I feel like I’d be an asshole not to be including Wounded Buffalo Theory in my Sound Saturday list considering that their guitarist Kurt has been recording the guitar parts at The Recording Bureau for the other band that he’s in, The Sometime Boys. Psychedelic rock that’s totally chill to listen to. Their newest album is available for download on CDBaby for $6. You should grab it.
James has been reading Poe’s brother’s book House of Leaves and her Haunted album has some tie-ins so it’s been on the radar as of late. The whole album is brilliant, but I love how haunting Spanish Doll is.
An absolutely amazing violin and cello arrangement of Kanye West’s ‘Stronger’ and Daft Punk’s ‘Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger’ and ‘Nightvision’, and the video is a rather poignant anti-bullying statement. A must watch.
Tuesday was Valentine’s Day and James also happened to have another recording session with Kurt for The Sometime Boys album. So, I decided to take up the challenge to cook a meal for the occasion. This particular challenge involved feeding someone who’s on a gluten free diet and someone who’s on a “I don’t eat it unless it’s made of meat and potatoes” diet.
I pondered it for a bit and then realized the perfect thing… My friend Jonathan’s barbecue chicken recipe, which is seriously the juiciest chicken I’ve ever tasted.
Super simple to make.
Bone-in chicken put in a freezer bag with a bottle of barbecue sauce and a bit of soy sauce, put it in the fridge to marinate for as long as you can possibly stand.
When you’re ready to cook, put it in a baking pan, sprinkle some salt, pepper and paprika on top, turn the oven to 350 and then cook for 20 minutes, take it out, baste it, and the put it in for 20 more, check to make sure it’s not pink near the bone and voila! Juicy chicken.
I only wish I’d gotten a picture before we all dug in and devoured it.
I think it was on the way home from Jonathan’s Super Bowl party (or maybe it was on the way to) when I said to James, “You know, if you’re going to have people in and out of here recording, you should really make the living room more of a living room and less of a storage closet for gear.”
He agreed.
When we got back to The Recording Bureau headquarters, he started in rearranging the living room. He had recently acquired a rug from a former roommate as well as a bench and two ottomans and has a big brown leather recliner. He laid out the rug and moved the chair, and moved a bunch of stuff to the storage room. Suddenly, the place looked a little bit like a living room… and I was so tired (and drunk, to be quite frank) that I didn’t think to take any pictures. I was just happy when he wrapped the project up so we could go to bed.
Two days later, I met up with him after work to go hang out.
When we were walking back, we ended up walking back not via the usual route… For some inexplicable reason, he turned west two blocks south of his street before turning north on the next block. When we turned north on the next block, we ended up crossing paths with some furniture left out on the street.
On the curb was a china cabinet and placed against the wall of the building was a red velvet couch.
We contemplated whether or not we wanted either piece. We were pretty sure we wanted the china cabinet, but needed to evaluate where it was going to fit… the couch, well… we were a little more skeptical over. Couches on the side of the road are risky business because of the possibility that bedbugs may have made their home there.
We went into the apartment to check and see if any roommates were home, they weren’t. We waited around for what felt like an hour but no one was around, so we decided to go back out and see if we couldn’t move that cabinet home by ourselves…. and when we got there, we had discovered that it had fallen over onto it’s face. We lifted it back up to evaluate, and discovered that the top was pretty badly damaged in the fall… but the bottom half was fine. So, we ripped the top half off and decided that we could get a board a later date for the top surface.
We started struggling down the street with it. I’m not the best at carrying heavy things any length of distance. My muscles just start spazzing out when I try, so we were walking about twenty feet and then taking a break when one of the neighborhood men saw us struggling and offered to be of service. He helped James carry it back to the apartment and down the stairs and I gave him $5 for his trouble.
By then, his roommate, Nicole had come home and we started in about the tale of the maimed china cabinet and mentioned that there was a couch on the street still that was beautiful but we weren’t entirely sure. We decided to all go out and take another look at it. We came to a consensus that it was probably bug free (largely due to the fact that someone had taken the trouble to put it under the fire escape to protect it from the drizzle that had been happening earlier). James and Nicole lugged it home.
It’s been about a week since the living room really took shape and I just simply fall in love every time I come out of the bedroom and see it. It’s a real living room. Not a storage closet for audio gear. It’s wonderful to have a new space to hang out in and somewhere where I can go and be by myself for awhile if I want to.
Yesterday, we added some curtains to the doorway. One of the things that James noticed as he was recording was that you could occasionally hear the hiss of the heating system coming from off the kitchen in the recordings, so the executive decision was to buy some curtains and hang them in the doorway for a bit of a sound barrier.
Now, I’ve just got to get the website up and running…
On the Friday before last, my father happened to have a little bit of a health scare. He went to the ER complaining of dizziness and chest pains and after an overnight stay and a bunch of tests, all he found out was his heart looks healthy and he does indeed have a brain. My mother decided to not tell me until the ordeal was over and they had some more conclusive news about it, so I didn’t hear anything until Sunday.
Par the course for my family, no sense getting everyone worried about things unless there’s actually a legitimate reason to be worried.
The last time I’d been to New Hampshire was sometime back in July. I was supposed to go to right before Christmas, but financial crisis and a new gig starting prevented that from happening, and well… Let’s honest, going back to New Hampshire for a few days wasn’t particularly high on my priority list. I’ve morphed into a rather urban dwelling creature over the past few years and going back tends to elicit frustration that I have to drive fifteen minutes to buy a soda past 11 PM.
Despite the fact my folks hadn’t asked, I felt the siren call of home and told my mother I was buying my bus ticket and I would be there Monday afternoon so we could all go out to dinner for my birthday on Tuesday.
It ended up being a really good trip and I was actually a little bit sad to have to come back to the city.
The first thing that was super awesome was getting home to my parents house and finding these no bake chocolate oatmeal cookies that I haven’t had in so long that I totally forgot that they they existed despite the fact that they’re totally one of my favorite things in the world and now I’m probably going to have to make them all the time.
The second awesome thing was opening the refrigerator to find an unmarked gallon of milk and as I’m pouring it listening to my mom warn me, “Just so you know, that’s raw milk.”
I think I said, “Even better!”
And it is. It’s so hard to go back to drinking normal store bought pasteurized milk after drinking raw for a week… it just doesn’t taste the same.
My dad made me eggs for breakfast every morning while I was there. When I discovered that there was ham in the fridge and there were English muffins afoot, I had him slap together a breakfast sandwich… which looks rather beautiful when you take a photo of it with the Android RetroCamera app (which I am madly in love with).
My birthday was on Tuesday, January 31st and my parents took me out to The Common Man in Concord, where I had a wonderful dinner of prime rib and white chocolate crème brûlée.
On Wednesday, my friend Mike took me out for lunch at Ichiban Japanese Steakhouse where I ran into my friend and former coworker Jodie when I walked into the bathroom (she works as a bartender there).
After lunch we went back to my parents so we could drop off one of the cars, and my mom had made her Texas Sheetcake Chocolate Cake which I’ve probably had every year for my birthday except for the ones I’ve been in New York for.
Then, Mike and I hopped into my mom’s car (formerly my car) and drove up to Funspot, the largest arcade in the world while blasting tunes that James has recorded. We spent the evening playing lots of pinball, air hockey, and skeeball, and reminisced about the days when we used to rule the mall at Quarters Arcade, the arcade that my brother and his friends used to run when we were in high school.
Then we finished out the night on the candlepin bowling lanes and with a pizza and quoted The Big Lebowski all the while. We had an extremely sucky first string which we decided wasn’t worth counting because it was so bad… but we won one each after that.
And the pizza… well, I’m spoiled normally but it wasn’t horrible.
A week ago Friday, I went to see Cowboy Mouth play at BB King. When I found out that they were playing so close to my birthday, I think I damn near shit myself with excitement.
Seriously.
They’re that good.
Plus, they were playing at BB’s which might I remind you is where my James works his monitor magic, so on top of getting to see a shit your pants good band I get to carry around that internal badge of pride that I’m going home with the man who’s making sure the band can hear what the fuck their doing.
I love going to shows James works because of that. It just makes me all squee inside.
Anna came with me, cause she’s my loyal concert buddy and well… after you’ve seen Cowboy Mouth once (the first time we saw them was at Highline Ballroom back in June) you’ve got to see them every time they come to town. It’s just one of those things.
We started out towards the back of the room because we got a table because she wanted to eat, but since we wanted to get up and dance and be merry with everybody else we closed out during the first song.
And dear goddess was it LOUD.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I like loud. It’s just that… well… if my ears are telling me “OW!” in the first song, that’s not really what you’d call a good thing because if you start in the “OW!” range by the end of the show you’re going to get to the “OH MY GOD! I’M GOING TO KILL THE FUCKING ENGINEER!” range and well… I happen to like sound engineers and don’t like to make a habit of murdering them. (So, if you happen to be Cowboy Mouth’s engineer and you ever find yourself at BB’s again, hint. Start slightly quieter than you think you need to be. Kthxbye!)
So, I turned to Anna and made the executive decision that the best place in the house to be considering the volume was somewhere over by monitorland. What I didn’t expect was for James to invite us to hang out in monitorland.
And this is the part where I geek out just a little bit and admit how stupid I am at times.
I don’t know why, but the whole concept of monitors sort of eluded me. I mean sure, I got the fact that the monitors are what the band uses to hear themselves, and I knew that each member of the band has their own mix which is tailored to what they need to hear but somehow I missed the memo in regard to how it was possible for the monitor engineer to mix several different things at once and manage to hear himself think.
In case the concept of this has eluded you too, I’ll fill you in on a secret. There’s a button. And when you press it, it plays whoever’s mix you want to listen to and adjust. You listen to them one at a time on the monitor that’s at your feet.
OH MY GOD! It’s like MAGIC OR SOMETHING!
I also felt like a pretty damn big idiot for not realizing that’s how it works without having to observe the phenomenon myself.
But anyway. The name of the band is Cowboy Mouth!
Not from the show I went to, but to give you a little taste…. You Can’t Always Get What You Want / I Believe In The Power of Love filmed at WI State Fair in August 2010.
One of the things that I love about Cowboy Mouth shows is that no matter what sort of sour mood you came to the show in, you leave at the end of the night believing that life is amazing and that you can do anything that you want in life.
They never cease to amaze me and inspire me.
When Anna and I met up with James after the show at the bar we always go to, he dutifully brought momentos of the show. Anna and I both got one of John Thomas Griffith’s guitar picks and he gave me the set list from the stage.
Now, if I could only train him to get things signed…
So, if you hadn’t noticed I kinda fell off the bandwagon with cooking everyday. In fact, everyday might have been a bit ambitious when you’re faced with temptations like going out for brunch with your friends on Saturday and having yummy leftovers in your fridge that you want to eat instead of making something new. But the point is not giving up! Right? Right.
Tonight’s dish was Spinach-Artichoke Cheesy Tortellini which came out of Rachael Ray’s Express Lane Meals. It was pretty simple thing to make, though I wish I’d have chopped the onion rather than using the grater like she’s suggested because it came out being onion mush and I would have preferred bigger chunks honestly, and I wish I’d thought to chop the artichokes before I started cooking because it felt like a race against time and I should have added some more salt, but otherwise it went rather smoothly.
In terms of eating, I’m of mixed opinion. It was a LOT of spinach and well… I’m a vegetable eating novice. I made it about halfway through my dinner and my stomach said, “If you eat any more of that green stuff, I am so going to projectile vomit over your keyboard.”
So, I ended up picking my way around the spinach for about half of my dinner. It wasn’t that it wasn’t good… but apparently that’s a thing that happens if you’re not used to eating veggies (or at least that’s what Phil tells me).
Leftover wise, a ton of it. I have an entire serving of tortellini for tomorrow plus an extra service of sauce which my plan is pretty much to use as dipping sauce with chips over the next few days.
I’m not sure I’ll try this recipe again for awhile, but it wasn’t all bad either.
The other day an old high school buddy of mine (Hi Matt!) asked on Facebook if I had any bands he should listen to, and well… of course I do! I always have bands that people should listen to.
I’m not so good about doing regular series of things… but I dub this (and any other Saturday that I’m in the mood for this) Sound Saturday! The day of the week that I share five songs that I’ve been digging and that you should listen to, too. Some are old. Some are new. But, I hope you like them.
This one’s from their album Down The Way. They’re a brother and sister duo hailing from Australia who make some of the most beautiful, emotional acoustic music. This song literally gives me chills when I listen to it.
James and I were having a conversation the other day that more people ought to be listening to Oingo Boingo. So you know, you ought to listen to Oingo Boingo. Danny Elfman’s the man.
I spent most of my life hating chili. Or at least, thinking that I hate chili. I’m not really sure to be honest… and I think that’s the truth of most picky eaters that remain picky into adulthood. I think there’s a point where some of us just give up and stop trying new things and just sticking to what we know is safe because… you know.. it’s safe.
I just know that chili was something my mother made every so often and while I liked the smell of it, actually eating it was another matter all together. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I think nights like chili night were the the times when I usually ended up eating spaghetti instead as a kid.
I discovered that I might actually like chili when my friend Linda had made a batch of it before Christmas and sent me home with some… and I just couldn’t stop eating it. It was so good!
Now, chili was something that I thought was an all day ordeal until I was reading the recipe in the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook which gave instructions for both a 20 minute version and a cook it for eight hours version. I had been somewhat prepared to cook it for eight hours, but upon further investigation those directions were for the recipe doubled so I figured… ehh… what the fuck, if I can make it in 20 minutes, I should try that.
The edible results? Well, they were about what I expected. You most certainly can cook an edible chili in 20 minutes, however your peppers and beans aren’t the melt in your mouth consistency that you get from having cooked the chili for eight hours.
I went a little heavy on the green peppers… partly because I like green peppers and partly because I didn’t read the recipe very carefully, seemed to work out fine… and I probably would have opted to put a tad less chili pepper in next time. I do tend to like things spicy so I went for the maximum recommendation… It was a little much, but at least my sinuses are getting cleared out.
Oh and some queso on top? Perfecto.
And, on top of that… there’s leftovers which I can freeze and eat in the future! Woo!
As I’m sure you’ve noticed by now (or perhaps you haven’t if you’re reading this by feed reader), I created a new theme for the blog. I wanted something recognizably New York-y, and I figured a picture of the Brooklyn Bridge looking back toward Manhattan taken from Brooklyn Bridge Park. Probably one of the more stunning photos I’ve taken.
The font is IM Fell Great Primer which can be found on Google Fonts. Hat tip to Ryan from This Must Be The Place, it’s the same font that she uses on her blog and I just fell in love with it and had to have.
All right. I’ll bite (ha!). I throw a 2 week challenge at you. Get it done and I’ll cover big healthy food shopping sprint at the end of it .
rules:
* Daily blogging what you tried, what you accomplished, and challenges .
* At least one Daily custom made meal (and none of that microwavable stuff).
* [optional] Bonus points if you invite friends over for own cooked meal (Maybe starting second week, after you had some practice (: )
So, today’s day one.
Tonight’s dish was linguine in peanut sauce. I didn’t stray from my old standard of pasta, but I’d never actually made a peanut sauce before and I’m pretty sure the only time I’ve ever had a peanut sauce ever is at a Thai restaurant and considering that I love me some peanut butter, I figured it was a fair shot of me liking it.
The recipe came from the Better Homes & Gardens cookbook and combined peanut butter, chicken stock, soy sauce, lime juice, red pepper and garlic.
First of all, I was excited because for a person who doesn’t cook all that much, I have some pretty nifty kitchen gadgets and high end cookware. Since minced garlic was in the recipe, I got to pull out my awesome garlic mincer.
My camera nearly bought it three times in the process of making this meal, which means I need to stop trying to take pictures of every step and put the camera away, I’m sure… but I did get a really awesome shot of peanut butter.
The sauce was actually pretty dead simple to make. It didn’t take me any longer to make this dish than it would have to make spaghetti with sauce from a store bought jar, the only real difference was I wasn’t sitting down to surf the Internet while the pasta boiled because I was busy making the sauce.
And then the finished dish… well… in the pan, anyway.
I half wonder if it would have been better with natural peanut butter and I sorta wish I’d been paying attention to the recipe before I went shopping and noticed that it had said low sodium soy sauce, because in the end it did seem like the sauce was just a hair too salty… I also think next time I ought to make it with chicken and some veggies because truth be told, just peanut sauce and pasta is pretty damn boring, it could have certainly used some variety… but, baby steps. I’ll get to conquering cooking meat. Soon.
)
. It was pretty simple thing to make, though I wish I’d have chopped the onion rather than using the grater like she’s suggested because it came out being onion mush and I would have preferred bigger chunks honestly, and I wish I’d thought to chop the artichokes before I started cooking because it felt like a race against time and I should have added some more salt, but otherwise it went rather smoothly. 
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