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Saturday, November 24, 2007

Holiday construction

Thanksgiving was wonderful. Excellent food and some relaxing time with both sides of my family. On Thanksgiving afternoon, we took advantage of the unusually mild weather to wander the driftway in Scituate. The air was clean and it was perfectly quiet except for the rustle of marsh grass as we looked out onto Fourth Cliff and parts of the shoreline.

We drove around town and I was reminded of some areas I hadn't seen in a long time, including Veteran's Park where my name is engraved in a wooden walkway for donating and helping with its construction. We also saw the new shingles on my parents' house. The construction was done by one man and he did an outstanding job.

After a visit to my hometown, we drove to central Mass where we shared a lot of laughs over the construction of our gingerbread houses. I was inspired to put a keg of mini-pretzels to good use and make my own maze. At first I considered an all-Peep tree maze a la The Shining, but quickly decided against it with only one package of Peep trees. A few more photos after the jump.

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Gobbling up music

Man alive. This has been a big music month for me.

I've discovered new music and posted a few things here. I'm adding albums to my eMusic "Save For Later" list like a champ. I saw Yo La Tengo last week and will possibly hear some renditions of Steve Reich next week. And now I'm all set up with my new 160GB iPod Classic. The day has come -- and it didn't take too long -- where I can fit my collection (or at least the parts I care about) in my pocket...with room to spare.

Saturday, November 17, 2007

Freewheelin' and fabulous

On Thursday night, Chris and I saw an amazing Yo La Tengo show at the Museum of Fine Arts. It was my fourth (fifth?) time seeing them live and definitely the best. It was an almost-acoustic set they called The Freewheeling Yo La Tengo Tour. The premise is quite simple: Play an intimate sold-out show to a bunch of drooling indie kids and between every song bring up the house lights halfway to chew the fat.

Yo La Tengo accepted song requests (and did a nice job of fulfilling most) and answered questions that were shouted out. Chris was egging me on to yell: "Why wasn't your fourth album double live?!?" Although an obscure reference from their "Sugarcube" video, it would've been pretty funny to ask.

I almost gathered the chutzpah to do it, but instead I shouted "What was your craziest onstage moment?"...thinking that would garner a longer response and a funny story (rather than a deep sigh and a shake of the head - sorry Chris). The lead singer Ira answered with a long, meandering story about how a friend of the band thought it would be a good idea to join them onstage for a song...naked.

Singing naked wasn't a dare; it was more like just something to do. The band gave in and let him. But once he was up there, shyness set in and he turned his back to the audience only to be staring at Georgia, the female drummer. Maybe not the most insane thing to happen to a band on stage, but a pretty humorous story. Maybe they'll have another crazy story after tonight's live performance on Saturday Night Live.

They then floated right into this...

Yo La Tengo: "Pablo and Andrea" (mp3)

Oh yeah, and I should also mention they played a gorgeous rendition of one of my favorites:

Yo La Tengo: "Deeper into Movies" (mp3)

My cameraphone photo is terrible. See better photos from closer fans with better cameras on Flickr.

Saturday, November 10, 2007

The dubstep blues revivial

The Red Sox are champs once again. We've set the clocks back. We've even had a snow flurry. It's only been a couple weeks since my last post but between then and now it seems like we've really started to slip into the colder season. I guess this means the holidays are right around the corner. I'll likely be staying put through the next couple months without any work travel in sight.

A couple big projects are behind me. They launched during October. Work is no less busy, but there's the tiniest bit of a calm right now until the next big roll-outs in January. As a result, I've started to do more things at home and in my personal life. Hey, I've even been able to discover some new music.

A friend at work turned me on to Elizabeth Cotten, a roots music guitarist with some unbelievable finger-picking skills. Her album Shake Sugaree is a wonderful listen.

In direct contrast, I stumbled upon a UK producer that goes by the name Burial. He has released two albums in the last two years to high critical acclaim. No one knows much about him. He's given one interview but doesn't make any public appearances let alone perform any live shows. Over the last week, the album Untrue has seeped into my brain with its mysterious and unsettling beats and vocals. He's breathed new life into the somewhat stale genre of dubstep, or 2step, or whatever you want to call it. Anyway, enjoy. It's like a soothing narcotic.

Elizabeth Cotten "When The Train Comes Along" (mp3)
Burial "Archangel" (mp3)