The weekend Thread

[sumitomo]

Tattoo girl on the lower right looks exactly like someone I dated once. Except her tatts were in a different place. ;-)

Unreal the girl you dated had two left hands too? Sumi

[mainestratman]

No clue.. never really saw her in daylight..

:-D

[kidsmoke*]

any of you ever heard of, or seen this band?

Tuareg Nomads from the Sahara, called Tinariwen, who developed a style of music while in refugee camps using cast off amps and guitars....

AMAZING stuff. I'm working their show on Saturday. Kinda cool to hear something truly original. And the audience is just as interesting at their shows.

[mainestratman]

I know the weekend is only half over, although for me, it's just begun.. but...

I'm totally stoked about today, a day that's been a long time in the making! At the risk of jinxing myself, we may be on the cusp of having a fairly sweet 3-piece blues project!


Yayy!!!!

[mainestratman]

OKay.. didn't go quite as well as I was hoping it would, but not too bad at all.

We just might have something here...

[Brian Krashpad]

Break a leg with the new thing, Jon!

Didn't do anything Friday night, as I knew Saturday would be a long day.

Saturday

Got up early, and drove into town for the UF Music Law Conference, with check-in beginning at 9 a.m. Myself and my bandmate Hoyt (our band is "Hoyt and the Hotheads"), as other band members playing the MLC Showcase, were comped in. In other bands' cases, that was worth $30 (registration for all band members in a given band), but since Hoyt and I are attorneys and could get Continuing Legal Education hours (6.5) for attending, that was a savings of $140 ($70 apiece for attorneys).

Got a free "contintental" type breakfast of bagels, coffee, etc., and headed inside for a morning of talks. The schedule/agenda of the conference is here:

http://www.law.ufl.edu/musiclawconf/2010/schedule.shtml

Finished a small work project while listening to the morning talks, hung out with Hoyt and our mutual pal Glypher (webname he uses irl also), who is the webmaster/owner of our great local scene website gainesvillebands.com, and who was also on one of the panels and the last solo speaker of the day. Got a nice free lunch various types of green salads and pasta salads, wings, chips, soda, etc. Only thing missing was beer!

While we ate they had an all-gal a cappella group perform. A bit on the geeky side (c'mon, you have to giggle at least a bit at 20 women singing a choral arrangement of Bon Jovi's "You Gave Love A Bad Name") but talented nevertheless. Then back inside for more speakers and panels.

The conference also had a conferee's packet that included a CD with a couple songs from all the bands that had played, both those at a "kickoff" show a couple month's prior, as well as those playing the Showcase later that night. So I had 2 bands on it (another of my side bands, Pedagogy, played the kickoff show), although I was not on the Pedagogy tracks. The conference booklet had little bios of all the bands, and photos of the bands in the Showcase, so that was cool, especially since they gave the most ink to the Hotheads bio, about twice as long as anybody else's.

Here's the photo of the Hotheads that was in the booklet everyone got:



In between the speakers/panels during breaks they rotated photos of the bands playing at the Showcase that night on a big screen in the auditorium; this is the Hotheads pic they used:



Got home a bit after 6 pm, had some dinner, collected my daughter, and went off to play the Showcase, which we were opening. Will do a separate thread on that once I get ahold of pics. Basically, it went pretty well, got home about 1 a.m. or so.

Sunday:

Skipped church since they are breaking in a new PA system and I hadn't been to practice the preceding day (due to the conference) to help get my rig integrated into the system. Did some chores like laundry, pulled some weeds, blew the leaves off the back patio, cleaned the ashes out of the fireplace, etc. Watched the Olympic men's hockey final, had dinner, watched most of the closing ceremonies and the "Marriage Ref" TV show debut and to bed.

And you?

[Spudman***]

I got to be a rock star again. Sadly no photos. Friday was at the local brewpub to a small but enthusiastic group. Saturday was to an absolutely stellar apres' ski crowd at Pebble Creek ski area. They partied like crazy animals. I love the apres' ski bunch. It's amazing that after skiing all day they can have a couple of beers and keep going hours longer on the dance floor.

It was wall to wall people and in spite of having my camcorder ready to go there was no place to set it up or if I did I would't have been able to get to it to turn it on and off. We were stuck on stage. They had to pass beers overhead through the crowd to keep us going. Lots of fun for Phat Bone.

[Brian Krashpad]

That sounds great Steve!

[Brian Krashpad]

Btw, gig report w/pics is now up:

http://www.thefret.net/showthread.ph...785#post166785

[sunvalleylaw]

I got to be a rock star again. Sadly no photos. Friday was at the local brewpub to a small but enthusiastic group. Saturday was to an absolutely stellar apres' ski crowd at Pebble Creek ski area. They partied like crazy animals. I love the apres' ski bunch. It's amazing that after skiing all day they can have a couple of beers and keep going hours longer on the dance floor.

It was wall to wall people and in spite of having my camcorder ready to go there was no place to set it up or if I did I would't have been able to get to it to turn it on and off. We were stuck on stage. They had to pass beers overhead through the crowd to keep us going. Lots of fun for Phat Bone.

Skiers rock. Ask Bode. Though he apparently rocked a bit less at night this Olympics (having a kid will change you), and rocked more on the slopes. I wouldn't mind rocking some apres' ski with Lindsey and Julia either.

I am glad you are enjoying the ski gigs. Would love to make it to one, but I am stuck in this ski town until my ski job quits for the season.

Krashteban, I am glad your gig went well and H&theHheads are going strong. I commented in your other thread as well.

[deeaa*]

We went to Sweden on a ferry...crazy ice situation, ship delayed by a day as it had to slowly 'crawl' thru the frozen sea...but a fun trip anyway. Went to see the Warship Wasa museum too.



Here my son is looking at some dead people on display, he's very interested in skeletons.

[mainestratman]

Did an open mic gig last night with the blues project. I'm not super happy about it, but hey, it was being on stage again.

[Spudman***]

Gigged Friday and Saturday in a town about an hour away. They really like the band there. We get lots of compliments because we don't do the same material that everyone else does and you can dance to it, and we get really good crowds too.

Friday night I heard a loud crash in the middle of a song during the second set and I see at what used to be a table over by the ladies room. Underneath the overturned table on the floor is a late 20s blond gal totally out on the floor. 20 minutes earlier she was shaking her stuff right in front of me. I'm glad she didn't black out and fall on me cause she was kind of big. A few folks go over and set her back upright and then I notice that the floor is all wet. ? What? Yup, she had spewed pretty hard before the crash so now her clothes are covered in vomit and all these people are very gingerly holding her upright while they hold a trash can in front of her. She was removed shortly afterward. God I love a place where people party.

So she kind of set the pace for Friday night. There were some pretty hot mamas dancing right in front of us all night and booze was flowing like a stream. Everyone was having a really good time. Several local musicians had been hearing about us and came out to see us. They too were full of compliments, and I'm sure plenty of jealousy, because we were gigging and they weren't and we have a tight band. Still they are nice guys and hopefully we inspired them to get busy.

Coming home Saturday night was pretty scary with a van full of gear. About 20 miles from home the highway had turned to solid ice. There were some storms going through all day Saturday and Saturday night and then it got colder. We didn't see anyone off the road though so that was a good thing. We made it home safe and all was good...until I realized that I lost an hour because of daylight savings. Still it's all good because that means spring is coming.

Next week - same town different club. Should be another good time.

[Brian Krashpad]

Mainer: it's a start!

Spud: sounds great. Except for the vomit part. I never want to be that drunk for the rest of forever. Been a lonnnnnnng while since I have been.

Saturday

Church band practice in afternoon. My latest side band (or at least the core members thereof) had already started a freebie coffee house outdoor gig downtown, so when I and my daughter finished rehearsing at church (she plays bass with us), we went over to the gig and I took my mandolins with. I've only been playing mandolin for just over a year, but these folks have no problem with a novice playing along. They even asked my daughter if she wanted to sit in on bass!

We had fun, and the band sounded good. It was crazy windy outside though. At one point, one corner of one of the porch's tarp covers blew loose and a heavy-duty CHAIN on the end was whipping around. My daughter jumped up and caught it before it could hurt anyone. It had already managed to break some Christmas tree-type lights around the edge of the porch though.

That night stayed in with wife and son while daughter went to a birthday party.

Sunday-- played 4 songs in church, guitar for the first 2 and mandolin for the second 2. Check the "church rant" thread for deets. Went home and then whole family went to see the 3-D version of "Alice In Wonderland," which we all liked, to celebrate my son's 13th birthday (occurring today). Stopped at Sports Authority on way home and he bought a paintball gun with some gift cards he'd got as presents.

In the evening he and I watched a DVD of "I, Robot." After he went to bed I watched a bit of "Pulp Fiction" on TV and went to bed later than I should've.

[Eric***]

Asked my girlfriend to marry me, got an affirmative.

OK, so this is kind of cheating, since it was over a week ago and not on the weekend, but...



Made it happen! I'm now married!

[Brian Krashpad]

That's fantastic Eric!

Congratulations to you and your lovely bride!

PS-- there is no "cheating" in the weekend thread. Weekends are all about the suspension of normal rules.

[Katastrophe]

Congratulations, Eric! That's awesome.

Many, many years of happiness, health, and prosperity to you and your bride!

and all the guitars, amphs, and effects you could ever ask for!


Had an uneventful weekend. Picked up my stepdaughter on Friday and drove home. Enjoyed a nice Saturday with the family, hanging around the house. Got up early on Sunday to take my stepdaughter back, so she could get started on her Spring Break festivities, which are this week.

[kidsmoke*]

Eric!! Wow, that's a happy couple. Congratulations, brother!

I assume she understands your obsession with wood and wire?

[mainestratman]

Gratz, Eric!

Krash... sounds like you're making headway... maybe set up a wall of Marshalls some sunday for "effect".. ;-)

Today was busy (no the weekend, but is for me)... got the second coat of stain on the bar and some additional wood to put some finishing touches on it... Starting the polyurethane tomorrow... and had our first team meeting tonight for the Relay for Life this summer.. good cause and should be lots of fun!