angelic_22

Great to meet all of you and get to know your names! For those who don't already know, my name is Steve, but I also answer to 'Hey You', 'Hey Dude' and 'Who told you that you could bring that big-ass camera in here?' (I hope there isn't a quiz later, I'm so bad with names!)

We just got back from Austin, and are catching up on a LOT of stuff. Here are a couple of shots taken at Antone's during Bob Schneider's performance. I have a LOT of photos to go thru from this performance, and also from Saxon's Pub where the South Austin Jug Band performed. Ill post a few photos as I am able! We had a ball at Antone's and at Saxon's, and the music was..... indescribably delicious. Already craving next year's festival assuming the world doesn't end before then! These are some nutty times! So please enjoy a couple of photos and try to relax with some of your favorite music. Peace These shots were taken at Antone's during Bob's performace Bob Schneider at the keyboards. It just got better with every passing moment. Antone's is a very special club steeped in Austin musical history. In fact it's founder has been credited with getting the Austin music scene started in the first place way back in the day.... Antone was a very colorful character. He's gone now but his legacy lives on in the club that still resonates with some of Austin's best live music.

The Raconteurs are tonight!!!!! It won't be the same as seeing them in a smaller club in LA, but I am sure they will know exactly how to set the festival alight! The festival is a little dusty this year - its awfully dry here amazingly, but it has been a blast. We went back to Antone's last night to see 'Back Door Slam' and Jakob Dylan and his band. WOW! That was quite a night. After that show we went to another club for 'Band of Heathens' and got there in time for the last song or two of the set. This morning I woke up with a dozen wristbands and club stamps, and a guitar pick stuck to my forehead. (OK just kidding about that last part, but I thought it sounded amusing) So there we were in Antone's last night and Athena goes to use the rest room and who should be hanging out signing CDs? None other than Pinetop Perkins! I tell you, we keep bumping into Pinetop in all kinds of places. Athena purchased a couple of CDs which Pinetop kindly signed. He is such a great guy! Later we saw him leaving with three lovely ladies. He's in his 90's but I don't think he'll ever slow down! Before he left, he told Athena that he played Antone's with Muddy Waters back in the day. That place is steeped in history. (And for the margarita lovers out there that place makes the best! The barmaid explained that it was all about the limes. One smart barmaid!) Jakob Dylan and his band were sooooooo wonderful! Ill try to write more about the experience later but now its time for a quick shower, and then off to Threadgills for a sensible breakfast of fried pickle spears etc. Athena, Kay, Lizzy, Susan and I are having a blast here. This town simply adores live music. Thank God for places like this!

^ I guess that would have completed the ensemble but no, I was wearing tennis shoes. Maybe I'm only half a pod person! You made my night Ryan!

Athena just got back from the festival, looked at me and started laughing...... I guess I was a pretty amusing sight..... You see, I got some blisters on my feet from my thongs and decided that I needed to switch to shoes. Sadly I only brought black socks. So there I was on the computer in the hotel room, in black shorts and black socks just like the stereotypical tourist that I guess I am here in Austin. This stuff kind of creeps up on you - one minute you're relatively 'cool' and young, and the next thing you know you are in your late 40s and wearing black socks and shorts. Its blue-jeans tonight but I just wanted to offer my thoughts on this because not all of you have been taken by the 'pod people' yet and there may still be time to save yourselves! Purge the black socks from your wardrobe while there is still time! For God's sake, save yourselves!!!! And does anyone know where I can find some Bermuda shorts in Austin?

All signs point to it being a wonderful evening..... I went downstairs for a walk, and in the lobby of the hotel there is a guy playing "You don't know how it feels" on guitar. It really sounded great. I smiled and gave him a big thumbs up. He grinned back at me. Next, I stepped outside and Bob Dylan is playing on the PA system. Something about his voice is so reassuring and warm. Damn Bob's voice sounded great. he could be singing about anything and it would be just fine by me. After a short walk amongst the pecan and oak trees by the lake, surrounded by squirrels and blackbirds, I walk back into the hotel and the guy in the lobby is playing a Jakob Dylan wallflowers tune - 6th avenue heartache. Sometimes your 'friends' travel with you while you are on vacation. Those are the best trips aren't they? There is a great line in 'Almost Famous' - something about when you miss your friends you can just go to a record store and visit them. Here in Austin, they seem to make house calls! Smiling in Austin - Next, I order a steaming plate of TP&HB and a side of Raconteurs from room service! Ill put it on Athena's card, she won't mind!

Yes you would! (SOMEONE CALL SECURITY! There is some weird looking guy in shredded pants hanging out in the bar! Oh wait, nevermind, they are in the band!) And about that patch on the back side of Mike's pants - If you didn't know it were a patch you might think Mike had an accident...... (Dogs will sometimes do that when they get overly excited, and you just know how much Mike loves music and playing!) OK when Athena sees this she will probably hit me over the head with a rolled up newspaper for my comments! Im a bad puppy!

Can we get back to the part about doing mountains of coke and boinking fans? OK seriously, GH and I didn't exactly hit it off real good at first on Tom's bbs but I don't think we should vilify him / her for this post. GH's motivations are known only to GH and we shouldn't project our own suspicions. We might be terribly wrong and be causing grief to a fan like ourselves. I agree with what others have said about celebrities, how their fans often get carried away and intrude unacceptably into their lives. As for the media, well, they love nothing better than a nice juicy scandal. And if the 'scandal' isn't juicy enough they'll sometimes manufacture one to get ratings. That is why I joked in another thread about TMZ and hoping that Jeff Lynne didn't have a new mugshot Of course he didn't, but when you see a celeb's name in conjunction with some media outlets you are conditioned to expect the worst. So you can't really get upset when a celebrity draws a line as to how open they wish to be for themselves, their associates, and their family. OK that all being said, it is really a killer potato salad recipe and I am seriously put out that Tom has never called me to get the recipe Its really nummy, and is just the thing for late night snacking after a gig. Um, or so I claim. (Actually, Athena found the recipe and simply loves it. I am not a huge potato salad lover, but potato salad and cats were pre-existing conditions before we got married and I have learned to love both. This message has been brought to you by the potato salad council. EAT MORE POTATOS!) On another related topic (associated with psycho fans and cameras) I am off to a local club to see about photo access. Jacob Dylan is playing here in Austin tonight and we already have tickets. The venue and the artists kindly allowed me to take some still photos of Bob Schneider and his band last night and so I left the ACL festival early today to head to the club and talk to Jacob's folks..... Crossing fingers, but no matter what we are going to have A BALL at the show. Jacob and his band were really great yesterday in the park and the club tonight is tiny. This should be great. Some stills would be the cherry on the sundae Hmmm, maybe I can hide in the bushes ......... [edit: As retribution for not spelling Jakob's name correctly (K not C), I got turned down for photo access.... I thanked the folks for their consideration - the folks at the club were very kind and didn't need to even consider my request. Actually talking to Jakob's people was really cool on their part. Ill try to remember the show and post something about the experience when I can.]

Well, he's spent his entire life pouring his heart and soul into his music. As a fan I sure appreciate that. What more could fans reasonably want? I wasn't expecting anything more than to get a chance to listen to the music, and to see some of it happen live. But you are right, he hasn't once thrown a pot-luck at his place and invited all the fans! Damn, because we have a killer potato salad recipe

Happy Birthday! Hope the day is filled with sweetness.

Lance performing with the Knobs at SoHo in 07 The lighting at SoHo is tricky - like a lot of clubs there is more light on the performer's instruments, and less on their faces. Here Lance's face is illuminated almost entirely by the reflection of the stage lighting on his Bass. Sometime Ill have to try a gradient ND filter to help avoid overexposure at the bottom of the image.... Like I need another goodie to play with LOL!

I have to agree. Also think that this year's success had to do with quality music and production of course, but also some luck in that the tickets mostly went on sale right after the super bowl and before the economy completely imploded. Maybe we should have Tom's management company take over the Federal Reserve if their 'crystal ball' works this good all the time! (Just not Fanfire please!!)

I listen to their opinions, and factor that in with everything else I know about the candidates. Then I go out and vote against the republicans.

Just watched Neil Young do a killer cover of The Beatles 'A Day In The Life" on DirecTV Ch 101 during the Farm Aid telecast..... Very much worth your time if you can catch a re-run!

http://www.talklikeapirate.com/piratehome.html Something to think about as you keel-haul your co-workers today. Just remember that the pirate code is more of a guideline...... Check out ye old link, tharrrr be gems there!

Sounds really fun to me! I didnt see that WildflowerNJ had posted the show announcement before I did - guess I kinda got excited and jumped without looking! So glad someone from the Farm got to check out this show. So, were Dave's photos as wild as his music?

How can you not adore a face like that? We're sending a little something for Popeye, along with a cyber pat on the head and scratch under the chin.

I'm trying to decide if I should upgrade..... Generally if I do it I wait for the second upgrade..... But this rig sounds sweet! Saving my pennies.....

Oh dear, Canon just announced the replacement for the EOS 5D that I have been using at various music gigs to capture images. The new camera (EOS 5D MK II) has almost twice the resolution, and can also capture limited duration HD videos - "Full HD video capture at 1920x1080 resolution for up to 4GB per clip". The focusing system also seems to have a few potentially cool enhancements.... Not sure exactly how useful that video feature will be, I don't think it also captures stereo audio at the same time, but considering the low light level performance it could be quite interesting..... (there is a microphone input, but no one is saying if its stereo or mono or what the intent was - audio annotation of images, or high quality sound capture)... The unit is supposed to do an even better job in low light than my current model..... That lighting at SoHo is sooooooo dim! I'm going to let someone else be the 'early adopter' and find out all of the new camera's bugs, but it sure looks promising....... Hopefully the additiion of HD video capture capabilities in Nikon and Canon's latest SLRs won't set artist's and venue's heads spinning any more than they already are regarding 'professional' cameras..... Seems more like a marketing gimmick given the limitations, but who knows?

"book burning Yule log" I'm sold!

So far I have avoided infecting any of my computers with iTunes. Plan to keep it that way. Hopefully artists will support alternate methods of distribution because I would like to hear much of this music and am willing to PAY for it.

Welcome back to the 20th century Ryan! Its been 37 years since I had to deal with a blackout lasting longer than 8 hours, and even that 8 hour outage was planned in advance. I hardly remember that part of the '71 Sylmar quake, I was real young and there were lots of distractions (it was before the net too), but I think our power was out for several days. How did you manage to pass the time without power Ryan? And were the stars brighter at night without light pollution? (Did you remember to look?)

HaPpY BiRtHdAy Ron! Hope you get to spend it with those you love the most!

Any time a vulnerability is discovered and reported, the bad guys will try to figure out how to exploit it. So it is a race between the software fixers and the hackers. This seems like a pretty deep rooted and serious bug and I think the software writers were hoping for more time to fix the problem without the 'bad guys' learning about the problem. But it seems like the cows have left the barn at this point.

Link : http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/16/critical_vulnerability_demo_pulled/ "... In another event for the "internet is broken" files, two prominent security researchers have pulled a scheduled talk that was to demonstrate critical holes affecting anyone who uses a browser to surf the web. Jeremiah Grossman and Robert "RSnake" Hansen say they planned to demonstrate serious "clickjacking" vulnerabilities involving every major browser during a presentation scheduled for September 24 at OWASP's AppSec 2008 Conference in New York. They canceled their talk at the request of Adobe, one of the developers whose software is vulnerable to the weakness, they say.... ... Tom Brennan, chapter president of OWASP (short for the Open Web Application Security Project), expressed concern over the cancellation. "I am sure if your browser, video and microphone was taken over by someone who wanted to conduct surveillance, industrial espionage or hack your system and use the vulnerability against you and millions of users you would want to fully understand the threat," he writes here, in announcing the cancellation. "Well, this is in fact the situation described below and I believe that a information security conference with industry peers from around the world IS the place to discuss/debate topics such as these and they should NOT be suppressed by anyone...." Heads Up.