Game of Thrones - Battle of the Bastards

Holy cow, it's taken me quite a while to catch my breath after this episode.  My first thought is how the battle scenes in S06E09 could possibly the most thrilling sequences I've ever seen in a piece of visual entertainment in any medium.  Not just one either, but Drogon swooping in, landing on the arch, then dropping down inches away from Dany, then laying waste to the master's ships...just totally unreal.  Does Dany have a telepathic link with the dragons?  How else do they know what she needs and wants them to do? 

I'm trying to think of things I've seen before similar to the epic Battle for Winterfell and I'm coming up with things like 300, Excalibur, and the Battle of Helms Deep, and none quite compare.  this scene feels unlike anything I've seen before.  Everything was so visceral and felt real, I'm sure due to how almost the entire sequence was shown and felt from Jon Snow's perspective.  The image of Jon getting borne out, (or perhaps shitted out) after almost being suffocated and trampled under the sea of dead and dying warriors is burned into my brain, even though that particular sequence did drag down the proceeding for a little too long.

The Knights of the Vale riding in at the perfect moment to save the day (or well, possibly twenty minutes earlier might have helped more) was equally thrilling, but it does beg the question to me, why was Sansa keeping the potential of adding an entire army to her brother's strength a secret from Jon?  If she really wanted him to wait to shore up his strength it would probably have influenced him if she mentioned the fact that Littlefinger could be on his way.  My friend pointed out that the little omission lent significantly to the dramatic rescue coming seemingly out of nowhere, but my feeling is that the dramatic finish comes at the expense of Sansa's character, because again why would she withhold this crucial bit of information?  But really, anyway, GO SANSA.  Her last words with Ramsay before he lost face in the most literal sense were a fantastic topper to her character arc.  it was her first real clear win after years of suffering and torture at the hand of evil  villains using her for their own plots, schemes, and twisted machinations.  Very nice to see.

Can't wait for the finale.  

Strangers Stopping Strangers...

I miss writing. I recently finished up grad school, don't ask me why I went back to school almost twenty five years after graduating college.  All I can say was it seemed like a good idea at the time.  It was a good if expensive experience, and one of the best things it accomplished was "dusting off the rusty strings" in my brain that have kept me from doing any kind of writing over the past few years. Exploring this blog again after so long, I found a stats page which somehow seems to indicate that almost twelve THOUSAND people have perused these pages and read my writing.  That blew my tiny little mind, and I only hope a fraction of those page views were actually people reading and enjoying my impressions of the shows I have seen, tapes I have enjoyed, and opinions I have expressed about some of my favorite music in the world.  Who knows, maybe every once in a while I'll keep on posting some random bullshit here and perhaps those page views might keep on climbing.  If one of you randomly drops by, take a minute or two and post something in the comments below.  I'd love to hear from you!

Neil Young & Crazy Horse 11/29/12

The pictures above were taken by ME at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia PA.  I'd waited all day in front of the line to secure my spot on the rail, and boy did it pay off in one of the top concert experiences of my lifetime.  Here's a link to a you tube video someone took of sixteen minutes during the song "Fuckin' Up":  https://youtu.be/nMRnsbvO1Ys

Me and the Man

Guess which one is me? 

This is a screen grab from View From the Vault I, live at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh PA, July ?? 1990.  There's a funny story about my trip to that show that I can tell.

It was the Summer after my junior year at PSU, three friends and I travelled down to Louisville Kentucky for the Grateful Dead show there with plans to head back north to Pittsburgh for the next show and then ending up back at Penn State afterwards. 

Well, what we didn't know was that this was the tour that ended any type of camping out in the parking lots after the shows.  And the Louisville event staff were particularly bad ass at that show, with rumors of close to 100 deadheads crammed into the holding cells under the stadium waiting for arrest for various infractions.  Well we were mercifully spared any problems inside the concert, but we didn't know that about three hours after the venue closed, the local cops completely cleared out the lots with megaphones, with the general message of "You don't have to go home but you can't stay here," and threatening to arrest anyone that remained any longer.  Now remember this was pretty unheard of at the time and certainly unexpected by us. 

We were exhausted, more than a little fucked up, and generally not ready for the road.  So we made it as far away as we could, pulled over someplace we hoped was out of the way enough, and crashed for a couple hours to regenerate.

to be continued...

Warlocks Brand - Finest Quality!

I was gifted this box for being a groomsman at my great friend Kevin's wedding, last October 9th.  Such a wonderful present, especially poigniant for me since I was actually at this show and have such wonderful memories of the experience (see my earlier post for more details).  Since, like most Deadheads, I've long had wonderful sounding soundboard copies of these shows, I only just recently tranferred the files to my iPod in order to give it a listen.  WOW did it bring back memories.  I don't know what magic they weaved, but these two shows, along with my recent listening party with some of the new Eourope 72 tour that was recently released, sound so freaking good it has really made me change my opinion on the official releases.  I've been listening to Archive.org soundboards and audience recordings for so long I've forgotten how great an official release can sound.  Due to the fact that I know these shows backwards and forwards from listening so many times, I can really hear the difference in these new remasters.  Charlie Miller may be the greatest at what he does, but GDP sure knows how to release a show.

Attics Encore, 10-9-89 (You Tube)

What a beautiful song, such an amazing experience it was seeing this live...one of the highlights of my life. Thanks so much to the uploader, I hope you enjoy as much as I did.

Sunset over Lake Champlaign

I took this picture on vacation in South Hero, Vermont, last week.  My wife rented a lovely home on the lake for the whole family, and this shot was taken from the deck in back of the house.  The age of the iPhone is so terrific, having the ability to whip out a camera at a moments notice to capture these fantastic images is a rare gift.  I have been reading the most recent addition to George R. R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series, so this image brings to mind a giant golden crown slowly sinking behind the edge of the world.

SPAM!!!

Well I just spent the better part of a half hour eliminating the plethora of spam messages left in the comments of my posts while I was gone, at least until Google implemented that "real person detector" you have to fill out now before you post. Hopefully that's the last time I have to do that. I am actually feeling fairly energized about posting here again, and I hope some folks stop by and join the conversation. I dunno if I'll be posting as many reviews of old tapes as I originally planned, but I will definitely be covering some of my favorite recordings for sure, both live and in the studio, and I will be posting my impressions of the live music I see over the next few months. Coming up first, most likely, will be a review of the Bob Dylan concert happening a week from Wednesday at the Mann Music Center in Philadelphia PA. Then right after that I'll be publishing a post describing my experiences at the Philadelphia Folk Festival, happening on August 18-20. More about that in a bit, so stay tuned!

Golly Gee been a while boys and girls

Just got surprised by a Google response to my request to search for "Grateful Dead 9/20/1970" and found my old blog entry from 2006 at the top of the list! Brought back some memories and made me feel so guilty for abandoning you all for so long without a word of explanation. What can I say, except that John Lennon said it best when he wrote "life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." My one baby girl that I had when we all last spoke is not a baby no more, going into second grade next month. My family has expanded to include two boys, currently ages two and four, and they are a handful let me tell you. Not much else has changed, a new job, a new house, still listening to alot of old music.

I truly hope the old friends I made while updating this blog are still out there somewhere, and doing well. Ben, Helen, Justin, Jonathan...I'd love to hear from you sometime if you happen to happen on by. And who knows, maybe, someday baby, I'll come back and update this blog with some new reviews!

Until that happens, Happy Jerry Week 2011 everyone!