lost in the trees @ cat’s cradle

lost in the trees @ cat’s cradle, originally uploaded by minervacat. I don’t often cover straight-up “music news”, because there are plenty of bloggers out there who do that primarily and much, much better than I ever could, but I figured that I owed it to Ari Picker, the crew at Trekky, and the Lost…

baseball: u of maine @ unc, game three

baseball: u of maine @ unc, game three, originally uploaded by minervacat. Three. (Colin Bates was quietly beastly, Michael Morin is a bread and butter pickle, Brian Goodwin is my favorite freshman since someone broke an aluminum bat hitting a home run in ’07, we had 14 hits but Maine had 15 strike-outs, the Black…

the big picture promo photoshoot

My friend Jonny is a lunatic. A funny, brilliant, good-hearted lunatic with huge ideas, but a lunatic all the same. And he’d agree with me on that assessment, so I don’t feel bad saying it in public. I spent yesterday afternoon perched on a ladder taking promo shots for his new project, the Big Picture….

worth getting up for: february

mandolin orange @ local 506, originally uploaded by minervacat. Worth getting up for in February: Drive-By Truckers two-night stands at the Lincoln; the Lincoln’s light rig, when they use it; Glossary’s Feral Fire, Jason & the Scorchers’ Halcyon Times, the Preservation Hall benefit album and, surprisingly to me, Butch Walker’s I Liked It Better When…

birds & arrows @ local 506

Out last night to catch Birds & Arrows playing the middle set on a three band bill; Andrea was nice enough to put me on the list and the 506 was nice enough to (accidentally, I think) leave two tiny white lights on during the sets, mitigating the red-and-pink of the usual scheme and neutralizing…

jason and the scorchers — halcyon times

the mighty ohio @ aquarius music hall, originally uploaded by minervacat. Jason & the Scorchers — Halcyon Times. Out 2/23, self-released. The genre descriptor “cowpunk” doesn’t get used as much now as it used to, I don’t think, which it is a shame only because it’s a great descriptor for a very specific sound that…

road trip to new orleans

road trip to new orleans, originally uploaded by minervacat. In February 2004 — just about this time exactly, in fact — my BFF from college, Sid, and I drove all the way down I-55 from its start in Chicago to its end near New Orleans, for five days of wandering and photo taking and partying…

lucero @ aquarius music hall, high point

If this had just been a Lucero set in High Point, I’d probably have skipped it — rolled my eyes at their booker and stayed home to drink beer and watch the Olympics. But Lucero and Glossary? Oh, hell, no, I wasn’t missing that. Glossary put out one of the finest albums of 2008 for…