March-ing Along
Going by the fact I've posted once since Boskone, some of my readers are probably thinking we've spent the past month-and-a-half being a pair of layabouts. Admittedly, in many ways, those readers wouldn't be wrong. However, that doesn't mean we haven't done anything interesting; it just means I haven't quite brought myself to post about it.
We've certainly had our share of musical sorties along the way. The weekend after Boskone, we caught an Institute of Musical Traditions concert honoring Si Khan on the occasion of his retirement from Grassroots Leadership. Neither of us knew much about Si Kahn going into the concert, except that he'd written "Luray Women" (covered by local favorites Hot Soup!) and "Aragon Mill". (And one song on the Utah Phillips collection whose title I'm forgetting at the moment.) In fact, we were drawn as much by the presence of Cathy Fink, Marcy Marxer, and John McCutcheon on the bill as we were by Khan himself. Still, it was a very enjoyable evening, and we now have two CD collections of Si Kahn's music to accompany us on the drive to FilKONtario.
To close out February, we caught our favorite Bouzouki Babe at the Old Brogue. Beth is always fun, but especially so at the Brogue; it's one of the "safe" places she can let her nuttier side out during a set. We were joined at the concert by thelongshot, katrinb and the Robster, and retired afterwards to Amphora's Diner for dinner.
We made it to the March FSGW Open Sing, with the theme of "Dates and Times". In an unusual move for me, I kept it serious both rounds -- "John Of Dreams" on the first and "Through A Child's Eyes" on the second. Wish I had a recording of the latter; I think it might have been one of my best performances of that one EVER.
One of the regular Paul & Storm/Jonathan Coulton spectacles at the Birchmere was up next. I suppose I should not be surprised how many familiar faces were spotted around the room, including jannyblue, partiallyclips, pfischer and vvalkri. The show was great, as usual. One particularly funny moment--in the middle of hamming it up on "Mr. Fancypants", JoCo hit a wrong button on his Zendrum and turned the MIDI track off, bringing him to a screeching halt. Probably the best musical technology fail I've seen since Christine Lavin accidentally dropped a baton on her Boomerang in the middle of her routine, with similar results.
St. Patrick's Day, following recent tradition, was spent at Madam's Organ, with maugorn on stage and most of the active membership of 3LF in the audience. Most pleasant weather yet for the walk up 18th Street from my office. Had to duck out before Maug's second set as I needed to take care of a few things at home before going to bed, but the first set was most enjoyable.
Which brings us to Saturday a week ago, when we finally were able to catch Lou and Peter Berryman at one of the Dawson House Concerts in Wheaton. It had been a few years; recently every time they've been in town for a gig we were either away at a con or already had tickets for something else. Such things have their benefits though; we were able to hear a whole bunch of songs that were new to us. And we acquired two more CDs for the upcoming Toronto run.
The only other notable activity was finally getting to see the Terra Cotta Warriors exhibit at the National Geographic Museum. I'd missed out on the first run of tickets, but heard about the extended evening hours and new ticket sales for the final couple of weeks and pounced. The exhibit was good. It wasn't just the famed warriors -- actually there were only about 10 of those -- there were roof tiles and caps, bells and drums, coinage, and other artifacts.
Finally, a couple of links for the curious:
-- For my teacher friends, and parents of young children, the Structural Engineering Institute's Kids Page.
-- An article from the UK Daily Mail about 450-year old mud brick towers in Shibam, Yemen.
-- For those who've been pondering city-wide glass domes or generation ships, you can relax, the Haiti and Chile quakes aren't related.
-- And finally, speaking of earthquakes, anyone with a recent-model laptop (or with $50 for a special USB device) can join Stanford University's Quake-Catcher Network.
We've certainly had our share of musical sorties along the way. The weekend after Boskone, we caught an Institute of Musical Traditions concert honoring Si Khan on the occasion of his retirement from Grassroots Leadership. Neither of us knew much about Si Kahn going into the concert, except that he'd written "Luray Women" (covered by local favorites Hot Soup!) and "Aragon Mill". (And one song on the Utah Phillips collection whose title I'm forgetting at the moment.) In fact, we were drawn as much by the presence of Cathy Fink, Marcy Marxer, and John McCutcheon on the bill as we were by Khan himself. Still, it was a very enjoyable evening, and we now have two CD collections of Si Kahn's music to accompany us on the drive to FilKONtario.
To close out February, we caught our favorite Bouzouki Babe at the Old Brogue. Beth is always fun, but especially so at the Brogue; it's one of the "safe" places she can let her nuttier side out during a set. We were joined at the concert by thelongshot, katrinb and the Robster, and retired afterwards to Amphora's Diner for dinner.
We made it to the March FSGW Open Sing, with the theme of "Dates and Times". In an unusual move for me, I kept it serious both rounds -- "John Of Dreams" on the first and "Through A Child's Eyes" on the second. Wish I had a recording of the latter; I think it might have been one of my best performances of that one EVER.
One of the regular Paul & Storm/Jonathan Coulton spectacles at the Birchmere was up next. I suppose I should not be surprised how many familiar faces were spotted around the room, including jannyblue, partiallyclips, pfischer and vvalkri. The show was great, as usual. One particularly funny moment--in the middle of hamming it up on "Mr. Fancypants", JoCo hit a wrong button on his Zendrum and turned the MIDI track off, bringing him to a screeching halt. Probably the best musical technology fail I've seen since Christine Lavin accidentally dropped a baton on her Boomerang in the middle of her routine, with similar results.
St. Patrick's Day, following recent tradition, was spent at Madam's Organ, with maugorn on stage and most of the active membership of 3LF in the audience. Most pleasant weather yet for the walk up 18th Street from my office. Had to duck out before Maug's second set as I needed to take care of a few things at home before going to bed, but the first set was most enjoyable.
Which brings us to Saturday a week ago, when we finally were able to catch Lou and Peter Berryman at one of the Dawson House Concerts in Wheaton. It had been a few years; recently every time they've been in town for a gig we were either away at a con or already had tickets for something else. Such things have their benefits though; we were able to hear a whole bunch of songs that were new to us. And we acquired two more CDs for the upcoming Toronto run.
The only other notable activity was finally getting to see the Terra Cotta Warriors exhibit at the National Geographic Museum. I'd missed out on the first run of tickets, but heard about the extended evening hours and new ticket sales for the final couple of weeks and pounced. The exhibit was good. It wasn't just the famed warriors -- actually there were only about 10 of those -- there were roof tiles and caps, bells and drums, coinage, and other artifacts.
Finally, a couple of links for the curious:
-- For my teacher friends, and parents of young children, the Structural Engineering Institute's Kids Page.
-- An article from the UK Daily Mail about 450-year old mud brick towers in Shibam, Yemen.
-- For those who've been pondering city-wide glass domes or generation ships, you can relax, the Haiti and Chile quakes aren't related.
-- And finally, speaking of earthquakes, anyone with a recent-model laptop (or with $50 for a special USB device) can join Stanford University's Quake-Catcher Network.