Archive for May 2006

This’ll be a busy month for me traveling-wise.  I’m going out to California for a little visit, that’s coming up real soon here, then later in the month I’m going to Yellowstone!  With my dad and his wife, and one of my nephews, who’s 11 years old.  I’m so excited.  The Cali trip is all about the chillin’ and hanging out with friends, and the Yellowstone trip is about spending time with family, and taking pictures of nature-y things.  I’m such a city gal, it’s pretty crazy to imagine myself out in the middle of all that… just miles and miles of dirt and cactus and stuff.  Hee!!  I have no idea what it’s like, I’ve never done nothin’ like that.  So I’m very psyched.  And rumor has it I’ll have at least some internet access for my laptop.  And another cool thing is that my dad’s gonna loan me his spare digital camera for that trip.  It’s a way WAY better camera than the one I’ve got, and you know I’m a gadget freak so I’m going to want to fiddle with that thing as much as I can.  So you can definitely expect lots of action on my Flickr this summer!

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I want to talk about a particular music-related collectomania of mine.  Well actually it’s such a deep and narrow subgenre of music that it’s hard to even call myself a collector, seein’ as how I can pretty much count these albums on one hand!  Okay.  I don’t know of a good term for this music so I just refer to it as "ambient country".  Which is a horrible term I admit, but it’s the best I could do.  This music, it’s kinda like Brian Eno but with guitars.  It has to be instrumental, and it must be sparsely arranged.  It should evoke rattlesnakes and desert landscapes that drone on and on.  It should incorporate touches of slide guitar, steel guitar or maybe both.  So anyway here’s my very short list of albums I love that more or less fall into the category I’m describing.  If you can think of other albums along the same lines, post a comment!

• Ry Cooder Paris Texas soundtrack (the granddaddy of ‘em all!)
• Loren Mazzacane-Connors In Pittsburgh (Rian Murphy turned me on to this back in ‘96 when we were recording my first album)
• A Small Good Thing Slim Westerns (which I discovered back in the glory days of Napster)
• World Standard Country Gazette (same thing)
• Bruce Kaphan Slider (which John W. turned me on to)
• Bill Frisell Ghost Town (an Eric Z. turnon)

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My favorite favorite band in the whole wide world ever ever ever, Lanterna.  Live in the front room at the Abbey Pub

This is maybe only funny if you happen to know a lotta cuss words in Spanish.  But anyway I am a minor fan of the internet phenomenon known as La Caida de Edgar.

You can watch the original.
You can watch it with subtitles.
You can watch it with effects.
You can watch it backwards.
You can hear the remix.
You can hear the Super Freak remix.
Edgar the Movie Reloaded!!
La Venganza de Edgar!!
The meme spreads around the globe.
Hilarity ensues.
It gets funnier the more you watch it.

Thank you, that is all.

Tara Jane O’Neil at Schuba’s

Me and Tara Jane O’Neil in the photo booth at Schuba’s

At the Lincoln Park Zoo…

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I finished a new song today (=yesterday), it’s a goodie.  Well, I have a demo but I’m gonna redo it.  Nathaniel’s coming over this weekend to help me snazz up the chords a little… I was envisioning this really smooth Wes Montgomery-ish guitar bed for my demo but I just couldn’t find all those jazzy passing chords on the fretboard.  I found the basic chords, more or less, but it’s just a little wack.  Nathaniel has the demo now so he’ll be able to figure out what I *meant* to play, hopefully.

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