Lady who??

I usually don't go much for glitter pop-babes, since they typically chafe against my snooty critic sensibilities...but I think Lady Gaga is kind of cool.

Obama's fall

Must say, his proposal to institute a budget freeze (which doesn't take effect until 2012) draws toxic scorn from the left, and increduluous chuckles from the right.

I mean, seriously, how anyone could call this guy an ideologue is beyond me. The guy plays everything right down the middle - frustrating for those of us who believe that hard 'left' contains remedies to the relentless corporatism and subsequent Wal-Martization of America, but still worthy of some admiration.

Detritus

In my now twice daily attempt to keep my work email with the size/space guidelines (or else they start whacking features like fwding or attachment, kind of lobbing off functionality appendages...), I came across a bit I wrote in 2005 about the closing of Penny Lane, the neo-Beat coffee shop down on Pearl St that fell not unexpectedly 5 years ago to rent pressures.

It was a short recollection of a Fred Frith show I saw there, prompted by a request from Pete Miller to write something like an RIP. The show was sometime in the late eighties - I want to say 1987.

I had the paragraph stored in my drafts for some reason, and oddly, I felt a momentary pang of fear that I could lose it, just like that - and it's a neat little remembrance.

So, here it is.

The crowd, 30 or so of us, were equally constitued of guitar geeks, live music junkies and the usual smattering of East Pearl counterculture undead. Frith, bearing the demeanor of a semi-retired British literature professor, took his place on a stool and proceeded to launch his uniquely merciless assault on twentieth century harmony, an hour or so of bouyant neo-Celt/folk figures adrift in an ocean of ecstatic sonic agony. It was like touring the cosmos from seat of a jalopy amusement park spin-you ride, and you either walked out profoundly confused or profoundly changed, or you weren't paying attention.

Hendrix never sleeps

Heard on NPR today that a 'new' Hendrix record is on its way in March. "Valleys of Neptune" comes from Jimi's storied post-Ladyland London sessions. Heard just a snippet on the piece...eh, sounded like, well, a Jimi outtake.

They at least had producer Eddie Kramer on there to talk about the release, which he spent a year cleaning up and re-mastering. Kramer is still in awe of Hendrix - I guess most of the rest of us are too, although can anyone think of any dead musician's closet tapes so thoroughly exploited as Hendrix'? With the possible exception of Elvis....

Me again

Hat in hand, returning again to the blog. All sorts of excuses are possible, some legitimate (work, for one), but also a bit of the reverse entropy that probably 98% of bloggers suffer.

Anyway....

Day 2 at Loveland - crowded and no surprise, since the past two weeks have been absurdly cold up there and yesterday was the first real break, with temps in the high teens/low 20's. Decent snow in the trough runs, thin cover elsewhere. All of Lift 6 is open, with pretty decent snow, and we managed to get lots of sun and 23 runs in.

Interview this week with Erik Deutsch, former Boulder keyboardist now trolling sessions with some Pretty Big Names in NYC. I don't have his CD, but then did that ever stop me?

Past that, uncertain.

Winter seems long this year.