England trip updates #2

Now we're thinking of skipping Nottingham, substituting Bath intead, and figuring out a way to visit some non-touristy little towns. Rental car...assuming I win the lottery or something else improbable.

Lake District looks cool, but may be too far north.

...as you were...

Day 7, up there

Best snow of the season yesterday at Loveland, even if that's not saying much. More coming tonight, and Tues - Wed night. And maybe a little next weekend. We can't exactly fall back to the "well, it's early in the season" bromide - no, it's halfway through the season and the Upper C basin is looking like 75%, and Animas about 78%. And yes, we know the big snow months of March and April are still ahead, but they'll have to be really big to make up for what's a lousy, even if improving, snowpack year.

Hate to sound grouchy, but it makes me grouchy.


Oh, and we're happy to report that our new boots (Dalballo Axion 9's) don't hate us. At least not as much as the Technica's did. They're Italian, so we have that pasta and decadent dessert thing in common.

Reviews 2/09/12

Portland's Radiation City plys the kind of gauzy, girl-group-but-not-really alchemy that wanders into the empty ballrooms of lost torch songs and overheard radios playing out of moonlight convertibles. On the single "Find It Of Use", leading off their new EP Cool Nightmare, Lizzy Ellison's voice strikes a curious posture between melancholia and menace, and the low-fi arrangements manage to keep the reverb-drenched production from drowning the song's tender urgency. You can check out the band, at home, working through an arrangement of "Babies" (from last year's debut CD The Hands That Take You ) here. They come to Denver's Hi-Dive on 3/6.

Ambient artist Phillip Wilkerson has a new CD, The Stars and Afterward, combining a little Berlin School sequencer with his trademark drone work. Beautiful stuff, from an artist with a deep and growing catalog. Look out, Drone Zone.

Italian Horn is the solo project of New York writer Anthony Pappalardo, and his Red Affair 12" comes across a little like a Sonic Youth rehearsal recorded from down the hall - grey washes of electric guitar chords, supporting simple vocal melodies, kind of summoning the spectre of smoky Manchester clubs circa 1991. Check out the
"Red Affair" title track here.

The Lumineers were started in New Jersey by Wesley Schultz and Jeremiah Fraites after Fraites' older brother, and close friend of Schultz died of a drug overdose. The two played shows around NY, but it wasn't until they moved to Denver where they teamed up with Neyla Pekarek that things began to happen for them. They have a new CD coming out on April 3 on Dualtone Records, produced by Ryan Hadlock (Foo Fighters, Ra Ra Riot, Metric). We're enjoying the bouncy, popgrass grin of the thing. "Classy Girls" our fave off this one so far, "classy girls don't kiss in bars", and mostly true if we recall. April 7th at Shug's, we're going to try to get a piece in the paper on them.

Mother Nature's cruelty

The big snow storm that dropped about 16" of snow in Boulder, and as much as 3 feet in some areas of the Front Range foothills, delivered a whole 4" to Loveland, and next to nothing on most of the upper Colorado Basin. Classic upslope.

The good news? Well, Most of Feb, all of Mar and Apr are still in play. Maybe there'll still be a runoff.

Really kicking myself I didn't hit more of it last year.

New video

We've started on a new video production for SpiritBear, prairie cemeteries this time. Like the last one, I plan to do the music myself, and like the last one, I'll probably regret it.

We did manage to uncover an apparently undiscovered bug in Windows Live Movie Maker - the Morphological anti-aliasing setting on the 12.1 Catalyst drivers borks the workspace. Thought I had the Microsoft Live support staff stumped. But they found it. Another geek-triumph, deflated.

England in September

We're in the early (very early) stages of planning a trip to the UK in September. A daunting proposition. Unsurprisingly, we're looking for history and lots of cemeteries, and hopefully some ghost-hunting opportunities.

And we find that, in England, there's a fundamental distinction between a cemetery and a "churchyard", and that at initial and post-initial blush, we are unable to find any evidence of a comprehensive online guide to either. Which means, destination by destination, we'll have to find them by province...or *shire, or...um, maybe asking around.

We did find a blog on London cemeteries, and we'll probably reach out to this nice lady at some point soon, although she has not been updating her site recently. We're planning to stay with Chris during our stay in London, and he lives (reckoning via Google maps) about six blocks from Old Brompton, one of the so-called Magnificent Seven of London's cemeteries.

So far, it looks like York, Cambridge, Isle of Wight, Stonehenge...and in London, the Tower and Westminster Abbey. Nine months away, of course, all this is subject to change. Including going at all, which may betray a sliver of sanity on my part.

What's up w/ SNOTEL?

Just as the snows start falling this week, and those of us eager to see basin snowpacks recover from their anemic levels Dec-early Jan, SNOTEL looks like it's down.

Grrr....