May is Bike To Work Month, and Friday is Bike To Work Day. I'm a pretty avid cyclist, but in the recreational category. My excuse for not riding to work more frequently is that I come in at 4:30am, and I need to listen tot he news on the way in so I know what's happening before I go on the air. But I do love the feeling of riding so early, especially this time of year. It's just starting to get light, the air is fresh, the birds are singing . . . . .a very invigorating way to begin the day. So I'm going to ride tomorrow, and I hope you try it too.
Click here for details of Bike To Work Day activities. And to make things easier, you do get some support along the way. Here's an interactive map of commute stations where you can rest and refuel on your ride in to work. Some stations have mechanics if you have bike trouble or you need some air in your tires:
On Sunday afternoon, there's going to be a solar eclipse, and we may actually get to see it here in Washington. At 5:24pm, the moon will slide in front of the sun and block 94f percent of its light. We'll see a ring of fire in the sky. Well, if it's not cloudy, that is. And it probably will be. Here's the scoop:
Oh yeah, you know you're not supposed to look directly at the sun during an eclipse, right? Here's a little craft project that'll let you see what's happening. You can build a pinhole projector. Let me know how that works for you.
I think we can all agree that The View is pretty much unwatchable. But yesterday President Obama showed up and the women of The View quizzed him about pop culture. He actually did pretty well:
So POTUS likes The Avengers and Modern Family, and he DVRs Mad Men and eats chips and guacamole. Good to know. I guess it's good that this president has some awareness of the lives of average Americans, but then I think -- does he have nothing better to do than sit on a couch with five screaming women? I have a headache after watching four minutes of the show. Do people really sit through the whole thing?
I had a little chat with Chris Porter, who books all the artists for Bumbershoot. The first news flash from Chris is that Gotye has been added to the Mainstage on Saturday night of Labor Day weekend. And, yes, he has LOTS more songs than just this one:
Chris also gave me the scoop on a new way he's scheduling some of the music so that if you like a certain genre, you can catch more of it on one particular day of Bumbershoot. He gave me the verdict on moving the Mainstage to Key Arena, replacing Memorial Stadium, he ran down some nice ticket bargains, and told me the truth about whether he actually likes every artist he books for the festival.
His name is Noah Guthrie. He's in high school in South Carolina, he's a self-taught musician, and he likes to play cover songs and post them on the web. This one has attracted more attention than usual:
Noah has already been on the Today show because his video attracted so much buzz. He plays local gigs in his hometown, and he's actually finishing up his own album of original songs. The YouTube video is closing in on 4,000,000 views!
A legendary R&B bassist died over the weekend. Donald "Duck" Dunn played on some of the greatest soul tracks of the 60s and 70s and beyond, with Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding, Booker T & The MGs, not to mention later sessions with Eric Clapton, Neil Young, Rod Stewart, and many many more. (He's on the right in the photo above.)
Dunn was born in Memphis, Tennessee in 1941. He met Steve Cropper in high school, where the two formed their first band, the Royal Spades. After changing their name to the Mar-Keys, they scored a hit in 1961 with the song "Last Night." In 1964, Cropper invited Dunn to join Booker T. and the MGs, the house band for Stax Records. While the band had a number of instrumental hits in their own right, including "Green Onions" and "Time is Tight," their backing role for Stax stars like Otis Redding, the Staple Singers and Sam and Dave helped define the sound of Southern soul.
After the MGs split up in 1971, Dunn found work playing as a session musician, recording with Eric Clapton, Levon Helm and Bob Dylan, among others. In 1978, Dunn and Cropper joined Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi as back-up for the Blues Brothers on their album Briefcase Full of Blues and later played themselves in the duo's movies.
I was a part of an event called Tuxes & Tails on Saturday night at the Hyatt Regency Bellevue . . . . This is the annual benefit for the Seattle Humane Society, and it was their most successful fundraiser ever. The 900 people in the room ponied up $1.2 million for the Humane Society!
The evening ends with a fashion show consisting of local celebrities (or, in my case, "celebrities") walking the runway with shelter animals up for adoption. You can see me -- in a tux, no less -- above walking an 8-month-old German Sheperd named Allie. She was a little shy; once we got out on the actual stage and she saw all those people and cameras out here, she slammed on the brakes, stuck her tail between her legs, and refused to take another step forward.
Afterwards, I hung out with some of my new TV pals, like Bill Wixey, Kaci Aitchison, and Adam Gehrke from Q13 News, KING 5 meteorologist Rich Mariott, and KOMO 4 anchor Denise Whitaker. I can tell you this: People who are on TV look very attractive in person. Men, women, doesn't matter -- when you see them up close, you want to say, "jeez, you are good looking. It's a pleasure just standing here with you basking in your good looks." But that wouldn't be cool to say that, would it?
I mentioned this a few weeks ago, but I just got an email from Samantha, a high school senior in Kent, who was curious about it, and the deadline is fast approaching, so I thought I'd give you the details once again.
Seattle's Sub Pop Records, who brought Nirvana, Soundgarden and Mudhoney to the world, not to mention Fleet Foxes, the Postal Service, and the Shins, is offering scholarships to high school seniors interested in pursuing music and the arts.
Sub Pop Records in Seattle, WA is offering a grand total of $13,000 worth of college scholarship money to three eligible high school seniors. There are three scholarships—one for $6,000, one for $4,000 and one for $3,000. To apply for these scholarships you must be a resident of Washington or Oregon, and a graduating senior on your way to full-time enrollment at an accredited university or college. We are looking for an applicant who is involved and/or interested in music and/or the creative arts in some way.
To apply for these scholarships we would like you to submit an essay, no longer than one page, letting us know about one or more of the following topics:
What are you doing in the arts/music field in your community?
How and/or why did you become interested in artistic outlets?
How would this scholarship money help you to progress in your chosen field?
What are your influences and/or who inspires you?
Who are some of your favorite bands or artists?
You have to get it in gear if you're interested in applying -- the deadline is this Tuesday, May 15. For all the submission instructions andt he fine print, go here.
Feel free to thank me in the liner notes of your debut album.
You've noticed the trash can in the rest room in your workplace, right? Piles of barely-used paper towels, pulled out of a dispenser, a quick wipe of the hands, then into the bin. This guy claims we could save 500 million pounds of paper a year if we just learn his simple technique for drying our hands. Watch this, and you'll think of it every time you wash and dry your hands:
This trailer just showed up for Journeys, a film by Jonathan Demme (Talking Heads Stop Making Sense.) The documentary, which premiered at Sundance in January, combines footage from Neil's 2011 solo show at Toronto’s Massey Hall with a road trip through his native Ontario. It'll be in theaters June 29.
In the trailer, Neil drives through his childhood home of Omemee, the “town in north Ontario with dream comfort memory to spare” he sang about in 1970's "Helpless." He says, “It certainly doesn’t look anything like it did before, but I can smell it.”
Ever been to London? Did you visit the crosswalk near Abbey Road Studios where The Beatles shot the iconic cover of the Abbey Road album? Of course you did. Every music-loving traveler who visits London goes there. I sure did. Now, you can watch that intersection 24/7 with this live, HD webcam. Traffic goes by, busy Londoners cross the street, and tourists stop to take pictures on those famous "zebra stripes". (They won't let me embed it, so just click the link. And I think you need Flash to see it.)
I love the idea that you might have seen John, Paul, George, and Ringo showing up for another day of work in, say, 1966, heading to the studio to create another track for the Sgt. Pepper's album. You can almost feel their presence in the air when you walk through that neighborhood.
I love roller coasters, but I'm not too big on rides that spin you around, or that twist you in unnatural directions. That's an invitation to hurl, if you ask me. Which is what I feel like doing just watching this video of an evil ride that seems to be in Russia. Watch, and try to keep your pirozhki down:
More Beatle news: Usually I cringe when the mariachi band comes toward my table in a Mexican restaruant, but Paul McCartney invited a local band to join him on stage in Guadalajara, Mexico the other night when he performed The Beatles' "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" during his On The Run tour.
Here's some shaky cellphone video of the performance:
You probably heard that the producers of Mad Men paid $250,000 to use the Beatles song "Tomorrow Never Knows" in this past Sunday's episode. But do you know the story of the song? It was the last track on the Revolver album, and it was by far the trippiest song the band had done. I always thought it was cool that they ended the album with that song, went away for awhile, and came back in less than a year with the Sgt. Pepper album. It's like they were saying, "we're taking this thing in a whole new direction. Stay tuned, because when we come back next year we're going to blow your mind."
Here's an artsy-fartsy video of the song:
There's obviously a lot going on in the track; Teh Beatles were notorious for pushing the limits of the studio. Here's part of a great Wkipedia article on the making of the song:
The track included the highly compressed drums that The Beatles currently favoured, with reverse cymbals, reverse guitar, processed vocals, looped tape effects, a sitar and a tambura drone.[22] McCartney supplied a bag of ¼-inch audio tape loops he had made at home after listening to Stockhausen's Gesang der Jünglinge. By disabling the erase head of a tape recorder and then spooling a continuous loop of tape through the machine while recording, the tape would constantly overdub itself, creating a saturation effect, a technique also used in musique concrète. The tape could also be induced to go faster and slower. McCartney encouraged the other Beatles to use the same effects and create their own loops.[16] After experimentation on their own, the various Beatles supplied a total of "30 or so" tape loops to Martin, who selected 16 for use on the song.[27] Each loop was about six seconds long.[27]
The tape loops were played on BTR3 tape machines located in various studios of the Abbey Road building[28] and controlled by EMI technicians in studio two at Abbey Road on 7 April.[29][22] Each machine was monitored by one technician, who had to keep a pencil within each loop to maintain tension.[27] The four Beatles controlled the faders of the mixing console while Martin varied the stereo panning and Emerick watched the meters.[30][31] Eight of the tapes were used at one time, changed halfway through the song.[30] The tapes were made (like most of the other loops) by superimposition and acceleration (0:07).[32][33] According to Martin, the finished mix of the tape loops cannot be repeated because of the complex and random way in which they were laid over the music.[34]
Five tape loops are audible in finished version of the song. Isolating the loops reveals that they contained:
A "laughing" voice, played at double-speed (the "seagull" sound)
An orchestral chord of B flat major (from a Sibelius symphony) (0:19)
A fast electric guitar phrase in C major, reversed and played at double-speed (0:22)
Another guitar phrase with heavy tape echo, with a B flat chord provided either by guitar, organ or possibly a Mellotron Mk II (0:38)
A sitar-like descending scalar phrase played on an electric guitar, reversed and played at double-speed (0:56)
"Tomorrow Never Knows" has always been my favorite Beatles track, I guess because it's so complex and because it perfectly communicates the fact that these guys refused to be categorized as a typical pop band. They had much more ambitious ideas.
(Oh yeah, and not to be a total geek about it, but I couldn't help noticing that when Don Draper played the song on Mad Men this week, he dropped the needle on the opening track of the Revolver album. "Tomorrow Never Knows" is actually the final track on Side 2 of the record. I thought those Mad Men guys were all about the details!)
It was pretty simple, really. Our son Dawson is almost eight months old, and his grandmother (that would be my mother) hasn't seen him since Christmas. So a trip to Tampa was in order. It was Dawson's first expedition into the ocean, and as you can see, he loved it.
First we tried letting him just sit in his little floaty thing, and he seemed to be pretty relaxed:
So we stuck his legs through the holes in the bottom, and he figured it out right away -- the litle dude kicked like an olympic swimmer:
He looked pretty smug about the whole thing: "Oh yeah. Swimming? No biggie."
I learned a simple lesson: Kids love the beach. No fancy toys necessary. Cover his head, slap on some sunscreen, and you're good:
