Astronomy Domine

Whew...lots to get to tonight.

First- greatest name for a band I've heard this weekend: Butch Wax and the Hollywoods. More on them in a bit.

Jump back to Friday. I went with Tom to see Effervesence. I mean Emminessence. No, wait. Evenesence. I think that's it. Anyways, I went to see that band at the Um.B.Pav. They were also playing with, in no particular order; Seether, Breaking Benjamin, and Three Days Grace. I'd like to tell you a lot about the night, but I can barely recall anything about any of the bands. Seether covered a Pearl Jam song and Ev. covered a Smashing Pumpkins song. Other than that....

Wait. All four bands had 2 (2) guitarists. Usually not a bad thing, but in this case, totally pointless, as both guitarists, 98% of the time, were playing the same thing. So why bother? And to top it off, none of it was really all that good. There were some cool riffs, and a handful of decent solos, but overall, the show was unremarkable. The band members of Ev. had zero interaction with each other. The bass player moved once.

Maybe I've set my standards too high or something. After a steady diet of CM, 'Tones, U2, Pearl Jam, and the like, it could be that I've come to expect a lot of my live acts, and none of those bands lived up to them.

Or they sucked.

No, they didn't suck. Simple Plan sucks. These guys......they just need to expand their horizons a bit.

That said, I had a good time with Tom, which is always a plus, and easily made up for the ho-humness of the music.

I went with Streudel to visit mum and Mike last night. We ate at a really snazzy Italian place in New Haven called Aldo's. Pizza was superb, and the town, which was right on the Missouri River, was a wonderful little place. That's counting the place that advertised "Gun's, Knife's" and something else which escapes me. We saw a "big ass rock" dedicated to the grandfather of streakers, whose name also escapes me. It was pretty weird. Once it got dark, we trucked up road a little ways and pulled off in a park-y kinda area so I could do some fine astrophotography.

Absolutely amazing conditions last night. Clear and cool, and, even better, a number of leftovers from Thursday's Perseid meteor shower. Best of all, I actually got to see the Milky Way. I've not seen it in person before, and it's an amazing spectacle. I picked up the prints today, and even though Walgreen's didn't print them too well, I could see the incredible amount of detail I picked up. I have pictures of the Milky Way that I took. Myself. It's So. Freaking. Cool.

I look up at the stars, and I know a lot of people might feel insignificant, or tiny, or something like that. When I look up, I'm totally taken aback at the sheer coolness of it all, and I feel honored to be able to take it all in.

--End nerd section--

Tonight I went to St. Ferdinand for a Journal shoot of the above cool band. Very nice time. The band had infinitely more presence and overall coolness then anyone I saw Friday night. And all they were doing were old R&B covers. Hmm. Maybe the source material had something to do with it. But they were still cool.

And by R&B, I mean Aretha Franklin, et al. Back when there was real rhythm and real blues in the music. The stuff holds up really well over time, as all good music does.

I'm gonna go watch the Cardinals now.

"Reaching for the stars and I got my head in the clouds."
Dave