oh, medusa

* I had a delightful time traipsing about the south with agonistes last week.  There was history and cats and music-acquiring and also Andrew Bird.  I wrote the review for the Atlanta show, she wrote the one for Nashville.  You should read both of them.   They were super exciting and we had a lot of feelings about both of the shows, especially Nashville.  (Also, in Nashville, we both procured Satan is Real tshirts.  I l plan on wearing mine to the annual hipster radio vinyl sale next month, and things will be glorious.)

* I also saw Mr. Bird in Milwaukee and while the show itself was excellent, I need to gripe a little bit about the audience.  They were boisterous in all of the right places -- Bird got extended applause throughout the set, including one point at which he looked a little surprised at how enthusiastically they applauded.  But the amount of drunken hooting, random shouting, and the tendency to scream every time words weren't coming out of his mouth slowly drove me more and more nuts as the show went on.  (He even acknowledged it at one point, in that slightly snarky way of his: "There sure are a lot of interesting opinions out there.") I get that you're happy to be there but, seriously, put a lid on it.  I have such disdain for the practice of shouting song titles repeatedly at an artist, particularly one who is on tour supporting  a new album.  I just think that it's rude, especially if you keep doing it.  While Bird changes his set list on a whim all the time -- he threw Bein' Green in at Nashville, and Skin Is My in Atlanta -- he does it on his own terms, generally not because someone yelled a song at him.  I've seen him take requests at smaller shows, like the Sonic Arboretum gigs he did at the MCA, but he generally sticks to what he's already decided to play.  Also, I think there's a certain level of decorum that one expects from a seated show in a fancy theater, and drunken hooting and yelling doesn't quite measure up.  Also -- and this is just a "it personally annoyed me" rather than "bad concert behavior" -- in a huge, cavernous concert hall, there is going to be sound phasing, so clapping along in time almost NEVER works right, because you think you're clapping along but you're really NOT and it is just out of time and annoying.  There were a few quiet moments where Bird and company were playing acoustic songs, clustered around a single mic, and people got it in their heads to clap along, which, okay, not begrudging you having a good time. And then the out of time clapping along devolved into what sounded to me like people playing the "who claps last" game - you know, one person claps, and then another claps right after, and then the first person claps again to try to be last, etc.  I know that I have odd reactions to certain sounds and rhythms, so it likely bothered me more than most other normal people, but I honestly had a hard time focusing on the performance because so many people were doing this.  Ugh, people.  Don't be douchebags, why is that so hard.

* In an attempt to clean off my desktop, I found the folder of songs by my band.  I've uploaded a few of them for your listening enjoyment. They're from a rehearsal, so the quality is not great, but I like sharing.
  * All Along the Watchtower 
  * It's All Over Now Baby Blue
  * Bruce's Grave (original)
I also do a pretty mean cover of Neil Young's "Don't Let It Bring You Down", but the only copies of it I have are either incomplete or in a single/unsplit MP3 of a full show, and I am too lazy to edit.

* My cat is currently shedding like it's his job, and won't stop meowing.  I spend a lot of time going "WHAT DO YOU WANT".  Also, I seem to have developed a case of little tiny ants since I left.  I picked up an organic/pet safe ant killer that seems to work okay so far, but I also sprinkled some corn meal on the floor where I keep seeing them.  Allegedly the ants will eat it and then explode because their bodies can't process it?  I don't know if it will actually work, but it's worth a shot, especially since these little assholes are crawling around where the cat eats.  I haven't seen any since I sprayed the place with the organic ant killer, so we'll cross our fingers that there aren't any more.

* Also, against my better judgment, I signed up for a White Collar prompt over at queer_fest so there is that.  It's Neal/Peter and Neal/OMC and what was that that I said about me probably never actually writing Neal/Peter? Oh well.