Playing for our Supper

What a Weekend

Just a brief post this morning to recount some of this weekend's awesomeness:

* My dinner party was fairly successful; everyone seemed to really enjoy the awesome food.

* People's Market, despite a few hiccups, appears to be gearing up for a successful season. I spent some time helping them out at the Live Green Festival at Library Square, and their seedling swap & sale coming up a couple weeks has generated a lot of interest.

* The Chicken de Mayo show at The Garage was entirely awesome. I was on the guest list, first of all, placed there by my friends in No No Yes Yes. The first performer was Tupelo Moan, and they rocked the earth. No No Yes Yes did a great job, too. To finish out the night, The Chickens played some far out jazz that was really rad and very danceable. The crowd was great the whole time, a lot of dancing went down, and at the end of it all I helped the bands with the load out. Fun fun times for him.

* Sunday evening we went to a friend of the family's for outstanding, muy authentico carne asada and quesodillas, followed by Tres Leches milk cake. Deliciouso! My Spanish is no doubt misspelled and hopelessly broken, but the food was great. I also had a blast playing piano tunes with our host; he had learned a bunch of Beatles songs from a book of sheet music.

Now I have a couple of days to gear up for an awesome camping trip. More to come in the following days!

Genre Zero

Late last summer, I started trying to put together a group of musicians to play one or two shows. My original idea was to find many different players of different instruments, who could play overlapping and intertwining melodies over some of my acoustic folk-type songs and some newer pieces I had written on the piano. I contacted an Alumnus of my college who I knew played drums, on the off chance that he might be willing to play with my temporary collection of random instruments.

What happened instead was that said drummer got on board completely, as did a fellow songwriter from the neighborhood, and a violinist (although I think she prefers 'fiddler'), and we instead developed a rocking sound that is most frequently described as "punk". I am so thankful to my band members for continuing to rock it out with me; music is what keeps me sane.

You can check out a recording of our first bar gig on SoundCloud. It is pretty decent, especially considering that we didn't intend to record, it just happened that the sound engineer at the bar records everyone that she runs sound for. Also, I am bad about getting pictures. This is the only one I have, from our first show at Peoples' Market, from a part of our set where it was just me and the fiddler:

We should be playing a local eatery, "Sun and Moon Cafe", sometime in the next month or so. Until then...rock on!

Wild Weekend Roundup

So, my long-time friend Carlos headed home to Vegas yesterday. Our long weekend, while exhausting, featured quite the assortment of fun activities:

1. Skiing and Snowboarding: I skied whilst Carlos boarded, and though my skill level is well beyond his, we were both equally worn out and sore the entire weekend. We didn't get in as much time on the slopes as we had wanted, but we did make it up there and had a good time. Also, we managed to not get hurt!

2. Gaming: We got in several rounds of Halo on Xbox Live, with my dad playing as well. Long live team Atredies! Also, Carlos and I played the card game "Flux" for the first time. This wacky card game has become all the rage with my friends, and comes in several different flavors (we played Martian Flux).

3. SLC Nightlife: It is no wonder that, being single and having come from Las Vegas, Carlos was eager to go out on the prowl each night. I think I spent more time in bars and clubs this past weekend than I have in the entire preceding year. It was a total blast, though neither of us had much success with the ladies. I really enjoyed flirting, meeting new people, and tossing around big tips that made the bartenders smile.

4. Shooting: I took Carlos to the indoor range, where we fired CAR-15 and M-9 equivalents. Carlos had only done the tiniest bit of pistol shooting before, but with a few helpful tips from me (I was a rifle and pistol coach in the Marine Corps, after all), he got pretty damn good pretty damn quick. I even saved our targets, mainly because I was impressed with his accuracy.

5. Paintball: Carlos had also never played paintball, so after a quick Google search, we found a good indoor field with remarkably decent prices. We played a total of 6 matches with strangers, about 8 players to a team, and did fairly well. We were always on the same team, and our team won most of the time. Unfortunately, in the second-to-last match Carlos took a shot right in the goggles, leaving him essentially blind for the final match.

....and I think that covers most of it. It was a great time for me, and Carlos seemed to enjoy himself quite a bit as well. My thanks go out to him for coming to visit, and to my family and friends for the generous hospitality they extended to him. We've got a plan in the works now to meet up in Vegas with Dustin...let's hope that works out!