Category Archives: music

Squee!

I just found out that Boiled in Lead has a new album out. They’ve brought back Todd Menton, their original singer, Todd Menton, and brought Dean Magraw, a phenomonal guitarist, on board. And it’s on iTunes! Woohoo!

I wonder if they’re still doing their annual St. Patrick’s Day gig at First Avenue in Minneapolis? It’s been a good ten years since I saw them there last…

Long Days at Work and Great Music

This is a crazy week at work, since I am working on a project I’m hoping to get done by the end of the week. Lots of paperwork, lots of time on the production floor, and lots of issues to keep track of. If I seem a bit remote when you message me during the day, that’s probably why.

This past weekend was OK. takaza‘s family came over on Saturday, but since I woke up far too early and had too little sleep, I was a terrible host and not very social. Ah well, we can’t all be 100% all the time. Sunday was a pretty lazy day of staying home and working on Midwest FurFest stuff, capped by an online staff meeting that ran longer than I would have liked, but still accomplished a lot. 30 days until the convention, and while there’s still a ton of work to be done, it sounds like everyone has things under control.

But that isn’t why I wanted to write this entry. The nights are turning cold, the leaves are falling from the trees, and we are well in the grip of autumn. This always gives me the occasion to pull out one of my all-time favorite albums, “When October Goes: Autumn Love Songs”. The schmaltzy title aside, this is one of the best and most atmospheric folk music albums I’ve ever come across. From Megan McDonough’s soulful reading of the title track, to Christine Lavin’s wistful “Getting Used to Leavin'”. this album definitely fits the season for me. My favorite song, though, is “Are You Happy Now?” by Richard Shindell, a talented singer-songwriter. The song has great lyrics like these describing a post-Halloween scene:

I’ve sat all night and now it’s dawn/And I cannot believe my eyes
There’s garbage strewn across the lawn/Where we once stared up at the sky
And streams of paper fill the tree/That hovered over you and me
Shaving cream covers the car/That we picked up in Baltimore
Though I know it’s hard to tell/I hope that what’s-his-name treats you well
I still maintain that he’s a bum/But it’s your money – have some fun

(Here’s a live recording of the song, but the quality of the audio does it a disservice)

So yeah. That’s what I’ve been listening to lately. Wow, I just realized that album came out in 1991. I first picked it up while I was working at WSBF-FM, the student radio station at Clemson University. I’ve loved this album for 17 years and I’ll probably keep on enjoying it.

Hump Day (My Lovely, um, Weekly Hump?)

The Midwest FurFest confirmation postcards arrived yesterday from Vistaprint. In the past, I printed up all the postcards myself, front and back, then cut them up, the put labels and stamps on them, then mailed them. That was fine when it was just a couple hundred. Last year, I mailed out close to 800 postcards. It was very clear that it was time to choose a different route. takaza did a fantastic job sourcing a vendor for who would pre-print the postcards, then he worked with film2edit to come up with a beautiful design for the postcard front. When I got a look at the finished product yesterday, I was thrilled! It’s a quality print job, and the cost was a quarter of the quotes that we got locally, and they sent the cards to us four days earlier than we expected them. I’d really recommend Vistaprint!

So, my task tonight is to stop by the post office and buy a whole bunch of (new, improved, more expensive) postcard stamps to stock up for the year, finish stamping the hundred-odd cards I have in hand, and drop those into the mail (I’ve got one in the for you, Chilly, so you can see the finished product!). I need to stop a couple of other places as well, but that’s fine – the weather should be nice, and it’ll be good to cruise a bit with the windows down and some good music playing. Once I get home, it’ll eithe rbe pork chops of pierogis for dinner, depending on how motivated we are (and what the sell-by date on the pork chops is!).

Speaking of music, thanks to everyone for their music recommendations yesterday! I hope to sit down tonight and sample a little of each artist. I promise I’ll let you know what I think (and if anyone else has suggestions, feel free to add them). Now that I have our MP3 library in order, I’m steadily adding to it. We’ve also found a neat new way to use it: Orb. This is a nifty utility that lets you stream your MP3 library to the web painlessly – no IP spoofing, no client software needed. You load up their Flash-based site and it handles everything for you. The biggest downside for us: one connection per username, so if Dan’s listening and I log in, I knock him offline. The site offers some sharing functionality that I need to investigate further, though.

Aaaaand back to work!

Tuesday Links and Stuff

Good news! Sort of. Fox has announced when they’re going to burn off the last two episodes of Drive: the least-watched night of television of the year, July 4. Thank goodness for Tivo!

Here’s a huge shocker: Amazing Race All-Stars winners Eric and Danielle are no longer dating (video link). Fortunately, they each have $500,000 to soothe the pain. {grumble, grumble}

And finally, a bit of comment-whoring: I’m interested in finding some new music, and I’m seeking recommendations. My tastes run to contemporary folk and folk-rock, Celtic, and guitar-based rock. I’m fascinated with combinations of genres, like Celtic rock, or Klezmer jazz (cf. David Grisman). And vocal harmonies are always welcome. So…what do you suggest?

If Only It Were Friday…Oh Wait, It Is!

So the office has that Friday-afternoon-before-a-holiday ghost town feeling to it. The boss has gone home and I’d wager folks are going to start trickling out over the next hour. He told me I could leave anytime I want to – which is dandy, except as a contractor, I get paid only for when I’m here. Ah well, 4:30 it is.

I’ve been updating a few things for Anthrocon Artists Alley, and giza set me up with editing privileges on the AA page on the AC site. That’s pretty cool, though I doubt I’ll use it much between now and July. Meanwhile, I’ve had a bit of fun with the new “My Maps” feature on Google Maps and created a map of stuff in the vicinity of Anthrocon. Pity they don’t yet have an easy way to plug everything into the Google Maps API, but hey, it was an interesting experiment.

Going into the weekend, I leave you with two nifty YouTube clips:
1.) The Gossip’s “Standing in the Way of Control” – I don’t much care for the video, but the song is quite catchy. I came across a reference to them in an article in today’s Chicago Tribune, “Proudly, loudly gay and on a major label? Sure”.
2.) While surfing around LJ I came across the_gneech‘s post with this infectious little ditty: ROFLMAO. Recommended for both World of Warcraft players AND fans of The Muppet Show 🙂

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Hockey and Music Criticism: Two Great Tastes Together!

Well, that was different. Last night, takaza and I availed ourselves of the fine Chicago public transportation system and rode down to the United Center for a hockey game, the Chicago Blackhawks vs. the St. Louis Blues. Now, mind you, I don’t care one whit about NHL or hockey in general, but these tickets were provided by his employer. We entered through a special, uncrowded entrance and quickly found our way to one of the lovely suites. A full dinner layout was provided, as well as an open bar. The game was pretty dull, with the ‘Hawks playing being downright mediocre, but the food was surprisingly good. One of the highlights was when the Blackhawks mascot, Tommy Hawk, came into the suite and acted like he recognized Dan – which, it turns out, is actually a possibility.

Because we wanted to get home at a decent time, we left the game after the second period with the Blues leading 2-0 (they eventually won, 2-1). We waited a good twenty minutes at the corner of Madison and Damen for a bus, and just when I was thinking about grabbing a taxi the Damen bus showed up. We got home gratifyingly quickly, but didn’t get to bed until 11 PM. That has made today long and very sleepy (it’s hell when you gotta get up at 5 AM).

Not much else to talk about, except for the absoutely horrid cover song I heard this morning. Apparently a few weeks back Bono and Alicia Keys released a cover of Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush’s “Don’t Give Up” to iTunes. Now, first granting that it’s a benefit for charity, I will say that everything about this version is wrong. The original was a masterful example of low-key arrangements and subtle interplay between the singers. In this version, Bono destroys Gabriel’s phrasing, transforming it into some kind of bizarre scat singing or something, and Keys injects strange R&B-inflected vocals into the song which are completely out of place. Just horrible.

Sorry, I needed to get that off my chest 🙂