Tuesday, March 31, 2009

March 30th gig at The Palms

Apologies in advance; I only have time to write just a taste tonight and throw up a handful of shots, 'cause I have to get get up and take Cheryl to the airport for her return to Walnut Creek. She's jammed up with work, just coming off a week of project onsites in SoCal, and having to leave for South Korea, Okinawa, and Japan this Saturday, from SFO direct to Seoul -- just in time for that swell North Korean missile launch that has everyone over there all jacked up. Below, news photo from the L.A. Times of the USS John S. McCain Aegis missile destroyer about to leave port in South Korea to take up position in the Sea of Japan prior to the missile launch.

Swell. Yeah, I know it's all probably Big Game of Diplomatic Chicken bullshit, but, still...

So, I'll fill in the rest of the post-gig blog report later after a trip to McCarran and some Zzzz's (and will include some shots I got at Saturday night's Herman Matthews hang at The Bootlegger).

John Wedeyemer was his usual spectacular Bad Self, opening for Jerry. What a player!

Nice. Everybody dug him, big-time.

Below, how about some quick B/W for effect?

'eh? Man, was Rochon ever on fire tonight. Yikes!

Jerry crushing the house singing "Si Te Vas." They did three Dave Richardson originals tonight, including also "Salvation" and "Love Jungle." Of course, they had to mock Dave, Jerry cracking with some snark about how 'cuz Dave is now with Lion King, they gotta kiss his butt and feature his stuff or else, LOL!

A few more shots before I split.

Above, this shot of Pepe is straight outa the camera, no post-processing at all. Sometimes they're OK absent any tweaking.

Gil and Danny both now have endorsement deals. I gotta get some tight large format shots of Danny soon too.

One last observation for now. Tony Davich absolutely ripped the girders out of the ceiling with his rendition of "You Don't Know Me" tonight.

The house exploded in a fully-deserved unanimous Standing-O at the end. It was so fine!
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OK, CRACK OF NOON TUESDAY...

More shots.

Above, Glenn Colby again subs ably on trumpet. We are so blessed with such great talent to call on.

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HERMAN MATTHEWS AT THE BOOTLEGGER

After going to my friend's wedding Saturday night, we dropped by to catch the cats. Brandon Fields sat in, oh, yeah!

Mighty, mighty fine, always.

TYRIQ THIS FRIDAY

The Release Allstar Band
Featuring
Darryl "Footz" Wolfolk
on Drums!!

Live at
The Downstairs Bar
Viaggio's
11261 S. Eastern (Near Anthem)
Green Valley
Friday, April 3rd 9:00 p.m.
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I will be by to check it out. Y'all come and hang.

ANNE MCKINNEY UPDATE

My Tennessee attorney friend Anne McKinney has now enabled embedding. Her video has by now gotten more than a half-million views in just over a month (520,061 to be exact as of this posting). Wow.


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Monday, March 30, 2009

Tonight in The Lounge at The Palms

10:30 pm, free show as always. Opening the show for Jerry will be our friend the awesome John Wedemeyer on guitar.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

March 26th update

My new friend, the ass-kicking photographer Christopher Sedgwick, just sent me a private link to shots he took Monday night. Let me share a dozen of them with you. My sole saving grace is that I have him beat on price: 12 E-Z payments of free (to my homies), LOL. (Although, he is in fact freely sharing these with us.)

Now, that last shot is especially a MoFo (I had to tell him 'dude, it's OK, go backstage'). I am no fan of "headroom" in general (I also push the envelope -- probably to excess, but, hey, it's my blog -- on angular 'horizon tilt'). In fact, I ascribe to the old "60 Minutes" theory of shot framing, which basically established that it was OK to "cut off" the tops of heads, etc (e.g., and that artful directional asymmetry was a good thing), that people had a subliminal "Gestalt" cognitive capability enabling them to "fill in" that which is implied beyond the frame, enabling you to dive in more dramatically (it is now SOP in film shooting). Here in Chris's backshot of Jerry, you see an elegant use of at-once "headroom" and the artful "half-moon" clipping of that par-can at the top. Beautiful.

That's some understated yet dramatic pro shit, right there.

Excellent stuff, Chris. Thanks for sharing.
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OK, THIS IS AWESOME

Cheryl and I have dear friends, among our very best, back in Knoxville TN, Anne and Mike McKinney (we really miss them). Mike is an architect, and Annie is a nationally respected attorney. I met her back around 1980 when she became one of my songwriter demo clients at my little hole-in-the-wall South Knoxville studio (where I cut my own demos). For a time, we were both members of the Nashville Songwriters' Association.

When we met she was an IRS tax enforcement attorney who wrote great songs on the side (most of them hilarious parody/send-up tunes). I have an old cassette tape of an audio program I produced for her in which we put one of her "C/W" songs entitled "My Heart Ain't Broke (but she could sure fix it)." I played all the tracks on the tune, and we brought this local Merle Haggard clone singer in to do the vocal. It was hysterical.

Well, a month ago she put up her first YouTube video, taking a snarky swipe at our new Treasury Secretary William Geithner. As I post this it has gotten 421,507 views. Yikes!

She has embedding disabled (Annie, we're gonna have to talk about that), or I'd just put it here directly on the blog, but here's the link. My comment on her YouTube site:
LOL! Anne McKinney is one of my dearest friends. We first met back in the early 1980's when she was working as an an IRS tax enforcement attorney who wrote wonderful parody/send-up songs (and other great original stuff) on the side. I owned a small studio, and cut her demos for her (Annie, I still have the master tapes -- but nothing to play them on any more!) Anne is a one-woman Capitol Steps, and is the most delightful person. We miss ya, sweetie!
Talk about "viral." Wow. That is just so cool. She will shortly surpass a half million hits.
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OK, I gotta jump down to Burbank tomorrow to pick Cheryl up and bring her back home so we can go to an old friend's wedding on Saturday. She was gonna fly up (she's been in SoCal all week doing project QA audits), but I thought it'd be just nice to do the drive, and then get to spend 5 or so extra hours with her (with Kenny Loggins blaring in the car, Nick!; scroll down in that link, haha). Won't be any net time difference for her.

If we are out of the wedding reception in time, we'll be at this Saturday's Herman Matthews hang at The Bootlegger, and ask that y'all show up too to support our brothers. You'll get to see BobbyG in a danged tux, LOL.

RED STATE UPDATE

Speaking of funny videos...


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