For Valentine’s Day one of the TV shows brought in an a capella group for a quick three-song set. Here’s Another Round‘s big finish.
They told me they have about 30 songs in their current catalog, and that they add about nine songs a semester. Given that they are all students and guys come and go every year, it seems a big task.
The guy singing the lead there is a music education major, but not all of them are in music. Not all of them started singing in church, either, though if you know what you’re listening for you can hear it in some of them.
I think it is because they joined us for a live studio performance tonight, but their touring is starting to take off again now, presumably post-Covid. They’re headed north for a show or two next week, he said.
Turns out there are four a capella groups on campus. (I’ve heard two in that studio.)
Clearly, we need a doo-wop off.
Friday / music / Re-Listening — Comments Off on This evening was pre-empted by sleep 10 Feb 23
Saturday update: There’s the Re-Listening project, but nothing else to report. After work I went to the house and sat down. And then I had dinner. Then I did the dishes. Then I fell asleep and slept for about 12 hours. So this’ll just have to do for Friday.
Sometimes I have been guessing when I picked up a CD. Sometimes I have a specific memory of that, when, how it came to be. I suppose it’ll continue to be like that as we go forward in the Re-Listening project. Paradoxically, there might be more guessing the farther along that we get. (I’ll blame the web for that in due time.) Today, we’re doing a bit of both. There’s something distinctly remembered here … and … yet …
“All For You” was released in January 1997 and I picked up Sister Hazel’s “… Somewhere More Familiar” soon after, when it was released the next month. It’s a happy, jangly pop record. The record went platinum in the U.S., peaking at 47 on the charts. “All for You” is the single you couldn’t avoid that year, and it made it #11 on Billboard’s charts.
I remember driving up U.S. 280 in the early hours of one morning playing and re-playing this track, learning the words to this song.
I remember I stopped at a Chevron for a bathroom break, looked at the newspaper box — remember those? and saw a stunning Birmingham News headline. But, and I’m looking at a quarter-century-old archives to verify this, the rest of that little anecdote is a false memory. The timelines don’t match up. So much for that story.
Anyway, “Happy” was a late-breaking single.
I saw Sister Hazel a few times, small clubs, festivals. Good times. They liked to tell you they were from Gainesville Florida, like their origin story was punctuation.
This always struck me as a sweet song.
Otherwise, after a time, the sound gets a little repetitive. It’s a good time, easy breezy sound, though, and I’m always happy when they came on. I played this CD a lot around my apartment. Upbeat stuff helps with late night work, I guess.
Sister Hazel, another band celebrating the 20th anniversary of a record this year, are still touring. They have nine dates booked this spring. I wonder what members of a band and their crews do with these thoroughly achievable schedules. (There are a few documentaries about touring road crews out there. It seems like a daunting job.)
I walked into the studio this evening for the news recordings and watched two young women deliver the news. A young man did a weather forecast, which he we wrote and produced over in the atmospheric sciences. Another person delivered a tightly written around-the-world segment. They have two co-directors of news, and they each pitched to pre-recorded packages to stories they’ve recently produced. It’s all quite impressive.
The impressive part, to me, though, was one of the young women sitting at the news desk. One has been there a few times and she does a nice job with it. The other, this was her first time anchoring. After, I told her, a not insubstantial part of what we do at the desk is about delivering with confidence and poise, control and power. Her face fell a little bit right then. But, I said, a very interesting thing happened as you went through that show just now, your poise and confidence grew with each story you read through.
She was pleased. Everyone was.
Please enjoy the weekly effort at reducing the number of files I have open in my browser. It seemed a good week to have a theme, so let’s have a theme! The theme is food. Bookmark these links for yourself, but, whatever you don’t, don’t just leave these open in your browser.
This one is a recent discovery. Please don’t share this one with anyone I know, lest they make it and I have to eat it and learn it is, in fact, amazing.
1 cup unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
1 cup dark brown sugar
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 tablespoons vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
¾ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tablespoon instant espresso powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup chocolate chips, plus more for topping
¾ cup creamy peanut butter
vanilla ice cream, for serving
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Heat a 10 to 11-inch oven-safe deep saute pan/skillet over medium heat. Add the butter. Once melted, turn off the heat and whisk in the sugars until dissolved. Whisk in the eggs, making sure to quickly combine them so they don’t cook. Whisk in the vanilla extract.
In a bowl, stir together the flour, cocoa, espresso powder and salt. Add it to the skillet and stir until combined and on lumps remain. Stir in the chocolate chips. Dollop the peanut butter all over the batter then swirl it in with a knife.
Bake the brownie skillet for 25 to 30 minutes, or until it is just barely set. You don’t want to overcook it! When it comes out of the oven, you can sprinkle with chocolate chips if you wish.
Let cool slightly then serve topped with vanilla ice cream.
Feel free to copy it from here, saving yourself the postmodern angst of having to scroll through 500 words and a ton of photos to get to the good stuff. Ironic, I know, and you’re welcome.
Did you know research published in 2018 in the American Society for Microbiology’s journal mSystems shows that eating up to 30 different kinds of plants in a week can positively benefit your gut microbiome? Having a healthy gut can improve heart health, boost immunity and even benefit mental health. Eating more fruit is an easy way to increase the number of plants you’re eating in a week to keep your gut bacteria happy—and these 10 fruits pack in a plethora of health benefits with every bite.
From increasing your fiber count to boosting your body with crucial vitamins and antioxidants, here are the fruits recommended to consume every week, backed by experts and research.
Now if I can get two or three more refrigerators I can keep all of these fruits close at hand.
When we went to Washington in June of 2021 — our first non-family anything since Covid began — we discovered the Cottage Bakery in Long Beach. At that time I wrote:
I discovered the joy of a locally made bread I’ll never be able to try again, one so full of flavor and appeal that I described it as a sommelier does a wine (with a lot of complimentary adjectives). They describe it as “A multigrain bread we developed for that special beach flavor! Sweetened with honey and molasses and full of whole grain taste.”
They’re underselling the bread.
It is called Willapa harvest bread. Sadly, they don’t ship across the country. But this bread, y’all. So I started looking for the recipe. A recipe. Any recipe. I think this might be close to what I’m after. Now I just need to try it. Honey molasses whole-wheat bread:
Tested size: 12 servings; makes one 9-inch loaf
INGREDIENTS
2 cups whole-wheat flour
1/2 cup bread flour (may substitute all-purpose flour)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup sunflower oil
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup molasses
1 1/2 cups buttermilk (regular or low-fat)
DIRECTIONS
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Use cooking oil spray to grease the inside of a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan, then line the bottom with parchment paper.
Combine the whole-wheat and bread flours, the baking powder, baking soda, salt, oil, honey, molasses and buttermilk in mixing bowl. Stir for 75 strokes, so all the dry ingredients are moistened, then pour into your loaf pan, spreading the batter evenly.
Bake (middle rack) for 40 to 50 minutes, or until the top is evenly browned and a tester inserted into the center comes out clean, or with a moist crumb or two.
Remove from the pan and place on a wire rack to cool for at least 10 minutes before serving.
If you want to sweet talk the nice people at the Cottage Bakery in Washington state and see if they’ll share a few tips with someone a.) not in the bakery business and b.) well removed from their customer base …
Closing those three, I now have 40 tabs open on my phone browser. I seem to be stuck on that number.
It is time for another visit to the Re-Listening project. This is a stroll down memory lane, all of my CDs, in order, in the car. Today we’re somewhere in early 1997. Live’s fourth album came out that February. I liked the third one, everyone did, so I got the fourth one. The first single came out in January and it was immediately a big draw for an early 20-something.
The memory I have with that song is an open road and an odometer needle that points just a hair over toward the right. I don’t know if I’ve ever noticed the string section at the end. It stuck out to me on this listen. It’s a dissonance that doesn’t really work, at least from here.
But back then, that song went to 35 on the US Radio Songs chart, topped the Alternative Airplay chart and made it to number two on the Mainstream Rock chart. This was the most successful single on the record, and that makes sense. When you listen to the whole thing, by the time you get to the 10th track, or May, when this was released, you couldn’t be faulted for thinking this entire record was produced on a dare.
Try as I might, and this is of course a silly thing, I can’t think of a memory of listening in this in the daytime. I did used to make most of my long trips in the darkness, but that’s a weird lack of recollection on my part.
Of the whole record, this is the second, and other, lasting song on the album that captures my attention. It’s a stripped down and live performance of Live, from November, 1997. Or maybe it was April. Some international dating conventions are tricky.
“Secret Samadhi” topped the weekly charts, and the album finished at 42 on the year-end chart. It was certified double platinum in Australia, Canada and the US, but the misses outweigh the hits for me.
These days, after allllll of their internal drama, Live, with nine records in the catalog, is still touring, though the only original member is lead singer Ed Kowalczyk. When is an old band a new band? How long can a band swap out players and use the same name? This is, admittedly, a lame Theseus’ paradox, but it is hard to imagine Live without Kowalczyk.
In our next visit to the Re-Listening project we’ll check out a breakthrough smash from a little band from Gainesville, Florida.
But, for now, I have to go rock out iron a dress shirt for tomorrow.
And what are your weekend plans? Did you ease into them? Rush into them? Have them foiled by bad news at 3 p.m.?
The risk adverse should stop taking meetings at about noon on Friday, for that very reason. But that’s not a problem here. The sun is out, warming nothing, but the sun is out. I kid, of course. It got up to 55 degrees today, another effort at that first gut-wrenching stage of winter tricks. “Look, it’s almost over!”
I know better. More winter, as they say, is coming. I don’t know when, or why, but it will.
I’m equally prepared for the second stage of winter tricks, too. The first signs of the tulips will be upon us in a week or two. The unsuspecting will herald this as a sign of spring. We know better, by now.
Turning back to the Re-Listening project, and back to late 1996 or very early 1997, the car was today and yesterday filled with the sounds of two guys from Texas. Jack O’Neill and Cary Pierce met in college, where they were theater students at SMU. They made themselves as a duo, building an incredibly loyal audience in the folk and alternative rock scene. If you liked tight harmonies, 12-string guitars and hyperactive live shows, this was a good band for you.
I caught up to them just under a decade into their career. I played their cover of “Please Come to Boston” and their original “Three of Us in a Boat” on the air whenever I could manage. And then, in some way that I’ve forgotten now, their record “Finest Hour” came to me. This is the first track on that record, and the first time, I think, that I heard them with a rhythm section.
There is a slice of their audience that regarded this as their most anticipated, and most disappointing record. A full band took something away, they argued. And the dynamic of O’Neill and Pierce was hitting a rough spot. Few seemed all that happy at the time, as I recall. But, still, this is a catchy little pop tune. It’ll come back up again.
Classic formula here, you have to bring things down a notch on the third track. They hit three continents, nine countries and 45 states, before going their separate ways for five years. Then they got back together. Older, wiser, less youthful exuberance, same quality performances, from what I’ve seen online of late.
One of the best songs on the record. And we’re going off the strength of the theme, the peppy chorus, the creative use of mahogany hair, juxtaposed against a lyrical great force that takes the narrator to a … ferry. Aside from that, though, great song, and “Vineyard” is one of their signature tunes.
They started doing what they called “Destination Shows,” which, if anything else, caters to a maturing audience with purchasing power and no sense of rock ‘n’ roll whatsoever.
These shows are a whole new fan experience where people can enjoy gorgeous scenery, share delicious food & wine and have “campfire”- type access to their favorite band. It’s a vacation and concert in one. Each Destination Show provides a unique experience dedicated to the local culture: Napa/Sonoma vineyards at sunset, a ranch in Austin Hill Country, high society in Dallas, a two-mile-high a private club in Aspen, amazing history at the Biltmore in NC, a 14,000 square foot hacienda in San Miguel de Allende, MX – and the list goes on.
“We have been doing destination events for 10 years now and they have been a huge hit with our fans and have allowed us to make so many great new ones along the way,” said Cary Pierce. “I think these events continue to grow and sell out because people want more than “just a show” – they want an experience. They want to create lasting memories, explore a new place or visit an old favorite. In some cases, we’re offering them a trip of a lifetime. We’re finding there a lot of people that really value these experiences.”
That actually sounds like good fun … oh no … I’m an aging audience member!
Anyway, this one is a bit of a departure, and it works because of that.
Remember, a few embeds ago, I said we’d hear more about “Trials.” Here’s the hidden track remix.
The other half of the album, to me, all sounds like this one. Not my favorite, but there’s a half dozen tracks I still enjoy, more than a quarter-century later, on a record that was something of a wash, and that’s pretty great.
Happily, Jackopierce is still working. They released a new song last month. They’ll be in Tennessee, Georgia and North Carolina on the first weekend of March.
I took a bike ride last night. I had intended to use Thursday as a rest day, but The Yankee invited me for a quick workout. A good rule of thumb about bike rides is to never turn down an invitation. So I did a quick hour, got 17 miles through Zwift’s Makuri Islands. I found one more Strava PR, on a sprint that doesn’t matter. Also, I was treated to this neat scene as I rode through one of the virtual villages. It was a good place to use the many different camera angles.
So what have we learned? Rest days are important — they would be if I was doing high volume, I’m doing average volume — but accept the invitation.
The 2023 Zwift route tracker: 55 routes down, 65 to go.
We are showing documentaries all this month — and much of next month. In my role as vice deputy to the assistant auxiliary button pusher, I get to put the discs in the player. (“Soon I’ll be on fries! Then the grill … ” ) Some of these are going to be really, really good.
This one is up tomorrow.
In the office until late in the evening, because we were in the studio tonight. Looking out the window, someone got pulled over on Indiana Ave.
I guess you just park in the two lane road when the lights go on behind you. Having a car on campus is a perpetual exercise in defensive driving anyway, today’s morning commute involved five lane changes in just three blocks, and then you get things like that.
We go back to the car, back to the CDs and return to the Re-Listening project once more. This is an August 1992 record, but it’s 1997 or so when I finally picked this up. A friend gave this to me, or perhaps we traded for it. Either way, it was a solid deal for me.
Six of the 12 tracks on the Gin Blossoms’ sophomore album were released as singles, but I bet you didn’t know that. (I didn’t know, until just now, that “Lost Horizons” was the first single. What a choice that was.) It took more than a year for this record to gain any traction, even within its own record label — what can we say, the music industry is weird — and so you’d be forgiven for not knowing any song here until 1993 or 1994. But about that time, it became hard to escape Robin Wilson and the rest of the guys. This thing ended 1994, it’s second full year in the wild, at 54 on the US Billboard 200, and went platinum four times.
Only their hits fill the emo category. The deep cuts offer a lot of other emotional styles. Here’s the accordion-tinged “Cajun Song.”
Maybe that’s my favorite song on the record.
Here is their September 1994 Farm Aid version of “29.” Robin Wilson is 29, singing about being 29. They all look like kids.
Or maybe this deep cut is my favorite song on the record.
There’s some simple poetry in there that’s appealing.
Then, of course, there’s the last track, which is my other, other, favorite song. Jesse Valenzuela sings the proto-country pop tune, “Cheatin.” This is from a 1993 live show.
If you see the Arizona boys play these days — and we saw them twice last year — they of course play all the hits. Wilson is still Wilson. Valenzuela is still the key to the whole thing. It’s a good quality nostalgia show. Their last new record was 2018’s “Mixed Reality” which will show up in the Re-Listening project much, much later.
Up next in the Re-Listening project, we’ll move to the east, to hear from a Texas-based band occupying the seemingly odd intersection of late-stage folk rock and alternative rock.
