(no subject)
My parents went to the beach on Saturday. They got subs from Westboro House of Pizza and brought them. While my dad was eating his sandwich, he spilled some oil or something on his leg, and while he was wiping it off with one hand and holding the sandwich with the other, a group of about 5 seagulls (I'm not sure if 5 would constitute a flock) swooped down towards him and stole the sandwich right out of his hand, much to the amusement of the other people at the beach.
Other news from Westboro: In the Westboro News, there was an article about some kids that desecrated the Vietnam Memorial by the baseball field. The cops apparently became suspicious and stopped them because "they looked like hippies." Turns out that their intuitions were right, because not only had they messed with the memorial, they also resisted the cops' questioning and had to be pepper sprayed because they were so belligerent.
And on the homefront, Bert has been catching mice like nobody's business. Despite the little pink harness we put around him so he can't run away, he is still a vicious hunter. He catches the mouse and starts to play with it, and then Betty runs over to check things out. Then my parents run over and make him drop it so that the mouse can escape. So far this summer he hasn't killed any mice, but he's caught tons. He's also stalked a couple of rabbits, which is pathetic because there's no way he could catch a rabbit. He thinks he can though, so he crouches down low and slinks around in the grass as he watches the rabbit. It's tragic, in a way.
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I went to Montreal this weekend and saw Medeski Martin and Wood as part of the Montreal Jazz Festival. The opening act was The Young Philadelphians, featuring Marc Ribot on guitar. I had heard of him before, but I think it's only because he played on a MMW CD. They were great though. They played for about an hour and had a really wild experimental/fusion/free jazz sound going. Their bassist was phenomenal and looked like he was putting everything he had into that show - sweating, grimacing, smiling, bouncing, yelling. He added more to a show than any bassist I've ever seen. The guitarist sometimes played a lot of chords and made dense, muddied statements instead of playing single note lead, so having the bassist improvising around him and the drummer was a fantastic contrast. The bass was crystal clear in the sound system, too, so that made it even better.
Medeski Martin and Wood's set started off pretty slow. Medeski kept playing these spacey, atmospheric things that just resulted in aimless and kind of boring jams. Things would pick up when he would get into more of a funk/blues/soul mode, but this didn't happen much at the beginning. Things started to pick up, though, when Marc Ribot came back out and joined the band on guitar. I really like MMW's sound when they play with a guitarist. I like their "A Go Go" album, made with John Scofield and released under his name, better than any recordings they've made as a trio. The rest of the show was really really good and met my high expectations. The highlight for me was a really bluesy song they did in the middle of the set, with Ribot pulling off some great runs and Medeski playing more soulfully then he had prior to the song. Chris Wood was awesome on bass the whole night, playing both electric and upright. Billy Martin, the drummer, was also really good, and it was a pleasure to see him getting so into the music, especially when the drummer from The Young Philadelphians came out to jam and Martin was giving him directions as he was playing. Medeski wasn't very animated during the show, but this is the first time I've seen him, so maybe he's like that all the time. Oddly enough, of the seven musicians I saw that night, I was least impressed with John Medeski, who prior to the show I had been most looking foward to hearing. That's not so much a knock on him as it as a compliment to the other musicians. The bassists in particular stood out.
Other news from Westboro: In the Westboro News, there was an article about some kids that desecrated the Vietnam Memorial by the baseball field. The cops apparently became suspicious and stopped them because "they looked like hippies." Turns out that their intuitions were right, because not only had they messed with the memorial, they also resisted the cops' questioning and had to be pepper sprayed because they were so belligerent.
And on the homefront, Bert has been catching mice like nobody's business. Despite the little pink harness we put around him so he can't run away, he is still a vicious hunter. He catches the mouse and starts to play with it, and then Betty runs over to check things out. Then my parents run over and make him drop it so that the mouse can escape. So far this summer he hasn't killed any mice, but he's caught tons. He's also stalked a couple of rabbits, which is pathetic because there's no way he could catch a rabbit. He thinks he can though, so he crouches down low and slinks around in the grass as he watches the rabbit. It's tragic, in a way.
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I went to Montreal this weekend and saw Medeski Martin and Wood as part of the Montreal Jazz Festival. The opening act was The Young Philadelphians, featuring Marc Ribot on guitar. I had heard of him before, but I think it's only because he played on a MMW CD. They were great though. They played for about an hour and had a really wild experimental/fusion/free jazz sound going. Their bassist was phenomenal and looked like he was putting everything he had into that show - sweating, grimacing, smiling, bouncing, yelling. He added more to a show than any bassist I've ever seen. The guitarist sometimes played a lot of chords and made dense, muddied statements instead of playing single note lead, so having the bassist improvising around him and the drummer was a fantastic contrast. The bass was crystal clear in the sound system, too, so that made it even better.
Medeski Martin and Wood's set started off pretty slow. Medeski kept playing these spacey, atmospheric things that just resulted in aimless and kind of boring jams. Things would pick up when he would get into more of a funk/blues/soul mode, but this didn't happen much at the beginning. Things started to pick up, though, when Marc Ribot came back out and joined the band on guitar. I really like MMW's sound when they play with a guitarist. I like their "A Go Go" album, made with John Scofield and released under his name, better than any recordings they've made as a trio. The rest of the show was really really good and met my high expectations. The highlight for me was a really bluesy song they did in the middle of the set, with Ribot pulling off some great runs and Medeski playing more soulfully then he had prior to the song. Chris Wood was awesome on bass the whole night, playing both electric and upright. Billy Martin, the drummer, was also really good, and it was a pleasure to see him getting so into the music, especially when the drummer from The Young Philadelphians came out to jam and Martin was giving him directions as he was playing. Medeski wasn't very animated during the show, but this is the first time I've seen him, so maybe he's like that all the time. Oddly enough, of the seven musicians I saw that night, I was least impressed with John Medeski, who prior to the show I had been most looking foward to hearing. That's not so much a knock on him as it as a compliment to the other musicians. The bassists in particular stood out.