Today! So excite.

silly weekend music

Three words summing up the past three days.
A buddy and I volunteered at CHBP on Friday in order to earn a free Saturday pass. We showed up around 7.30, and after seven or so minutes of training/"shadowing," we spent the next three hours scanning tickets and handing out wristbands. The line stretched all the way around the block, past Molly Moon and quite possibly out to Broadway, until nearly 10.30pm. The crowd was mostly cheerful, save for the occasional scammer and two very drunk people, and I must say the people-watching and eavesdropping were stellar: enough booty shorts and bra tops to populate the rest of 2018's rap videos, and lots of excited young cuties. Pro tip for the guys--stop clenching your hand into a fist while I try to slide on the wrist-band. It's weird and wastes everybody's time.
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Saturday we showed up with our free (sorta) wristbands, feeling zero pressure to get our moneys' worth, but also feeling about two decades too old for most of the bands. Holing up at Cha Cha and the other 21-and-over venues seemed like a good bet, although I did get to check out Parisalexa at Vera. Other highlights: a bluesy kind of artist (Kylie Nelson) at Barboza (her band was toight!) and punk rockers Pink Parts -- I managed to hear about three of their songs and def want to see them again.
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Today I enjoyed this video: Can I Get a Box? Lordy.

block party fresh

Y'all know my conflicted emotions about Capitol Hill Block Party.
CHBP has gotten corporate, expensive (ten bucks for a warm plastic cup of Montejo beer gtfooh) and less about music than marketing. Generally and very specifically irritating. Like so much of Seattle, quelle surprise. So, I've been looking around for other music festivals that feature local bands, especially hiphop, and don't cost triple digits.
Everett's Fisherman's Terminal Festival last month was a pleasant surprise.
Yesterday I checked out Block Party at the Station, on Beacon Hill. Deng, if it wasn't all that and more. One stage, a couple of food trucks, happy looking diverse crowd milling around, friendly vendors, art and music happening everywhere you looked, and free, did I mention free?
I ran into a few musician friends and we all happily took in the beats--Rogue Pinay, Silas Blak, a few cats from Alpha P, plus rhymes from Tulsi, with Able Fader on the DJ deck.
Happy Solstice, everyone.

woo

Halfway through 2014 what? This has been a spectacular summer, a little too hot in stretches but jammed to bursting with good times. Less recap July shall we? Day one, in the 90's, and I met some pals on the back patio of Blue Water Taco for cerveza and burritos before checking out "Rushmore" at SIFF. The a/c conked out during the movie but it didn't matter. Bill Murray's Herman Blume is a work of beauteous ennui. After, drinks with my fella and a good friend at Red Papaya (salt-n-pepper tofu I am coming for you soon). A couple of days later I met up with some girl pals at Cicchetti for a drink. A newcomer threatened to call me Elsie (I warned him the consequences would be dire). After a couple of cocktails, my ladies pedaled home , calling "Bye!" and I took a leisurely stroll home in the golden summer evening.
The Fourth started off with bloody mary's and a pal about to welcome her out-of-town fella into town, for a month. Then a trip to Boom City to stock up on fireworks, and our traditional family blowout at my Sid's--grilled hot dogs and Field Roast's new veggie burgers, my own elotes salad and amazing homemade ice cream sammies, courtesy of Hammy and her mom.
On the 7th, a friend screened her movie at the Harvard Exit and made me miss Tanzania. Afterward, drinks at Bait Shop, our decision finalized by chance encounter with an enthusiastic older lady in a crosswalk. That Friday I worked a half-day, picked up a rental car out on Lake Shitty Way, parked it in my neighborhood, changed shoes and jaunted out to Alki Beach with a pal. It was a blistering hot afternoon so we shaded ourselves near a rock (which happened to house a colony of peaceful bumblebees underneath), shot the shit, and drank my custom beer/lemonade mix. Late afternoon we met up with another pal for a patio drink, then went up to the Junction to check out the festival. Music = lame, crowd = weird, but there was a beer garden and a big bunch of us detoured to West 5 for sustenance and cooler air. Later on, my friend flashed her clown-print, lace-edged bike shorts and a passing driver yelled "girl, you got it."
The next week--still hot!--was all California.
There was a backyard dinner the next week, manhattans and taquitos and lots of laughs and some tears, as my friends were heading to a memorial service that weekend for a dear lady. The next night, rain! and pizza with my seesters and Hammy. And the last weekend in July -- the Capitol Hill Block party. It's a sweaty good time, days and days of sun and music and wandering on the Hill with friends. It's a mini vacation in the middle of summer. The month ended with more dance and music, a new friend's experimental dance performance--duck tape and gender bending--and an old pal's album release party (ps I scored a t-shirt).
July: woo.*
*photo of a utility box in Fremont.

chbp 2014

Another one in the can! Three days of music, sun and friends, dranking beer and smoking and doing tequila shots and dancing and hanging out. HOLYCHILD, Shaprece, The Dip--see you again soon, I hope. A$AP Ferg, Odesza and Chromeo, honorable mention, kids, thanks for a fun weekend.
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Thinking about my sid today, it's a momentous--but not joyous--one.