The Black Keys and Spring and trivia
I keep hearing about the Black Keys, so I'm listening to some clips on eMusic and trying to decide what I think. They're good, visceral, and I like that, but it feels so...familiar and my automatic reaction is to be kind of dismissive about it. I think I grew up with, and continue to be surrounded by, this sound, so it feels like home but also nothing special. The ingredients are blues, electric guitar, a certain raspiness (often provided by a very basic soundsystem in a dive bar), a background of having listened to a lot of Jimi Hendrix and not fixating on the guitar solos, and a little soulful laziness to the rhythm that I think of as Southern but these guys are from the Midwest so *shrug*. These guys are good, but I hear similar bands - made up of local musicians from bands that have albums on Merge Records - every time I go to the bar three blocks away where there's music every night and never a cover. This sound is the indyboy default sound, and when I really really want to hear it I go to the primarily-African-American blues bars and hear the 60+ year-old guys who the indy boys are trying to imitate. I'm totally spoiled, clearly! And this is coming out harsher than I really feel about them, I did buy a couple of songs, I just don't think they're sliced bread.
Spring, however, is TOTALLY sliced bread! I LOVE SPRING! It's amazing how much my mood has improved since the daffodils started blooming and I started feeling like it wasn't too cold to ride my bike around town. The center of my chest is literally looser. YAAAAAAAAY!
I was co-quizmaster at trivia last night, which was fun! I asked for feedback and will use it to refine my style of questions a bit (e.g. opera is hard, so if I ask anything about it, it must be extremely basic). I'll be doing it again in 3 weeks. It's very cool - there are several trivia nights around, not a surprise in a college town, but most of them are just packed and hard to hear. This one isn't advertised, because the bar is a cheapskate, but that's perfect because that keeps the numbers manageable and there are enough hardcore regulars to field at least 3 teams every week so it works. Now the bar has decided it's too cheap to even pay the quizmaster $25/week and provide some very cheap prizes (free tacos, ooo, that's setting them back - they're a mexican restaurant), but we like the location so we decided fuck 'em, we'll stay and just share the work of prepping the trivia. I've partnered with the old "pro" quizmaster and he's very happy just having to prep half a quiz every month or so, as am I. Plus we all get to enjoy a lot of different question styles - and one round is always 10 songs to identify in some way, so sharing that around brings in much more diverse music. Good stuff!
Spring, however, is TOTALLY sliced bread! I LOVE SPRING! It's amazing how much my mood has improved since the daffodils started blooming and I started feeling like it wasn't too cold to ride my bike around town. The center of my chest is literally looser. YAAAAAAAAY!
I was co-quizmaster at trivia last night, which was fun! I asked for feedback and will use it to refine my style of questions a bit (e.g. opera is hard, so if I ask anything about it, it must be extremely basic). I'll be doing it again in 3 weeks. It's very cool - there are several trivia nights around, not a surprise in a college town, but most of them are just packed and hard to hear. This one isn't advertised, because the bar is a cheapskate, but that's perfect because that keeps the numbers manageable and there are enough hardcore regulars to field at least 3 teams every week so it works. Now the bar has decided it's too cheap to even pay the quizmaster $25/week and provide some very cheap prizes (free tacos, ooo, that's setting them back - they're a mexican restaurant), but we like the location so we decided fuck 'em, we'll stay and just share the work of prepping the trivia. I've partnered with the old "pro" quizmaster and he's very happy just having to prep half a quiz every month or so, as am I. Plus we all get to enjoy a lot of different question styles - and one round is always 10 songs to identify in some way, so sharing that around brings in much more diverse music. Good stuff!