Category Archives: music

On the Road Again

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By the time you read this, I’ll surely be well on my way to Tucson (a city that I seem to have challenges spelling correctly) considering we woke up at the butt crack of dawn – which happens to be way, way, WAY earlier than I prefer to wake, mind you. Since the hubby never got to shoot Herbie (outside of sound check in San Francisco) we’re making the 7+ hour drive to Tucson to shoot him there. This time around though, he’ll be given 100% full access to photograph all he wants. Thankfully. This was only a week in the making and what we wanted from the start.

The other cool thing this time around, is that the hotel will only be a few minutes away. In San Francisco, since the drive to Santa Barbara was going to be so insane, we stayed an hour out of the city (plus is was like half the price!). So this time, we’ll be driving into town in time for sound check, then the pupster and I will poke around town a bit. Hopefully I can have a little fun before the show. I’d love to be able to check out Old Tucson if I can.

But man, who knew when I agreed to this NaBloPoMo thing that we’d be on the road so much. I feel like I’m spending all my time either pre- or post- publishing stuff. The weird thing, I haven’t even had a chance to really blog about anything other than my day to day antics. I mean there’s a whoe slew of stuff I’d planned to officially write about, you know to try my hand at writing consistently. Guess not. Ah well, something to aspire to. At least we’re nearly halfway through the month, right?

Crappy Connectivity & Then Some…

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Well, I have had such crappy connectivity while we’re out that I just had to finally let it go.  Seriously, I’ve been trying to connect now (Sun 1:42 AM) for the past hour and a half.  Instead, I’m closing the (seeming lack of) internet down and rambling here in TextEdit.  I’ll cut and paste it when (if) I finally get a signal.

So far this trip, while our rooms have been lovely, Sheraton has still managed to screw us.  Neither hotel has been able to upgrade us and we have the points – we’re not even in the “preferred guest” floor. And don’t get me started on the whole internet thing…you’d think when you pay $10 a day for internet that they can at least make sure it works well!

But on to bigger and happier things.  Wine tasting yesterday was great.  I was surprised to see the leaves on the vine change for the fall as well as the leaves on the trees.  And of course, the wine tasting was lovely.  We also had some great food (one of my favorite things about this region is just how good the food can be).

Today though we’d planned to do a winery cave tour in Kenwood/Sonoma (at Kunde), but we woke up to rain.  We figured that it would be cold (and it was), it would be wet (and it was) and we wouldn’t get any decent photos, so instead we just headed out to San Fran for the Herbie show.

The show itself was awesome!  One of my favorite things about seeing live music is watching the band interaction.  I love nothing more than seeing that a band is having fun and playing with each other (unlike the Police this last tour).  Herbie’s band was having a ball playing off of each other. Even the sound check was good.  And everyone kicked ass on When Love Comes to Town – it wasn’t U2 and it wasn’t Joss and Johnny (from Herbie’s last album, Possibilities), but it was still AWESOME.  Sonia has a great voice – nice and raspy.

That said, I was stuck in that damn auditorium from around 3:00 until 11:00!  And let me just tell you, that’s just too fucking long to be in one place.  Probably the one part of our “vacation” that I’m not enjoying – and get the privilege of doing again tomorrow (well, I guess tonight since it’s already Sunday).  At least tomorrow/today, since we’re in Santa Barbara, I can take the car out myself during sound check and whatnot (without incurring a $30+ parking fee – crazy San Francisco parking!!)  In fact, I volunteered to pick up a birthday cake for Herbie’s daughter just so I had an excuse to leave soundcheck – I’m a smart cookie, you see.

And speaking of being Sunday, it’s nearly 2:00AM and woooweee, I’m tired.  The hubby is still working on downloading the photos, so he’ll probably be up for the next hour or two.  It’s times like this and his crazy late nights that I’m thrilled he’s “on vacation” and can sleep in as late as he wants once we get back home on Monday.

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I’m thankful that my husband feels comfortable driving in San Francisco – those hills scare the hell outta me!  I’m also thankful for our yummy, Heavenly Bed that we’ll be sleeping in tonight.  And I’m thankful for good friends that willingly agree to visit the kitkat to make sure that he has enough food and love while we’re away (okay, she might have bitched a bit and does it out of obligation because we stock her fridge the day she comes home from their international tours, but still – she does love our little boys, honest).

Tonight We Fly Out a Weekend of Wine & Jazz

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First stop, two days in Healdsburg drinking yummy wine and eating awesome food. Hopefully we’ll pop on in to Sonoma since there are a couple of vineyards there that we really like (Kunde, Valley of the Moon, etc).

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We’ll be staying in Petaluma (just a short drive away) on the marina. The rooms are gorgeous and comfortable and there’s a marsh right near by with walking trails. Last time it was crazy windy, so this time I’ll be sure to bring warmer clothes – and a hat.

Herbie & Friends Backstage

From there we head back into San Francisco for Herbie’s show at the Masonic. The hubby will be shooting the show and we’ll have plenty of backstage access so this time I hope to get some great shots myself. The photo above was taken backstage after the Sonoma Jazz Festival but I wasn’t using my flash since it would have messed up the hubby’s pro shots. Sonia Kitchell will be performing with the band and I’m pretty excited abut that (she’s the blond above).

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Then we drive down to Santa Barbara for the last night of Herbie’s mini-tour.  Again, the hubby will be shooting the show so I should again be able to get some fun shots.  We won’t be staying in Santa Barbara this time around though, we’ll be staying in Ventura instead – gotta save some money considering what we’ll probably be spending in wine – so who knows how much sightseeing we might get to do.

I’ll be back on Monday (and hope to post a photo or two while I’m gone).

Yet Another Cool Thing About Living in SoCal

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…the celebs are everywhere.

My hubby just sent me a text message to tell me that David Anders* is at the show he’s photographing tonight. And of course, this has to be one of the shows that he didn’t get a +1 for. I could have easily spent the entire night ogling Sark (from Alias). I mean, who couldn’t, right? Hopefully, he’ll sneak a photo for me.

* edited to add a link to his IMDB page 

Tramps Like Us (and other random thoughts)

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I have so much to say, but no real desire to sit down and say it.  So instead, I’ll torment you with a slew of random thoughts…

* Having to go to a laundromat is bad enough (stupid rentals in SoCal with no laundry facilities!).  But to have the damn machines rip you off is just wrong!  So very wrong.  It cost me $8 to do two (super) loads of laundry that normally only cost $4.  And of course, the owner wasn’t around *grr*

* I put the Halloween shirt on the pupster today, you know, to get him in the spirit and all that jazz…but he’s just not happy about it.  Instead, he keeps rubbing up against things to try to remove it.

* I’m one of those wives…you know, the ones that shop for their husbands.  Well, my hubby is famous for deciding that he doesn’t like something long after the return period.   I do my best to hang onto the receipts, but this doesn’t always work.  In fact, I got blackballed from Mervyn’s my first year living with him because I returned too many (of his) things without receipts.  And now, I can’t seem to find the receipt for the damn backpack he made me buy for him.  I’ll just have to keep looking, but at least it was on clearance for only $12.

* I was really, really hoping for a new camera before my trip to Albuquerque this weekend.  My little Canon Powershot A520 has been quite good to me, but lately, the lens cap thingie doesn’t always want to open.  So I mentioned it to the hubby, and I kinda had the okay to get a new one.  But then, well, the lens cap thingie started working just fine.  So I’ve decided to give up my dream of a new camera.  Maybe he’ll get me one for Christmas (though if he had his way, I’d just use his original Nikon D70 – but it’s not small enough to fit in my purse and sometimes, that’s what matters!)

* I still can’t get over how weird Sting looked at Herbie’s tribute.  I mean really, who in the world wears brown casual shoes with a black jacket and pants (no, not a suit)?  And why in the world is Chris Botti’s jacket so damn shiny???  Herbie looks good, no?

* And speaking of Sting and Chris Botti…rumor has it there might be a three way going on with wife Trudie.  Strange youtube video as support of said rumor. 

* And on the topic of the Herbie/Monk thing…I just don’t get Joni Mitchell.  Am I missing something?  Or am I just too young?  She tells these stories through songs, but really, they’re not like songs at all.  When I hear her name, all I can think of is the Emma Thompson character in Love Actually.

* And speaking of Love Actually, I still have no idea where that damn movie disappeared to.  I’ve torn the house apart and it’s just not here.  I guess I’ll need to trade in some CDs so I can get a new copy.  Let’s face it, it’s a good movie.

* My medication is kicking in and I feel a thousand times better.  Believe it or not, I can actually drive over the hill and not get totally clogged up.

In closing…the Bruce show was a little disappointing.  Keep in mind, I’m not a big fan, so the older, more obscure stuff was lost on me.   It looked like the fans really loved the show – lots of singing, lots of dancing and lots of fist pumping (my shoulder still hurts from Bad Lands) – and things sounded great.  It’s just hard to get so pumped for a show where out of 2.5 hours of music, I only knew like 6 songs!  Kind of sad.  I loved the Rising tour (saw him twice) and I really enjoyed his folksy stuff from last summer, but this show just didn’t do it for me.  So much so that both M & I decided that neither of us wanted to go again tonight (we thought we’d have to fight it out between the two of us to see who got to go tonight).  The hubby was able to get rid of the ticket though, so no worries.

The Day After

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Well, I had hoped to do a bit of a recap on the Monk Institute/Herbie Hancock tribute show from last night (well, beyond my um…drunken post, that is), but I just don’t feel like it.  I guess the lesson here is that drinking lots (and lots) of wine in a pretty short amount of time makes for a lazy day after.  Luckily, as the hubby likes to say, good wine doesn’t give you a hangover, only bad wine.  So no, I’m not hung over, I’m just feeling lazy.

What I will post about is how beautiful the skies have been lately.  After all the smoke and smog from the past couple weeks, it’s just the most amazingly clear blue sky.  You know, complete with the wispy, billowy kind of clouds (that I believe are classified as cirrus).  Sadly, the city itself is engulfed in smog (the view from Mulholland is just nasty).  But over here in the SFV, I’m telling you, it’s just beautiful.

Tonight I have night one of Bruuuuce.  We’ll be heading over with our friends (that we hung out with last night as well).  They were able to get us tickets, but we’re not sure where the seats are.  Tomorrow it’s just the hubby and I hanging out in general admission. Can’t say that I’m a fan of GA seats, but then again, I doubt we’d spend all that much time sitting to begin with.

That said, who knows what tomorrow’s blog will bring. But that’s half the fun, right?

Flickr Rocks (and other random thoughts)

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A while back, one of my Sonoma photos was chosen for use in the Schmap guide.  Today I got an email that yet another one of my photos was up for consideration for the San Diego guide.  It was one of my Hotel del interior photos.  Pretty cool if I do say so myself considering I don’t edit my photos and they’re taken with my little ‘ol Canon (which I do hope will be upgraded this Christmas or for our upcoming trips since the lens cover doesn’t open more than half the time).

And speaking of Flickr, does anyone know how to remove “friends”?  I tend to keep nearly all of my photos public, but I’ve accidently added some “new contacts” as “friends” from time to time.  And well, I’m not sure how comfortable I am knowing that personal photos and updates are sent out to “friends” on a weekly notice.ve.

On a  non-Flickr related note, the new KT Tunstall is quite good.  The hubby has had it for quite some time now, but he finally released it from his clutches and added it to the insane, ever growing pile of CDs.  Seriously, I have no idea what to do with those stacks since they just keep growing and growing.  It’s not like we can trade them in.  Though I could probably trade in a few to update my DVD library some.  Oh well, I must work on that some more and come up with something.  I’m open to suggestions though.

It’s official, both our Albuquerque and our San Fran/Healdsburg trips are completely booked. I think I’m more excited to go back to Albuquerque than wine country (maybe because our wine stash is also a bit out of control).  Fall in NM is an amazing time, especially if it’s chili roasting time.  Sadly, it won’t be roasting time, but you better believe that I’ll be filling up on more than my share of green chili!!

Hanging Out in Santa Monica

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Last night the hubby and I headed out to the Santa Monica Civic Center to see Rilo Kiley. I’ve seen them a handful of times now and each time I come away awed by their performance. Last night was no exception. The had a great mix of old stuff and new stuff and the crowd was involved straight through. I’ve wanted to include the youtube of their “I Love LA” encore below so you can get a feel for the show, but it kept messing up my formating – sorry. I wish I could say that The Bird & The Bee and San Diego’s Grand Ole Party were as impressive.

To be fair, I wasn’t a The Bird & The Bee fan prior to the show – regardless of how often they may pop up in the hubby’s iPod mix. Many of you may know of The Bird & The Bee from their contribution, “Again & Again” to the Grey’s Anatomy soundtrack or their ’06 dance hit (and crowd favorite) “Fucking Boyfriend.” Again, can’t say that I’m a fan, though I do appreciate their stage presence and costumes – who knew that singer, Inara George was such a style maven (then again, I totally didn’t get last night’s ensemble).

I was actually kind of digging Grand Ole Party a bit (they sound great on their MySpace) they were playing with everything they had in them. Usually, this is a good thing, but at this venue (only half-filled during their opening performance) such a loud volume just bounced around the venue and sounded quite hollow and empty and loud – very, very loud. I’m sure at a smaller venue they’d sound much better. The drummer/ singer reminds me a lot of Exene Cervenka and I can’t decide if that’s a good thing or not.

The coolest thing about attending a Rilo Kiley show, outside of their performance, is the people watching. Typically, when you go to a concert, you see many young girls and women tramped out to the best of their abilities – the tighter, lower and shorter the better, you’d think. At a RiloKiley show, it’s not about getting trampy and showing as much skin as you can (though the girls do manage to show skin often enough), instead it’s about showing your unique and individual Style. You know, like everyone else. So yes, that means lots and lots of knitted wear, combat boots, black clothes, and that oh.so.fab. Olsen Twin’s look. Definitely interesting fashion choices to say the least.

Of course, this is all just a reminder of how tragically unhip I am. In the past, we’ve always been part of the older crowd at a Rilo Kiley show. Then again, they’re typically all ages shows out in Pomona (yes, I said out in Pomona!) I’m guessing that since last night was their last show here in the US, as well as a hometown, Santa Monica show, there were quite a few older adults around – and that wasn’t counting the “official” Warner Brother’s label crowd.

And just to cement how unhip and uncool I can be…we decided that since we were on West Pico that we should stop in at Don Antonio’s for dinner. Not that this alone made us uncool. No, it was the fact that we chose to check it out (instead of stopping one of our other west-side Mexican favorites) purely based on the fact that Spencer the dork, took Heidi the idiot there for not only their first date, but their “anniversary” dinner. Spencer referred to it as “life altering” so we thought we’d give it a go. It was good, but not exactly “life altering” and no, Speidi were not in attendance.

Bruuuuuce!

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My hubby is a die hard Bruce fan.  I mean the kind that will travel (within reason) to see more than one show on a tour.  In fact, we’ve got tix for both LA and San Francisco this tour already.  While I may be a Jersey Girl born and bred, I was unfortunately born a couple of years too late to worship at the pulpit of Brother Bruce.

In my defense, I was a freshman in high school during the Born in the USA heyday.  And well, let’s face it, that was such a commercial pop album that it’s not like it did much to turn me into a fan, especially considering I was already experimenting with Brit pop and the new wave scene (like any good, big-haired girl from Jersey in the 80’s!).  From there we had Nebraska and Atlantic City and all those depressing albums.  Me, I’m more of a River fan.  If you want me to enjoy Bruce, then give me the classic Bruce.

I’ve seen him three times since hooking up with the hubby and let me tell ya,  he puts on one helluva show.  I’m just not a die hard fan – much to the dismay of his online Bruce Fan friends.  No really, when the “Bruce folks” (as they’re referred to) talk about the hubby’s wife (being me) the first question asked is if I’m a fan.  Then comes the let down that I’m not only not a fan, but I’m a Jersey Girl.  Yeah, I’m a total disappointment to that group.  Luckily, they still love me, hubby included.  Of course, I’m sure he’d much rather I didn’t sing along to Brother Bruce at a full out scream, but hey, that’s half the fun for me (don’t ask).

So my point to this Bruuuuce post…why is it that my hubby, the guy that’s actually in the music industry and gets 2-25 CDs delivered a day (yes, a day!), had to have me run out to Best Buy to pick up the latest Bruce album today – the actual day of release?  Should I even mention the fact that he’s had a bootleg pre-release for a couple of weeks already? Eh well, it’s not like I had something better to do between loads hanging out at the laundromat today.