Where's That Sound Coming From?: Lord Nesmith or Papa Russ?

Where's That Sound Coming From?: Lord Nesmith or Papa Russ?: "Ten years ago, I was surfing the internets, looking up any recent news about The Monkees or Michael Nesmith, when I came across a post on a ..."

Where's That Sound Coming From? by Brian Marchese

Brian has started his own new blog called Where's That Sound Coming From?. 

You may remember his detailed posts about his own takes on rock and roll from the past.  He takes them to a new level here, not only writing his thoughts, but posting videos and photos and things you probably wouldn't find on your own.

I'll likely be linking to many of his posts here but you should probably just go ahead and follow his blog, or put it in your reader, or feeds, or bookmarks, or whatever it is you do with things that you want to remember to check out all the time.

A Video

The Rub Wrongways Caravan of Stars at The Sierra Grille - Northampton, MA

The Caravan pulls in at the Sierra Grille - Northampton, MA - February 24, 2011.

Max's snapshot

Looks like my colleagues who run the learningdiversity.org website that I sometimes write pieces for have chosen Max's photograph of me for the bio page. By the way, my bio itself needs to be updated; we write our own so I have no one but myself to blame. I'll get to it soon...

learningdiversity

Nervous About This Friday's Big Show

Hello,

This here is a little reminder about the big show this Friday at The Elevens in Northampton, MA. I hope you can make it.


I'm getting nervous about the show. When I booked it, I thought, yeah, this will be cool! Let's see what Mitch Easter us up to nowadays. Sure he produced some of my all-time favorite albums and he had a nice run with Let's Active back in the day (and the Sneakers before that). But what's he up to now? I'm very curious. As a bonus, our good friend and ex-Northamptonite, Amanda Lindsey is playing in Mitch's band. Haven't see her perform since Model Rocket back at The Baystate.

It seemed like School for the Dead would be a good fit and Boy Genius (who is touring with the Mitch Easter Band) are friends, too. I've played with them in NYC and New Haven, for example.

And Ribboncandy! Forget about it! It's always awesome to hear Ribboncandy!

It's got the making of a great, great straight-up power-pop-jangle-pop-indie-rock night. So why am I nervous?

I'm nervous because there are currently only 23 people who have RSVP'd to the event here on Facebook and my experience tells me that usually only about a third of those they say they are coming actually show up. I'm nervous because I told the Mitch Easter Band that I could put on a good show for them up here in Northampton.

To tell you the truth, I get nervous about attendance before every show we play. It'd be nice if I could just be a musician and performer, but I have to try and figure out all this other stuff, too, like how to get people to come to shows. Once they are there I know they'll have a good time. That part's easy. The hard part is convincing them to come and seeing to it that they actually do.

What would you do to rally up a crowd?

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If you have a Faebook account, check out this event page. We've posted some videos so you can hear and see some of the bands. Leave a comment, spread the word, share the event. Tell your friends. I think Friday could be one of those perfect rock-show nights.

Thank you,
Henning

Let's Active - Every Word Means No

Mitch Easter's old band, Let's Active.

Comes see what he's up to now on Friday at The Elevens in Northampton, with School for the Dead, Boy Genius, and Ribboncandy. Doors at 9:00.

One Man's Penny is Another Man's Fortune

Today, I was thinking about how the value of money is different for each person. While things that people buy stay the same in actual dollar value, their costs change according to each person's earnings. Meaning, a gallon of gas to the average Joe costs a lot more than it does for a wealthy person.

The Federal minimum wage is currently $7.25/hr. If you have a job, figure out how your hourly earnings compare with this. Say for instance, that you make $14.50/hr. Now go about your day but anytime that you have to buy anything, multiply the cost by two. Want to go to a movie? $20.00. Want a five dollar footlong? $10.00. Pay a $1500.00 mortgage? Now it's $3,000. Gallon of gas? $6.00

If you make $21.75/hr, multiply everything by three. Movie? $30.00. Five dollar footlong? $15.00. Mortgage $4,500. Gas? $9.00.

It's an interesting perspective.

Likewise, if you currently are making minimum wage, you can figure out other wage rates and divide those to see things from someone else's perspective. If you know someone who makes five times more than you then to them a five dollar footlong costs one of your dollars. See?

Now let's take someone who makes $250,000 per year. That was the cut-off for proposed taxation changes, yes? Well, a full-time minimum wage worker makes $16,640 per year. Roughly 15 times less.

So to "Joe Joe 250 Grand" a five dollar footlong costs 33 cents in "Louise Minimum Wage" dollars. A gallon of gas? 20 cents. Pretty nice.

Let's look at some extremes:

President Barak Obama: $5,505,509 in 2009 (330 times minimum wage)
Five dollar footlong = $0.015 in minimum wage money.
Gallon of gas = $0.009 in minimum wage money.

Glenn Beck: $32,000,000 in 2009 (1923 times minimum wage)
Five dollar footlong = $0.0026 in minimum wage money.
Gallon of gas = $0.0015 in minimum wage money.

Oprah Winfrey: $315,000,000 in 2009 (18,930 times minimum wage)
Five dollar footlong = $0.00026 in minimum wage money.
Gallon of gas = $0.00015 in minimum wage money.
$1500 Mortgage = $.079 in minimum wage money.
$300,000 House = $15.84 in minimum wage money.

Wouldn't it be easy to get around if a gallon of gas cost for a tenthousandth of a penny?
And a car cost a dollar fifty?

Mitch Easter, School for the Dead, Boy Genius, Ribboncandy - Feb 18

New song

I've uploaded a new song called "Ready Or Not" onto my myspace music page. It's a demo recording of me singing and playing a song I wrote with one of my students. He came up with the music and I penned the lyrics and shaped the melody to his chords.

Ready Or Not

Happy Groundhog's Day - Squirrels Dig It

It stopped snowing long enough for this squirrel to dig in and find a peanut.

Snow Picture Book

It was easier than usual to hear the music in my headphones this morning.  The new snow was carpeting the roads and making the cars silent as they slowly passed by.  My shuffling music machine picked Picture Book by the Kinks and I dug it.  When I got inside, I flipped on the radio and they played Picture Book.  I dug it again.