Category Archives: Music

Albums, concerts, playlists, musicians, and the joy of listening.

In The Last Episode…

Music,

A lot has happened since the last time I posted, it’s been a series of very long days.

Tuesday I went into work early to finish up some of the cabling (which is still going on) when mid-afternoon I got a call from John Greiner asking if I could play lead alto with a big band that night. He said they needed another alto too so of course I called Rene and we were all set for that night. I left work a little early to try and get a head start on traffic because I had to pick up my horn and stand from my house (Southwest), pick up Rene (Northeast), and go to the gig (Northwest). It was going to be a squeeze but Sarah offered to give Rene a ride and that made things so much easier.

The gig was a blast! It was the first ever performance of this group, which is basically a rehearsal band of musicians from around town. It had some funny parts (most of us were sight-reading) but it’s a great group and the good news is we’re going to be performing every Tuesday from 7:30–9:30 at the Pasta Co. on Woodway. Come check it out next week!

Yesterday was pretty crazy because the gateway/firewall/mail server here at work crashed pretty badly, to the point where I had spent so much time trying to fix bizarre problems that it became apparent that it would be faster just to set a new machine up. I was also surprised to find out that the machine was only a 166mhz Pentium with a mere 40mb of RAM! Before I saw the box itself I just assumed it was some sort of nice machine because it ran so well. Linux rocks! Anyway we set up a new one with some more modern hardware and I dropped Red Hat on it (something was wrong with our Slackware CDs) and then I spent the rest of the evening becoming intimately familiar with iptables. After that I drove all the way down to Sugarland to help some people out with some computer stuff and setting up a wireless network, and that went very well and it was a pleasant change of pace to have everything work the first time! Since it wasn’t enough having been working or driving for 16 hours that day, Josh called and we went to House of Pies, of course.

Today we’re getting three new T-1s installed!

Leaving (for) Las Vegas

Music

At an ungodly hour Saturday morning I will be leaving hot Houston for very hot Las Vegas.

Why? Why does anyone go to Vegas? To play of course. I will be performing twice with a local union band for the American Federation of Musicians’ conference. I think the music is going to be pretty good so I’ll try to get a recording of it up on the site sometime (if I get one).

I’m looking forward to this a lot and I’m going to try not to get into too much trouble while I’m there. Wish me luck and if you’d like anything while I’m there get me an email quick.

I’m not sure if I’ll have any sort of internet access while I’m gone, so email responses may be even further delayed than normal. Updates probably won’t happen but I do plan to take a lot of pictures, so look for that when I get back. (Or when I find good WiFi.)

Speaking of pictures, Photo Matt.net has had its very first guest photographer, Elissa, whose photos are interspersed with photos from Tuesday (with Julie!). My plan is to eventually have them all in chronological order, but that’s proving to be quite a pain, so for now things are a little bouncy.

Who Ya Going to Call?

Jazz, Music

From a trusted correspondent, talking with a contact who works at the Netscape part of AOL/Time Warner. “He said they had decided that weblogs are the next killer app, and that most of the work at the Mountain View office was going into building a weblog component for AOL. He also mentioned that about 400 people are working on that software. This is in constrast to about 20 who are working on Mozilla.” […] If there’s a problem doing this, please contact me, in confidence, if necessary.

Source. Three comments:

  1. I know Dave isn’t crazy about CSS and all that jazz, but could he at least use paragraph tags? Nothing by line breaks is so… never. Paragraphs have been around forever, no reason not to use them.
  2. 400 people working on it, assuming that even only 10% are actual developers (is this high?) I find it hard to believe that those 40 people will come upon a technical problem so insurmountable that only help from Dave, in confidence, if necessary, will help them.
  3. It also follows that if Microsoft and AOL/Netscape’s respective blogging tools or platforms don’t interoperate, I don’t think it will be because either lacks the technical skill to do so.

This is all pure speculation on my part, and I’m not afraid to admit it. I’m trying to think what kind of effect this could have on the blog world. There are already services out there such as Diaryland, Blogspot, Free Opendiary, Livejournal, Deadjournal, and Easyjournal that make the technical and financial barriers to something akin to blogging nonexistent. I know several people from my old school that might be hard pressed to send an email attachment but used one of the above tools with a degree of proficiency. What’s more these services, particularly OpenDiary and LiveJournal, tend to be very closed communities and don’t mingle much with blogs outside their service. So I think these new services in and of themselves will not be a big deal, however if they hook people on the concept and get them running for more advanced tools, then it could be significant. We’ll see.

Author, Designer, Troublemaker, Person, Musician

Music, Personal

If you’re having a lazy Sunday I would highly recommend you go check out the two songs Derek has posted. I have to admit that before I clicked on the first one, my expectations were low. Not as any sort of statement on the musicianship of other web music I’ve heard before, but just that I am not a big fan of a genre sometimes described as urban acoustic pop, or guitar/vocal folk music. But something about Derek’s music really struck me, especially the lyrics on the first one. Enjoy.

Spirit Refill

Music

I had a very artistic night, which I can only describe as spiritually refilling. It started at the first of two senior recitals of the night. It was by Joe Santa Maria and it was really great. The selection of tunes was very diverse (Beatrice was beautiful) and his tone sounded great. Directly following was Kyle Wilson’s recital which was just as excellent. He did a lot of technically challenging songs (Last Rites of Rock ’n Roll, Snake Charmer, What Goes Around) but played them with soul. Both will be online as soon as I get them and maybe it’ll motivate me to finally do something with SeniorRecital.com, which I haven’t touched in about a year now. (While it’s visually lacking, there’s some pretty neat stuff going on behind the scenes. All the song lists and extra files are generated dynamically from the filesystem, reading the metadata from the ID3 tags.)

The reception immediately followed, but I had promised Elissa-who-is-not-linked that I would check her art performance at the Contemporary Arts Museum. So I rushed over there and got there just in time to catch hers. It would be extremely difficult to describe, but it involved a wooden chair, a black dress, panty hose, and Elissa cutting her hair. We talked about it earlier and Elissa didn’t know how long it was going to be, she was just would cut it however long felt right. For a few excruciating seconds she paused before making the first cut, and I really thought she wasn’t going to do it, and I don’t think I could have. (And I don’t even have that much hair!) I didn’t have any idea what performance art was going in, but now I think I have a better sense of it. There were no words, but something about the situation and the way in which the action was carried out really spoke to me and affected me emotionally, just like a good piece of art. It’s something that has to be experienced, because it loses everything in the description.

The joint reception for the recitals was at Molina’s, a great Mexican restaurant. The food hit the spot and I got to socialize with a number of folks I hadn’t seen in a while, some as long as two years. Kyle, along with Chase Jordan and Marcos Varella whose recitals I attended earlier this week and were great, are going to be attending the New School, all on generous scholarships. Joe is going to join Rene at Berklee College of Music. So many great players are coming out of HSPVA, I think it’ll just be a few years before the jazz record scene starts to take notice.

After the reception I just couldn’t go home, perhaps because of the paper due tomorrow, so I headed over to the Rivendell to hear the Stan Killian Trio with Clayton Dyess and Maggie Grebowicz. Met some nice people and heard some swinging music, plus there was no cover, so it was a very enjoyable performance and I stayed to the very end. Definitely going to check them out again.

Once I got home I did what anyone would do after such an inspiring night: practice!

It’s Over

Music

The best part about that gig was seeing the mayor of Houston, a decidedly unhip looking guy, singing along with the Temptations. (From his table, thankfully.) It was a very fun performance, but really too loud for the room and it seemed a tad long, though the audience seemed to love every minute of it.

Afterward I headed to Cezanne’s to check out the last set of David’s gig with pianist Andy Langham, Anthony Sapp on bass, and Joe Ferrira on drums. Andy and David are both amazing, and when they play together it’s something that affects you deeply. Hung around for a bit after the gig was over and chatted, met some new friends and some old acquaintances.

Finally the night wouldn’t be complete without some 24-hour Mexican food, so that’s how everything ended. Now I’m looking at the clock and I just realized that I have a rehearsal at 10 tomorrow morning. I better go catch some sleep while I can.

(There have been some good comments lately, check it out.)

Let the Good Times Roll

Jazz, Music

Just got in from is one of the longest and latest rehearsals I’ve ever been in. Look at the timestamp. I would like to take this brief oppurtunity before I collapse from exhaustion to advise you of some upcoming performances.

Tomorrow (Friday) at 8 I’m going to be playing at the Intercontinental Hotel for the National Conference of Black Mayors. I was up at the hotel tonight and, man, those guys know how to party; the gig should be a lot of fun. The music is Mo-Town, complete with singing and dancing and me in the back tooting my sax. It’s impossible not to nod your head and tap your foot. Technically it’s a private gig but if you wanted to crash the party I’m don’t know if anyone would notice since there are just so many people there. Plus I’ll be wearing a tux.

This coming Monday and Wednesday are more casual gigs with the downbeat at 7:30 PM on the Kemah Boardwalk. The music is big band to the bones, and should be interesting. In between sets I’ll be doing a smaller combo that will do some straight-ahead jazz. If you’re in the area come check it out. Now if only I had time for the two papers and a test I have on Monday.

Next Semester

Economics, Education, Ideas, Jazz, Music

I just finished registering for all my classes and I’m pretty happy with how it’s turned out. I don’t have an amazing Monday–Thursday schedule like I did this semester, but the classes should be quite good. Here’s what I ended up with:

  • 3332: Philosophy of Language
  • 1336: U.S. and Texas Constitutions and Politics — Introduction to the constitutions and politics of the United States and Texas, emphasizing constitutional structure, federalism, separation of powers, limited government, public opinion, elections, and civil liberties. Taught by A. Little, who I had this semester for Politics of the Greek Theatre and was great.
  • 3310: Introduction to Political Theory — Recurring themes and problems in the study of politics; draws upon classical and modern works. Taught by the inimitable R. Lence, who is a very colorful character and a fantastic teacher.
  • 3319: Politics of Social Policy — Public policy initiatives in areas of civil rights, welfare, education, human resources, and housing, including criteria for evaluating proper impact. Taught by R. Lineberry, who I haven’t had yet but is one of the “theorists” of the Political Science department.
  • Jazz Band and Lab — Haven’t finalized all this yet because I haven’t heard back from the director about the times.

You’ll notice there are no economics classes there. This is more a result of the classes I’ve taken than a result of changing interests. I still love economics, in fact I’m going to be interning at the Dallas Fed this summer, but the classes and department seem mediocre. Moreover I’ve been wooed by the Political Science department, as my educational experience with their professors and classes have been outstanding.

In further changes for next semester I’ve decided I’m going to start a notes blog. What I really need is some sort of rich-text document management system, but I can make the blogging paradigm fit my needs. Classes can become categories; everything will be searchable, dated, archived, accessible from anywhere, and support various meta-data. What I’ve been doing so far is a combination of text files and folders, and frankly it’s weak. I haven’t decided yet rather I’m going to make it public or not, but even if I do it probably wouldn’t make sense to anyone but me.

Oot and Aboot

Music

Well I’ve spent most of my day taking care of cat mishaps, spring cleaning, and over here, and now it’s time to spring from my cave into the world, and a birthday party tonight is the perfect excuse. I’m supposed to be providing some music, so I better go so I won’t be late(r than I already am).

Post-Gig Analysis

Jazz, Music

Today’s gig was painful in a way only a very special combination of lost music and missing people can make it. If it was a bad group I wouldn’t be so disappointed, but the group usually sounds a lot better than we did today. On the upside, there was free food afterward that was quite good, and I was asked to participate in a much nicer group starting next year when they have an opening in the sax section, and I’m very excited about that. That in addition to being in the UH jazz band should fill the musical void that’s been in my life this year. Time to shed!

Gig Tomorrow

Music, Travel

I’m going to be playing a big band gig on the Kemah Boardwalk tomorrow, Sunday, at 2 PM. Okay the gig is actually at University of Houston Downtown, and it’s going to be with the amazing pianist who won the Great American Piano Competition last year, Deanna Witkowski. There is more information here. I’m going to be playing lead alto and I have a couple of solos and we might do one of my features this week. I’m performing a lot less this year, but next year my schedule will be as such to allow me to participate in more groups with hopefully more performances like this.

Install

Google, Music, Yahoo

It’s that time again, where I’m forced to spend hours and hours reconfiguring everything and installing programs so I can be productive with this computer. I kept a list just for grins, and here it is:

  1. Winamp 2 (To listen to while doing the rest.)
  2. SecureCRT (Gotta have SSH.)
  3. Diskeeper
  4. Roboform (I’m lazy.)
  5. Google Toolbar (Need to find updates and such.)
  6. Photoshop 7 (I’m a very young Jedi here.)
  7. Topstyle Pro (Makes me warm and fuzzy inside. Rumored to prevent eye bleeds.)
  8. Cute FTP Pro
  9. Adobe Acrobat
  10. ASPI Layer
  11. Audio Catalyst (Music habit.)
  12. Office XP (Bloatware at its finest.)
  13. Kazaa Lite (Music habit.)
  14. Personal HOSTS File (Feel free to grab. Tweaked so Yahoo works.)
  15. DeadAIM (Chat me up @ saxmatt02.)
  16. Palm Desktop (Sync it up.)
  17. Studio MX (Gotta pay the bills.)

I Now Have… Pants

Apple, Music, Travel

The weekend was a ton of fun, starting off with me barely recovered but going to Rene’s birthday party (which has pics up now), next day getting a Tungsten T and meeting some H-Town people (Kathy and Christine summarize nicely), and then taking an unexpected road trip on Sunday to Navasota and meeting my sister. You see, when I left Austin after SxSW I was in a little bit of a hurry and I ended up leaving 3 pairs of pants, 2 belts, and 3 shirts. I just flat out forgot them. Picked those up and had lunch with my sister and her roommate. Charleen has a thousand stories. We visited a graveyard with an ancestor buried there and it was an interesting experience all around.

Today was a beautiful, beautiful day. Many ups and downs, but the highlight was that the new lenses for my glasses came in. My prescription has changed quite a bit, and I’ve been seeing the world in sort of a haze for I guess a year now. As I waited for them to put the new lenses in I walked from store to store, browsing at Radio Shack, listening to some music, eating a slice of apple pie, and when I got my glasses back I put them on and gasped. There couldn’t be a better time of the year for this to happen. As I walked outside I felt the sun kiss my skin and the trees are beautiful and OH MY GOD look at the amazing leaves I can see each one. Everything is so incredibly crisp I just want to grab it and make sure it’s all real.

Piece of Cake

Books, Economics, Music, Travel

The mid-term on ethics was actually pretty easy, and the extra day or two of reading certainly didn’t hurt at all. It is really one of my favorite classes right now, and the professor has a really interesting British accent that seems to keep me quite interested in what he’s saying, or maybe I’m just dreaming. Of course living in Houston I should have a cinch on ethics, since our corporate community has it in bounds.

Over the past 3 hours I have caught up on more email than I thought possible. My inbox no longer runneth over. I have a strangely satisfied feeling that feels like I’ve done something, because email is not just a set of communication, but my inboxes (I have one address for business and one for pleasure) represent a set of things to do, of items screaming for attention in their unassuming way.

This was all done in what I believe to be the most perfect coffee house I have encountered so far: Outlets and ethernet ports every 4 feet and wireless so you don’t need to plug in, a friend who works there, very reasonable prices, good music, and some of the best bread I have ever tasted in my life. Well Sarah’s done with work now so I’m off.

For those that were asking, it’s called Kraftsmen and is at 4100 Montrose, 77006. It’s the place with the giant chessboard and the British telephone booth. Put another way, it’s inbetween the Black Lab and Cezanne’s and the Montrose Public Library. I also found out that they validate parking so that’s a plus.

Spring Break

Music

Well technically spring break started for me yesterday at 2:30, but today is my first full day off. I’ve got some fun stuff planned for this week, but it’s a little difficult since it seems everyone has a different week off for spring break this year. I’m going to try and get all the work out of the way at the beginning of the week so the rest I can relax (and head out of town). The Jason Moran concert tonight and Sarah’s party should get it off to a nice start.

Stereo, finally!

Music

Well I’ve finally got my MP3 head unit installed in my new (to me) car. As I write this I realize that I haven’t told my car story here, but in brief around the beginning of 2003 my mid-eighties Mercedes which served me wonderfully for about a year was replace by a ’98 Chevy Lumina, which is currently on the road to being cool. One of the biggest problems with the Lumina has been that the after-market head unit was hooked up badly and would reset everything every time the car was turned off. This had the unexpected side effect of helping me learn the beginnings of several CDs very well, but never making it to the end. One of the interesting results of this is I was able to time how long it took me to get places very well because the clock would start at 1:00 whenever I turned the car on.

Anyway this was a problem that should have been quickly resolved, since I have a nice Aiwa MP3 head unit from the Benz, but I never seemed to find a weekend when my Dad was home and we both had time during daylight hours to hook everything up. Well today was that day, and we (mostly him) got it hooked up beautifully. I seem to have lost most of my MP3 mix CDs though, so I might have to burn some new ones. I think I’m going to do an artist-based approach, so for example I can have one CD labeled “Brad Mehldau” that will have all of his CDs condensed into one. Fair use is a beautiful thing. Anyway this is the first step to really making this car “mine”. Actually the second, since while my Dad was working on the stereo I was using a razor to take off some stickers from the previous owner. So my car no longer indicates I’m an Aggie fan, say “Worldwide Panic,” “You’re a naughty girl go to my room,” “I don’t mind being stared at,” or “Texas Department of Safety.” What a combination! I left the Cat in the Hat sticker. I miss my old stickers though.