·:[ notetoself.us Blog ]:·
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Here’s a brief comment about some of the other bands Alex, Chris, Craig, and I saw in Austin last month. Not as many links, but all songs are still posted at SXSW.com

Again, no particular order to the list.

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Check out this new, double stuffed podcast.

It features the Portishead song ’Wandering Star’ and the Sonic Youth song ‘Kool Thing’ performed by a couple of folks talked about in the first SXSW posting (Kid Beyond and Tub Ring).

Dig it hard.

Some or all of you (depending on who’s reading today) may know that my wonderful sweetie pie orchestrated a trip for me to my beloved South By Southwest Music Festival. This was the 8th time I’ve been down, and this year I went with Alex, Chris, and Chris’ homey Craig.

This is the first of 2 posts (thought it better to break them up), the bands in this one are my definitive favourites of the 30 that we saw.

This one is pretty link heavy, but there are a lot of good tunes and stuff to check out.

Onward and upward.

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Kurt Vonnegut died yesterday at the age of 84. He had apparently sustained a brain injury during a recent fall and that makes me sad.

And so it goes.

My homey Alex introduced me to Vonnegut via Cat’s Cradle and he’s been an influence on me since then. I’m particularly a fan of his short stories and keep a copy of Welcome To The Monkeyhouse in my glovebox in case I need it (and I usually do at least once a week). He’s made me laugh and made me think pretty critically about myself, my chunk of the world, and the world at large.

We had the pleasure of hearing him speak in April 1998 at Wash U’s Field House. I remember enjoying the gig even though I can’t recall what he talked about. He ended the engagement in the most clever way I’ve seen.

His talk led up to a point where he asked everyone to shake hands and introduce themselves to everyone around them. Not just next to you, but the folks in front of and behind. Everyone enthusiastically started making new friends.

Vonnegut used this activity to quietly walk off stage. In spite of Zeusian levels of applause, he apparently kept right on walking.

Brilliant.

A few things for your brain:

• Listen to him reading this clip from Breakfast Of Champions
• Refer to this older post of mine with a segment of Slaughterhouse 5.
• Read this fantastic essay called Cold Turkey

And so it goes.

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The Last Sentence Of Bokonon

I had a few songs left over from Monday nights Note To Self and recorded this short one at the same time. The songs are along the same vein.

I’d comment more, but I just saw that Mallrats is on Starz only to be followed by Dazed & Confused. If Mike and Don were here it’d be just like old times.
Who am I kidding?  Every last one of you was subjected to that mini marathon during the 90′s.  Now I have a sudden craving for Steak N Shake.

Hot diggity dang! 

I got 1 podcast completed last night and a couple more partially done.  I was on a roll and have to say it was very satisfying.  I just finished listening to this one and am pretty pleased with it.  All the music is really mellow with songs from Spin Doctors, Joss Stone, Patrice Pike and others.  It’s a long one, about 45 minutes.

I hope you enjoy Note To Self #15.

My busy season at work came to a decisive close this past Friday. To tell you what that means would require an explanation of exactly what I do for a living, which perhaps I’ll provide that sometime*, but suffice to say my workload is dramatically decreasing for the foreseeable future. Not to say I won’t have any deadlines until busy season starts again, but they aren’t similar to the carpal tunnel inducing nightmares of the past 4 months or so.

*It involves firearms, a boat full of smack, bacon, and a hound named Bosco.