Cassidy remained virtually unknown outside of her native Washington, DC, when she died of melanoma (which had spread to her bones) in 1996. Her posthumously released recordings have since sold in excess of four million copies, and in early 2001 the compilation album Songbird reached #1 on the UK album charts.

I just started listening to Eva, and if she had lived just a few years longer, you’d hear here everywhere. She’ll wind-up being the Nick Drake of our generation.

no nuts, originally uploaded by iomike.

Last night, I played my first gig with Nothing & The Nobodies. We’re probably more in the vein of a jam band than a typical rock band. Lots of classic rock stuff, etc. Played as a three piece w/ two people I’ve been in bands with for almost half of my life.

Now, as a drummer, I’m not really a “basher”. I play in a jazzy traditional grip, sometimes play fairly quiet in my other band Gypsy Muse, etc. Last night, I literally beat the nuts off a new snare drum. Never had that happen before. Testing out a prototype fiberglass snare, and yep when I picked it up after the gig, heard ‘em rattling around.

As far as gig notes, I tried out the snare and a new 22″ ride cymbal that I’ve been “aging” for a couple of weeks. The “aging” process is to speed up adding patina to the b20 bronze cymbal. This one is a bit too heavy and will be replaced by the thinner 24″ Paiste prototype.

I’m not gonna use that snare in this context again. I’ll stick w/ what I normally use. This one has always been a tricky snare: loud as metal but with a similar attack as a wood snare. It’s not a favorite.

Wonderful article with Suzanne Vega on the creation of “Luka”. Such an expansive story on the origins and the post-single days.

YouTube – Spizzichino

Music: Terry Bozzio

What are words for, when no one listens anymore?” In 1982, when his hit New Wave band Missing Persons was riding the charts with “Words,” Terry Bozzio asked precisely that musical question. Nearly 20 years later, the Los Angeles session man, who moved to Austin two years ago, has taken to asking a different question: “What are drums for?” If attempting to answer the latter query as a solo drum act sounds a bit monotonous, then you haven’t been listening to Terry Bozzio.

I should preface this with a note, that Terry Bozzio is one of those drummers who has almost been a constant inspiration to me. Some people dig Rush’s Neal Peart, I liked Bozzio instead.

Aside from being a drumming badd-ass, listen to Zappa’s “baby snakes” video/album for an early earfull. His drumming on Jeff Beck’s Guitar Shop, made a school trip to Daytona Beach in 1990, something memorable. I sat on a bus, with my mouth agape for most of the ride. Slowly I passed it around and all of my guitar buddies were all freaking out too.

Over the past week, I’ve changed our (work’s) 5 year-old tabbed menu into a css, javascriptless, wonder. The new boss has a good grasp of CSS, but I kinda shocked him when I showed what all I could do by handcoding. Took me most of a day, but instead of 12 graphics, we’re down to 4. 88k to 3k.

I’ve also been going through a vendor’s code, more and more, as I keep finding code that disgusts me. Again, the new site will be tableless and (according to them) all web standards. So my question today was, “with all of this talk about standards, why do we have javascript rendering images and text?”. So, like I did with the menu mentioned above, I tore into their little widget and recreated it with more accessible version of javascript and css. I seriously, feel more sure of myself, as I work with these huge company’s coders and see how much CSS knowledge most of these people use just through Dreamweaver. I have a strong feeling, that if I just opened up the code-side, they would be absolutely lost.

The Sacred Cow Tipping redesign is still upcoming. I have some ideas based on what I showed off about three weeks ago. More based on what I’m doing at work…although I’m on Movable Type and not Teamsite. I’m also looking at redesigning the personal site and even keeping a tiny blog over there for more design-y things….don’t know yet.

I’m doing a bit of blog consulting and wish I could do this full-time. I can’t really be anything but vague about it, but it’s an interesting project. It won’t be “mine” but it will be nice laying the groundwork for someone to have a killer blog. I’m still hashing out details, but it’s nice being an old-school blogger who no one knows. Being on the C-List (hell D-List) has it’s advantages.

I’m still trying to find “my place”. A mindset or a grouping of thoughts. But I have so little time to think about anything but work, that off time is just veg time. I miss music, don’t know if I actually want to play again, honestly. I’m just so burned out on that aspect of it. I’d almost consider being a manager for a band or an artist. I’m *that* much of an asshole and might be actually good in that role.

Ok, enough of this ramblings…..

Wondering up to the museum stage and just discovering a band. Oteil Burbridge & The Peacemakers were awesome and just a new band I happened to walk into. Very “free” band, make me want to do something similar.

Standing at the front of the stage for Derek Trucks. Awesome band (again) and just a great group of musicians who (again) made very “free” music. I liked the Peacemakers better, but I love Derek’s style of playing.

Again, I wound up heading up toward the museum stage…although this time it was to use the restroom. While I was standing in line, I could look to my left and see the back of the stage and the drummer’s head. The drummer started playing one of the best drum solos I’ve heard in years. So after I “finished up”, I decided to just sit down on the sidewalk and eat a smoked sausage and hear this great band, that turned out to be Robert Walter’s “Super Heavy Organ“.

I kept saying, I think I’ve seen that drummer before….it is Johnny Vidacovich {see also} one of the “masters” of New Orleans style drumming. Never saw him live or heard his playing before, but it’s really made me want to pick up some more of that stuff. Just awesome.

Overall, even though I saw very little of the Allmon Brothers, it was a great evening, musically. Wonderful drumming and music from people who aren’t gonna be on mainstream radio. Made me want to play again. One of the best musical times I’ve had in a long time. Almost religious….