Ooooh…. 2004. Blogs were exploding. Flash drives were a rarity. Bush’s wars drug on. And good ole’ Happy Feet was on the webstreams. With the recent backing up and rooting around the site, I realized that I still keep a copy of the old version of this site (I call it 2.0) up and running. That’s Jacqueie Ben-Eliezer in the masthead (RIP), Frank “12 Galaxies” Chu with the sign, and Mr. Leon Rosen looking all mean with the sticky note (that says “Leon has a posse”). There’s also my fun “@bomb” favicon, the secret <3 (did emoticons exist in ’04?) link on the masthead, and links to all the other pages I had running at the time. Once blog tech got easy to install and use, I basically took the same themes and used them as categories on this version (WP v3.0). Guess this is my #TBT post a day late….
NoMeansNo Take it to the Next Level
I feel sorry for the Canadian trio NoMeansNo. Backstage at Bottom of the Hill, which is outside where everyone was smoking, I sipped a beer and met a group of folks who are big fans of the band. They were all lamenting about the horrible technical problems NoMeansNo was having on this tour. Last night in Oakland, Bassist Rob Wright’s amp went out right at the top of the show. They took a 15 minute break to try to fix the problem. The story of drummer John Wright’s problem followed, which was a busted drum that had to be replaced for the night by an opening band’s piece. That happened in Oakland too.
I tried to encourage these big fans that maybe the show tonight in San Francisco would be perfect. No problems at all. An unease settled across several faces, and the subject changed. Before going into the opening number, Rob told the audience that “the gods are testing us!” Sure enough, his bass amp started going out at the beginning of the set. Frustration set in as they finally got the first song going on the third try. The aptly placed song was “Old,” which is what all the band’s equipment was feeling like at the current moment.
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NBC Catches a Phish(head)
Had to head down to the Shoreline a few weeks ago to check out the 3.0 version of my favorite 1990s band Phish (they’ve broken up two times prior to this). They’re much better than the last time I saw them (the mud-mired Coventry, VT festival), mostly in part to lead guitarist Trey Anastasio’s going clean and sober (addicted to Big Pharma pills). Delicate show that kicked out the jams, and played the one song I wanted at the top of the show (Golgi Apparatus).
Josh Keppel, a photo-journalist from a local NBC Web site, snapped this pic of me for his cheeky “Jam Band Parking Lot” spread. I have to remind folks that “jam band” wasn’t a term when I started going to Phish shows. I think jam bands suck anyway.
Stencil Nation Tour: the table
Just posted this up in the HFt Productions page, and thought you all might like to see the final listing of all the tour dates from the past year. Every thing adds up to 60 stops, with only two cancellations. THANKS again to ALL the people who helped keep me on the road, in the air, and in the spaces with all these fun, stencil-related events. Things I did this year: digital slide presentations, skillshares, street art tours, stenciling demos, book signings, stencil VJ’ing, exhibits, interviews, window displays, budget stencil art sales, and much more!
Toronto Street Art Bike Tour
May 14 KALW Interview…
Stencil Nation on Cross Currents
Had a great bike ride over to the KALW studio near McClearen Park this morning and interviewed with Penny Nelson for Cross Currents. The engineer, a bike commuter, told me another route that sent me through the park and then down Mission St. in the Excelsior District. Found some stencils along that ride home! They posted the show early so here’s the goods. Fast forward in about 3 and a half minutes to hear my segment. About 10 minutes long total.