The weekend Thread

[kidsmoke*]

I've not been following this close enough.

BK, thanks for sharing this with us. I'm glad to know enough to understand, on some level, what you're dealing with. Prayers to your home from mine. What I DO understand is the empty nest thing. It's been an interesting couple of years here while that process plays out. Seems they don't just leave....which is a mixed blessing.

Tig....you too man. Prayers for your wife, and sounds to me that, aside from her medical issues, she's a lucky gal to have you hangin' around. Good on ya. That's where the rubber hits the road.

At CB, oh you poor baby. All that shopping to do? I don't know why, all you wear are those damn Washburn t-shirts. I can understand you tryin' to get Shiner to look respectable though. Kind of endearing how you haven't given up, yet. And thanks for the heads up. Reminds me I gots to make my travel plans for the party in Waco...

[Childbride]

At CB, oh you poor baby. All that shopping to do? I don't know why, all you wear are those damn Washburn t-shirts. I can understand you tryin' to get Shiner to look respectable though. Kind of endearing how you haven't given up, yet. And thanks for the heads up. Reminds me I gots to make my travel plans for the party in Waco...

Traveler Ultra Light A/E packed in gig bag.
Olympus Stylus Tough underwater camera... check.
spf 5000 and aloe... check.
kindle... check.
snorkel gear... all but new masks, which we have to get when we go to houston in a couple of weeks. no dive shops in waco.
washburn and fender tshirts... check.

just need to acquire a couple new suits and make you a spare key, Tio Kimo, in case you get here before Strummy. will make sure you have the key to the liquor and the gear, too.

edit: if you come a day early, i'll even cook for you. tonight i'm taking a stab at bay scallops and applewood bacon with port reduction.

[kidsmoke*]

Traveler Ultra Light A/E packed in gig bag.

I forgot about about that axe! How's that going?

just need to acquire a couple new suits and make you a spare key, Tio Kimo, in case you get here before Strummy. will make sure you have the key to the liquor and the gear, too.

edit: if you come a day early, i'll even cook for you. tonight i'm taking a stab at bay scallops and applewood bacon with port reduction.

Goodness.....Shiner must've been very good early in life.

Enjoy the preparation.

[Childbride]

I forgot about about that axe! How's that going?



Goodness.....Shiner must've been very good early in life.

Enjoy the preparation.

The Traveler is perfect for what she is. i love, love, love her transportability, her lightness, and her flexibility. two thumbs up.

Gott in Himmel.... the scallops were so good my eyes are still rolled back in my head.

i would post the recipe but i got it off epicurean, and i'm not sure that's kosher.

[Tig***]

snorkel gear... all but new masks, which we have to get when we go to houston in a couple of weeks. no dive shops in waco.

Save an hour to go check out a really cool guitar shop in Houston, Rockin Robin. The place is also like a museum, full of signed guitars.
http://www.rockinrobinguitars.com/

[Childbride]

holy poop, bat man!!!

we will definitely try that out!

those places are very dangerous, though. i am simultaneously GAS-ing for an SG and a Gold top.

[ZMAN]

Tig and Brian, I have seen first hand how things get much better. My Dad who is 84 now had to have both knees replaced.
At 78 he had the first one, and at 79 he had the second. During the operation he had a mild heart attack. He came out of it pretty well, and was sent home to rehab his knee. During the rehab his conditon went down. He was taken into Hospital and kept for a month in ICU. They did tests and he needed Quad bypass and a new Heart valve. When he was stable they took him right in and did the operation. If you can imagine his knee was still mending and he had open heart surgery.
Well to make a long story short, he is fully recovered. He plays 9 holes of gold every other day in season, and he currently goes to a seniors workout class twice a week. Soi hang in there guys it will get better.

[Brian Krashpad]

Thanks for the good wishes, my peeps (and for those cool Rockin' Robin pix Tig, hope your missus is feeling better). Btw, it just occurred to me that I never did post any pics of my daughter's "professional debut" (we didn't actually get paid) in her first rock band, so here's a pic from the preceding weekend:



Saw chemo doc on last Wed. and he confirmed I'd definitely gone through withdrawal on Saturday night. Blood work numbers all good! Like the radiation oncologist, chemo doc wants me to put some weight on. I've been eating like mad all week, I think the pain meds were depressing my appetite (I won't get into their effect on my overall digestive tract). Been having breakfasts, which I usually used to skip, and pouring feta cheese salad dressing/dipping sauce on most everything in an effort to pack in some calories, though I don't know that I've actually put on any weight yet, haha. What an odd, strange "problem" to have!

On to the weekend!:

Saturday: praise team morning practice for upcoming outside-church multi-band concert on the downtown plaza. Timed songs to check set length. Went home after, took a short nap, and mowed front lawn with a push mower. REALLY needed it, as I haven't been tending to the yard with all the chemo, radiation, etc. over the last 4-5 months. Lord, weeds everywhere. At least it's short now, haha.

Sunday: Played the late service, only 2 songs AGAIN (sigh), did both on mandolin rather than guitar. A TON of people from my old church were there, like well over a dozen, maybe closer to a couple dozen. The people running that place are just insane. They ran a mess of people (including us) off 4 or 5 years ago, and now are doing it all over again. Sigh. Makes me sad.

Afterward, had a nice 3-hour practice with a couple of the guys from my "hippie" acoustic-oriented side band Cinnamon Hill yesterday afternoon. One of the frontmen in the band is kind of questionable status now apparently, but that may just be specifically for our next-scheduled gig, which is a benefit (we do get a very nice meal out of it), and he may still be in the band otherwise. I hope the latter is true, as he is basically our lead singer, although this band in particular has always been extremely flexible in the number/configuration of people who play any given show. Full complement is a 6-piece, and when I joined it was even 7, with a girl singer/writer who (though she plays keys) didn't play an instrument in our live performances. Here's the full current (I hope!) six-piece members, in the studio last summer:



L-R: Dana (electric and acoustic guitars, lap steel, vocals), Arturo (drums/percussion), Tom (vocals, acoustic guitar), Chuck (vocals, keys), me (mandolin, acoustic 6 and 12-string and electric guitars), and Mark (bass).

Yesterday's practice was with just me, Dana, and Chuck, with no rhythm section, and no Tom (usual lead singer). Dana sang lead with Chuck backing. Although our usual singer Tom is a stronger singer, it's good to know that if he decides to flake on us in a permanent way, we can continue to perform, and that the guys want to keep going regardless of what our current lead singer ends up doing. I might even put a couple of my songs into the setlist and do some vocals if we permanently lose Tom. But hopefully he's just balking at playing for free (he's the closest in the band to fancying himself a professional musician, I'm not sure whether he even has a "day gig" like the rest of us) and will be around for the long haul otherwise.

Had a scheduled 7 p.m. practice for another side band, Pedagogy (the one that just expanded to a 4-piece, with me moving from bass to guitar, and my daughter playing bass now), scrubbed at the last second due to drummer's mid-terms or something. Just as well, as the lawn-mowing from the day before caught up to me a bit and I was pretty shagged out by evening.

[ZMAN]

That sounds more like it! See, the mojo is working already!

[Brian Krashpad]

That sounds more like it! See, the mojo is working already!

I really do feel much better this week. If I could get rid of this weird chicken-neck wattle-looking thing I got (I think the medical term is "lymphedema"), and the constant dry-mouth/throat tickle I still have, I'd be close to 100%, albeit a bony, under-nourished looking 100%.

[Bloozcat]

Well, my weekend was more like two with a full week in between...

We went out to LA to visit an old college friend of my wife's, then we all went up to Paso Robles to check out the Central Coast wines. My wife's old friend has a second home in Paso Robles where we stayed.

What a pleasant surprise that was! Most of the Central Coast wines we've tried here in Florida were just so-so to good. But out there we had some reserve wines (reds) at wineries we'd never heard of and they were as good or better even, than what we've had in the Napa and Sonoma valleys...and superior on a comparative cost basis.

For anyone who's into wine and has an opportunity to travel to this region, I'd heartily encourage you to go. Great wine, great restaurants, and warm, friendly people. A nice relaxing vacation, for sure!

[Brian Krashpad]

That sounds great blooz, except for whatever reason I could never get into wine myself. Tried though, haha! For a wine lover like you, perfecto.

[Duffy]

We went to a show in a renovated grand old theater that a local college bought and repaired. We saw a three band show.

The first two bands were not as entertaining as the average local band but seemed to me to be hanging deceptively onto old band names, touring as such, and having only one member from the actual historical band. These two bands were not highly professional in my opinion as evidenced by unintunnedness, absence of key instruments, unharmonious harmonies, and mostly amateurish players and singers - with the exception of maybe one member from the original band that could be labeled with any of the typical designations that you hear about these guys, that may still own the right to claim the name of the band in some way. Normally I wouldn't pay to go see a band like this, but might watch a free concert for old time's sake.

I was well into thinking that I had wasted none the less good money on the inexpensive tickets.

The first band was Firefall. It was made up of one original member, the lead guitar and singer, and two other guitar players. There was no drummer. There was nothing remarkable about this band that hadn't taken place a long time ago.

The second band was Pure Prairie League. This band had one original member - the bass player. In my opinion they also did not demonstrate a high level of professionalism and probably sounded a little worse to me than Firefall. They had a drummer, but he again did not show a high level of professionalism or even skill. One guitar player was about as good as some of the best local players. It was a disappointment, to me anyway, to witness such a mess, so ineffectively conveying the Pure Prairie League vibe that I remember. Evidently PPL has had at least 20 different line ups through time.

I was expecting more of the same when the third act came on stage. A couple friends of mine were playing in their band in the Theater's lounge and they sounded way better to me than the first two bands. Anyway, I went back to the show and caught the third band.

Wow!

That's all I can say. From my point of view these guys were true professionals and were expert master muscians that played and harmonized beautifully.

It was Poco.

There was only one original member: Rusty Young, who played a beautiful Godin LP type electric thru a small black Fender amp like a Hot Rod Deluxe or Blues Jr., mike'd and it sounded great. He also played a lap steel, a resonator, an electric mandolin, a pedal steel, and an acoustic thru the same amp and sounded beautiful.

The drummer was very musical and totally with the band. The other two guys were true professionals in their own right and had independent projects.

One guy was the bass player that also played acoustic and sang some beautiful leads and harmonies.

He sang a song from his independent project, can't remember the name of it, but the song was called, "Hard Land". He was from a farm in Minnesota and the song was a folk song about the difficulties of farming the rich Minnesota soil and so forth. He started out solo, singing and playing acoustic beautifully. Then the drummer came in on a single conga and the keyboardist came in with his B3 and Rusty Young on his Godin LP style; the drummer switched to the full kit, the singer songwriter stopped and gazed at them as they took over the song and transformed it into a full rocker. He put on his bass and they rocked the house with that folk song. It was beautiful.

The Poco songs were great and I thought they captured the vibe of the Poco from the old days.

The keyboardist was a Nashville artist and played the B3, a Motiv keyboard, and an electric accordian - of which he was a master of all and a great singer. He performed one of his own songs with the band as well and his overall playing and singing was totally with the band.

They played a couple Cajun songs and some transient Texans from the local oil fields were hooting and hollerin' so much that Rusty Young told them they must have been to a nearby bar. I don't think he knew we have a substantial population of Texans around here working the recently developed huge oil field.

Anyway, everything Poco did was beautiful, with great togetherness, with the band coming across to me as a whole much greater than the sum of the parts. You know what I mean? When that happens it's mystifying. What really made them special, aside from being such a good "band", was that they, at least to me, captured the vibe of the old time Poco. Rusty Young was an awesome band leader and surrounded himself with some of the right people.

Just that act alone made it worth going to the show.

The rest of the weekend was very peaceful and enjoyable.

I played my Agile AL3100 into my Peavey 6505+ combo straight up and was grooving on the tone. I need to rig up my recording gear.

[Brian Krashpad]

Glad Poco rescued it for you, Duffy!

I had a bit of music-playing this weekend, about average.

Saturday morning I finished up my magazine column and uploaded it and some photos for it to the magazine's website. At 2 pm I did a practice with the church band, First Things First, at the church in town. We are doing an ecumenical (multi-denominational, for you non-church types) concert next Saturday with 5 other church's praise teams, on the Downtown Plaza here in Gainesville. So, rather than practice for the service (the 3 songs were ones we'd done before, including one in the set for the concert, which is called "Praise In The Field"), we worked on the concert set. It went pretty well.

Though I usually leave my amp at church overnight for the next day, I had a Cinnamon Hill practice at 6 pm and didn't know if I might need the amp for that, so I broke my rig back down and carted it all out to the car. It's just a little Super Champ XD, but going up and down those steps with a 24-pound amp is tiring for me, as I tire easily after finishing up the whole chemo/radiation treatment a couple months back.

At any rate, I had some time to kill so I stopped off at Goodwill to buy some "skinny clothes" that might fit a bit better now that I've lost 45 pounds or so. Found one cool black t-shirt with outlines of guitars in various colors on it, it's a medium but a bit snugger than most. It fits for now, but since it was a whopping $2.50, even if I outgrow it (I'm under doctor's orders to regain some weight, though I'm not sure I really need to), no big whup. Got another 2 collared short-sleeved shirts, one that's a sort of tan/black paisley that's silk or synthetic that will go well with jeans or khakis, or khaki cargoes, for church or being slightly dressy. The other is a cotton plaid that's more casual. Both are sorta "camp shirt"/"bowling shirt"/Havana style shirts, flat-lying collars and square-cut hems meant to be left untucked. The collared shirts were $4 each. Woo-hoo, fashion bonanza!

Stopped out west of town at Casa Krashpad because I'd forgotten to load up my acoustics earlier in the afternoon, and then immediately turned around and went back into town for the CHill practice at our keyboardist's house at 6 pm. Our usual singer is bailing on us for our upcoming gig (or possibly permanently, it's not really clear), a benefit tonight (Monday) for a local preschool that our keyboardist's kids go/have gone to. We did this last year too. Basically we play a set, they feed us and have an auction to benefit the school, then we play a closing set.

Practice went fine, our other guitarist is going to sing lead for this gig. Our bassist showed for this one, so it was the keys player, the other guitarist, me (acoustic 6 and 12-string and mandolin for this show), and our bassist. Our percussionist didn't show but reportedly will be there tonight. One of the songs we're covering (we added a ton of material given the switch in singers) is Michael Franti's "Say Hey" which is very rhythmic and almost a fast reggae, which was a little tough without drums so I used my 12-string as a drum and just beat the rhythm on the guitar with my hands, which worked surprisingly well. Practiced for a little while, then they fed us (I think of CHill practices there as more like dinner parties, as other non-band people come, we sorta sing for our supper, haha), then practiced some more. Got home tennish.

Sunday I went in for the late service as usual. The lady who wrote 2 originals we're doing at Praise In The Field was visiting town (she's going to the concert on this coming Saturday too), so we played one of hers for pre-service. Got lost momentarily during an unimportant part but quickly covered, and hopefully erased any memory of that by the solo, which was one of my better goes (they're different every time for that song), if I do say so myself. Did 3 songs in service, first on mandolin and the others on electric, though no solos on those. Did a massive pick slide on the start of each chorus of one of them though, and actually sang a bit (there's a melody counter-melody part that our grrl backing vocalist's voice isn't loud enough to cope with alone when the lead singer goes to the counter-melody) on the last one.

Back at Casa Krashpad did some minor cleanup, put away three guitars that'd been sitting out (albeit cased) in the family room for the longest time, took out the garbage for today's pickup, and replaced some vinyl siding on the back of the garage that'd come down in a storm (the siding sorta snaps together like Legos or something, no tools involved, but it did require a ladder and some effort to get it back on the house). After recovering a bit in the A/C inside (it was in the high 80's F), played ball with my son for awhile, he's become interested in lacrosse so he got his stick out and we played catch. He wants me to get stick too but I'm not too sure about that.

Made some "sausage burgers" on our fire pit/grill on the patio for dinner, and had some of the best sweet potatoes evah (cooked in the oven and with just butter, salt, and pepper) and some salad. A nice meal to end a good low-key weekend, even if my daughter and her friend got to the ice cream and finished it off before I got any.

Such is life with teens.

[deeaa*]

AMAZING how the snow's melting, at a pace of like 4 feet a week or so. Now it's up to +10 C already and sun is shining.

I shot one of my handlebar cam shots today; it's my way from work to home (well to within 500 yards of it till the vid stops=

[Tig***]

Nice to see you riding up the hills that others were pushing their bikes on. Yes!

[Brian Krashpad]

Still looks like a lot of snow to this Florida boy!

Friday: Six p.m. "dress rehearsal" in church Fellowship Hall (to be able to use acoustic drums) with actual stage rigs for "Praise In the Field Ecumenical Concert" we were scheduled to open on Saturday. I tied my all-time record, went through 3 guitars in a single-set practice. First, broke a string on the Les Paul, then managed to pull out a strap pin on the Jet Star (which I managed to catch before she hit the floor), ended up on the WildKat.

Came home to a PO'd Mrs. Krashpad, as I mis-estimated the rehearsal's total time by about an hour. Sigh. At least we sounded good in practice.

Saturday: woke up and checked e-mail and such, ate a bit, replaced string on Les Paul and repaired Jet Star strap pin. Got to load-in downtown at about 10:30 a.m. for the noon show. Went on on schedule; except for windy conditions onstage (which blew over our music stands until we duct-taped them down, but at least kept us comfortable) we had a great set. I was a little nervous about doing backing vocals in a non-bar-band context, but Mrs. K said the mix was good so I wasn't too loud. Also, my two "big solos" were on some originals we do on songs written by a family friend of our lead singer, and the composer came all the way from Alabama to visit them for the week and see us play, so I didn't want to do a lousy job with her watching, but luckily both came off pretty much without a hitch. Some pics:




L-R: BK (elec. gtr., backing vox), Garrett (acoustic gtr., lead vox), Jarah (backing vox), Travis (in back, drums), Logan (seated in front, ukelele), Julie (bass), Martin (keys)






After our set me and Mrs. K. and a friend from church and his high-school age daughter went to lunch at a nice downtown place; when we got back the band after us that I lent my music stand with had left, apparently taking it with them. Will track that down this week. Mrs. K went home but I stayed to hear several more of the bands, got back to Casa Krashpad about 5:30. Mrs. K went to dinner/movie at a friends with several of her teaching buddies, I stayed home and leaned on the middle-schooler to do his homework, and unstopped the upstairs bathroom sink (finally!).

Sunday: played hooky from church and did laundry washing/folding all day, with some more homework oversight/whip cracking of the middle schooler.

[Eric***]

Friday: Had a couple of my former church-bandmates over for some pizza we made and to hang out and watch The Big Lebowski with my wife and me. After the movie, we ended up playing Halo for a while -- they were both much better than my wife at it.

Saturday: Went into work for about 5 hours (blech). After that I met a guy I know to sell him my old Crate SS amp and Boss ME-50 -- I've been trying to clear out some items that I don't use much. Came home and did the responsible things like folding laundry, washing dishes, etc. My wife had been doing some work in the bathroom, so I helped her clean up from that. Went to an egg-dying party that night, where we also watched The Sound of Music.

Sunday: I had to work again, so went in until about 1:00, then home. Helped my wife finish up some painting on the porch, mowed the lawn for the first time this year, and did some other household chores. Went out to eat at a Mexican restaurant for dinner.

I now need a good nap after that weekend. It's good to be done with so many projects and to have seen a lot of people, but man...I feel drained.

[Brian Krashpad]

Haha. Eric, the juxtaposition of having friends from church band over for The Big Lebowski, which may've set a record for f-bombs in a single film, cracks me up. By weird coincidence, I watched it myself on netflix on Sunday doing laundry!

Here's a couple pics that just popped up on facebook, taken by my friend Bruce. This first one is really good of my guitars and rig. On the left is my little Fender Super Champ XD, which is lined out to my '60's Sunn 200S cab and DIY Celestion 2x12 cab (can be seen partially, to the right behind me), with the Sunn rig mic'd:



Chugging along, really "good" pic of the lymphedema on my neck-- that's what happens when you lose 20 lymph nodes on one side of your neck.