Saturday, April 26, 2003
alright, folks. this is a first - i'm blogging this from the wwoz brass pass hospitality tent in the middle of jazzfest. it's a gorgeous day, and i'm about to go see the subdudes. couldn't be happier at this very moment. anyway, more later... Friday, April 25, 2003
airtoons is new funny. i laughed out loud at a few of them. the simpsons, though, are tried & true funny. life would be very different without them, no? Thursday, April 24, 2003
jazz fest starts today. and for the first time, thanks to my lovely girlfriend amy, i'm going armed with a brass pass - which basically means I can come and go as I please, without having to buy a twenty dollar ticket every time. as if that wasn't good enough, my friends diane and dave, who live -literally- across the street from the entrance to the fairgrounds racetrack, where the fest is held, and gave us a parking permit. for those who've never been to jazzfest, let me assure you - these two things are an amazing windfall for any new orleanian, and I count myself very lucky to have such good friends. hello to sun, beer, crawfishbread and music, music music. lucinda williams plays tomorrow, bob dylan on friday, and over the next couple of weekends i'll probably catch ornette coleman, john mayer and ben harper, if things work out. this week has been a long one, but it has had some unique moments. on saturday, I saw arab strap and bright eyes at the howlin' wolf. i've always thought arab strap was pleasant, with a little edge of lewd, drunk lyricism with a thick scottish burr; i'd say it was more drunken than lewd on saturday, but still generally pleasant in an atmospheric way. bright eyes was about as intense as i expected, which was very. conor oberst is a pretty small guy, but he has the kind of presence on stage that just holds your attention - you can't help but stare at into little beady eyes, and you know he means every word he says. which is good, because in my mind oberst is one of the best songwriters out there. again, i took some pictures, most of 'em came out blurry but with two or three real keepers, which i'll post here when i can. Thursday, April 17, 2003
right. so, having just re-read what i posted below, remind me to drink more when i go to shows. maybe then i'll be a bit less dense and verbose when i post. geesh. if you don't feel like wading through that bog of prose down there, here's the quick of it: concrete blonde still rocks; i'm not a kid anymore. there.
damn. that's almost another month gone by without a post. work has been super busy lately, and i've been working late nights and i've started going to the gym again, so i'm getting home tired and not inclined to sit in front of my computer, after sitting in front of my mac at work all day. maybe i'll just have to blog in the mornings from now on. or something. i'm still trying to figure out my routine with this work thing, which by the way is still going swimmingly.
just came back from seeing concrete blonde tonight, at the house of blues. the twinemen opened - they're what's left of morphine, with a female lead singer, who's no mark sandman and is kind of okay only in that she's clearly aware that she'll never be able to fill the shoes she's standing in, so she's not trying. concrete blonde... concrete blonde still have it. ten years later, johnette napolitano still has that beautiful attitude and oh, god, that voice... and jim mankey still has those unmistakable reverby guitar chops. i first saw concrete blonde live ten years ago, as a freshman in college, at the new daisy theatre in memphis. it was their farewell tour, and it was amazing. i had such a huge crush on johnette napolitano then, back in those pre-smells-like-teen-spirit days when bloodletting and pretty hate machine and the end of silence and gish were the albums that defined my world. i was a pretty typical good kid, with some typical teenage anger and pain back then (oh, but little did i know), and those albums helped me through. today i kind of miss some of what i was then- i had an edge and an intensity, at least in my own mind, that i lost somewhere in college and am just now starting to regain something of, albeit with a healthier state of mind. a lot has changed for me in the intervening years - i've become so much of who i am now, since then, and learned so much about myself...calmer, wiser, more at peace with myself and those around me... it was interesting to watch the crowd, all these other people who this music was so important to ten, twelve years ago, and how so many of them had changed so much from what they must've been like then, and how many of them hadn't changed at all. the angry young boys and angry young girls of the late 80s and early 90s have grown older. so has johnette, but she can still hit every note -the music hasn't changed, it's still great - it's just that now the songs are more nostalgia than anodyne for me. i'm big on nostalgia; i couldn't have had a better time. (speaking of nine inch nails, i'd be remiss not to mention that new orleans denizen trent reznor was conspicuously in attendance, sitting in the vip balcony section, though he didn't seem to be having nearly as good a time as i was. but just the sheer sight of trent reznor and johnette napolitano in the same room was enough to make my inner 1991 angstful teenager grin giddily from ear to ear.) |