New bar coming to the Spring

From the Silver Spring Scene, here's a report of a new bar and restaurant on GA Ave in an old firehouse station. That's pretty cool, 'cause as it stands now, there ain't too many places to get a beer around here.

Joe Englert

Friends of mine already know about my semi-fascination with Joe Englert. As an armchair observer of DC and participant in DC nightlife, I would definitely say that Englert has done a lot for DC. In fact, I'd say he's done as much as anyone has for DC.

When we were all younger, his bars and clubs were our bars and clubs of choice: 15 Minutes, Insect Club, Planet Fred (later the Lucky Bar), Crowbar, Big Hunt, etc. All those places were go-to places and we had a lot of fun there. When we reached "club age," we first went to the standard places (the only places if you asked us) -- places that weren't Rumors or whatever other mainstream bars were going on at the time. We mainly wanted a cool place to hang out that played cool music. Those places were Poseurs and then Backalley Cafe and then Cagney's.

But after those three places closed up, it seemed like there wasn't a place to go hang out and dance as well. But then 15 Mins opened up, and we were there what felt like every weekend. We'd see Joe at 15 Mins, and he'd give us passes or would say hello at the door. We'd see him at Planet Fred all the time. There was a lot of youth mis-spent there. We felt like regulars -- felt like we belonged.

Now, Englert is working on fixing up H St. NE. He's got six bars going on now, and is working on luring in more businesses. I gotta say I'm rooting for the guy. It seems like he's really got some work cut out for himself at H St. I went with Scott to see Retisonic at the Red and the Black about 6 months ago. The Atlas District (what they're calling the strip on H St NE) right now is still pretty desolate and rough. But who knows -- if anybody can pull off revitalizing the strip, it might be Joe. If I had the energy, motivation, and balls, I'd love to do what he does.

(Oh yea, and his favorite band is the Pogues, so he's okay in my book right there. As a matter of fact we saw him when the Shane MacGowan movie showed at Visions. He was there with his wife, Lynn, who went to my high school. Small town.)

Some Englert links:
Wash City Paper: Englertification
The Goodspeed Update
Wash Business Journal
WaPo on Atlas District

Some Englert H St Bars:
Red and Black
Palace of Wonders (Showbar)
Rock and Roll Hotel

Mason's first birthday party

My nephew, Mason, had a party for his first birthday 2 weekends ago. His actual birthday is Feb 7. Check out some pics from the party.

Liz at 25 weeks

Here are some pics of Liz at 25 weeks.

Maybe I'll listen to the radio again...

Apparently, there is a new format on the DC radiowaves. WARW 94.7 has changed from classic rock to a new format they are comparing to "WHFS circa 1985". Very interesting, I say (skeptically), but I haven't listened yet. Also, Weasel is staying on as well as a few other DJs, including Cerphe. Oh yea, and they've got some goofy angle where they're promoting themselves as a "green" station and call themselves The Globe. Dunno 'bout all that. I'm all for saving the environment, but that seems a bit over the top. But I guess the question is: does anyone really care about the radio anymore??

I guess at the end of the day, one even halfway decent radio station in the area would be nice. As it is now, we ain't got much. Usually when we listen to the radio, it's either NPR, DC101 (pretty weak), or (the old classic rock) WARW. Wish I could get WRNR, but that doesn't happen too often. Most of the time I'm listening to my mp3 player in my car.

Read all about the new format on Marc Fisher's blog or at dcist.com.

Baby moment

Tonight, for the first time, I felt our baby move. Liz has been feeling the baby move around a lot in the last few weeks, and when we're at home or together and she feels it move, she puts my hand on her stomach so I can maybe feel it as well. Never happened before. But tonight it did. Gotta say, all cliches etc recognized, it was amazing. Doesn't really make sense in a way. It really starts to make this whole thing more real though. Guess that's a contradiction, but it's a strange (and exciting) feeling.

Extras

Just watched the latest episode of Extras tonight. This could be the funniest show on TV right now, although the Office is right up there too. The latest Extras episode featured the kid from Harry Potter in a scout uniform, plus -- the best part -- very un-PC treatments of disabilities. The episode before featured David Bowie doing a great song ridiculing Andy. I was "havin' a laugh." Definitely.

Here're some youtube clips.

Gettin' busy

Man, things have been busy for us in the new year so far. So, here's some stuff that's been going on... it's been a while since the last post.

Baby stuff: Things are going well so far. We had the 20 wk sonogram, and everything is looking normal. Liz and I are just hoping for a healthy baby. But otherwise, Liz's friends and family have been great -- donating hand-me-downs clothes and baby gear, furniture, etc. Liz is feeling good and starting to show, although she's been knocked-out tired at night. We've decided not to paint the nursery room in the new house -- bright green is an excellent color as far as I'm concerned (and don't have to paint). Speaking of painting...

House stuff: I've been trying to get painting done in our bedroom, but it's been slow going. We finally decided on a color, but had to use primer to cover old paint. So, I managed to get the primer up while it was so warm, so we could air out the room while it dried. (The doctor says Liz should avoid breathing in paint fumes.) Now I'm very close to having the room all taped up and ready for the real stuff, but still need to worry about the fumes. So gotta figure out best time to do that.

We're zeroing in on a couch for the basement. There's been much thought and time spent debating what the right one should be -- most of that done in my head w/ Liz getting annoyed on the sidelines. Oh yea, and more painting to be done in the basement. Trying to get it ready for TV room/rec room use.

Did some spackling (!) to patch up the walls from previous owners' nails, hangers, etc, and repainted that as well. Then, there's pictures to hang. Oh yea, still gotta finish installing a towel rod and shelf in the upstairs bathroom. Never would've thought I'd want to/have to do all this stuff! I guess it can be fun... not the painting really.

Plus, on top of those (mostly self-imposed) projects, we still are trying to rent or sell our condo. That is the first thing that needs to happen. And we've also got to get our cars registered in MD (and get MD driver's licenses). Whew.

But, I was able to take a sort of last minute trip up to NYC w/ Scott to visit Tom, my nephew Isaac, and his dad, Errol. It was a fun trip. It was freezing up there this weekend though. I was hoping the warm spell might hold out while we were there but it pretty much ended right before the weekend. Me and bunch of friends are heading back up in March.

That's the latest for now.

National Park Seminary

If you've ever driven by the National Park Seminary in Forest Glen, you'd say "what the heck is that -- some kinda weird cult compound" (that's what I said anyway). It's a cluster of buildings made up of a strange combination of castles, pagodas, elevated covered walkways, and generally out-of-the-ordinary looking buildings.

It's been in a state of disrepair for a while (and some, including me, would say it looked pretty cool that way).

So, now it's being redeveloped and semi-restored to build a sort of planned neigborhood. Check out the developer's site for lots of photos, plans, schedules, etc. Try to take a look at the photos, especially the historical ones and the current state of the buildings. I thought those were really interesting. I had no idea that the campus used to be a women's college back at the turn of the 20th century. Kinda wild...

Settling in and Christmas

We're all getting used to our new routines in the new house -- we being me, Liz, and Lucy. Lucy is doing well, but she has been, uh, medicated -- doggie prozac to make the adjustment period easier. I finally unpacked and shelved the vinyl and CDs -- six boxes of CDs. We're now down to just a few more boxes to unpack. So far though, everything is going really well, and we're really happy in the new house.

Christmas was fun. We got a tree a week before Christmas -- first time in about 3 yrs. Strung the lights, hung the ornaments. Marty, Joanna, and their kids came over on Sunday (Xmas eve day), and we walked over to Tastee Diner (Silver Spring version) for some breakfast. That was fun -- haven't seen Declan and Rosie in what feels like years.

On Christmas day we had our families over for a successful first gathering in our new place. Liz went all out and cooked up some tastee fritattas, plus we had ham and fruit salad. Seemed like everyone had a good time, and we were glad everyone could make it.

Liz always gets the best presents for me: guitars, mp3 players... this year she got me a Roku Soundbridge, which I got set up tonight. This thing rocks. Basically, if you have a wireless router set up, the Soundbridge can hook up to your PC (or whereever you have your music files stored) and play them through your stereo without any wires. And it sounds great! I have the computer set up in the basement now, and the stereo is in the living room on the first floor, so I can play digital files over my stereo very easily. The next big project will have to be transferring all my vinyl to digital so I can stream it over the Soundbridge... I won't project a deadline for that one.

Amir and Elaine also came over for dinner on Friday night which was nice. Always nice to be able to have friends over. After dinner we chilled, and then Amir, Greg, and I went and checked out the Quarry House in SS. Def a spot to return to -- good jukebox, good vibe.

Anyway, future house stuff on horizon includes putting up some towel racks, maybe purchasing a rug for the basement, deciding where to hang the framed prints... I think that's enough for now. Oh yea, maybe some painting. And I gotta buy a snow shovel before it's too late.

New House: One week in

So, it's now been one week since we moved into our new house. We're loving the house -- the extra space, the kitchen, the yard, the 'hood -- but we're still surrounded by boxes. Judging by our last move, it may take a while before everything finds a home, but it's okay. The worst is over!

Some quick observations about our new 'hood... it feels colder than the city (not sure if that's because it is actually a lot colder outside now than it has been); the sounds of sirens and helicopters have been replaced by the stray train horn -- fine by us; and it is generally much quieter, which is slightly strange, but I think we'll get used to it. :-)

PLEASE scoop your pooh.

PLEASE scoop your pooh.
Originally uploaded by IntangibleArts.

Thought this was funny. Made me think variously of our dog Lucy (because she has a stuffed Pooh just like this one) and Steve Shook (because he dressed like a giant Pooh one Halloween).

Packin'

It's beautiful outside (sunny and 60 degrees), it's a four-day weekend (Thanksgiving), but we're surrounded by boxes and spending most of our time indoors. Gotta be done. We're moving this Friday. Moving sucks, but we've made some good packing progress so far. Luckily we did a big purge the last time we moved, and our condo is not that big so we think we can get things done pretty easily. In less than a week we'll be in our new house... wild!

Rip It Up and Start Again

The other night I went to go see J. Forte's band play, J. Forte and the Secret Pop Band, at Galaxy Hut. It was a good time, and I got to see a bunch of the "TR+" crew (people I used to work w/ at TR and their various significant others and the whole extended TR family!). The opening band was Greg Shook's new band, The breakUps, who did a bunch of 60s garage rock style r-n-r (complete w/ nice covers). J and the SP band put on a good show w/ all his new stuff -- good tunes! I always enjoy an earful of some secret pop.

Anyway, Steve Shook and I were talking after the show about the book, Rip It Up and Start Again, which is a new-ish book about the post punk scene from roughly '78-'83. I finished reading the book about month ago, and after talking about it with Steve I started thinking about it again. Even though I'm not into a lot of the bands that were covered in the book (Throbbing Gristle, Swell Maps, Pere Ubu, Slits, Scitti Polliti, all the Rough Trade stuff, etc), I found it to be a really good read -- very informative, well written, well researched. And even though I didn't like or wasn't familiar w/ the bulk of the bands written about, I was still interested in a lot of the ideas behind the music they created and the scenes that drove those ideas. Of course, the book covered stuff that I did and/or still do like to varying degrees -- PiL, Specials and all 2-Tone, Aztec Camera, Joy Division, New Order, Talking Heads -- so that was enough to keep me reading. The "social history" aspect of it though was pretty interesting since I really had no idea what was behind a lot of those scenes (the book focuses mostly on the UK stuff). Bottom line: I'd recommend this book to anyone who's at all interested in that time period of music.

One point that the author makes is that there has never been a more diverse, creative, fast-evolving, anything-goes period in pop music history. Interesting idea, I think, and thinking about it in an objective way, I might have to agree. Even though I don't like most of the stuff that came out then that would be considered post punk, the author, Simon Reynolds, really conveys his enthusiasm for what was happening then, in terms of capturing the spirit and mindset of the bands. For example, dub and reggae was a big influence on most of the music that came directly after the Pistols broke up. Then things progressed from there incorporating all sorts of styles and ideas -- dance music (disco), industrial, goth, ska, electronic, ultra produced pop music.

Anyway, it prompted me to complete my Post Punk Chronicles collection (on Rhino) by buying the CD I was missing from the three CD series, Scared to Dance. Can't say I love it, but I'm happy that I now know, for example, what the Pop Group sounds like -- bloody 'orrible! But there's some cool stuff on it, like Killing Joke and Echo & the Bunnymen.

So, check out the link to Simon Reynolds's site, and also I found a site called Post Punk Junk which has mp3s of old post punk stuff (and beyond) and, of course, junk.

Closed. Settled. Bought.

It's now ours! Today we settled on a new house in Silver Spring. Now if we can sell our condo... We won't be moving until December, which I'm sure will be on us in no time. Because of our change in location, I've added some links on the left to some blogs about Silver Spring. So in addition to obsessively reading about new developments in DC, I can now do the same for SS. Sweet.

Battle of The Album Covers

Pretty cool -- and violent and slightly obscene and weird -- animated video of album covers battling.

Virgin Festival, Sept 23: done

Almost a month later, I'm posting about the Virgin Festival that Liz and I went to at Pimlico Racetrack in Baltimore.

Here are a few pictures, and I've also posted a short video clip of the Who. The video clip is kinda big (11 MB), so be patient if you download it.

We had a good time at the show, and for us, the highlight was the Who. I'm not sure if I can do a festival again though -- we were there for 8 hours about, and that wasn't even the entire festival. So, here's the rundown...

We got there around noon, and Kasabian was playing the main stage. As Liz can tell you, I was very anxious to get there when it started because I didn't want to miss anything. But everything worked out, and we walked in a few mins after it started.

Once we got in, we went to go check out the Drive-By Truckers, who had just started on the second stage. And by this time we had hooked up with Ali, Stephen, et al. Stephen came over to watch the Truckers with us. They played a good set of tough, redneck rock. At one point, they had three guitars and a lap steel guitar. It was a pretty full sound! They also played "Daddy's Cup" from the Dirty South album, which at this point is my fave song by them. Their final song was a cover of the Jim Carroll Band's "People Who Died" which they performed pretty faithfully.

Next, Wolfmother played on the main stage, which we listened to while we grabbed some food. The key word there is "listened" because on the main stage you could not really make out the band so much on the stage. They were tiny. Wolfmother seemed okay -- mix of heavy Zeppelin and Black Sabbath stuff with Robert Plant styled vocals over the top. During the Wolfmother set we hooked up with Travis and Rosana who had just come in.

Liz and I went over to the second stage after Wolfmother to watch the New Pornographers. We caught about a third of their set because we went back to the main stage for the Raconteurs. The NPs were good as always -- we've seen 'em a few times -- but one disappointment was that Neko Case was not with them this time.

The Raconteurs was actually very good. Not that I was expecting them not to be, but I guess I wasn't sure what to expect. They sounded really good, Jack White appeared to be a little pumped up (physically that is), and they played pretty much the whole album plus maybe one or two songs not on the album -- maybe b-sides or something.

We stuck around the main stage after that to see Gnarls Barkley who were a lot of fun. That "Crazy" song is crazy-catchy. They came out wearing Roman costumes and introduced themselves as "this evening's entertainment: Chariots of Fire!" Glad we caught them.

The Who was next, and I felt like a 15-yr old waiting for them to come on. I've never seen 'em. As a matter of fact, when I was in high school, Bill and I had tickets to go see them, when Kenney Jones was still in the band. But I got myself grounded, and of course could not go to the show! That sucked. So, even though this was maybe *a* version of the Who, they were great. The line up was Roger Daltrey, Pete Townshend; and Zak Starkey (Ringo's son) was on drums, Simon Townshend (Pete's son) on second guitar, and Pino Palladino on bass. They did almost all the "hits": My Generation, Baba O'Riley, Won't Get Fooled Again, etc, plus they did one new song (I think it was only one) -- they have a new album out called "Endless Wire". They played for almost 1.5 hrs.

So we left after that. Yea, we skipped both the Red Hot Chili Peppers and/or the Flaming Lips who were simultaneously the last bands to play. By the time the Who was done, it was around 8:00 or so, we were both pretty wiped out and knew we had about an hour's drive to get home. Plus I wasn't all that keen to see the Chili Peppers and I don't really know the Flaming Lips stuff. I think they may be one of those bands that I want to like more than I actually do. Made it an easy decision to head home.

DC Baseball

Here are a few things I thought were interesting that have to do with the new stadium construction and development in the area in SW around the stadium site.

First, you can watch the stadium being built via this webcam pointed at the construction site.

Second, this site (jdland.com) does a very thorough job of documenting through pics n posts the latest on the development. And it was created by someone who went to BCC! Although I think she graduated before me.

Isaac in DC, 2006

Here are some pictures from my nephew Isaac's visit to DC in August 2006.

Guitar tabs shut down!

Apparently, all guitar tab sites have been shut down due to pending lawsuits from ... the suits, maaan. Kinda sucks because I've used them often. But apparently, you can still find stuff on either usenet newsgroups rec.music.makers.guitar.tablature and alt.guitar.tab.