Odds and Sods for Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Good afternoon!

ETA: Stellar Dr. Dog review in Wired!

ETA #2: Ditto - Nashville Scene!

I'm getting a late start today...sorry...the dog still gets me up at 3AM every night though that's a hell of a lot better than every single hour like it was last month and the vet did say the medicine takes 4-6 weeks to fully kick in. But hurrah, Monty continues to improve and look better every day.

So as you know, my son, the fabulous drummer Eric Slick, has been on tour the past couple of weeks and he just played a bunch of gigs and parties at South by Southwest this weekend. I didn't have to dig too deep on the internet to find reviews and photos...man, they are everywhere! And it is still completely surreal to me that in less than two weeks, I'll be able to see him on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Fear not, I'll be posting huge billboards around the internet that day.

Here's a Dr. Dog SXSW poster I found online, created by a rather amazing artist named Nate Twombly and you should click on that link to see more of his work because he's GOOD!



So on Thursday, March 18, Dr. Dog played the Convention Center at SXSW, and here's a kind of blurry pic from the stage but woo hoo, I also have a You Tube from that gig and it's pretty damn decent....





This photo pretty much says it all...these guys are loving life, aren't they? But I think someone in the band must have bubble envy....



The next day they played a party sponsored by Filter Magazine:













On Saturday, they played at Rachael Ray's party. Look, there she is!



Here's the menu served at her party - erm, by the way, Eric is no longer a vegetarian. But Julie and I are gonna double team him when he comes home in an effort to get him back on our team. Nah, I'm just kidding. I've learned by experience that people do not want to be converted which is why I seldom argue politics or religion (unless you favorably mention the names of Fox News, Glenn Dreck or Scara Phallus and then I do indeed go nuts and never speak to you again):



If the menu whetted your appetite, here's a photo of the food itself:



Performing right before Dr. Dog was Andrew WK, and oh look, he made friends with Eric:



When Dr. Dog took the stage, all of Twitter groaned that the sound system was terrible but they were still great nevertheless:



Heh - here's Rachael rocking out at her party...I'm thinking there's a strong resemblance to Elaine dancing in that famous Seinfeld episode:



"Once, there was a time I was in an Austin alley with Dr. Dog, as they oogled their photospread in the magazine"



Post-SXSW - Eric back on tour in Houston with Lithuania and Hop Along and chililng post-show:



I was kind of disorganized collecting links to reviews, blogs, newspaper articles, etc. because THERE WERE SO MANY! So rather than cut and paste them all here, I'll just give you the links and you can click and read at your own leisure/discretion:

All About Jazz

American Songwriter Magazine

Spy Magazine

Sarahenity Now!

Way Left of the Dial

Teen Vogue

The Panic Manual (More thorough review apparently to follow - I'll update if it pops up)

Entertainment Weekly

Gah, there's so much more...I give up - just google Dr. Dog and SXSW and you'll find more stuff than you'll know what to do with. It's just so freaking awesome.

So while Eric is on tour, I've been hanging out a lot with daughter Julie Slick, helping her make decisions on her debut CD...i.e., the artwork, release date, and best of all, listening to completed tracks. Oh how I wish I could blab who some of the contributors are, but I will say this: Julie is indeed the Crimson Queen. Or Princess...I know she's my princess, anyway. She came over here and worked her usual dinner magic on Sunday - we chargrilled vegetables and she made a blood orange dipping sauce that was so damn fine, I'm gonna give you the recipe as emailed to me by the Princess herself:

"Preheat the oven to 400. Cut off the tip of the head of garlic, so that the cloves are exposed but the head remains together. Cut away a piece of aluminum foil that will wrap around the entire head, and place the garlic in the center. Drizzle some olive oil over the top, sprinkle with salt, and wrap it up. Add it the oven and bake for 30-45 minutes, or until the cloves are deeply golden and softened completely. Let cool.

Meanwhile, in a glass measuring cup, I added: the juice of 4 blood oranges, plus enough grapefruit juice to make 2 cups of liquid. I poured this into a small saucepan, and added 1/2 cup wine, 1 small shallot (minced), and scant 1/4 cup sugar (can be omitted, but the resulting sauce will have a more bitter bite). Bring the sauce up to a boil over medium heat, then reduce to low and simmer until the sauce is reduced to about 2/3 cup. Remove from heat, and pour into a food processor or blender. Add 1 tsp mustard, a few tablespoons of white wine vinegar. a handful flat leaf parsley, a handful of basil, and squeeze cooled roasted garlic cloves into the processor/blender, and pulse until well combined. With the machine running on low, add about 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil (or really, as much as you'd like - depending how thick and deliciously fattening you would like the vinaigrette to be). Season with salt and freshly cracked pepper, and serve."

If you are a meat or seafood eater, this would also be perfect for that as well. I cannot begin to tell you how insanely delicious it is and since blood oranges are in season right now...go for it!

Oh yeah, not to be another annoying self-promoter, just another reminder that my latest book, Bitten to the Core is now available in paperback.



Again, you can purchase it directly from my publisher right here. I know I promised a live stream release party months ago but now that Julie is around to help me, I'm gonna see if we can't make that happen. Perhaps we can do it in conjunction with the release of her CD...the two of us together, sharing some wine...a bizarre and twisted version of the Home Shopping Network. Hey, I think it's an idea with legs!

While I'm busy self-promoting, I'd better remind you of the following upcoming gigs which all involve Julie and Eric one way or the other.

Let's start with Mr. Eric Slick.

Tonight, March 24, Eric will be playing with Lithuania and Hop Along at The Bishop in Bloomington, Indiana.

Tomorrow night, March 25, they'll be at Blue Arrow Records in Cleveland, Ohio.

Friday night, March 26, they'll be at the Neville Co-op in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Saturday night, March 27, they wrap up their tour at the The Terrordome but I'll get back to you on that one because I read something in our local paper that the Terrordome may have shut down.

Julie is busy, too.

Friday night, March 26, she plays with Andre Cholmondeley in Andre's band, Hidden Agenda, opening for the Great White Caps, at the Fun House in Bethlehem, PA.

Sunday night, March 28, ah, together at last, Julie Slick and Eric Slick with Robbie "Seahag" Mangano on guitar, a/k/a Paper Cat at their debut New York City show at the Cake Shop on the lower east side.

Friday night, April 2, Julie will be doing a jazz gig at Ortlieb's Jazzhaus with Calvin Weston and here how it's being advertised:

"THE REAL RETURN OF MAD COW, w/ DION PACI, GUITAR; BRIAN MARSELLA, KEYS, TOM SPIKER, BASS & G.CALVIN WESTON, DRUMS, WITH SPECIAL GUEST JOHN SWANA,TRUMPET. & BASSIST JULIE SLICK
DOORS AT 8:00, $10"

While I'm thinking about it, let me give you the rest of the Hidden Agenda tour again, though yeah, Julie is only with them Friday night but I think you'll be very happy when you see who is with Andre the rest of the time:

MARCH 2010 Tourlette with hidden agenda
trio playing a few covers, improv and music by andré cholmondeley
DRUMS: bob ramos, jon braun(thu/25th)
BASS: antar goodwin, julie slick(fri/26th)
GUITAR: andré

24 WED NJ New Brunswick COURT TAVERN (with Stretch*)
25 THU PA Plains JAZZ CAFE' (with Stretch*)
26 FRI PA Bethlehem FUNHOUSE (with Great White Caps)
27 SAT TBA
28 SUN NJ Asbury Park A BENEFIT FOR CHERI JIOSNE
ASBURY LANES (Cheri Jiosne Benefit #2)
With Silent Auction
Music By:
The Ribeye Brothers
hidden agenda, DubProof, Mike Haleta Laptop, Alan Gowa, Out Like Lambs & others
Healthy Snacks by Laura Dardi

*STRETCH.....the legendary jazz/rock/funk/fusion trio.
original lineup of Dave LaRue, Glenn Alexander and Bill Elder.

Also, very important, here is the info for Cheri Jiosne's benefit on Sunday at Asbury Lanes:

~~~~~~~~~~~

Sunday MAR 28th

A BENEFIT FOR CHERI JIOSNE

Musicians, Artists, Friends come together to help Cheri in her battle against breast cancer...

*Please come and support her in her brave battle!!

Here are some of the great friends that have come together to celebrate Cheri and help her with her cause..

Ribeye Bros
Michael Haleta
hidden agenda
great white caps
DubProof
Alan Gowa & Andre' duo
Tommy & Abby Anton
Alice Balzarini
and more!!!!

*There will be a silent auction, special vegan menu, baked goodies, bowling, drinks, and great, great music all day long..

Doors at 4pm
Bands start at 5pm
$10 suggested donation at the door
$15 for all the you can bowl
all ages
21 and up to have afternoon

So Sunday should be an awesome day. You can attend the benefit for Cheri at Asbury Lanes and then shoot under the Holland tunnel to New York City - less than an hour away - to catch the Paper Cat show in NYC.

Man, I hope I remembered everything. Now you know Eric probably has gigs set up all next week once he's back in Philadelphia but I'm not going to worry about that now - I'll post them on Monday if applicable along with hopefully reviews, photos, and You Tubes of all the respective shows this weekend.

But for now, man, I'm beat and I have a novel to work on. In the next few days, I'm going to test out my query on you. A query is what you send an agent to see if they are interested in reading your novel toward possible representation toward possible sale with a mainstream publishing house. So far, I've managed without an agent but this is my first truly mainstream book, ever, so I'm gonna give it a shot. Basically you have to sum up your entire novel in a couple of sentences that will cause the agent to gasp and say, "Wow, how brilliant! I must write to Robin immediately and ask her to send me this book at once!"

Ha ha, oh, I'm kidding. I've been writing a long time now and have been there, done that. The real reason I want to post the query is so that you guys will know what I'm writing about and maybe give you a tease or taste of an excerpt. Hey, why not? You've been sticking with me so far...

Oh yeah, in other writer news, in two weeks I'm off on a top-secret mission with three of the best writers in North America. Oh, the stories I will have for you then!

Maybe.

Or maybe I won't be able to tell you anything. What happens on that mission may stay on that mission.

Alrighty, then. I'm obviously rambling and need to take a break before delving back into the novel.

It's been fun, though.

Later,
xo