Not a gig, per se, but a great weekend out in the country. Last weekend, Bestest Boy took me to his pal Eddie C.'s annual Bastille Day Weekend Celebration in the Catskills. Before heading out of the city, we loaded up the car with some gravalax, pastrami salmon and sturgeon from Barney Greengrass; bagels and bialys from H&H; and pâté, fois gras, croissants, beaucoup de fromages et cornichons de Zabar's! Also, many, many bottles of wine.
Once up at the farm, we mainly relied on Rich, professional tapas chef and guitarist/keyboardist extraordinaire to direct the evening meals. And there was tons of grilling.
Those are dried plums (aka prunes) which were soaked in Merlot for a few hours, then stuffed with fois gras, wrapped in prosciutto, grilled, then finished off with a thyme-infused simple syrup. Heavenly!
In addition to being exquisite gourmands, many of our friends are also fantastic musicians, keeping the rest of us drunkards entertained well into the night. Oh it's amazing what a fearless singer 8 oz. of Knob Creek will make me!
Encouraged by a post I recently read on The Music Slut, I signed up for a free early show at the Mercury Lounge by the San Francisco treat, Birdmonster (which actually has a somewhat well-written blog). Prior to tonight's performance, which promoted the band's upcoming sophomore release, From The Mountain To The Sea, due out on August 5th, I knew little of the band other than its cute name and a cursory listen of songs from MySpace. They proved to be a fun and talented live band, and definitely merit a closer listening. The guys were full of stage energy (reminding Shana of the time we saw Cold War Kids opening for Tapes 'N Tapes a few years ago) but managed to still put out some tight melodies and lyrics (unlike the trainwreck performances I witnessed by Team Robespierre and The Teenagers a few weeks ago).
Here is a cut from the new album entitled,"Born To Be Your Man" (sorry for the boominess of the audio):
And the opportunity to follow a free show with a pastrami sandwich at nearby Katz's is always a good thing, in my book!
(Sorry it's been so friggin' long since I should have posted this review! Today, a friend sent me the bootleg of this show, which I'm listening to now, and it has reminded me how awesome it was to be there, and that I should POST! Thanks, M.!)
Sometime in early February I was IMing with Wawa about the latest Wilco contest -- a pair of tickets to one of their sold-out 5-night residency at their hometown Riviera Theatre during which they supposedly would cover a majority of songs off all their albums. He declined to enter since he had a wedding that President's Day Weekend, but I figured I had no real plans, so why not? Well, lo and behold, on Valentine's Day, Thursday the 14th, I got a call from Wilco's management that I had won the contest, and would I be able to join them in Chicago two days from then? You betcha!
For the rest of that afternoon, I scrambled to find someone to share in my winnings -- people either were already committed to plans or didn't quite jump at the idea of booking a last minute plane ticket to Chicago. Luckily for me and for my old roommate Fer, we both had enough frequent flyer miles to merit a cheap ticket each. So we packed our bags and off we went the very next day!
We got put up in a nice room at the Hard Rock Hotel in Downtown Chicago, and this was our spectacular view:
After a dinner of Chicago-style deep dish pizza, we cabbed our way up to the theater, and were slightly dismayed to find a line already blocks long emanating from the entrance in the freezing cold Chicago temps. I decided to go into the lobby and talk to security and the management, and explained that I had won the contest and was supposed to pick up tickets up front, and miraculously, they told me and Fer to wait right there indoors and to wait for the lady with the guest list. Cool beans! I started getting a little antsy as doors opened, and people streamed by, and the guest list lady was still nowhere to be found. The floor was general admission, and I could sense my chances of being up front like I had been for the last time I saw Wilco diminishing rapidly. Finally she showed up, and instead of handing us tickets, gave us those cool stickers that you see guest list people often wearing:
Fer and I headed towards the floor, but the usher directed us to go upstairs. Crap! I didn't want to be stuck up in the mezzanine. But then the next usher upstairs directed us to go to the very front and center of the mezzanine. Sweet! It was a perfect view of the stage, and was wonderful placement acoustically-speaking, and we were seated as opposed to dealing with the standing crowd below us.
The show itself was utterly amazing. It clocked out at just over 2-1/2 hours, and as promised, the setlist drew from all of Wilco's albums, with about 2/3 of it coming from pre-Yankee Hotel Foxtrot songs, which was good, since the last few times I had seen them, they had focused on their latest release, Sky Blue Sky. From my ideal seat, I was able to record eight of their selections, including the ultra-rare "Dash 7" for which violinist Andrew Bird joined them:
The guys, as always, were a pleasure to watch, and you could tell that Jeff Tweedy was having a good time playing to the folks of Chicago who supported each song, rarity or not, with loud roars. In fact, after the show seemed to be over, the crowd refused to budge and kept chanting for another encore even after the house lights and the back curtain went up and the roadies started putting equipment away. The guys came out after a good amount of coaxing and treated us with a final encore of two more songs, "ELT" and "Hoodoo Voodoo." I felt so happy!
As part of my prize, I also got hooked up with a bunch of merchandise, including a limited edition poster screened specifically for that night. It's the second one from the left:
The next day, I received a pair of tickets in the second row by a goal for the Chicago Blackhawks hockey game, and some merchandise for them as well. I wore this dorky baseball cap, which was a good move because the die-hard Chicago fans around me immediately accepted me as one of their own, and high-fived me as their Hawks skated to victory. I had never had such great seats before, and got to see everything mega-close-up:
including a FIGHT!!! Funny thing is that my Wilco weekend didn't end the night before; the bassist, John Stirratt participated during one of the challenges during an intermission:
How random was that?
All in all, it was a super-amazing weekend, including visits with an old friend and Fer's family, and plenty of good eats:
A Chicago-style dog at the airport. For breakfast. It doesn't get any classier than that, folks!
Friday night after a fun, greasy barbecue meal at Fette Sau, Ste, Lora and I headed to the Music Hall of Williamsburg for Jersey's finest indie rock band, Yo La Tengo. This was my first visit to the venue formerly known as North Six; I quite liked the setup, which is akin to the Bowery Ballroom, except with more balcony space, and raised areas on the side, and nice bathrooms according to Ste.
When we got there, we happily discovered that the main floor was set up with rows of seats, so we plopped ourselves down in the center of the 3rd row. We sat through a sleepy opening set by this nervous trio called Metal Mountain (it could have been the barbecue-itis kicking in). Then, promptly at 10, our heroes got on stage for a lovely two hour acoustic set. The band played a loose set of songs from throughout their career, taking time to answer questions and tell stories.
While I love how much YLT can blow my eardrums to pieces, I enjoyed this gig immensely. It felt like a nice mix between the time I caught them at Prospect Park, and the time Ste and I were helicoptered into Jersey City to see them at the Loew's Theater. And despite it being mainly acoustic, Ira Kaplan, guitarist extraordinaire, still managed to use a distort pedal and rock out.
Here are a bunch of songs I videoed on my camera -- sorry about the guy's head sitting right in front of me!
I never make resolutions for the New Year. There are always things I resolve to do, such as lose weight, be happier, read more books, watch less TV, learn the electric slide, etc., but they're with me all the time. I don't need no stinkin' New Year to make a list of what changes I need to implement!
So one of my general goals has always been to exercise more, and I'm happy to say that this weekend will be the first anniversary of my involvement with kung fu. MORE CHI! It's unbelieveable how far I've come with respect to kung fu and life in this past year, and I truly believe it'll be a part of me for a long, long time. TRAIN HARDER!
This afternoon I also called up my doctor for a follow-up on some blood work I had done last week. Everything's looking good -- my cholesterol count was much improved -- a stellar 148mg/dL (<200 mg/dL is considered optimal).
So, what did I do just now in my quest for lunch? I wandered around my office building for a bit, craving really nothing in particular, till those evil golden arches caught my eye. And, I said to myself, Dammit, 'playa, you deserve a break today at McDonald's... (and I sang it, too).
EVIL!!!! I can't remember the last time I had McJunko's!
And, now as I'm sitting here, enjoying my pathetic excuse for a cheeseburger and fries (with no added salt, at least!), I realized why McDonald's snuck back into my brain...I blame this awesome list of The 50 Greatest Commercials of the '80s that I checked out this past weekend, specifically, this gem:
Yes, indeedy-do, that is a twenty-something year old Jason Alexander aka George Costanza from Seinfeld all decked out shilling those environmentally horrific styrofoam nightmares that housed the short-lived McDLT.
After scarfing down this McCrappy meal, I think that'll be it for a while (till at least 2008, anyway). Since when did McDonald's start putting the Nutrition Facts on its products?!?!
380 Calories? 20g of fat? for the fries alone? Argh! I think I'm gonna crawl under my desk and take a nap now...
Not a gig, per se, but a great weekend out in the country. Last weekend, Bestest Boy took me to his pal Eddie C.'s annual Bastille Day Weekend Celebration in the Catskills. Before heading out of the city, we loaded up the car with some gravalax, pastrami salmon and sturgeon from Barney Greengrass; bagels and bialys from H&H; and pâté, fois gras, croissants, beaucoup de fromages et cornichons de Zabar's! Also, many, many bottles of wine.
Once up at the farm, we mainly relied on Rich, professional tapas chef and guitarist/keyboardist extraordinaire to direct the evening meals. And there was tons of grilling.
Those are dried plums (aka prunes) which were soaked in Merlot for a few hours, then stuffed with fois gras, wrapped in prosciutto, grilled, then finished off with a thyme-infused simple syrup. Heavenly!
In addition to being exquisite gourmands, many of our friends are also fantastic musicians, keeping the rest of us drunkards entertained well into the night. Oh it's amazing what a fearless singer 8 oz. of Knob Creek will make me!
