the frig blig

Mingling within the crushing yet friendly crowds of San Francisco’s Hardly Strictly Bluegrass concert in Golden Gate Park the weekend before last, I managed to see a baker’s dozen of bands. I could have seen more given stricter organization, a keener sense of direction, and less sleep. However I can still claim to have had a great time.

Watched over by pines of loving grace

For those keeping score, the acts I saw in chronological order were: John Prine, The Band of Heathens, Ruthie Foster, Kris Kristofferson & Merle Haggard, Irma Thomas, Buckethead, Conspiracy of Beards, Laurie Lewis & the Right Hands, Bela Fleck w Zakir Hussain & Edgar Meyer, Bob Mould, Ollabelle, Justin Townes Earle, and last but not least The Jayhawks.

Heathens

Approximately half of those bands were new to me. The quality was overall outstanding, although there were pros and cons, likes and dislikes.

Nazi tarp plan

Best Overall Transcendent Music award goes to Bela Fleck Zakir Hussain & Edgar Meyer. Best Hitherto Unknown Band award [aka Frog’s Latest Discovery] goes to The Band of Heathens. Most Robotic Metal award goes to Buckethead [although the wafting strains from Broken Social Scene while I was at an adjacent stage were quite intriguing]. Most Fearless Performer award goes to battle-worn Bob Mould who performed solo without backup. Most Interesting Arrangements award goes to Ollabelle. Best GD Cover award goes to Band of Heathens’ rendition of Broke-Down Palace.

L-R: mystery Indian flute playe, Bela Fleck, Edgar Meyer, and Zakir Hussain

I had been looking forward to seeing The Jayhawks, my only familiarity being the occasional broadcasts of homie radio station KEXP. They could be described as roots-rock, alternative country, somewhat REM-influenced. With doses of god, which turned little old atheist me off.

My biggest regret was missing the Punch Brothers. Maybe they’ll schedule a gig in the PNW?

Finally, a big shout out of appreciation to fellow travelers Sandy, Peter, Nancy and Bob for all they did to make our SF weekend a great time!

I picked up a copy of Nick Lowe’s 2001 CD The Convincer in the used bin at Everyday Music the other day. I had high hopes, since I was a big fan of Pure Pop for Now, People and Rockpile back in the day.

Well, I am very disappointed. Let this be a warning to anyone who’s wondering how NL’s doing these days. Some nice titles, a couple of covers, but on the whole pretty lame I’m sad to report. Save your money for something better.

As a guitar player, I use my fingernails as little string pickers (I finger pick rather than strum with a plastic pick). So when I split my right thumbnail going through airport security, the result was that I couldn’t use my thumb for playing guitar. This is a major problem if I want to play.

I mentioned my torn thumbnail to my guitar teacher in an email, and he replied:

‘You can just cut up a tea bag and place it over the crack as a patch and then super glue on top.’

Long story short: I tried it and voila — it works! I just played a little Bach using all my picking fingers. Cool tip, thanks to JW.

1. I first heard Earth (Dylan Carlson’s band) when their CD A Beaurocratic Desire For Extra-Capsular Extraction was playing in Everyday Music on Capitol Hill. I had to ask the girl behind the counter what it was. I was intrigued even more upon learning that Carlson was a friend of Kurt Cobain’s from Olympia, and that the band was local.

Then a couple of months later my physical therapist mentioned he was a fan, and I decided to buy their recordings. I got The Bees Made Honey in the Lion’s Skull because the title and cover art is so cool.

Well, to an old fart like me this band basically sounds like heavy metal Eno. Slow, heavy riffs repeated endlessly. Nice ambiance, but not on my top ten list. OTOH they’re playing a new CD release gig at the Tractor on Thursday, and I’m sorely tempted — I bet they’re killer live!

If you do like this sort of thing, I suggest checking out Sunn O))) who do the same thing but are way more panoramic and less typical.

2. I wanted to scan one of Earth’s CD inserts and clip the band’s logo for illustrating this blog post, but couldn’t because my scanner is a Canon Pixma MP990 aka ‘piece of crap’. Anyone considering this multifunction printer/scanner/copier, beware! The only thing it does well is scan. But, if the printer runs low on ink, it won’t scan! Which is the height of stupidity because you don’t need ink for scanning. The paper feed mechanism the printer uses jams more often than not, and even when miraculously it doesn’t jam, it takes forever to print. Grrrr.

3. The server hosting this blog was running Ubuntu Server 6.06 LTS until a few hours ago, when I upgraded it to 8.04 LTS. Support for version 6.06 runs out in April so I got in gear, gritted my teeth and upgraded the distro. Happily, it took less than two hours and I had no major problems (YMMV). I figured jumping two major versions was safer than going all the way to 10.04 LTS in one leap. This should make it easier to upgrade Apache2, PHP, etc.

Let’s start with a disclaimer: I am not a Christian, or a Jew, or a Muslim. Or a Hindu, or a Sufi. Maybe I have some Buddhist sympathies but I don’t practice any organized religion, and don’t believe in a God other than admitting that there is much about nature and the universe that we don’t understand, and trying to treat all living things with respect.

Now that I’ve got that out of the way, let’s proceed to today’s thesis: speculation about the origin of the origin of Christmas.

Christmas itself is a holiday for commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, and is the first of the twelve days of Christmastide. However, many non-Christians also celebrated traditional holidays around the time of the winter solstice — for instance Saturnalia (Roman), Yalda (Persian), Hanukkah (Jewish), Diwali (Hindu), Yule (German), and Bodhi Day (Buddhist).

Why are there so many holidays scheduled around the winter solstice? Because, clearly, the shortest day of the year is also the gloomiest. Sunshine tends to cheer people up, whereas darkness has the opposite effect. So, creating a big hoopla on the gloomiest day of the year would counteract the depressing force of the season and help folks make it through to springtime.

This has both logical and emotional appeal. But lately I am annoyed by the extremes to which this strategy is taken. I believe it’s overdone.

“The most wonderful day of the year” croons the darned radio, that just flips me over the edge. Ai-yi-yi! Some years I can handle Christmas songs better than others. Sometimes I even enjoy them. Not this year.

It reminds me of the way my mother likes to make sure she arrives at the airport with plenty of spare time in advance of her flight’s boarding. She probably feels more secure that way, so she doesn’t worry about missing her plane. But the consequence is, you spend lots of time sitting in the airport.

Overdoing the Christmas spirit is like waiting in the airport hours in advance of your boarding time. Both strategies are well-intentioned. But both are just too much for this cranky old codger.

Namaste.

If I were a genetic engineer dabbling in DNA I would definitely want to attempt mixing chromosomes of dogs and cats.

Of course it would not be easy, but if the resulting creatures lived and were able to reproduce, I would quickly patent them and begin marketing them to pet-lovers as super-pets, containing all the best and none of the worst qualities of each species.

This would certainly confuse many people, especially cat lovers who despise dogs and dog lovers who despise cats.

But it would appeal to the exotic pet crowd, and would eventually grow a legitimacy and constituency of its own.

The first person/company to successfully enter this market will make history, and a killing.

You heard it here first!

I like Doc Searls’s post about Daniel Schorr’s death:


Sad news

He was 93. We should all live so long, and well.

Rocked out with The Tripwires at the Sunset Tavern in Ballard last night. Opening were Orange Peel, a young pop band from San Francisco, and Spanish for 100, energetic rockers with an insanely hot lead guitar cat.

The Tripwires did not disappoint. They encored with a cover of ‘Crawling From the Wreckage’ — sweet! I never realized before how much the Tripwires sound resembles a hard, tight, hook-laden Rockpile.

I was mad at former President Bush when he spent billions of dollars to kill people (in Iraq).

And today folks are mad at President Obama for spending billions of dollars to help people (in America).

Go figure.

The mission of the Secret Service, l learned in grade school, is protecting the President of the U.S. from bodily harm. Lately I’ve been wondering if the agency might have another hidden mission: protecting the President from non-vetted communications from the public (the ‘unwashed masses’). Keep him insulated, as it were, from contact with ordinary people.