My God!

Ewwww!

I'm at the coffee shop, and some girl has her laptop pointed so I can see it. She's watching some sort of surgery procedure. Very Icky!

Scents and Cent's Ability

You know...
The coffee's great, but it's the smell of the place that really sticks with you.
No really.
I mean it seems to hang off your clothes indefinitely.
And the thing is
no matter where else you go,
it could be a pickle factory even,
you're gonna fall asleep with that scent
drifting off your shirt
and tucking itself up inside your nostrils
all night long.

Maybe the strangest thing
is that it's not even really a coffee smell.
It's more like
dirt
but not dirt
more like
paint
but
like
It's kinda like tea with black pepper.
I imagine that some far off place,
like Istanbul,
probably smells something like it,
but since
I've never been Istanbul
I can't really say with any certainty.

But that's beside point.
I don't go for the smell.
But it does kinda act as a constant reminder
of the way she shuffles her feet when she sweeps the floor,
or the way that crinkly calico apron clings to her waist,
or fact that she puts extra lettuce on my plate when I order a grilled cheese,
or those big brown, coffee colored eyes
that never seem to sparkle quite enough so that I know
she knows it's me.

You know...
I wonder if my meager tip makes any difference,
cause it's not about the money.
When I throw a couple coins in the jar
I know that she can't help but hear it.
And maybe
when that 37 cents starts ringing in her pockets
while she's walking home,
I've managed to do something
that's gonna stick with her
all night long.

Symphony Hour - The Kairn of Koridwen

I should probably start a separate Symphony Hour Blog at some point. Maybe when I change the name...

In any case, today I'll be presenting a work by obscure American composer Charles Tomlinson Griffes. If you know him for any work at all, it would be for The Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan, and if you've heard that I probably lived with you at some point. :)

The piece I'll be playing today is called The Kairn of Koridwen, and it is a chamber ballet that Griffes wrote in 1916. Honestly, I've never heard the piece before, so I'll be listening to it before the show this afternoon. From what I know of the music from my Google-ings, I know that the piece is written using a synthetic scale, which means some very exotic melodies and harmonies.

The piece will be played tonight in Fort Collins at the Trinity Lutheran Church , 7pm. The Front Range Chamber Players will be providing the music with choreography by Ixchel Whitcher from Canyon Concert Ballet. This is a very rare opportunity to see a very unique piece of music here in Fort Collins.

Listen in to the Symphony Hour at 4pm on KRFC, 88.9 fm in Northern Colorado, or online at krfcfm.org

Bass is back!

Oh, and I almost forgot: my bass is back!

The crack is fixed, the fingerboard has been redressed, the bridge re-shaped and a little cosmetic work was done to clean up a few nicks on the front. The wolf tone is still present, but much less bad than it was, and manageable now with a wolf tone eliminator. I also went ahead and replaced the strings. She's sounding better than ever, especially in the upper register on the lower strings.

Unless you get up very, very close to the bass in bright light, you would never even know there was ever a crack. It even hard to feel it. Wow.

Hooray!!

Job Perks

In the face of all the changes I've had a work over the past few months, it's easy to lose sight of the really cool stuff that my job provides.

I hosted a band today on the live show and we got into a conversation about albums they have been listening to. The topic ended up turning towards anticipated albums, and the band mentioned 2 albums that I've already listened to. It made for a bit of an awkward moment.

Very rarely do I even look at, let alone remember, an album's release date. In radio, I tend to get albums about a week or 2 in advance of the general public. It's really fun to know that what you're listening to isn't going to reach a wide audience for a little while. This is especially fun when the album kicks serious ass!

Right now I'm completely obsessed with a new album from Abigail Washburn and the Sparrow Quartet that doesn't come out till next week. The easiest way to describe it would be as a cross between bluegrass and Chinese folk music with touches of late 20th century art music thrown in. It's probably not for everyone, but I'm completely in love!

So even if my job drives me crazy at times, at least I get to listen to awesome music before anyone else.

Symphony Hour - A Boy and His Mother

Having a radio show on a Sunday can be kind of fun. Sunday doesn't seem to be a particularly great day for radio audiences, which I have always decided gives me free reign to play whatever the hell I want. I love the freedom to play very experimental classical music and engender a feeling of extreme annoyance amongst the Fort Collins population as a whole.

The other wonderful thing about a Sunday show is that I *always* get to do a Mother's Day show. The past 2 years I have presented a program that features, among other things, a suite taken from the soundtrack to the Alfred Hitchcock film, Psycho. It is, after all, a film that focuses on the relationship between a boy and his mother...

Many feel that this is completely inappropriate, but I'm starting to feel that it just wouldn't be Mother's Day without it. I'll be throwing in a bit of Gorecki's Symphony #3 as well. This should have the effect of darkening the mood even more.

If you're interested, the program runs from 4 to 5 PM (MST) today. You can tune in to KRFC 88.9 fm in Northern Colorado, or stream it online from KRFC's website at: www.krfcfm.org/listen.php

Happy Mother's Day!