Odds and Sods for Monday, August 28

Okay, so I'm like totally psyched here. I didn't even know my camera could do an avi or whatever they are called and when taking pictures of the Adrian Belew Power Trio at the World Cafe Live show two weeks ago the settings must have slipped so imagine my thrilled surprise when I uploaded these the other day and then also learned I could post them here. Sorry they are only a few seconds long...I have one that goes on for over a minute but the camera was in my pocket or aimed at the floor - I don't know what the hell I was doing that night -- and merely recorded the sound with a black screen. Yes, I know. I'm such a dork.

But even if it's just for a few seconds, it's still very cool to see Mr. Eric Slick, Ms. Julie Slick, and the master himself, Adrian Belew, in action on my blog today.

By the way, Adrian's website is undergoing some changes which are pretty neat. They've just got one west coast tour date listed but I know of several, tickets for which are already on sale, and they'll be on tour in places like Dallas, Phoenix, and San Francisco for a good deal of November. I'll wait until Camp Belew puts them on their website to formally announce it, though.

The trio continues to get high praise on rock forum boards across the universe -- everywhere from the Yes forum board to Bela Fleck to Primus. My personal favorites this week are on the Umphrey's McGee forum board...this after Adrian, J&E played with them at the Acoustic Planet Tour in Atlanta. I don't know if this link will work unless you actually join the forum board, but just in case you want to find it manually, it's under "Adrian Belew Set List"...and of course I will copy the best parts right here:

"He played with the Slick siblings. A brother (drums) and sister (bass) combo. The sister was 20 yr old and the brother was 19. Pretty amazing stuff. Not to mention his sit-in on "Red". (yes, Amy, I did poop my pants!). One of the best nights of music in my entire life"

"Much better show than I saw from him like a year ago, that one was really mellow. This time around he had good energy and looked like he enjoyed himself a lot more as well.

All I have to say really is that Elephant Talk was freaking phenomenal. I haven't gotten that excited when a song started in a really long time."

"Eric Slick was doing the drumming for Project Object on their tour earlier this year. He's a beast."

"I doubt any of you wouldn't ask the bass player to marry you immediately."

"Wait, she plays Crimson tunes?"

"and she's 20!

I'm picking out a 3 carat teardrop cut with platinum band as we speak."

Ha - I've found a bunch of other stuff which I'll post throughout the week when I'm calmer. I've been really frustrated by Blogger -- I couldn't figure out how to post for the last couple of days; I couldn't write new entries without being switched to "Beta Blogger" only when I did that, my old blog disappeared and we just can't have that. Finally I found a blogger help forum board and apparently a lot of other people are having the same problem and some guy found a back door way to sign on so hopefully I've beaten the system at least for now and can continue to post while blogger changes over to a new whatever.

In writing news...my Neil Gaiman essay found a home at Chick Flicks Magazine - a paying pub(!) - and will be in their September 15 issue.

Speaking of Neil, he's in New York signing his new book at an event with John Hodgman on September 28, the same night Eric will also be in New York playing with Chris Harford and the guys from Ween at -- sob -- the closing bash for CBGBs where it's rumored everyone from the Talking Heads to Blondie to Lou Reed will be on stage. I'm hoping that things don't kick off until late that night so I can manage both events because they aren't all that far from each other but who knows. John Hodgman is amazing. I saw him perform/speak/read at the Philadelphia 215 Writers Festival two years ago and he did this audience participation thing -- which I normally would not like -- with walkie talkies. It was fucking awesome. Laugh out loud funny. And oh my god, a google search just told me that he'll be back at 215 again this year on October 5 with Jonathan Coulton...details right here.

Actually, Eric will also be in New York City the day before, September 27, 2006 at 12:00 noon with the same line-up as CBGBs for a free concert outside of Grand Central Station. I'm suddenly thinking "Two days at the W Hotel in NYC! Yeah!"

And if that's not enough, Eric is playing a gig in St. Louis with the fabulous Mike Keneally and Bryan Beller on October 13, 2006 at Off Broadway.

Look for Eric to possibly sit in on a song or two tonight as well in New York City at Bustle in Your Hedgerow -- damn, I was just at the website and didn't realize it was a boat cruise around NYC with some pretty heavy hitters in the music world or I would have scored tickets myself. Oh well. Something tells me Eric appreciates the fact that I don't make an appearance at every show he's in but oh man, as a music lover and his biggest fan, it's really hard to stay home now and then.

Let's see. What else. Oh yeah. Another Bite of The Apple is now available at Fictionwise and it appears to be on sale this week. Cool.

ETA: Oh my god, speaking of Fictionwise, Another Bite is ranked Number One in erotica today. Holy freaking cow!

Later...(off I go for a celebration martini)
xo