Public Service Announcement

Iron & Wine's new album The Shepherd's Dog hits the record stores this Tuesday. For a limited time, you can hear the album in its entirety on I&W's Myspace page. Go here now and have a listen! It's free and it's awesome!

Thanks Y'all--I'm off to Pitchfork!

Thanks for all your well wishes! My headache did go away, and I think I did fine on the exam (it's pass/fail). Cadence and I are going to Pitchfork Music Festival this weekend, so it's gonna be busy. Thank goodness it's not so hot here.

Yesterday's weather was absolutely beautiful! I got to take some photos after my exam. I just got a polarizing filter, which I should've gotten when I first got my camera. It makes your sky shots so much better!

Anyhoo, the lineup at Pitchfork is amazing. Ok, I gotta hustle if I'm gonna make Califone. Which it looks like I'm gonna miss now cuz Cadence was napping. Oh well. There's still Voxtrot, Grizzly Bear, Iron and Wine, Cat Power and more! And that's just today!

I Say It's My Birthday

That's right. Today's the Big Day. I am now 35 years old--a veritable state of venerability, you might say(thanks, Elaine).

I get a 3 day weekend for my birthday, and we started celebrating Friday after dinner with a little trip to Lincoln Square, our old haunt. Believe it or not, I have never been to a Cold Stone Creamery. I've always been happy with Sweet Occasions, our favorite ice cream place in the city, but we decided to try something new, so we headed to the Cold Stone Creamery that opened up this past year in Lincoln Square. It was interesting to watch the girl behind the counter fold my chosen ingredients into my ice cream. I had the German Chocolate Cake (since I was in a German neighborhood and it was almost my birthday and all), which was chocolate ice cream with pecans, coconut, caramel and brownie pieces mixed in. It was really good, no doubt, but I have to say that the ice cream itself was not as good as Sweet Occasions'. And I'm sure there were around 1400 calories in the concoction, but let's not dwell on that, shall we?

To avoid having Cadence bounce off our walls at home after her sudden ingestion of all that sugar, we walked over to Giddings Plaza, one of our favorite places to let Cadence run around and meet all the other kids who are also working off their various sugar highs. She soon made friends with a boy who must have been around 5 years old. She led him on a high-speed chase round and round the plaza. He finally got tired (cuz she could totally outrun him), and he gave up the chase.

Another reason I wanted to go to Lincoln Square was so that Ted could get me my birthday present, a couple CDs from Laurie's Planet of Sound. The CD in particular that I wanted was Wilco's new one, Sky Blue Sky, which just came out this month. I had already heard a few songs off the album, so I knew I would love it. The other CD I ended up having Ted get me was The Sea and Cake's latest full-length called Everybody. I had downloaded this album off emusic.com, and I love it. I can't wait to see them at Pitchfork!

Well, we don't have too much planned for the weekend. Ted's at work right now. I've promised Cadence a bus ride today, so we'll be taking off soon. Tonight, I think I'm having dinner w/ my cousin Kris and our mutual friend Connie. I need to find a BYOB place for dinner cuz Ted picked up some Tripel Karmeliet for me to share with the girls tonight. I wish I could go see Babyteeth tonight at the Hideout. I know Ted would totally let me go while he stays home w/ Cadence, but I haven't gotten a lot of sleep the past couple nights, and I'm totally feeling it.

Man, I MUST be old.

I guess at this age, I have to save all my rock 'n' roll energy for the one big show next week--The iG0 Audio Emissions CD release show that the Detholz! are headlining. My friend Derek Becker, the manager for the 'Holz was sweet enough to put me on the guestlist and get me a media pass so I could try out my new camera at the Metro, which has the best lights in the city for a small venue. The photoshoot is part of my plan to convince the folks at Pitchfork to allow me to bring in my camera, which is considered "professional" because it has detachable lenses and will not be allowed at the Pitchfork Music Festival in July. We'll see how that goes.

Anyhoo, have a happy Sarah's birthday, y'alls!

ah, remember the good old days?

...and by the good old days, i mean the reason i started this blog, which was to post photos from the shows i went to. actually, it was denison witmer who started it all for me. i went to see him play 5 years ago, took photos, and decided to start a blog. and that's who i went to see last sunday night at the beat kitchen.

i don't think i've seen denison in a few years. in fact, i can't remember the last time i saw him. we've gotten so busy in our lives...i've been part of his fanbase since his first full-length album, and it was so much easier to keep in touch back when he didn't have thousands of fans to keep up with. so sunday night, he came up to me before the show, and the 1st thing out of his mouth after our hug hello was something like, 'thanks for your lovely gift of the gibson,' while he gave me a joking nudge.

...now some of you may be wondering what the heck he's talking about. well, he's referring to a beautiful vintage gibson j-45 acoustic guitar that i once owned. he had the chance to play it about 4 1/2 years ago when he stayed with me and my friend megan after a show. apparently, he really liked the guitar, although he never told me so. a few months later, i happened to see on his friendster profile that he'd changed his answer to the question 'who i want to meet' to 'someone who will sell me a vintage j-45 for cheap.' i laughed when i saw that, but i never said anything to him and never offered to sell it to him. that's because somebody already called dibs on the guitar a couple months before.

...about 5 years ago, my friend caleb saw the photo of my guitar on my blog. i'm not sure, but he may have drooled when he saw the photo, and he told me just how valuable the guitar was. he got to meet the guitar in person that july when he came out to chicago to help me in the merch tent at the infamous cornerstone of 2002. i think caleb fell in love with that guitar on the first strum. since that day, whenever caleb would come to town, he would make a special visit to my guitar.

some of my favorite musical moments have involved caleb and his friends playing that j-45 in my little attic apartment on churchill street. it was pretty obvious to me that the only reason i got possession of that guitar was so that i could pass it on to its rightful owner. i gave it to caleb last february when he was in town for a wedding. hopefully, it's getting good use now. a guitar like that--it would've been a shame for me to hold onto it.

...anyhoo, i digress...so the show sunday night was the first i'd been to in a LONG time. considering it was a snowy, cold sunday night, i was surprised by the turnout. by the time denison got up to play, the room was pretty packed. the college kids just love denison, and a little snow couldn't scare them. it's kinda fun looking back to the first show i saw him play, and how much more reserved he was back then with his stories. now, he's so relaxed on stage and has a great rapport w/ his audience. i had forgotten how much i love denison's songs. they were the soundtrack to one of the toughest periods of my life, and i think i will always have a special place carved out in my heart for him and his music.

a sufjan stevens christmas

...for the past 4 years, christmas would not be christmas for me without some sufjan stevens. i was one of the lucky people who saw sufjan live before he hit the bigtime, and i was able to get a hold of actual copies of his first 3 homemade annual christmas EPs. this was back in 2002, when sufjan was little-known enough to personally respond to my email and ship me copies of the CDs himself. i always thought he’d make a killing if he issued his christmas albums properly, and that’s just what he and his asthmatic kitty family did last month. they seem to be selling really well, as amazon.com was out of copies when i checked today. by now, the number of his christmas albums has grown to 5, and just as i wished, instead of combining these EPs onto full-length CDs, he’s maintained the original form and order resulting in a beautiful box set complete w/ wordy liner notes, artwork, lyrics and chords so you can sing along, which is what these little gems were originally created for.

i think that the next step for sufjan and his friends would be to give concerts in which they play all the songs from these christmas albums from start to finish. it would be like a christmas rock opera. they would make soooooooooooooo much money. which they could then stuff into the tin container of the nearest salvation army bell-ringer.