Friday, March 06, 2009

Musicness and other stuff

The view from where we stood:

-rows of wooden CD bins.
-the back of a smartly bespectacled woman's head, her hair a strange platinum fluff growing out of brown straight strands.
-a gigantic neon colored Minnie Mouse purse.
-Japanese finger puppets.
-a bin card for Kaki King
-lovely worn and dusty wooden floor.
-a middle-aged man in a military jacket pacing nervously in the latter alphabet of the rock section.
-my black Earth shoes
-Randi's green t-shirt framed by a long black cardigan sweater.
-Two young men with guitars.

Those two young men were from the Annuals. They played a rather lighthearted short set, four songs in total. Wedged in at the end of the sales room, between bins, stood frontman Adam Baker and lead guitarist Kenny Florence. I was taken aback by clean brilliant banter of the lead accoustic. I had anticipated a bit of raggle-taggle acoustic chord flim-flam that I'd seen thrown together so often other bands' in-stores. Maybe I was always just going to the wrong stores. Or checking out the wrong bands. In any event, the midday adventure with Randi to Shake It records was well worth it.

I picked up a few records on my way out ("way out" consisting of an hour and a half of mindless wandering through the bins, wondering what I had even listened to lately, what I had written on that list of albums that sits on my desk at work, wondering what my name was, while Randi thoughtfully fueled my record ramble with a coffee run to Sidewinders).

Latest Acquisitions:
Richard Swift as Onasis

Vashti Bunyan - Just Another Diamond Day



Jelly Roll Morton
- The Complete Library of Congress Recordings

Clem Snide - Ghost of Fashion

St. Vincent - Marry Me


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Future Dates of Awesomeness

Wednesday - March 25 - The Heartless Bastards instore at Shake It Records
Thursday - March 26 - The High Strung @ the Comet

Monday, March 02, 2009

The Birthday of the Ruth and other good puppetness

Happy Birthday Ruth!!!! Hurrah!!!
May your day be filled with lovely random hugs from bus drivers and incredible mix tapes.


Ruth's Birthday Puppet

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Randi and lil Randi

Randi and I spent Friday evening at Sidewinder's crafting to the sweet and scary sounds of a death-obsessed singer songwriter from Nashville, Tennessee. I can't remember his name, but as part of his mid-set death trilogy he be-wailed Joe Strummer's death and growled about recent death threats of his own. And honestly, over-all he was a very cheerful, almost cheeky individual. He kept thanking us for being there (as Randi and i were the only two in the room for his set...and the whole time he was playing, we were making things out of felt and string - but we did "woo-hoo" and applaud him after every song. That has to count for something.)
I really do love the back room of Sidewinders and would love to see another show there, or perhaps work to organize a reading sometime in the near future.



lil Randi

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Last weekend Randi and I attended the Knot Only Knitting crafting circle at the Northside branch of the Cincinnati Public Library.



lil Amber in the works



lil Sara Leah

and the end product of last weekend's crafting craziness ---->


lil Amber, Gizmo Aloysius Records, and lil Sara Leah