RIP Bodhi 2001-2011
Posting may slow down here for a few days. My faithful friend of ten years passed away last night and I just don’t feel like writing much. It was all I could do to finish the post before this. Here’s a video from a couple of years ago with my daughter:
We Had a Holiday Party of Sorts
The Saint Nicholas/flaming punch party didn’t happen, but my wife had her Women’s Studies department over for a party tonight. So, there will be no real post for Thursday. In the meantime, consider this beer I had tonight. An old ale on the low ABV side. Nice but not amazing. You won’t find it anywhere outside Missouri.
Hurricane Irene Relief
This is the time of year we all try to give back. We here in Missouri know more about this than most as we pooled together our resources to help the victims of the tornado in Joplin this year. As a community, we are helping that community recover.
Of course, since that tragedy, there have been others. The havoc wreaked on the east coast by Hurricane Irene was pretty devastating in its own right. Thankfully, there are individuals trying to help those communities affected by the hurricane as well.
Kara McGraw is someone I’ve “met” online as she’s worked hard to promote bands at her label to a lowly blogger like myself. I’ve even scored some free music and a spot on a guest list out of it.
Kara is from one of the affected communities in Vermont. She wrote a Christmas song to help raise money for victims of Hurricane Irene in Vermont. Listen & download the song for free here. Donations can be given as it’s one of those “name your price” deals. You get to help out a community in need and receive a nice holiday song in return. Win-win.
There’s more info about the song here and a video below. In the meantime, consider donating what you can this holiday and keep those affected by Hurricane Irene in your thoughts.
On Black Friday
So, Black Friday was the day I couldn’t get a post out. Honestly, I was tired and a bit stuffed. It just wasn’t meant to be. However, I did manage to post two placeholders and today I should be able to publish two posts. Beyond that, I think I can finish out this month. There are no promises for December, though. It might be back to three posts a week, but we’ll see.
Anyway, here are my thoughts on the unofficial holiday of capitalism, Black Friday…
Can someone tell me why it’s okay to camp outside a Walmart so that one can beat down their doors and mob the store, but it’s not okay for Occupy Wall Street folks to do what they do? The crap that went on early yesterday morning makes me rather sick and ashamed to be an American. People make absolute fools of themselves for some cheap junk.
We tend to recognize our Black Friday with an old fashioned Buy Nothing Day. I left the house long enough to grab another holiday tradition from the local video shop, Team America: World Police. And that’s how we do in this house.
However, in case you’re wondering, Building International Coalitions Through Beer and Pavement does have an official stance on Black Friday. It’s cool to shop on Black Friday, but if you do, it’s best to go local. Your local brew pubs and record stores need you. Don’t bother with Walmart or Target. Keep it local this entire holiday season, in fact.
For record stores, check the Record Store Day website. Once a single day in the spring, Record Store Day has become its own movement that can be celebrated year round. I just wish there was an actual record store here where I could celebrate. Maybe the next time I’m in St. Louis or back home in Columbus, I’ll have to do some shopping.
Then, for the beer enthusiast, the Brewers Association is the place to go. I need to get down to our own brew pubs, Broadway and Flat Branch for some holiday cheer here in Middle Missouri. Check the site for the craft brewers where you live.
On Moderation
Moderation is tough. A truer White Whine™ has never been uttered. Moderation gets me every time. When I was young, my struggles with moderation affected my bank account. Now that I’m older, it’s wreaking havoc on my health.
No, don’t worry about me. I am not announcing major health problems or anything. However, if I don’t change some habits, my health will become an issue in the next ten or so years. I weigh 45 more pounds than I did as a senior in high school. Granted, I was pretty skinny, but that’s a lot of weight. I wouldn’t mind losing half of that. 20-25 pounds over my high school weight wouldn’t be so bad.
So, I’ve been on this diet of sorts. No breads, flour, sugar, fruit, etc. At every meal I have beans, meat, and vegetables. I’m supposed to drink a ton of water as well. And, of course, I’ve had to cut way back on beer.
My wife keeps telling me that the diet leaves room for one day a week of decadence, but I can’t only have beer once a week. Instead, what I’ve done is cut back to like one or two during the week and a couple two nights every weekend. So, a little moderation will have to do. It’s worked, in fact, to the tune of eight pounds lost in two weeks. (Plus, I’ve been running fairly consistently.)
The key has been moderation. The key for maintaining whatever weight I finally level off at will also be primarily due to moderation.
Moderation is a tough thing to maintain. It’s easy to over-indulge, especially with things like beer and music. However, if you want to enjoy such indulgences for a long time, you have to take it easy.
With beer, I’ve got to get back to the quality over quantity factor. Of course, my large quantities also featured a decent amount of quality, but that’s not any better for my health. So, the focus has been on enjoying one beer at a time, letting it marinade a bit, and being satisfied with just the one.
With music, it’s just a matter of picking my spots. I can’t go to every show, but I can go to the ones I really want to see or the ones that don’t interfere with family time. I’ve seen a lot of shows over the years and I don’t need to see every one that passes through town. My LP purchases haven’t really slowed down. Although, I haven’t bought an album in a couple of weeks as nothing has really been released lately that piques my interest.
More moderation means enjoying what you have and not always longing for the next big thing. I’ve talked a lot with other beer nerds who hate the constant arms race that is beer purchasing these days. It seems every major release means there will be an inevitable race to the stores. Of course, it doesn’t help that some like to clear the shelves to feed their greed, but I’ll live. There will be other beers. There will be other shows and more records. Moderation is probably the way to go to insure that I still enjoy my hobbies.
Eleanor Friedberger at the Luminary
Those pants.
I won’t attempt to write a review of this show. Too much weird and surreal happened. So, I’ll attempt to just tell you how it all went down Friday night in St. Louis.
My friend Andrew has a college buddy who’s playing bass for Eleanor Friedberger and so he was on the guest list with a +1 (me). The venue was The Luminary, a convent-turned-art space. The basement is a large, open room with a stage that was both wide and shallow in front of a projection screen. To better illustrate the stage’s layout, the drum kit couldn’t sit behind the rest of the band. Rather, it had to be moved to the side.
As Andrew and I waited to meet up with his friend, Matt, we enjoyed a beer. Said beer was a Zwickel from Urban Chestnut, a newer brewery in St. Louis. I have to say that it was a nice beer. I’m not much of a lager drinker, but this beer is smooth, just sweet enough, and features a decent hoppy bitterness I wasn’t expecting. It was nice to have a good beer in a convent-turned-art space, totally unexpected.
Matt introduced us to the rest of the touring band, including Eleanor. No rock star pretensions or snobbery here. Eleanor was a lot of fun to chat with. She and Andrew had several mutual friends and hit it off right away. The entire band was like that, just really friendly and easy-going.
After I let Eleanor try my beer to see if she wanted one of her own, I promptly texted my sister who proceeded to freak out via MMS. She’s a big Fiery Furnaces/Eleanor Friedberg fan and was properly jealous. In fact, I purchased her record based on my sister’s recommendation. My only task as assigned by my little sister was to tell Eleanor that my sister loved her.
In case you weren’t aware, Friday night also happened to be when the seventh game of the World Series was to be played. If you were unaware of this, you also probably didn’t know that St. Louis was hosting said game versus the Texas Rangers. Being the baseball town that St. Louis is, even a joint like the Luminary was showing the game. As you’ll notice below, the game provided some avant-garde, performance art backdrop to the bands playing. We were in no danger of missing game seven despite our indie rock leanings.
Via @EleanorOnly
As a decent local alt.country act played (Pretty Little Empire), Matt asked us if we wanted to hang out in the green room which was actually green. The best part of the room was the high-quality selection of LP’s to keep us busy. Andrew and Matt caught up, I sat and figured this was my chance to relay my sister’s message to Eleanor. She seemed flattered and even offered to add my sister to the guest list for her next show in Ohio. (I watched her enter the name into her phone. So, I assumed she was serious.)
I saw the opportunity to tell Eleanor how much I really like her new record…
[It’s really an oversight on my part that I have yet to write about this record. I purchased Last Summer weeks after its release. So, I didn’t feel the need or opportunity to write-up a proper review. It will surely make my year-end list. I figured I’d say what I was going to say about it at that point. It’s a really great record. Some might even say that it’s more accessible than her Fiery Furnaces material. Either way, this is a fantastic collection of rock songs. The production reminds me a ton of the Destroyer record, but it’s far more tolerable than Dan Bejar’s eighties-inspired Kaputt. Highlights include “My Mistakes”, “Heaven”, and “I Won’t Fall Apart on You Tonight.” You can get an idea an idea by watching the video for “My Mistakes” here.]
That’s when my filter quit working.
Here’s a tip for any of you if you ever get to meet an artist whom you respect and really enjoy their work: Don’t tell them about why it’s so hard to like their music.
After telling Eleanor how much I liked her new record, I proceeded to tell her that it was more accessible than a lot of the Fiery Furnaces stuff. I expanded this thought by telling her how there’s some stuff FF recorded that I can’t stand, but I loved other material. The part about how much I loved some of the music was lost as everyone in the green room gave me a hard time over this social faux pas. I quickly tried to back out by explaining that I played Last Summer for my wife who promptly told me to shut it off. This didn’t help.
For whatever good karma I earned sharing my beer, relaying my sister’s admiration, and complementing Last Summer, it was all lost as I inadvertently insulted the artist I was excited to see perform that night. Ugh.
That was the moment when a kid working for the venue informed the band that it was time for them to set up. Andrew and I had to leave before I could explain my way out of the mess I had just made. At that moment, I hoped my sister’s invite to attend the show in Cleveland was still on. Either way, I had to pull my foot from my mouth so that we could return to the basement for the show.
A decent crowd showed despite the fact that the World Series game was going on at the same time. If I remember correctly, the Cards were up 6-2 at this point and were looking good going into the final few innings. Regardless, we would watch the end as Eleanor and her band mates played.
Like I said, I’m not writing a review, but this is basically what happened for the next hour or so…
The band opened with “My Mistakes” which is incredibly danceable and catchy. A new song was introduced and the night was off without a hitch. Backing Eleanor was a professionally smooth trio on bass, drums, and guitar. Matt played bass next to a drummer in hoody and jacket. I have never seen a drummer stay relatively perspiration-free while wearing so many layers, plus a full head of hair and beard. Still, he could hit some skins. That solid rhythm section was fronted by Eleanor and this kid from Tennessee (whose name I’ve forgotten) on guitars. This “kid” (he’s 21), told me later that he’s normally a drummer, but I would swear that guitar is his first instrument. He played effortlessly, even some of the more difficult parts appeared easy in his capable hands.
Eleanor was in synch with her band, holding the crowd’s attention with every word. She has a presence on stage for sure, something that would have been hard to imagine after hanging out with her prior to the performance, finding her relatively unassuming. Because I’m a lazy blogger, I’d compare her look and presence like that of Patti Smith, but it was even more like a Stephen Malkmus, sans the bratty attitude. She was easily the coolest person in the room. Even her attire suggested she was better than the rest of us despite her approachable demeanor. (I think Andrew said something like “Those pants!”)
Throughout, Eleanor and the band had fun and it encouraged those in the audience to do the same. They checked in on the band between songs. Sometimes they became transfixed with the commercials. At one point, Eleanor decided to sing to the screen only to find an American Idol commercial was playing. She nearly lost it mid-song.
Adding to the fun was the fact that 3-4 new songs were thrown in and none disappointed. If anything, these new songs added to what is potentially great oeuvre. Of course, the songs from Last Summer translated well live. A live show featuring newer material can make or break an album’s staying power for me. Friday night’s show assured me that Last Summer is good art and even better pop. Of course, good songwriting, charisma, and solid musicianship has that effect.
The set progressed as did the baseball game in the background. Eleanor announced the last song during the ninth inning. It was a perfectly timed selection “I Won’t Fall Apart on You Tonight.” Watch…
Yep. That’s how it went down. The band did come back to play [enter song here that escapes my memory] in a rather Ramones-like way – you know, punk rock oldies. The song finished what was a pretty fantastic night of music and baseball.
We said our goodbyes to the band. I sheepishly went over to the merch table to say goodbye to Eleanor. She assured me that my sister would be on the list in Cleveland, demonstrating that she wasn’t sore about my unintentional insults. It was cool for her to offer in the first place, but even cooler to ignore my rudeness and assure me that my sister was still on the list. Nice girl, that Eleanor Friedberger.
Top 5 for October 10, 2011 in pictures
1.
Like 15 years ago, my then-girlfriend and I traded some CD’s for new music at Used Kids in Columbus, OH. One of the records I traded for was a vinyl copy of Orange. We broke up later that year. She took my record. Late last week, a reprinted replacement finally arrived. I think I may have to write more about this.
2.
My second (successful) go at Simcoe-dependency, a single-hopped IPA, is now bottled and should be ready for consumption in ten days. This beer is pretty dry in order to showcase the cattiness of the Simcoe. It also weighs in at 7.1% ABV, higher than anticipated.
3.
New Albanian Brewing Company is one brewery I have yet to try, but they make the most bad-ass brewing t-shirt ever! I wore it for a Sunday collaborative brew session. Several folks all added ingredients to one beer, an imperial brown something or other. I contributed molasses and brown sugar just to be redundant.
4. 
I went to one of those fancy prohibition-style drink places with my wife before a show. Their beer list was lame, so I ordered a gingery Tiki drink. This took me back to a place I used to frequent in college and drink Miserable Bastards until I was the miserable bastard. This story relates to item #1.
5. 
This is a shitty image of Beirut last night in St. Louis. They were good and all the band nerds in the audience gizzed themselves over the sousaphone solos.
Posted with my iPhone. RIP Steve Jobs.
Benefits of Living in a Small-ish Town
OK. So, Columbia, Missouri is not the smallest of towns. There are ~100,000 people here and a major university. However, we are a two-hour drive to any major city. We’re surrounded by farmland here. Columbia is far from metropolitan.
What this means for the beer/indie nerd is that we are often shorted our desired consumables. There’s no record store. There’s no 40+tap beer bar. Many bands pass over our town in search of larger crowds (or an unwillingness to make three stops in Missouri). And many special release beers never make it to our store shelves. One can feel pretty isolated in such a town.
We often turn inward, but even that has its limitations. Music scenes ebb and flow as kids graduate and move on before a new batch arrives. We’re relegated to the same two local breweries once we’ve consumed whatever’s left on the shelves. Small towns just can’t maintain a certain level of entertainment and consumables to keep the average gentleman dabbler properly occupied.
That said, there are benefits from time to time. These benefits or advantages don’t come around often, but when they do, it can be pretty satisfying. Of course, what I’m talking about mostly pertains to beer and indie rock as other small town benefits (decent schools, nice place to raise a family, everyone knows your name, etc.) are arguably not that great or not exactly for what one is looking. The biggest advantage to living in a small town is that when someone or something comes to town, there’s a much greater chance that one will be able to take part in the festivities than if the same thing happens in a larger city.
Click for source.
Take concerts and rock shows for example. I attended a Built to Spill show a few years back, something I had grown accustomed to over the years, especially in a town the size of Columbia. If and when a band came to town, I could secure a ticket or two with little difficulty. That evening, I was chatting with friends who had previously lived in NYC. For them to see a band like Built to Spill would have taken an extreme amount of luck and $10-20 more per ticket. If a band comes to Columbia, I will be able to get a ticket or at least through the door with ease. Sometimes, there might not be that many of us in the room. It’s a definite perk.
Interestingly, this phenomena also applies to most small-to-medium-sized cities. It worked well in Columbus, OH most of the time with a few shows that sold out before I could get through to the operator or the Ticketmaster desk at Krogers. However, cities like St. Louis and Kansas City are even easier to gain access to marquee shows. Take tonight for instance. I’m heading out to Kansas City for the Wild Flag gig, something I would have difficulty doing in a larger city. The band has a ton of buzz and is touring like mad, but I suspect a ticket in NYC or Chicago is hard to come by at the moment.
With beer, it’s all about the special releases. Like the bands who may or may not stop through town, we have to hope that distributors can find it in their hearts to allow us a case or two of the good stuff. Some beer we will never see, but some makes its way onto our shelves. Yesterday, for example, while some were getting shut-out, stores here in Columbia were quietly placing Founders Canadian Breakfast Stout on their shelves. Actually, in the case of the store around the corner from me, I was able to get a manager to go to the back and retrieve me a single bottle of the liquid gold. I figured that I was lucky enough to get one bottle and would leave the rest for others. It really was that easy to get my hands on a bottle of what is turning out to be a super-rare beer. There was no mad rush, no lines, no crashing computers.
I will complain a lot about the seclusion of living in this town, but I don’t ignore the benefits. When a band comes to town I wan to see, it happens. When a rare beer hits our shelves, I’ll more than likely get my hands on one. The lack of competition means that gentleman dabbling can continue despite other deficiencies in availability.
Clubs
Blogger’s note: This was a post I started a couple of days ago and didn’t have time to finish until right before bed. No links. No footnotes. Take for what it is. The true magic happens in the comments.
I moved to Middle Missouri just over six years ago. We arrived with no friends (other than the two of us), forcing us to start over. At first, we only hung out with co-workers. This was fine, but many of these co-workers (certainly not all), did not share the same interests we had/have. This was cool at first, but eventually, we needed relationships outside of the workplace.
My partner has coped in her way. I helped establish and joined some clubs. There have actually been several organizations I’ve joined in one way or another, but a few are on my agenda at all times.
The Columbia Beer Enthusiasts started up about three years ago in an attempt to improve the craft beer scene here in Columbia. I attended the first tow meetings of the CBE when all we really did was meet at a restaurant with loads of beer which we proceeded to consume. The group has evolved as the scene has done the same. Now, I’m an officer with said club.
The COMO Record Swap happened recently. It was a way for a bunch of us vinyl lovers to get together and swap some records without having a proper record store in town. It’s turned into a nice little community. I’ve even improved my record collection through both subtraction and addition.
The Brew Day Facebook group was an off-shoot of the CBE. Friends set up their all-grain brewing system every Sunday morning and we worship the gods of malt and hops. I’ve made it a couple of times, but this past weekend I participated by brewing my own Simcoe-dependency IPA and I’m hungry for more.
Part of me wants to create a club of partners who have followed their significant others to this god-forsaken place to realize their tenured dreams of glory. However, it doesn’t have to be that organized. I’ll just drink beer with those dudes.
A group I want to establish in the future is one that will plan and establish a Columbia community festival, much like the one I used to enjoy in Columbus, OH. Columbus’ Commfest was a weekend of bands and beer as a large park was shut off in order to allow huge amounts of people to walk barefoot in the grass with mugs of beer as many favorite local bands played. I see a lot of possibility for the same thing here.
So, why all the clubs and organizations? What do clubs say about us?
Upon moving here, I felt a need for community. I waited for it to happen, but often it didn’t. Instead, I’ve had to either start something or join in and be a part of something bigger than myself. Some of that community happens online, but it isn’t as fulfilling as what happens face-to-face. Sure, most of it is meaningless, but it makes the daily grind worth it and erases some worry.
That’s partially how I see this blog. That’s why I created a Facebook page. I want to chat with people who feel the same way I do about beer and music. This is what makes life interesting. These are the details we remember.
This post had a point when I started and I thought there was more to the narrative. However, it’s a simple dedication to the ideas of community and the purpose of clubs to make that happen.
As usual, leave comments and let me know what you think.
Beer and Pavement 
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