Photos Archives

Saw The Hold Steady last night. They were good, bordering on great. Incredible energy. Craig Finn is an amazing front man, the indie rock Springsteen if you will.

**UPDATE** - You owe it to yourself to go and read DCeiver's review of the show over at DCist. When you are done, ask yourself why all concert reviews aren't this good.

Last week I signed up for a photography course from the Washington School of Photography (which, strangely, is located in Bethesda) and Saturday was the first of my four classes. We covered much of the basics (which I needed badly) as well the different settings on our cameras and, since I had a full schedule ahead of me, I was sufficiently inspired to fill up my memory card when I went out that night.

I met Hayden in Gallery Place around 5:30 and we had a few Boddingtons at Fado before heading over to the MCI Center for the Wizards/Celts tilt. The 'Skins were on and because of this it was hard to find a bar that wasn't completely packed. We tried RFD first but that wasn't happening, so I thought maybe there would be some space in the new bowling alley, but it was even worse there. People were out in force to watch the game. Reluctantly, we walked back over to Fado, which is usually shoulder to shoulder, but amazingly, was only sparsely attended. Hayden and I also figured out that if you're a single guy looking to meet some lovely ladies, your best opportunity is during the NFL playoffs. There were plenty of beautiful babies in Fado but no guys at all, the girl to guy ratio must have been 5 to 1. I assume all the guys were at the sports bars watching the Redskins game. Anyways, if you're looking to score, now you know where to go.

The game was fun, even though the C's lost on a BS call by the refs. Otherwise Delonte West, who looked good all game long, would have been the hero. We still have no offense to speak of and I'm very frustrated by the lack of progress we're making during the season. Big Al always plays his worst games in DC, a trend I'm hoping he starts reversing immediately. But the game was entertaining and I was suffucuently trashed by the time the final horn sounded.

After the game I headed up to Cleveland Park to meet Ms. Smith for some post-game drinking, drowning of the sorrows stylee. We ended up at Atomic Billiards and caught the last bits of the Pats game.

You can see all of my photos from the night over at Flickr.

Also, since I was labeled as "press" when I went to the screening last week, I should say a few words about Match Point, the new Woody Allen film that Sommer hooked up for a DCist sponsored screening. I enjoyed it alot, although I was squirming quite a bit there at the end. But in a good way. I am by no means a Woody Allen expert (I haven't even seen Manhattan Murder Mystery, which this movie keeps getting compared to) so I didn't really have any expectations going in. I did, at times, have a hard time focusing on the actual movie because I was getting mesemerized by all the luscious lips floating around on screen. Between Jonathan Rhys-Myers and Scarlett Jo, there was alot to look at. But I digress...go see Match Point, if only for Matthew Goode, who I felt stole the show. Too bad his part wasn't bigger. Is it me or does he look like Fran Healy?

Oh wait, I did have one big complaint. Is it too much to ask for thespians in Hollywood to look and act like they've actually picked up a tennis racket before filming a movie invlolving the sport? JR-M looked like he's had a racket in his hands exactly twice in his lifetime and we're supposed to believe he's a tennis pro? We wasn't even gripping the racket properly. Wimbledon was the same way.

Welcome to two years ago.

Busted!

Mo Pete does what everyone else in the NBA wants to do.

Thanks to Dan for pointing me over to FD's Flickr Toys.

The Cartel Cedars show on Friday night was great. The band surprised me by not opening with "Fleets" (and further confounded me by not playing it at all!) and then punched through a set of mostly new material, which tended to bring the RAWK and cut down on the droney stuff. Different and impressive. The venue was over halfway full and most of those in attendance had their eyes on the stage. Strangely, everyone up front was standing like five feet from the stage, so I went right up there and started snapping away, thinking my unobstructed views would make up for the poor lighting. Ummm...not so much. But I did get a few decent shots (which look much more decent on my Mac at home, stupid PC video card). The band gave shout outs to me, bluestate and DCist right before they were done, so respect to them. See all my photos of Cedars at the Black Cat over at Flickr.

After they were done, it was time to get to the TomCat (+ Charles! *hangs head in shame*) Blogger Xmas party before I became the only blogger in the metro area not to attend. There are recaps and ruminations on that all over the place, so seek and ye shall find.

Saturday I came to the realization that my favorite basketball team really, really sucks this year and that signing Brian Scalabrine as a free agent this summer was an unmitigated disaster. Oh, and I did some Xmas shopping.

Last night I started on my Top 10 albums of the year and all that list crap, which might be posted tomorrow, depending on how bad my favorite basketball team loses tonight and the ratio of booze I have to ingest to make me feel better about it. Until then...

Oh, almost forgot. I started watching the new Queens of the Stone Age DVD over the weekend and it is shit hot. It almost melted my TV while I was watching it. Here is a preview of the DVD for your streaming pleasure. Highly recommended.

My week from hell at work is almost over.

Last night quite a few of us DCist's went out to Sushi Taro for a self created "sushi gauntlet", which will be revealed in an upcoming food post on DCist. I went mostly for photojournalistic purposes, and to eat as much eel and drank as much sake as possible. Mmmmmmmmmmm...eel and sake. I'll have more pics up tonight or tomorrow.

Ah, the Grammy nominations, so utterly and completely predictable. The committee needs to stop kidding themselves and just create a new category for u2, that way they can give them an award every year. Which they already do anyway.

Captain Rock is back! Music needs Mad Richard.

Feist tour dates!

I give you this link not only for the Mark Gardener live MP3's but also the cool tale that comes with them. Nice one Brad. Also...related. Good lookin' out.

Fucking best.

Can't we get this over with already?

So close.

Today on "As The Red Sox Turn"...You know that guy we overpaid to play shortstop when we COULD HAVE KEPT MIGUEL ORLANDO CABRERA FOR LESS(nope, not bitter at all)? Well we got rid of him today. For a prospect. We also said goobye to Doug Mirabelli and hello to Adam Mark Loretta.

At least we can beat the Nooch.

On Friday night, I dragged The Smith to my office's Xmas party to take advantage of the open bar and free food before we headed over to Bliss and Annie at the Black Cat. I was also hoping to score one of the corporate giveaways that are the highlight of the party (last year I won a $100 gift card to Borders) but that was not to be. So after quite a few G & T's and some champagna, we headed across town to catch the show. Unfortunately, we had to check our coats, which took over 30 minutes and caused us to miss Annie's first two songs. But once we were settled, we made our way up front and I got a nice vantage point in front of the speakers, stage right.

Annie tried her best but her stage presence is sincerely lacking. I don't mean to nitpick, but as my photos can attest, she doesn't really know what to do on stage yet. I'm sure she'll improve, but she has a ways to go. She spent the show behind the mic stand, only venturing out from behind it a few times. But she can sing, the songs sounded great and she's hella cute, so it's not all bad. I had alot of fun at the gig and it seemed like everyone else there did too. It was a pop show and everyone behaved as such, singing along and dancing, which is very unusual for the normally stoic DC crowd. We grabbed another drink after the gig and then waited another 20 minutes to get our coats back. The Black Cat needs to step up their coat check game, it's seriously lacking right now.

Head over to Flickr to see all of pictures of Annie at the Black Cat. Some of them look really amazing. I'm really loving my new camera. Props to the Black Cat for finally turning up the lights on stage so I can get a decent photo.

I took it easy on Saturday. I finally went and saw the Andy Warhol exhibit at the Corcoran and then caught the Harry Potter movie later that night, which i really enjoyed. I heart Alan Rickman, he's so best. This was the first Potter movie that made me want to go read the book, probably because it differed from the first three movies, which all seemed to follow the same basic story outline.

How about Sean Dockery? He totally got Shelden Williams off the hook last night. The Landlord missed the front end of a 1 and 1 that would have sealed the game and then didn't block out on the ensuing posession and let Virginia Tech get a tip-in to take the lead with 1.6 seconds left. When the shot left Dockery's hands, I thought it had a chance but I didn't seriously think it would go in. Josh McRoberts pass set everything up, so he deserves his propers too.

David Garrard makes me look good and the Panthers finally beat Mike Vick. I'm going to beat this Garrard thing into the ground, so be warned. There are only like four successful alumni from ECU out there, so I'm flying the flag while I can.

The Yankees lost anywhere from $50 to $85 million last year.

L Boogie is now in serious contention for the title of "SFA fan most willing to make impromptu road trips to see the band", as evidenced from this photo she sent me last night from the backstage shenanigans at the San Diego gig (the last of the tour). I had a chance to go with her, but I couldn't do it because of work. From the sounds of her email, I missed a good time. Even better, she passed along a little nugget of info that may make the semi-depressing news I learned in DC null and void. Let's all cross our fingers then, even if you have no effing idea what I'm talking about. I think the band is off for the rest of the year. I hope they enjoy their time off, they've earned it.

I finally had a night off last night so I got the chance to upload my photos from Thanksgiving. My parents and I took my 80-something year old grandfather to Disney World. My family has this weird obsession with Disney World. My parents go every two or three years. I've been four or five times now. I like Disney World and everything, but at this point I've done everything there numerous times. I shudder to think what I could have seen and experienced in Europe with that time and money, but when it's on their dime, I don't have much say in the matter. It was nice to see my grandfather, whom I hadn't seen since the summer when my grandmother passed away. He's still the same, crochety, fiery and utterly hilarious. We shared a room and at night we'd sit around and watch ESPNews for the Celtics highlights.

Per TMQB: The Wall Street Journal reported there are only 28 radio stations left in the country that play a classical music format -- versus 500 sports stations, 1,200 talk stations and 2,000 country music stations.

Preview the Beck remix album here. It's out on Dec 13th.

Here's an MP3 from the Death From Above 1979 remix album:
Sexy Results (MSTRKRFT Edition)
I listened to the album last night and dug it alot. Although I still haven't heard the original album. There was one remix of "Black History Month" near the beginning of the CD that made the song very Bravery-like. I'll have to see who did that and post it.

Lastly here is another MP3, this time from Two Gallants, a group I've been hearing alot about lately. Catherine's Pita is a fan. Anyhoo, here is an MP3 from their forthcoming release:
Two Gallants - Las Cruces Jail

Busybusybusy at work. Tomorrow starts the 31 days of drinking!

I'm off to sunny Orlando for the Thanksgiving break. Updates will be sproadic at best until Monday. Mr. Pink says hi.

Sorry for the late update today. I have alot going on right now, but more on that later.

I had an incredibly fun, if not completely exhausting weekend. The highlights:

Bunnymen - Didn't quite reach the heights of the show I saw in Lancaster, PA but it came close. I think Will Sergeant is officially my favorite guitar player ever, he was on fire during the show. The new stuff sounded superb. The band was a bit subdued, but the crowd went apeshit when the break came in during "The Cutter". A great show all around. See my craptastic photos here.

Bluestate - We had what might have been our most enthusiastic crowd ever on Saturday night. I was feeling really under the weather all day on Saturday but I pulled it together in time for the gig and felt much better once the music started. I stayed away from the booze and DJ'ed in my scarf. It's the new style. I had a revelation during the day that I had yet to play "Peter Piper" at the Black Cat, so I dropped that in right after I played The Supremes and there wasn't even room to move on the dance floor. Also, I played Prince and the kiddies didn't clear the floor. Bonus. Peep the set lists and photos.

Chicago - I didn't get to see much of it during the 36 hours that I was there, but I loved what I did see. Chi-town has a very NYC feel. Catherine lives like 6 blocks from Wrigley and that whole area is filled with great restaurants and bars. We popped down to the John Hancock building and had a drink there and took in some of downtown. We met up with DCSOBLOOP* for dinner around 6:30, pounded some Red Bull and then went to the gig. Matt, fresh off the train back from St. Louis, had no problem finding us inside and then right before the Furries went on L Boogie appeared out of thin air. The Furries didn't disappoint and a good time was had by all. We didn't hang out very long after the gig since it was a school night for Catherine and BLOOP. But I did go say bye to the guys and thank them for taking care of me on yet another US tour. Apologies to all the people that emailed me wanting to meet up at the gig. Maybe next time.

* term coined by Pyg in a Blanket. Respect.