The Nels Cline Singers

I made a new musical discovery at the weekend. On Friday night I got to see the Nels Cline Singers - a jazz trio of guitar, bass and drums with not a singer among them. They are a bit avant garde-ish at times and they get out there on the edge with lots of electronic effects and obscure percussion. I know it’s not for everybody but I loved it. They are fronted by Nels Cline this quite amazing guitarist (Jazz Times recently called him “The World's Most Dangerous Guitarist” – that might be a compliment, but I can see what they were saying).

You can check out some of his work on his myspace page.

Should I really ride a motorcycle.....

I had lunch this week with an old friend that I hadn’t seen for a while. She has recently (last year) donated one of her kidneys to her then boyfriend and now husband, who was in desperate need of one (imagine the coincidence of being that compatible). I was telling her about my motorcycle acquisition and how I was enjoying riding. She sounded enthused not so much because of me enjoying the riding, more because motorcycle riders are the most significant group of organ donors (in their search for a kidney they had done a lot of research in this area). Apparently, 4th of July weekend is the best time for finding a donor too. Perhaps I will forgo that motorcycle trip I was planning this 4th.

Poor old Wordsworth

What is this world coming to? I was dismayed when I was back in England recently to hear that in Wordsworth country (The Lake District) it had been a poor year for daffodils and so, to compensate, one establishment was actually planting artificial daffodils so that people could enjoy their expected Easter floral display.

Now today I heard on the radio that in another attempt to enhance tourism in the Lake District and to make Wordsworth more acceptable to younger folk, Wordsworth's most famous poem - I wandered lonely as a cloud... - has been updated and set to a hip-hop beat. What's worse there is an associated video with some guy dressed up as a squirrel prancing around these fields of artificial daffodils.

I'm sorry - I just don't see the need for this.

The Hot Club of San Francisco

I got a chance to see the Quintet of the Hot Club of San Francisco at the weekend. These guys play so-called gypsy jazz and are modeled after the Quintette du Hot Club du France (the famous band with Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli who played in the 1930’s and 1940’s). This San Francisco version are pretty faithful to the style – all acoustic – a lead guitar, a violin, two rhythm guitars, and a double bass. They played lots of the old Reinhardt and Grappelli material along with a few modern ones.

They were excellent – the lead guitarist Paul Mehring was just a wonder to behold, however, when you think that Django played all this stuff with only three fingers on his left hand, then that is even more remarkable.

Interesting guitars that they all had too – apparently the favored instrument for this type of music is something called a Maccaferri (played by Django himself) and made back in the 30’s and 40’s by the Selmer company. You can buy an original Maccaferri for $17,000 here, though its had a few changes in its long life.

Mr Maccaferri the designer of these instruments had an interesting life too – originally a luthier, then a classical guitarist of some renown and then after his performing career came to an early end he became creative with plastics making plastic saxophone reeds, and then a plastic guitar (not as something cheap, but as a serious quality instrument). At the time of his death he was working on a plastic violin. Somehow these plastic instruments never really caught on – I wonder why – check them out.

A Dead Dog Story.

So a couple of weeks ago, I was driving to work and the neighbor a couple of doors down was going to, what I thought was, his work. The scene was idyllic with him getting into the car and his wife and two daughters waving goodbye at the front door. I stopped and commented to him how that was the perfect image of domestic bliss – one happy family. His reply was a bit a bit terse and I drove on.

I saw him again today and he explained he was not going to work - he was carrying the body of the family dog into the car to dispose of it. The dog, older than both their children, had died in the night and they were all grief stricken. I was a little off the mark with the domestic bliss and happiness thing.

Trainspotting

I am back home in England right now, and yesterday I got a chance to re-live my youth when a steam engine passed through a station not far from home. As a youngster, I was an avid Trainspotter, spending many hours sitting by the side of a railway track noting down numbers and names of the steam engines passing by (I have not heard of a similar thing in the USA, even though their steam trains were much more impressive, but, it was a big thing in the UK among boys of my generation). Some of the most impressive of steam engines of the day were the A4 “streaks” (so-called for their streamlined profile). It was one of these A4s that came along on Sunday and stopped in nearby Retford to take on water.



What a beautiful thing these steam trains are. Hissing, creaking, groaning, and puffing – they are living pieces of machinery that can’t help but stir the imagination – regardless of your age – but perhaps it is more a guy thing.

Indian Grinding Rocks

Just down the road from the start of the Way Too Cool (the race that I ran this weekend) there is a fine specimen of Indian Grinding Rocks up on the hillside above the road. The area is not well known or sign posted in anyway (there is no path to the area) and I only learned about it from someone walking his dog one morning whilst I was out running.


There are some 20 or more holes in a rocky exposure half-way up the hillside away from the road. The area is wooded with Oak trees, the source of the acorns that were ground into flour on the rocks. The repetitive grinding eventually formed the depressions that we now see today. I think the Indians were the Maidu tribe (though I am not absolutely sure - they could be the Miwoks).

Way Too Cool - 2007

Saturday was the running of the Way Too Cool 50K Trail Run in, where else but, Cool California. This was the race that I have been training for all year so it was the culmination of all my efforts. This has always been one of my favorite runs – it is extremely popular in the running community with the race filling up this year in about 5 minutes after it opened for internet registration. You have to be quick to get in.

Admittedly the race is a bit of a struggle for me – a lot of hills as the course climbs up and down the canyon of the Middle Fork of the American River – and 50 kilometers (31 miles) is a bit on the long side – but the countryside is absolutely wonderful and the weather Saturday was almost perfect (a few degrees too warm but as close to perfect as you could hope for).

As in all my long runs these days, there were the high points, and the low points. The first 18 or so were great – nice sociable running where I could appreciate the scenery, then a period around the infamous Ball Bearing Hill when I was so exhausted I wasn’t sure how I would finish (you know the hills are bad when they have to name them - this one is particularly bad being over a mile straight up), this was followed by 5 miles of miserable shuffling walk-running that just was not fun at all, and then a final burst of energy (I don’t know where that came from) for the last few miles to the finish. It's always nice to finish on a good note.

My European Capital Marathon friend John and his wife were over from Houston for this one (we’ve done Paris, Rome, Dublin, Berlin, Florence, Stockholm in previous years). Of course, he's so fase he was well rested and fed by the time I crossed the finish line.



You can check out some more photos here.

Bill and Steve's Tahoe Adventure

Sunday afternoon was quite warm and sunny in Sacramento, and the idea of visiting friends up in Lake Tahoe sounded like a good idea at the time. Despite the forecasts of snow it just didn’t look that bad from the valley floor. So, against our better judgement, my friend Bill and I set off to have dinner with our friends, George and Dave, who were already up in Tahoe.

We sailed past the poor folks installing chains on their two-wheel drive vehicles with our fine 4-wheel drive Volvo but things soon came to a halt and it was slow going all the way up the hill. The snow was coming down pretty heavily, the winds were swirling around, and the driving became decidedly ... interesting. The odd jackknifed truck, and the occasional car off the edge of the road, made for slow progress and what is normally a 2 hour trip took us 5-1/2 hours. Still we made it unscathed.

Of course, the next morning the car was under considerable snow as you can see below and it needed digging out. Just another chance to play in the snow.

Bill, Steve, Dave and George

Unfortunately the trip down the hill to Sacramento was more than we bargained for – another 5-1/2 hours of slow going, but this time livened up with a little unplanned slide across to the other side of the road narrowly avoiding the Truckee River and an oncoming car, and then the loss of one of the windscreen wipers (I abused it too much when trying to free ice from the blade and it just fell off). Again we made it but, I think next time I will wait for better weather before being so adventurous.

Bill Frisell and Greg Leisz at The Palms

Wednesday night Bill Frisell and Greg Leisz played over in Winters (The Palms of course, that’s about the only place around here that hosts this kind of music these days).

I have been a long time fan of Bill Frisell but I didn’t know much about Greg Leisz until this week. However, Greg Leisz turns out to be this legendary pedal steel/slide guitar player who has played with just about everyone from Joni Mitchell to Smashing Pumpkins, Lucinda Williams to Joe Cocker in his long career (he must be my age – that’s old). I am not normally a big fan of the pedal steel guitar but in this jazz accompaniment setting, it was just wonderful. The two of them played so well together. They were both so un-assuming and gracious and perfectly suited to the small club atmosphere of The Palms. What made it even better was that it was so obvious that they were enjoying every minute of playing together.

If you want an example of how they sound, check out Bill’s Happy Dog Happy Man album. One of his best in my book.