy news, my HMO has managed to reject my doctor's visit a couple of weeks ago when I had bronchitis. I called and told them I was very sick and wanted to see my doctor; my doctor was away, so they made me an appointment with another doctor in the office. He saw me, gave me X-rays and prescriptions, I went home. This apparently is not covered. They said I need a referral for anything that's not the emergency room, my PCP, or my gynecologist. I'm not sure how I can get a referral for Urgent Care when my doctor is away. So now I have to call my doctor and try to get her to backdate a referral for that day. Hopefully that is less stupid than it sounds.

Saturday May 2nd
(jump earlier later)

Fridays are good This week did turn out to be significantly better than last week, in that it ended with a new, working server and relatively happy co-workers and such. Also, my various family members are recovering from their various ailments which they picked up at a family wedding in Mexico. Dad got some sort of flu-like virus (his doctor declined to have him tested for swine flu) and my grandmother had to get 25 stitches in her hand after some kind of freak water taxi accident at the resort where they were staying. Grandma is having way too much bad luck lately. I went to see Beat Circus Wednesday night at TT the Bears - great band, great show, not my favorite venue in the world. It would be perfectly fine except that they have consistently lousy sound. I really wish they'd invest in a better system. I don't expect anything really fantastic at a little club like that, but it seems amateurish to have the band come out and not be able to hear the vocals until the second song, at which point some kind of weird resonating vibration starts happening and the vocals become both painfully loud and bizarrely vibrational. (I doubt that 'vibrational' is a word but I'm going with it.) But after they sorted out the vocals things were mostly OK and I was able to focus on the band. Good show. Can't wait for their new album coming out in the next few months. I'm not totally sold on their first two albums (much better live than on the album) but the couple of songs I've heard from the new one are really an improvement IMO. Going down to visit my parents tomorrow just for one night. It will be the first time my whole family is at their house since my baby nephew Max came along. We'll see how it goes. I opted to take the train instead of squeezing myself and my luggage into the backseat of my brother's Prius with Max and his baby seat. I quite enjoy riding the train and I usually look forward to it as a time to really chill out and enjoy some music with good headphones and a book. So there's really not much temptation to ride with them. I'm so proud of me for packing tonight instead of waiting till 90 minutes before my train is leaving tomorrow morning... Attaching gratuitous picture of Max, just because I was talking about him... he's been in a fingers-eating stage lately. He is not picky about whose fingers they are - if he can get his hands in his mouth, that's great; if your hands are in the way, that'll do just fine too. [att=1]

Friday April 24th
(jump earlier later)

!)(#@*! Some days are really just beyond the pale. The server we spent all that time and money last February/March setting up, with the ICD (Incompetent Computer Dude), and all the massive problems... just spontaneously fried itself 8 weeks after the warranty expired. Apparently when ICD's company ordered the server for us they didn't think to look into the possibility of an extended warranty of some kind it didn't occur to me that a $2000 server would have a 1-year limited warranty. I feel bad that I didn't notice it at the time but I'd told my boss flat-out that I don't know anything about servers and he would have to outsource it, which he did. So I just wasn't worrying about it. And now we're out all that time and money. It would probably cost us $1300 to fix between parts and labor so we just ordered a new one instead, with a 3 year warranty and on-site service, for $1250. We'll be out some more cash for the labor once again, but it seemed a better option than trying to repair an unwarrantied server which has suffered massive unprovoked hardware failure. So. Mad. Rawwr!