We took the night off from swim practice to take the kids to a cultural night at the museum last month. Okay, maybe it was mainly to see Deerhoof play in the entrance of the SFMOMA (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art) but there were many bonus surprises.
I just can't do it, and perhaps never again. I attended the first 8 Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festivals in Golden Gate Park and have many times sung the praise of Warren Hellman and his glorious event. But we barely survived #7, and we peaked at #8 with access-passes (thank you BAD LIVERS!!)
They are predicting 750,000 attendees this year, and I don't think it's an underestimate. It's simply too much humanity for us to deal with, so this will be the 3rd year I'll miss it.
Just for shits and giggles, I'm going to create an imaginary itinerary here in case I was kuh-razy enough to go. And I'm going to be realistic. Gone are the days when you can navigate between stages to cherry pick your shows like a smorgasbord. Unless you are 6 1/2 feet tall and don't mind bumming out other people, your best bet is to pick a spot and stick with it.
We did something different for Monday night's QotSA show at the Fox Theater in Oakland. We sat down! I can't remember the last time we sat down for a show, but we had 8th row center mezzanine (row H) and it was rather civilized. Perhaps too civilized for a Queens of the Stone Age show, but being a Monday night after a long week of travel, it was a good call. Unlike the Warfield in San Francisco, you can bring drinks to your seat (nice cup holders) and, given that they were moshing downstairs, it was civilized indeed.
And do you know what else is civilized? QotSA is punctual! The opening band went on exactly at 8:00 pm and the Queens went on EXACTLY at 9. They play a fierce, condensed show so we were back home to pay off the babysitter at 11:15.
After 5 years, it's time for an upgrade. The first site we did for Jake was back in 2006 and it was built with Drupal 4.
Jake is an interesting dude. We both are huge Danny Barnes fans but he takes his mutant banjo playing in a different direction, as he's very influenced by classical music (whereas Barnes gravitates toward metal and punk.) Jake is also a backcountry medic which I think is pretty cool. I met him in person once when he was visiting Marin to practice some cliff-side rescue techniques.
This guy in Southern California is without a doubt the master of Metal Dubbing. He takes an existing video (there are several posted below... such as Justin Beiber and Katy Perry and then puts in his own soundtrack that he creates (including all voice and instrumentation.) Brilliant! My favorite is the Christmas twist below, where he takes a death metal video by Gorgoroth and gives it a cheery Christmas tune soundtrack.
So check them out. I've posted his versions followed each by the original.
FolkMusic.com -- the home page of folk singer and multi-instrumentalist John McCutcheon -- is the newest launch from Superclean. The site features an online store with his entire catalog, a multi-themed blog, interactive gig map, and more.
