March 27, 2005
Orchestra Baobab
On the way to the concert I was rising up 9th Steet and passed by a ragged looking woman on in-line skates, the great part is that she was doing the old old lady shuffle and was using a quad cane. A sight to behold. Why in-line skates I question myself… Yay The City.
Trying to get into my Tennis groove again, been playing some with work folks, with the private courts and what-not in my apartment complex I guess I better be using them. My shoulder’s a little sore but I’m starting to come back into my element with my serve, bwing a bit more pragmatic - going for some touch rather than trying to smash the shit out of the ball. Worked out pretty well today, my lobs still such though. Only pansies practice lobs.
Orchestra Baobab is amazing. I first heard of them on a compilation that I picked up. I heard their song and was transfixed, listened to it over and over, and as any good compilation listener would do, bought the original album which I dig a lot. Finally had my first chance to see them live courtesy of SFJAZZ which brings a great set of concerts to San Francisco. Ravi Shankar and Sonny Rollins coming up.
On the way back from the show I made my way past some other concert venues in order to buy tix for Soulive as well as Yonder Mountain String Band. Wow, concerts are in full swing for me. Ultimate tryouts happening. Utah trips going on. Jazz Fests to be had. Before I know it it’ll be time for Reggae on the River and High Sierra Music Festival.
It’ll be pretty good.
Today I tried to make a big bomb out of little bombs. Well, the little white snappy popper firework-ish jobs that you throw on the ground and they pop. I was trying to empty a lot of the explosive rocks out of a few boxes worth and put them in a frisbee but I got bored halfway through and now I have a semi-explosive frisbee sitting on my shelf. I actually had a little pile of the rocks blow up when I wasn’t too careful with it and it rang my ears. Never pour explosive rocks on other explosive rocks. Just slide them next to each other, Much safer.
When I’m biking I like to scare drivers that don’t use their turn signals and I like to get in the way of them, as well. Am I evil?
March 24, 2005
Jamie Janover Pics
The pics from tuesday night are up here
March 23, 2005
K + D Cab
Word, the cabbie that brought me home from the aforementioned show was playing Kruder and Dorfmeister. Nice and mellow, I don’t think I wuold have ever managed to catch a cabbie playing Downbeat in Boston. I have had some good-to-talk-to cabbies in Boston but SF is hands-down hipper.
Waiting for my photos from the show to download from the camera, I love my long lens, it’s great for Ulty and it’s great for concerts. Now I just need a fast short lens and a fish-eye and I’ll be super golden on the photo tip.
Speaking of, I’ve been meaning to read this.
Shower… Sleep… (well, maybe browse through the pictures real quick)
Send out good vibes to my grandma in Germany, she’s doin’ the hospital thing. I feel so far away. Maybe I should have gone to my grandpa’s 90th Birthday a few weeks ago… Long flight from the West Coast be damned.
March 22, 2005
Concert List Revived
I’ve revived my running list of shows I want to go to or am considering going to or would go to if I was in town. Y’all kids give a shout if ya wanna get together for any of these.
http://dirtmine.com/volker/concerts.txt
Blog My Conincidences
First off something I’ve been meaning to put out there since last night when I bought a few things at the local Safeway supermarket. Included in the purchase was a pint of B&J’s Cherry Garcia ice cream.
I payed with a credit card… I was a bit confused when the cashier told me “Thank you Mister Cherry and have a nice night…”
A few seconds of staring at my receipt and it all made sense.
Soo… coincidcences, my guy Jacob I from Boston-town is rolling through SF for a week or two, I caught up to him briefly at a happening, hugely attended underground-ish pary that got busted by the cops last Saturday, I need to plug into that scene a little more maybe, I’ll wait for Shane to get back and bug him about it :) Anyway, Jacob is gonna VJing at a concert at 12 Galaxies tomorrow (tues) night and there’s a VCR deck that needs to be picked up from the house where I live… ok. So a little while later I’m waiting outside with the deck and this guy Jamie shows up in a car, tells me he’s playing the hammer dulcimer tomorrow night, some kinda live electronia feel to the show, I should check it out… So I check out the venue’s site and it takes me to Jamie’s site and as I cruise to check out a few pictures — uhm, woah, I’ve totally seen this guy play. He was set up in the shade all day at Berkfest 2002 when I trekked out there with OGD and Mista Mista. Ahhh, full circle, I reckon I’ll try to bring my camera along tomorrow night to see what I can’t do with my new setup in a concert setting. Moral of the story, it’s hard to forget a hammer dulcimer player.
March 15, 2005
Musica Colombiana
My friends May-Li and Federico recently co-hosted a radio show on KEXP - select March 14 between 6:35pm and 8:10pm to listen to their selections. Supa-nice and informative to listen to.
March 07, 2005
Ultimate: Day Two
Day two of my SFUC photos starts here.
March 06, 2005
Kudos to [tmo]
Thanks so much for setting up the soultimate.com — we need to work on an index page for that server… (and doug, thanks for anize) what I’m refering to in particular is the gallery install with plenty of space where I got to put today’s photos of the
2005 SFUC Winter League Tournament
It was nice to take the Canon 20D for a spin, a lot of old habits to break, a lot of new ones to enforce to get good shots. I’m pretty happy with the outcome and I guess it only gets better from here. To think I used to shoot with manual focus with my old Canon AE-1 and without focus at all on my Nikon Coolpix 880. I’d just set it to 15ft focus and open up the aperture and hope for the best, the results weren’t horrible but this new camera is a lot smoother, plus the 5 frames per second sure is nice. It’s not crazy amazing in the camera world but to me it’s pretty novel and new.
I was hoping to pick up with a team but everyone had enough players, especially on the beach (5-on-5) so I juts dedicated my day to the camera. All in all I’m pretty happy with the results and there was still some good hanging out to be had.
Over some Panang Curry on my way home I was flipping through the SF Weekly and came across concert listings for Ravi Shankar, Orchestra Baobab, and Steve Turre doing a Rahsaan Roland Kirk tribute. Palabra! Add that to the Yonder Mountain String Band and the Drive By Truckers shows coming up and I don’t feel so bad that I missed Matisyahu. It is too bad that I didn’t know that Amy Bowles was playing out here 2 weeks ago with Sam Kininger — I ran into her and Aaron and Sam and the rest of the gang on Haight Street the day after the gig. Ooops. Wish I had known about the show :( Something to aspire to…
Movies on the list: Hotel Rwanda and Inside Deep Throat
