As you may have read, Jerry Hairston Jr. is my favorite baseball player. I picked him out of the Cincinnati Reds 26 man roster a couple months ago based solely on his photograph.
Well, today I received a belated birthday present from my parents...a personalized, autographed baseball from Jerry Hairston Jr. himself. (Apparently, my mom works out with one of the guys who's part owner of the Reds.) Even though my Jerry Hairston Jr. fascination started as a joke, I was genuinely happy to get the ball.
The following picture was haphazardly taken from the inside of a moving vehicle. Here's what I got:
Before this year, I'd managed to live a relatively Harry Potter-free existence. I saw some of the first movie on an airplane once, and I think I watched the second and third movies a few years later. Since then, the only Harry Potter event in my life took place the night Emma Watson flashed her underpants on Letterman a couple years back. I skipped the fourth movie. I skipped the fifth. I never bothered with any of the books. Time went by and I read books and watched movies that had nothing to do with wizards and witches.
But then a couple months ago I picked up a copy of the seventh book, Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows, at a library sale. It was only $4. Homebody and Hotrod and I read the book together. I liked it.
Of course, I had no idea what was going on half the time as I couldn't remember anything from the movies and I'd skipped the earlier books. I didn't know Severus Snape from Sirius Black. I decided to remedy that situation. I bought a cheap box set of the first four books and tore through those in a couple weeks. Then I read Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix. That one was too long and boring, but it wasn't so long and boring that it soured me on the sixth book, Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince. I was about a third of the way through that one when its movie version was released. Homebody and I went to see it the day it came out. I finished the book a couple days later.
This week I've gone back and watched the first five movies on DVD. I've watched a movie a night for the last five nights. As a result, I've been having a lot of Harry Potter dreams. In the one from Tuesday night, I was at Hogwarts and my calculus teacher from college had me in sort of a cobra position (from yoga) and kept pulling me back until my spine cracked in a pleasurable manner. I thanked her and then I think we went and fought Bellatrix Lestrange or somebody.
That's when things got really weird because yesterday I was in my real-life yoga class and I was complaining about how I'd recently tweaked my back doing deadlifts. My yoga teacher came over and started fiddling with my back trying to realign everything so I'd quit whining. She didn't manage to crack it and we didn't fight any Death Eaters after class, but it was still eerily like my Hogwarts dream. I think I'm going to go for my N.E.W.T. in divination.
But anyway, I finished the fifth movie last night and I'm going to go to the theater later today and rewatch The Half-Blood Prince. Then I will have read/watched all six books/movies in order. When I get home from that, I'm going to reread the seventh book just to see if I have a richer reading experience now that I've got all the backstory.
I don't know what I'm going to do after that.
I used to keep a Top Ten Concerts to See list. As the name would suggest, it was a list of bands and musicians I wanted to see in concert, but hadn't caught up with for whatever reason. The acts that made the list weren't necessarily my favorite bands, but my favorites I hadn't seen yet.
I've marked the following performers off my list in the time I've been on Vox (links are to my "reviews"):
- Iron & Wine
- PJ Harvey
- Marah
- Tindersticks
- M. Ward
- Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
- Nellie McKay
- Gregory Isaacs
- Hall and Oates (don't you mock me!)
- Robyn Hitchcock
- Björk
- Sparklehorse
- Neal Casal is currently doing time in Ryan Adams' backing band, the Cardinals. Neal put out a solo record earlier this year, but I'm not sure if he gets any time for his own tours.
- Mark Mulcahy's wife died last year and he's now taking care of their young daughters. That unfortunate situation doesn't lend itself to touring, but I can't bring myself to take him off the list. On a positive note, a lot of big names have gotten together for a tribute to Mark and his music. The CD will be released this September.
- Ida is the most realistic one still on my list. I'd probably have to go to New York to see them, though. I might be up for that.
Here's all the music I got during my recent trip to Seattle. I brought all these discs home in a green Charlie Ashmont reusable shopping bag. I also brought home five pounds of ice cream fat around my midsection, but that's another post entirely.
- Jayhawks - Blue/Darling Today 7" (free) - This is a
promo item that comes with the new Jayhawks compilation. I didn't have
to buy the comp, though. I just flirted with the guy at Silver
Platters.
- Spinto Band - Franco Prussian/Airport 7" (1.00)
- This is a band I found out about on Cranky's Vox. I haven't listened to the 7" yet, but the full-length Moonwink CD (see below) is full of catchy pop songs.
- Wilco - You Never Know/Unlikely Japan 7" (5.99) - Homebody bought this one for me.
- Richmond Fontaine - Miles From (5.00) - I can't say no to a $5 Richmond Fontaine CD.
- Posies - In Case You Didn't Feel Like Plugging In (8.00)
- I used to own this five or six years ago, but I sold it in one of my
numerous purges. I missed it, so I bought it again. It was recorded
at a Seattle show, so it felt appropriate buying it there.
- Counting Crows - Big Yellow Taxi (2.98) - Their version of "Big Yellow Taxi" is pretty horrible, but a couple of the acoustic b-sides are worthwhile.
- eels - Saturday Morning (1.00) - Four songs for a dollar is a good deal.
- Ryan Adams & the Cardinals - Easy Plateau (4.98) - I bought two Ryan Adams singles at Half-Price Books just because I knew they were worth a lot more on the secondary market than the $4.98 they were charging.
- Ryan Adams & the Cardinals - Let it Ride (4.98) - (same as Easy Plateau)
- Blow - Paper Television (8.50)
- One time I found a 7" that featured two androgynous people on the
cover drinking from two liter pop bottles. I liked that image, so I bought
it. The song was called "Parentheses" and came off the Paper Television full-length.
- Paul Weller - Paul Weller at the BBC (63.99) - This box set is out-of-print, but Easy Street still had a copy. Now I have a copy.
- Afghan Whigs - Bonnie & Clyde EP (4.00)
- It turns out the version of "Creep" on this EP is not a Radiohead
cover. It's a good song, though, and this rare promo EP was a good
purchase anyway.
- Edwyn Collins & Orange Juice - A Casual Introduction 1981/2001 (3.00)
- I have a lot of Orange Juice, but no Edwyn Collins, so I bought this
cheap disc as an introduction to his solo stuff. It features "A Girl
Like You", a song everyone knows.
- California Oranges - Oranges & Pineapples (8.50) - This band features two of the members of the now defunct Holiday Flyer.
- R.E.M. - Reckoning: Deluxe Edition (9.00) - There was a small drill hole in the back of this set, but it was still a steal for only $9. The first disc is Reckoning,
an album I've somehow gone my entire life without owning (or hearing?)
until now. The second disc contains a live show from 1984.
- Soft Boys - Invisible Hits (9.99) - "Rock 'n' Roll Toilet" is my new favorite song. C'mon!
- Tina Dico - Warm Sand (.10)
- I bought three Tina Dico singles for a dime each. I'd never heard of
Tina Dico before, but I bought the CDs because I wanted to salvage the
cases to replace some broken ones I have. I ended up liking the Tina
Dico songs, and I think I'll probably end up keeping the singles.
- Emitt Rhodes - The Emitt Rhodes Recordings [1969-1973] (27.99)
- I already own everything Emitt Rhodes ever released, but many of my
songs were of dubious origin, so I decided to replace them with this
legitimate collection. I hope Emitt earns some royalties this time
around.
- Isobel Campbell - Time Is Just the Same (13.99)
- I saw this once and didn't buy it. Then I didn't see it around
anymore and wished I'd purchased it when I'd had the chance. It's not a
good deal for only six songs, but at least I don't have to look around
for it anymore.
- Spinto Band - Moonwink (5.00) - This is the CD I mentioned above.
- Devo - Hardcore 74-77: Vol. 1 (7.00) - I bought these two because they're out-of-print and feature disturbing naked people cover art.
- Devo - Hardcore 74-77: Vol. 2 (7.00) - And they're by Devo.
- It Hugs Back - Inside Your Guitar (5.00) - I meant to give this to Homebody, but it somehow made it back to Cincinnati with me.
- Tina Dico - Give In (.10) - This is the best of the Tina Dico dime singles. The b-side for this one is very good.
- Boy Least Likely To - The Best B-Sides Ever (6.00)
- I bought this one because I like The Boy Least Likely To and wanted
to hear them have a go at "Between Hello and Goodbye", my favorite
Field Mice song.
- Cousteau - Into the Blue (3.50) - This EP features three radio session songs and a non-LP bonus track that's better than anything else Cousteau ever recorded.
- Josh Rouse - The Best of the Rykodisc Years (8.00) - I have all the Josh Rouse CDs, but bought this one to hear some of the rarities on the second disc.
- Minus 5 - Killingsworth (11.99) - I am currently in the market for anything and everything ever recorded by Scott McCaughey. That explains this purchase and the two that follow. The last song on this CD is called, "Tonight You're Buying Me a Drink, Bub". It's got to be good.
- Young Fresh Fellows - Low Beat Time (8.50) - Doc Sharpie is a bad man. Really, he is.
- Young Fresh Fellows - I Think This Is (9.99) - This is their new one. I still haven't opened it yet, as I've been listening to Low Beat Time over and over again.
- Tina Dico - Losing (.10) - As I mentioned above, I originally bought these Tina Dico singles for their cases. Well, it turns out the case to this one was already broken when I bought it. I didn't even notice. Oh well.
One of the best individual issues of any magazine I've ever read was issue #10 (July-August 1997) of No Depression, the alternative country bimonthly. It had a Whiskeytown cover, a Jayhawks story, and introduced me to the music of Alejandro Escovedo. I subscribed to the magazine and kept it going until around 2004. The magazine lost its focus somewhere around then and I lost interest. No Depression finally shut down last year, but it's back as a website I've never visited.
In addition to the website, the No Depression gang recently put together the first annual No Depression Festival, an all-day celebration of twang, bad tattoos, and babies in western wear. Having nothing better to do on a beautiful Saturday afternoon, we decided to give it try. We rented a ZipCar and drove out to Redmond's Marymoor Park.
2:00 - No Depression All Star Revue - We got to the park at around 2:15, so we didn't get to hear everything. Sera Cahoone's song was good, but we missed Mark Pickerel. Boo!
3:00 - Jessica Lea Mayfield - I liked her first few songs, but she quickly became repetitive and slightly boring. Fortunately, she managed to liven things up at the end with a cover of Buddy Holly's "Words of Love".
4:00 - Justin Townes Earle - My concert-going partner thought he was cute and rushed out the very next day to buy both of his records. I liked his cover of "Can't Hardly Wait" by the Replacements, but I kept wishing those in charge of booking had sprung for Steve instead of his son.
5:00 - Jesse Sykes & the Sweet Hereafter - I saw this band a couple years ago opening for Sparklehorse in Boston. If I recall correctly, I fell asleep standing up at that show. At least I had a blanket spread out on the ground for this one. I read Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix and tried to ignore Jesse's caterwauling.
6:05 - Patterson Hood & the Screwtopians - Patterson Hood was cool, but he's much better with his usual band, the Drive-By Truckers.
7:25 - Iron & Wine - This hour-long set was, by far, the highlight of the entire No Depression Festival. Iron & Wine blew every other performer right off the stage. The highlight of the set was getting to hear Sam Beam sing the greatest Iron & Wine song of all, "The Trapeze Swinger". It just a beautiful song. It was one of the best live performances I've ever witnessed...even if he did flub up the lines a bit at the end. Here's the setlist:
Setlist: Such Great Heights/Woman King/Naked As We Came/A History of Lovers/Fever Dream/The Trapeze Swinger/Jezebel/Lion's Mane/New Song ("yonder come a dead man singing a song...")/Upward Over the Mountain/Boy With a Coin/Sodom, South Georgia/Flightless Bird, American Mouth
"Flightless Bird, American Mouth" finished up and, for the first time all day, the crowd was into it and calling out for more. Instead of an encore, though, the festival's organizer came onstage to tell us her life story. No one cares. Put on a bra.
8:45 - Gillian Welch & David Rawlings - I have never heard anyone say anything negative about Gillian Welch. I think everyone likes her. She writes beautiful songs, has a tremendous voice, and is smart enough to bring David Rawlings along wherever she goes to keep things interesting. Still, after Iron & Wine's set, listening to Gillian Welch felt sort of anti-climactic. We stuck around for four or five songs and then decided to call it a day. We headed back to our car, found a raspberry sitting on its antenna, and then drove back to Seattle.
Homebody and I recently visited Capitol Hill's two newest homemade ice cream shops: Bluebird Homemade Ice Cream and Tea Room at 1205 E. Pike Street, and Molly Moon's Homemade Ice Cream at 917 E. Pine Street. I got a single scoop of strawberry at both shops. Homebody got a scoop of vanilla with chocolate sauce at Bluebird and a scoop of salted caramel at Molly Moon's. Here are some thoughts...
Bluebird Hoorays!
- Airy space with high ceilings and a floor that looks to have been swiped from an old basketball court.
- Snowmonkey's House of Monsters is upstairs and can only be reached through Bluebird.
- Cool bird art on the walls.
- The man who took our order was friendly.
- Both flavors of ice cream were fresh and tasty.
- Handpainted bluebird sign hanging above the sidewalk.
Bluebird Boos!
- $3 scoop of ice cream was about the size of a ping-pong ball. The fact that it's served in a gigantic mug only draws attention to the laughably miniature serving size.
- The guy working the cash register needs to be replaced immediately. He appeared to be somewhere inbetween stoned and asleep. Whichever it was, he was thoughtless jerk who clearly didn't want to be there. More importantly, it felt like he didn't want us to be there.
- Homebody said her chocolate sauce tasted like it came from a convenience store.
- Hey, what am I supposed to do with my dirty dishes?
Molly Moon's Hoorays!
- Ice cream was delicious.
- The woman who served my scoop had miraculous technique and managed to create a single scoop larger than a baseball.
- All the employees were polite (and crush-worthy).
- Recycling/composting bins were clearly marked.
- Ice cream was served with a fantastic spoon that I've been carrying around in my pocket ever since.
Molly Moon's Boos!
- The process of ordering and paying was kind of confusing. The route we were supposed to follow as first-time customers wasn't immediately apparent.
- The space is kind of tiny compared to the number of customers.
- Somebody spilled strawberry ice cream on the bar and didn't bother to clean it up. (Okay, that was me.)
And the winner is...
Both Bluebird and Molly Moon's will hit the spot if you're in Seattle and suddenly get overcome by the craving for homemade ice cream. Both shops serve a quality product that far exceeds what you can buy in the store. Bluebird has only been open for about a week, though, and they still need to sort some things out regarding their employees and their serving size. Until they do that, I'm going to walk an additional block and get my (much larger) scoops at Molly Moon's.
[EDITOR'S NOTE: I wrote a "review" for the Marah show before it actually took place. Why did I do that? I was trying to manipulate the cosmos and it actually worked. If you're curious, you can go back and read that post. Or you can forget about that one and read this one instead. Just trust me when I say that the meat of the original review looked like this:
Blah, blah, blah, concert, blah, blah, Bielanko, blah, blah, acoustic, blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah, kick out the jams, blah, blah, blah. And then, blah, blah, merch table, blah, blah, annoying jerk, blah, $15? P'shaw! Blah, blah, Serge, blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Heck yeah. Blah, blah, setlist.
As
you can probably tell, that's just "blah blah blah" over and over
again with a few concert keywords randomly thrown in. Well, I've
decided to use the fake placeholder review as a template
for my real review. I don't know if it'll work. I suspect it'll come
out all stilted and weird. Let's see.]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Well, I'm back. I'm happy to say that the CONCERT took place. I'm also happy to report that Dave BIELANKO wasn't lying when he swaggered/staggered up to the mic and said, "This show is gonna kick ass". This time out, Marah was an ACOUSTIC trio with Dave on guitar, Johnny Pisano on bass, and Christine Smith on keyboards, harmonica, and little red accordion-thing. Even though there were only three of them and they left the electric guitars at home, they still managed to KICK OUT THE JAMS. It was great.
Something happened and I can't remember what it was, AND THEN Dave said, "We have t-shirts and you're fuckin' buyin' 'em." I could've done without the foul language, but I still went over to the MERCH TABLE after the show to check out the goods. That's where I met an ANNOYING JERK who was flirting with both Dave and Christine for about 25 minutes. I just wanted to hand over my $15 and get a copy of Float Away Deconstructed, but this guy kept up with his "blah blah blah". "P'SHAW!" I said. "Get out of my way so I can buy my CD and go home." We got into a bout of old-fashioned fisticuffs, but I'm a badass and I'm an especially good fighter when I'm drunk. I beat up the offending fawner and gave Christine my $10 (I was wrong before when I said it was $15.) and got the heck out of there. Of course, I gave her a wink first because she was really cute playing that little red accordion-thing. I gave Dave a wink, too, because I'm totally cool with gay stuff and I didn't want him to feel left out. I had no problems driving home as I made up the part about being drunk. I was sober, really. I don't even drink at concerts. I don't even hardly drink at home.
Looking back, I can say that missing out on Marah all those years just made this concert more special (or specialer, if you will). Sure, it would've been cool to see Marah before SERGE Bielanko quit to be a dad, but I'm not complaining. Acoustic trio Marah kicked enough ass for me. HECK YEAH.
As always, here's the SETLIST:
Gonna Fly Now (Rocky Theme)/Limb/Roundeye Blues/City of Dreams/Body/Coughing Up Blood/Can't Take It With You/Walt Whitman Bridge/Billie Jean->Star Spangled Banner/So What if We're Outta Tune With the Rest of the World/Instrumental/Angels on a Passing Train/Baby Love/The Catfisherman/Long Hot Summer/Faraway You/New York, New York/Formula, Cola, Dollar Draft
And here are the rest of my concert pictures:
This concert hasn't happened yet, but it's scheduled to take place at 9:00 tonight. I've decided to go ahead and write my review because every other time I've tried to see Marah in concert, something has happened that kept me from it. I've been trying to track them down since 1998. That was the year I got Let's Cut the Crap and Hook up Later on Tonight for my birthday. I remember my parents bought me the CD at Everybody's Records and then we went to the movies in the building that now houses my gym. I don't remember what we saw. I could look it up, though. I write everything down.
But anyway, one time I was scheduled to see Marah up in Columbus. I don't remember exactly what happened, but either the band or I ended up in Columbus on the wrong night. Another time the band broke up a couple days before I was scheduled to see them. These bastards are hard to catch. So I thought that if I went ahead and wrote my review, then it would be impossible for the concert to not take place. How can there be a review of something that never happened? It wouldn't make any sense. So here we go:
Blah, blah, blah, concert, blah, blah, Bielanko, blah, blah, acoustic, blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah, kick out the jams, blah, blah, blah. And then, blah, blah, merch table, blah, blah, annoying jerk, blah, $15? P'shaw! Blah, blah, Serge, blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Heck yeah. Blah, blah, setlist.
I'm also happy to announce that I found my 300th ba-ba song while listening to Marah this afternoon. It's "The Hustle" from their 2005 record, If You Didn't Laugh, You'd Cry. (The ba-bahs start at 2:18.)
