May '08--things and stuff

Well, yeah--may as well mention that this is the second anniversary of the week my life changed drastically, and this community helped me deal with the reality, when all I really wanted to do was take all my no possessions and go live at the Peace Pagoda.

Nuff of that, dear readers.

May is shaping up to be an extremely fun, extremely musical one.

Dig:
Tomorrow, May 10--The National Convention CD release show at the Brass Cat--featuring Haunt, Mark Schwaber, The Humming Field and National Carpet.
have you heard this National Convention album? It really came out of left field. Eric Poulin wrote and arranged an entire album and doesn't play or sing a note. Instead, the Bacharach-meets-Steely Dan songs feature folks like Matt Hebert, Jose Ayerve and Anne Pinkerton. Ken Maiuri plays keys on it too. It's GRRREAT!!!

The, Henning and I fly out to San Francisco for one Rosenbach Performance and one School For the Dead show.

Upon returning, there is the second annual Valley Worm Fest

The first night, May 22, at the Sierra Grill, School For the Dead AND The Figments are closing out the night. Wooo and a wee.

The third night, at the Elevens, Haunt is rocking the joint.

The second night, I rest.

THEN:
may 31 at the Basement,
Sitting Next to Brian (with Thane Thomsen on keyboards!!!) and The Novels will ask that you go home without your ass. For you will have danced it off that night. Don't worry, you can collect them the next morning.

In the meantime, let me post my fave songs of the moment:

1) Walk Right In--The Rooftop Singers--used to think it was the height of corniness--now I love it.
2) Lately I've Let Things Slide--Nick Lowe--a recent gem. Lee Hazelwood meets Elvis in Memphis. And the most perfect description of a man in the first week after a breakup.
3) Our Song--Robert Plant (pre-Zeppelin)--he croons, he croons...then in the fade out, the Golden God glimpses his future as a metal screamer.
4) No Place I'd rather Be--Lowell George (pre Little Feat)--very psychedelic.
5) Master Jack --4 Jacks and a Jill (heard this in the Salvation Army--weird song from 1968) .Must own it.
6) It's Just a Thought--CCR (forgotten gem from their penultimate album, "Pendulum")
7) From a Lover to a Friend-Paul Mccartney--from 2001's "Driving Rain". REALLY sounds like a first take, after the entire band smoked a doobie. Refreshingly sloppy and weird.
8) Fire in the City--the jazz vocalist Jon Hendricks (Lambert, Hendricks and Ross) enlisted the Grateful Dead (who were barely a year old) to be his backing band on this song for a soundtrack about the racial divide in San Francisco. It's like an Elvis 60's movie type song meets the Dead's psych/country/punk 1967 style. I think Jerry was a better lead guitar player before he knew how to play lead guitar.

Ok, bye.