I’m getting this quick post off as I head to work in the morning, moving through a fog bank that is blanketing South San Francisco. What I’m listening to is gladly nothing like my surroundings: it’s a remix of Delorean’s Grow by Taragana Pyjarama (what a cool name!).
It’s smooth, warm, and feels like summer never wants to end. As for me, I just want our summer to really start!
Delorean – Grow Taragana Pyjarama remix by Mushroom Pillow
Enjoy.
Heading up north for some white water rafting in the North Fork of the American River, then camping in Yosemite. Should be back Monday.
Have a great holiday weekend everyone!
Here are two remixes of Lord Huron I’ve been listening to quite a bit recently. The first of Into the Sun, done by Teen Daze. It’s an electronic treatment of the original’s tropical, laid back, sunny mood, and I especially like the way the remix not only gives the song a great sense of focus, but it also lifts a particular lyric to greater prominence: listen near the end for “You’re as soft as a feather…you’re as gorgeous as ever” and when the tsst-tsst-tsst of the high hat kicks in. Love that.
Lord Huron – Into the Sun (Teen Daze Remix)
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The second is of Mighty, the great song I’ve written about before. Here, Painted Palms’ interpretation is heavy on the synth, but still retains the tribal sound of the original. I like how how the aaaahhhh backing vocal washes over the melody.
Lord Huron – Mighty (Painted Palms’ Remix)
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The 100th anniversary of the infamous Bay to Breakers footrace took place last Sunday in San Francisco, and this year I took part in it. For the uninitiated, Bay to Breakers is an annual race held in San Francisco in which runners go across the City from east to west, from the ‘bay’ to the ‘breakers’ of the Pacific Ocean. The scale is epic — upwards of 60,000 people participate in this race. But this event is much more than running — it’s actually a 4 mile long block party! Behind the hardcore runners is a parade of tens of thousands of people who dress up in wacky costumes, jamming to music, house parties rocking all along the race course up until Golden Gate Park, and of course alcohol. The San Francisco spirit :)
This year Sam organized a big group of people for a Scrabble theme. We all wore cardboard letters and formed words as we walked along — often in response to the costumes we saw or by request from fellow paraders. Paul went wildcard and came as a ? mark. It was great — he’d go up to all the random costumes he saw and take a picture with a puzzled look on his face. And, he kept accessorizing his costume as the day went along from other costumes people had.
What friends are for:
The house parties all along the race route are pretty epic.
The weather forecasters were predicting rain, but instead it was beautiful.
The goal was to make it to Sam’s house along the Panhandle of Golden Gate Park. This is usually when the parade starts to thin out too — most people are too um, gone to make it to the ocean. We ran into Nevin too, romping around with a giant gnome flag and with a huge group of fellow gnomes.
Sam got the grill out, the cornhole boards, and we spent the next few hours kickin’ it in the park.
A really great day.
This is another hat tip to Paste Magazine, their recent “Best of What’s Next” really meshed with me. The artist is a five-piece called Seryn, from Texas. They are multi-instrumentalists and you’ll hear guitars, banjos, ukelele, viola, and accordions throughout their album, This is Where We Are.
The songs lean towards the long side, with the band showing patience and exploring shifts in key and temp in their songs — which makes sticking with songs the whole way through well worth it. Harmonized vocals, soft guitar and banjo pickings, and orchestral flourishes make this album a treat to listen to. If you’re a fan of Sufjan Stevens, Fleet Foxes, and Mumford & Sons, then I highly highly recommend you give this young new band a try! Here are two songs to sample:
Seryn – We Will All Be Changed
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Seryn – Our Love
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Bay Area folks – Seryn will be playing a show at the Hotel Utah Saloon on Sunday, June 19th. Tickets are just ~$8, so why not? I’m going. There’s also a Berkeley show at the Starry Plough on Saturday, June 11th. Might go to that too.
Yo dawg, I herd you liked peanut butter & chocolate…
I present for your consideration, a peanut butter cookie coated with chocolate with a Reese’s peanut butter cup inside :)
Last weekend I headed back east to celebrate my sister Sachi’s graduation from nursing school at the University of Charleston, in West Virginia. Sapana and I were on the same flight from Chicago, and we ended up killing nearly five hours at Chicago O’Hare. Our intended flight was oversold by two, and when the offered travel vouchers for volunteers to take a later flight reached $300, we bit (we cleared it with Mom, first). So we ended up making it out of O’Hare $600 richer, and still was able to have dinner with Sachi and our parents in Charleston.
On Saturday they had the nursing school commencement and the Lamp Lighting ceremony, a special tradition in homage to Florence Nightingale, the “Lady with the Lamp”. It was great to meet Sachi’s classmates and her professors, whom she has gotten quite close to over the past two years. A few weeks back, she received a special award given to the outstanding nursing student of the whole class, and it was clear how much everyone liked her.
That evening we had dinner in downtown Charleston at Pies & Pints, a classy pizza place. We waited for our table at the lovely independent bookstore next door, where to my delight there was a live music show. A couple in their fifties played an assortment of acoustic guitars, mandolins, banjos, slide guitar, etc. with original songs.
On Sunday the overall graduation ceremony took place. Alas, the lovely weather we had on Saturday didn’t hold up so the ceremony was moved indoors. The commencement speaker was Dr. Charles Vest, a West Virginia native who served as President of MIT from 1990 to 2004. He actually met the woman who would become his wife while spending a summer in Charleston as an intern. It was a nice ceremony, and the weather cleared up afterward enough for everyone to stream out onto the lawn by the river alongside the campus, with the golden dome of the capitol building in the background.
Later that night, as we were getting ready for bed early (Sapana and I were to fly out at 6am the next morning), I got a text from Mike telling me I better turn on the TV. The news: President Obama to announce that Osama bin Laden had been killed in a US special operations raid. Whoa. We stayed up Obama’s address, and ended up getting little sleep. But after a weekend of spending time with the family and Sachi’s graduation, it was well worth it.
An opportunity came up for this past Monday night that was too good to pass up. Patrick, our super intern extraordinaire from NC State, tells us that his (2nd) cousin Peter is the drummer for the band Here We Go Magic, and they were coming to San Francisco and he got backstage passes. Heck yeah! Sean, Joey, Patrick, and I headed up to the Rickshaw Stop, met up with Peter, and ended up hanging out at a bar in Hayes Valley for almost two hours.
It was awesome. We talked about how he got involved with the band, what touring is like — how do you keep things fresh after dozens or hundreds of shows? — and fun moments that happen when you’re in a real bona-fide band. Here We Go Magic was Thom Yorke’s (of Radiohead) favorite band from last year’s Glastonbury Festival, and Peter described having a jam session one night in New York with Yorke himself. Like whoa. Peter is really well read — the conversation drifted deep into music theory, accessibility of music, the feel of music in different cultures and how people connect to it in a very fundamental way, etc.
The show was nice. I was going on just 3 hours of sleep from my flight back to the Bay Area that morning, but I enjoyed it. Many of the songs live get into a nice groove, and there is definitely a jam feel to them, especially near the end. Their music is often described as ‘electro-folk’, with some psychedelia mixed in a few songs. Whatever that means, heh. The band came back on for an encore, and Peter even gave us a shoutout: “Thanks to my cousin Patrick and his friends!” So cool of him!
Check out this song from their latest album, Pigeons.
Here We Go Magic – Collector
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By the way — Here We Go Magic is playing at Schubas on May 9th for you Chicago peeps, and at the Local 506 on May 17th for you Triangle peeps.
San Francisco. A city with hills, steep roads, crooked streets. One day someone thought, “wouldn’t it be fun to ride a big wheel (tricycle) down one of these?” Yes, yes it would. And being San Francisco, you have to have wacky costumes. And lots of friends. And hold it on Easter Sunday. And thus: Bring Your Own Big Wheel 2011!
The 11th annual race was held last Saturday in the Potrero neighborhood. They used to do it on the famous Lombard St., until the neighborhood complained. They’ve found a good home in Potrero. This year, some colleagues of mine were getting a group together for it, and they had an awesome group costume idea — Tetris blocks! They made the blocks the day before, each of them taking a different piece. Chrissy, of course, picks the one hardest to make. Haha.
The results were spectacular.
I headed over to the venue after having lunch at Catherine’s place, where I showed her how to use Final Cut Pro, and I arrived just as they finished their first run. They looked awesome. I heard a lot of people say they were most impressed with the Tetris blocks.
photo by Bhautik Joshi
Everyone was having a blast. I grabbed the green square and did a run myself — I looked ridiculous with my long legs, but it was fun. There people lined up all along the course and tons of cameras were clicking away. Paul snagged one of me, for proof that I actually did it :)
Here’s a shot Chrissy’s friend Gurpreet shot of Elmo!
photo by Gurpreet
The next picture is San Francisco. Older professorial guy with a Herringbone blazer over a snug black tee and jeans? Check. 20-something dude in a hot pink tracksuit with bunny ears right next to him? Check.
What a cool event, and something I can appreciate too. It all started by a guy (Jon Brumit) who wanted to do something fun, and just made it happen. No entry fees, no corporate sponsorships, just someone who wanted to have a good time and invite a bunch of people to join in.
After the race we headed down to the Mission for a snack at Philz (another well-known SF coffee house), and as we’re sitting outside the cafe in the early evening sun, Jason from work walks by us. Jason doesn’t live anywhere near the Mission, and didn’t even know about BYOBW. So it’s quite something that we just happened to cross paths. And I randomly saw James at BYOBW, Sean’s friend that I recently met. Just a few more ways that this place doesn’t seem so big anymore.
After my now-routine long run through Golden Gate Park on Saturday morning, I headed down to the South Bay. My intention was to do some shopping to prep for the wedding I’m attending next week, but that ended up not happening. Chrissy was going to a shooting range in the foothills behind Cupertino to shoot trap, and she let me tag along. I’d always been curious about it, and have never shot a real firearm in my life before. As I learned from Chrissy (and later Jordan too), there are different ways one can shoot at clay pigeons. ‘Shooting trap’ is where the clays originate from the same location (a small shed in front of you) and go in different directions away from you. ‘Shooting skeet’ consists of a high tower and a low tower on opposite ends of your field of view, and the clays can come from either of them or both and move across your view. ‘Shooting clays’ has you moving to different stations, where there is a lot of variety in how and where the clays fly.
Chrissy has a 12 gauge semi-automatic shotgun (doesn’t have a name yet!), which for trap she shoots one round at a time. There were five stations set in an arc, with the clay launcher shed in front. The first person will yell “pull!” and fire at a clay. Then the second person, then the third until everyone has fired a round. You get five rounds per station, before rotating to the next. That way the angles are a bit different. Chrissy went first, then me. Since I was a total newbie, Chrissy stood by me for the first round, giving me some tips. I hit 12 clays out of a possible 25. She shot again, and in my second round I did worse, hit 11. But, I’ve been told by experts (i.e., Jordan and Chrissy) that it is quite respectable for having never shot a gun before. So maybe there is hope for me in the zombie apocalypse.
I swung by Paul’s house to help out a bit in preparing for the following day’s festivities (more on that later), then headed up towards Oakland for Brock and Heather’s housewarming party. Yes — the one and only Brock Winstead. My Google Reader community knows what I mean, hehe. They moved into their very own house in Emeryville (border of Oakland and Berkeley), and like me moving to Noe Valley they also have friends in the neighborhood.
The house was just lovely — with respect to decorating they have done ten times more in 1 month than I have done in 1 year. It looked like they’d been living there for years. So tastefully done! Heather baked some terrific bread (the no-knead recipe!), served with dippables like a white bean puree and chive butter. An eye opening pro-tip that I’ve been allowed to steal: sliced oranges slightly dusted with cinnamon. Like whoa. Seriously do it. Brock was mixing drinks for people, and there was merry all around.
Some familiar faces were there — Tim and John — but it was fun to talk to many of Brock and Heather’s classmates and colleagues from their time in grad school at Berkeley (where they studied city planning) and the nonprofit world.
And, in homage to our heavily interwebs centric relationship, I give you a picture of a cat.
Last Friday I was treated to an amazing experience, courtesy of Lost in the Trees, the indie/folk/baroque band from Chapel Hill, NC that released their first full album last year and received lots of blog love from NPR Music. They were playing a show at the Hemlock Tavern, a small venue behind a bar on Polk St. This was the band that Dustin discovered at a concert last year, and it quickly grew esteem amongst some of our friends. This time around, we brought numbers: Dustin, Sean, Joey, Christophe, Chris, Patrick, Rishabh, Chrissy, and me.
We ended up splitting up for dinner after work on Friday; Chrissy and I grabbed a burrito in the Mission before heading north to Polk St. We had about half an hour to kill before the show, and just as we got our drinks I ran into Ari Picker, the lead singer and artist behind the band. Wished him luck for the show, told him how we brought a whole lot of folks, and that I was from Raleigh.
The show’s opener was a singer-songwriter named Sean Rowe. His songs were quite good — nice percussive notes on the body of the guitar, and some songs in particular showed great guitar work. His voice reminded me a lot of Tom Berninger from The National, but Joey said it also reminded him of the Pixies.
Lost in the Trees played a set that drew from their album All Alone in an Empty House and their recent EP, Time Taunts Me. Somehow, they all fit on the small stage — guitar, drums, two cellists, a violinists, a french horn / accordion player, and an electric guitar / tuba / xylophone player. The venue is quite intimate, maybe only 80 to 100 people in a long, narrow room.
One thing that will strike you about their music is how much emotion there is. Many songs deal with sorrow, yearning, longing, and loss. Ari wears this emotion on his sleeve, at one point resting on knees with his eyes closed while the strings carried the melody forward.
The highlight of the night came at the end. The band was battling sound troubles throughout the set — monitor levels not high enough, reverb through the mics, etc. After hinting at it during the show, for the encore Ari stepped off the stage and headed to the center of the small room. The rest of the band followed, and we all made space for them and their instruments. There, in the darkness save for the backlight from a few phones, we were treated to an acoustic set right amongst us. It was amazing.
I could only muster this photo from my phone, but it was really dark in there. The guy in front me held up the xylophone for one song. They called Sean Rowe to join them for one of Sean’s songs that the band had been learning (never before played in public). And at the end, Ari led the crowd to do the backing vocals, telling us that we’re going to overpower the noise from the bar.
I was really pleased to hear that Chrissy, Rishabh, Patrick, and Chris all really enjoyed the show too, even though they hadn’t heard much (or none at all) of the band beforehand. It’s an interesting mix…folk, Americana, indie, with a heavy dose of baroque classical influence. We hung around afterward, and the band members came out to meet the crowd. Almost all of us ended up buying merch, and Ari signed out limited edition tour posters. This is what I love about seeing small, up and coming bands in venues like this.
Definitely looking forward to their next album and their next visit to San Francisco. Triangle folks — Lost in the Trees will be playing at Cat’s Cradle in Carrboro on Friday, May 13th!
This is happening. I’ve been running more and more lately as a way of getting into better shape, and so far I’ve been able to do a ~5 mile run at about a 9:15min/mi pace. When I spoke to my friend Win about running — he really got into it after graduating from undergrad — he said I should sign up for a race and use that as a motivator. So here I am, kicking around an idea for an ambitious goal when Mary mentions the Big Sur Half Marathon, which takes place on November 20th. Whoa. That sounds just crazy enough to be doable. And what a venue!
credit bigsurhalfmarathon.org
So this is happening. And what’s ever better is that my close friends Win and Greg are gonna come out west to join me for it. They said they’d do it too if I signed up, and peer pressure is a powerful thing. Mary and Matt too! :)
So mark your calendars and lace up your shoes. It’s on!
Last weekend gave us Bay Area residents some nice weather up in the City, and we made the most of it. On Saturday, Nishu invited me to come along to a rooftop barbecue of some friends of hers, Christine and Lloyd. Christine was an intern with Nishu at Apple and is also fulltime there now, and Lloyd was been engaged in some terrific social enterprise work, especially down in Argentina where he lived for five years. And throwing a proper barbecue is something one learns how to do quite well after living in Argentina for five years.
The apartment, right on the border of Noe Valley and the Mission, was bright and airy, and the rooftop deck lent panoramic views of the entire City. And there was a hottub!
A really intriguing crowd — several Stanford MBA students who graduated in 2009 as well, a handful of other Apple folks, nonprofit and education policy people. It was nice to exercise a different part of my brain!
I learned from Lloyd an interesting new trick for the grill — cut a bellpepper in half so it makes a little cup, roast it on low heat for a bit to get it going, then crack an egg in it. The egg will poach right there as the pepper roasts. I’d rub the pepper in some flavored oil, then add some herbs and cheese (shredded gruyere perhaps?) to the egg before serving.
On Sunday morning, Patrick and I went for a run through Golden Gate Park, this time adding to the distance by running all the way to the ocean and then up the whole west edge of the park before cutting back in towards the middle. We did a solid 4.5mi run. This, of course, was to earn our treat for the rest of the day — a leisurely barbecuing, grilling, and brewing beer at Sean, Joey, Dino, and Christophe’s house (that’s a mouthful to say, so it’ll be ’4404x24th’ hereafter. hrm, that isn’t any better).
Sean’s table arrived a couple of days earlier, a long custom one made of reclaimed lumber with steel supports. The nicest part was that he got benches instead of chairs, so it’s cozy and very welcoming for large groups. Their apartment is filling out — got some living room furniture, deck furniture, and of course the grill.
Sean was brewing a kolsch style beer this afternoon; his friend James — who has been brewing his own beer for a long time — brought over a large pot for the boil. The two of them and Kyle (worked with Sean as an intern in iPod new tech, at Apple currently too) minded the various brewing steps throughout the afternoon.
At the end of the day, they had ready to cellar for a few weeks; the gravity was a bit high for a kolsch apparently but all signs so far are pointing to a stellar brew. I was enjoying one of their home brews, which was a Belgian-style dubbel (?), not really show. The beercap had a pitchfork on it. Sean and Joey also had a really nice imperial extra stout too.
There was plenty of food, all homemade. Dino had fajitas going, Patrick and I brought a greek salad, Christophe with fresh asparagus and French-style mayonnaise and mustard dipping sauce, Kyle and Krista with authentic Texas-style queso con carne, Chad with a great guacamole and sweet potato fries, Rishabh with paneer tikka skewers, Gregg with eastern Carolina style slaw, James with bacon mac ‘n’ cheese. I’m probably forgetting a few people too.
And of course, lots and lots of meat.
At the end Chrissy unveiled her homemade, unbelievably delicious, fruit/cake bars topped with sliced almonds.
More photos here. A huge tip of the hat to Sean, Christophe, Dino, and Joey for hosting such a great event. A slow-paced, relaxing afternoon with plenty of great food, great beer, great people, and great conversations. Can’t ask for much more than that.