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August 3rd, 2009
Saturday, I again caught a performance of Jamey Turner and his glass harp, and this time I remembered to hit record. Yay. Unlike my previous sighting of him right outside the Torpedo Factory Art Center, this time he was just steps away at the corner of King and Union Streets.
I was kind of surprised that the woman I captured here in the video interrupted him with a question in the midst of his performance. Urgh.
May 23rd, 2009
Last week, while travelling by train and bothered by the surrounding chatter, I turned to my laptop and ended up finding music that I didn’t even know I had. Technically challenged, I have a strange disconnect with my own laptop—many underutilized features there. Desperate for good sounds, I came across Jefferson Airplane’s 2400 Fulton Street: An Anthology. My obssessive self has been listening to it every day since. Most of the songs I know, but haven’t heard in a very long time, and I’d forgotten how good they are. I’m particularly fond of a few of the more haunting tunes such as Today, Pretty as You Feel and Comin’ Back to Me. It just happens that before I left for my trip, W unearthed a handful of my old ticket stubs—tickets from almost every movie theater in the Alexandria area (that you’ll no doubt see in future posts…ahhh, livin’ in the past), as well as a few concert tickets from the old Capital Centre in Largo, Maryland. A Jefferson Starship stub was among them. Mistakenly thinking I had seen Jefferson Airplane, I did a little investigation to see just how the change to Starship came about. It seems that when Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady of the Jefferson Airplane spin-off group, Hot Tuna, showed no interest in coming together again, rhythm guitarist and singer, Paul Kantner, decided to form a band without them and named the altered unit Jefferson Starship. Consisting of the remaining members of Jefferson Airplane, Jefferson Starship started rehearsals in January 1974 and kicked off their first tour in Chicago in March of the same year. By the time I saw them in October, they had just released their album Dragon Fly. Read more on Jefferson Starship here. If you’re interested, have a listen at my playlist—I couldn’t find all my favorites, but found most, though I really wish Pretty as You Feel were among them…
May 8th, 2009
Just one of my peeves that I jotted down while on the train the other day. To be fair, I’m known to yak too loudly every now and then, but, W tactfully quiets me. So from Wednesday… It’s 3:30 p.m. and we’ve just stopped in Staunton, Virginia, a few hours southwest of D.C.—pronounced Stanton by southerners and some others. We’re moving slowly through Virginia farmland and it’s raining out there. And everything is green, really green. Very peaceful. But I’ve had to go under the cover of headphones, cranking up Jefferson Airplane, trying to drown out the constant chatter of the two in front of me. Boarding in Charlottesville, I suspect they’re UVA students. Wah-hoo-wah. Anyway, his voice is too loud and is distracting. I think he’s disturbing others around him, as well, as they’re staring at him, and it’s not interesting stuff. The song, My Best Friend (an excellent song, I have to add…a little reminiscent of The Byrds), is over and the music has stopped, but my headphones are still on and I can still hear him…a sky that turns red scares him… his seat partner speaks more softly but she supplies audible heh-heh’s to almost everything he says. He says he has a fear of heights…she says she doesn’t. Oh no, now I can hear her. The music resumes…Blues From An Airplane. I think Grace and Company can keep me sane until he falls asleep…that is, if he falls asleep. Oh, and she’s a hummer.
March 9th, 2009
Following is a video of Jamey Turner playing his glass harp. If you’ve seen Jamey before then you know about his amazing skill of making beautiful music on water-filled wine glasses. He’s performed across the U.S. (and abroad?) and has been entertaining area residents and tourists for years from various spots around Alexandria’s waterfront. It’s been awhile since I last saw him but he happened to be performing Saturday outside of the Torpedo Factory Arts Center in Old Town Alexandria. I can’t believe that I stood and listened to him with a camera in my hand and didn’t have the mind to record … hellooo … earth to holly … Thankfully I found this video on YouTube. Although some of his other videos are of better quality and are better performances (he has a noticeable flub early on), I love the song, Take Five. According to the video’s owner, Jamey told the crowd that he was still working on the Take Five arrangement. Still, he and his glass harp are amazing.
Nice, huh? So, I did take three photos and yes, he’s wearing almost the same outfit, sitting in almost the same spot.
January 19th, 2009
“Never Gonna Break My Faith,” sung by Aretha Franklin and Mary J. Blige, courtesy of YouTube
November 19th, 2008
In an act of procrastination I’ve been trolling playlist sites for new music to add to, well, my playlists. In such music searches I usually begin by digging up some melody from the back of my head, some song that I know neither the title nor artist or only know one or the other but nonetheless remember liking it and am determined to find it. One such song appeared on the Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young box set. I hadn’t listened to them in awhile, so the song’s name escaped me, but into the second disc I finally discovered it…track 12, “Urge for Going,” David Crosby and Graham Nash. Now onto playlist.com. The search there brought up the original version, written and sung by Joni Mitchell in the 60s—yay!—the link was broken—aaaarh. I moved on and searched lastfm.com that rendered plenty of versions…CSN&Y (the take I was originally looking for), Joni Mitchell, Tom Rush and others but also offered a YouTube video by CitizenWorm. I listened and was pleasantly surprised. She has a beautiful voice and it’s worth a listen.
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