End of Summer

Wow, I can't believe how quickly summer has come and passed. I know we technically have a few weeks left, but by and large it's the End of Summer. I regret not being able to spend more time out of doors, enjoying the weather and everything summer's all about. There's been a lot going on lately, and I've had a lot of indoor projects to work on, especially related to my recent photography work. More on that later.

Music has been holding me together lately. 2007 has had a lot of really solid albums and I've been trying to expose myself to a wider variety of music, especially older stuff. Part of that is because I recently got into vinyl records. I picked up an awesome direct drive turntable for free + beer a few months back, and I've been collecting odds-and-ends vinyl ever since. A lot of that has been 80s stuff that I'd never really exposed myself to before, like XTC, Ultravox, Fine Young Cannibals, some really classic U2, and more. And I picked up some stuff I just couldn't live without and had to experience on vinyl: Elvis Costello, the Smiths, Led Zeppelin, CCR, and newer stuff like the National's "Boxer" and some Okkervil River.

Aside from my Explorations in Vinyl, WOXY has been keeping me alive, musically speaking. There's a lot in the works over at the station; of greatest note is their recent announcement to return to the FM airwaves in the southwest Ohio area thanks to a partnership with local broadcast station WXVU. WOXY will be pumping out on one of WXVU's new HD channels, which means anyone with an HD radio in the signal range can listen to WOXY anytime, anywhere. This is huge news for local WOXY fans, myself included. I'll be picking up an HD radio very soon, assuming the signal covers most of my commute with acceptable reliability.

The biggest thing on my plate lately has been my photography. I was approached a few months back about photographing a wedding for some friends-of-friends. I agreed and spent every moment until the Big Day prepping, planning, researching and practicing to get as good as I could. I'd never shot a wedding before as the sole photographer, let alone for money, so I was pretty nervous about my abilities. Well, it finally came and went and looking back, I'm really happy with how I did. But anyway, I've been busting my tail trying to get all the photos processed for the couple. Here's a glimpse of a couple of the shots if you're interested:





So I've been somewhat stressed with all of that going on, but there's rest & relaxation in sight! Our vacation to the Outer Banks, NC, is in just TWO WEEKS! I'm really looking forward to it; Jess and I are sharing a beach house with her brother and sister and their families for a week. We'll also get to spend a couple days with Jess' mom in Virginia, which I'm really looking forward to.

Let's see, what else? There are a LOT of great concerts coming up over the next few months, several of which I'm planning to attend (Arcade Fire/LCD Soundsystem, They Might Be Giants, The Decemberists, etc), so hopefully I'll have some photos to share. I haven't taken a single picture since the wedding I shot, so I'm definitely looking forward to taking some photos just for fun.

Well I think that's about it for now. Sorry for the novella of a post, but it's been forever since I've updated this and I wanted to bring everyone up to speed. I hope everyone else is having a good summer. Keep in touch!


Jesse

Updates

What's new:

• New car! Just last night I bought a 2003 Toyota Avalon XLS for my wife. We've been searching for the right one for some time and finally settled on a beautiful black one with light tan leather interior. Hopefully it proves reliable, as I won't be buying anything else for some time :)
• (Relatively) new phone! The Nokia E61 replaced my Windows Mobile smartphone a couple months ago and I haven't looked back for a second! I absolutely love this thing; full QWERTY keyoard, 16-million color display, unlimited EDGE data, fantastic email and messaging integration and an insanely powerful and comfortable web browser make this phone an all-time favorite.
  
• I'm now a published photograper! It's nothing special, but a photo I took whilst on our honeymoon in San Diego two years ago is now the cover of a novel called "The Desperate Journey". The publishers found it on my Flickr page and contacted me about using it as the cover for this young adult novel. I just got a copy of the book this week; it's so cool seeing my picture (and name) on the cover of a book!
• My brother-in-law Tony got a new 2007 Volkswagen GTI. I'm extremely jealous.
  

Recent events:

• Jess and I went to Salem last week to visit her family, and spent Saturday at the Cleveland Zoo. This was a lot of fun and I plan to have pics up soon.
• Two weeks ago was the insanely fun Taj Kreuzer's weekend: Three days of motorsports & fun, including a Mini Grand Prix go-kart event, a Porsche road rally, european car show, and evening with racing legend Vic Elford. I was one of the "official" photographers for the events, and I have well over a thousand pictures from the whole weekend. I'll try to share some of those soon also.
• Concerts: We recently saw Kings of Leon, Snowden and The Features at Bogart's, and Tapes 'N Tapes at Southgate House. Bogart's is really on my bad list these days; I won't be going back there anytime soon unless it's someone I really want to see. The acoustics are pitiful and the adolescent crowds are annoying as possible. Add to that a general no-camera (DSLR especially) policy and the impersonal stage arrangement, and I'm pretty much done with it. Southgate House is really my prime venue as of late.
  
• Band practice: We actually had one two weekends ago! That was the first time in ages, and it went surprisingly well (I think). It'll be another couple weeks before we can manage another one, but hopefully we'll get a little more regular.
  

Recent music:

• I've been on a new album spree lately. I mean, seriously. eMusic is a fantastic way to get a lot of really good independent music for a stellar price (email/comment me if you want to try it out; it's free for a month and if you sign up via my invitation I get free downloads too!). Also, LaLa has been hooking me up with plenty of new CDs, both via their trading service and simply from direct purchases - their prices are tremendously low for new albums (again, message me if you want to join; I get a free T-shirt or something :)).
  
• Albums getting a lot of attention lately:
  
• The National - Boxer
• Cloud Cult - The Meaning of 8
• Kings of Leon - Because of the Times
• Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank
• The Smiths - Louder than Bombs
• Silversun Pickups - Pikul
• Lots more, but that's just off the top of my head

Coming up:

• The National is playing at the 20th Century theater in Cincinnati next Friday, June 15th. Scott, David and I are in for sure. I haven't been this excited about a show in a LONG time; the National is one of my favorite bands from the past 3 years. They're actually doing a PRE-show at Shake It! records in Cincy as well; I might try to hit both shows.

Say Hi to the Broken Winters

Last Friday was the Broken West / Say Hi To Your Mom / The Long Winters show at the Southgate House in Newport, KY. I'd been looking forward to this show for a couple months as all three bands have been featured heavily in my music rotation recently. I coerced a couple friends into joining me and made the trip down to Newport.

Our evening started with an unplanned viewing of the 80's classic "Weird Science" to kill some time. We hit the road with plenty of time and were amazed to see snow falling heavily (It's APRIL folks!). Halfway to Cincinnati we decided to break for food and hit up the intriguing Dickey's BBQ Pit, a fast-food-esque barbecue joint that was not exactly worthy of writing home about. An hour and one major traffic jam later and we were across the river, in our slack-jawed sister state of Kentucky!

The two-block walk to the Southgate House was somewhat miserable due to the frigid Arctic conditions, but we made it inside quickly and wandered down into the basement just minutes before the Broken West plugged in and switched the tubes off standby.

Their set was brief but enjoyable; I recall about 6 songs, including "Shiftee" and "On the Bubble", two of my personal favorites off "I Can't Go On, I'll Go On". The crowd was still rather slim and the energy not ramped up, but the band seemed to be very glad to be there and had a great attitude on stage.

After what seemed the briefest of intermissions, Brooklyn's simplistic electo-pop outfit Say Hi To Your Mom hit the stage. Without wasting any time they got right into one of their biggest hits, "Dimensions and Verticals", which immediately brought the crowd to attention and kicked the energy up a few notches.

SHTYM played a decently lengthy set featuring many songs from their latest release, "Impeccable Blahs". I was saddened to hear just a couple songs from my favorite album, "Ferocious Mopes", but the set was still killer and a lot of fun.

We had some time to kill after SHTYM left the stage and I was ordered to photograph a couple performing the ancient art of "throw the weird neon light-thingies". Without further ado:

It wasn't too long before the Long Winters tuned up and switched on, and it was plain to see that they were the main attraction that evening. Personally I was there primarily for SHTYM, but I was eager to see the Long Winters in person as I'm a big fan of all their work.

It was immediately clear that they were there to have a good time and play some old-fashioned awesome indie rock, and they came out swinging with the excellent "Sky is Open". The room's energy soared as they played a mixture of tracks from their latest work, "Putting the Days to Bed", as well as each of their older releases.

After a few opening tracks, frontman John Roderick opened up the set to requests and really got a good rapport going with the audience. The interaction was really fantastic, and made the difference between "just" a great performance and really memorable show. Musically, the Long Winters were amazingly tight and coordinated, and replicated the recorded versions of their upbeat indie rock songs with ease.

What further cemented the lighthearted relationship with the crowd was the fun "jams" they digressed into; they began level testing by covering Aerosmith's "Sweet Emotion", and returned to this song later in the set whilst John Roderick rapped Beastie Boy's "Fight For Your Right" on top. When an audience member announced that it was his birthday, John declared a Birthday Blues Jam was necessary, and the group proceeded into a classic 12-bar walk with John shredding the lead. We ate it up and begged for more, and that's exactly what we got: They played until just shy of 1 AM, and when they walked off the stage, we stood cheering, exhausted.

See 'em all (hi res available too) here.

Spring Rain

It's definitely raining out. Rather heavily, actually, and I love it! I heard that yesterday was the first day of spring. I'm not sure if that was accurate, but if so, that makes this the first Spring Rain. Sweet! The weather is sorta bizzare lately; a few days ago I was wearing heavy coats, and last night we slept with our windows open. Well, that's Ohio for ya.

Okay, you can officially count this as the most boring post ever.

It's a girl!

Not mine, are you kidding! My sister Melissa just had her first baby, a little girl named Carly. She was born Monday, February 5 2007 at 5:57 PM, weighing in at 7 pounds 5 ounces and 20.5 inches in length.

We were able to stay with her in a private room during delivery and it was amazing. Labor went pretty long but went without complications and both are doing very well!

I haven't had the chance to get many good pics of Carly yet, since she was sent to the nursery immediately after birth. Here are a few though (she is so adorable in person!):

Obligatory update

Nathan chastised me on my MySpace page about not updating my real blog. Well, here it is.

In the News:

1. I'm on a quest to read 50 books in 2007. Not really a "resolution" per se, but just a goal, because reading is good, and I need to do it more. Today I'll be finishing The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, by Mark Haddon.

2. The band thing is going pretty well. In a word, I'd say we're "inconsistent", but it could be a lot worse. I'm getting a lot more comfortable with the songs at least. We definitely need to practice more / regularly.

3. I'm trying to eat & drink better lately. I've cut soda out of my diet for the most part, and I'm trying to avoid sugary drinks in the morning (I'm planning on switching to iced green tea for my morning caffeine jolt). I'm also monitoring my eating habits on The Daily Plate, which has been really helpful. It makes a big difference when you can see how much you've actually eaten at the end of the day.

4. Bands that have been spun frequently as of late: Dirty on Purpose, Minus the Bear, The Islands, Built to Spill.


There, satisfied?

2006 "Best Of" List

The end of 2006 is quickly approaching, and wow, what a year it's been (musically speaking)! The following is a quick list of some of my favorite albums and singles from the past year. I know I've left some really great ones out, but it's hard to listen to everything thoroughly enough to give it a fair rating. Anyway, it's something!

Albums
1. Silversun Pickups – Carnavas
2. Tapes N' Tapes - The Loon
3. The Decemberists - The Crane Wife
4. Midlake – The Trials of Van Occupanther
5. Apollo Up! - Chariots of Fire
6. Oh No! Oh My! – Oh No! Oh My!
7. Margot & the Nuclear So & So's - The Dust of Retreat
8. The Black Keys – Magic Potion
9. Phoenix - It's Never Been Like That
10. The Long Winters - Putting the Days to Bed
11. Band of Horses - Everything all the Time
12. Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I am, That's What I'm Not
13. Bound Stems – Appreciation Night
14. Snowden - Anti Anti
15. We Are Scientists – With Love and Squalor
16. Muse - Black Holes and Revelations
17. The Blow – Paper Television
18. Annuals – Be He Me
19. Drive By Truckers - A Blessing and a Curse
20. TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain
21. Forget Cassettes - Salt
22. Thom Yorke – the Eraser
23. Chin Up Chin Up - This Harness Can't Ride Anything
24. The Hold Steady - Boys & Girls in America
25. The Black Angels - Passover
26. Heartless Bastards - All This Time
27. The Minus 5 - (The Gun Album)

Singles
1. TV on the Radio - Wolf Like Me (Return to Cookie Mountain)
2. Midlake – Roscoe (The Trials of Van Occupanther)
3. Annuals – Brother (Be He Me)
4. Bound Stems – Western Biographic (Appreciation Night)
5. Forget Cassettes - The Catch (Salt)
6. The Blow – Parentheses (Paper Television)
7. Midlake – Young Bride (The Trials of Van Occupanther)
8. Bound Stems – Excellent News, Colonel (Appreciation Night)
9. Band of Horses - The Funeral (Everything All The Time)
10. Silversun Pickups - Common Reactor (Carnavas)
11. Phoenix - Long Distance Call (It's Never Been Like That)
12. Drive-By Truckers – Easy On Yourself (A Blessing and a Curse)
13. Midlake – Head Home (The Trials of Van Occupanther)
14. The Thermals - Here’s Your Future (The Body, the Blood, the Machine)
15. Bound Stems – Refuse the Refuse (Appreciation Night)
16. Mew - The Zookeeper's Boy (And the Glass Handed Kites)
17. The Pipettes - Pull Shapes (We Are the Pipettes)
18. Catfish Haven – Tell Me (Tell Me)