Recent Shows

The recent shows in this blog post were recent at the start of 2011, and go back to 2009. In other words they aren't that recent. Trying to remember what I saw and do it justice - and mostly failing - was what inspired me to start a new blog and get most of the shows I make it to recorded on video, photographed, and blogged. For posterity, here's the original "Recent Shows" blog post: I thought back to memorable shows that resonated, and I end up highlighting two from 2009 Don McLean and Roger McGuinn. First Aid Kit played a memorable show at the Vera and I saw nearly 50 bands at 15 or so shows there. Vera highlights:
Ted Leo and the Pharmacists - hammered out solid rock and roll for a long set. Best rock show of the year? I'll have to review BShoot & CHBP.
Hooks and Beaks - local woman who plays harp and sings. Interesting variety of material, covers and originals. Great range of sounds, talented local performer.
Veracity shows at the Vera: I volunteer & make the food at these. My first one had 3 punk bands with female vocalists, some were all woman others were mixed, I think this had Cooz Bane. Fun show, punk is high energy, often somewhat weak musically. Beats and stridency, fun and bombast. Most recent one had Nordus and I know their guitarist. Another fun show, mild to low turn out.

Bumbershoot! - a feast of music. Kicked it off Saturday with Becky Sue and Her Big Rocking Daddies. The new stage outside the EMP was nice. Local acts ruled! From Becky Sue to the Maldives, Star Anna, Born Anchors, Feral Children, The Decembrists out of Portland, Wheedle's Groove and that's just Saturday. I left out some locals I missed on Saturday like Grynch, Idiot Pilot (seen at Sound Off years ago) and the Cute Lepers.
Not local Saturday: Health, Balkan Beat Box (best of show?), Edward Sharp and the Magnetic Zeros, Bob Dylan, Ozomatli.

Sunday highlights: local outfits Sweetwater, Unnatural Helpers, the Lonely H, David Bazan, the Redwood Plan, Slender Means, Fences, the Physics, Fresh Espresso and Hey Marseilles - their version of Love Insurgent may have been the best song of Bumbershoot.
Good non-local acts included Crash Test Kings (fun song choices), the Bouncing Souls, Rah Rah Riot, Aterciopelados, Delorean, LMFAO and Billy Bragg.

Closed out Bumbershoot on Monday with local bands Brent Amaker and the Rodeo, People Eating People, Victor Shade, BOAT, Helladope, THEESatisfaction, the Moondoggies, Japandroids (Vancouver BC), Lisa Dank, Laura Viers, The Thermals (Portland).
Non-local highlights were Baroness, Bomba Estero, Surfer Blood, and closed out Bumershoot for 2010 with the English Beat in the fog and cold with the Space Needle looming above, half shrouded in mist. Luckily they kept the audience on it's feet and moving.

Made it to Folk Life Festival but didn't do it justice.
CHBP volunteered one day, saw lots of good bands at several venues, sucked down many $3 22 Oz Mexican beers.
Veracity - watched a couple with Ben, he really enjoyed Sea Cats, didn't much like solo performers. I ended up working the last 3 or 4, making vegan tacos. I'm on the Veracity Committee now.
Steel Tigers of Death

Don McLean at the Edmonds Perfiming Arts Center was early in 2009. I had to look it up. Roger McGuinn was there in October 2009. Their performances have stuck with me, McLean doing Starry Starry Night (Vincent) was heartbreaking, Miss American Pie may be the best pop/rock song ever written, wonderful song writing and amusing moderately informative patter, McLean had stories about folk singers and musicians that were priceless, and McGuinn was a seminal guitar sound developer in the early days of electric rock radio with many innovations to his credit - that jangly guitar sound in "Mr. Tambourine Man" not to mention a great vocal, the bible inspired "Turn Turn Turn", his early ties to Dylan, he was quite effective as a solo performer carrying songs that had huge vocal harmonies in the original quite well, I expected them to suffer more from the solo treatment. Those two shows hae stayed with me.
Missed Sasquatch Fest, so I mostly saw shows at the Vera project through the spring.

Halloween and Growing Up

My son almost didn't go trick or treating this year. He's 13 now, and he's over 5'10" so he looks a little old.

He was also behind on homework, so decided he wouldn't go trick or treating. He eventually got enough done that the desire to get out and have fun overwhelmed his dicipline, so in the end he did a little trick or treating.

I'm glad he did. He managed to get his school work done, although it was a struggle and he was up late. He's been a little out of sorts the last couple days due to lack of sleep (and probably too much sugar), and he's struggling with the decision to turn out for basketball.

He doesn't like falling behind on his schoolwork. I hope he manaeges to finish tryouts, but I understand why he may decide not too.

This is a normal part of growing up: learning to prioritize and discipline your behavior, making hard decisions that you may regret because you don't think you have enough time for all of your commitments. Tough but necessary lessons.

I wish he wasn't in a huge hurry to grow up, though. I still have fond memories of trick or treating until I was 15, and I've enjoyed going out with the kids and participating vicariously.

I suppose it's another milestone slipping past me almost unnoticed: all of my kids are just about done trick or treating for Halloween, now the oldest goes to parties and drinks to celebrate Halloween; I wish she invited me on occasion!

Oh well, there's always the chance of grandchildren...

Run Vera Run and the Redwood Plan

Did the Run Vera Run 4K walk in the rain today, then listed to the Redwood Plan while munching on fresh made pizza in the rain.

Fun!

Embarrasment of riches

I went to the Folk Life Festival and the Capitol Hill Block Party, check out the Steel Tigers of Death costume change:

and saw 12 bands. I've seen close to 30 bands at the Vera project,



and I saw more than 20 at Bumbershoot.




I should be well into the sixties, with the free Vampire Weekend/The Head and the Heart shows and so on nudging me up to 70 and a couple months or more to go I might manage to see 80 bands - probably a bit less, but that's still probably a personal best for me.

If I went to all 3 days of the CHBP and all days of the Folk Life Fest I could probably see another 30 bands, and if I managed to weasle into the Sasquatch Vera tablers I might get another 12. Now just a little more attention to attending Veracity and program shows I could be seeing more than 150 in 2011. Especially if you start including niche festivals: honk fest and reverb and blues and jazz etc.

I dunno, that's probably more ambitious than is reasonable. It would be fun to try!

I've always liked word and tag clouds. Here's a random one based on my blog's tag words, larger words are tags for more than one blog entry.

Once Again: Ad Sense

Experimenting with Ad Sense

Run Vera Run

RunVeraRunCBDLightBallons

My wife, my kids and I (and the dog) participated in the first "Run Vera Run" fundraising 5K run (or in my family's case, walk) at Seward Park on Sunday.

The weather was beautiful and the view was awesome, Seward Park and the lake and mountain views this time of year are wonderful. We helped raise over $30,000 for a good cause, and with the drop-off in corporate funding this year the Vera Project needs it pretty badly.

There were some nice people giving free massages and selling Vera and band merchandise, and they gave away fresh fruit, trail mix and water bottles. We got several Run Vera Run shirts for raising over $100 and over $150 dollars, and I managed to get buy my favorite Vera t-shirt with the silver robot on it, and we even got a free CD with local bands on it, so that was cool too.

The Maldives played in the park after the Run/Walk. The crowd was pretty quiet but the band put on a good show, very rootsy/folksy yet it rocked out as well.

We didn't take the camera so we only got a few cell phone shots. Maybe next year we'll do better at getting pictures...