puredanger.com Blog

Mingo Fishtrap and Square One Brewery August 22, 2006

I had a great time last Saturday going out to see Mingo Fishtrap at Chris’s rabid urging. He caught them down in Austin (their home) and immediately informed us we were required to see them. Good call Freyguy!

They were definitely Tower of Power-ish and indeed covered a couple TOP songs (tease of Shake Everything You’ve Got and something else I don’t remember). They also covered a JBs song and one or maybe two Stevie Wonder songs. Reminded me a lot of seeing the classic My Brother’s Keeper, a now defunct funk band I used to see in college. Although I think Mingo Fishtrap was probably better musically. Anyhow, they did 3 sets and we made it through 2.5 which is longer than I expected to last.

Before seeing this musical entree, we checked out Square One Brewery in Lafayette Park, which was great. It replaces the prior Lafayette Pub (Bar?) which was a great neighborhood joint with tremendous bugers. It is a worthy replacement. It’s a little brew-pub serving 12 beers made on the premise and what the evidence says is some yummy food.

I had the IPA (highly recommended) and tasted the Bavarian Weizen (ok wheat beer – not my thing usually) and the Grand Cru (definitely not my thing). But I’d drink the IPA all night. Wish I’d tried the ESB. I also had the House Smoked Flank Steak Nachos which were really flavorful: yummy flank steak, fresh sliced jalapenos, chips with just enough salt, and good salsa. Now I’m hungry. Anyhow, definitely recommended. I look forward to visiting again.

All in all, a really fun night. Many thanks to Chris for getting us all out of the house!

Listening Update (Aug 21, 2006) August 21, 2006

Not much new listened to this week other than a lot more Soul Coughing and Mike Doughty. I broke down and bought Mike’s other solo albums Skittish and Rockity Roll, which are both really good. On Skittish, probably my favorite is Real Love/It’s Only Life which I took to right away. On Rockity Roll, I really love the live track The Only Answer. I suspect I’ll probably break down and pick up some live stuff from Mike in the near future.

I pulled out Ben Folds Five’s Whatever and Ever Amen this week and gave it some attention. Forever and ever (amen) I will dig on this album. I clearly remember the exact moment that I found and fell for Ben Folds. I had been in Dayton for a year and a half and had a good job but was driving to St. Louis about once a month to hang out with friends. I was going to school at Wright State University, but not liking it. In general, I felt like I was in the wrong place. I had just scored a new job in St. Louis and was going to be moving home, working at a new gig, and going to school at a new place. It felt like the opening of a new chapter in my life and indeed it was.

On that fateful night, probably in August of 1997, I was up late packing and getting ready to move back to St. Louis. I was watching a music show on HBO called Reverb (no idea if it’s still on). Anyhow, BF5 was the featured artist and it was a mix of live stuff (which rocked) and interview stuff (which was really funny). By the end of the show, I was bouncing off the walls. I went out and bought their extensive 2 disc catalog the next day and listened to little else through the entire move process. I’m sure I called Nick and told him to do the same. That life transition and this album are forever linked for me.

I love the whole album but I’ll just highlight Kate as a song that I always turn to when I want to hear something that is just over the top happy. It’s a simple song about just being head over heels in love with a girl named Kate. Definitely in my top 5 “make me happy” songs. It helps a lot to listen to this in the car, maximum volume, windows down, singing at the top of your lungs. It captures muscially how I feel about Mary better than I ever could in words. Here’s the lyrics if you’re interested.

Beck @ 2 months August 18, 2006

Today is a glorious day as Beck slept through the night last night for the first time. Sweetness. Hopefully he’ll keep it up.

He also went for his 2 month checkup today. He is a whopping 12 lb, 13 oz! I can’t believe he’s so big already. He was 75th percentile on height and weight and off the charts on head size. So, he’s a healthy boy. With a big head.

I was just holding him after his bottle and he was dozing and all of a sudden he started giggling riotously. Not sure what that was about.

Little stories August 14, 2006

Truman announced last week that he had a new friend named Donna Poopie. This is his first original imaginary friend (he borrows Ella’s friends Boom-boom and Pina sometimes).

Meanwhile, Ella has a couple new ones: Emma, Emmie, and Gracie/Daisy (hard to tell which). Emma and Emmie are the main ones (not sure Gracie/Daisy will make it). One has blond hair and one has dark hair. One has short hair and one has long hair. One has blue eyes and one has green, but now they’re red because they were rubbing them.

This weekend we were at a party. Late in the party we were sitting around the table talking and Truman scrambled up onto a chair. Unbeknownst to me, he calmly reached over and started taking handfuls of the cake. Soon, I realized everyone was watching him and laughing…he had a good time.

Beck has been fascinated with a Raggedy Ann doll lately. He loves to look at the face – it’s perfect with its high contrast eyes and mouth. He sits there and smiles and tries to talk to it.

Listening update (Aug 13, 2006) August 13, 2006

My new album of the week this week is Mike Doughty’s Haughty Melodic. You will know of Mike via Soul Coughing, most likely. Two songs I dig (of many) are “I Hear the Bells”, which you can hear on Mike’s MySpace page. Another I like is “Looking at the World from the Bottom of a Well” – get audio or video at Mike’s web site, which has a lot of cool stuff on it. Definitely worth checking out. I also noticed that emusic has a recent live show from Mike. I previewed some of it and it seemed ok, but it’s solo and I really dig his more band-oriented arrangements more.

Not much else to report, just shuffled pretty much.