Post Fair Blues

Last week Chris Chandler and David Roe came up north after OCF to play a show in Olympia and a show in Seattle. In the past two years I'd only gotten the chance to see them occasionally play around the Entertainment Camp firepit, each time just a song or two at a time, so I was excited to find out they were playing a show in Seattle at Cafe Venus and Mars Bar. This was thanks to the fact that I was listening to KAOS-FM in Olympia as I was heading home on Tuesday after the Fair. No mention of the gig anywhere in the Seattle weekly papers that usually list all the gigs going on. Well, as it turned out for Chris and David, the promoters at these two shows didn't do a very good job of putting out the word, and they probably would've done better financially just hanging out til Wednesday in Eugene where they were playing at Sam Bond's Garage. In any case, I asked if it was ok to record the show and got an affirmative answer. The shame was that only 8 people showed up to see this show. It might be awhile before they ever come back to Seattle. :( So anyway, sit back, take a listen and enjoy one of the best musical and most thought provoking performances I've had the pleasure of seeing in quite awhile:
Chris Chandler and David Roe live in Seattle 2006!!! --> Set 1      Set 2 <--

Oregon Country Fair 2006

So I haven't been contributing as much energy to this page as I would like to. Just got back from a fabulous week in Veneta, Oregon, getting bitten by clouds of mosquitoes and catching some great entertainment along the way at Oregon Country Fair. I didn't break out the recorder very often and so the best stuff is only stored in my faulty memory banks. C'est la vie. But here is what I have to share -

Kevin Danaher from 2004. (50 megabytes) Kevin spoke this year but I missed it. Here's what he said on the Front Porch Stage in 2004
March Fourth Marching Band. (16 megabytes) Excerpt from their performance at the Monkey Palace on Saturday.
RadioActive. (27 megabytes) Excerpt from their performance at the Horse Chorale late, late Sunday.
Annie Rosen. (10 megabytes) Somehow I remembered I was carrying my minidisc recorder and to get it turned on before this wonderful lady was finished playing on Monday morning outside the Ritz.

EXTRA!!! Someone at the Fair asked me to share this recording of Rocker T live at the 2001 Rainbow Gathering (9 megabytes), so there ya go!

Orchestar Zirconium

I really want to go to the 3rd birthday bash for the March Fourth Marching Band this coming Saturday down in Portland. They really put on an energetic show. But I've been changing the plumbing in my house from steel to copper and I still haven't finished yet. I don't know about you, but I've gotten used to water in the kitchen sink to cook and wash with, and without it, well, it sucks I tell ya. So I got an email from my friend Ted the Teacher and Trumpeter about a band he is in called Orchestar Zirconium. I saw them play last year at an Infernal Noise Brigade party in May last year and recorded the event with my video camera. I think it was their first gig ever together as a band. They played a mix of Eastern Euro gypsy marching band music that was totally fun and had players that also play in Infernal Noise Brigade, Circus Contraption, Fremont Philharmonic and others. Too bad they haven't played more gigs since then.
So without futher ado, here's Orchestar Zirconium!!!

Sectarianism

This week marks the first week the word "Sectarianism" has been used in plentiful amounts by the US media.

Just wondering if anyone else has noticed this.

State of the Un-union

January 31, 2006

Today I heard and read Gore Vidal's state of the union message. Indeed. Here's a mp3 excerpt to download of the whole thing and here's a link to the transcript. It'll be interesting to see what kind of ruckus people make tonight after Bush's address outside the tv stations across the land, what with Alito getting the nod from the Senate today. It's a good thing my grandfathers aren't around to see the mess that's been created.

But I found something today that made me laugh so all is not lost. Yippee yaya yippee yippee yay!

Moving slow post-Baldarchy

January 21, 2006

I went to a little gathering of bald guys and the women that love them in Ballard last night. Saw a few old friends and met some really nice people, one of whom is studying for his doctorate in physics (I forget the actual specialty) at the University of Leipzig in Germany. So today I am posting this lecture by Richard Feynman on Photons: Corpuscles of Light given in 1979 at the University of Auckland. It is 77 minutes long and 27 megabytes in file size. I have no idea if anyone that comes here will be interested enough to download it but it is an excellent introduction into the physics of light presented by a world reknown physicist in his teaching prime who makes the subject understandable and almost entertaining. The first 15 seconds are silent so give it a moment. Here's the link to the series of videos that are the source of this audio.

Did I mention my favorite browser is Firefox?   

PodBlast it is

January 19, 2006

Lotus Sutra meditation (14.5 megs) This was a little bonus feature from an old cassette I found of Buddhist chants and meditations. This can be very trance inducing if you give it a little time. I imagine if you actually do the chant it would be even more trance inducing... just breathing along seems to work for me.

Yo, check it out!

January 18, 2006 - I turned 44 yesterday.

Martin Luther King Mashup (23 megs) This is a little something I mashed up myself last summer. Seems fitting to call a bit of attention to it this week, Monday being MLK Day and all.

The Grey Video (22 megs) The Beatles mashed up with JayZ courtesy of Danger Mouse. A harder day's night.

The Mermen live at Center Camp, Burning Man 2005 (32.5 megs) The Mermen are one of the reasons I go to Burning Man every year. They just never come to play in Seattle and Black Rock City seems closer than San Francisco. Recorded with my Sharp minidisc recorder and a cheap Sony stereo microphone about 25 feet from stage center on the night of the Burn.

Record Brother - link. I found this great website today.

Radiofree Todomundo - link. This is another project I am launching in 2006. This is an idea I almost launched in 2002, back before there was podcasting, when everyone was freaking out about music rights and streaming radio. Oh wait a second. They're still freaking out about this stuff.