all the streets are crammed with things eager to be held

from life's grab-bag...

the lease is signed, the movers hired...now it's time to pack. two weeks until moving day. hopefully i can get my current place sublet. in the meantime it's cross-country for a wedding over memorial day weekend, and more planning for the trip, including getting a new digital camera. my current one is 5+ years old, a technologial dinosaur. while it's served me well, i could do with a few more megapixels and more x on the zoom if i want to take some better shots.

sadly, this show which i'd hoped to be promising was just ok. i don't want to slag any local bands here...let's just say that while i may not have liked a few of the acts, i could appreciate the time they've put into things. three of the five bands just weren't my thing (as opposed to outright suckage, which for me is when a band can't play their instruments and/or have nothing in the way of songs..not the case here). citay were alright...layered instrumentation (including thin lizzy-like matching guitar riffs and solos), lots of instruments including three guitars, keyboards, flute (which often was playing unison or harmony with the guitar riff), xylophone (evidently there's more in the way of non-rock-standard instrumentation on the record...glockenspiel for instance)...abstract song structure and lyrics...my only complaint really is that with three guitars there was some sonic crowding out of the keys and the flute. you had to really pay attention (live at least, on record that can be more easily separated) to figure out what she was doing. don't know that i'd go out of my way to see them again, but they were worth seeing this time. and who knows...if i see them again because they were in a show i was heading to anyway, i might come away liking them even more.

the highlight for me were the first band, willow willow. according to the bio on the website jessica and miranda are childhood friends, and their stage presence and harmonies certainly seemed natural, like two people who've been performing together for a long time. beyond me (click on link for mp3, recorded live at the freight and salvage) was most memorable...a sweet mid-tempo melody that starts out as a song about a girl letting a guy into her world and then drops a hammer towards the end with the line "you're nothing beyond me". no surprise that their encore was a beatles song ("she loves you")...having played in a beatle-esque band or two before, i can easily spot fellow travelers.

soccer-wise this was supposed to be a three-games in two days weekend, thanks to one league having scheduled a make-up game following all the march rains. so what happens today? our game was rained out. but yesterday was two games back-to-back (thankfully i got to play goalie in the first game) in two different leagues...a win and a loss.

i can't remember where i found the mp3 (checked the usual mp3 blogs i frequent but no mention of the band), but i've been digging on "mindstalking" from lunascape. some song samples up on the band's website.

oh, so a few weeks back i went to an art opening put together by a friend and featuring painter sharla flock and photographer john nieto. i really enjoyed flock's textured paintings with whimsical titles, though of course 3 weeks later i can't remember the titles. anyway, interesting venue for an opening...at a hair salon. and it wasn't just a one-night gig, the works are up through july.