I Went Back to Reading

During November I made two business trips - it's been a long time since I did that.  I can't work on airplanes so I decided I might pick up a paperback to read, and on the trip to Atlanta, I read Reckless by Chrissie Hynde.

I enjoyed it plenty, so I wrote this review on Amazon.  It's in the queue for the book, which is linked above - you can click through to rate it as helpful if you like!

  

I'd grown up reading The Rolling Stone whenever I could afford to buy a copy, and I remember many editions of it dedicated to the emergence of punk, which had happened a few years earlier. Later I enlisted in the Air Force, and "Brass in Pocket" got plenty of airplay during tech school. The music of the Pretenders has stayed with me since then, and I count it one of my life's great tragedies that I couldn't go to a 1984 concert in Berlin because I had tickets for a vacation in Barcelona.

Naturally, when I got wind of this autobiography I put it on my reading list right away. Unlike some other reviewers, I appreciated all the backstory, and I came to realize that it took a lot of work for Chrissie Hynde to get the band together and then become a star.

Particularly interesting was the story about the Kent State tragedy, and the surprise to learn that she was a student there during the demonstrations. Her desire to be part of the music drove her, but the fame was costly. The journey is what has given her the endurance and staying power that she needed to keep up with the industry.

So why was missing that 1984 concert such a tragedy for me? I gave my ticket to my friend Don, who with other friends made his way to the front of the Berlin Metropol stage. At one point during the show, Chrissie leaned down and wrapped her mich chord around Don's neck, and pulled him close. That could have been me!

In any case, at long last, I have the backstory for these great songs - Stop Your Sobbing, Talk of the Town, etc. - I found it a good read, and I'm glad I picked it up!

It's Okay to Like Nick Lowe

Mary, good friends James and Chris, and I ventured down to the Birchmere last night to catch one of my all-time favorite artists, Nick Lowe, who's on a short US tour with a band right now.  The show features his excellent late work, and even includes a couple of songs that haven't yet been released - and woven in are a few classics that are absolute musts.

I kept a playlist, but I know I missed one song from the three songs he opened solo with, and there were a few on the list I've got to go back and get titles for.  So I will post that, but it will be a few days.

He's brought a great band with him on the road, featuring Geraint Watkins (keyboards), Robert Trehern (drums), Johnny Scott (guitar) and Matt Radford (bass).  Watkins performed as an opening act, and there were some in the crowd that were familiar with his work.  A highlight was his dramatic reading of the lyrics to Johnny B. Good - followed by a boogie-woogie piano version of the classic.

As I mentioned, Nick's tour is promoting three albums that were recently re-released - they've even been released on vinyl now for the first time, as that format makes a come back.  The records are The Impossible Bird, Dig My Mood, and The Convincer, and songs in the show included Lack of Love, Has She Got a Friend, and a personal favorite (Mary sang along), Indian Queens.

Midway through Indian Queens, Nick pointed out something about the song, "You know I made this song up," just before the part about working the rigs off Galveston.

By my count, there were 19 songs in the almost two hour show.  Some past favorites that made it into the playlist were Ragin' Eyes, Heart, Cruel to Be Kind, and I Knew the Bride (When She Used to Rock n Roll).  Of course, What's So Funny (about Peace, Love and Understanding) was the closer, and then we got Every Day I Write the Book in the encore.

It was a great show, and even geezers like myself got out early enough to not miss bed time.  If anything, my status of a fan was solidified seeing Old Nick live.

Where to go for a show (in the old days)

A few months back, I posted on my Elvis Costello poster from the show in November 1983, which was held at the Metropol night club at Nollendorfplatz. I’ve recently gotten back in touch with other friends from that time and it set me to thinking I might do some web searching on this venue, where I also saw the Stray Cats, Lloyd Cole, Grand Master Flash, Talk Talk, Icicle Works and Billy Bragg, and the Bangles – probably among others I can’t remember anymore.

Here is the official Wikipedia entry on the building, along with a vintage photo of the interior outfitted as an ice rink, and one more recent as the Goya.
The Neues Schauspielhaus (English: New Theatre), on Nollendorfplatz in Berlin, was built in 1905 as a theatre in the then-fashionable Art Nouveau style. In 1927, Erwin Piscator opened his "Theater am Nollendorfplatz" in the building, and in 1951 it was renamed "Metropol“. Since 1977 it has been used as a discothèque. It was the location of the KitKatClub in 2000, and in 2005 the architect Hans Kollhoff remodeled the interior as the exclusive night club Goya.

It was a disco pretty much the whole time I was there. Many of the shows were in the room shown as an ice rink above, but there was a smaller venue in there as well where they put on shows. Some of the acts I didn't manage to catch there included Tina Turner, who came through just before the “Tiny Dancer” comeback, the Pretenders - opened by the Waterboys (I was in Barcelona during that show); but The Cure, Simple Minds, Kid Creole and the Coconuts, and any number of others will show up in a Google search.

The yellow subway cars in this photo remind me that there was an old fleamarket in the station that had been set up so that the old cars were the vendor booths. That was always worth a stop – you could find some pretty incredible stuff in there – but I always looked at the old uniform items, as well as pop culture items like buttons from pop groups and posters.

Here is a link back to the earlier post about the Elvis poster.
http://hawksbillcabin.blogspot.com/2008/10/vintage-elvis.html

Who's Your Best Friend

My friend Chris spied our next concert:

English Beat at the Birchmere in February...

Here's the Birchmere calendar site: http://birchmere.com/calendar/calendar_list.cfm

Here the Beat site: http://www.myspace.com/officialbeatspace

<---And that's a holiday greeting from their MySpace page....

Something New

We've added an embedded video of Billy Idol singing "Jingle Bell Rock" in the right hand column --->. Due to layout constraints, the framing isn't the best. If you're desperate to get the big picture, click on that element and it will give you a new frame.

This Ain't the Mud Club, or CBGB

I was delighted to find that my CD copy of the new Brian Eno/David Byrne collaboration had arrived in the mail yesterday.

With my own copies of the new songs, I burned a playlist in honor of this year’s show (see post from November 10)…I had to pick up a few MP3s from Amazon to do it, although I have nearly everything on vinyl (from the ‘80’s, of course!). There are a few live versions and a couple of re-records tossed in to spice it up.

Interestingly, one of the tunes from the show – “Never Thought” – didn’t make it onto the new album, so I replaced it with “Home.” Because I had extra room on the CD, I added “Naïve Melody” – in honor of our comment contributors Brian and Susan.

The 21 tracks on this playlist come from 8 LPs: Everything that Happens will Happen Today, The Name of this Band is Talking Heads, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (2005 re-release), Remain in Light, The Complete Score from The Catherine Wheel, The Best of the Talking Heads, Fear of Music, and More Songs about Buildings and Food.

As I was purchasing “My Big Hands” off of The Catherine Wheel soundtrack, it brought back a memory of taking the Neukölln (a borough of Berlin – Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuk%C3%B6lln) bus over to the Zip Records store when it first came out. That store was on Karl Marx Strasse, but I missed the stop and rode all the way to the end. The driver let me slide on the fare on the way back, and made sure I got out in the right place.

Here’s the full playlist:

-Strange Overtones
-I Zimbra
-One Fine Day
-Help Me Somebody
-Houses in Motion
-My Big Nurse
-My Big Hands
-Heaven
-Home
-The River
-Crosseyed and Painless
-Life is Long
-Once in A Lifetime
-Life During Wartime
-I Feel My Stuff
-Take Me to the River
-The Great Curve
-Air
- Burning Down the House
-Everything That Happens
-Naïve Melody (This Must be the Place)

DC David Byrne Show - 11/9

I planned to wait a few days to post about the David Byrne show Mary and I saw last (Sunday) night. I wanted to get the playlist and see if he posted about it on his blog.

It's clear there were a lot of life-long fans at the show, which was at the Warner Theatre downtown, in DC. Life-long for some, anyway: Byrne has been performing for 30 years, and a good share of the music in this performance dates collaborations with Brian Eno that took place in '77-'80.

I found the photo here on-line someplace, and here is the playlist from Byrne's site:

SET LIST: Strange overtones, I Zimbra, One fine day, Help Me somebody, Houses in Motion, My Big Nurse, My Big hands, Heaven, Never Thought, The River, Crosseyed & Painless, Life is long, Once in Lifetime, Life During Wartime, I Feel my Stuff...Encores: Take me to the River, The Great Curve, Air, Burning Down the House, Everything that Happens

It was a great show - the music is just fantastic, the ensemble has been on the road a few months now so they are perfect, and he's added dancers to the show, so some of the songs are choreographed. Although I don't remember the song, in one case the dancers and musicians all sat in office chairs - there was something you'd call dancing going on. And in another, actually during Once in a Lifetime, the dancers did a lot of the famous moves from the video. So they added something, helped make it a good show even though Byrne can hold his own.

And everybody got up to dance once he got into the stretch beginning with Crosseyed and Painless. Everybody.

By luck, as we were finding our seats, we walked past the balcony bar and ran into old friends Felice and Dave, and Kelly and Tom. Felice and I have been friends for a long time, since my Berlin days, and Kelly used to lead us all in group outings to see the Mekons whenever they were in town...good to happen upon them. We agreed to meet after the show and went over to the JW Marriott for a post-show refreshment...sort of like old times.

Vintage Elvis

Mary surprised me a few weeks ago. She stumbled on this old poster of mine from an Elvis Costello concert from 1983. “Heute” is the German word for “today” – I took this poster from the will call booth at the venue. To have it framed now certainly brings back some fun memories from the era, not to mention that venue.

Concerts included – Stray Cats, Lloyd Cole and the Commotions, Grand Master Flash, Talk Talk, Icicle Works and Billy Bragg (great encore of Gloria), the Bangles…that’s not in any particular order by the way. And probably many more I can’t remember.

Good stuff. And one other memory from November ’83– there was a great train/bus trip with my coworkers to Lucerne early in the month.

We had the poster framed at The Main Frame in Luray. We've had a lot of work done there.

It’s not too bad for wear and tear, and now that it is framed it will last forever. Thanks Mary!

Nov 2008 DC David Byrne Show

Coming of age as I did during the late '70's, and then spending some formative years in Berlin ('81-'86), I have always been a fan of David Byrne and Talking Heads.

David is currently on tour - details at http://www.davidbyrne.com/ - here is a playlist from the recent show in Baltimore:

Strange overtones, I Zimbra, One fine day, Help Me Somebody, Houses in motion, My Big Nurse, My Big hands, Heaven, Home, The River, Crosseyed & Painless, Life is long, Once in Lifetime, Life During Wartime, I Feel my stuffEncores: Take me to the River, The Great Curve, Everything that happens

He will be back in the DC area in November, playing at the Warner Theatre on 9 NOVEMBER 2008...tix are going fast, and two will cost you a minimum of $148...

The wife and I caught his 2004 show at the Birchmere in Alexandria, and we will be at this one too...I highly recommend the performance if you can make it. Here's David's blog entry from that show...we saw him come into the venue just off of his bike, and the bouncer almost didn't let him in! A manager came around and intervened, so the show went on. http://journal.davidbyrne.com/2004/06/6104_washington.html

Trivia question: Crosseyed and Painless is the one with the most excellent Belew solo, right?

By the way, there are videos of some of these songs on the Byrne site.

Scarecrow and a yellow moon

Scarecrow and a yellow moon,
And pretty soon a carnival on the edge of town,
King harvest has surely come.

-King Harvest, The Band *

The county fairs have begun, and all of the fresh local produce is showing up in the Luray Farmers' Market, which we visited on Saturday. Mary's been going for most of the season, but with the weather turning cool and my pool opening chores curtailed, I tagged along this time.

The Luray market is really a nice time - you see the local wares there, not just food, and there is usually live entertainment. Those excellent mini donuts they had the last time I was in weren't available this time, but we've begun to recognize some of the folks that are regulars, and they are starting to recognize us as well.







This week we went right to the farm stand to pick up fresh vegetables. We were delighted that there was still sweet corn and we picked up six ears. At this little stand, there was a variety of other foods as well, and they are part of the foodroutes.org system, that seeks to revitalize the local food system. I will spend some time on a future post about this concept, which talks about family farms, sustainability, and other issues - all pretty much current topics.

So the photos today are of the items for sale at the market - corn, squash, and green beans among them. Finally, a shot of some of the goodies we took home with us - peppers, squash, and tomatoes.

*

World Wide Web

While the blog is approaching the one year anniversary of its start, it's really been an interesting learning experience. Besides the learning part of it, the discipline of writing 200 or more words in the morning before work for now almost 200 entries has been fun. And last month, I added some statistics tools so that I could have a look at what kind of traffic this boring old thing attracts...really, it's an honor that people from all over the world are reading.

The tools are a Site Meter and Cluster Map, and they are both over in the right hand column, at the bottom. The Site Meter keeps the traffic count on a continuous basis, but the Map will accumulate location hits on a monthly basis, and start over. But here is a snapshot of the traffic from Site Meter for August: first graph is by continent share, second by country. There were visitors from all continents except Antarctica (the data granularity doesn't indicate this, so I verified on the Cluster Map - there were visitors from South America and Australia)...and there is a wide range of countries represented.

In the words of World Party, from the Goodbye, Jumbo CD - "Thank you world."

David Byrne/Brian Eno New Album

Taking a break from my typical posts to celebrate a new album by David Byrne and Brian Eno. A tour is to follow...I've been trying to get some of my Berlin alum friends to go to Nashville or Atlanta for a show - nothing doing, even though the Nashville show is at the Ryman. They've released a first song on the internet; the post below is cut-and-paste from David's blog. There is also a link to it in the right column.
======

08.04.2008: 'Strange Overtones' Available
Posted: 2008-08-04 21:50:32 UTC
Today, a free track is available from the upcoming record that I did with Brian Eno. I’m hoping that folks will be pleasantly surprised at the direction we’ve taken and the final result. Since it’s only one song, it may give a skewed taste of the record, but many told me it’s their favorite track — I guess we’ll see.
I’m also wondering whether the web-curious will allow news of the album to spread more or less by itself. In the past, I might have undertaken all kinds of expensive marketing plans to prepare for a record release: there would be a teaser, live shows, posters, magazine ads, interviews, and advance CDs sent to writers and reviewers. We’ve done a few interviews, but that’s about it. It will be interesting to see if audiences find out about this song — and the record — without all those marketing techniques, and solely through Internet word-of-mouth.

Playlist for a Hot August Weekend in the Shenandoah Valley

I saw that it has been about a year since I posted one of my IPOD playlists, which we listen to on the way out to the cabin. This weekend, I’ve burned a new copy of my Rolling Stones playlist, which includes the following tunes:

· Let it Bleed
· It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll
· Sympathy for the Devil
· Under My Thumb
· Street Fighting Man
· Emotional Rescue
· Harlem Shuffle
· Miss You
· Fool to Cry
· Salt of the Earth
· She's a Rainbow
· Waiting on a Friend

These may not be the first on everybody’s list of favorite Stones songs, but there are a few that everyone could agree on. And there are a few that we can’t hear often enough.

I want to replace one of the songs with Saint of Me, which was released in the mid ‘90’s…a time when I wasn’t buying much music. Just by chance I came across it on a YouTube video. I’ve really grown to like it but I haven't found it on iTunes yet.

Photo Uploads

Here are a couple of photo uploads that go with yesterday's entries - the new Santa votive, the Billy Idol Christmas CD, and the new nutcracker ornament.

And a couple of additional holiday photos - the new firepit out on the brick terrace, and the holiday lights that we put up this year.

Christmas Eve Morning Post

(Written December 24, 10:45 a.m.) Mary is out walking the dogs on a sunny day, and the temperature has climbed into the high 50’s already. I had coffee on the terrace, where one of our nuthatches scolded me for letting the birdseed run out and I quickly took care of it.


While Mary and the dogs are out, I am listening to a Putumayo CD that I have grown fond of, “New Orleans Christmas”– it says, “Deck the halls with soul, jazz, and blues holiday classics from the Big Easy.” Here’s a link to the Putumayo site on it: http://www.putumayo.com/en/catalog_item.php?album_id=224.


We have a tradition of buying a new Christmas CD every year; this New Orleans one is our purchase of the year. It makes me a little happy to know that a portion is going to the New Orleans area Habitat for Humanity.


Also, it gives me pause to think of a couple of my Booz Allen friends – Jon Cohn and Will Rowe, who each went down to the city and gave some time and manual labor rebuilding things. Jon brought me back a Big Easy coffee cup as a souvenir of his trip, come to think of it, I think he has gone down there more than once. Good on you, Jon!

Here’s the playlist for the Putumayo CD:
· Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town – Big Al Carson with Lars Edegran and his Santa Claus Revelers
· Christmas in New Orleans – James Andrews
· ‘Zat You, Santa Claus? – Ingrid Lucia
· Silver Bells – Heritage Hall Jazz Band with Greg Stafford
· I’ll be Home for Christmas – Banu Gibson and the New Orleans Hot Jazz
· Please Come Home for Christmas – Papa Don Vappie’s New Orleans Jazz Band
· God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen – Ellis Marsalis
· White Christmas – John Boutte
· Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas – Topsy Chapman with Lars Edegran and his Santa Claus Revelers
· Santa’s Second Line – New Birth Brass Band
· Holiday Time in New Orleans – Dukes of Dixieland

Also, we bought the CD for last year too late to enjoy it during the season, so this is the first year we’ve really had a chance to listen to it: Billy Idol’s “Happy Holiday.” This is a real treat, mates. You can probably find it on his myspace page – www.myspace.com/billyidol - we’ve been listening to it in the car. And to hear Billy Idol sing “We all need some Christmas Love” just warms the cockles.

Holiday Decorations 2

For the last few years we've enjoyed having a real tree from Wisconsin in the Alexandria house. One of our neighbors has some land and a tree farm out that way, and does a few trips a year to tend to the trees. Then a longer trip around T-giving to harvest and sell, and they bring back a number of them for friends and neighbors here in Virginia. So here's a photo of the tree.

Also, the apple squash and pumpkin 'tableau' has been taken down for our annual holiday display, which Mary put up last night after we did the tree.

One final holiday tradition I'd highlight here. Every year after we finish the tree, we play the holiday polka "Must be Santa" - it's on the Rounder Christmas album by the same name. A second great song off of this CD is George Thorogood's "Rock and Roll Christmas" - just checked and it's an easy search to find this on Amazon...I agree with the reviews there as well.

Midweek Update

There's always work going on at the cabin - in fact today, there was an early plan to get out there and meet an electrician to get started on the electrical issues. The electricians out there are all in pretty high demand, so the meeting was cancelled - rescheduled for Saturday.

On another note, last Friday we were delighted to be invited once again to celebrate the anniversary of our friends' architecture firm - http://www.cunninghamquill.com/ . In addition to meeting up with some old friends there (shout out to Kelly and Tom Kamm here - welcome back to DC! I never got it straight whether you guys were in the Urbana part of Champaign or the Champaign part of Urbana), Lee Quill had been helpful with some suggestions about permitting and the structural design of the new roof. We followed up on these insights with our contractor subsequently.

C+Q have put together a very nice portfolio of projects over the years - be sure to check the URL above.

On the way to their Georgetown offices, I stopped by a tobacco store to pick up some Glorias de Cuba (parental warning - product :-) ). The music in the background was Parlaiment...I was pretty happy to hear it and told the clerk about my "Tear the roof off the sucker" blog post a few days back.

It's Not All Work

It’s not all hard work when we go to the cabin. Here is an iPod playlist that I had on in the car during our last trip, Sept. 2.

Come Monday – Jimmy Buffett
Seven Year Ache – Roseanne Cash
The Bottle Let Me Down – Merle Haggard
I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight – Bob Dylan
That’s Right, You’re Not from Texas – Lyle Lovett
Screw You, We’re from Texas – Ray Wylie Hubbard
I’ll Be Your San Antone Rose – Jerry Jeff Walker
Ooh Las Vegas – Gram Parsons
Tear Stained Letter – Johnny Cash
Folsom Prison Blues – Mekons
Ring of Fire – Elvis Costello
Jackson – Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon (from the movie)
Long Tall Texan – Lyle Lovett and Randy Newman
Your Cheatin’ Heart – Hank Williams
Long Gone Lonesome Blues – Sheryl Crow
Don’t Come Home a Drinkin’ (with Lovin’ on Your Mind) – Loretta Lynn
A Good Year for the Roses – George Jones
Crazy – Patsy Cline

To top it off, our lunch stop that day was at the Hawksbill Diner, and fine little road side spot that is a couple of miles from the house, just before you get to Stanley proper on BUS 340 South.