i've said it before, and i'll say it again: i love living in sf but i miss athens, georgia.
came across this just now and wanted to share it with all of you*. and then that, in turn, made me think of this. hope you enjoy.
special thanks to an aquarium drunkard for once more strolling me down memory lane.
~lee.
*especially you, big papa. you know who you are.
Showing posts with label athens. Show all posts
Showing posts with label athens. Show all posts
17 January 2008
24 November 2007
bad news...
sadly, i want to let people know that ted, the owner of the grit in athens, has died. you can read more about it here.
i didn't know ted at all-- met him a few times-- nevertheless my heart goes out to his family and friends back in athens. what a shame.
~lee.
i didn't know ted at all-- met him a few times-- nevertheless my heart goes out to his family and friends back in athens. what a shame.
~lee.
07 November 2007
the jacket @ the watt on the 'tunes...
good morning, dear readers. i hope that you slept well.
let me begin this morning by telling you about this incredible free podcast i found on itunes last night: my morning jacket live at the team clermont pabst blue ribbon ball at the 40 watt in athens, ga. incredible, right? for those of you that don't fully get it, let me explain some the moving parts to you:
most importantly, my morning jacket is an incredible, incredible band. they are great practitioners of what i like to call the rawk, which can be defined as simple unabashed sonic joy played out of one's guitar, bass, and drums. and lack of a throaty singer is a rawk deal- breaker. we're talking led zeppelin here, people. we're talking the who. we're talking jane's addiction. we're talking the ramones and we're talking sleater- kinney.
it pains me deeply that the jacket did a run of new year's shows here at the fillmore-- by far the greatest musical venue in the western hemisphere, including the aforementioned watt-- just before i moved back from athens. and that just as soon as i did move back to my beloved san francisco, this show was announced. it's almost like i'd spent every sunday morning in church for absolutely nothing. then i remembered i hadn't been to church on a sunday morning since before i started masturbating [and feeling guilty about it automatically afterward]. in any case, thanks a whole helluva lot, jesus.
you see the pbr ball is a weekend- long, annual event put on by my old friends at team clermont. team clermont [full disclosure: i interned in their office one winter] is a company that basically gets indie rock and, occasionally, bigger- name acts [think r.e.m.] played on college radio. they have great contacts with dj's all over the country and they leverage those relationships basically, kind of like a corporate lobbiest would, except without all the soul- selling, exclusive country clubs, and dead hookers. some records i remember working on back in the day were grandaddy's 'the sophtware slump,' 'the mermaid avenue volume II' record, and one by the apples in stereo. and eminem was on the cover of rolling stone. and i was sent to the post office a lot.
anyway they've been, by all standards, phenomenally successful*, and the ball is a celebration of that. i think my first one was in 199-8? 9? i remember i took my girlfriend at the time, brittany, that trans am played, and that i borrowed a bow tie from lucas and never returned it. i still have that bow tie, in fact, i think.
and every year it's held at the 40 watt, the world- famous rock club where [albeit in a different time and place] r.e.m. got their start. some of my favorite live music moments of all time happened on its stage: sonic youth on the 'murray street' tour, the flaming lips** on the 'yoshimi' tour, 3/4 of r.e.m. playing 'so happy together' by the turtles with the entire crowd singing along during a doug haines benefit. i think i did a shot with gwen o'looney*** that night.
i guess the point is that listening to these shows this morning has jogged all sorts of sense memories for me. athens, ga was a great place to live. and i guess part of me wishes i'd held on for just two more months so i could've seen this show. knowing my wife is going to read this, i should stipulate that i'd rather be nowhere with her than anywhere else. and that the show gods have been incredibly generous [despite whatever that jesus guy has said about me behind my back]. but goddamn, man. that would've been some awesome- tasting cake. check it out on itunes.
~lee.
*deservedly so. i wish the best to those guys.
**funny story about that flaming lips show. i knew this exotic dancer named 'kahlua' around this time [2001?] from bartending and whatnot. and when the lips came through town, maxim magazine gave them $500 to do whatever they wanted to with, and maxim was going to write an article about the results. so, brilliantly, they [the lips] got some baby pools, filled them with pepto bismol, and had my friend and some other chick go to town in them on stage during the show amidst the confetti and bear suits and all the other weird shit they had going on. it was a hilarious sight. almost as fun was seeing it in maxim a couple of months later [i read it for the articles].
***gwen o'looney is fucking rad.
let me begin this morning by telling you about this incredible free podcast i found on itunes last night: my morning jacket live at the team clermont pabst blue ribbon ball at the 40 watt in athens, ga. incredible, right? for those of you that don't fully get it, let me explain some the moving parts to you:
most importantly, my morning jacket is an incredible, incredible band. they are great practitioners of what i like to call the rawk, which can be defined as simple unabashed sonic joy played out of one's guitar, bass, and drums. and lack of a throaty singer is a rawk deal- breaker. we're talking led zeppelin here, people. we're talking the who. we're talking jane's addiction. we're talking the ramones and we're talking sleater- kinney.
it pains me deeply that the jacket did a run of new year's shows here at the fillmore-- by far the greatest musical venue in the western hemisphere, including the aforementioned watt-- just before i moved back from athens. and that just as soon as i did move back to my beloved san francisco, this show was announced. it's almost like i'd spent every sunday morning in church for absolutely nothing. then i remembered i hadn't been to church on a sunday morning since before i started masturbating [and feeling guilty about it automatically afterward]. in any case, thanks a whole helluva lot, jesus.
you see the pbr ball is a weekend- long, annual event put on by my old friends at team clermont. team clermont [full disclosure: i interned in their office one winter] is a company that basically gets indie rock and, occasionally, bigger- name acts [think r.e.m.] played on college radio. they have great contacts with dj's all over the country and they leverage those relationships basically, kind of like a corporate lobbiest would, except without all the soul- selling, exclusive country clubs, and dead hookers. some records i remember working on back in the day were grandaddy's 'the sophtware slump,' 'the mermaid avenue volume II' record, and one by the apples in stereo. and eminem was on the cover of rolling stone. and i was sent to the post office a lot.
anyway they've been, by all standards, phenomenally successful*, and the ball is a celebration of that. i think my first one was in 199-8? 9? i remember i took my girlfriend at the time, brittany, that trans am played, and that i borrowed a bow tie from lucas and never returned it. i still have that bow tie, in fact, i think.
and every year it's held at the 40 watt, the world- famous rock club where [albeit in a different time and place] r.e.m. got their start. some of my favorite live music moments of all time happened on its stage: sonic youth on the 'murray street' tour, the flaming lips** on the 'yoshimi' tour, 3/4 of r.e.m. playing 'so happy together' by the turtles with the entire crowd singing along during a doug haines benefit. i think i did a shot with gwen o'looney*** that night.
i guess the point is that listening to these shows this morning has jogged all sorts of sense memories for me. athens, ga was a great place to live. and i guess part of me wishes i'd held on for just two more months so i could've seen this show. knowing my wife is going to read this, i should stipulate that i'd rather be nowhere with her than anywhere else. and that the show gods have been incredibly generous [despite whatever that jesus guy has said about me behind my back]. but goddamn, man. that would've been some awesome- tasting cake. check it out on itunes.
~lee.
*deservedly so. i wish the best to those guys.
**funny story about that flaming lips show. i knew this exotic dancer named 'kahlua' around this time [2001?] from bartending and whatnot. and when the lips came through town, maxim magazine gave them $500 to do whatever they wanted to with, and maxim was going to write an article about the results. so, brilliantly, they [the lips] got some baby pools, filled them with pepto bismol, and had my friend and some other chick go to town in them on stage during the show amidst the confetti and bear suits and all the other weird shit they had going on. it was a hilarious sight. almost as fun was seeing it in maxim a couple of months later [i read it for the articles].
***gwen o'looney is fucking rad.
06 November 2007
kickoff...
greetings and salutations to all you fine people out there, and welcome to the inaugural post of woolgathering!
very quickly, let me just say that this blog was borne out of two stimuli: commenting* about late- period r.e.m. records last night on the aquarium drunkard site, which is a hell of a music blog by the way [and there's a funny story about him that i'm sure to get to at a certain point**], and a dictionary.com email that i got the other day:
Word of the Day for Monday, November 5, 2007
woolgathering \WOOL-gath-(uh)-ring\, noun:
Indulgence in idle daydreaming.
[also i have a friend named jimmy who has a blog, and he's a great guy and everything, but if he can do it, i can certainly do it. i mean let's face it the guy's basically functionally retarded].
but back to what i was saying, i hope that you enjoy this intelligent whimsy, dear readers, and that in the years to come we can become great friends. because i feel like i have a lot to say, a lot of wisdom to share... and you people should fucking listen to it.
until next time...
~lee.
*the aforementioned comments [unabridged]:
i am really looking forward to the new record. and i think that ‘new adventures’ is the best record that r.e.m. ever did, especially lyrically. that being said, you are really missing out on ‘up’– i mean the record’s a little more than left of center [’daysleeper’ and ‘my most beautiful’ notwithstanding] but it is not the cryptic mess everyone would have you believe. ‘apologist’ is nice for me to compare to ’so. central rain’ as far as the band’s progression goes. ’sad professor,’ ‘diminished,’ and ‘walk unafraid’ are really great tunes and the best tune on the record for me is ’suspicion’.
‘reveal’ i have fond memories of, living in athens the summer before september 11th. i remember bartending at the globe and missing that secret show across the street at the georgia theatre. i remember i was seeing this girl kelly and the video for ‘all the way to reno’ always seemed to be on at her house on mtv2. in fact, the more i think about it, ‘reveal’ to me is kind of cosmically, thematically, like the scenes described in the song ‘nightswimming’. drinking heavily at the manhattan and the go bar [once or twice actually with michael, though we’re not friends]. afterhours hot tub parties. meaningless-ish sex. i was about to turn 24. i, and also the world, was never innocent again after that summer.
‘around the sun’ to me is probably the least strong record r.e.m. has ever done. i don’t hate the record and have listened to it many times. that being said, i wish i liked it more than i do and it’s never really had that much of an impact on me.
so there you go, man. keep up the good day to day.
your faithful reader…
3 | lee henderson [the guy who used to have your old id] November 6th, 2007 at 12:23 am
http://www.aquariumdrunkard.com/2007/11/05/rem-wrangling-
in-the-monster/#comments
**here's that funny story about the guy from aquarium drunkard: i'm a pretty avid reader of his blog but never really paid any attention to him personally, right? until one day i catch his name-- justin gage-- and an absolute powderkeg of memory exploded off of my computer screen. we know that i lived in athens, georgia from 1996 until 2003 and then again briefly in 2006. but way back in 1996- 1997 i was underage and could not drink in bars [athens, georgia, incidentally, is nothing but one big awesome collection of bars. any report of there being a university there is a gross exaggeration]. this problem, however, was easily circumvented by showing the doorman someone else's valid id, given that that someone else was of age and shared your hair color. well that person, for me, was justin gage, whom i've since contacted to tell this funny story to. neither of us have any idea how i actually wound up with his license, but i'd like to thank him here publicly for all the miller high lifes and maker's mark shots i imbibed while under his guise. keep up the good work, justin.
very quickly, let me just say that this blog was borne out of two stimuli: commenting* about late- period r.e.m. records last night on the aquarium drunkard site, which is a hell of a music blog by the way [and there's a funny story about him that i'm sure to get to at a certain point**], and a dictionary.com email that i got the other day:
Word of the Day for Monday, November 5, 2007
woolgathering \WOOL-gath-(uh)-ring\, noun:
Indulgence in idle daydreaming.
[also i have a friend named jimmy who has a blog, and he's a great guy and everything, but if he can do it, i can certainly do it. i mean let's face it the guy's basically functionally retarded].
but back to what i was saying, i hope that you enjoy this intelligent whimsy, dear readers, and that in the years to come we can become great friends. because i feel like i have a lot to say, a lot of wisdom to share... and you people should fucking listen to it.
until next time...
~lee.
*the aforementioned comments [unabridged]:
i am really looking forward to the new record. and i think that ‘new adventures’ is the best record that r.e.m. ever did, especially lyrically. that being said, you are really missing out on ‘up’– i mean the record’s a little more than left of center [’daysleeper’ and ‘my most beautiful’ notwithstanding] but it is not the cryptic mess everyone would have you believe. ‘apologist’ is nice for me to compare to ’so. central rain’ as far as the band’s progression goes. ’sad professor,’ ‘diminished,’ and ‘walk unafraid’ are really great tunes and the best tune on the record for me is ’suspicion’.
‘reveal’ i have fond memories of, living in athens the summer before september 11th. i remember bartending at the globe and missing that secret show across the street at the georgia theatre. i remember i was seeing this girl kelly and the video for ‘all the way to reno’ always seemed to be on at her house on mtv2. in fact, the more i think about it, ‘reveal’ to me is kind of cosmically, thematically, like the scenes described in the song ‘nightswimming’. drinking heavily at the manhattan and the go bar [once or twice actually with michael, though we’re not friends]. afterhours hot tub parties. meaningless-ish sex. i was about to turn 24. i, and also the world, was never innocent again after that summer.
‘around the sun’ to me is probably the least strong record r.e.m. has ever done. i don’t hate the record and have listened to it many times. that being said, i wish i liked it more than i do and it’s never really had that much of an impact on me.
so there you go, man. keep up the good day to day.
your faithful reader…
3 | lee henderson [the guy who used to have your old id] November 6th, 2007 at 12:23 am
http://www.aquariumdrunkard.com/2007/11/05/rem-wrangling-
in-the-monster/#comments
**here's that funny story about the guy from aquarium drunkard: i'm a pretty avid reader of his blog but never really paid any attention to him personally, right? until one day i catch his name-- justin gage-- and an absolute powderkeg of memory exploded off of my computer screen. we know that i lived in athens, georgia from 1996 until 2003 and then again briefly in 2006. but way back in 1996- 1997 i was underage and could not drink in bars [athens, georgia, incidentally, is nothing but one big awesome collection of bars. any report of there being a university there is a gross exaggeration]. this problem, however, was easily circumvented by showing the doorman someone else's valid id, given that that someone else was of age and shared your hair color. well that person, for me, was justin gage, whom i've since contacted to tell this funny story to. neither of us have any idea how i actually wound up with his license, but i'd like to thank him here publicly for all the miller high lifes and maker's mark shots i imbibed while under his guise. keep up the good work, justin.
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