other places

Enough of culinary goodness and conversation as I leave the house to walk in the woods where the palette is grey and grey and brown under the relentless clear azure to be alone with the thoughts and with God because people are exhausting as much as I enjoy them and it feels strange to have this much time unstructured, time to be alone and hover in that transitional time of years turning over and living out of a backpack at the homes of others while my life's possessions reside in boxes and in piles for others to sort through to see if they need anything or can give it to someone who does.

I played around with the new baritone guitar because the people downstairs weren't home, though all my attempts at real songwriting were really nothing except noise and noodling. A few adjustments of the tone and reverb resulted in a pleasing crunch of distortion and satisfying waves of sludgy wavering tremolo like the blackened waves of Lake Erie breaking on the littered beach, the coherence elusive.

there's not much to say, just the unexpressible.

playlist 4/14/09

My playlist is at home, but here's what I remember. I'll fill in the blanks later (edit- now updated).

dj cam - he's gone (kid loco remix)
common - geto heaven pt. 2
see-i - why not tonight
pharaoh's daughter - yona
blockhead - serenade
martina topley-bird - sandpaper kisses
a. r. rahman - innisai
habib koite - i ka barra
boubacar traore - baba drame
funkadelic - maggot brain
mifune - be human
kokolo afrobeat orchestra - more consideration
extra golden - street parade
chambers brothers - people get ready (live)
love - 7 + 7 is / alone again or
rem - drive
cream - pressed rat and warthog (request)
love battery - dayglo / see your mind
the dirtbombs - earthquake heart
amadou & mariam - masiteladi
joe strummer - get down moses
zani diabate -

I've been so emotionally up and down the past week that I didn't even feel like coming in that morning. This has always been one of my favorite bits of guitar playing since I was 15 and use to listen to WMMS and WNCX on headphones prior to discovering the goodness of college radio. If you haven't listened to this, you need to RIGHT NOW.



I think it's an interesting indicator of the listening audience that I get a request for Ice Cube last week and one for Cream this week.

rock and/or roll

So when someone asked me what I did this weekend, I had to think a second, because I'm sleepy as anything and that extra day makes everything blurry.

We ended up going to the Tremont art walk to see his friend's stuff, which was pretty cool, fashioning a living room on a footbridge over I-90 was something I never thought of but was completely amazing.



Watched some African kids dance and some capoeira guys do their thing, walked from Tremont downtown across the Lorain-Carnegie bridge, got there just in time for Joe Satriani.

While some of it was a smidge too 80's for me, I really enjoyed it, and realized I had never heard anything by him, ever, probably got him mixed up with Steve Vai. The guy is crazy gifted, and kept it interesting style-wise, with elements of blues, jazz, flamenco. He looked like he was having a great time too, didn't seem pretentious at all. And it was free.



It took me back when I was 15 and spent my lonely summers attempting to learn every Led Zeppelin riff in my parents' basement and digging through old copies of Guitar World, back before I discovered punk rock and decided I didn't care about Lydian modes anymore.

Otherwise this weekend... hung out with the little kids who were being all crazy, spent some time with the sisters, went on an early morning take-pictures-of-weird-stuff venture, which was very successful.



the weirdest backyard pet grave ever besides this one:



Creepy zombie plaster couple.



Ice Cream truck parking lot



King Kong shakes his fist at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo:



Giant Inflatable Fish!

haha!

So my friend Paul calls me up and evidently he's got free tickets to Joe Satriani. Confessing serious musical ignorance here, but I think I've only heard one Joe Satriani song in my life, but hey, what the heck. Guy's a good guitar player, right?

And those one-hit-wonders of 70's rock, Mountain, are opening.

This is going to be completely hilarious and amazing.