Weekend stuff
On Friday I got together with thallid and deceptivelyevil for dinner at Brewdebakers, which is across the street from me in the old Lone Star location and has really good burgers and very tasty sweet potato fries.
I had planned to go to the Seahorse afterward for a Gloryhound show, but by ten o'clock I was in bed. It had been one of those weeks. (On the plus side, the next morning I felt considerably better than I had in a while!)
Saturday, back out with thallid and deceptivelyevil. deceptivelyevil has been planning for a while to replace her old guitar, and she'd identified a model she was really interested in: the Godin 5th Avenue. (The linked model is actually the 5th Avenue Kingpin, the version with electronics.) I'd seen a couple of those guitars last time I was in at Long & McQuade, so over we went. There were a couple of the cutaway model, the Kingpin II, as well as the non-cutaway hanging with the acoustics. All of us were surprised at how light the non-cutaway Kingpin was compared to the cutaway. I have no idea why that would be. It was also quite a bit smaller than I had been imagining it, definitely thinner through the body than a regular dreadnought. (I looked around for a folk model to compare it to and for some reason couldn't lay hands on one.) The smaller size was a good thing, for the reasons cited in my post about Daisy Rock guitars a few weeks ago. It sounded nice and looks beautiful--really distinctive. deceptivelyevil made sure to ask about restringing, since the bridge is quite different from a regular acoustic--apparently it's called a "trapeze bridge" and is actually less trouble than a regular acoustic. (I just checked--the guitars with Bigsby tremolo arms also seem to have trapeze bridges, which if I ever go bonkers and buy one, will be a good thing.)
Anyway. Both my guitars are from the Godin family, so one day we'll have to get deceptivelyevil's to my place and take a family photo. I wonder if I know anyone local with a Norman or a Seagull??
After delivering the new guitar home, we went on to Gus's for the Hell Freezes Over Metal Brunch. Five bucks for hashbrowns, bacon, and scrambled eggs while listening to a Judas Priest cover band. I don't know any Judas Priest, but apparently they are the Metal Band of Record because all their songs sounded like I ought to know them. My friends and I looked like a bunch of lost librarians (which we mostly were) and the bestudded, tattooed, pierced, friendly metalheads didn't look like they thought we were freaks at all. (Bonus points to the band whose mother came out to join them. I assume she was the mother of someone in the band, anyway.)
thallid went back later for the original bands, but after we'd had Turkish food most of the rest of us went home. I did not spend the evening hammering out power chords on my parlour guitar, but I can't answer for deceptivelyevil.
Sunday I was on my way to the barn when I discovered I didn't have a CD with me. Obviously this needed to be rectified so I stopped at Select Sounds in Bedford and bought the 1999 remaster of the Yellow Submarine soundtrack. (I used to have the original vinyl, with the George Martin orchestral B-side. I got it after seeing the movie, I suppose I was ten or eleven, and I remember being really disappointed that "Nowhere Man" wasn't included. I liked the piano riff on "Hey Bulldog" a lot, though.) My car stereo is pretty messed up so on some tracks all I can really hear is bass and vocal. Um, hi, Paul!
I also bought an Everly Brothers hits package that I think includes all the tracks I remember from my parents' old vinyl. Might even be the same run order. Too bad about the different cover art.
And I think at least one more CD, as well as two DVDs: Spice World, which always looked like good dumb fun, and The Song Remains the Same, which in its fantasy sequences was even sillier than Spice World. Spike immediately went into hiding behind the couch, which meant as long as Led Zeppelin was playing Vlad had a peaceful evening. He is writing a note of thanks to Jimmy Page even as we speak.
I have a couple of other things to say but they are related, so I'll put them in a separate entry.