Thursday, November 30, 2006

Chuck E. Cheese-y

Blogging here from Chuck E. Cheese, where we are celebrating the birthday
of Max, friend of Shayna. Max is 8.

Sooooo.....Chuck E. Cheese. A few kids here. So, we are wondering how proud
the child is whose mother is wearing the t-shirt that reads "With tits like
these, who needs a nice ass."

Thank goodness a lot of the kids here can't read yet.

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Tales of the BilliPod: What I Listened to on the Way to Work Today

I've done this before, and often fall back on it while I am swamped. Here is what I listened to on the way to work this morning:

First, before shuffling, a podcast from the New York Times Op-Ed Page, "The Education of Robert Kennedy" by columnist David Brooks. You have to be a subscriber of the Times to read it, or you can find it here. Worth a gander, especially if you are/were a big supporter of RFK.

Then we hit shuffle, and this is what came up. Shoot, I just shuffled past it. Let's see if I can remember. Only can come up with 7 of the 9 tracks. How embarassing. Anyway, here's the majority of what I listened to this morning:

"Indifference" by Pearl Jam, live in Boston on July 11, 2003. Considered one of the highlights of the 2003 "Riot Act" tour, the band endeavored to play every song they had performed on their '03 tour, all in one show. "Indifference," an amazing song in and of itself, was the finale to the 12-song "acoustic" portion of the 45-song marathon.

"Lolo Telethon" by Rap Reiplinger. An acquired taste, for sure, Rap was a Hawaii comedian who died tragically at the age of 33 in 1984. His album Poi Dog was a staple in everyone's home. The comedy is a bit dated and un-PC for 2006, but it still brings chuckles and rings true. This is from his "Greatest Hits" cd called Poi Dog With Crabs.

"Sly" by Herbie Hancock, from his amazing Head Hunters album.

"The Ball Poem" by John Berryman, from Poetry Speaks: Hear Great Poets Read Their Work from Tennyson to Plath, an amazing great book containing audio of nearly every major American poet reading his or her work.




"Garden," from Pearl Jam's Ten.

"Tiny Dancer" by Elton John, from Madman Across the Water

and "Highway to Hell" by AC/DC from their Live in Paris CD which is included in their Bonfire box set.

Monday, November 27, 2006

When I'm 64


Today would be Jimi Hendrix' 64th birthday.

Vote for this Dog

Click here to vote for my friend David's dog.

I don't know if he wins anything, but it'll make him happy.

The Day I Could've Died



Yesterday's post, and the Hamilton/Vedder "Iconoclasts" got me to thinking about a specific incident from my youth that I recorded for posterity.

My first journal started in 1983 and pretty much tapered off and on through high school. Prior to going off to college, I had a burst of journalling, which is kind of neat, as I have a great snapshot collage of the Summer I turned 18.

Anyway, here from my official juvenilia called "Your Guess is as Good as Mine, Jr." is an entry from June 30, 1985:

"The beach. Webster's defines beach as "a nearly level stretch of pebbles and sand beside a sea, lake, etc., often washed by high water; sandy shore; strand." Also defined as "an area of shore as a place for swimming, sunbathing, etc." In Hawaii, the beach s the main attraction. The water is warm, and the sand is smooth, white, and usually riddled with trash.

Of the hundreds of beaches os Oahu, all with appropriate nicknames (i.e. Point Panic), only one is notorious for its list of casualties: Sandy's. Sandy's is a bodysurfing beach yet, unlike other spots, it is dangerous. Of the long list of people "wounded" at Sandy's, the most experienced are on the list. How else does one become experienced, but by receiving battle scars?

Why is Sandy's notorious? It is so dangerous. Why is it so dangerous? Shallow water, with waves breaking so near the shore. Many waves come from out of nowhere. The current is such that they will just form. Without warning.



I had driven by Sandy's. Sat in a park near Sandy's, but in fifteen years of living here, I had never once gone there, until today. I still would not have gone without Chris and Pat, who also brought Pat's sister Marilyn (who at one time had been a model in Japan) and her friend Kelly.

Nothing much worth mentioning about the trip out in Marilyn's car (Pat drove, and I left my car at Pat's), except the bird that flew into our windshield and was crushed by the car behind us.

At the beach, I stared in awe at the waves. They were the largest I had ever seen in person. A lifeguard said 6 to 9 feet, but Pat was saying 5 to 6, which is large for a wave. We were eating our teri-burgers and manapua we had picked up at a lunch wagon, and putting on sun-tan lotion as we took in the sights. Blonde-haied, tanned female bodies passing by, the bodysurfers getting "pounded" in the surf, the sun, the wind, the fear.

Chris and Pat were familiar with Sandy's, but I wasn't. The stories of people breaking backs and necks, sustaining serious injuries normally found in auto wrecks. It is said that a car can run over a good surf board and not damage the board, but a good six-footer can run over a surf board, and snap it in two. The power of nature!

As I stared at the great size of the waves, a lifeguard spoke over the bullhorn: "These are ideal conditions here at Sandy's today, if you are not familiar with the beach, or do not have fins,...go to Bellows." Very reassuring to me, indeed.

We debated at least twenty more minutes before finally deciding to go in.

We went in, Chris with my boogie board, Pat and I without any boards. Pat and I got in O.K., but Chris got knocked down by a wave and the board shot over to me, as Chris hadn't fastened the leash. When Chris got out to us, they decided I should have the board. I agreed, as I was scared shitless. They said they would tell me what waves to catch, I consented. Several times, it was, "Billy, catch this one" or "Go, now. Go!" But I didn't get up enough courage until after 10 minutes when I caught my first wave at Sandy's.

(The Right Way to catch a wave at Sandy's)

It was about a four to five-footer. I felt the board surge under me as I held on while moving to shore. The wind blew spray in my face for a second, when I suddenly felt myself falling, head-first, straight down. I hot the water and let the board slip from my grasp. I felt it move ahead and drag me along a bit and I emerged sputtering, amid the smiles of a bunch of fellow bodysurfers. I had survived a wave at Sandy's.

"Did I look that bad?" I asked. They said nothing, but nodded and laughed. I loved it. My cousin Marc, a fearless boy from Maine who got hooked on boarding when he was here for my graduation a few weeks ago, would have loved it too.

I paddled back out and yelled at Pat, "Go for it, Billy, you said! Thanks a lot!" I let a few other good sets pass when I saw a wave I definitely did not want to catch. As it approached, I prepared to dive under it. I got through it, I thought for a second, but I caught my second, and last wave at Sandy's.




(The Not-So-Right Way to catch a wave at Sandy's)

The tail of the wave caught my feet, and flipped me backwards into the surge of the wave. I had already let go of the board while still in the air. As I plummeted down the six-to-seven footer, my eyes were blinded by salt water and I hit the surface and the beach. The board and the wave combined to drag me a few yards against the bottom, until I sputtered to the surface. I didn't bother to look to see if the others had seen me eat it, as I ran back to Marilyn and her friend halfway across the beach.

I only waited a couple of minutes, water dripping out of my nose, until Pat and Chris trotted up and said, "Let's hit Bellows," a more mild-mannered beach that was to Sandy's as a babbling brook to Niagra Falls.

We ended up at Sherwoods, a beach near Bellows (incidentally my favorite spot), where the boarding is usually adequate. Today it was rough, and there were the biggest waves I'd ever seen there, although miniscule next to the back-breaking surf of Sandy's.

After a couple of hours at Sherwood's, we headed back to Sandy's to see if it had mellowed out some, and it had. We passed our murdered bird on the way home......"

The following day, I continued the saga:

"When I got to school today [my Summer job was at the Iolani library], a bunch of guys called me over and said they had seen me at Sandy's. I was relating the story when I said I only caught two waves. A guy interrupted, saying, "You didn't catch any waves, they caught you!"


Of course, I cringe a bit while reading this, thinking I could edit here and there. Of course, legend has transformed this story for me. I often relate it saying that the people on the beach were cheering as I stumbled out of the froth. The experience of "going over the falls," relates to falling off the crest of the wave into the trench and then getting crushed by the mass of water from above.

I cringe at my naivete, and the fact that I was so awe-struck by waves that, compared to the swells that hit the North Shore of Hawai'i every Winter, are tiny.

I should have been wearing fins.


A great article about Sandy's here.

And I can't resist this shot:


I just added this, a YouTube clip with some amazing amateur footage of a "typical" day at Sandy's, June 30, 2006, 21 years to the day that I took the plunge for the first and last time (warning: gratutitous bikini shots interspersed within):


Sunday, November 26, 2006

Iconoclasts: Vedder and Hamilton


A month ago, the Sundance Channel premiered their second season of Iconoclasts with an episode pairing surfer Laird Hamilton and Eddie Vedder. There was much buzz about it among the Pearl Jam fan base, as Eddie is rarely seen in such a personal and close-up light.

The hour-long show basically brings two figures together and films them interacting, discussing their crafts/artforms, and the audience presumably gets to eavesdrop on them in a "natural" setting.

The episode featuring these two iconoclasts was particularly poignant for me, as the bulk of the show is filmed in Hawai'i, on the island of Maui, and concerns the ocean and surfing. Admittedly, I was not a surfer while growing up in Honolulu, but the culture of Surf is part of the fabric of society there, and it is difficult not to come away with some form of connection to the sea. There's a link here to a clip on the channel.

Granted, mine is comparatively weak, but I loved boogie-boarding, and will bodysurf on the rare occasion when I have the opportunity. One thing that Hawai'i did instill in me is a snobbery that eschews beaches elsewhere. I deplored the cold, kelpy seas of Southern California, disdained the Mediterranean Sea the few weeks I was in proximity to it in Israel in 1983, and have yet, despite 9 years in New York, to set foot in the Atlantic.

I do recognize that true surf-souls do not share this snobbery; they would surf in toxic sludge if the waves were breaking right, and would find a way to paddle through swells on a glassy lake. (I'm sure some purists out there may question this, but this is my position until I change my mind.)

I do maintain that I am the only person in the world to be stung by a Portuguese Man O' War at his bar mitzvah reception, while boogie-boarding, but that's another story.

Anyway, Pearl Jam wrapped their Australian tour yesterday, and have 2 dates left: Honolulu at the Blaisdell Center on December 2, and at Aloha Stadium the following week, opening for U2. There are rumors that Eddie and Co. will be performing at a surf benefit on the North Shore during the time they are in Hawai'i, and I would imagine Eddie will be spending time with Mr. Hamilton.

So everything is sort of connected.

Anyway, the show was fascinating. It is repeating December 3, 7-11, 14, and Christmas Day. Check your local listings. Other episodes look good as well, and this may repeat itself, as cable episodes are wont to do. The ocean and surfing footage is amazing. Hamilton revolutionized Tow-in Surfing, in which 40+ foot waves are ridden after being towed out by jetski, or other apparatus. There's a nice discussion about how surfers provide perspective and scale to nature's size, vis-a-vis ocean waves.



I was truly moved by the experience.

Here's a preview:



If you can't wait to watch it next month on Sundance, the entire show, like most media in this day and age, has found its way to YouTube, broken up into 8 minute segments. Here's part 1, with the remaining 5 parts available, should you choose to watch online:

Saturday, November 25, 2006

Saturday Stuff

If you watched the show NUMB3RS on CBS last night, you may have seen a familiar face. Look carefully:


See the Asian man at the top of the screen, in the tie and vest? He's about to assassinate a senator. The FBI is watching him on a closed-circuit monitor. They're zeroing on the suspect. Now look again. The gentleman right in front of him with silver hair and glasses. The grandfather of BillyBlog, blessed be he. Dear Old Dad snagged a split second of airtime right before the bullets started to fly. Way to go Dad!

Next, hop on over to the blog Culture Bully. The linked post pertains to Beck's performance as musical guest on Saturday Night Live on October 28, 2006. And because the suits at GE and NBC won't allow their shows to pop on YouTube, video clips of the show are scarcer than most. But if this doesn't give you a taste (the Culture Bully post, that is), NBC is re-airing the show tonight (Saturday, November 25, 2006) at 11:30 P.M. The performances are accompanied by marionettes, Beck in miniature, and the musicianship is phenomenal. The second performance of "Clap Hands" is particularly foot-stomping. TiVo or DVR or it, or do what they did in the old days, watch it as it airs. It's worth suffering through all the rest of SNL to catch the tunes.



I'm a little bit excited because the new Fishbone CD came in the mail today. Look for a review in the next week or so. The disc, called Still Stuck in Your Throat is only available in Europe and has not been dropped in the U.S. of A. Thank goodness for Amazon.uk for those special items. I may also review the "new" Beatles CD Love, which is based on the Cirque de Soleil show of the same name. I've listened to it and it is amazing...a must for any Beatles fan. My copy's stuck at work.

That should get you through Saturday, if not the weekend. Aloha.

Friday, November 24, 2006

Top 25 Albums #22

In my sporadic, but ongoing series of favorite albums of all time, I bring you my #22 album, the eponymous one-record phenomenon from a band called Temple of the Dog.


People may not be familiar with the band name, but they have surely heard the most-played song on the album, "Hunger Strike," which catches radio air from time to time.

Temple of the Dog is a supergroup by today's standards, but when the album was recorded, they were not. In fact, everyone on the record was relatively unknown outside of the state of Washington.

A personal digression: in the early Summer of 1992, I had reached the acme of my career in television production, I had attained the role of Production Coordinator on a show called "Arresting Behavior". Three episodes aired. It was a funny show, but television audiences need laugh tracks to tell them when something's funny (generally speaking) and we weren't that type of show. My short gig of glory as a Coordinator ended and I was back to Assistant jobs. It was the beginning of the end.

Anyway, the office receptionist, who I remember as Karen, was part-receptionist, part-secretary to the executive producer, Larry Levin. She was cool, although she scared me a bit in her intensity and rough edge. She had a boombox behind her desk which she listened to regularly. She liked good music.

One day, she asked me, "Do you like Temple of the Dog?" I questioned back "Temple of the What?"

"Dog," she replied. I was, as usual, clueless.

"Well," she resumed, condescendingly, "You like Pearl Jam?" "Sure," I answered. Their debut album, Ten, was released less than a year earlier, and you couldn't throw a rock without hitting a radio playing "Jeremy," or at the very least, hitting someone who would be naming their first boychild "Jeremy."

Karen continued, "And you like Soundgarden?" "Sure," I said. I think I was lying to appear cool. Badmotorfinger had dropped shortly after Ten, and I'm sure I'd heard "Outshined" on the radio, maybe. But in 1991-1992, Pearl Jam's star burned much, much brighter.

"Well, then, you'll love this..." She went on to explain the CD that was Temple of the Dog, which actually appeared five months before Pearl Jam's debut and Soundgarden's third.

And no explanation of Temple of the Dog is adequate without mentioning the band Mother Love Bone. When the lead singer of Mother Love Bone, Andrew Wood, died from a heroin overdose in 1990, band members and friends joined together to make a tribute album of sorts. Now let's throw some names in the mix.

Temple of the Dog was the brainchild of Wood's roommate, Chris Cornell. Yes, the Chris Cornell who fronted Soundgarden and currently, Audioslave. Mother Love Bone members Stone Gossard (guitar) and Jeff Amendt (bass) joined Matt Cameron (drums) from Soundgarden and Mike McCready (Mookie Blaylock, the band that became Pearl Jam). So what we had was Pearl Jam and Soundgarden, for all intents and purposes, making a record together. Oh, and a guy named Eddie Vedder was in town to audition for Mookie Blaylock, and sang some background vocals on a couple tracks, including the record's most commercially successful song, "Hunger Strike".


Not a bad mix of folks. Gossard and Amendt joined McCready to found the early incarnation of Pearl Jam. Cameron joined PJ after Soundgarden disbanded in 1998.

But anyone can tell you a lineup of talent doesn't necessarily mean an auditory homerun (see the 2006 Yankees). Yet, Karen played me the tape. I had my own copy within a week. Phenomenal, and the music still pulses strong today, there really isn't anything similar to it. Cornell gave it his Cornwellian vocal punch, and the music is powerfully pummeling, from the opening bars of "Say Hello 2 Heaven" into the eleven+ minutes of "Reach Down," and then into "Hunger Strike" and the opening lines:


I don't mind stealing bread
from the mouths of decadence
but I can't feed on the powerless
when my cup's already overfilled...



A review by David Fricke in Rolling Stone sums it up nicely:

For "Hunger Strike" and "Reach Down" alone, Temple of the Dog deserves immortality; those songs are proof that the angst that defined Seattle rock in the 1990s was not cheap sentiment, at least in the beginning. And you can't help but love the irony of an album, made in great sadness, kick-starting the last great pop mutiny of the twentieth century.
Take a listen:

"Reach Down" performed by Pearl Jam with Chris Cornell, live (mp3) via my favorite I Am Fuel, You Are Friends

"Hunger Strike" (mp3) via Distance Has the Way


"All Night Thing" and "Call Me a Dog" (html links), Chris Cornell live acoustic, via Sweet Oblivion

"Wooden Jesus" and "All Night Thing" (streaming audio), via Y la Musica?

And some YouTube treats:

First, what's listed as the band's first-ever live performance, at the Off-Ramp Cafe in Seattle, basic grainy club video of a live, "Say Hello 2 Heaven":




Next: Cornell performing "Hunger Strike" with Pearl Jam in 2003 at a benefit in Santa Barbara:



And the music video for the same song:

Thursday, November 23, 2006

Happy Thanksgiving from BillyBlog!

A quartet of wild turkey strolling in Pa'auilo, Hawai'i.

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Pearl Jam, Adelaide

Robert Altman, 1925-2006


Legendary film director Robert Altman has died in Los Angeles.

His film, The Player, is one of my Top Ten favorite movies of all time. America has lost a legendary director.



Here is the quintissential opening shot (no cuts!) of The Player. Pure brilliance in filmmaking. Eight minutes and worth every second:

It's only Tuesday, but Michael Richards is Already Having the Worst Week Ever

Well at least the media doesn't discriminate: they sink their fangs into exposed flesh and rip it to shreds in such a manner that the World Shark Conference recently met in the Pacific Ocean and formed a Task Force to learn from the media's efficiency.



In case you didn't know, or hear, Richards, aka "Kramer" was caught on tape in a racial tirade that was exceedingly uncomfortable to watch. Fortunately, most media outlets have spared the general public the actual footage.

Last night, I watched him apologize on The Late Show with David Letterman:



This was uncomfortable television, at best. Most surreal is Jerry Seinfeld, Letterman's guest, shushing the audience, "Stop laughing, it's not funny," as the audience laughs uncomfortably about Richards' awkward handling of the apology.

I feel bad for Richards, who obviously "flipped out," but question the difference between this incident and the Mel Gibson arrest earlier this year. Michael Richards says "I am not a racist". Mel Gibson says he is not an anti-Semite.



The difference perhaps, is that Richards is a comedic actor, who is not a media-savvy figure who does not do interviews regularly. He has always been off the beaten path, and does not have a reputation for any sort of racial comedy.

Gibson, on the other hand, is the son of a Holocaust-denier and has made a movie that was condemned for anti-Semitic content. Gibson is also a larger, more successful entertainer.

Does my own personal character play off of these burning spheres of media attention?

Perhaps.

This is what I'm thinking about this morning.

I have rewritten many portions of this post and wish to clarify: for any entertainer to use hateful racist language is unacceptable, under any circumstances. We are all different, and our diverse backgrounds make us see things differently with different perspectives.

Monday, November 20, 2006

Just Returned from Cruise-Holmes Wedding and I Feel Kinda Funny


I struggled mightily yesterday with the New York Post's website trying to copy their cover story for BillyBlog. It was, in my humble opinion, one of the better headlines in a while.

The photo above graced the cover.

The headline was "TYING THE NUT".


Sunday, November 19, 2006

Pearl Jam in Newcastle, Australia

Pearl Jam, Newcastle (CCFA Benefit)

An Answer for the Editors of Friday's Daily News


The same idiots that thought this despicable O.J. Simpson interview was worthy of the front cover of your stupid newspaper.

Saturday, November 18, 2006

New Cheap Trick Photos

"Zandergal" on the Cheap Trick message board posted some nice pics from the concert, four of which I added to my concert post below. The end of the post has also been updated with a YouTube clip of the band playing "Voices," which was the song on which Nielsen used the really cool illuminated plexiglass guitar.

You can see all 41 pictures here.

Pearl Jam and Bono and Edge


Yesterday in Melbourne, there was a Make Poverty History concert that featured numerous musical acts, including Pearl Jam. Bono and Edge from U2 joined Eddie Vedder & Co. on a cranking version of "Keep on Rockin' in the Free World". You can watch the performance, along with others from Jet and other artists at the Sunday Herald Sun site here.

To support the cause, go here.




Or just watch it here:




Or listen to it here, via my fave music blogger Heather at I Am Fuel, You Are Friends.

Friday, November 17, 2006

Festivus 2006: Fastball, Soul Asylum, and Cheap Trick at the Beacon




Well, what can I say? Great show!

Jack FM's first Festivus concert. By the way, in case you're not familiar with the concept of Festivus, made popular by the show Seinfeld, read the wikipedia entry here. It's doubly interesting and amusing. At one point during the Cheap Trick set, guitarist Rick Nielsen, who had been pointing out people in the crowd, acknowledged a bald man in the third or fourth row as Larry David, creator of Seinfeld. We thought he might be joking until we made the Festivus connection. Not to mention that Jeff Garlin, who plays Larry David's manager on Curb Your Enthusiasm, sang with Cheap Trick in the movie Daddy Daycare, and was invited to sing "Surrender" with them at the House of Blues in Anaheim after filming their scene in the movie (referenced in this interview here).

So, to recap, Fastball was the first opening act. Tony Scalzo and Miles Zuniga played an acoustic set of about half a dozen songs, including their song "I Get High," "The Way," and a new song called "Reality". There were a few others but, as I am not familiar with them, I couldn't tell you the whole setlist.

Next up was Soul Asylum.....they opened with "Somebody to Shove". Ended with "Crazy Mixed Up World," "Black Gold," "Runaway Train," and a rousing "Stand Up and Be Strong". "Runaway Train" was dedicated to Karl Mueller, the band's founding bassist who succumbed to throat cancer in 2005 Played a few others in between. "Crazy..." and "Stand Up..." are off their new album The Silver Lining. Buy it here on Amazon, or just go to watch a clip of them performing : "Stand Up and Be Strong" and "Runaway Train", along with a bit of a Bill Maher interview with them.

Very impressive was the band's new drummer, Michael Bland, whose site is worth visiting for a few seconds at least. He is a very large presence behind the drum kit, to say the least, and I say that with the utmost respect.

Then the main act, Cheap Trick. Here's their setlist:



Hello There, Big Eyes, Oh Candy, Welcome To The World, If You Want My Love, Come On Come On Come On, Best Friend, I Want You To Want Me, I Know What I Want, Voices, If It Takes A Lifetime, O Claire (Tease - Robin strummed the opening chords and Rick started singing, stopped, and said that he quit drinking years ago, so he wouldn't bother trying that one live), The Flame, That 70's Song, Surrender

Encore: Dream Police, Auf Wiedersehen, Goodnight


Highlights for me were Nielsen's continuous guitar-changes. The band is very unique in that most groups' stage banter comes from the lead singer. But Robin Zander sang and sang amazingly well. (photo courtesy of Zandergal on the Cheap Trick message board)

Nielsen's mic stand was studded with guitar picks which flew into the crowd like leaves from a tree on a gusty autumn day. On more than one occasion, Nielsen ended a song by handing his guitar to someone in the crowd. A stagehand later retrieved it, but it must have been quite a thrill to be the temporary recipient of a legendary axe.


(photo courtesy of Zandergal on the Cheap Trick message board)


Tom Petersson plays a wicked 12-string bass.
(photo courtesy of Zandergal on the Cheap Trick message board)




Digression: A cool article about Rick Nielsen's guitar collection here.



Highlights for me were "Welcome to the World," a song for Nielsen's 14-year old son who was celebrating his birthday in the mezzanine, "Best Friend," and "Surrender". Nielsen's five-neck guitar is truly a sight to behold and, although a picture's worth a thousand words, seeing it live is truly-breathtaking.

Bun E. Carlos is back there somewhere (photo courtesy of Zandergal on the Cheap Trick message board).

A note about "Best Friend," a song I was relatively unfamiliar with. It was an amazing display of hard rock power. By far the heaviest song of the night, it catapulted to the top of my list of favorite Cheap Trick songs.

Another digression, there's a review here of the show Cheap Trick did at the Wiltern in L.A. two weeks ago. It should be noted, the reviewer's biggest criticism is that the Wiltern audience sat through most of the show. At the Beacon last night, the "sitters" were an exception to the norm.

All in all, a phenomenal rock experience.

Fun stuff:

Fastball's MySpace page here. They're streaming"You're an Ocean" "The Modern World" "Out of My Head" and "The Way".

Soul Asylum's MySpace page here. Songs streaming include "Crazy Mixed Up World", "Runaway Train", "Stand Up and Be Strong", and "Never Really Been".



Cheap Trick's MySpace here. You can hear "Perfect Stranger," "I Want You to Want Me," "Dream Police," and "He's a Whore".

Just added: a clip of Cheap Trick performing "Voices" from the Beacon:

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Live Posting from Cheap Trick Concert

Best bet: scroll to the bottom and read up. Rock on.

In the Cab

11:01 PM

Show's over. Awesome. Homeward bound. Now just gotta get the dream police
outta my head.

Encore Break

10:45

Someone call 911, I Need the Dream Police....

Surrender!

10:40 PM

Nielsen playing a guitar with FIVE necks!

Rick Nielsen's Guitars

10:25 PM

Are awesome. He changes song to song. Currently playing a yellow plexiglass
one illuminated from within!

Cheap Trick rocking the Beacon

10:15

They just killed with "I Want You to Want Me"!

Soul Asylum Finishes

9:20 PM

Soul Asylum ended with "Stand Up and Be Strong," with 3 extra guitarists
who they identified by name only. It was a rousing finale which was precede
by their 2 biggest hits, "Runaway Train" and "Black Gold".

In all, a decent set. Their new album is called "Silver Lining".

Well, according to the Cheap Trick website, they are scheduled to go on at
9:45, in about 20 minutes.

I imagine I'll post less during their set, which runs around 75 minutes or
so.

There was a nice clip shown on the screen above the stage before Soul
Asylum came out, one of the characters from Fast Times at Ridgemont High,
touting the band in the movie.

Great seats. Great music. Great night.

New Song

9:00 PM

SA playing new song "Crazy Mixed-Up World".

Soul Asylum

8:40 PM

Soul Asylum opens with one of their semi-memorable singles "Somebody to Shove."

Fastball Finishes

8:28 PM

Fastball played a nice short set, including a couple new songs. One called
"Reality" was pretty good. Soul Asylum up next.

Fastball Opens

8:10 PM

3 songs into Fastball's acoustic set and the first whiff of pot traverses
the Beacon.

It's just the 2 guys on acoustic guitar. Nice.

Melanie says she saw Frankie Goes to Hollywood here in the '80s.

Dinner

7:50 PM

Quick bite at the Viand Cafe.
Shitake Mushroom Burger.
Yum.

Tickets in Hand

Just got the tickets from Will Call. Orchestra. Row P. Seats 42 & 44.

WARNING

7:07 PM

WARNING

No One May Photograph,
Record, Video-Tape or Film
Tonight's Performance.
All Tapes & Film are
Subject to Confiscation.
---The Beacon Theater

Live Blogging

6:48 PM

Not sure how successful this will be.

Am going to try and blog live from Festivus 2006 tonight.

Sitting in Starbucks with a venti sugar-free vanilla Americano waiting for
Melanie.

The rain forecasted today has just started to fall in what is supposed to
be a very nasty storm.

I'm a block from the Beacon Theater wondering whether to regret leaving my
camera behind. Would probably be okay bringing it in, but why risk hassle?

Not sure where we're sitting. Will Call opens at 7. The tickets are from an
associate of a co-worker. We shall see.

10,000!










Today at 5:12 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, BillyBlog registered its 10,000th hit.

Hooray!

The visit was courtesy of an anonymous viewer in what appears to be Missouri.

Thanks to him or her and all the rest of you out there that have helped make BillyBlog so successful.

Without readers, there is no BillybLog falling in the woods to hear.