This is just my opinion, of course, but of all the cuts I have that Michael Brecker laid down a solo, these are my favorites, offered without commentary:
Delta City Blues, Brecker, Michael, Two Blocks from the Edge
Some Skunk Funk, Brecker Brothers Band, The, Heavy Metal Bebop
El Niño, Brecker, Michael, Two Blocks from the Edge
My One and Only Love, Brecker, Michael, Michael Brecker
Renaissance Man, Brecker, Michael, Time Is of the Essence
Sponge, Brecker Brothers Band, The, Heavy Metal Bepop
African Skies, Brecker, Michael, Tales from the Hudson
The Impaler, Brecker, Michael, Two Blocks from the Edge
How Long Till the Sun, Brecker, Michael, Two Blocks from the Edge
Soul Intro - The Chicken, Pastorius, Jaco, The Birthday Concert
Timeline, Brecker, Michael, Time Is of the Essence
Not Ethiopia, Steps, Smokin' in the Pit
Impressions, Tyner, McCoy Trio, Infinity
Every Day I Thank You, Metheney, Pat, 80/81
Pools, Steps Ahead, Steps Ahead
Quartet #2, Corea, Chick, Three Quartets
Honorable Mention for non-jazz appearances:
Your Latest Trick, Dire Straits, Brothers in Arms
Pick Up the Pieces, Average White Band, Average White Band
Friday, May 04, 2007
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Back from Kyiv
My trip to Kyiv was quite fun, although getting out was harrowing.
We (my boss and I) flew Austin-DFW-Frankfurt-Kyiv, which worked out well. I upgraded to business class, and it was great. I arrived in Europe able to function the rest of the day. This was my 6th trip to Europe, and the first time I was able to stay up past 5:30 local time when I got there. Being able to catch four hours of sleep was key here. American Airlines also provided Bose noise-canceling headphones, which work really well on airplanes.
We arrived, and our partners in Kyiv had contracted a driver to take us to our apartments. The car was about 10 years old and had been through a lot. The seats had been recovered with red tiger striped covers. Going through town to the apartments was fun; we drove by all of the new apartments in the suburbs, over a nice bridge, and then through downtown.
We had heard from multiple sources that hotels were overpriced and not very nice in Kyiv, and had apartments recommended to us. However, we were not encouraged when we got to the front door. The building was Soviet era, and there was a gray stone wall with a shabby wooden door that we were supposed to go through. We went in, and found out that only one apartment had been rented to us. We called the admin at the office, and were told that we could pick up the other key at 7.
The entry hall was concrete and smelled bad, and the elevator was downright frightening. It was about two by three feet, and the doors did not actually close all of the way. Scary. However, the apartment was very nice.
Went to the office and was shown around. Had dinner at Club Miami. Not the first restaurant that had an American theme; the food was pretty good.
Got back, and retrieved the key to the second apartment from the gostinitza. However, we did not know what floor the apartment was on, and there was no mapping from number to floor. With my fledgling Russian, I asked her "four? five? six?" while moving my hand up and down. She responded "Six", and we went to the sixth floor. When the elevator opened, it was pitch black. Only after I stepped forward did the motion-triggered light come on. Once again, however, the apartment itself was very nice. This was to be mine. No high speed Internet, but what can you do?
Slept well. Our hosts, Oleksey and Anton, would not let us navigate the city by ourselves, so Anton met us the next morning, and we all took the taxi to the office. Taxis are unregulated, so you have to negotiate with the driver, and they fleece foreigners regularly. However, the office negotiated our taxis, so we did not have this problem. That morning, we had introductions and meetings, and then went out to an American-themed steakhouse. However, on the way, we saw some kind of police action. It looked like a bunch of people were protesting a construction site with all kinds of sit-ins. The police were picking them up one at a time, and packing them into paddy wagons. Ukraine is sometimes disconcerting that way.
Worked in the afternoon. That evening, we walked with Oleksey down to yet another American themed restaurant near our apartment. Got to see some of the architecture at that point; it was a good night. The live band at the joint was doing a lot of eighties covers of Sting, Police, Gabriel, etc.
Saturday, we had the Java Users' Group meeting where my boss was giving his two talks (goodwill/recruiting gestures). The projector was dead, and the organization was hopeless, but they served beer while everybody waited. The talks started an hour late, but they were very well received.
That night, I had to do a server migration, and I needed high-speed Internet, so Matt and I swapped apartments.
Sunday, we got a city tour. At some point, I will post pictures to my website at www.baritoneconsulting.com. There are a lot of interesting landmarks in Kyiv. The coolest thing for me is tying Pictures at an Exhibition with Shevchenko, the national poet/artist of the Ukraine. The pictures that Mussoursky were writing about were by Shevchenko, and going by the Great Gate of Kyiv connected the dots for me. Wonderful sightseeing in this city.
That night, we actually had dinner at a modern Ukrainian restaurant. I found out, much to my surprise, that borshch is really really good.
Monday was a work day, but mid-afternoon, we took a tour of the Monastery of the Caves. It's a big place, and took most of the afternoon. Along the way, we saw the outdoor military museum, stuffed with Soviet arms. Cool in a creepy kind of way. That night, Matt and I were on our own for dinner. I went up to the apartment and found three people in it, a woman talking on her phone, and two men tearing up the bathroom.
The men did not speak to me. The woman knew about as much English as I knew Russian. Through pantomime and some fast lookups in my Russian dictionary, I managed to ask her to write down her cell phone number, and I texted it to Anton, who called her. Turns out, she was the apartment owner, and the two men were plumbers, and they were fixing a leak. They would be about another twenty minutes; I went out and shopped and found food.
The plan was supposed to leave Tuesday morning about 6:10. We had been told to get to the airport two hours early, so our driver picked us up about 3:30. Oy. Got to the airport, and the fun started.
There was no Kyiv-Frankfurt flight listed at all. It's as if it did not exist. The Lufthansa counter was closed. We were told we would have to talk to the people at the counter past the entry point, but we could not go to it because it was more than two hours ahead of the only outgoing Lufthansa flight, to Munich. Matt and I got on our Blackberries, and managed to get our flights rerouted to Kyiv-Munich-Frankfurt-Chicago-Austin.
However, it was electronic. We were the first in the boarding pass line, past the entry point, but they told us, "Could you place wait over here for a few minutes?" That few minutes turned into about 90, and during that time, we were aghast at just how bad this particular ticket line was. They only had two agents working, and with no electronic, curbside, advanced, or any previous checkins, every single person had to get a boarding pass from these devotchkas, and it was taking about five minutes per person. We were getting worried; our flight time was approaching, and the only other Lufthansa flight was 2:30 that afternoon.
Finally, a supervisor came along, and we flagged him down. He managed to get our tickets straightened out, and put us back in line. The person in front of me had luggage that was too heavy, and was getting ready to repack in front of us, when said supervisor overrode his devotchka and let the guy board. We basically got to the boarding area about five minutes before the doors opened.
Got to Munich and Frankfurt fine, and noticed that our original Frankfurt-DFW leg was still on the ground. We decided to hook back up with it, as we might get home earlier than the Chicago flight.
Bad miscalculation. The DFW plane had a part failure, and was stuck waiting for the part to come in from Heathrow. They put us on the plane, and we were there for about three hours. Oy. One cool thing, however, is that we got to see the Airbus A380, which had made its first flight to New York and back the previous day, and was parked at the gate in Frankfurt.
We finally got off of the ground, but were informed that we were going to have to stop at JFK to get another crew, since the delays were going to cause them to go over their legally-alloted time.
At least it went smoothly from there. We landed in NY, got another crew and went on to Dallas. The flight attendant we had had then sat with us and joked and gabbed the entire way to Dallas. She was a hoot; part society-woman, ditzball, insightful, outgoing, kind of crazy.
Caught the last connection to Austin, and made it home. What a trip.
We (my boss and I) flew Austin-DFW-Frankfurt-Kyiv, which worked out well. I upgraded to business class, and it was great. I arrived in Europe able to function the rest of the day. This was my 6th trip to Europe, and the first time I was able to stay up past 5:30 local time when I got there. Being able to catch four hours of sleep was key here. American Airlines also provided Bose noise-canceling headphones, which work really well on airplanes.
We arrived, and our partners in Kyiv had contracted a driver to take us to our apartments. The car was about 10 years old and had been through a lot. The seats had been recovered with red tiger striped covers. Going through town to the apartments was fun; we drove by all of the new apartments in the suburbs, over a nice bridge, and then through downtown.
We had heard from multiple sources that hotels were overpriced and not very nice in Kyiv, and had apartments recommended to us. However, we were not encouraged when we got to the front door. The building was Soviet era, and there was a gray stone wall with a shabby wooden door that we were supposed to go through. We went in, and found out that only one apartment had been rented to us. We called the admin at the office, and were told that we could pick up the other key at 7.
The entry hall was concrete and smelled bad, and the elevator was downright frightening. It was about two by three feet, and the doors did not actually close all of the way. Scary. However, the apartment was very nice.
Went to the office and was shown around. Had dinner at Club Miami. Not the first restaurant that had an American theme; the food was pretty good.
Got back, and retrieved the key to the second apartment from the gostinitza. However, we did not know what floor the apartment was on, and there was no mapping from number to floor. With my fledgling Russian, I asked her "four? five? six?" while moving my hand up and down. She responded "Six", and we went to the sixth floor. When the elevator opened, it was pitch black. Only after I stepped forward did the motion-triggered light come on. Once again, however, the apartment itself was very nice. This was to be mine. No high speed Internet, but what can you do?
Slept well. Our hosts, Oleksey and Anton, would not let us navigate the city by ourselves, so Anton met us the next morning, and we all took the taxi to the office. Taxis are unregulated, so you have to negotiate with the driver, and they fleece foreigners regularly. However, the office negotiated our taxis, so we did not have this problem. That morning, we had introductions and meetings, and then went out to an American-themed steakhouse. However, on the way, we saw some kind of police action. It looked like a bunch of people were protesting a construction site with all kinds of sit-ins. The police were picking them up one at a time, and packing them into paddy wagons. Ukraine is sometimes disconcerting that way.
Worked in the afternoon. That evening, we walked with Oleksey down to yet another American themed restaurant near our apartment. Got to see some of the architecture at that point; it was a good night. The live band at the joint was doing a lot of eighties covers of Sting, Police, Gabriel, etc.
Saturday, we had the Java Users' Group meeting where my boss was giving his two talks (goodwill/recruiting gestures). The projector was dead, and the organization was hopeless, but they served beer while everybody waited. The talks started an hour late, but they were very well received.
That night, I had to do a server migration, and I needed high-speed Internet, so Matt and I swapped apartments.
Sunday, we got a city tour. At some point, I will post pictures to my website at www.baritoneconsulting.com. There are a lot of interesting landmarks in Kyiv. The coolest thing for me is tying Pictures at an Exhibition with Shevchenko, the national poet/artist of the Ukraine. The pictures that Mussoursky were writing about were by Shevchenko, and going by the Great Gate of Kyiv connected the dots for me. Wonderful sightseeing in this city.
That night, we actually had dinner at a modern Ukrainian restaurant. I found out, much to my surprise, that borshch is really really good.
Monday was a work day, but mid-afternoon, we took a tour of the Monastery of the Caves. It's a big place, and took most of the afternoon. Along the way, we saw the outdoor military museum, stuffed with Soviet arms. Cool in a creepy kind of way. That night, Matt and I were on our own for dinner. I went up to the apartment and found three people in it, a woman talking on her phone, and two men tearing up the bathroom.
The men did not speak to me. The woman knew about as much English as I knew Russian. Through pantomime and some fast lookups in my Russian dictionary, I managed to ask her to write down her cell phone number, and I texted it to Anton, who called her. Turns out, she was the apartment owner, and the two men were plumbers, and they were fixing a leak. They would be about another twenty minutes; I went out and shopped and found food.
The plan was supposed to leave Tuesday morning about 6:10. We had been told to get to the airport two hours early, so our driver picked us up about 3:30. Oy. Got to the airport, and the fun started.
There was no Kyiv-Frankfurt flight listed at all. It's as if it did not exist. The Lufthansa counter was closed. We were told we would have to talk to the people at the counter past the entry point, but we could not go to it because it was more than two hours ahead of the only outgoing Lufthansa flight, to Munich. Matt and I got on our Blackberries, and managed to get our flights rerouted to Kyiv-Munich-Frankfurt-Chicago-Austin.
However, it was electronic. We were the first in the boarding pass line, past the entry point, but they told us, "Could you place wait over here for a few minutes?" That few minutes turned into about 90, and during that time, we were aghast at just how bad this particular ticket line was. They only had two agents working, and with no electronic, curbside, advanced, or any previous checkins, every single person had to get a boarding pass from these devotchkas, and it was taking about five minutes per person. We were getting worried; our flight time was approaching, and the only other Lufthansa flight was 2:30 that afternoon.
Finally, a supervisor came along, and we flagged him down. He managed to get our tickets straightened out, and put us back in line. The person in front of me had luggage that was too heavy, and was getting ready to repack in front of us, when said supervisor overrode his devotchka and let the guy board. We basically got to the boarding area about five minutes before the doors opened.
Got to Munich and Frankfurt fine, and noticed that our original Frankfurt-DFW leg was still on the ground. We decided to hook back up with it, as we might get home earlier than the Chicago flight.
Bad miscalculation. The DFW plane had a part failure, and was stuck waiting for the part to come in from Heathrow. They put us on the plane, and we were there for about three hours. Oy. One cool thing, however, is that we got to see the Airbus A380, which had made its first flight to New York and back the previous day, and was parked at the gate in Frankfurt.
We finally got off of the ground, but were informed that we were going to have to stop at JFK to get another crew, since the delays were going to cause them to go over their legally-alloted time.
At least it went smoothly from there. We landed in NY, got another crew and went on to Dallas. The flight attendant we had had then sat with us and joked and gabbed the entire way to Dallas. She was a hoot; part society-woman, ditzball, insightful, outgoing, kind of crazy.
Caught the last connection to Austin, and made it home. What a trip.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Я еду в Киеве!
So, later today, I am flying to Kyiv, Ukraine for work. It will be the first time visiting an Eastern European city, and I am looking forward to it. Unfortunately, I will not have much time to be a tourist; I have too much work to do.
Packing involves getting my laptop ready to work on its own. But, I can't carry my big-honking-hard-drive of tunes because I don't have the right power cord. Lovely. I think my adapters will work for the MacBook Pro and iPod, though. I hope so. Anyway, I am also packing my old Russian textbook, a phrasebook, a small dictionary, and the Baseball Prospectus, as I have to prepare my fantasy baseball draft. I am also packing the airplane power cord, an Airport Express, an Ethernet cable, and a USB cable (to recharge the Blackberry). Oh, and of course, the iPod and the Blackberry. I guess I need to take clothes, toiletries, and medicine. And I need my wallet, passport and itinerary. I am not taking any keys, however. My wife is picking me up at the airport on the other side, so that should be safe.
I hope that this turns out to be lots of fun; looking forward to it!
Packing involves getting my laptop ready to work on its own. But, I can't carry my big-honking-hard-drive of tunes because I don't have the right power cord. Lovely. I think my adapters will work for the MacBook Pro and iPod, though. I hope so. Anyway, I am also packing my old Russian textbook, a phrasebook, a small dictionary, and the Baseball Prospectus, as I have to prepare my fantasy baseball draft. I am also packing the airplane power cord, an Airport Express, an Ethernet cable, and a USB cable (to recharge the Blackberry). Oh, and of course, the iPod and the Blackberry. I guess I need to take clothes, toiletries, and medicine. And I need my wallet, passport and itinerary. I am not taking any keys, however. My wife is picking me up at the airport on the other side, so that should be safe.
I hope that this turns out to be lots of fun; looking forward to it!
Monday, March 19, 2007
RIP Michael Brecker
I have not had access to good current events news, particularly of jazz, since we moved and had our second child. I just found on by reading the International Musicians union "Taps" section that Michael Brecker passed away. I immediately went to his website, http://www.michaelbrecker.com, and found out that the bone cancer that was diagnosed two years ago finally took him from us.
I fully believe that Brecker was as important and influential as Coltrane, and most of my peers in the jazz community who are my age would have trouble denying it. However, most of the pundits/critics older than me just hate his playing, and don't consider it much more than some misplaced talent.
You see, Brecker had some things going against him when it came to acceptance in the jazz community. His drug habit was a problem, but others have had drug habits. No, the two things that made some critics discount him was that he experimented with electronics and jazz rock in the 70s, and that he would appear as a sideman with just about anybody who would pay him.
For some reason, jazz snobs (I am thinking of a certain New Orleans trumpet player who also made a living as a classical trumpeter) seem to think that the only music you can play and stay pure is either "real" jazz (Louis Armstrong, swing, bepop, post-bop, West Coast Jazz) or classical. Playing avant-garde, electronic music, pop music, rap, hip-hop, reggae, or "smooth" jazz automatically invalidates the musician as a serious musician, as they could not imagine playing that music under any circumstances, and they think the musician is just out for a buck.
Bull pucky.
I personally love "real" jazz, but I also love a lot of other music. My favorites include Peter Gabriel, Celia Cruz, Sheryl Crow, Sting, Suzanne Vega, Bill Bruford, Magenta, Sabine Meyer, Asleep at the Wheel, The Beatles, Blood Sweat and Tears, Fairport Convention, Genesis, Pink Floyd, The Police, Santana, and Yes, among others. None of these are classical or "real" jazz musicians. I think that a well-rounded musician tries to listen to everything in music with an open mind. There are genres that I still don't like after years of trying (hip-hop, Indian classical, belly dance, as examples), but I will still try every once in a while.
I approach playing the same way. One of my biggest regrets is not playing guitar or piano, so that I could play in a rock and roll band. The guys on the streets working with their horns or violins or voices or whatever should not restrict what they play to stay "pure"; they play stuff that they like, and they play stuff to put food on the table.
The Brecker Brothers exploded on the scene in 1975 with their first album, The Brecker Brothers. This album went through my high school like wildfire. The live version, Heavy Metal Bebop, is simply amazing (aside from one stupid top 40ish cut). The solos are dazzling, the electronics are effective, and the rythm section just flat out rocks. I bought this album new on LP from the cutout bin at Cactus Records in 1980, and was completely and totally floored. This album, and a recording of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, were constantly playing at my house, much to my parents' chagrin!
When I was at Universiy of Miami the one year I was a music major, every sax player was listening to Brecker. I was no exception. Transcriptions were flying, but at that time, I had no hope of playing most of them (I could probably work them up now if I had time, but it would be tough). Brecker was simply the most technical saxophone player that ever lived, and I would be hard-pressed to find any other woodwind player who could compete with him. Maybe James Galway. Anyway, the head grad student sax player at UM, Ed Calle, broke it down for us poor underclassmen, and presented an analysis of Brecker's solos, firmly rooted in the playing of the 1960s John Coltrane solos. Brecker always played in three keys at once, the I, IV and V of whatever chord was going on. He also had complete mastery of the highest notes that a sax can play, the altisimmo register.
Early in his career, Brecker seemsed to lack a certain confidence in his composing and leading ability, and hid behind many musicians as the consumate side man. There is an apocryphal story that as Brecker was in rehab for his drug habit, he took a side date with jazz legend, McCoy Tyner. On this date, Tyner had Brecker play one of Coltrane's standards, Impressions, as well as some other tracks. (The album is called Infinity) Anyway, the story goes that Tyner told Brecker that he should get his act together and make albums as a leader, as he was ready to assume his place with the great ones in jazz. Soon after, Brecker's first album (Michael Brecker) came out. While it did not win the Critics' Poll in DownBeat, it certainly won the Readers' Poll.
I personally saw him play the following times: 1987 at Fitzgerald's in Houston, 1992 at the old Yoshi's in Oakland, 1995 at Kimball's East in Emeryville and at the old Yoshi's in Oakland, 2002 at Yoshi's in Jack London Square, and 2004 and 2005 at Cal Performances in Berkeley. All but the last were amazing concerts. The last, a thing called Directions in Music, I reviewed in this blog, and it was terrible.
Not knowing the man at all, I am not really broken up about his passing on an emotional level, but I am very sad that we are not ever going to hear anything new by him ever again.
If you have favorite musicians, and have a chance to see them live, GO DO IT! You never know when a car accident (Clifford Brown, Scott Lafaro), murder (Lee Morgan), cancer (Brecker), heart attack, suicide, drug overdose (Janice Joplin, Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday) will take them from us.
Support live music. It is essential.
I fully believe that Brecker was as important and influential as Coltrane, and most of my peers in the jazz community who are my age would have trouble denying it. However, most of the pundits/critics older than me just hate his playing, and don't consider it much more than some misplaced talent.
You see, Brecker had some things going against him when it came to acceptance in the jazz community. His drug habit was a problem, but others have had drug habits. No, the two things that made some critics discount him was that he experimented with electronics and jazz rock in the 70s, and that he would appear as a sideman with just about anybody who would pay him.
For some reason, jazz snobs (I am thinking of a certain New Orleans trumpet player who also made a living as a classical trumpeter) seem to think that the only music you can play and stay pure is either "real" jazz (Louis Armstrong, swing, bepop, post-bop, West Coast Jazz) or classical. Playing avant-garde, electronic music, pop music, rap, hip-hop, reggae, or "smooth" jazz automatically invalidates the musician as a serious musician, as they could not imagine playing that music under any circumstances, and they think the musician is just out for a buck.
Bull pucky.
I personally love "real" jazz, but I also love a lot of other music. My favorites include Peter Gabriel, Celia Cruz, Sheryl Crow, Sting, Suzanne Vega, Bill Bruford, Magenta, Sabine Meyer, Asleep at the Wheel, The Beatles, Blood Sweat and Tears, Fairport Convention, Genesis, Pink Floyd, The Police, Santana, and Yes, among others. None of these are classical or "real" jazz musicians. I think that a well-rounded musician tries to listen to everything in music with an open mind. There are genres that I still don't like after years of trying (hip-hop, Indian classical, belly dance, as examples), but I will still try every once in a while.
I approach playing the same way. One of my biggest regrets is not playing guitar or piano, so that I could play in a rock and roll band. The guys on the streets working with their horns or violins or voices or whatever should not restrict what they play to stay "pure"; they play stuff that they like, and they play stuff to put food on the table.
The Brecker Brothers exploded on the scene in 1975 with their first album, The Brecker Brothers. This album went through my high school like wildfire. The live version, Heavy Metal Bebop, is simply amazing (aside from one stupid top 40ish cut). The solos are dazzling, the electronics are effective, and the rythm section just flat out rocks. I bought this album new on LP from the cutout bin at Cactus Records in 1980, and was completely and totally floored. This album, and a recording of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, were constantly playing at my house, much to my parents' chagrin!
When I was at Universiy of Miami the one year I was a music major, every sax player was listening to Brecker. I was no exception. Transcriptions were flying, but at that time, I had no hope of playing most of them (I could probably work them up now if I had time, but it would be tough). Brecker was simply the most technical saxophone player that ever lived, and I would be hard-pressed to find any other woodwind player who could compete with him. Maybe James Galway. Anyway, the head grad student sax player at UM, Ed Calle, broke it down for us poor underclassmen, and presented an analysis of Brecker's solos, firmly rooted in the playing of the 1960s John Coltrane solos. Brecker always played in three keys at once, the I, IV and V of whatever chord was going on. He also had complete mastery of the highest notes that a sax can play, the altisimmo register.
Early in his career, Brecker seemsed to lack a certain confidence in his composing and leading ability, and hid behind many musicians as the consumate side man. There is an apocryphal story that as Brecker was in rehab for his drug habit, he took a side date with jazz legend, McCoy Tyner. On this date, Tyner had Brecker play one of Coltrane's standards, Impressions, as well as some other tracks. (The album is called Infinity) Anyway, the story goes that Tyner told Brecker that he should get his act together and make albums as a leader, as he was ready to assume his place with the great ones in jazz. Soon after, Brecker's first album (Michael Brecker) came out. While it did not win the Critics' Poll in DownBeat, it certainly won the Readers' Poll.
I personally saw him play the following times: 1987 at Fitzgerald's in Houston, 1992 at the old Yoshi's in Oakland, 1995 at Kimball's East in Emeryville and at the old Yoshi's in Oakland, 2002 at Yoshi's in Jack London Square, and 2004 and 2005 at Cal Performances in Berkeley. All but the last were amazing concerts. The last, a thing called Directions in Music, I reviewed in this blog, and it was terrible.
Not knowing the man at all, I am not really broken up about his passing on an emotional level, but I am very sad that we are not ever going to hear anything new by him ever again.
If you have favorite musicians, and have a chance to see them live, GO DO IT! You never know when a car accident (Clifford Brown, Scott Lafaro), murder (Lee Morgan), cancer (Brecker), heart attack, suicide, drug overdose (Janice Joplin, Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday) will take them from us.
Support live music. It is essential.
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
I'm back, finally
Well, after a very long (nearly two year) hibernation, I am back. A lot has happened since June of 2005. My wife got pregnant again, and we decided to bag Silicon Valley and the nice job at Apple for Austin, TX (close to home!) and a kick-ass startup company.
My impressions of Austin are still not well-formed after nine months here. Our house in Steiner Ranch is pretty awesome. I have not been able to enjoy much in the way of Austin culture because we are just too darned busy with two children under the age of 2 and with the process of finishing moving into our house.
We did have a hell of a time getting into the house; one of my next blogs will be about that. I would have trouble recommending Taylor Woodrow in our neighborhood, River Heights Overlook, because of all of the issues.
Aside from that, the weather has been fantastic (except for the 3-day shutdown of the town from an ice storm in January. The snow was cool, and all...). The drive home is pretty. I like being this close to Lake Travis. Everything in Austin is much closer to everything else that I am used to; that is really cool.
I do, however, miss good Szechuan, Hunan, Dim-Sum, and Thai food. Of course, San Fransisco is the Asian food capital of America, so I am out of luck there.
I did appear with a community orchestra, the Balcones Community Orchestra. It's a local chamber orchestra, a training grounds for local string players. The winds are a necessary evil, I guess. Anyway, I played 3 nerve-wracking pieces on principal flute, including a big solo. It went well, I thought. The group is not great, which means my flute playing is not terribly out of place.
My wife is going nuts being at home all day, and not having the house "finished". Will be glad when that happens.
We will miss our Oakland A's season tickets, and it sucks having to drive 3 hours to get to major league baseball. However, I am close to my childhood team, the Astros. Too bad they aren't going to be very good this year.
More later as I have time.
My impressions of Austin are still not well-formed after nine months here. Our house in Steiner Ranch is pretty awesome. I have not been able to enjoy much in the way of Austin culture because we are just too darned busy with two children under the age of 2 and with the process of finishing moving into our house.
We did have a hell of a time getting into the house; one of my next blogs will be about that. I would have trouble recommending Taylor Woodrow in our neighborhood, River Heights Overlook, because of all of the issues.
Aside from that, the weather has been fantastic (except for the 3-day shutdown of the town from an ice storm in January. The snow was cool, and all...). The drive home is pretty. I like being this close to Lake Travis. Everything in Austin is much closer to everything else that I am used to; that is really cool.
I do, however, miss good Szechuan, Hunan, Dim-Sum, and Thai food. Of course, San Fransisco is the Asian food capital of America, so I am out of luck there.
I did appear with a community orchestra, the Balcones Community Orchestra. It's a local chamber orchestra, a training grounds for local string players. The winds are a necessary evil, I guess. Anyway, I played 3 nerve-wracking pieces on principal flute, including a big solo. It went well, I thought. The group is not great, which means my flute playing is not terribly out of place.
My wife is going nuts being at home all day, and not having the house "finished". Will be glad when that happens.
We will miss our Oakland A's season tickets, and it sucks having to drive 3 hours to get to major league baseball. However, I am close to my childhood team, the Astros. Too bad they aren't going to be very good this year.
More later as I have time.
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