Oh, I also just got home from seeing Tool at the Staples Center. It was an incredible show, and we had great seats. Maynard and the band were in top form. Absolutely awesome. A very mellow show for a Tool concert, but the latest album is much more mellow, though still dark and hard edged. At one point, after one of the songs, Adam Jones (the guitarist) walked over to Maynard and hugged him for a long time. My friend who bought the tickets wondered what that was about, and I told him that apparently Maynard's mother died not long ago, and that the new albim was heavily influenced by that. I think the song in question, Wings for Marie and 10,000 Days, are specifically about this event in Maynard's life. It was quite powerful.

And going for a hat trick:

Also, the more I see Tool in concert, the more convinced I become that Danny Carey is one of the best drummers who ever lived. The man can do very fast triplets and quadruplets one-handed. And he can pull off four different, complex rhythms, one with each limb, and he's able to hit drums on opposite sides of his very large kit without ever missing. And if he doesn't have perfect time, he's damned close to it -- he did not, as far as I could tell from my pretty good seats, use a click track of any kind.

The man can do very fast triplets and quadruplets one-handed.

That is impressive. I remember Levon Helm being boggled by Bill Black (of Elvis' original Sun band) being able to do a one-handed military press.

Apropos of nothing: I just met Jon B. in real-life-person!

He is safely on his way to see lots of rock-n-roll. (Whereas I am stuck at work. Hmmph.)

Apropos of nothing:

I think it's apropos of something.

I just met Jon B. in real-life-person!

Was he wearing silver pleather?

Alas, no silver pleather. That's one of the new TSA restrictions, doncha know.

I am now in Tina's lovely apartment, after seeing the first five of the 25+ bands at the touch & go festival. I enjoyed parts of each of the sets, but no one was amazing all the way through. Friday highlight was probably the last band, !!! (pronounced chk chk chk), who had the indie hipsters dancing. Had the show been indoors, and had there been a roof, it would have been raised.

Tina hasn't gotten home yet, but I've been awake since 5am EDT, so I may be asleep when she shows up. zzzzz

"The Tragic Treasury: Songs from A Series of Unfortunate Events," a musical companion to Lemony Snicket's book series, will be in stores October 10. The CD features a song for each of the 13 books in the series plus 2 bonus tracks. The Gothic Archies will perform songs from the CD on solo ukulele at several of Lemony's bookstore appearances this October and November. Check the House of Tomorrow or Lemony's website for confirmed dates. >[link]

Natick High School, here I come!

bounce

Placebo tickets are mine! (And Pete's, Plei's, and Paul's.) And they're playing at a much better venue than the last tour, thank goodness.

Anybody have an opinion on which performances of Bach's Toccata & Fugue in D Minor are worth purchasing?

Edit: iTunes has several different performances. Ton Koopman's sucks. He adds flourishes I don't like. Stick to the written version, buddy. Helmut Walcha's is okay, but I wonder if any of these others are worth listening to. (FYI: Wolfgang Rusbaum, Scott Preston, and Hans Fagius, among others)

I'll ask my sister in the morning if there hasn't been any other response, Sean.

I stumbled across the magazine Paste last week. Anyone familiar with it? I'm thinking of subscribing - lots of interesting articles, and the sampler cds seem worth it by themselves.