Posted on

The 2015 Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Awards

Once again, it is an honor and privilege to present the Pelican Cafe 2015 Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Awards to some of the outstanding musicians and acts at the festival. This was probably the seventh Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival that I have attended. The Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival always takes place the first weekend of October in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. In 2015, the weather was superb, with clear skies both days. By the afternoon on both days a moderate to strong west wind started blowing.It was nice to see the trees swaying in the breeze but the sound traveled away with the breeze as well. I went for a few acts on Friday and for most of both Saturday and Sunday. So much music. So many stages. There are always trade-offs and you cannot be two places at once. I missed a few shows I had circled but caught some great acts unexpectedly. This year I mostly listened from the grassy field at the Arrow Stage. Not too crowded and close to the little Band Wagon Stage were some of the real troubadours sing their songs. After flying solo on Friday and Saturday and meeting some real characters, Sunday was a grand party with my honey and some good friends. While Joe Jackson, Boz Scaggs and the Indigo Girls were all just grand playing their hits, it was the lesser known groups that to me really shined.

BEST SONG WRITER IN THE SPIRIT OF WOODY GUTHRIE

Tim Barry

Tim sang “Prosser’s Gabriel” for his album 28th & Stonewall and it was sung with such passion and honesty it really made my day. A man who seems on the edge, his song writing is excellent. His message to the crowd was “do something that scares you.” His passion for the moment came through.

BEST TRUMPET SOLO

Mike Olmos

Mike is a local trumpet player from the Bay Area and grew up in the East Bay. In years past I heard him play with Boz Scaggs and Jimmie Vaughan. His solos with the New Master Sounds were awesome as usual. Unfortunately, when the leader Eddie Roberts introduced Mike Olmos, the crowd sort of looked out vacantly off to the distance. San Francisco. A city with little clue as to the amazing quality of some of the local talent.

BEST FIDDLE PLAYER WHO MAY HAVE DROPPED ACID FIVE MINUTES BEFORE THE DOWNBEAT

Nicky Sanders

Speaking of local talent, Nicky pretty much took over the last tune and man can he play! He is a showman in the tradition of Paganini and will quote some the great classical works in his solos, from symphonies to classical themes all in a very whimsical way. Originally from San Francisco he obviously had home field advantage and pulled out all the stops. Just simply off the charts.

BEST BAND OF REALLY TALENTED MUSICIANS

Punch Brothers

Some things in life are just not fair. I had head the Punch Brothers a little here a little there. I left work early on Friday and biked to the festival. Starting the weekend with the Punch Brothers was awesome and they play with such amazing virtuosity and musicianship it is just breathtaking. The only problem was that after the Punch Brothers the only direction left to go musically was down. While every musician in the group is simply amazing, the banjo player was the one who really impressed me.

WORST BAND OF THE FESTIVAL (OR “HOW DID THEY GET THIS GIG?”)

Michael Franti

I know a little of Michael Franti’s work from an early Spearhead album. It is an awesome album with some stellar Bay Area players adding to the over sound. Charlie Hunter. Some amazing singers. What happened? Franti’s work now is somewhere between a frozen yogurt commercial and a group therapy session at the YMCA. Audience participation is one thing but when that is the point of the show it all seems silly. At one point I began to think that it was to cover for the fact that Michael has a hard time finding the pitch. Someone get with that man and work with a strobe tuner!

BEST LOOKING SAX PLAYER WITH A COWBOY HAT ON

Jay Reynolds

Jay was probably the only sax player at the entire event and there is something just sort of strange about a sax player wearing a cowboy hat and cowboy boots. I had always wanted to hear Asleep at the Wheel. It is such a strange sound that must be extremely regional. Country Swing, which sounds like 40s big band music but everyone is wearing cowboy hats and instead of trumpets and a sax section the sax, fiddles and a guitar play these tight arrangements like they know them in their sleep.

Ray BensonRay Benson backstage after the show

The leader of the band, Ray Benson was amazing. So relaxed it made me think I was hearing a Bing Crosby 45 record at 33 rpm. Man can that guy sing contra-bass. There is no award here for the lowest note sung at the festival, but Ray would win it by about two whole octaves.

Musician getting the boot

REALLY STUPID RULE THAT WILL BE THE DOWNFALL OF THE FESTIVAL

NO BUSKING

At one of the first festivals I attended, I heard a band called Fruition. Youngsters from Portland who were busking off to the side, behind one of the structures. They were really good, so good and real you kind of wondered why they were not on one of the stages. Probably next year, or in a few years they would make the Porch Stage or maybe the Arrow Stage you thought and then and you could reminisce about when you saw them in 2004 back behind the maintenance shed.

This year when I was leaving the festival, walking down the street, I saw a very traditional sounding bluegrass band being shut down by security. The band was simply playing as people left. The irony was that at the time all the stages were playing rock and roll and these fine young gentlemen were playing the tunes Warren Hellman would have played. It just seemed ironic and strange to be kicking fiddles and banjos out of a bluegrass festival.

While the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass is world-class and amazingly free, you have to wonder why the kabash on people playing in the street. All great American music comes from the street. To not allow for this sort of expression seems strange, ignorant and antithetical to so much of the songs being sung inside the gates. Time for an area for the buskers. Time to water the seeds. I think a lot of people who go to the festival to hear bluegrass would be in agreement. After the Warren Hellman money runs out, that is what will be left.

Posted on

Butterfly Jazz Trio – CD Second Year Anniversary

On August 29th 2013, I assembled a band in a studio in Half Moon Bay, on the Pacific Ocean and made a CD. This Saturday that band (the Butterfly Jazz Trio) is playing again at their steady gig at The Burritt Room by the Stockton Tunnel in San Francisco. Saturday, August 29th 2015 makes it two years.. Come on down and grab a CD (only a few left) and check it out!

The cast
Kai Lyons – Guitar
Erik Von Buchau – Drums
Dillan Riter – Bass

The spot
Burritt Room in the Mystic Hotel by Charlie Palmer
417 Stockton St, San Francisco, CA 94108
Phone:(415) 400-0561

Some samples

Overture
My son, Kai Lyons plays guitar and in 2013 I spent many Saturday nights hanging out down in this mysterious place called the Burritt Room in the Mystic Hotel down by the Stockton Tunnel a few blocks from Union Square. There is cheap parking in the garage across the street and it is a nice walk from the Powell Bart. There are so many options but I highly recommend the New Delhi Restaurant on Ellis. The Burritt Room is a restaurant-bar with fancy cocktails and special cuts of meat and fine dining. A crazy place, I would run into Willie Brown or see Tony Hall walk in the door. Often it would be a few German tourists with that sort of wide-eyed, I am a visitor here having walked up mountains on the wrong side of the planet look. Anyway, listening to the band, I got this notion that I should get these guys in the studio. They sounded great! The one day session down the coast was pretty cool.

A little background
Kai met Erik when he was a toddler. When we lived in Bernal Heights Erik lived about a block away and Kai went to daycare with Erik’s son Cole at Joni and Red’s house across the street. The joke is that it is quite possible that Erik changed Kai’s diapers at point. Dillan and Kai met while busking in the BART and at the Ferry Building. Dillan had played bass for just a few years, but his work ethic, listening ability and drive have always been constant. The band has gone through many changes depending on work schedules and which way the wind is blowing. The addition of Parker Grant, graduate of the University of Miami and East Bay native on piano has been awesome. Often Brandon Etsler plays drums but this Saturday the lineup will include Erik Von Buchau on drums so it is a two year anniversary event!

Come on down!
The CD was a limited run and there are just a few left but they will be available at the Burritt Room this Saturday night. I feel blessed just to hangout and hear these guys play.

More info
http://www.kailyons.com/buy-cd/

Posted on

Who is the Real Bill Evans?

If your last name is Evans, I would never name your son Bill. The Bill Evans’ of the world are all just way too talented and original. Your son would have such large shoes to fill, he would never get out bed. Some day he would end up an insurance adjuster in some far off town like Des Moines. Of course, if you live in a city, and are over say 45, Bill Evans is the great jazz piano player who worked with Miles Davis and all the heavies in the 60s – yeah, that guy. But wait, I am mistaken, you probably meant Yusef Lateef, the fine sax and flute player would did many sessions and was born, strangely enough with the name Bill Evans, but changed his name to Yousef Lateef later in life. Probably a good move. But then again, perhaps when someone says Bill Evans you start thinking of the saxophonist by that name. Famous for a few years but I don’t hear much of that Bill Evans. But wait, I know the guy you are talking about! Bill Evans the banjo player form California and plays shows festivals and clinics. Yeah, that guy. He’s the bomb!

Posted on

The 40th Annual Father’s Day Festival

“You can play like me – now go get your own style.”

Bill Monroe – as recalled by David Grissman on the Vern Stage at Mando Madness – Saturday, June 20, 2015

Bill-Monroe-3

I have been to the California Bluegrass Association. Father’s Day Bluegrass festival about four times. My entire family, including cousins, aunts and uncles once removed attend and the festival is a combination of three stages but mostly jammin’ all night long until the sun comes up – literally 5:30 am. Often some really fine players do this all-night jamming, playing mostly classic bluegrass and old time songs in the classic way. People stroll from campsite to campsite in middle of the night and sit in with complete strangers – the music being the currency of friendship.

If you attempt to take a nap in the tent in the middle of the day, you will be listening to the fiddles and guitars and banjos and dobros. They crank out three chord songs one after another and often a completely different group one campsite down will start another tune a whole step away. Often the two bands will play in the same tempo, starting songs at slightly different times so you get an interesting polyphony going. A major over G major. The one chord of the first key bouncing off the four chord of the other. Chords changing in odd places. The tunes stopping and starting at unusual spots. It all sort of echos through the trees and if you are like me, forget about sleeping for more than about ten minutes at a time. You feel like you are on a carnival ride and even the bluejays head out of the neighborhood for more tranquil climes. Ear plugs are no match for a 5 string banjo.

When I arrived on Saturday at about 10 am with my niece Laura, the sun was shining, it was nice and warm and people were stirring. Some had jammed until 5 am the night before. Others looked like they had not slept a wink. My strategy this year was to set up the tents as far away from the “jam zone” as possible. This worked great as my one night stay was very restful in a secret, undisclosed location up a hill, under some pine trees by some sleepy RVs. Just far enough away from any of the pestering banjos.

I only saw a few shows this year. David Grisman Bluegrass Experience with his son Sam Grisman on stellar bass was great but my affinity with David Grisman comes from a discovery of his Dawg music – a jazzy, sort of gypsy form of music he pioneered in the late 70s. I remember having Hot Dawg on vinyl and cassette and listened to it for about two months straight. Tony Rice and Darol Anger complete an interesting group. However, The David Grisman Bluegrass Experience plays a more traditional style and material – Scruggs and Doc Watson tunes.

I heard The Kentucky Colonels Reunion who played pretty well for some really old guys. They seemed like a pick up band of good ‘ole buddies. From some reason those were the two main acts I heard as I realized that the banjo player one camp over could have played the main stage. In fact the entire group one camp over could have formed a band and played the main stage in about five minutes flat. So a lot of the music I heard and played was in the camp.

Sunday was spent with more jamming, Father’s Day breakfast, a Lucia Birthday cake and then a few hours on the Yuba River where the water level was about normal. We baked ourselves on the granite boulders and the Sierra water washed away the worries of the city. The California Bluegrass Association Father’s Day Bluegrass festival. The tradition lives on.

Posted on

On the SOTA Arts Proposition in San Francisco – Rethinking Arts Equity

This essay is a comment on the the recent proposal, In Support of Access, Equity and Diversity in the Arts at Ruth Asawa School of the Arts and Throughout SFUSD” by Commissioner Rachel Norton and Commissioner Matt Haney, by the SFUSD that was passed unanimously. I find it unfortunate that it passed unanimously as disagreeing about things is what makes the end product a lot better. But the title of the proposition is one of those political maneuvers that happens so often these days. Name it something that everyone can rally around but have the actual action items be a bit weak and not get to the root of problems. Of course everyone is for “Access, Equity and Diversity in the Arts.” If you are not, it is political suicide. Just think of Clear Skies Act of 2003 by George Bush which really did not have a lot to do with air pollution. I have great respect for Congresswoman Barbara Lee who does not just flow with the pack.

If you want to read the actual proposal, you can download it here: In Support of Access, Equity and Diversity in the Arts at Ruth Asawa School of the Arts and Throughout SFUSD” Commissioner Rachel Norton and Commissioner Matt Haney

Photo0327

Introduction
Passed by unanimous vote, the “In Support of Access, Equity and Diversity in the Arts at Ruth Asawa School of the Arts and Throughout SFUSD” is an interesting attempt to remedy San Francisco’s school system engrained problem of an uneven school quality through out the district. In particular it singles out the arts and SOTA, but this problem goes way beyond the access to arts education. The problem has to do with the actual enrollment process in SFUSD.

In the 1970s there must have been school busing in San Francisco; sending poor kids across town to the nice school further west and vice-verse. Now in SFUSD there is a “choice” system, which means any student can apply to any school within the District. This I remember being called OER ( Open Enrollment Registration). http://portal.sfusd.edu/apps/departments/educational_placement/HistoryStudentAssignment.pdf

This gives students and parents the ability to choose what school a child will attend. Sounds great!… right? Now I can send my kid to one of those nice schools in a neighborhood with all those fancy houses. Every parent in San Francisco has gone through this process and for people outside of San Francisco, it is often a stressful thing and results in intense discussions between parents taking care of kids at playgrounds and social gatherings. But why do we even do this sort of enrollment process with school choice in the first place? By the very concept, it is saying that one school is better than the other. What often happens is parents who spend a lot of energy advocating for their children get into the better schools. If you want to get rid of inequities in SFUSD, get rid of school choice. Be diligent in making sure there is equity in all the schools from kindergarten onward.

Why this is important for not only equity but the environment and traffic. Have you ever noticed how light the traffic is in town on certain weekdays? This is because when public school is on a holiday there are literally thousands of less cars of parents driving there kids off to school across town. Young kids is San Francisco rarely go to their neighborhood school. This means they are strapped into the back seat with their breakfast cereal and carted off across town to Clarendon or Miraloma or one of the “good” schools. Does that sound like equity? To me, that sounds like we have a class of the privileged and one that gets the dregs. This all becomes compounded. These “good” schools then have PTA’s that raise a lot of money that is for extra programs for their school – things like art and music and field trips and gardening projects. The less desirable schools will valiantly try to raise funds but not to the point of actually creating “artist in residency” programs.

Why does inequity continue? Often, the elementary school years in a family’s life are incredibly formative. Families, kids and parents make very strong bonds during this time. Families at this time are incredibly busy simply living life. But for the society as a whole this process of school choice actually engrains and deepens the education inequities. If you want to address inequities in the SFUSD, start at the source – get rid of school choice and bring quality education to all schools. Lift up the the schools in the east part of town with more resources and the best teachers.

How School Choice Does not Address the issue of Inequity
Just look at these images of the school ranking by greatschools.org and you can see that there is an institutionalized racism in the quality of schools by neighborhood.

TOP
sfusd-top

MIDDLE
sfusd-middle

BOTTOM
sfusd-bottom

So if you live in Hunters Point, the Bay View or even the now trendy Mission and want to go to one of the “good” schools, head West young man and just hope that you have a parent who has been advocating for you and a car to schlep you across town. Otherwise, if you live in the barrio, you will be sent to your local school that scores a 1 or 2 and you can forget about those free piano lessons and cool art classes. By making the schools in the east part of town better, you will lift up the entire neighborhood.

Two things in the Resolution that Are Good
There are two things about the resolution that are good. One of the main aspects of the resolution is to create a summer program for students from less advantaged neighborhoods, so that they can get more arts “training.” I am not sure why you need a proposition to make this happen but so be it. This is a great idea and it has always amazed me that this approach has been lacking. If you want to increase the overall citizenship and keep people from going to jail, the arts does truly change lives and engage people in creative ventures and create more well-rounded people. But this should not be in anyway dependent on SOTA. It is just a good idea.

The other aspect that I like is the idea of increasing transparency in the audition process. There are many departments at SOTA and the process of auditioning is often convoluted. Sometimes very talented kids are asked to re-auditon not because they are good enough but simply to challenge their commitment and desire to be at the school. This seems disingenuous and childish. Often times extremely talent and motivated kids do not get into SOTA because of a difference of genre. If SOTA mission is to be a conservatory of European art, that is a problem. We now live in the New World in America, so lets be a bit more embracing of our own cultures. Let’s have some self respect.

Race and SOTA
I have had two children attend SOTA during various times in their high school journeys. While SOTA is 37% Caucasian in both departments that my kids participated in, it was obvious that the directors looked at each applicant with an understanding that all kids do not have the same advantages. There were students who where “people of color” accepted into the theater and guitar programs that had no prior experience but are simply very talented and had the desire and drive. The directors and people auditioning could see this and they got in.

Now look at the racial mix of another prestigious high school, Lowell, where the majority of students are Asian. Is that something to be upset about? Having public high schools that accept students based on merit is a slippery slope that will always lead to controversy.

But Why is There An Arts School Anyway?
The concept of an arts school as a pre-professional training is actually not such a great idea. Most high schools use to have pre-professional technical training in other subjects – classes in woodworking, auto mechanics and sewing but those have pretty much disappeared. The concept that there is one school that focuses on pre-professional training in the arts seems odd. Why isn’t there a school that has pre-professional training in say other blue collar trades?

But the problem with having an arts high school in San Francisco is that it makes it so all the other high schools have truly dismal performing arts programs. Anyone who is good at say the violin or singing or dance will end up at SOTA. Because of this talent drain, all the other high schools then end up having performing arts groups that are actually much worse than some of the middle schools. This is truly embarrassing and I have the utmost respect for music teachers in these disadvantaged schools. It is tragic. Balboa High School has produced some great musicians – Wayne Wallace, John Calloway and Gary Flores to name a few I know and now the band program is almost non-existent. It has no momentum.

In high school, the goal of arts education should not be to produce the next Broadway star or the next Picasso. The goal of arts education in high school should be so that all students have access to the arts so that they may live an enriched life with a broad appreciation and understanding of the arts. Playing musical instruments. Throwing pots. Learning about painting all contribute to a more intelligent, well-rounded citizen. If they end up pursuing the arts as a career, they can go down that treacherous road after they graduate.

Posted on

Cuba and its Music – Thoughts on Ned Sublette’s Amazing Book about American Music

“So imagine the Zarabanda, the Congo god of iron – the cutting edge, if you will – traveled on a slave ship with his magic, his mambo, and his machete as soon as the New World was open for business. Then he went back through Havana, across the ocean again, where he got all of Spain dancing, then covertly crept upward through Europe – through the servant’s entrance, of course – and became part of what we now call classical music. In the process, his name was frenchified, he lost his drum and his voice, and his tempo slowed way down. All that remained was the distillation of his dance onto the lute and the guitar, with only the barest trace of the original flavor remaining. Today we call that process going mainstream.”

Ned Sublette Cuba and its Music – From the First Drums to the Mambo (2004)

In December, my brother-in-law, Ted “Banjo” Kuster gave me Cuba and Its Music: From the First Drums to the Mambo by Ned Sublette. It is five hundred and eighty pages long and I thought that it would take me until the following December to finish the book, but it was a page turner, at least for any musician who plays American music. In 1998 I wrote a book called Arranging for Salsa Bands – The Doctor Big Ears Essay were I stated – “Let us look deeply into music and explain why things are the way they are.” Ned Sublette goes very deep.

There are many fascinating ideas in the book. One of the main ideas is that African music has had a much larger effect on Western classical music than we realize as the quote above illustrates. The Zarabanda is the grandmother as the Sarabande which composers like J.S. Bach used in pieces like his Bach Cello Suites. And as has been duly noted in many books, the influence of Cuban music on North American music is often ignored and unacknowledged.

The Elephant in the Room – Ned Sublette on the Spectrum of American Music

“If you ever heard an America sax player fail to lock in while jamming with a salsa band, or heard a Cuban band take on a bluesy jazz tune that doesn’t feel right, you know for all that Afro Cuban and African American music might have in common, they’re also very different than each other.

Why? Because essential elements of these two musics came from different parts of Africa, entering the New World by different routes, at different times, into different structured societies.

Ned Sublette Cuba and its Music – From the First Drums to the Mambo (2004)

Here Sublette points out how the differences between the Muslim influenced sub-Saharan Africa as opposed to the forests of the Congo. It is the thesis of the book and he convincingly states the case. This concept alone is worth the price of the book.

Ninth Voluntary Infantry Immune Band from New Orleans

During the time of the Spanish-American war, 1898, the US Army sent a band from New Orleans to Cuba. At the time they thought that black people were immune to yellow fever. Unfortunately they were not. Just imagine the mind set of the military. “Let’s get those jammin’ horn players from New Orleans and send them into war in Cuba. They will do anything!” Anyway, the Ninth Voluntary Infantry Immune Band from New Orleans went down to Cuba for about a year.

“There is no documentation of the Immune Band having performed in Cuba, and it is impossible to say whether their stay in Cuba affected the course of New Orleans music or not. But if a band of the best horn players could stay in Cuba for nine months without absorbing something, at a time when the oquestas typicas were all the rage in Cuba, they would be unlike any musicians this writer has ever known.

Ned Sublette Cuba and its Music – From the First Drums to the Mambo (2004)

As in many places in the book, the scenes seem almost like historical fiction. It would have been fun to hear this band and if they make a movie, just think of coveted gig of being the costume designer for this epic Hollywood blockbuster! Sublette, of course, points out that Havana and New Orleans were were like cousins both being important and vibrant port towns. Wild and crazy places. The Immune Band was just one of many cultural exchanges.

Puerto Rican’s in New York – The Jones Act

The 1917 Jones Act gave Puerto Ricans U.S citizenship. This enable Uncle Sam to fortify the army for the nastiness of World War I. But the Jones Act would also change the cultural and musical landscape in New York in very interesting ways. Most folks just think of West Side Story but of course much more was going on in the art and music worlds.

Any history of jazz that doesn’t mention Puerto Ricans, is leaving something out.

Ned Sublette Cuba and its Music – From the First Drums to the Mambo (2004)

Modernism

Then Sublette presents this heavy concept about modernism that probably makes many academics roll their eyes, but which is an interesting perspective. They did not teach this point of view, in terms of African influence of European music when I was in school, that is certain. Part of the concept has to do with the looting and display of African art around 1900, and that this art was being influential to the abstract artists in Europe such as Picasso and his “Africa period,” but it also has to do with the empowerment of black artists no longer in Africa.

It would later become academic common practice to speak of modernism as being a move toward abstraction and stylization and away from representation and realism, it could perhaps be better explained as the consequence of the liberation of black creativity – which to many white people was an abstract concept.

Ned Sublette Cuba and its Music – From the First Drums to the Mambo (2004)

Conclusion

These are all the quotes I will pull from Ned Sublette Cuba and its Music – From the First Drums to the Mambo (2004). There are many more but at this point you’ll just have to buy the book. The book finishes with a few sections about the Mambo and explores briefly the beginning of television, Desi Arnaz and Perez Prado. It is curious to think that Prado and his dissonant, in your face music, was banned from writing in Cuba and had to go off to Mexico where he eventually became an international sensation. There is mention of many Mexican movies that feature his music that I am really interested in checking out. Prado’s music introduced an adventurous dissonance, resolutions to a dominant 7 #11 b9 chord for example, that now we associate with Mambo, but it was very disturbing for many. I have a feeling that this adventurousness then helped propel some of the more interesting work of later “salsa” artists, like Eddie and Charlie Palmeri, Willie Rosario, Ray Barreto and many of the Fania record label.

This era, from about 1970 to 1990, when the urban music of the Harlem Renaissance known as “be-bop,” a music that signaled the end of jazz as dance music, a harmonically and rhythmically rich music that was pushing the status quo, completely fused with the Cuban son and other rhythms in such a way that made both musics even more vital – and people danced. That is not in the book but is my thesis, and I am standing by it!

If you are interested in actually writing for Latin music groups and want to explore more some of the basics of clave, orchestration and arranging, I would seriously recommend the book below. I reread it last week, and I still think it fills a void in the published material in this field. Below is a link to the first chapter which is pretty silly but actually very important. A lot of people from France seem to be buying it.

THE ART OF CUING A SALSA BAND – THE SPONTANEOUS ARRANGER

salsa-bands-book

Feel free to comment on any of the quotes above with the discussion below.

Posted on

Toots Thieleman’s Solo on Con Alma East Coast West Coast 1994

This last month I have been a bit obsessed with Con Alma by Dizzy Gillespie. It took me a few days to really start to understand the changes. I found that playing the chords slowly on piano in the lowest register possible and really getting the counterpoint and voice-leading in my head, helped a lot. Then of course, being the compulsive, analytical creature that I am, I transcribed Toots Thieleman’s solo from his album East Coast West Coast (1994). This is another get Toots album with a stellar group of players from John Scofield to Mike Mainieri to Charlie Haden on bass, Peter Erskine on drums, Terrance Blanchard. I mean… how can you possibly go wrong with this album. 5 stars on Amazon.

Toots’ ability to milk the meaning out of ballads will always amaze me. Like some of his other work, he will bring an arrangers perspective to the tune. Con Alma starts as a ballad in 4/4 time. Two measures before the solos begin, the tune turns into a 6/8 waltz. When the tune ends we are back into a very rubato ballad. Brilliant!

Here is the Toots solo.

toots-con-alma-page1

Toots-Thielemans Solo on Con-Alma (pdf)

Posted on

2015 Best of Excelsior District – San Francisco

The first annual Pelican Cafe – 2015 Best of Excelsior District – San Francisco has finally made it back from the editor. The Excelsior is a bit like what the Mission District use to be like with a little hint of the prosperity a few miles north. There are no wine bars out on the street. A few excellent cafes popped up five years ago and the food is slowly getting better. Instead of health food stores, Mexican grocery stores abound. Just about everything you need to survive day-to-day life can be purchased along this stretch of the El Camino Real, the route taken by Franciscan missionaries the first being Junipero Serra in the 1760s.

Best Salvadorian Bakery by a Bus Stop

Pacita’s Salvadorian Bakery

Address: 10 Persia Avenue

bakery

Pasita’s Bakery is the real deal. All kinds of Central American specialty pastries. The best stuff comes out of the ovens in the late morning so people line up at the counter in the afternoons buying bread, cakes and pastries. If you buy a lot they will put all your stuff in a pink box, one by one with tongs and tie it up with a string. This is how you know it is the real deal.

Best Burrito

Taqueria Guadalajara

guadajara-01

Address: 4798 Mission Street
Phone:(415) 469-5480
Hours: 10:00 am – 10:00 pm

Last year some magazine or maybe it was ESPN voted La Taqueria on Mission and 25th the Best Burrito in the United States. Obviously the judges never had the Super Carnitas Burrito from Taqueria Guadalajara. Now don’t get me wrong, La Taqueria’s burritos are very fine, but the fact they do not put rice in their burritos should simply disqualify them.

The point of a burrito is that in tight times, one super burrito can feed a family of four and the next day people are still so full they skip breakfast. For the past few years the lines have started to grow longer at Guadalajara so expect the salsa to be fresh and the food hot.

Best Bar with a Bluegrass Jam

The Doctor’s Lounge

doctors-01

Address: 4826 Mission Street
(415) 586-9730
Hours: 8:00 am – 2:00 am

The Crab Fest followed by the bluegrass jam in December of 2014 made this the best bar in the neighborhood. I remember walking into the Doctor’s Lounge on that night. All the tables where set with linen and candles. The place was packed and everyone was digging into Dungeness Crab. The smell of garlic and white wine was from heaven.

The Beauty Operators Bluegrass Jam followed and there were good times all around. Interesting artwork on the wall. Pool table in back. Good place to watch a Giant’s game. Sunday Brunch with rotating chefs.

Best Hardware Store

J & J Value Hardware

hardware

929 Geneva Avenue
(415) 239-8998

J & J Hardware is old school. You walk in and the owner is there to help you find that weird bolt, nut, washer or screw. He knows where everything is so you can get on with your day. All the usual hardware goods. With street parking on the side streets, and Walgreen’s close by.

Best District 11 Supervisor’s Aid

Jeremy Pollack

jeremey

Always fighting for us down there at City Hall, Jeremy can get the job done. He also is good at not scaring little kids and can play a mean bluegrass guitar.

Best Mexican Grocery Store

Casa Lucas & El Chico Produce

I had to call this a tie. Casa Lucas has better refrigeration and vegetables generally. El Chico has a better butcher and checkout cashiers. Also, if you are making guacamole that afternoon, you may be able to get a good deal on ripe avocados at El Chico. If you buy the half and half at El Chico, I warned you, it may make for good buttermilk. But we will forgive the refrigeration. El Chico Produce is in what once was a bank. Granite walls and high ceilings. A big mural of the Mexican countryside on the wall. Pinatas hanging all over the place. Welcome to the neighborhood. Se Habla Espanol.

casa-lucas

Casa Lucas
4555 Mission St
b/t Harrington St & Brazil Ave

el-chico

El Chico
4600 Mission Street

Best Dog Park

McLaren Park

Photo0003
Excelsior
Ruff, ruff, ruff…

Best Breakfast Spot

Andrea’s Bakery

4511 Mission Street
I have not actually eaten at Andrea’s but often buy pasties here that are very good. Close to a mural of Jerry Garcia. The breakfast are authentic central american style. Juevos, sausage and chorizo, potatoes and tortillas. Hearty fare.

Best Dry Cleaner’s

Kim K Dry Cleaners & Laundry

4571 Mission Stree
9am – 6pm
Someone forgot to give Kim the memo and it is 2015. Excellent dry cleaning at 1990 prices.

Best Book Store (within 5 miles)

Bird & Beckett

653 Chenery Street, San Francisco, CA 94131
Phone:(415) 586-3733

Bird & Beckett Bookstore is actually in Glen Park as the Excelsior District does not have a bookstore. Not to fear. Bird & Beckett in Glen Park is the best independent bookstore in the city. Live music and poetry readings on the weekend.

Coolest Building Sign from the Past

Alemany Emergency Hospital

alemany-emergancy-hospital

On the corner of Alemany and Onadaga. If those walls could talk. Not sure what this buliding is used for but what a great front door. Probably from before electronic health records.

Best Hill for the Next Episode of the “Streets of San Francisco”

Italy Street going west towards Mission coming down the hill.

mortuary-hill

Imagine a car race over this hill! Flying off the top and jumping each cross street. The car crashes into this tree at the bottom of the hill. where there is a mortuary so the screenplay is already halfway there. Where is Karl Malden just when you need him?

Posted on

“Smoke” (1995) by Wayne Wang – Auggie Wren and his Philosophy of Time

Auggie Wren: You will never get it if you don’t slow down my friend.
Paul Benjamin: What do you mean?
Auggie Wren: You are going so fast you are hardly looking at the pictures.
Paul Benjamin: They are all the same.
Auggie Wren: They’re all the same, but each one is different than every other one. You got your bright mornings, your dark mornings. You got your summer light, your autumn light. You got your weekdays, your weekends. You got your people in overcoats and goulashes and you got your people in t-shirts and shorts. Sometimes the same people. Sometimes different ones. Sometimes the different ones become the same. The same ones disappear. The earth revolves around the sun and everyday the light from the sun hits the earth at a different angle.
Paul Benjamin: Slow down, huh?
Auggie Wren: That’s what I recommend. You know how it is. Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. Time creeps in its petty pace.

From the movie “Smoke” (1995) by Wayne Wang

Posted on

YouTube, Bob Marley and Following the Money Trail

Everyone likes cheap. Get a deal on something and you feel good. More money for maybe something else. The only thing better than cheap is free. And so I pondered the economics of YouTube videos, especially how you can listen to just about any track made since the beginning of recorded time on YouTube. For musicians and the public alike, this is simply amazing. For free, you have access to an amazing wealth of music. Download a YouTube to MP3 ripper, and you can claim to be a pirate way beyond the skills of Captain Jack Sparrow.

Ted calls Google, which owns YouTube, “a company that has done more to impoverish musicians and other creative professionals than any entity on the face of the planet.”

Ted Gioia from
http://www.artsjournal.com/culturecrash/2014/10/stop-working-for-free.html

For example, I was checking out the music of Bob Marley and noticed that just one of the YouTube videos had 15,514,525 views. 15 million views! I also noticed that before the video there was an advertisement. How does the licensing of this music on YouTube work and whom gets paid out? Does the estate of Bob Marley get a cut? Does the person who uploaded the video get something? How much does Google get paid?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6U-TGahwvs

After searching on the web for an answer I found very little. The best article states that the deals are private but one recent stat for a popular video got just $38.49 for the 2,118,200 views. Something seems terribly off here. Google is a company worth 78 billion dollars paying the creatives chump change.

Google/YouTube deals are covered by non-disclosure agreements – and do not allow independent labels to demand audits

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/oct/10/music-streaming-songwriters-youtube-pandora

So you really have to ask the question, who is the robber baron here? Much of Google’s acquiring of vast wealth is simply based on the exploitation of content and ridiculously low payouts. If the estate of Bob Marley got just one penny for each of that videos views, it would amount to $150,000 dollars. Larry Page. Seems like it is time to pay the band.

I would also like to add the copyright notice for this article. Seems like this is always on all the recordings and books I have purchased.

If anyone has more complete information, say how much does the estate of Bob Marley make on the vast amount of copyrighted material available on YouTube, please email me or add a comment below.

Copyright © 2014 by Paul Lyons

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Posted on

Simón Bolívar Statue and Semour, the Western Gull

The full title is “Simón Bolívar Statue and Semour, the Western Gull. Fuerte still Charging Forward Moving Slower Than the Alaska Glaciers.”

simone

“God grants victory to perseverance.”

Simón Bolívar

The quote really works in this case. One has to “persevere” with a seagull sitting on your head! At this point, I think the seagull is winning. It is interesting the Simón took off his helmet right before the seagull landed. Stay tuned for the latest news on this epic duel. Will Simón draw his sword and do away with the large gull or will he plead for unity?

The Simón Bolívar statue is in United Nations Plaza in San Francisco and makes for a great field trip in San Francisco. At times a little rough around the edges, the United Nations Plaza tends to get a lot of overflow from the disenfranchised but it is generally a peaceful place. The Simon Bolivar Statue is great cheap tourist attraction. http://heartofthecity-farmersmar.squarespace.com/about/

The SF Main Library. SF Jazz Center, City Hall, Asian Art Museum, any many other sites all close by.

A great to time to go is for the farmers market.
http://heartofthecity-farmersmar.squarespace.com/about/

Sundays 7am to 5pm – Open year round, rain or shine.
Wednesdays 7am to 5:30pm – Open year round, rain or shine.

Simone Bolivar, one of the great symbol of Latin American unity and fitting that he rides his horse here in San Francisco. Aqui se puede…

“An ignorant people is the blind instrument of its own destruction.”

Simón Bolívar

“The first duty of a government is to give education to the people”

Simón Bolívar

Posted on

Hunter S. Thompson Music Quote

“The music business is a cruel and shallow money
trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and
pimps run free, and good men die like dogs.
There’s also a negative side.”

― Hunter S. Thompson

What a great quote. Things have not changed at all but I thing now it would be a “long fiber optic trench.” Stay positive friends in the biz. The act of playing music, in the end, is the reward. The vultures are still in the suits, and be wary.

Posted on

How to Defrost a Frigidaire Freezer in 2014

If you are looking for a job, any job, and want to work steadily for the next 20 years, become an appliance repairman. Ever since the good ‘ole US sent the manufacturing overseas and the big companies maniacally focused on quarterly profits, the quality of the appliances has diminished. Bad engineering. Cheap flimsy parts. Lousy workmanship.

Superhuman effort isn’t worth a damn unless it achieves results.

Ernest Shackleton

In 2012, we bought new appliances. The old ones had lasted 13 years. The dishwasher died. The stove and fridge were pretty beat up. Time to get new stuff. Because of the size of opening in our fridge, we got all Fridgidaire units, a package that cost around $3000 after warranties and taxes. We have had problems with every appliance but the most troublesome has been the fridge. When the fridge has problems, it is unlike the other appliances as food is going to go bad. My Fridgidaire model is the Fridgidaire Professional 21 HA20412058. They should have named it the Fridgidaire POC (Piece of Crap). How they put “Professional” in there is baffling. Even the doors do not close properly.

So here is my advice when buying any appliance in 2014, especially a Fridgidaire Professional 21 HA20412058 refrigerator.

  1. Get the best service warranty offered. We did and it was a really good idea. After a year when the first one expires, buy the extended warranty. You will need it.
  2. Buy a large camping cooler and know where the best place in your neighborhood is to buy ice. After 6 months and your “frost-free” fridge looks like Earnest Shackleton’s view out his tent on his South Pole expedition, you can be assured that in about a day you new fridge will be at 65 degrees.
  3. Buy a hairdryer. You will need this for defrosting your fridge.
  4. A ¼ socket wrench and extension. That is all you will need to open up the back of the fridge and defrost this piece of crap.
  5. Buy an appliance thermometer.

If you begin to notice your fridge is frosting up, you really have about a day, so plan accordingly. Do not do any major shopping. Look for coupons to the local pizza and Chinese food delivery restaurants. Do not plan your trip to the South Pole.

Sir Ernest Shackleton boat Endurance freezer was frosting up. He spent years stranded in the South Pole. Good thing you got a hairdryer.
Sir Ernest Shackleton boat Endurance freezer was frosting up. He spent years stranded in the South Pole. Good thing you got a hairdryer. If he had a hairdryer, he could have melted his way out.

STEP 1:
Call your warranty service number. They will tell you they can make it out to your house next March 22nd. Is between 1 and 4 pm OK? Proceed to STEP 2.

STEP 2:
Make sure you have about an hour and a half free and unplug the fridge.

STEP 3:
Empty the main compartment of the freezer.

STEP 4:
Use your ¼ socket and undo the two bolts in the back and the two holding in the ice-maker. Gently pull these out of the freezer. The electrical connection for the ice-maker is disconnected by squeezing on the outside. There is one such connection for the wall in the back too. That way you get both the back wall and the ice-maker, out of the fridge.

STEP 5:
Get our your hair dryer and melt all the frost on the elements. This is actually sort of fun seeing this frost just melt away. Use a towel or dishcloths and dry up the floor of the freezer. Water is your enemy at this point.

The dynamite was of no use. If only I had a hairdryer, I could melt our way out of this mess and free the ship out this icy grip of doom.

Ernest Shackleton

STEP 6:
Notice how cheap and shoddy the construction and marvel at the concept that they got a thousand bucks for this thing. Be gentle. This POC may make it another 6 months. If the mechanical temperature adjustment knob on the back wall that you took out does not click and seems broken because of the frost build up, take those two bolts out and put it back together so that it does not spin freely but clicks and works properly.

STEP 7:
Put the whole thing back together, making sure to connect the two electrical connections. Be gentle.

You are now done. Put your food back in the freezer and plug in the refrigerator. Make sure to have that appliance thermometer handy so that you can confirm that the unit still works.

With the back off. Use hair dryer to defrost.
With the back off. Use hair dryer to defrost.
After
After the job and no frost
Bolt holding ice maker in
Bolt holding ice maker in. There are two of these.
IMG_0692
So glad I got the professional model. Doors that don’t close. Frost-ups. Next time maybe I will by the Amateur model for even more senseless humor.

Be ready to repeat this task every six months. Hey we’re Americans! We’re use to living with just 20 acres, a shotgun and a mule. A crappy fridge made in China is just a small obstacle to “living the dream.”

Posted on

Stolen Car, 1,192,809 and The Warm and Fuzzy Car Story

In 2008 my car was stolen right in front of my house. It was a 91 Honda Civic, near the end of its life. I would take it to the beach with a surfboard on top and it would sit there and just look out at the waves and slowly rust away from the top down. Its job was to hang out at the ocean, not get upset about having sand everywhere and take kids to school. You can read the two posts, Stolen Car and 1,192,809 that I wrote back then below, but here is another car story that turns out a bit better and sheds light on a nobler part of the human experience. Something for the “Datebook” section of your local paper.

The Warm and Fuzzy Car Story

This summer we were trying to sell a 2007 Honda Civic. Over 200,000 miles but in really great shape. It was my son’s car that he drove off to college for a year and now we really did not need it and wanted to lower the family car insurance bill. I had tried everything. Craigslist. Cars.com. A sign on the window. Nothing was working. Every now and then someone would email me trying to push the price down a thousand dollars. Sorry buddy.

Then I got an email from a guy who wanted to pay cash. I go down a few hundred bucks and two young guys show up at my front door with a stack of hundreds in their hands. It turns out that they work for a painting company in the East Bay and they and their buddies got together to buy a car for one of the new hires, who’s car was stolen at the company picnic. Pretty crazy that cars are stolen in broad daylight. Just when you think the entire planet is dominated by greed, disingenuity and selfishness an act of human kindness broadsides you.

So I counted up the Benjamin’s, we signed the papers and they drove away. Good thing this Honda has an alarm. They may need it.

Stolen Car

2/9/2008 8:55:01 AM

There is nothing so strange as questioning your sanity. The things in life that are most alarming are when you find things out of their place. And so was the day of Friday, February 9, 2008. Same nagging alarm clock. Same race out the door. Same eggs on the house. When you realize that your car is not where you had parked it the night before.

It is but a small docile thing. Never can do more than seventy, maybe downhill. These thieves have no imagination! A better car would be one that can actually gain momentum.

To the Car Thieves
So, as long as you have the wreck. The glove box has a bit of damage. You know raising kids and carting them off to school every day tends to wear on a car. A few too many soccer cleats in the glove box, or a pissed of 6 year old can do some real damage. Also, the dash is way past its prime. The golden California sun has been pounding on it for 17 years. A crack here. A crack there. Remember, the car was made before cup-holders so there has to be about a gallon of coffee and a pint of half-and-half under that plastic dash. Actually for a year or so the car was but a house for mice. Way in the hills of Sonoma it sat as its owners were nowhere in site. The mice had a great time pooping and peeing in the air ducts and heater box, so you may want to roll down the windows from time-to-time. Just a simple public health suggestion.

Change the oil. The back windshield wiper should be changed. And while you’re at it, get some new floor mats… at least for the front. And I want the real ones from the dealer, not the crappy ones from Grand Auto. Let’s pimp this ride for when you have to return the beast.

One more thing. The gas gauge sometimes gives out. So you may at some point get stranded. Don’t put a gas can full of petrol in the back. Just make sure you fill the gas tank regularly. Best wishes and take care of her. New oil every 4,000 miles but hopefully she’ll be back home way before then.

1,192,809

2/16/2008 11:21:15 AM

In the United States in 2006 there were 1,192,809 stolen cars reported.
This means that for every 100,000 people, 398.4 cars are stolen.

In 2006 there were 17,034 murders in the US. Since the beginning of the Iraq war there have been 3239 combat US deaths. So, there are five times as many murders in the US every year than all the US combat deaths since the Iraq war began.

Of course the Iraqi civilian death toll is anywhere from 100,000 to a million – which is a genocide that rarely if ever makes it to the front page of the news.

See:
http://www.disastercenter.com
http://www.antiwar.com
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org

On Monday, February 10th a message was left on my answering machine. The Richmond police department had found my car that was stolen from right in front of my house the previous Friday. The thieves had stripped the doors, the headlights and taillights, the seats, the radio, the battery and assorted odds and ends. We got up early and went up to the new Richmond police department building. In front of the building was a bizarre scene. There was a backpack and some clothes and a significant amount of blood on the sidewalk. A police officer was standing there enjoying his morning coffee with a co-worker. They were talking as though a bloody mess ten yards away was normal. Was this some sort of strange psychology experiment? Should we bring this to the attention of the officer? In the end, we said nothing and probably failed the test. We walked straight into the spotless new, pristine police department lobby. Stainless steel and glass were everywhere. We filled out the necessary paperwork and then drove to the towing company a few miles away. We paid them $300 so that they could keep our car. It was a sad way for this old car to go. Sort of like an old lady losing her life to a bunch of muggers, when she had only five bucks and some really nasty Kleenex in her purse. We did find some evidence as to who may have stolen the car. A Yahoo map with a phone number on it dated the same day the car was stolen – all a bit peculiar. Recently, I relayed this information to Richmond police department but I am not sure why I bothered. They have their hands full. They have to clean up the bloody mess on the front walk of their station. Police departments around here do not pursue stolen car crimes. Period.

To the Car Thieves
So you actually did have a plan! You wanted my crappy seats! Cloth seats from a seventeen year old car that has been to the beach a thousand times. Good thinking! Good luck with all the surf wax that is impregnated into the headrests. If you figure out a way to get that off please send me an email with your magic formula. You also had a thing for the doors. They were nice white doors but just so you know, the windows leak. If you see a dark cloud around, it is probably best to pull the beast into a garage. Nothing like a moldy smelly car. Gives you that authentic, been camping for three weeks, road-trip vibe. The CD changer was pretty good and the CDs were fine but to tell you the truth I was a bit sick of them and have them all as MP3s. Whichever ones you do not like, just mail them back. You know my address as copies of the insurance and title info were in the glove box. The battery was less then a year old so that was a good idea. The floor carpet was a bad idea. In fact if I were so dense as to re-outfit this $1800 Kelly Blue Book vehicle, I would have taken out the seats, the doors and carpet (basically all the stuff you stripped – minus the odometer) and gotten new stuff. It’s funny how some people find value in things that are past their prime. The thing that was probably of greatest value in this car where the engine and tires. These you passed on.

Seeing this car all stripped down was actually interesting. It was a bit like that feeling one gets when moving out of an apartment. After all your crap is moved out and you see the morning sunlight bounce off of the nice hardwood floors and delicious open space you wonder why the hell you wanted to move out in the first place. Lastly, I would like to thank you for leaving my driving glasses in the glove box. You put them in the case – a classy final act of thoughtfulness and empathy. Perhaps there is hope for you after all.

Posted on

Why I am Voting Yes on Prop E

Proposition E is the “Soda Tax” proposition and I must say that when I first heard about this I was thinking, “why do we need another tax?” In the first place, San Francisco is one of the most expensive places to live on the entire planet. Gas costs more. Food costs more. Housing costs more. Beer cost more. Need I say it, but parking tickets are outrageous. They are so punitive that when the City of San Francisco raised parking ticket prices a few years ago to raise revenue, and then were alarmed that revenue actually went down, they did not realize that $60 for a street cleaning ticket makes people be very careful where they park the Volvo. San Franciscans break into a cold sweat when the street cleaning truck goes by, in a mad mental dash confirming the last place they parked their car.

Anyway. About this soda tax thing. I don’t drink soda very often but when I do, I prefer a bottle of Mexican coke. The Mexican cokes, with the real sugar take you back about 30 years. Now that bottle of pop will cost another 24 cents, or 2 cents and ounce. I remember when a coke cost a quarter but that is another story.

So my first thinking on Proposition E was, why this regressive tax that in the end really only effects poor people? You work a crappy job pushing a broom all day, or cleaning toilets or hauling stuff to the dump and your simple gratification at the end of the day is a can of soda. Maybe they should tax the big folks like GE, Twitter and Google all companies with office floors of tax lawyers finding ways to shelter the profits? Let the common folk get their simple pleasures.

But then I read in the paper that the beverage industry has spent 9.1 million to try to defeat Proposition E. 9.1 million! San Francisco has around 450,00 registered voters. About 200,000 actually turn out to vote in any given election. So that means that every vote costs $45 to the beverage industry. By election day it will be $50. I think the beverage industry is nervous and does not want to have San Francisco set precedence for this type of taxation. Once it passes in San Francisco, it is all just a matter of time and that it will pass in other places. Just look at smoking. Thirty years ago who would have thought that smoking in bars would be illegal. And then I thought, why not tax soda? Obesity and diabetes are out of control here in the land of the free. Somehow we all will have to pay the medical bills for these ailments. Slowly I then went from a “stop taxing me to death” stance to a vote “yes” on Proposition E. My message to The Coca-Cola Company is you cannot buy my vote. Now, if you had only dropped off a case of coke and a bottle of Jamaican rum before our last party that may have done the trick, but in all honesty my vote is not for sale. As a matter of principle, you lost my vote on this one. San Francisco. Let’s prove the big money wrong and show them they cannot buy our vote.

Vote Yes on Proposition E. It needs a 2/3rds super majority to pass.

Posted on

2014 HARDLY STRICTLY BLUEGRASS FESTIVAL OFFICIAL PELICAN CAFÉ AWARDS

As is the case with years past, The Pelican Café gives out awards for the Best of Hardly Strictly. It is a great honor to have been chosen once again for this task.

BEST FIDDLE PLAYER

Joe Spivey with The Time Jumpers Featuring Vince Gill, Kenny Sears, Dawn Sears and Ranger Doug Green

Joe Spivey played some great fiddle on the Banjo Stage during this set on Saturday and for me it came at a perfect time. I had just had an earful of Deltron 3030 with The 3030 Orchestra at the Gold Stage (what a disaster that show was, especially in terms of sound) and needed to hear something down-home. There is something beautiful about bluegrass fiddle when played well. It combines speed, a singing sound and when done well a lot of funky polyrhythms. Joe Spivey has probably been delivering on this and more for years. He sounded great.

BEST SINGER THAT MADE YOU WONDER “HOW CAN ANYONE SING LIKE THAT AND NOT LOSE THEIR VOICE

St. Paul w/ St. Paul & The Broken Bones

If you like in-your-face, soulful, Aretha Franklin southern Gospel singing, St. Paul is your ticket. He can simply belt out tunes, one after the other like there is no tomorrow. His stage presence, in a dapper blue suit and entertaining banter was perfect for his throwback style. If you are a singer or study voice, you must check out this guy. He does not take prisoners.

BEST BAND PERIOD, NOT IF AND OR BUTS

Jon Batiste and Stay Human

I must confess that I have a weakness for music from New Orleans. There is a beautiful combination of elements – spontaneity, virtuosity, soul, community, creativity and an artist to audience communication that transcends other music’s. Jon Batiste and Stay Human show at the 2014 HARDLY STRICTLY BLUEGRASS FESTIVAL was outstanding. It all started with just the drummer coming out on stage playing just a tambourine in a very funky style. He was then joined, one at a time, by other members of the band. Alto sax, then tuba then Jon Batiste on a trumpet looking melodica. They played in a very traditional but polyphonic style. The set was full of surprises. For many tunes they would get behind there instruments, Jon at the piano, the drummer at his kit and just make magic. Funky numbers. Traditional tunes. At one time the sax player picked up a curved soprano and played a tune that harkened back to Sidney Bechet. Other times they would break into a sort of modern jazz, free-jazz thing that would make Ornette Coleman smile, then in the next moment they played a corny 70s tune, Killing Me Softly with just horns. The ensemble playing was impeccable. They closed out the set by heading out to the crowd in a line, playing their instruments, marching band, second line style. Pure magic.

BEST SURPRISE BAND THAT YOU NEVER HEARD OF THAT REALLY SOUNDED GREAT

The Lone Bellow

From Brooklyn, New York, The Lone Bellow’s set at the 2014 HARDLY STRICTLY BLUEGRASS FESTIVAL just made you wonder were this alt-country band will be in a few years. Fine guitar playing and really impressive, authentic vocals by the entire group. Kanene Donehey Pipkin (mandolin, vocals) can really sing this stuff. As group singing goes, The Lone Bellow was amazing. Strong. On pitch. Well rehearsed.

BEST CANADIAN BAND WHERE OVER HALF THEIR SONGS SOUNDED LIKE DON MCCLEAN’S “AMERICAN PIE”

Blue Rodeo

I suppose of you like that sort of formulaic 70s pop tune sound with the predictable hooks and uneven singing this would be your band, but they could have thrown in a “drove my Chevy to the levy but the levy was dry.”

Prelude

The Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival always takes place the first weekend of October in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. In 2014, the weather was superb, with clear skies both days. Unlike some years, it was actually a bit too hot for some people and at many stages people sat far away preferring the shade of the trees. Ocean Beach had a long period swell running, sixty degree water temperatures and east winds so the surf was good. The Giants were in the process of defeating the Washington Nationals in playoff baseball. On Saturday, the festival was not as crowded as usual as the baseball game was in the afternoon. That game lasted six and a half hours and was won by the Giants in the 18th inning on a Brandon Belt home run. Life is good in the Bay Area.

Next year I think I am going to hang out a bit further west at HSB. Closer to the old time stages and the music from Appalachia. Ralph Stanley, winner of a 2013 HARDLY STRICTLY BLUEGRASS FESTIVAL OFFICIAL PELICAN CAFÉ AWARD played the Banjo Stage on Sunday but I was already parked with my family at the Star Stage listening to Rosanne Cash. The difficult choices we have to make this time of year.

Posted on

Grand View Park

There are many neighborhoods in San Francisco that seem to have a paucity of parks. Parts of the Sunset. The Excelsior. Endless square blocks of houses, squeezed together like sardines. There may be huge beautiful parks like Golden Gate Park and McClaren Park, but there are not many little ones where you can just get out and escape the confines of your house to walk the dog our throw a ball around. People in each neighborhood really know about these little parks, but outsiders often require time to even find and explore them. One such park in the Sunset District is Grand View Park.

Grand View Park is simply a good-sized hill off of 19th Ave. It is surely used by the local dog walkers and morning exercisers. An interesting way to get there is to go east from 19th avenue on Moraga. When Moraga ends park. There is a most amazing stairway that leads up the hill. This stairway, a product of the Golden Gate Heights Neighborhood Association, has a beautiful mosaic running up its steps.

After climbing these steps, one winds ones way up more steps to the top. The views at the top are stupendous. One can see downtown, Alcatraz, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Marin Headlands and of course the immense Pacific Ocean. Below are some photos of Grand View Park where tourist buses rarely venture.

Posted on

Essential Toots Thielemans Albums

I have just finished a series of transcriptions of Toots Thielemans solos from a various albums. After having done a few in 2013, I made it a New Years Resolution to do ten. Why someone would take on such a maniacal task is beyond me, but people have done crazier things. Ten for Toots – 10 Toots Thielemans Chromatic Harmonica Solos – Transcribed and Analyzed, will be available in both ebook and paper form in September 2014. If you are interested in adding a few jazz albums to your collection that feature the great Toots Thielemans, start with three. This is after many years of narrowing down the list. Toots is the man!

Here are my top three.

toots-aff
1. Bill Evans Affinity (Warner Bros., 1979)
Toots playing on this album is magical. The rapport between Toots and Bill Evans is great and just about everything about this album makes it a must have. It is one of those albums where in many ways the music is so collaborative, who the leader is not needed. Toots had a lot of input on the choice of material for this album. The tunes bounce back from jazz standards to interesting takes on more contemporary material. A few really unknown tunes are also played. The quality of the harmonica micing with this recording is probably the best I have heard. Great band!

toots-bites
2. Man Bites Harmonica! (Riverside, 1958)
A great straight ahead jazz album and Toots plays with a lot of drive throughout. The pairing of harmonica with Baritone Sax (Pepper Adams) is unusual but works really well. I am putting this as number two as it will give the listener some perspective as to how Toots’ music developed over time.

If you love Brazilian music and want to discover artists that will blow you away, this is your album!

anonymous

toots-brazil
3. The Brasil Project (BMG, 1992)
I have not heard The Brasil Project 2, but after hearing The Brasil Project, I must say that this is a phenomenal album. Not only does if feature a who’s who in Brasilian music, Toots playing is simply outstanding. The songs by Joao Bosca and Djavan are excellent. Luis Bonfa playing his song Black Orpheus in a definitive way, will make you rethink this now jazz standard after may years of abuse north of the equator. Outstanding production values.

10 Toots Thielemans Chromatic Harmonica Solos – Transcribed and Analyzed

By Paul Lyons

TenForToots_tn

Now available at Lulu Press – Print

Now available at Lulu Press – Digital

An in-depth look at the style of one of the great improvisors of the last 50 years. Excellent for not only chromatic harmonica players, but jazz players of all instruments.

 

Table of Contents

  • Introduction – 3
  • Why Transcribe – 5
  • Don’t Blame Me – Man Bites Harmonica! (Riverside, 1958) – 6
  • Three In One – Man Bites Harmonica! (Riverside, 1958) – 11
  • Sno’ Peas – Bill Evans Affinity (Warner Bros., 1979) – 18
  • Blue in Green – Bill Evans Affinity (Warner Bros., 1979) – 20
  • Jesus’ Last Ballad – Bill Evans Affinity (Warner Bros., 1979) – 23
  • Only Trust Your Heart – Only Trust Your Heart (Concord Records, 1988) – 26
  • C To G Jam Blues – Footprints (Polygram Records, 1991) – 30
  • Felicia and Bianca – The Brasil Project (BMG, 1992) -36
  • Coisa Feita – The Brasil Project (1992, BMG) – 38
  • Everybody’s Talkin’, Midnight Cowboy: Original Motion Picture Score [Soundtrack] (1969) – 45
  • Conclusion – 48
  • References – 48
  • Etudes – 49 – 80
Posted on

1983 Open Letter – The Declaration of the “Sh!t Hit the Fan”

I was organizing my vinyl the other day when I came across an insert to an album. It was from a Elektra, a division of Warner Brothers and it was a plea to consumers to stop making copies of the album. The insert was signed by a lot of leading jazz musicians who were probably all Elektra artists. At the time most people had a turntable and a cassette dubbing deck. Copying vinyl to tape was pretty standard practice. That was how we listened to music in cars. Everyone had “mix tapes” that were essential for any road trip. It is pretty funny to think that the record industry was concerned about cassette tapes. That was nothing! The digital era, fifteen years later made taping look like the good ole days.

An Open Letter1983 Elektra/Asylum Records

We musicians thank you – for buying this album, for supporting our music and our careers.

But we have a problem, a serious one, we can do little to cure without your understanding and your help.

Very simply put, the growing practice of unauthorized home-taping of our albums is doing each one of us a great damage. Yet most people don’t give it a second thought.

It’s no big thing, it might seem, to let one of your friends make just one copy of this album. After all, just one copy can’t hurt too much.

Or can it?

Look at it from our point of view. Home-taping is now so common-place, so unrestrained, it has to put a sizeable dent in our incomes, is jeopardizing our recording and “live-appearance” careers and is already causing record companies to limit the number of new artists and new albums they invest in and promote.

The plain fact that your friends ask to make their own copy of this album means they are fans. Obviously they must like our music. That’s great – for us as artists and great for our futures

But we need more – more understanding and appreciation of the bind we’re in.

Jazz is not a mass-market phenomenon. We wish it were. Our art form is not for everyone. It’s appeal is to a select, sophisticated audience – a one-on-one kind of music.

We rarely reach anywhere near “Gold” or “Platinum” certifications for sales. The truth is that even big-time bootleggers ignore our product because they have learned even our biggest “hits” add up to too-small numbers. They figure it hardly pays them to rip us off.

So you do not have to be a computer expert to realize that just one single, unauthorized, home-taped copy may represent a significant percentage of our total volume. And shouldn’t be dismissed as merely a meaningless free-for-all. It’s more than just a numbers game to us.

If the practice doesn’t stop, we are all losers. You are losers too – what with record shops cutting down the number of jazz albums they normally carry, your ability to choose from the wildest possible selection is shrinking everyday.

(If you or your friends can’t find another copy of this album in your regular record shop, please let us know. We’ll attempt to get it there as quickly as possible.)

Some people may not want to hear this. But the only way we and other jazz artists know to stop the of home taping and other forms of copying is to appeal to you and your sense of fair play.

We welcome any thoughts, suggestions, comments, questions or answers (pro or con) about this letter or about our music. Of course, we’ll reply to as many as we can.

We need your support. It’s not charity we’re asking for – just your helping hand. We can only suggest that this album be limited to one to a customer.

Thank you.

Posted on

Thinking has its own laws… a Kitaro Nishida quote

Thinking has its own laws. It functions of its own accord and does not follow our will. To merge with the object of thought – that is, to direct one’s attention to it is voluntary, but I think perception is the same in this respect: we are able to see what we want to see by freely turning our attention to it.

Kitaro Nishida
From a stone on the Philosophers Walk in McLaren Park in San Francisco

Posted on

Live Bluegrass in SF as the Beauty Operators play all Weekend

Beauty Operators in the house this weekend. Great song writing. Amazing harp player. A mix of old tunes, originals and interesting adaptions of standards from the 70s and 80s.

What is pretty interesting about these venues, is that I doubt any doctors show up at the Doctor’s Lounge
and I never saw anyone drink milk at the Milk Bar.

THURSDAY 8pm Doctor’s Lounge
https://www.facebook.com/events/781986835153741/?context=create
The Beauty Operators play at the Doctor’s Lounge the 3rd Thursday of every month. The club has a great pool room in back. Bar food available.

SATURDAY 8pm Modern Times
https://www.facebook.com/events/305765432910139/

SUNDAY 5pm Bluegrass & Beyond- Sundays at Milk Bar.
https://www.facebook.com/events/1532011310358491/

San Francisco bluegrass.

Posted on

Butterfly Jazz Trio – First Time Around CD

cover-for-web3

There are still a few copies of this limited release CD. Listen to examples and get the CD at Add to Cart at CD Baby!

Album Notes
Kai Lyons – Guitar
Erik Von Buchau – Drums
Dillan Riter – Bass

Recorded at Granada Studios in Half Moon Bay on August, 29, 2013, FIRST TIME AROUND by the Butterfly Jazz Trio is a spontaneous romp through some funky grooves, subtle ballads and straight ahead explorations. The session was inspired by gigs the Butterfly Jazz Trio played in downtown San Francisco in various bars and hotels during the summer of 2013.

All tunes were chosen like they had been on the gigs – spur of the moment, like many of the great sessions of the late 1950s and early 1960s. Two takes were done of most tracks but invariably the first was the one chosen. Freshness and immediacy was the agenda. There are no click tracks, prefabrications or overdubs of any kind. Just real instruments, listening, talented players and a splendid warm-sounding tube amp built by Rico Macalma, the engineer on the session.

At around 5pm, the crew packed up realizing that we all needed a break. We headed up to the Mission District in San Francisco for dinner. Time to chill before another gig at a hotel off of Union Square.

CD-DVD-offset600

If you are a fan of the jazz guitar trio, music that swings hard and melodies that stay with you long after you finish that last track, check out the CD. Makes a great gift too. You may just want to listen to it again and again.

A FEW SAMPLES

There are still a few copies of this limited release CD. Listen to examples and get the CD at Add to Cart at CD Baby!

Engineer & Mix by Rico Macalma, Mastering by Rainer Gembalczyk
Executive Producer & CD Design – Paul Lyons
Unauthorized copying and reproduction prohibited.
Copyright 2013 – Butterfly Jazz Trio – All Rights Reserved – kailyons.com

Posted on

Adventures in YouTube. The Salsa Arrangements that Changed the World

Every now and then you have to pay attention. It seems the older you get the faster time goes by. The other day I searched on YouTube for some of the songs that I composed and arranged back in the late 1990s with various groups in San Francisco. Some of these tunes have 100,000 plays which is sort of cool but I am sure that at this point no one in this group is making money off those plays. We did it for love anyway. And the dancers.

Arrangements by Paul Lyons

Orq. Azabache – This Moment

Hi. This is Paul Lyons the arranger of this song and many tunes on this album – Azabache from 2000. Thanks for posting this video.

What makes this song so cool is that it is a salsa song about breaking up. There are very few of those. Usually salsa songs in English are love songs and are quite corny. Not with this one.

These charts where written originally for trumpet, trombone and baritone sax. Notice that on this recording the band played the song with trombones. What is so strange about this recording is that the second mambo I wrote originally as an afterthought to the song. I always imagined a solo on top of the trombone line. But I love this tune and knew it would touch people.

Julio Bravo, Sin Rencor


Arranged by Paul Lyons from San Francisco. Another tune I actually do not remember arranging. 2000 was such a crazy time. People thought the world was going to end. I just had had my second kid, a daughter Lucia. At the time I was writing about one arrangement a week and every now and then complete originals would be commissioned. The phrasing of the horns is stellar. Bill Thuerer, Derek James, Stephen Khuen. The orchestration is how it was written.

Simplemente Complicada – Orquesta Azabache.wmv

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7z7Cr-zIX2Q
Composed and Arranged by Paul Lyons. Lyrics by Ray Martinez. This is a tune/melody that I wrote that Ray wrote lyrics to. It was about a relationship he was having at the time. So Ray put words to the song and then brought it back to my place with a scratch recording. We probably hung out for a while and brainstormed some ideas. I then wrote the arrangement that afternoon. All of the songs on this album came together in one six month period and I am certain this project (Azabache 2000) was self produced. It is not in print anymore. Someone call Ray and tell him to press a few thousand more.

Azabache – Cinco a Diez


Arrangement by Paul Lyons (Azabache 2000). About 100,000 views makes me scratch my head at how crazy the music industry is. This is a very cool tune about a very difficult situation – 5 to 10 years in jail.

Learn How to Write Salsa Charts. Certified by the Club Owners Association of Northern California.

If you are interested in purchasing the sheet music – arrangements for any of the songs above, email

Posted on

A Week in the Western Highlands, Xela and Antigua Guatemala

After eight years living a life of opulence in San Francisco, we made a return trip to Guatemala the first week in April 2014. Traveling was Andy, my wife, Lucia my 14-year-old daughter, Lisa our friend who is traveling for research work and myself. From San Francisco there are no direct flights, so we were routed through Dallas. A five-hour layover that turned into six, we ate a very poor meal at TGIF Fridays. Over-processed stuff. Chicken that tasted like rubber. Grilled vegetables that were cold and tasteless. You would think in the United States we could do better than this, but apparently not. In most airports food is either fast food or restaurants that are really sports bars, which serve over salted food, and who’s main objective is to tempt you with overpriced mass-produced cocktails.

In Guatemala City, at the airport in the dark we caught a taxi to our Bed and Breakfast, a place we had stayed before. While it was close to the airport the taxi driver ended up roaming around a bit aimlessly. We entered gated neighborhoods with armed guards eventually exiting in confusion. After about 15 minutes, we got our bearings and found the place. It is not easy finding an urban dwelling surrounded by walls. The addresses are often cryptic and the order of streets is frequently unruly and illogical.

The next morning, at the bed and breakfast, after a homemade breakfast of papaya, eggs, beans and coffee, we rode to Xela in a private van with many empty seats. It is important to appreciate ample personal space when traveling in Guatemala, as often you can be crammed into the public chicken buses with three to a seat. Soon on the highway the experience begins to all fall into place. Lots of people walking on the side of the road – Mayan woman in their colorful garb carrying bundles on their heads, men in cowboy hats, kids on bikes patrolling the hood. Volcanoes soaring into the sky off in the distance. The brightly painted walls and signs for everything from hardware stores, to dentists, to political parties to the ubiquitous Tigo – the phone company. I vaguely remember each of the towns on this journey though the road seems a lot better now then it did in 2006. It is two lanes in both directions, which is new. Along the way we ate a roadside restaurant called Kape Paulinos where the food was excellent. The chicken was delicious and the freshly squeezed juices and handmade tortillas were superb.

Muerte de General Rufino Barrios
Muerte de General Rufino Barrios

We arrived in Xela around 3pm, found our hotel, got money from the ATM and chilled out for the rest of the day. After dark fell, we did go to a café that doubles as a museum. On one of the walls was a painting named Muerte de General Rufino Barrios. The date on the work was 1944 and I do not know if it was based on another painting, but I really became enthralled by the tragic scene. Rufino Barrios looms large in the history of Guatemala. In fact, the little town where I am writing this, San Lorenzo is the birthplace of Rufino. He was an enlightened fellow who became president of Guatemala and fought for the empowerment of the poor Mayans and Guatemala in general. He attempted to institute land reform, always a precarious topic for politicians, especially in Latin America. There is something about the painting of Rufino Barrios, dead on the battlefield that metaphorically tells a story that remains tragically the same today. Unlike, Peru or especially Bolivia, in Guatemala the indigenous peoples are pretty marginalized politically.

The next day at 6am we were picked up from our hotel by Eduardo, one of the longtime workers of health studies that have gone on in San Lorenzo for the past two decades and was the reason for our family’s yearlong stay in 2006. Up an insanely steep cobblestone road to 7000 feet and the Altiplano and San Lorenzo.

In the afternoon, Lucia and I got on the bus and made our way down to San Marcos, where we lived for a year. A lot has changed. The new bus station on the north side of town has changed the traffic flow and has surely been a boon for stores in that area. The earthquake last year destroyed many of the old buildings. The building where my kids went to school, San Carlos, was destroyed. I remember that school as being very quaint, with its lathe and plaster walls, little balconies and rickety stairs. Fortunately, when the earthquake hit, there were not many people in the school. Many of the buildings more than eighty years old seemed to have crumbled. Unfortunately, they are all being replaced with the modern cinder-block construction that you see all throughout Mexico and Latin America. Unimaginative and cold. With the loss of these old buildings, the city has lost part of its charm.

We went by the house were we lived for a year in 2006 and ran into the son of our landlord. We met up with Mario and Chaito, some old friends as school was letting out. They then drove us down to Agua Tibia, the spring fed swimming pool at the edge of town. People in San Marcos always complain about Agua Tibia as being too cold but to me the pool is quite pleasant. We swam and dove off the three and five meter platforms. After buying some bread and hanging out in the main plaza, we walked the five or so blocks to the bus station and headed back up to San Lorenzo. It always amazes me how efficient the bus system is in Guatemala. You never have to wait more than 15 minutes and a bus, going exactly where you need to go is available. How these bus drivers make money does not seem logical. Our fare for the 45-minute ride up 2000 vertical feet was only one dollar each. The bus holds about 20 people.

The weather this whole trip has been splendid. It has been warmer than normal and even during the nights it has been pleasant. In times past, staying up here in the Altiplano was a bit grueling as there often is a chill that gets inside your bones. Running water and hot showers are intermittent at best. Heat is often a brick wood stove. But the people persevere. It is an odd paradox that sometimes people with so little enjoy the day more and generally seem happier than those with vast material possessions. For sure, there is a lot of pain and suffering here, mostly caused by the dire poverty, but yesterday, while walking, we ran into an elderly woman, in traditional Mayan garb, about 4 feet tall, with a long grey ponytail and brilliant grey eyes, tending to her sheep. She was sitting by the side of the road, simply enjoying the day. We could have stayed and conversed for a long while and she seemed at peace with the world. The sun was shining. Little kids as they walked by would greet her with respect. Every now and then she would take her 20 foot long whip out and with great control violently smack it on the ground next to one of her sheep who seemed to be wondering too close to the road. It seemed a bit like a scene from the Hobbit Shire in Lord of the Rings. At any moment Gandalf was going to appear on a horse.

The following day, Andy and I headed back down to San Marcos. We met up for lunch with our good friends, Checha, Paoula and their three beautiful kids. Perhaps the best English speakers in town, they cobble together various jobs as English teachers to make ends meet. On the weekends, Checha sings in various rock and cumbia bands. Earlier, on the street, we ran into one of the shopkeepers who sold school uniforms we had met years back. Unlike my old buddies at the hardware store and pool, he actually recognized me. His shop next to San Carlos school had crumbled in the earthquake. We exchanged pleasant greetings but he did not seem the confidant entrepreneur I remember but a man trying to gather his bearings. We made a trip over to San Pedro via taxi and experienced the market that had not changed a bit. A taxi to San Marcos then a chicken bus back up to San Lorenzo. You have not experienced Guatemala, if you have not been on a chicken bus. They are brightly painted old Blue Bird school buses from the United States. They are often packed with riders. On this particular trip back to San Lorenzo, I spent most of the time standing up crammed in with all the campesinos. The driver seemed to be around 18 years old and had mastered driving the bus like a formula one racer. Hairpin turns at top speed, double shifting, avoiding potholes, passing trucks with skill. I noticed a few bicyclists run off the side of the road as well. Meanwhile his assistant did everything from collecting fares, to climbing up to the roof to store rider’s packages, to assisting the driver negotiate tight intersections or an oncoming vehicle. Bus driver assistants never get on the bus when it is still. The bus must be going at least 10 miles an hour. While shouting out the bus’s destination, they will run parallel to the bus and at the last minute grab on to the railing and board. Often they will disappear and ride on the back ladder and make their way in through the back emergency exit. It takes a remarkable athleticism to be a bus driver assistant.

The last few days we spent in Antigua. A bit touristy for sure, but beautiful and full of fond memories. Hot showers, amazing meals, very cool old ruins. One night we walked by THE BLACK CAT Antigua, once a very happening hostel, restaurant, bar establishment. It had changed ownership and right a way I could tell it was not the same place. They did a remodel job that was a bad idea. While I tried to figure out the situation they tried to coerce us in, but we knew better and continued on our way. The place was pretty empty. Word of mouth still travels very fast. It looks like the real BLACK CAT is now in XELA.

Posted on

Twenty Fourteen WordPress Theme – Very Cool

For anyone who has made a WordPress theme, the default themes have always been lacking something. After this site got hacked, I came around to it and updated the theme of the Pelican Cafe with the new Twenty Fourteen for the WordPress theme. I would give it 5 stars. For future projects in WordPress I will be using this as the base theme. Nice work WordPress!

Posted on

Thoughts on a Music Called Jazz

There is really no such thing as a music called jazz, or a music called bluegrass or a music called blues, music called black music or music called white music. It is all music from America. A vibrant living music. In the end, the names do nothing but to segregate music at different drinking fountains. The best of American bands can play any of these strands well. I was blown away when the Lyle Lovett large band opened their show with Charlie Parker’s Donna Lee. A band from the heart of “country” music, playing another music from the opposite hue of the musical spectrum. The tempo was blazing. The solos were fresh. But bands with great players from Nashville can do that kind of thing and make it feel natural. The concept that jazz is America’s “classical” music I find disturbing as it means that it has died and run its course. When Bach and Mozart were writing and playing, it was not classical anything. It was just music.

Photo is of Kai Lyons and Paul Lyons.

Posted on

I feel better now

I don’t know anything and have no perspective, but here is my comment…. I feel better now.

From Barnswarm, commenting on the website Stoke Report and the “Rant – Laird speaks,” bringing up the concept that on the new Internet, everyone has the ability to post, and that the behavior is really about personal therapy.

Posted on

The Art of Cuing a Salsa Band – The Spontaneous Arranger

From Arranging for Salsa Bands – The Doctor Big Ears Essays
by Paul Lyons (Available as an eBook)

In most every Latin band that I have worked with, I am called upon to call the musical shots – cue the band. Why this is, I don’t know. Sometimes I write a lot of the material, but other times I have not. During the course of my travels and freelance experiences, I have picked up a few tips as well as preferences.

Emblematic Symbols
1. Standard Four Bar Cue: I use a four bar cue starting with my index finger. The second cue is the most important second bar cue – three bars before the entrance. I give this with the index and pinkie finger of my right hand. If I sense uncertainty among players far away from me, this usually clears up the intent. I use the pinkie finger, as this is the most emphatic way to make two fingers visible. One could use the peace symbol for two, but then everyone would mellow out too much. This music is about drive and hitting things! Geeze! These guys walk around with sticks in their pockets!

2. Mambo Cue: When cuing mambos (a section of the song), I give the standard four bar cue. It is important to cue the instruments who start the mambo. Visual contact can be a great benefit here. If the piano and bass start the mambo with a unison line, they need to get the cue. The horns will figure it out. If the horns start the mambo – cue them. Often a singer cuing a mambo looks at the horns with his cue for the mambo when the mambo starts with the piano and bass. The horn players then sort of shrug shoulders and look at the piano player who is often lost staring at the floor or trying to play a one handed montuno so that he can get a sip of his beer. This is incorrect procedure. One always cues by looking at whoever is about to play.

In essence, cues must be forward looking and have a basic understanding of the arrangement and what is coming next.

3. Moña Cue: For moñas, often an ad lib second mambo, one cues it with the fingers to the forehead. Someone, recently gave me their linguistic via cultural take on the reason for this gesture, but I forgot what it was, perhaps due to the late hour or maybe the slurred and mumbled delivery of this theorist. I always interpreted the fingers to the forehead as “think – come up with a line you idiot!” Good bands make up there moñas. Dull ones play the one on the record and never take chances creating their own.

4. Piano Solo Cue: When cuing a piano solo, I wiggle my fingers like a pianist playing the keys. I continue with the standard four bar cue. The most often used break leading into the piano solo is two eighth notes (beats four and four and) on the last bar of the cue.


Marcos Diaz ready to begin his solo after a fantastic “piano solo cue.”

This is often the one chord but depends on the chord changes and musical context. This is a standard musical gesture in Latin music.

5. Percussion Solo Cue: When cuing a percussion solo, I usually just point to the person taking the solo. The standard percussion break is the “five to one” break. This commences on the fourth bar of the cue.


Carl Perazzo and Edgardo Cambon waiting for a “percussion solo” cue at “El Rio” in San Francisco.

This is a standard musical gesture in this music

6. Ending Cue: The universal ending to a song is the closed fist held in plain view. One should hold this cue for only this purpose. The closed fist should never make it into the repertoire of other cues. There are few thing as disconcerting and dangerous as ending a song prematurely.

item_041

Here rests Dr. Big Ears’ 1964 bug. He used it as a getaway car after throwing a premature “ending cue” on a gig in Phoenix. Big Ears ended up hiding out for four months in Baja, Mexico .

These are the emblematic cues reviewed.

1. Standard Four Bar Cue
2. Mambo Cue
3. Moña Cue
4. Piano Solo Cue
5. Percussion Solo Cue
6. Ending Cue

Other Thoughts on “Cuology”
One has to have an artistic conception of the music and musical phrase in the first place in order to cue well. In essence, one only needs to listen, know who the players are and use common sense.

Many players see the clave in terms of longer units. A good percussionist will “sing” on the instrument to the point where his musical phrase will dictate the cue. It has been my experience that this sense of phasing is often in eight bar phrases. Having said this, it is important to respect this phasing during a solo and cue accordingly so as to not cut off the musical thought. Listening is the key here.

One can also tailor the music to the mood in the room – the size of the crowd. Piano solos tend to be mellower than trombone solos. (This however is not the case if you had Eddie Palmieri and Urbie Green in the same band.) One must keep in mind players strengths and weaknesses and bring out the strengths. This may sound stupid, but unlistening musicians can be oblivious to a player who isn’t in the mood to stretch out or is exhausted.

In rooms where visibility is bad, the standard four bar cue can be replaced with a loud whistle. I have used this often. It is important to practice this shrieking whistle beforehand far from persons of the opposite sex. One is never certain what loud sounds have on people’s nervous systems. However around retired percussionists you will probably have no problems.


Tom Bertetta, and his patented listening method for the “shrieking whistle cue” in clubs with bad visibility.

Finally, it is important to watch great musicians who cue and see them at this craft. It is good to pick up little tricks, especially ones that pertain to your instrument. Cuing from the piano has always seemed problematic to me – bass even more so. Chucho Valdez and Tito Puente come to mind first off as great leaders and great musicians at cuing. There are many more out there for sure.

Good cuing allows for flexibility beyond rehearsing. It enables a band to stay fresh with material indefinitely. It allows anyone to solo on any song and a group to never play the song the same way twice. In its purest form, it is spontaneous arranging.

Posted on

Ueli Streck and the Light Workout

But the weather was lousy, so he went for a jog. He ran up and down a mountain near Interlaken three times – eighteen miles, and eight thousand vertical feet, in three hours and forty minutes. (“I enjoy it,” he said. “I feel my legs. I see nature.”) Then to cool down, he went to the gym and lifted weights for two hours. He explained, when I met him for coffee the next morning, that he was taking it easy: he was conserving energy for Nepal.

From The Manic Mountain – Ueli Streck and the dash on Everest
New Yorker – June 3, 2013

The concept that after that run he simply “feels his legs,” seems a bit crazy. I am certain I would be passed out after about mile ten, somewhere on the side of the road.

Posted on

2013 Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival Official Pelican Café Awards

As is the case with years past, The Pelican Café gives out awards for the Best of Hardly Strictly. It is a great honor to have been chosen for this task.

BEST 87 YEAR OLD GUY SINGING A SONG

Ralph Stanley

Ralph can still belt it out and if you have not heard him sing, it is a truly American experience. Part Appalachia, part blues, part native Indian chants, it is a one of a kind thing. The Clinch Mountain Boys always deliver some solid traditional bluegrass.

BEST USE OF A SUS 4 CHORD FOR A REAL LONG DURATION

Alison Brown

Alison sounded great and as the sun came out full-blast and I applied my second batch of sunscreen, the sus 4 chords just keep coming. Everyone knows that hanging out on sus 4 chords in Bluegrass is just strange. It is like mixing your sour mash whiskey with Dr. Pepper. Better just to drink it straight.

COOLEST ROCK AND ROLL OLD FART

Richard Thompson

This guy played some heavy songs, with profound lyrics and delivered some totally out there guitar solos. I caught him later at the Rooster Stage playing a solo ballad. When the sound went out on his acoustic guitar, he did not skip a bit and borrowed yet another guitar and finished the last two verses.

BRAVEST ARTIST, GOING OUT ON A LIMB SINGING A STRANGE BALLAD, SINGING WITHOUT HIS GUITAR

Steve Earl

Speaking of singing ballads, Steve Earl at the Kate McGarrigle Tribute, sang one of Kate’s ballads, and pulled it off admirably. You could tell he was in unfamiliar waters, but rose to the occasion.

MOST SOULFUL SINGER WITH A GROOVIN’ BAND

Nicki Bluhm

Just a breath of fresh air, great voice and a solid band.

BEST HARMONICA PLAYING WHILE PLAYING STAND UP BASS

Chris Wood of the Wood Brothers

Not too many harp players in bluegrass. It is a strange misunderstanding. Anyway the Wood brothers are a very interesting band. Maybe next time Chris should put down the bass and grab the harp with two hands. This year, I started to get into this band and strange combinations. It is easy to forget that all this music is just three people. Excellent vocals.

BEST COOL BAND FROM EUROPE THAT I MISSED

First Aid Kit

Can’t be everywhere…

Prelude

The Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival always takes place the first weekend of October in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. Because of the season, you either experience a weekend of warm temperatures and offshore winds, in other words “Indian Summer,” or the end of summer, and the usual foggy cold. This year it was warm. The surf lined up to be shoulder high glassy things, and the sky was so clear, on Saturday morning from the dunes of Ocean Beach you could see far off to the distance along the coast to the north, the bluffs of Point Reyes.

Some people say I like this festival because I am cheap. Sure, one look at my car and you get the idea that this is a person who probably rinses out the end of the ketchup bottle in the spaghetti sauce. It is true, I tend to gravitate towards the simple pleasures, being a free festival, things become simple when it comes to money. But to take on a festival with over 100 bands, you got to have a strategy even if your strategy is to have no strategy. This year, after much searching for comrades, it turned out I was flying solo. Strange, I was unable to drag anyone from my family, anyone from my extended family, and not even a single soul from my rock and roll jam band world. Plans. Travel. Prior engagements. Camping-surf trips. No problem. How can you possibly miss this thing!

The strategy was to be simple. Surf in the morning. Hit the festival all day. See as many bands as possible. Pack supplies. Water, refreshments and binoculars.

So, Saturday, I awake to a sort of paradise, and proceed with my HSB schedule all marked up, West, to the ocean and the Golden Gate Park. The following day, after jamming in some undisclosed location in the Mission with the Beauty Operators, I simply repeated the formula. By the time my honey showed up for the final show on Sunday, I had seen over 13 bands, many for the first time. The only problem was that there were at least 25 more that I missed. Next year, weather permitting, all Friday afternoon at the Porch Stage hearing some folksy stuff. All Saturday and Sunday checking out acts I know nothing about. The weirder the names, the better.

Posted on

Tom Hanks and How the Hero Pie Gets Divided

Some people are cowards. … I think by and large a third of people are villains, a third are cowards, and a third are heroes. Now a villain and a coward can choose to be a hero, but they have got to make that choice.

Tom Hanks – Parade Magazine
September 22, 2013

UPDATE: November 18, 2023

You have to love the simplicity of this quote – villains, cowards and heroes. If only the world was really that simple. But then again, Mr. Hanks may be on to something. Just about every event or situation has these three characters. The person who steals the candy bar. The person who sees it all happen and refuses to say anything. The clerk who confronts the thief. Granted this is a shallow and silly example and it is obvious to make an example of our current political world where cowards abound. The Republican party has its share of villains and the cowards are everywhere afraid for their own skin. The problem is that the few heroes that exist are leaving the room but state their case in clear language.  The Liz Cheney’s and Adam Kinzinger’s  of the world may be heroic in their own way but unfortunately they are no longer in the room. No one is holding their breaths waiting for all the cowards to suddenly choose to be heroes and state the obvious. Now wouldn’t it be interesting if Tom Hanks ran for president. That would be a heroic choice!

UPDATE: November 13, 2024

Tom Hanks for president!

Kamala Harris and Tim Walz – How Myths and Fiction Become Reality

Posted on

San Francisco Never Takes a Break at the Meters

People often think of San Francisco as a “Godless” town. This is entirely untrue. Even though people here is San Francisco live in a very free-wheeling manner, laying out in parks with little clothing on, smoking strange herbs at all times of the day, marrying people of the same sex, there is one thing for certain. During all holidays and even on Sunday’s you can hear people calling out the name “Jesus” and “Dear God” often. It usually happens when they are returning to their car and notice a familiar piece of paper in under their windshield wipers. When they read the contents of this paper, that is when religion overtakes them. Some times they call Jesus by just his first name. Often they include his surname. Sometimes they make reference to a little known figure in the bible, Asoles. At that point, San Franciscan’s will get in their cars with very pious looks on their faces and drive off as though there is work to be done.

Recently, on Labor Day no less, I was pulled into this religious fervor when I found a bill under my wiper. $85 for simply parking my car. Labor Day. A day when people are not suppose to work. Someone please tell those people in those funny little cars to go home and take a bath. In San Francisco, unless you want to run into this “problem,” if you drive a car and have to park it somewhere from time to time, stock up on rolls of quarters. It keeps the mojo intact.

For more information on how the San Francisco parking regulations never take a break, see https://www.sfmta.com/getting-around/parking/holiday-enforcement

 

Posted on

Letter from Brother Ted

Recently, I volunteered to play an hour set at Fairmount Elementary. I pulled together some friends, came up with a band name, “Gus and Mission Creek Ramblers,” wrote down some songs and thought… no problem. But as all band leaders know, refined artists live complicated lives. Ted, the lead banjo player was in a tight spot. The day of the gig, I found this letter in my mail box.

Dear Gus and the Mission Creek Ramblers,

Thursday, 3am May 9th,

I know this is hard to believe but rules are rules. It was a dark and stormy night and we were making good time. We had made it over the mountain pass and were almost to the state line. We crossed the state line into Nevada on our way to Reno with no problems but it wasn’t till about 10 miles down the road when I saw the flashing red lights in my rear view mirror. I wasn’t going that fast but I pulled over. The first thing the officer asked me was if I had any illegal unregistered musical instruments in my possession. I said that I was unaware of any laws about registering instruments with authorities. He said “open the trunk sir” and at that moment I knew I was busted.

He saw my banjo case and asked for my banjo license. I told him I had none. So right away he handcuffed us, and booked us on transferring unregistered banjos across state lines. My trial is next week and bail is set for $10,000.

Laura the Mandolin player is with me too. She did not have a license as well. Things are not so bad though. They have us in a cell with this guy named Bernie Madoff and asked us to play as much as possible. The police said he liked the banjo music but Bernie seems like he is pretty irritated and I think he starting to go mad.

Anyway, don’t worry about us. We are getting 3 square meals a day. Wish us luck. Send bail if you can but I am going to fight this thing.

Truly,

Ted and Laura

Well we ended up doing the gig with just two people. Guitar and harmonica and a bunch of old tunes. Turned out fine. Ted and Laura did make it out of jail eventually.

Posted on

Kitaro Nishida Quote from McLaren Park

Thinking has its own laws. It functions of its own accord and does not follow our will. To merge with the act of thought – that is, to direct one’s attention to it – is voluntary, but I think perception is the same in this respect: we are able to see what we want to see by freely turning our attention towards it.

Kitaro Nishida

Posted on

The Semantics of HTML and Web Sites – Why Markup Matters

Creating websites for 13 years now, I have seen the evolution of websites from clunky table based layouts that were semantically just a bunch of noise to the current HTML5, semantically charged creations. Of course the leaders in Web Standards and semantic HTML have been people like Jeffery Zeldman and his disciples, great CSS exercise sites like Zen Garden and also the blog sites and open source world, probably most importantly WordPress. If you want to make a web site theme that then someone else can take and run with, the semantics of the markup have to be solid.

I am amazed at how understanding semantics in both web design and programming gets overlooked. I still know many web designers who do not understand what a heading tag is. They are often so lost in the fonts and backgrounds and images that they forget what is going on in the hierarchy of information. I have witnessed decent designers never realize that <h1>What a Killer Page</h1> is what is essential. This is not only for SEO but also for making the web site accessible on a variety of platforms. I still know amazing developers who can talk your ear off about Object Oriented Design Patterns who when they get to the HTML will code a heading tag as <div class=”main-header”> What a Killer Page</div>. I am not sure if this is because they just read stuff too quickly and never really read chapter one and think they know everything, or maybe they just don’t get it. Struggling with the margins of a <p> tag does not mean you should then use a few <br /> tags. Strange.

In HTML, if you take away things like the required html, body and title tags, the important semantic markup is pretty simple.

  • Headers h1,h2,h3,h4,h5
  • Paragraphs <p></p>
  • Lists <ul><li></li></ul>
  • Tables <table><tr><th></th></tr><tr><td></td></tr></table> (for tabular data)

That is really it! Markup such as divs and spans are not semantic. They are presentational! Putting things like navigational lists into divs is just wrong. The sooner one learns this basic distinction, the faster you will write cleaner, easier to maintain code.

In HTML5 the list of semantic markup grows longer. I will not enumerate them here but to me one of the main objectives of HTML5 is this semantic markup. <section></section>, <article><article>, <video></video>.

So there you have it. Just think. If you are just starting to write HTML, you got to avoid the 7 year era of table based layouts and nested tables seven layers deep just to keep you debugging for and hour all for the crappy browsers of the day.

Posted on

How to Create Your Own File-Based Image Galleries with php, ftp, Shadowbox and a Groovy File Structure

or perhaps titled:

I don’t trust anyone with my photos, not Flickr, not Google and especially not Mark Zuckerberg!

Requirements

  • Linux Hosting Account (php enabled)
  • ftp program for uploading files

Implementation

History
Many years ago, in the dark ages of web development, when I had a Windows hosting account, you know one of those $4.95 a month deals, and I wanted to post lovely photos of my kids and vacations, I would do it a state of the art way. I’d open Photoshop 7 and chose “Create Web Gallery.” I would then wrestle the various dialogue boxes into submission and create a Web Gallery. It worked. It looked cool. It used tables for layouts. I was a genius.

Last year I closed my Windows hosting account. Never use webhost4life. It is a terrible hosting company. As I was doing a lot of Word Press, I chose BlueHost. So far so good.

Now I could have just uploaded all my old Photoshop galleries to my new hosting account but this seemed lame. I did not want to use any Web 2.0 stuff, in other words startup companies just waiting to be bought out and make your life really complicated, but I did want to use ftp to upload files. So with a little php, notably scandir, I created a way to display all the photos in lovely paging galleries.  The first time a particular gallery is accessed, it creates a folder of thumbnails in that directory named ‘thumbs.’ This makes the pages load faster.  Larger versions of the images utilize Michael Jackson shadowbox, still one of my favorite lightboxes  There is no indexing for searching, or meta tags, but to be honest, I would never get around to entering this sort of data. Maybe in the next version, I will add this feature.

A few key elements (let us say features and recommendations) of “Paul’s Amazing php Photo Gallery” are

  • Name your folders like this 2012-08-New York. The folders will display by replacing the dashes with spaces and are ordered in descending order.
  • Process your images to 1200px wide. This way they will look great when large, but not so big it takes forever to see a gallery.
  • All gallery images have a lightbox large image version. Go shadowbox!

that’s it…
Enjoy!

Posted on

2012 Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival Highlights

Last year I was in Tennessee at a wedding. This year I was able to check two days of the 2012 Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in San Francisco. Unlike past years, I did not have any known friends who were doing early morning squatting, marking out terrain, so I would be flying solo, moving between stages and looking for good listening and viewing spots. I caught Saturday and Sunday afternoon shows. Overall, it seemed like the festival was extremely well attended and each day I ran into people who traveled to San Francisco specifically for the festival. Met some nice people from San Diego, LA and Denver.

For me the best show was DOUG SAHM’S PHANTOM PLAYBOYS featuring: dave ALVIN, steve EARLE, delbert McCLINTON, boz SCAGGS, jimmie VAUGHAN… and whoever the cat drags in.… The rhythm section was right in the pocket and the band played a lot of different grooves. It all seemed effortless. The horn section was outstanding. The guitar solos outstanding pieces of R&B soul. For this show, I listened by a tree, stage right and it turned out to be a great spot. You could see the band the acoustics were good. This show had great sound.

A few interesting acts I caught were “The Cowboy Junkies” who I had never heard of feature a decent harp player. I enjoyed the brooding lead female singer who was very different from some of the earlier acts I heard. I also caught Patti Smith whose music I did not know, but whose name is well known. She brought a decent young rock and roll band and her music has this powerful, self-empowering message. Very nice.

So much music. So little time. Another fine year at the 2012 Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival. Next year, I really got to make it for Friday night too.

Posted on

Toots Thielemans Solo on “Don’t Blame Me” – Jazz Harmonica Transcription

We all have all been listening to Toots and probably never knew it. Paul Simon records. Film scores like “Midnight Cowboy.” He basically put the modern, chromatic harmonica on the jazz and popular music map. I am presently on a personal project to transcribe a bunch of his solos. In this post, I present his solo on the album “Man Bites Harmonica” and the song “Don’t Blame Me.”

Of course, with these sorts of transcriptions it is best not to just read the take down. It is best to listen to the solo and get into it and transcribe it in your head. Perhaps the hardest thing is getting to know his phrasing. Toots has a very fluid way with his lines. It often seems like he is at a cocktail party – he sort of stumbles around the hors d’oeuvres, moseys towards the bar then says high to woman by the dessert table. His style is instantly identifiable. Do not be tempted into thinking his music is lightweight as he makes it all sound so easy. The guy knows his stuff and has serious chops.

Toots Thielemans Solo- Don’t Blame Me (pdf)

10 Toots Thielemans Chromatic Harmonica Solos – Transcribed and Analyzed

By Paul Lyons

TenForToots_tn

Now available at Lulu Press

An in-depth look at the style of one of the great improvisors of the last 50 years. Excellent for not only chromatic harmonica players, but jazz players of all instruments.

Table of Contents

Introduction – 3

Why Transcribe – 5

Don’t Blame Me – Man Bites Harmonica! (Riverside, 1958) – 6

Three In One – Man Bites Harmonica! (Riverside, 1958) – 11

Sno’ Peas – Bill Evans Affinity (Warner Bros., 1979) – 18

Blue in Green – Bill Evans Affinity (Warner Bros., 1979) – 20

Jesus’ Last Ballad – Bill Evans Affinity (Warner Bros., 1979) – 23

Only Trust Your Heart – Only Trust Your Heart (Concord Records, 1988) – 26

C To G Jam Blues – Footprints (Polygram Records, 1991) – 30

Felicia and Bianca – The Brasil Project (BMG, 1992) -36

Coisa Feita – The Brasil Project (1992, BMG) – 38

Everybody’s Talkin’, Midnight Cowboy: Original Motion Picture Score [Soundtrack] (1969) – 45

Conclusion – 48

References – 48

Etudes – 49 – 80

Posted on

Bootstrap Carousel – Two on the Same Page – A Clean Example

[do_widget id=woocommerce_products-3]

See a Complete Example

NOTE: It is so funny really, that this post is viewed more than any other on this site. If you are trying to put two carousels on a page it is simply a problem that you need to understand selectors.
If you need web development or are interested in my web development posts, it has moved to
http://www.paullyons.info/blog.
Paul Lyons
11/1/2014

There is really two ways you can find great new platforms and technologies when building websites. You can tirelessly scrape the web, subscribe to podcasts go to blogs, subscribe to twitter feeds. All of this is but one route. Another is just to get a job in the industry and have to deal with some out-sourced vendor’s code. I tend to be someone who does the later.

And so I found myself dealing with the Twitter Bootstrap world – http://twitter.github.com/bootstrap/ defined as

“Sleek, intuitive, and powerful front-end framework for faster and easier web development.”

At a tidy 25k minified it definitely raised my eyebrows.  So I dove in and took a look around.

I was having a hard time with the project I was working on having two Bootstrap Carousels on the same page.  In the past I had always used a jQuery plugin called BxSlider. So I tried to isolate the problem and still I was stumped. The code was very modular with good name-spacing but the js file just rambled on.  So I looked at how it was instantiated.

What I discovered with bootstrap is that it is best, dare I say “best practice’ to call your jQuery plugin with a selector not used in the plugin. For example, the Carousel plug-in uses .carousel as a class in the code. So doing a

$(document).ready(function(){
$('.carousel').carousel();
});

will just create issues if you put two bootstrap carousels on the same page. The class ‘.carousel’ is used in the bootstrap plugin.  Instead do


$(document).ready(function(){
$(‘#carouselName’).carousel();
});

Where #carouselName’ is of course the id of the carousel.  So I had two of these lovely carousels and could then instantiate them with

$(document).ready(function(){
$('#oceanCarousel, #musiciansCarousel').carousel({
interval: false
});

});

Another issue that I had to deal with is the concept of having more than one img showing at a time. This can be accomplished with simply putting more than one image in the active div

<div class="active item">
<a href="#"><img src="../images/small/ocean01.jpg"></a>
<a href="#"><img src="../images/small/ocean02.jpg"></a>
<a href="#"><img src="../images/small/ocean03.jpg"></a>
</div>

You will not be able to have the carousel move just one image at a time as you can with BxSlider but so be it. A few important notes. It is best to use the entire bootstrap.js even though they have individual versions for each plugin. I think the pure CSS previous and next buttons/arrows that come courtesy of the base bootstrap css are the bomb but of course IE makes them square but then who cares about the people who see the web with IE anyway.

Hope this post makes your day easier.

 

Posted on

First Glance – Surfing Ocean Beach in San Francisco

I remember a day in about 1989 before I surfed. I had moved to San Francisco from some landlocked state without an ocean. I lived in the Mission on Valencia when you could find phone booths every four blocks or so and traffic was two lanes deep in both directions. Valencia was sort of a wasteland of old hardware and appliance stores, corner stores, a few Mexican restaurants but not much else. It is hard to imagine but true. If you rode a bike, you took your life in your own hands and probably were honked to the sidewalk. There was only one café that I can remember. Things have sure changed.

Anyway, I still remember that day. It was December and we took a drive out to Ocean Beach, the usual route, out San Jose to Brotherhood Way around the lake to hang out at the ocean. Maybe play a little Frisbee. When we came over the knoll by the wastewater treatment plant and looked towards the ocean we where greeted by quite a sight. It was a crystal clear winter day and the swell was huge, probably breaking on the outer bars. I had never seen waves this big and it made no sense at the time because there was no wind. I had always associated larger waves with thunderstorms and windy weather. We pulled into the parking lot and were simply amazed. It was like we were visiting another planet. The waves were these massive towering things that broke way out to sea.

It took about four years until I started surfing, courtesy of a Brit with a few garage sale wetsuits and equally lousy boards but a hefty amount of adventure and craziness. Due to proximity I definitely call OB my home break.

So last Friday I drove out to take a look. I doubted I would surf as I knew the waves were crappy. I just really wanted to hear the waves and smell the brine. When I got to the parking lot the wind was blowing hard from the Northwest but I realized my timing was perfect. I could take a photo of a dump truck dumping a bunch of sand and a guy driving a bobcat pushing it around. I knew this Ocean Beach Sand Management Project was going on and probably in the back of my mind I was curious how far they were along. You can read about the project here http://www.parkplanning.nps.gov/projectHome.cfm?projectId=42876.

I know they are spending a month moving sand from north to south and dumping it at my spot but in the end it is just an experiment. They are simply going to see where the hell it ends up. It probably will change the sandbars down there and it will be interesting to see what happens from a surfing perspective. Maybe they are setting stuff up for us for the fall surf season – like baseball umpires dusting off home plate. But I hate to tell them this. Anyone who has surfed that place in the winter knows that the ocean always wins in the end. If the ocean wants to eat a parking lot for breakfast, there is nothing you can do about it. A big December swell and a 6.2-foot high tide and half that sand will end up back were it came from. Anyone who surfs OB has a story about how far they drifted knows that stuff moves around down there, especially in the winter and a few dump trucks of sand is really just a small inconvenience to the big mama.

Which brings me back to the first time I saw a big swell at OB. To this day, when I go surfing and I make that same drive, when I drive over that knoll by the wastewater treatment plant, I turn off the radio and sort of hold my breath in expectation. Right away when you go over and get that first glimpse you can tell if it is going to be good or bad. Nasty or lame. Marginal or sublime.

NOTE: This essay first appeared on The Stoke Report as a Rant.
http://stokereport.com/rant/first-glance

Posted on

Our Local Lawn Mowers

Driving on Saturday along Felton by the water reservoir I took in a curious sight. Fifty or so goats on the other side of the fence grazing away. They caused a bit a scene as cars stopped and locals had to check it out.

Goats Grazing on Felton Street in San Francisco

Posted on

Monday Nights at The Union Room at Biscuits and Blues – Mike Olmos and Jeff Mars

It is Monday night. You are looking for some great music in San Francisco. Somewhere were you can hear some of the local best tear it up.. Look no further. Mike Olmos and Jeff Mars hold down the Monday night jazz gig at The Union Room at Biscuits and Blues. Starts at 7:30pm. Ends around 11:30pm. Cover from $5-10 depending on your participation energy. A lot of music for your money as the band is never playing it safe and over all the playing is about the best in town. Creative, inventive and virtuosic. To round out his glowing review I must say that the room has excellent sound, the piano is in tune and the vibe is a friendly.

I hear the food is pretty good too.

Mondays – Mike Olmos Jazz
The Union Room at Biscuits and Blues
401 Mason Street San Francisco CA
415-931-6012
By Union Square

General admission: $10 ($5 for Musicians)
Door 6pm;
Show 7:30pm – 11:30pm

Posted on

“Into the Wild” by Jon Krakauer – Alexander Supertramp – The Real Deal

 

I was flying back from Mexico and the plane was delayed a few hours. By the time I landed in San Francisco I had finished the entire book “Into the Wild” by Jon Krakauer. This “coming of age” book traces the journeys of Chris McCandless and others including the author. They are all gripping tales and the book is extremely well written. Of course the main story is about Chris McCandless and his American odyssey, hitchin, hopping trains and floating around the west that he undertook after graduating from college. Every so often a character like McCandless comes along, influences people in very positive ways, travels far and wide and then dies tragically. At this point they enter the public conscience and become a sort of symbol for approaches to life, spiritual values, materialism and the meaning of existence.  Of course, how this enters into the public dialog is often just as much about the art that then is created around the person.

Jon Krakuer’s book “Into the Wild” captures the spirit of the topic extremely well. It is seemingly well researched and the inclusion of chapters about various other young explorers and free thinkers, including Karkuer, make it even more profound. One sees the yearning of McCandlesss as not a freak sort of occurrence but as something that is universal and timeless. People have often left civilization behind, with a head full of ideals to live an acetic life enjoying only the simple pleasures. It has an appeal to most everyone on some level.  Krakauer intersperses quotes of various transcendental writers, Thoreau, Stegner, Muir, Tolstoy among others that McCandless was reading that influenced his thinking during the trip. These quotes begin the chapters and give the book a sort of depth and gravity.

On the other hand, the movie “Into the Wild” directed by Sean Penn is but an admirable attempt to take on the subject. The casting is brilliant; the cinematography is spot on, the dialog adequate. Where it falters is that it tries to be too much like the book. For example, quotes of the same transcendental writers flash across the screen but this never has the effect as it does in print. Irritatingly, some of the quotes do not even credit sources.  Furthermore, the sound track is a scrapbook with bits from a Canadian film score guitarist, pedestrian tunes from Pearl Jam and generally a lot of music that does not add to the film. The American West is about open spaces and great silence. The movie could have used this sparseness. Instead, it feels a bit like we are on a high school field trip bus  and it is noisy and rushed.  To be fair, the one piece I liked was some transition music by Kiki King. Do not get me wrong, I enjoyed the movie immensely, it is just that taken as a whole the book, as often is the case, is better.

So if you have already seen the movie, try to forget what you saw and read the book. If you have read the book, read it again. By the end you may want to figure out where your old backpack is in the dusty basement.