Space is the place Fred

                                                            If only...

This is just too good to not share: Fred Sanford meets Sun Ra. To truly appreciate its brilliance you need to be familiar with both Sanford and Son and Sun Ra, which probably rules out most everyone under forty--and many over forty if we're being honest, but its specificity just makes it that much better. Hearty thanks to whoever created it.

Tip o my hat to Jesse Walker.

April songs

via my twits, the songs of the day for April (each song is chosen on a particular day because of some historical event that happened on the day, or an anniversary of some sort on the day, or some current event of the day, but we will let the rationale fade away like tweets on the breeze):

4/30: devil in the bayou
4/29: if I only had a home sweet home
4/22: don't sell it don't give it away
4/16: hobo's life is lonely
4/15: Prisoner's lament
4/14: take your burden to the Lord and leave it there
4/9: The night they drove old Dixie down
4/7: loverman
4/6: Ain't misbehavin'
4/3: Jesse James
4/2: Bonnie and Clyde
4/1: I may be crazy but I ain't no fool

Dan Zanes for free for now

I insist on sharing this with you: a free Dan Zanes sampler at Amazon.

Ostensibly children's music, it is in fact good music that can be appreciated by everyone. It was recommended to me by a sharp two year old with good taste in Tennessee.

Zanes, as some of you considerably older than two might remember, was once part of The Del Fuegos. It's lots of fun and You should check it out while it's still available.

not failing better

1. Saw a couple of shows last week: William Elliot Whitmore and The Pogues. Both enjoyable though neither one blew me away. Which given my love for The Pogues is perhaps surprising. Others who saw the show absolutely loved it. It would be tempting to chalk it up to my tendency to be critical mixed with sobriety--who the hell sees The Pogues without having anything to drink?--but I don't think that accounts for it. Shane Macgown can still sing but he has clearly suffered some serious neurological damage as a result of many years of various types of self-abuse (it was interesting to see him having just read the Oliver Sacks book Musicophilia). He doesn't walk, he shuffles like a much older man and his speaking voice, unlike his singing voice, is often incomprehensible. Combine that with a little knowledge of the band's turbulent history and it couldn't help but color my perception of the show. I never got the feeling that they were truly happy being on stage playing their music. I hope I'm wrong. All that said, I'm glad I got to see them and I particularly enjoyed "Body of an American."

2. Although the economic shitstorm has rained on my household too, and we will certainly feel some pain next year, we have nonetheless enjoyed the fruit of some good fiscal karma. I am no longer propping up Citigroup so without any further government money they are sure to fail.

3. I'm no economist, thank you God, but I can't help but think that the shitstorm is the correction. And that while we may need to mitigate its worst effects we cannot simply wish it away by throwing money at it. We are being shortsighted. The most broken parts of the system truly need to fail for the longterm health of the system itself. But it appears we will continue trying to play the rigged game while avoiding the accounting.

treasure chest

Seriously. It's The Roots Music Listening Room. I found some things here that I'd been hunting for a while. And no doubt there's great stuff that will be completely new to me.

A tip: if you don't already use it, get DownThemAll for Firefox and you can download dozens of mp3's in seconds. It's really a useful tool.

2008 in music

I can't really do any sort of a top ten list for music as I don't make it a point to listen to enough new music. I did however listen to more new music in 2008 than I had in a long time...not that it's saying much. And I did hear at least some of most of the music that wound up on all the best of lists out there on the interwebs. So I can offer a few thoughts. First, 2008 was mostly about songs for me, rather than albums. I gather this is generally true these days thanks to ipods and downloading. I don't own an ipod but I do download stuff from Amazon as it's easy and cheap and there's none of the corporate drm bullshit you have to deal with at Itunes (though I understand that's going away and I applaud that while noting it's long overdue). Singles became the thing for me because the bar where I spent too much of my free time has one of those internet jukeboxes. They are ingeniously designed to separate drunks from their money. Most of the songs I listened to in that context were older songs but it did get me in a song sort of mindset. And what I found when I began checking out the newer music was that there were lots of good songs but not so many good albums. And that's ok I think.

Frankly I can't remember everything I listened to, but off the top of my head the two new albums I listened to, and enjoyed, the most in 2008 were:

Brighter Than Creation's Dark by The Drive By Truckers
Stay Positive by The Hold Steady

Neither is great from start to finish. The DBT is a double album and with the proper editing would have been one great record. There are a number of songs I skip when listening to it. But the good songs, man, they are good. Stay Positive has a handful of great songs, the kind that make an old fella like me smile and feel a little less cynical. There are lines from this album that stick in my head: "I was a skeptic at first but these miracles work" and "Let this be my annual reminder that we can all be something bigger" and a number of others. There are a few castaways but overall the batting average is impressive on this record.

There were a few others I listened to a fair bit but they yielded mostly singles. In no particular order some of my favorite new songs were:

Lights Out by Santogold
I like this album but it's really two very different EPs stuck together in one package and they don't always get along. One identity is ready for pop-stardom what with the beats and the dancing and all, and the other is reliable guitar-based indie-rock that owes a nod, like all its brethren, to the Pixies. Both have their merits. This song is bubble gum, but it's guitar based bubble gum and it's really good.

Time to Pretend by MGMT
I ought to hate this song. Pretentious skinny guys who aren't nearly as clever as they seem to think, and all the keyboards and whatnot, but I can't help it. This is a great song. I don't care for the album it comes from, but this is a great song. The hook is great and the production suits the material perfectly. I heard it once in a bar not knowing what it was and it took me far too long to find it hiding in plain sight.

Bag of Hammers by Thao
More tasty guitar based pop with a gal singing. Yeah it fits the mold of music for ipod commercials but it's edgier than say...Feist. A number of good songs on this album.

Good Time by Alan Jackson
I have been forced to admit that not all contemporary country music is terrible. Most of it is. But not all of it. No one is likely to suggest that this be placed alongside the best of Hank or JC, but it does what it sets out to do, and its intentions are good. It took hearing it in a bar with a number of drunks happily singing along for me to realize that. I'm glad I did.

The More I Drink by Blake Shelton
See above, though thus far I would not say Shelton measures up to Jackson or, God help me, Toby Keith. If you actually listen to this song, it's kind of an odd candidate to be a hit: an upbeat, sing-along argument for sobriety.

Paper Planes by MIA
Hard to go wrong when you steal most of your song from the Clash--and I don't say that with any derision. A very unlikely hit to say the least.

Stay Positive by The Hold Steady
This song is written for aging ex-punk dudes. Kinda hard to pull this off but they manage it without irony. I think.

The Righteous Path by The Drive By Truckers
One of several really good songs on this record. This one really captures a number of people I hold very dear.

And some old songs that were either new to me or that I got reacquainted with:

54-46 was my number by Toots and the Maytals
Atlantic City by Springsteen
Mama Tried by Merle Haggard
Shotgun by Junior Walker
Chug a lug by Roger Miller
How do you like me now? by Toby Keith
Jump in the line by Harry Belafonte
Tequila Shiela by Bobby Bare
Just a Gigolo/I ain't go nobody by Louis Prima
Bo Mambo by Yma Sumac
Six Appeal (My daddy rocks me) by Charlie Christian

And that's just off the top of my head. There were many more. It was a rich year in music listening even as it was a slack year in music making. I resolve to balance that out in aught-nine.

off to see the carnies

Well I'm off to Gibtown pals. Be back in a few days.

In other news, The Pogues are coming to Atlanta in March. How bout that? That makes two of my favorite acts ever in the course of one year.

clogged up

I have been mentally/emotionally/creatively constipated. That's how it feels anyway. My projects have been mostly domestic as of late and don't require constant tending. Routine and I have never been on the best of terms, except perhaps in the gym where I believe fervently in the amazing power of consistency, and even there lately the returns on investment have been poor. The weather will change.

Lately I have been enjoying a few songs:

54-46 was my number by Toots and the Maytals
Good Time by Alan Jackson
Paper Planes by MIA (can't go too far wrong sampling Straight to Hell by the Clash)
Mojo Box by Southern Culture on the Skids

My music habits as of late have tended toward songs rather than albums, in part due to the Jukebox in my favorite bar, and in part because of Itunes. Listening to so many singles has perhaps made me a bit impatient with songs that lack strong hooks. I've also been hearing the latest hip-hop singles at the new gym where that tends to be the radio of choice. It is a vast improvement over the music at the previous gym. Sometimes the latest popular rock songs are on and I find them to be no fun at all. Melodramatic, pointlessly angry, the same boring sorts of structures and chord progressions. No fun. The hip-hop on the other hand rarely fails to sound like a good time. Many of the songs have strong hooks and some approach structure in interesting ways. Hence the MIA tune, and a few others I recognize but don't know the names of.

I have also enjoyed hanging out with old friends the last three weekends. Thanks friends.

One night in Bangkok

I stumbled upon a reference to this today and my vague memory of it compelled me to listen for a minute.

Oh, the 80s. The hideous production values of music in the eighties are instantly recognizable. Many a good song was ruined. This is not a good song.

Tom Waits in Atlanta

So I saw Tom Waits last night at the Fox.

It was fucking awesome.

This was the Waits show I'd been waiting to see. Especially after I found the show two years ago a bit underwhelming. If I ever get the chance to see Waits with one of the classic Ribot/Carney/Taylor/Cohen/Blair lineups I will be able to die happy, but last night's show will tide me over until then.

Some random thoughts:

1. The stage design was really neat.

2. The sound was good. There was no clarity in the low end at the beginning but the soundman quickly got it straightened out. I don't know if the acoustics in the Fox are especially good or not, but we were sitting about five rows behind the soundman right in the center of the room. Pretty much the sweet spot.

3. I liked the set list. Or rather I was almost indifferent to the set list. They did not play any number of my favorite songs--did not play either of my two favorite Waits tunes in fact--but it didn't matter. The band was on, and I knew I would enjoy anything they played.

4. Vincent Henry is a talented feller. He invoked Rahsaan Roland Kirk with his double sax playing. He played a mean harmonica too. Shit I even liked his clarinet playing and I'm not a huge fan of the clarinet.

5. Omar Torres did a good job on guitar. There's a lot riding on the guitar player in a Tom Waits band and frankly I was worried. I heard some of his solo stuff and it's not my thing. It made me wonder how he'd approach the Waits tunes. There was no need to worry. He handled the material admirably and when he added a little something of his own to the mix it worked without being obtrusive. I'm thinking in particular of the Latin sounding acoustic work he used to introduce "All the world is green." It was nice. As was the trading fours he did with the drummer and the keyboard player during "Hoist that rag."

6. Casey Waits has improved. He was a bit of a liability two years ago, playing above his head. But now he's a reliable part of the fabric even if he doesn't do anything particularly noteworthy.

7. Larry Taylor, longtime Waits collaborator, joined the band on guitar for two songs. He was supposed to be the bass player on this tour but apparently had to cancel at the last moment. His replacement Seth Ford-Young does a fine job.

8. You really do have to experience his voice live. I've been listening to Tom Waits since 1985 when Rain Dogs came out* and I cherish his recorded music but hearing him use his voice live is just essential. It's an astounding instrument.

* I bought Rain Dogs on vinyl in 1985 because I saw an ad for it in Rolling Stone and thought the picture in the ad looked cool. It wasn't the album cover but another picture that actually had Waits in it. I vaguely remember putting the record on and being absolutely baffled. What was this? What's he doing? I put it away. I came back to it about a year later after the noisy likes of Husker Du and Black Flag had broken me in and suddenly I could hear Rain Dogs. Oh! That's what he's doing! And it was great. And it still is.

Junebox

Dreamtime Jukebox for June.

6/1: Wiggle It by (had to look this up) 2 in a room. Thankfully segued to It's Not Unusual by Tom Jones.

This was one of those mornings where I wake up scratching my head and wondering where the fuck that came from. K-tel, or someone, needs to put together a compilation of one hit wonders with anatomical themes. Or even just an album devoted to ass songs. The ass album. Where is the Harry Smith of ass songs? He's out there somewhere. You know he is.

6/2: Don't touch me tomato by George Symonette (the video I've linked to is a tacky homemade effort that plays on "tomato," & may be NSFW. I use it because it has the audio of the entire song)

This was on a Calypso sampler I got from the public library. It was a surprisingly good disc. This is a fun song. I've always meant to delve more into the history of Calypso but have yet to get around to it.

6/4: How do you like me now? by Toby Keith

The folks in my favorite bar like much of the good music that I play on the jukebox. They also like Toby Keith. Having heard more of it than I ever thought I would I must grudgingly admit that he is a serviceable contemporary country star. He is capable of crafting a good hook ( I believe he actually writes much of his own material--a rarity in Nashville these days) and his voice is tolerable. He is too willing to pander to the lowest common denominator (hence his popularity) but there are worse things to be encountered in the jukebox.

6/5: Scythian Empires by Andrew Bird

This is one of my favorite songs of the last two or three years. Like much of Bird's stuff it features impeccable craftsmanship, a sticky melody and an intellectual opacity that is dreamlike, or, dreamy if you prefer.

6/6: Take the place by The Rent Boys

The Rent Boys were an Atlanta band that I never did get to see live. It's a shame.

6/8: The Limbo Song by Frankie Anderson

6/9: Werewolves of London by Warren Zevon

One of those songs I don't hear too often but I always enjoy when I do.

6/15: Long Haired Country Boy by Charlie Daniels

6/16: King of the Road by Roger Miller

I know I heard this song as a child, but my first real memory of it came much later. On a warm summer evening my Ma and a few of her condo cronies were out in their courtyard drinking beer and soaking their feet in a tub and singing this song. But they couldn't remember all the words. So someone went inside and found them on the internet and they were able to sing the whole song. Through rigorous empirical testing I have since confirmed that this song is indeed a great drunken sing-a-long. I have also learned to appreciate Roger Miller as more than a novelty.

6/17: The Body of an American by The Pogues

Such a good song and tells a great story. I remember how surprised I was to hear it used on The Wire during the barroom Irish wake. It was used so well in that scene, and sounded so good, that I wondered why I didn't listen to it more over the years. Maybe because it was on an E.P. (Poguetry in Motion if I recall) rather than one of the classic L.P.s. But it's become a staple for me since. After all, I'm a free-born man of the USA.

6/19: Don't Think Twice, It's Alright covered by Waylon Jennings

This is young Waylon and he does a really good job with this tune. I'd never heard his version before but it popped up on Pandora and I liked it enough to buy it. Need to check out more of his older stuff like this, the pre-Outlaw years. I dig his voice.

dreamtime jukebox for May

So, I've been keeping track of the songs that are in my head when I wake up. I thought it might be fun to keep a record because of the number of times I've woken up and wondered where in the hell this or that particular song came from. Sometimes it's obvious, but occasionally it's a real mystery. Perhaps it has something to do with memory consolidation? Who knows. What also interests me is the way my brain pieces together separate pieces of music. It sometimes recognizes connections I would not have consciously noted. One song might be connected to another rhythmically or harmonically or melodically and though I might not always get it at first, I can hear it if I listen carefully to the weirdness in my head for just a moment. And sometimes it's novel and pleasing.

5/18: Odds and Ends from the Basement Tapes by Dylan and The Band. Mental mashup: I Hate Myself for Loving You by Joan Jett. A weird one. This is one of my favorite songs from the Basement Tapes. I would not have heard the Joan Jett connection but it works. The Jett comes in right after the Dylan line "lost time is not found again." I think it's the rhythm of the Dylan melody that suggests the later melody. If I cared enough I'd get out a guitar and figure it out, but I don't. I'll take my brain's, and my ear's, word for it.

5/19: Torn and Frayed from Exile on Main Street. I like this song and I really love this album. Seriously, it's probably in the top five. The critical consensus is right on this one. This is one of those songs where I realize I probably don't know the actual words but have sort of made up my own. Jagger downplays Exile but it's probably because a) Keith is all over this record and b) Mick had already become a nancy-boy by this point, content to marry into the world of the trendy jet set.

5/20: Straight to Hell by Drivin n' Cryin segeuing later into Sitting on the Dock of the Bay by Otis Redding. The only Drivin n' Cryin song I really ever have a desire to hear. Not that I know all that many of them. Saw them once in the late eighties in Atlanta back when they were perpetually on the verge of making it big. They never did. Still a great song, all chorus. Does anyone even know the words to the verses? I don't think I do. The Otis tune is what it is at this point. I think both tunes are in G and that's probably how they got knotted in my head. It's a fine song, mind you, and Steve Cropper is one of my two or three favorite guitar players but there are a bunch of other Stax songs I'd want to hear before this one. I think I'd recently read something about Otis's death too and it's hard to hear this song without thinking about that.

5/21: Nothing initially, but then Straight to Hell bubbled up to the surface and quickly mashed up with Okie From Muskogee. That DNC chorus really is catchy, not surprised that it's stuck for a second night. The Haggard song is a favorite. Also in G I believe, hence the mixing. Both great to sing along with too, as long as you fudge the verses of the Drivin n' Cryin. I grew up hearing lots of Merle Haggard, and though I don't care for a lot of the crying in my beer stuff, I love most of the rest of it (this is probably true of my taste in country music generally). He had a few good songs in the 80's as well, but the production styles of the day weren't kind to him (shoot, weren't kind to most). I'd like to hear some of those songs recorded properly. By the way, did you note that the fine folks of Muskogee recently elected a 19 year old mayor? Have things changed out there?

5/22: Three Dimes Down by the Drive By Truckers. One of the few real rockers on this most recent DBT album. In my limited experience, I tend to prefer the Mike Cooley songs. You can hear the Stones and the Skynyrd in this one from the get go. This album had been in regular rotation for me for a few months now, so no surprise that this should bubble up.

5/23: Liquored Up and Lacquered Down by SCOTS. I've been revisiting them lately, mostly via the jukebox at my favorite joint. I have to wait until it clears out a bit before I play them as they are a bit much for some of the older folks. I have managed to win them at least one new fan though. There are plenty of Southern Culture on the Skids songs that I can take or leave but I've always admired them. They do a number of different things really well and their schtick keeps it all tied together. Rick Miller is a seriously underrated guitar player. I like this tune for the Mexican sounding horns and the surprise they add to the song.

5/24: Perfect Timing by the Drive By Truckers. I really like this song, another Cooley tune. What a great line: "I used to hate the fool in me, but only in the morning. Now I tolerate him all day long."

5/29: I'll Take You There by the Staple Singers segeuing to Junior Walker's cover of Money (that's what I want). Don't need to say much about either of these classics. Probably something about the bass lines and the vocal stylings that suggests the pairing.

5/30: Brazen by the Heartless Bastards. I really dig these guys. I don't listen to them all that much and I'm not sure why, so when I was cleaning up and stumbled on this I put it in the car to make sure it would get some ear-time. They aren't much in the way of a live band as I recall--she comes off as painfully shy on stage and her rhythm section is a bit subdued in their stage presence--but the records manage to capture her voice and the way it drives the very simple, straight forward songs.

Hmmm. Looking at it now, nothing too surprising or odd really. Dylan and Joan Jett maybe, but I expected something a bit kookier. I suspect that I tend to remember the anomalies more than the stuff you'd expect to find. Still, kind of a fun exercise that I'll keep up for a bit.

should have stuck to whiskey

It would seem a new weekend is upon me. Seems like the last one just ended. It was eventful, relatively speaking:

1. Had four days off in a row. Whew.

2. Finalized some wedding stuff and made good progress on other wedding stuff.

3. Went to the baseball game and, despite using sunblock, got badly sunburned. This left me ill and feverish for a couple of days. The Braves lost.

4. Ate something that left my plumbing amiss. Either chicken or sausage or chicken sausage. I'm not sure.

5. Wound up longing for the relative comfort of a hangover. You'd think I might have managed to acquire one with four days off and all. But no, just sunburn and diarrhea.

6. Saw Why Are We Building Such A Big Ship? at Mondohomo, an annual event here in Cabbagetown. Saw them in the last of the daylight in a little park with no amplification. It was nice. The band is from New Orleans. They are good. The wiry little hobbit who leads them plays a mean accordion and has the sort of voice I appreciate. He's talented. His horn section was, at times, not up to the material. He shouldn't have any trouble finding talented horn players in New Orleans. See them should you ever get the chance.

7. Now I am home with a sore throat. And a bulldog.

more Bird

Another Andrew Bird piece in the Times. Good stuff about the sausage making of music:

Writing songs and performing live have with time become almost the same process for me. The improvisation and conversation with the audience from show to show keep the songs fluid and alive. On the other hand, making a record is like a show that gets drawn out over a year or more, but with no cathartic resolution. When I’m in the studio things can quickly unravel and that’s not surprising. The audience has disappeared and you are given the attractive, but dangerous option to control everything.

And the tricky act of recording vocals:

Recording vocals can be fraught with aural illusions akin to the weirdness of hearing your own voice on your answering machine. ”That’s not me, is it?” You sing into a device that converts your voice into an electric current, which travels through wires and gadgets to a tape machine. You scrutinize that voice, make adjustments to your proximity to the microphone, switching between “head voice” and “chest voice.” When you belt it out it almost always sounds thin and small but when you sing quiet, close and intimate it sounds thick, warm and huge — but then it can lose gusto. Recording is full of counterintuitive stuff like this, so you can see how quickly the original sentiment of a song can get derailed.

Good stuff. I am surprised at some of the distinctions he draws between performing and recording, but knowing his music and having seen him live, I can hear how those distinctions work for him. I'm just not sure that it has to be that way.

popless

For a number of weeks now I've been reading "Popless" by Noel Murray over at the Onion AV Club. The idea of Popless is that Murray takes a year off from listening to new music and works his way alphabetically through his collection, weeding and reflecting as he goes. I find myself scoffing at many of his critical choices but I enjoy reading it. I find his personal tastes rather tepid (too much bland pop and rock for me) but he knows his tastes and the limits they impose and is not afraid to be honest about it. Many critics could learn from this. I appreciate the reasonable character that comes through in his prose.

He must also be just about my age and his musical story sounds fairly similar to mine (some of the early parts anyway) so there's a fair bit of overlap there and it's fun to see how someone else reacted to many of the same records and trends I was reacting to. For instance, Murray acknowledges what a huge influence Husker Du was but then admits that he never listens to them anymore. Ditto.

Buried in all the writing about music from week to week is an autobiography of sorts, and while I might find that irritating and solipsistic coming from some critics, it works here, in part because it's in the background and in service of exploring the music and his necessarily subjective tastes. Plus, he seems like a nice guy, if a bit straightlaced at times. I could've been his friend in high school or college but I think eventually I would've gotten him in trouble or scared him off.

If you want to read back through it you'll have to search around the site a bit as there's no one archive for the feature. Which seems shortsighted somehow.

tired Tom Waits fan

That's about how I feel at the moment. I have dragged my sorry ass out of bed early this morning, on my day off, to try and score some Tom Waits tickets. We'll see how it goes. On the last tour I wasn't crazy about the fit between the music and Duke Robillard's guitar stylings. It was fine mind you, and I enjoyed the show, but Marc Ribot is the Tom Waits guitar player as far as I'm concerned. And having checked out the new guy for this tour I'm a little skeptical. He seems slick: too rounded, smooth surfaces, no grit. But we'll see.

addendum: the early bird gets the ridiculously expensive worm. I guess it'll be a wedding present to ourselves.

a moment of excessive confidence

Andrew Bird on the process of writing music:

The only thing that separates a mess of seemingly disparate observations and a song is a moment of excessive confidence. As time goes on words and ideas begin to catch and gather around the original suspiciously arbitrary seeds of inspiration. There are times when I must admit that all the verse has in common with the chorus is that they both came out of my imagination, but isn’t that enough?

That is some profound shit. In a modest way. I am a big fan.

six-word song reviews

I have been enamored of economical literary forms of late. Haiku and six-word memoirs have both provided some fun. I've also checked out four-word movie reviews but these fail to deliver much of substance most of the time. And today I stumbled on this quite impressive summary of the recent SXSW festival:

Six-word reviews of 763 SXSW MP3s.

This is good stuff. Most of his reviews manage to give me an idea of what I might expect from the song, and hence the band. I haven't taken the time to test his reviews by actually listening to the songs, as, frankly, I don't really care. I suspect his taste and mine would frequently diverge, but I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt as his average rating of the 763 songs is 2.42 out of a possible 5. That sounds about right to me. And more importantly, some of the six-word reviews are fucking hilarious.

Some examples plucked from the first few:

That’s how to rob Pink Floyd.

Alas, George Thorogood remains at large.

The bitch is gone. Move on.

Goddam demons, get out my yard!

Theme for cable show about douchebags.

Like Guided by Drive By Truckers.

The jokes are funnier when you see the song title and/or the band name. His interspersed series of statistical graphs and charts and trivia and such are pretty clever too. Definitely worth a browse.

oh boy

I'm sorry but I can't resist. This is just too fucking funny.

3/10/08: doing alright

A few noteworthy events from recent days:

1) We saw Flogging Molly and I was relieved that they still put on a good show. They are a true touring band now and the good and the...not bad really, inevitable, shall we say, of that was evident. They were crisp and polished and their energy was unflagging. They still rock. Dave King has become quite the showman, he's kind of an Irish Sammy Davis Jr. with his tie and his glasses and his "let's hear it Atlanta!" exhortations. Worth seeing if you have the chance. The crowd was enthusiastic and mostly attitude free, which was nice.

2) We ate at the new Cajun/Louisiana/New Orleans restaurant in Decatur: The Depeaux. They've done a nice job with the old train depot there by the tracks. The food is good and the drinks were too. They even ship their bread in from Leidenheimer's in New Orleans.

3) My sweetie put a Ketel One nail in the coffin of her teetotaling past. We were at Billy Bob's celebrating her friend's birthday and she decided to have a drink. She enjoyed it and had a good time. She was a little hungover the next day too so she got the entire package. She reports no regrets. I don't expect she will make a habit of it however and that's a good thing, but it is nice to push one's boundaries in small ways now and again.

4) Our wedding invitations arrived and will be going out shortly (the nice ones anyway--I've designed my own and they too will be distributed at some point) so keep an eye on the mailbox.