XDU wrrld music top 10 (week ending 30 spt 07)
More Colours :: the Pinker Tones
la Radiolina :: Manu Chao
Summer Records Anthology, 1974-1988 :: various
Blueprint :: Suphala
Breathing Under Water :: Anoushka Shankar and Karsh Kale
Maskarada :: Taraf de Haidouks
la Voz :: Hector Lavoe
Kocourek A Horecka :: Kvety
With Lasers :: Bonde do Rolê
Shukriya :: Sukhawat Ali Khan
this week's video feature: the Pinker Tones
Coming up on the last day of the regular season for major league baseball and if the Padres lose and the Mets, Phillies and Rockies all win, it'll be a four way tie. I was trying to figure out how that'd get untangled but couldn't work it out. Here's an article from ESPN that lays it out pretty clearly. I'm really pulling for this as I'd love to see a 3 team round robin just to see who gets into the playoffs. November beisbol, here we come!
Today after the big duck race (more on that later), we went for brunch with S & D to the recently opened Watts Grocery. They've done a really nice job with the space. It wasn't very crowded but it seemed like there's a good amount of space and that it wouldn't be too noisy, even when crowded. And the food was outstanding. I had the Watts breakfast -- the house-made sausage is outstanding, the eggs are close to my previous gold standard (Early Girl in Asheville), and the hash browns... oh my god... they are definitely my new standard for breakfast potatoes. Closer to potato pancakes maybe than classic hash browns but just crispy wonderfulness. Everyone else gave thumbs up to their choices (grilled chicken sandwich & fries, grits bowl, andouille & chiles benedict) although we all agreed that we wished they had the lunch menu available. And, in fact, they may. If you ask for it. As we were finishing up our meal we saw another table looking at the lunch menu. Since we all live in Durham but work elsewhere around the Triangle, it'll be a long time before any of us get to try the pastrami reuben if they restrict the lunch menu to weekdays only.
UPDATE: I'm taking down my paragraph about some service issues we had and instead linking to Sarah's write-up. We were writing at the same time in different rooms and I don't want to seem like piling on a restaurant that I overall liked. Plus, her post will be updated later this evening with a response from Watts Grocery. For a number of reasons, funnystrange.com has way more internets snazz than my site and her write-up was on page 2 for a google search on Watts Grocery, as of this morning.
Wow, I love the internets. Following some links earlier, I got to a page for an agriturismo in Italy. Which reminded me of Castello di Montalto where Sarah and I stayed with the tarot group when we went to Italy in 99. Was thrilled to discover that not only do they have a website, but a flickr stream. Many nice photos in both places, altho you can only see pics of the Scuola, the converted one-room school house that we stayed in, on Montalto's site.
good times...
Phil's already posted about the Locopops 2nd Anniversary, which is Sunday in downtown Durham. Also coming up this weekend is the 2nd Annual American Tobacco Duck Race. Many, many rubber ducks racing downriver at ATC. Should be a sight to see. We'll be there cheering on our favorites.
So I had all these links saved up that I was planning to blog about but one of the 9 tabs I had open must've been making FIrefox unhappy earlier this evening. Froze up. Etc. I tried the "restore session" trick but we were having none of that apparently. And, yes, I know I could go poking back thru my history over the last few days and find most everything again. But the moment is past.
Instead, here are a couple of foodgeek links: words of wisdom from Julia Child and words of snark from Anthony Bourdain.
Btw, the Tuscany episode of No Reservations is worth checking out. I could've done with a bit less of the "concept" scenes with the fake Italian director. And they didn't end up in any places that we'd been too. But they did go to the same butcher shop which features in Bill Buford's Heat so that was very cool, to have some visuals to go with the stories from the book.
XDU wrrld music top 10 (week ending 23 spt 07)
la Radiolina :: Manu Chao
Maskarada :: Taraf de Haidouks
Blueprint :: Suphala
Breathing Under Water :: Anoushka Shankar and Karsh Kale
With Lasers :: Bonde do Rolê
Thai Pop Spectacular, 1960s to 1980s :: various
la Voz :: Hector Lavoe
More Colours :: the Pinker Tones
Super Taranta! :: Gogol Bordello
Roots, Rock, Remixed :: Bob Marley & the Wailers
this week's video feature: Manu Chao
Amazing op-ed on Louis Armstrong in today's NYTimes. I'd heard versions of this story before -- it may even have showed up in the Ken Burns doc -- but never in quite this much detail. Just the image of Armstrong, wearing a Hawaiian shirt, cussing out Ike and Faubus and singing the "Star Spangled Banner" with lyrics so obscene that Velma Middleton had to come in and try to calm him down. It's a side of Armstrong that's less well-known. I think when people think about Armstrong (and I'm aware that most people don't) their views tend to be fairly simple, to be overly influenced by his performing persona, and to miss the complications. I know... people focusing on the simple, soundbite version of something and missing out on the complicated and confusing aspects... unheard of!
Today's the autumnal equinox. So, of course, the weather responded by flashing back to a month ago and getting up into the 90s. Best not to think about that but instead focus on the fact that it's fall. w00t! Time for stews and other hearty braised dishes. Time to drink stouts and porters and even the few actual drinkable pumpkin ales (Dogfish Head!). It's obviously not quite time to put away the shorts and haul out the sweaters but at least we're getting closer.
Here's a couple of new food geek sites I've been enjoying lately: CoffeeGeek.com for more than you ever thought you could know about coffee, and CurdNerds.com for all things fromage-related. I know, I know... coffee and cheese are not necessarily two great tastes that taste great together. I've even had a waitress chide me for ordering coffee with a cheeseburger (actually, it might have been a patty melt... but I digress). But it does seem like the cheese world might be about to go thru a similar blow-up like we had in coffee, first with Kroger signing a deal with the legendary Murray's from NYC and then Artisanal going in with a big market push from American Home Food Products (could there be a more sinisterly non-descript name). In spite of the risks of Starbucks-ification, I'm all for anything that makes it easier for more people to get better cheese.
Big fun in town tomorrow night: John Waters at Duke. It's just billed as "A Talk" so I have no idea what he'll be holding forth on. It doesn't really matter. I'm a fan so I'll be there. I actually saw him about 20+ years ago at NYU. He was introducing a showing of Polyester and I remember he talked about attending murder trials.
Even better, tickets are free (so there should be a good turnout I hope). Actually, I've got an extra ticket (Sarah's working on audio editing for Divaville Lounge and won't be able to attend) so if you're wanting to go but haven't been able to get over to pick up a ticket, drop me an email. It's general admission so you can take your ticket and go off to a completely other section of the theater.
Check out Wil Wheaton's excellent post on the latest developments in the war on net radio. Good overview, with links to places where you can find out more. I imagine the tactics will get even sleazier as the major music labels continue to see their market positions get ever more dire. Of course, my interest in this is not only as a listener but also as a broadcaster. Depending on how things shake out, XDU could be forced to shut down its webstream. Which would suck.
One of the things I do at XDU is report the world music chart to CMJ. In fact, that's what I'm doing in another tab right now. In fact, I've been doing that since before I started writing my earlier top 10 post. CMJ has got to have the worst website I've ever had to work on. Perhaps it works better in Exploder but on Firefox on a Mac it's a fucking nightmare. Timeouts and proxy errors are constant. And even when it's "working" it's difficult to add titles to a playlist, drag titles to a new spot, etc. About the only thing it does well is stream goddamn banner ads at me.
XDU wrrld music top 10 (week ending 16 spt 07)
la Radiolina :: Manu Chao
More Colours :: the Pinker Tones
II :: the Budos Band
la Voz :: Hector Lavoe
Kocourek A Horecka :: Kvety
Blueprint :: Suphala
Thai Pop Spectacular, 1960s to 1980s :: various
Molam: Thai Country Groove from Isan :: various
With Lasers :: Bonde do Rolê
Super Taranta! :: Gogol Bordello
this week's video feature: Gogol Bordello
On our way back from Plant Delights this afternoon, we stopped for lunch at Holy Smokes Bar-B-Que. The 'cue was amazing. Sarah had the chopped beef brisket. I had a taste and I'd say it was damn good. Maybe not quite as good as the Q Shack's but good enough to make me believe that the guys running the pits really did get their start in San Antonio. I had the pork ribs. The menu describes them as St. Louis style. Before I saw that, I'd have described them as Memphis style. Not that I've had ribs in either place but I've watched a lot of TV shows about barbecue. They were dry-rubbed and not sauced while they were cooking. Amazingly good and easily the best ribs I've had... I was gonna say in NC but actually those might have been the best ribs I've had in a restaurant anywhere. Evah. For sides we had green beans (which were forgettable; either canned or frozen and sadly lacking any noticeable evidence of pork products involved in the cooking process), creamed corn (fantastic; tasted like fresh, or really high quality frozen, corn and the sauce was creamy but not gloppy, and with a slight spicy kick), and hush puppies (fresh & hot, light and delicious). Slight disappointment that there was no mac & cheese on the menu. And the service was a bit chaotic. Everyone there was very nice. But they mis-heard my order for "short ribs" as "pork ribs" (I didn't notice until he'd already started cutting up the meat and, as the pork ribs looked good, I didn't say anything). Also, we didn't end up getting our hush puppies until we were about half way through eating. They dropped a batch when we ordered but they weren't cooked by the time we paid so we went and sat down, expecting they'd either bring them over or call us when they were ready. After a while, Sarah went to check only to have the counter person give our batch to someone else. They did get another batch over to us pretty quickly after that and they were, as stated above, really good. But even though a big group came in right after us, the place was pretty empty. They have basically the same service model (order at counter, get food, pay at cashier) as the Q Shack or Goode Co. but those places are models of efficiency. Holy Smokes (which has only been open since Feb 07) still seems to have a few service kinks to work out. Or at least they did this afternoon.
But, again, the 'cue was amazing. I'll definitely be going back. Altho it's ridiculously out of our usual way so I've no idead when. If it was in Durham, it'd be competing with Q Shack for my restaurant dollars.
People have been talking about fall TV and I started to think that the whole idea, which was once basically a core touchstone of consensus reality for me (and for a lot of people) is slowly fading away. Certainly the whole "start of the TV season" does not mean today what it did 30-ish years ago when networks put on TV shows to announce their new TV shows and the fall preview issue of TV Guide was a publishing event on a par with the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue or the fashion glossies monster sized fall/spring new collection issues. Obviously this isn't news to anyone, that there's a difference between being 3 of 3 and being 3 of 300. Every once in a while I'm reminded that there's a shared experience of TV viewing which I've excluded myself from. I was exchanging emails with a friend over the summer and it happened to come up that they didn't have a TV and how now there were so many different possible relationships to TV and other forms of entertainment that their kids were not instantly marked as weirdo outsiders because they didn't watch TV. Which was certainly not the case back when we were kids.
This is getting long. The horrible truth about my TV habits cont'd under the cut
I told myself I was gonna stay away from the whole Larry Craig story. It's just sad and pathetic enough to take all the fun out of schadenfreude. But no one told me there'd be a food angle... I saw this on Chow but special props need to go to Foodgoat for tracking down this recipe from the Congress Cooks site. First go check out the recipe. When you're done, go back and check out Foodgoat's photos of the Super Tuber construction process.
words fail me...
Durham's own Counter Culture Coffee is featured in this article on coffee from the NYTimes. Counter Culture is definitely my default choice for coffee, and not just because they're local but because they're damn good. I usually go for the French Roast, altho I quite like the Finca Mauritania (from El Salvador, not Mauritania as the name might suggest) which gets a mention in the article. I also appreciate that I can always find Counter Culture beans at the local WFMs, even though they obviously give the prime retail real estate to their house brand, Allegro. Their stuff is good but just not my favorite. I've also enjoyed some the coffee from Larry's Beans, from Raleigh. Have not bought beans from any of the local coffee places that do their own roasting. I guess I'm in too much of a rut of buying my coffee at the grocery store.
Bulls got rained out tonight up in Richmond so they'll try again to wrap up the International League championship tomorrow. Durham leads the series 2-1 and both games (if necessary) are scheduled as a double-header. Hopefully, the Bulls will win game 4 and clinch. Otherwise, that'll kinda suck for both teams to have the trophy riding on the outcome of game 2 of a double-header.
And, yes, it also rained here as well. I think it's been about 3 weeks since the last time it rained and that was such an event that I actually blogged about it.
Oh, and this awesome photo is, alas, not mine. But I had to blog it due to its extreme awesomeness.
And this, my friends, is why it remains one of my life goals to never live anywhere with an HOA or neighborhood covenant or whatever the hell they're calling this variety of buttinski authoritarian BS. I mean, okay, if you want to sign yrself up for something that will allow know-nothings to tell you to water your lawn in the middle of a drought, I guess that's your right. Just as long as I don't have to live there. I mean, really, it's one of the truisms of the early 21st century -- if an article about what you're doing makes it onto Fark that's a sign that you need to seriously re-evaluate the choices you've made.
w00t!
Bulls win. The series is now tied up as they head up to Richmond for the final three games. Guess we picked the wrong night to go to the DBAP. Oh well. Last night was still an exciting game and a fun night out, even if the Bulls didn't win. Since we're now at the end of the home season for the Bulls, I wanted to mention a few things from the games we went to this year: fatsuit sumo is probably my fave between-innings divertissement; my two fave crowd exhorting cues are the "hey! ho! let's go!" from "Blitzkreig Bop" and the cartoon Roman centurion who intones "go!" in a deep deep basso (like Sarah said at the game last night, it always reminds me of Lemon Jelly's Shatner-sampling song "Go"); Dillard's 'cue is still prolly my fave ballpark food, altho the supremely weird Polish sausage & kraut burrito I had last night also deserves a mention; Redhook ESB (which I don't remember having seen before yesterday's game) comes in late to take best DBAP beer away from Yuengling.
Go Bulls!
Check out Check the Cool Wax which is loaded with musical goodness of the retro, hip, and wacky varieties. Altho we do have one of his big finds on vinyl (one of the Lenny Dee albums), there's lots of other stuff there that I'll be downloading.
good times...
Boing2 had a story about controversy surrounding the touring exhibit of the Lucy fossils, which just opened in Houston. Apparently, several museums (including the American Museum of Natural History in NYC and the Smithsonian) are declining to host the exhibit because they don't believe the fossils should have been allowed to leave Ethiopia. I see the point. They're incredibly fragile and, until/unless someone finds more, incredibly rare. Moving them at all, much less thousands of miles and keeping them on the road for years, is risky. But I was surprised at the number of people insisting that there was no need to send the originals because a cast was just the same, esp. since they were behind glass and no one could touch them. I'm not buying that argument. To me, that's like saying that seeing a model of the Great Pyramid is the same as going to Giza. Sure, casts of dinosaur fossils are impressive but I'm not awed by them in the way I would be by standing in the presence of something that's 3 million years old. I'll accept that the value of giving more people access to that experience does not outweigh the risk to the fossils. But don't tell me that the experience doesn't exist.
Over at the AV Club they've got a fun interview with Eddie Izzard. It's totally worth sticking it out thru the comments which quickly dissolve into everyone just posting their favorite Izzard quotes (with bonus people bitching about why doesn't everyone just stop posting damn Eddie Izzard quotes).
Just a quick programming note: "Wake Up and Smell the Chaos" will be switching to a bi-weekly schedule for the fall. I'll be off this week and back on the air next Thursday, 9/20 from 7-9am. As ever, 88.7fm if you're local or the XDU website if you're not.
XDU wrrld music top 10 (week ending 9 spt 07)
With Lasers :: Bonde do Rolê
la Voz :: Hector Lavoe
On the Right Track :: the Skatalites
Kocourek A Horecka :: Kvety
Roots, Rock, Remixed :: Bob Marley & the Wailers
Força Bruta :: Jorge Ben
Super Taranta! :: Gogol Bordello
Shukriya :: Sukhawat Ali Khan
Without Zero :: Joi
Molam: Thai Country Groove from Isan :: various
this week's video feature: Jorge Ben
Our plan to have tasty dim sum at China One with S & D was thwarted when we arrived at the restaurant only to find it was closed today. After only a short time standing around the parking lot playing "I dunno... where do you wanna eat?" we reconvened at Owens for tasty pancakes (and burritos and biscuits & gravy). It was carborific!
Other than that, mostly what I've been doing this weekend is reviewing CDs for the station. I'll have some thoughts on the new Manu Chao later (altho I will say that I heartily second Ms. Pants' brief review.
But first I want to call your attention to the London Book of the Dead, the new CD by the Real Tuesday Weld. I'd heard a few earlier things by TRTW (aka producer/multi-instrumentalist Stephen Coates) and enjoyed them without ever being knocked out much. His cover of Abba's "the Day Before You Came" on the Six Degrees comp Backspin was amazing, very much a mix of old British music hall and downtempo. He calls his style “antique beat” (because there's nothing that's not better with a brand-name, apparently). The new CD takes the 21st century Tin Pan Alley sound and runs with it. There's one track that starts up with banjo, then abruptly switches to a clarinet-driven klezmer/swing about 20 seconds in. But then he brings back the banjo along with a bubbling electronic keyboard break. My early fave is the song "Cloud Cuckooland" which mixes 40s jive with 90s bigbeat -- it's Fatboy Slim Gaillard. There's also "Kix" which is built around the Cole Porter classic “I Get a Kick Out of You.” It's more than just sampled but not quite all the way to a cover with different lyrics. And "I Believe" which throws down with muted trumpet, zydeco accordion, and pedal steel guitar in the mix. And sites a list of beliefs second only to Pete Shelley. Coates tends toward crafty, melancholy, word-obsessed pop songs. It's a very British thing, I think -- people like St. Etienne, Andy Partridge, Neil Tennant. I was also reminded of the semi-obscure 80s British group the Blue Nile. The final track features British retro group the Puppini Sisters bringing their Andrews Sisters homage to a fun little bit of tossed-off gothiness.
It's the end of the week and I've got a headache so here's an even less coherent than usual collection of links and randomness.
According to the Blogging Project Runway FAQ the DVD of season 3 is finally going to be available in November.
The Go Fug Yourself team is once again covering Fashion Week for New York Magazine. Get yr snark on...
Durham Bulls are in the playoffs and up 2 games to none on the Toledo Mudhens. Unless they choke away three straight up in Ohio, Sarah and I will be at the first game of the finals at the DBAP this coming Tuesday.
Someone I work with has this reflexive habit of calling 411 whenever they need a phone number. I heard them on the phone this afternoon and, to satisfy my curiosity, I googled the company. They were still making the request for info when the phone number was returned by google. (I actually did it again later with a time running -- total elapsed time from typing first letter until phone number appeared on screen was 8 seconds). I think there's actually an instructive moment here. Something to do with being will to reconsider your assumptions. We tend to move through life believing that what we're doing makes sense. But it might not. We might, in fact, be following a model that, while efficient 10 years ago is now maybe not so much.
Recently finished watching We Jam Econo, an excellent documentary about the Minutemen. Absolutely worth seeing. For me it was part nostalgia and part learning more about a band and a scene I didn't know that much about. But even if you weren't around then, it's a great intro to important music that you should know. Mike Watt dominates the movie, sorta as he should since he knew D. Boon about as well as anyone. From a finding out why the Minutemen were so great dept: lots of excellent live footage of the band at places like the 9:30, Mabuhay Gardens, etc. No footage, alas, from the show I saw in NYC. That would've been really weird if they had. From a looking back on a chapter of my life dept: interviews with lots of people from the scene & beyond: Biafra, Mackaye, Rollins, Keith Morris, Joe Baiza, Thurston Moore, Raymond Pettibon, John Doe. I wonder why the consipicuosly missing are absent: why no Greg Ginn? why only one brief comment from Kira Roessler? Did they not want to participate or were they just not that good on camera?
But that's not gonna interfere with yr enjoyment of the movie. Well worth it for the concert footage alone, it's also an excellent intro to a band that, I think, has been kinda forgotten over the last 20 years.
XDU wrrld music top 10 (week ending 2 spt 07)
Thai Pop Spectacular, 1960s to 1980s :: various
With Lasers :: Bonde do Rolê
Kocourek A Horecka :: Kvety
Super Taranta! :: Gogol Bordello
Roots, Rock, Remixed :: Bob Marley & the Wailers
Molam: Thai Country Groove from Isan :: various
la Voz :: Hector Lavoe
On the Right Track :: the Skatalites
Blizzard Boheme :: Balval
Greetings from Havana :: Cubanismo
this week's video feature: the Skatalites
If you're online reading this, you're probably not very far from a good cup of coffee and a good beer. So let's pause for a moment and mark the recent deaths of two men responsible for advancing the quality and availability of those tasty beverages, UK beer expert Michael Jackson and founder of Peet's Coffee, Alfred Peet.
Go have a coffee and a beer.
(not at the same time)
(unless it's something you feel strongly about)
Mostly a fine, fine day. We went over to the Durham Farmer's Market this morning. And can I pause for a moment to say that what a glorious relief it is that the weather's broken. It'll probably get hot again but right now it's damn pleasant 'round here. Anyway, we ran into S & D, looked at all there was to look at, and bought some cheese, some chorizo, and some lamb, all from fine local purveyors. Then we went over to Piedmont, discovered they were back from vacation, and had a wonderful brunch. Sarah had a mortadella & salami panini. I had brioche french toast, which was just insanely good. Skipping ahead, I grilled up the chorizo (from Brinkley Farms) on the Weber. Damn that's some good sausage. In addition to Durham, you can also find them in Carrboro, Oxford, and Southern Village. If you're not from 'round here, I encourage you to seek out your own local sources. I'm sure you've got some. On the side we had some sauteed summer squash with poblanos and roasted tomatoes from our garden.
good times
The only downside of the day was my trip over to Sam's to get a ticket for the World Beer Festival. Only to find they were sold out. In fact, they said they'd sold out at 9.40 this morning. Heavy sigh. Looks like I'll be missing the beer fest this year. Note to self: next year, plan ahead and get internets tickets.
