Yeah yeah

Hey everyone... It's been a minute since I last saw you. Where does the time fly? A bit of an update:

Friday, February 23: Future Rock at the Delancey
Good times with Bronko and Pete as we made up lyrics to the otherwise instrumental Bisco-esque troupe, Future Rock from Chicago. Cool segues from dj's Orchard Lounge.

Saturday, February 24: A BIG YES... and a small no at Lakeside Lounge
It was Kevin Kendrick's birthday and his old Fat Mama bandmates came from all corners of the US to be this incarnation of A Big Yes and A Small No. Great night. Read what Ace had to say about it.

Sunday, February 25: Oscar Night with mom and dad on Long Island
I thought it was generally a pretty damn boring Oscar show this year. Ellen was great but the acceptance speeches were killing me. You people are supposed to be talented! Award winners, even! Come up with something interesting to say! Loved when Ellen posed with Clint Eastwood for "a picture for MySpace" that she has Spielberg take (and then criticized his photo taking abilities). Also, very nice to see Marty finally get his.

Monday, February 26: Gamble et. al at Bar 4
Just another typical Monday night at Bar 4... Experimental jazz that you'll hear no where else. Love Monday nights... Never know what you are going to get when you walk in there. Mike Gamble is really fun to watch. This week's show had a Latin flava to it. Forgive me, I am too lazy to look up who was playing that night.

Tuesday, February 27 (early): American Babies at Living Room
Finally got to see Tommy Hamilton's new(ish) band, American Babies, as part of his Tuesday night Feb residency at the Living Room. Tommy's live band is bassist Jim Hamilton and drummer Joe Russo (how many times can one see Joe Russo perform in one week's time?). Word is that the album is just about done but you can check out some of the great songs at the myspace page. This is such a refreshing change from the Brothers Past Tommy that we once knew. Acoustic and raw, this band really allows his voice to be showcased in a beautiful and emotional way. Great songwriting, too.

Tuesday, February 27 (later): The Slip at Maxwell's in Hoboken
From the LES to NJ... Last night The Slip had a rocker of a show at Maxwell's in NJ. The band looked healthy and confident. Lots of smiles and rocking out. Two new songs that I heard again last night are getting really good and substantive: "All I Saw Was You" and "There's A Lie" which featured a SICK guitar solo from Fried-dog. So awesome. For the encore, they did a Nathan Moore song called "Yeah Yeah" which was followed by the 2007 version of "Weight of Solomon" (aka "Rock Solomon") for the encore. This gave me slight mixed emotions... The Slip have obviously turned that corner without looking back into the realm of "we are a rock band." For a split second, I just missed the old Slip. But it's okay. I'm rolling with it! There were a few other new songs that I did not recognize but mostly it was your Eisenhower-era Slip in the house last night playing mostly stuff from the album: Even Rats, Children of December, Soft Machine, Moth Wing and If One of Us Should Fall (both with Marco Benevento on keys!), Airplane/Primitive, Life in Disguise (first time I've heard it live - just lovely), and Suffocation Keep. Opening the show was Brooklyn-based Phonograph. What I heard was very good and I'll be checking them out again for sure!

In other news: I have totally Googlefied my life. Rid myself of the dreaded MS Outlook and it's daunting 4000+ messages in the inbox that I can't bear to go through and file. Now I search instead of sort. I have my Gmail accounts rockin' and rollin', my Google Reader keeping me updated on all the things I give a shit about in the interweb and the blogosphere, Google Desktop installed to search high and low all over my machine for anything I am looking for, Google/Picasa has a sweet screensaver going with all my favorite pics... I gotta say, I am feeling pretty electronically organized right now.

Until next time...