Month: June 2006

Help I’m a Rock

I just bought two tickets to the Halloween Zappa Plays Zappa date in New York City at Madison Square Garden theatre. Frank Zappa’s Halloween shows were always something special and Dweezil’s Zappa Plays Zappa tour is going very well, so I think this gig should be something worth traveling for. Plus I need a vacation.

Yesterday I bought a new car battery because my previous one died yesterday in the Guitar Center parking lot, which was probably God’s way of saying I shouldn’t have just plunked down $1650 for an Eric Johnson signature strat just minutes before. Yes I bought another guitar. BUT…Banjo Center has a 30-day money back guarantee so this is really just a test drive. Now that I know I’m doing this NY trip I’ll probably take the guitar back. But it’s so sweeeet.

I went to Sears Auto Center for the new battery and they give you those today-only $5 coupons for the Sears store and that was convenient since I REALLY needed to buy some new shoes. So. Yesterday, new battery, shoes and guitar. Oh, and dog meds for Zoe, who had to wait in the back of the car at Guitar Center while Randall came over with a battery charger. Good thing I parked in the shade.

Inspiratorial

I made up a new word. Inspirational + Conspiratorial = Inspiratorial

For those situations that conspire to inspire. Like yesterday’s backyard cookout, about which I just realized I took absolutely no pictures. Dammit.

Today I worked on my lesson materials. I’m taking lessons on Wednesdays with Ted Ludwig, an amazing 7-string jazz player, formerly from New Orleans. Bryan Frazier also came by and we worked on his tunes for our gig tomorrow night at Easy Street. 6:30-8:00. Come down and see us.

Vacation All I Ever Wanted

I need to decide soon on where I want to take my vacation. From a scheduling standpoint, I should go the weekend of August 5th and thereafter. Where should I go? I’m thinking I’ll go to New York in October, so my choices for August are Los Angeles for the International Pop Overthrow, or London, to check out John and Susan’s gallery. Or someplace else? I still haven’t been to Seattle to see Heather and Ben. But for some reason Seattle just doesn’t excite me as a city. What do y’all think?

Your Future, Odd-Sounding

Some great new spam prose from the bottom of a message hawking Cialis:

“But you can Jonathan. For you have learned. One school is finished, never know if that’s the Zone greeting me or my stalker’s nerves acting up. extraordinary, gathered around him in a handful of months the great-est eye on me again, that they hadn’t forgotten me, or if they had forgotten, the Troika; yet, in retrospect, one realizes that one has experienced a sighing and shifting from foot to foot and yawning nervously–he was feeling

his instructor’s fire, surprised himself and became a wizard of low”Can’t we talk about the arts instead? Wouldn’t the listeners care to

Google indicates that these are passages shredded and pasted together from Jonathan Livingston Seagull.

Download/Overload

Why spread it out over time when you can have it all now? Here are some live and rare tracks from some of my favorite people:

NOTE: Bandwidth increased, tunes re-uploaded.

I Yam What I Yam

The first batch of digital tunes from my new turntable are ready. I transferred the long out-of-print soundtrack to Robert Altman’s Popeye. My father and I have always been at a loss to explain the film’s status as a box office flop. We loved it, and still do. And the soundtrack was written by Harry Nilsson! So let me know if any of y’all are interested in the mp3’s I made from one of my brand-new, freshly unwrapped copies of the record.

Technological Anachronism?

Numark now makes a turntable with a USB.

At first you might think it’s a contradiction in technology – like an 8-track with a SCSI cable, or a Victrola with RCA outs. But really, given the status of the turntable these days as a musical instrument more than a media player, it makes sense to have a USB out for DJ’s to record their shenanigans. It also serves well the vinyl hounds looking to digitally preserve their vinyl. So I bought one. I have a lot of out-of-pring vinyl that I want to digitize. Plus I needed a new turntable, and this thing was only $170 at Banjo Center!