SW Recommends

Those of us who remember fondly FM radio in the 70s when a Beatles song would be followed by one from Dylan, CSN&Y, the Dead, Neil Young, and so on - will like the new Blitzen Trapper record, Furr. It sounds like a typical hour of FM radio I listened to in 1973. It's all there. Eric Earley, the creative force of the band, is clearly influenced by the music of his parents and does a good job of interpreting it in 2008.

I'll be going to their show at The Casbah tonight.

Twitterfication

As you can tell my posting rate has declined precipitously here at Scent Weakly lately. The cause which I alluded to in an earlier post is Twitter. Twitter has evolved from a place where you announced to your friends the brand of cereal you had for breakfast into a hub of a communication/publishing system. It's just become much easier to post most of the things (music, pictures, links, etc.) I used to post on Blogspot on Twitter. I still plan to post some longer pieces here, but most of my web scrapbooking will be done on Twitter.

You can follow me on Twitter here.

Blitzen Trapper on Conan

They'll be at The Casbah on the 29th.

Will Twittering Kill Blogging?

Probably not, but I sure have been posting more and more on Twitter and less and less on Scent Weakly. It seems that that guys like me (a few fries short of a Happy Meal) can usually make their point with 140 characters or less.

It's a bit of a surprise that as Twitter builds its user base and becomes a platform it hasn't been challenged by Google or Microsoft.

A Music Video

Road Trip: SLO and SF (part I)

With a four day holiday on the calendar this past weekend I decided to venture onto California's freeway system. The goal was to hang with daughter Carly in San Luis Obispo and daughter Annie in San Francisco. Mission accomplished. It was great to see them thriving in their new cities of residence. It was also surprisingly therapeutic to drive several hundred miles each day while listening to music. I recommend it.

Since a lot of the hangin' also involved eating here's my food diary.

Lunch at Flame Bay in downtown SLO. It's a build your own stir-fry place. I was told 4th year CE's can stack their bowls with enough food that they can survive off their leftovers for a week. I wasn't skilled, but I had plenty to eat. Tasty eats. If the weather is nice sit outside on the lovely deck by the river.

Dinner at Woodstock's Pizza. We (Carly, Ryan, Cameron, Jake, Sydney, and Morgan) tried another place first, but it was out of bbq. Woodstock's is a chain that specializes serving a good pizza to college kids. They do it well.

The next morning Carly and I went to one of SLO's iconic restaurants for breakfast. Louisa's has been around for a while. It's a no frills diner that serves big portions of good old fashioned dishes. I left stuffed to the gills and and skipped lunch on my drive to San Francisco.

Despite missing an exit I found my daughter's funky digs in the Castro without much problem. Annie and her boyfriend, Adrian, decided on sushi. We walked to Tokyo Go GO and munched on a variety of very tasty hand rolls and washed them down with cold Kirins.

On the way back we stopped at Bi-Rite Creamery for some ice cream. I had a small scoop of salty caramel. Delicious. If I had added a little chocolate sauce it would have been perfection.

The next morning Annie, Adrian, and I went to Four Barrels Coffee before they had to go to work. I was promised they also had the world's greatest donuts, but alas they don't serve donuts on Mondays. Excellent coffee and their buttery croissants were an excellent consolation prize.

After dropping Annie at work I headed back down the road to SLO. I did manage include a stop at In'n Out for a cheeseburger and a shake on my one stop of the drive.

For dinner we (Carly, Sydney, Morgan H, Emily, Erica, Cameron, Ryan, and Jake) made it to JD Boone's for some bbq. (It's surprisingly easy to get a big crowd of college students for dinner when word gets out that a dad is going along.) Carly called this time to make sure they hadn't run out. Excellent pulled pork sandwich. They smoke the meat and serve it sans sauce. The pork was perfectly cooked and they have a variety of tasty sauces.

This morning Carly and her friend Sydney who accompanied me on the SD/SLO legs of the trip brought breakfast burritos from Breakfast Buzz to my hotel. Huge tasty gut bombs. A more mature person would have eaten half and been satisfied. I hate the whole thing and haven't eaten since (it's 5:20 pm).

While it probably sounds like it, I didn't spend all my time eating and driving. But, I'll save that for another post.

David Foster Wallace

Rolling Stone has a long piece about the writer David Foster Wallace who committed suicide a few months ago. You can read it here. David Foster Wallace

For those of you with iPods and a commute Audio.comhas a free download of Foster's essay Consider the Lobster. You must register and give them a credit card number, but you'll want to do that anyway as audio books are a great way to distract you from traffic.

Field Trip: Ray Lamontagne

A little hyperbole from John Mayer's Blog:

People ask me all the time what artists I'm listening to, and what I think of certain singers or bands out there. I think Ray LaMontagne is as brilliant as any artist that has ever lived.

Wait, let me think about that again. That came off pretty bold.

Nope, that's still what I want to say. Ray LaMontagne is as brilliant as any artist that has ever lived. And he's getting better; tighter, more focused, more self-assured.

While I like Ray Lamontagne, I think Mayer's effusiveness might have something to do with the fact that he goes to RL's concerts with Jennifer Anniston.

Ray Lamontagne is an unassuming performer who early in his career battled debilitating stage fright. His concerts are all about his music which is more than enough.

Excellent songs well played.