Leaderboard

Dire Straits is one of my favorite bands, if not my favorite. Love all of their albums and Mark's solo stuff and collaborations as well.

Dire Straits by Dire Straits (1978) https://album.link/i/307029087 Example:

Did someone say bald?

Never did get to see Dire Straits but I was fortunate to see Mark playing with Eric Clapton in '88. Bonus for being 8 rows from the front in an arena setting. Minus for sound quality in an arena setting. The Winnipeg Arena in particular.

I finished inputting into a spreadsheet all of the shows that Claire and I have kept ticket stubs for. She started the project years ago and logged over 300 shows from her journals, ticket stubs and scrap books. Now that I have finished all paper tickets we still have and added some that I have in memory but not on paper, the total is over 600 concerts, mostly rock (broadly defined) and jazz with a mix of symphony, bluegrass, rap, country, etc. There is a small percentage that we went to separately and I am not done scraping my memory and my friends' memories, but the bulk is now recorded. We're wondering if we will hit 1000 shows before we slip this mortal coil. Actually, that reminds me that I think I saw that band and definitely saw Dead Can Dance...

Cypress Hill makes 1996 Simpsons joke come true London Symphony Orchestra to play Black Sunday album at Royal Albert Hall decades after featuring on TV show https://www.theguardian.com/music/article/2024/jul/10/hip-hop-band-cypress-hill-makes-1996-simpsons-joke-come-true-london-symphony-orchestra

Alanis Morissette

Scary to hear about the channel imbalance. Hopefully it doesn't happen to my set. I wonder if there will be some sort of trade in / expedited RMA for this.

Lookin' good!

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Human Highway

Dance With Me: The Best Of Orleans by Orleans (1997) https://album.link/i/77821265 Example: I usually stay away from Best of's or Greatest hits. I listen to albums for the most part. But fuck it. I wanted to, it's a fun set of tunes.... Heck, I will even post the song they are most known for. What do you want? It is a hot day....

Morrissey greatest hits... vinyl

I saw my bald spot, so I shaved my head.

Glenn Gould Bach Goldberg Variations

My guitar teacher used to play at wineries in Napa along with teaching. He was essentially a starving musician, hustling to get by. Watching a very well fed musician with a Reese's shirt on making more money than he made with sloppy playing and a dismissive attitude to a well crafted song without leaving the house might bother him a bit I guess. This guy is right. It is one of Alan's more accessible songs which is why it hooked me and made me want to learn it and explore more. It worked. 99% of Alan's songs wouldn't interest me if I didn't play guitar.

Steve is truly a master of marketing and promoting his work, but I thought I would try to get a few shots of this headphone rack that didn't contain his belly or fingers or our messy shop. It is not an easy thing to photograph but here are some shots that give a better flavor of this beautiful piece.

Steve came up from the coal mine to work on his headphone stand

Here's a better shot of the Walnut cookie table top that we delivered toady. Part of the top was in the sun this morning, and you can see the beautiful, crazy grain patterns.

All bookcases completed. And the other project I alluded to... This Walnut cookie was cut from a tree on Al's Brother's property, where now stands his new house. This table will now sit on the covered veranda, not far from where the tree originally stood. Al found the base from a seller we've used before for table legs. Hard to see from my poor photography skills, but there's lots of burl in this piece.