Greetings. It’s been a few days since I checked in with the outside world, so here we go.
It’s been a few interesting days since we last talked. I usually do these check-ins at the beginning of the week, but I admit I’ve been slacking in my open book policy here. I guess I’ve just been busy doing other things, like storm clean up and working on music and listening to audiobooks and reading graphic novels. Oh, and of course I’ve been filling my head with lots and lots of music. Let’s go back to the storm, shall we?
Two Sundays ago we got hit here in the Midwest with one hell of a storm. The week leading up to this the local weather guy I follow was building us up to what seemed like might be a “weather event” of mammoth proportions. We were in 50s and 60s temps all that week, and a cold front was making its way through. This meant two weather systems were going to go full MMA on each other giving us mere mortals on the ground one hell of a show.
I was minding my own business that Sunday afternoon folding clothes, drinking a beer, and watching Lisa Frankenstein(still haven’t finished it, but liked what I saw) when the sky got super dark and the wind picked up. To the west of us it looked blackish-green out, to the east sunny as all get out. Soon enough the blackish-green won out with sheets of rain and, as the saying goes, Hell was coming to Frogtown.
My wife, son, and my son’s girlfriend all headed downstairs. Of course, me being a Midwestern, middle-aged father I stood at the front door looking out like a moron. I never heard it, but at the far right corner of our front yard one of the pines snapped midway up and landed on the power line. Strangely enough, it didn’t snap the line. It pulled the pole down to a 45 degree angle, but the line never snapped so we never lost power. I texted my brother who lives on the other side of the neighborhood and asked if he was alright. He said yeah but they were out of power. No trees down on his end, which I thought was weird.
Anyways, we made it thru with just half a tree down. We called the electric company and by the time I went to bed they were there cutting the tree up and fixing the pole. The next couple days was a lot of clean up. Branches everywhere and two giant chunks of a tree laying in my front yard. I have no working chainsaw so I used a metal pole to put under part of the tree and roll it into the wooded part of my front yard. Of course, two days later we went through it all again with another huge storm that started up the tornado sirens. We missed 100 mile an hour winds by about two miles. One town about 30 miles northwest of us got hit with and F1 tornado. Lots of damage. The only damage I had was that my gutter overflowed due to not being able to keep up with the rain and filled my basement window. That started leaking into the laundry room. I was out on the ladder cleaning out the clog in the gutter, then using a bucket to empty the basement window.
Fun times.
I just finished with all the final clean up yesterday, going up on the roof to clean out gutters and clear the roof of tree limbs.
This past weekend was Record Store Day, ’25. You know, I used to get real excited about RSD. It was an event that I looked forward to. The gathering, the camaraderie, the excitement of the hunt and what I would be able to snag. I didn’t always find what I wanted, but there was usually some little gem I’d leave with. My local shop was even bringing in donuts for people. Grab a tiger tale or glazed on your way out with the vinyl. Pretty cool. Well, Covid put an end to the sharing of baked goods. It also kind of mucked up RSD for a good couple years. Stores were having to spread it out over different days throughout the summer. Pressing delays and whatnot. Much like with how we interact with the world at large, Covid screwed up us vinyl dorks favorite “unofficial” holiday.
If I’m honest, RSD has been in kind of a decline for me for the past few years. The limited edition stuff was less limited. I mean, limited pressing of 10,000? That’s not limited. It was less about exclusives and more about repressings and color variants. When I was a newbie vinyl collector I was all about color variants. Now? I’d rather just have regular black vinyl. IMO, it sounds better. I do have some splatter vinyl that sounds amazing, and if there is some crazy splatter vinyl I’m down for that. But mostly, I just want a damn good black vinyl pressing.
Well this year, to my surprise, there were four releases I was excited about. The Grays’ one and only release, 1994s Ro Sham Bo was finally getting a vinyl release. Remastered with liner notes from Jason Falkner, plus two bonus tracks(covers of Wire’s “Outdoor Miner” and the Stones’ “Complicated”.) There was Brad Fiedel’s score to The Serpent and the Rainbow, Bill Evans’ Further Ahead: Live In Finland, and Kenny Dorham’s Blue Bossa In The Bronx : Live From The Blue Morocco.
The Grays was a no-brainer. I’ve had a CD copy of Ro Sham Bo since 1995 and it’s been one of those all-timer records for me. I’d always hoped they would do a vinyl pressing, so when I saw it was happening I knew I had to have it. I love The Serpent and the Rainbow. It’s one of my favorite Wes Craven movies and one I saw in the theater with my family, so it’s a special one. I also love Brad Fiedel. Fright Night, The Terminator, and The Running Man are childhood milestones for me. His scores helped make those movies what they were, so to have The Serpent and the Rainbow seems like finishing a chapter in a very long, wonderful book. And I’ve been on a kick with these Bill Evans RSD releases. They are some of the best live records I own, meticulously mastered and pressed, they’re like works of art. And I’ve just really gotten into the great Kenny Dorham. This live release felt like a necessity.
So Saturday morning my wife and I ran into Karma Records and after a quick wave to the staff I headed in to see what was left. I was pretty shocked to find that every one of the releases I was wanting were still there. I grabbed the two that I knew I absolutely had to have, The Grays and Kenny Dorham, then told John the owner if Evans and Brad Fiedel made it to Sunday to pull them back for me and I’d grab them. He said sure thing.
After the Karma stop the wife and I went and grabbed some breakfast at Cozy Cottage in town. It’s a small “greasy spoon” that’s been in business since probably the 80s, or maybe even longer. At one point my wife’s uncle Al ran it with her aunt Martie. It eventually made it into the hands of its current owners, which are the parents of our 21-year old’s best friend. We had a hell of a meal for a more than reasonable price, a couple cups of quality java, then headed out.
We hit up Menards for some picture hanging supplies, then went to Harbor Freight and bought a tool kit for $30. Something we can take on the road in case we need to do some repairs or what not at our daughter’s place. We then went to Habitat for Humanity and picked up an old dresser our daughter bought for her apartment. After some early struggling trying to get it to fit into my wife’s Flex we were able to get it in and on the road to our daughter’s place.
Thanks to some forethought on my wife’s part, moving the dresser into our kiddo’s second story apartment wasn’t bad. She bought one of those little wood frames on wheels that allows you to move heavy crap without blowing an o-ring. It even fit into the elevator so we didn’t have to blow a disc walking it up two flights of stairs. We got the dresser set up and I did some work on a couple large picture frames our daughter wants to hang. The wire to hang them on was going the opposite direction she wanted to hang them in, so I corrected that.
After a long day we made it home around 4pm, after leaving the house at 9am.
I did work on some music I’ve been tinkering with. I’m getting close to having it done, which I’m excited about. The other day I checked in with Bandlab, which is a free, online loop-based website where you can create songs via loop packs. I put an EP out last year called Structures which was all created on Bandlab. I hadn’t been on there for quite awhile so I wanted to see what I’d forgotten about. Turns out I had 5 finished songs on there that I’d completely forgotten about. That got me excited, so I started working on songs again on there. I’m pretty close to having a full album of work to put out. I’ve got album art created already for it. So look for that very soon.
I’m feeling the need to create. Bandlab songs, tracks created in the basement with “real” instruments, drawing, painting, etc…I just want to put things into the world that isn’t the garbage that’s being put into the world via politics and hate-mongering. I’m burnt out from being blown away daily by the garbage I see happening in my country. The U.S. isn’t a place I recognize anymore. Hell, I had to write my state representative and senator last week telling them that I don’t support their bill, SB-1, that they’ve been trying to push through for months. Essentially it’s to lower property taxes, which will in fact lessen funding for local governments. Which means far less money for municipalities, public schools, public libraries, etc…
I mean, how low have we gotten when we have to fight for money for public education and access to books? This doesn’t feel real, yet it painfully is.
I can voice my concern and make my very meager, weak blue voice heard on election days. But in a bloody red state like Indiana it’s like a drop in the bucket. My voice does very little here. Yet, I will always vote. No matter how worthless an action it may be.
So I’m doing things in MY world that make ME feel better. Things that make me feel fulfilled and complete. Besides creating things, delving into music and books are the other things that fill those voids. We don’t have much time here, so spend that time doing things that fill the holes in your head and heart.
Next week I work Mon-Wed, then I’m off the rest of the week and the entire week following. My wife’s birthday is on Monday, April 28th. We’re celebrating all week, baby. Next Friday we’re heading to Indianapolis with our son and his girlfriend. We’re meeting up with our oldest and going to a museum, then getting some Detroit-style pizza. Very excited for that. We’re also setting up one of the rooms in the basement to be my wife’s home office/craft room. Getting one of those adjustable desks that you can raise and lower the height. She’s making a quilt, so this will help out a lot. I’ll be, of course, working on MY creative endeavors. I’ll also be finishing up the outside clean up and putting down weed n feed in the yard. I’ve got some spots that don’t get a lot of light so they never quite dry after rains. In those spots I’ve got moss growing where grass should. Mowing that is like mowing shag carpet. Hoping the weed n feed helps with that.
I know there have been other things since the storm that have happened, but I got you caught up on the important stuff. Trees falling, RSD finds, sad about the world, and birthday vacation extravaganza.
Yep, we’re good. How are you?
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