Category: Music

Christmas at home

Due to the unusual amount of snow that’s hit the greater Portland area this past week, Kelly and I were unable to make the usual trek out to my folks house today.

My hometown, which is nestled in the foothills of the Oregon coast range, had more than two feet of snow. This is the most snow my folks have ever seen, and that’s saying something. When I was young we’d fairly regularly get about a foot of snow, though over the past 15 years getting more than six inches of snow, especially before Christmas, has been a rare thing.

This meant that this was the first Christmas that my family hasn’t spent together opening gifts, eating breakfast, eating pies, and gorging ourselves on far too many cookies. It had my family pretty bummed out, especially my younger brothers.

If it warms up and the snow continues to melt (which is the forecast) we’ll be out there in a few days (maybe Saturday) to celebrate Christmas. It’s only a few days delay, no big deal. Fortunately I have family who all live in the same area, and nobody has had to travel long distances. I can’t imagine the hell it must have been for people trying to get into (or out of) Portland the past few days. The inconvenience of postponing Christmas a few days isn’t that big a deal.

Tonight Kelly and I met Snooks at Kennedy School for a couple beers, which was a nice break away from home. On the way back Kelly and I helped a cab get un-stuck. Poor fella tried to turn from a relatively cleared street onto a snow & slushy mess and got stuck. It’s still a mess out here.

Anyway, Happy Holidays everyone. Hope you all had a great day. And only a week away from 2009. Maybe this year will be better than the last.

Food Music

Goose Hollow, and a long ride home

Post author By ryan
Post date November 23, 2008
2 Comments on Goose Hollow, and a long ride home

This evening Kelly and some friends of ours had tickets to see 80’s goth-rock gods Sisters of Mercy play downtown on a reunion tour. I opted not to go. I like them fine, and wore my Floodland cassette out decades ago, but just not enough to pay for the rather spendy ticket.

I did go along to dinner with everybody at the Goose Hollow Inn (mmm, reuben sandwich). Afterwards I drove Kelly to the venue, parked, made sure she was safe in the company of our friends, and then took the bus home so Kelly could drive home afterwards.

On the way down to the bus stop I realized that I had to pee. Nothing urgent, just a bit of forewarning from the ol’ bladder. I pressed on thinking that maybe fortune would smile on me and a bus would arrive as I got to the bus stop. As I got there and checked the schedule I learned I had a good 30 minutes until the bus was scheduled to arrive. “Okay,” I thought, “I can do this” and then loaded up some music on my iPod and began my wait.

Within about five minutes some tweaker girl (who introduced herself as Tony) started talking rapidly to me about how she was just up at another bar with friends and just had to leave because she wasn’t in a good place and had to catch a bus to Southeast to go to some party and how she was feeling punchy and blah blah blah blah blah… I just stood there listening to her (because she looked like she needed it) and smiling and responding with “uh huh” and “oh yeah?” and “ahh” a lot. It was a very long 30 minutes. Oh, and by this time, the bladder wasn’t hinting anymore, but starting to complain, loudly.

Once I finally got on a bus I had another 25 minutes to wait, and because I got impatient (and wasn’t thinking clearly) I hopped on a bus that drops me off about 7 blocks further away from home than the one I’d wanted. Once off the bus I began the 14 block walk home, very quickly. It was a long walk, and every dark corner and row of shrubbery mocked me as I passed, daring me to do the wrong thing.

I however succeeded in not urinating in a public (or in my pants). I am now comfortably sitting here sipping on a Guinness. Hooray!

Entertainment Humor Music Work

Take On Me – Literal Version

Post author By ryan
Post date October 9, 2008
2 Comments on Take On Me – Literal Version

A coworker sent this my way a couple days ago, thought I’d share.

“I’m gonna kick some ass with my own pipe wrench”

Beer Entertainment Music Travel

Hot Chip, and general update

Post author By ryan
Post date April 25, 2008
1 Comment on Hot Chip, and general update

Wednesday night Kelly and I went to see the great electro-pop band Hot Chip at the Crystal Ballroom. After work we went to Ringlers Pub for some dinner and drinks before the show, where I had a fantastic brew (which I guess is only being poured at Ringlers), called Liquid Friend. It was a lighter ale, with a very balanced flavor (with a very slight citrus/sweet hint) and was delicious. The server said it was his favorite McMenamins beer, and I think I agree with him. It’s at least up there with their ESB served on nitro.

Anyway, the show started at 9pm, we got in at about 8:30pm, went to the balcony and were able to get a couple seats while we waited for the opening band, Free Blood, who were a kind of quirky. It was a male & female duo who danced around singing to pre-recorded, bass-heavy dance music. At one point I thought I ‘got it’, it’s like some white raver-kid version of old-school rap. Kind of. But in the end, I was like, meh. It wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t great. The songs on their MySpace page sound better than they did live.

Hot Chip however, were fantastic. The whole ballroom became a crowded dance club for an hour and a half. The vibe of the entire venue was good, and even the servers working the bars seemed less hipster-surly than normal. The band played pretty much everything Kelly and I were hoping they’d play from their last two albums. The encore held a couple fun surprises too. First was the hybrid of their track No Fit State and the classic New Order track Temptation, which was a fun surprise (you can watch a version of it here from last year). The second surprise was the band’s choice to finish the show by combining their song In the Privacy of Our Love with Nothing Compares 2 U (the Prince song that Sinead O’Connor made famous). It was really good, and a great way to end the show.

Now on to the really quick update of the past couple weeks: gone out to the pubs once or twice, had friends over for dinner last weekend (Kelly made pulled pork, and hot damn it was good), been workin my ass off, and I finally booked the last of the hotels for our upcoming trip. I think that’s about it. I think.

Update: Oh, I forgot something. The weather here has been schizophrenic. It went from warm and sunny, to cold and nasty (it even snowed briefly a few days ago), and now back to being a bit more consistent with this time of year. Sheesh!

Beer Entertainment Music Work

End of the week & Bon Iver

Post author By ryan
Post date March 14, 2008
No Comments on End of the week & Bon Iver

Last night I was out with my brothers at Moon & Sixpence for some beers and dinner. Fortunately I got home at a reasonable hour, though I still ended getting to work late this morning, however it had nothing to do with last night. Kelly took today off from work (tomorrow is her last day of school for her MBA, and she has a big project to finish up) and as my alarm went off at around 6:30am, I shut it off, rolled over, and both Kelly and the cat were curled up all cute and warm. I remember thinking awww, and then must have fell back asleep because when I next opened my eyes another hour and a half had gone by. Drats!

After work I got to have a couple beers at the Rialto with my good friend MB. Afterwards he drove me homeward, dropping me of at the local grocery store.

After getting home and cleaning the house a bit, I remembered a song that caught my attention the other day. I subscribe to the RSS feed of MP3’s from Stereogum, and often discover ‘new to me’ bands I like. Earlier this week I ended up with a song by Bon Iver (an alias for musician Justin Vernon) that I liked quite a bit, so tonight I did a bit of hunting. I discovered a good writeup and a site where you can stream the album. After listening to a few tracks (including the one that originally caught my ear, Skinny Love) I decided to see if Amazon’s MP3 store had it available. And they did. So I bought it. It’s really really good.

The album was conceived in a cabin in the snowy woods of a wintry Wisconsin, and the songs seem to capture the setting. A lot of introspective, sad, and beautiful songs, all a bit muted and folky. Just the kind of thing for today’s rainy, cold weather. I can certainly imagine it being the perfect soundtrack to a drive in a snowy landscape, with no particular destination in mind. Check it out, it’s good stuff.