Happy birthday Tyty!
51 days ago · from the mouth of AndyOK, so this is almost late… but it’s still your bday. May it be a happy one!
Here’s some happy news: I went to a medieval fair in my old neighborhood way uptown yesterday. We stopped at my old grocery store on the way home, where I had originally discovered buffalo bill’s pumpkin ale. Well, lo and behold, they had 3 types of pumpkin ale I had never before seen! Dogfish Punkin, something by Wolaver’s, and one more that I didn’t have enough hands to carry. So my fridge is super stocked with pumpkin ale now in your honor.
Also, while we’re celebrating, Happy Jewish New Year!
Comment [7]School's out for summer!
145 days ago · from the mouth of AndyYesterday was my last day of school! Yes, they go to the BITTER END of June in New York State, but now I have 2 solid months off. I’ve been thinking about what to do with myself, and here are 10 things I’ve come up with.
1. GO ON A NEW YORK BEER ADVENTURE. This is an easy one, actually. Fairway, my local grocery store, has just added 42 beers to its already impressive collection. AND they keep most of them in their special cold room, which Jim and Sarah have seen. Some that I’m definitely going to look at are new additions by Southern Tier (you may remember them for the Pum-King that made us all foam at the mouth for more) and Dale’s Pale Ale, which was chosen as a favorite in the NY Times article about American Pale Ales last year, despite coming in a can! Plus there are several other beer-themed establishments around the city that I still have to check out. And I could use some company, so if any of you guys want to come down to the city and come on one of these OR suggest an adventure location in CT or elsewhere, just let me know. I’m actually thinking of inviting my friend Bill on this, so we can call it “Bill and Andy’s Excellent Beer Adventure”. Whoa.
2. SEE RADIOHEAD LIVE. Radiohead is playing at the All Points West festival in New Jersey. Tickets are $89 plus $20 for the ferry to get there, and they’re only still available for August 8th, which is a Friday. But there will be several bands there all told, and it’s RADIOHEAD!!! Besides, I’m on summer vacation, so I can do it! Any of you guys interested in taking a day off to join me?
3. WRITE A NEW SONG. My iMac has garage band, and I have some time, so why not add to the Pickled Pollies ouvre? If I do some basic tracks on garage band, you guys can add to it. Right? RIGHT?
4. UPDATE ANDYPEASE.COM. Actually I already did this today, but I still think it needs work. Take a look: any suggestions from you design fiends out there?
5. HANG OUT IN CONNECTICUT. For your sake. The only problem is, gas is expensive, even when your car gets 35 MPG on the highway. But I still intend to make a point of going to CT at least once or twice for a couple days at a time.
6. TAKE A GRADUATE CLASS. I’ve been doing way too many of these, but this will be just one. I swear! Only 4 more to go and I have another masters degree, so if I space it out, one per semester starting this summer, I’m done NEXT summer!
7. GO TO CLEVELAND. I have little choice here – one of Lisa’s friends is getting married, and she’s in the wedding. Damn flying is a lot more expensive than it used to be. On the bright side, the wedding should be fun, and Cleveland has one of the world’s greatest brew pubs: Great Lakes Brewery.
8. PLAY SOME CONCERTS. Obvious, since I have my summer band, Columbia Summer Winds. This year, for the first time, I have three other conductor underlings, so I get to spend almost half my time playing my trumpet, which I’ve missed a lot these last few years. Anyhow, check us out!
9. READ JIM’S DETAILED GOOFYGUYS POSTING ABOUT ASIA. Right, Jimmy? ;-)
10. WHATEVER YOU TELL ME TO DO. What should I do?! Give me a random assignment and I’ll do it. Be creative!
So, wanna see Radiohead? Wanna go on a beer adventure? Wanna hang out sometime? Wanna make me do crazy stuff? Hit me with some comments!
Comment [6]Mac Advice
356 days ago · from the mouth of AndyI’ve finally hit a wall with my PC. It still works, but everything runs so painfully slowly. My productivity is seriously cut just because of all the time I waste waiting for it to work. The last straw has come recently in 2 events – my Sunday afternoon work session (grad school papers and whatnot) nearly ground to a halt thanks to a virus scan that I didn’t ask for. And starting today, I get the little Microsoft update thingy showing up on the task bar. When I click on it, it starts to download something, but then it says something like “this update cannot be installed”. That’s fine. But then it reappears again!! So I’ve basically had it.
I’ve decided to buy a Mac. I may have to wait a couple months to afford it, but I’m definitely doing it soon. I know you guys are all Mac users, so I need your advice on which product to buy. I really only use my computer for internet, music, and office-y things. But I would also like to be able to edit video of concerts and such (from my Mini-DV camcorder) and burn them onto DVD – that’s a requirement for my grad program that I’m now struggling with. Additionally, I have lots of old files in Word and Excel that I’ll still need to get at – do Macs come with any sort of Office, or do I have to buy it separately? And what sort of sound system comes with a Mac? Should I think about investing in something superior?
So, which system would I have to get to fulfill these requirements? Right now I’m leaning towards a basic iMac, but I’m not sure if it fits the bill.
I hate to bug you guys with this stuff, but none of this jumped out as obvious on the Apple website.
Comment [15]Pickled Pollies go digital!
439 days ago · from the mouth of AndyI don’t think I need to say much here. Most of the process is explained in the link. I will say, though, that our very earliest stuff still needs to be transferred over. In the meantime, enjoy 20 tracks of Pickled Pollies brilliance!
The NEW IMPROVED Pickled Pollies sound clip page
Comment [10]Milkweed Dirge
554 days ago · from the mouth of AndyIn this cloud of nostalgia that I seem to have stirred up sits memory of our acquaintances from the Pollies days. I speak specifically of the men that were Milkweed Dirge. I still have their tape as well, featuring me on trumpet! Remember those guys?
Well, long story short, at least one of them has been making a name for himself recently. Tyondai Braxton, their singer and guitarist, is a very interesting solo artist who does crazy experiments with effects – check him out on youtube! He’s also in the band Battles, who apparently fall into the math rock genre. (I know: “math rock?”) But they’re touring Europe now – they must be doing something right! I listened, and I didn’t really like their music at first. But now I can’t get their song Atlas out of my head. It’s some good stuff!
I also, periferally, looked up Jon Zorn, the Milkweed bassist. He has also done interesting musical stuff. The others, I couldn’t find.
Now, the backstory, for the avid readers out there:
I actually first remembered them a couple years ago, when I was reading the print edition of The Onion. The back part isn’t news satire, but ads and serious, underground pop-culture review stuff. Nestled among the ads was the invitation: “to advertise in The Onion contact Tyondai Braxton at” some e-mail address. So I thought, there can only possibly be one Tyondai Braxton, former singer and guitarist of Milkweed Dirge, so I sent him an e-mail, and I was right! He sent me nice reply. And so I let it lie.
Then last summer I went with my buddy James to this concert down at the World Financial Center. Anthony Braxton, avant-garde jazzman and Wesleyan professor, was leading the premiere performance of his piece for 100 tubas. It was amazing!
While there I remembered that he was Tyondai’s father, and I told James that I’d once played in a band with his son.
So James comes back to me last week and says he’s heard about Ty – and didn’t I play in a band with that guy? Oh yeah. And that’s how I finally came to look up all the stuff above.
Intrigued? Follow the links!
Comment [1]Mr. Adams
555 days ago · from the mouth of AndyRemember our beloved music teacher?
He’s found some of his 15 minutes of fame on cnn.com…
...as the spokesman for a nudist colony! They even put his picture up!
So, who’s gonna sign up first? ;-)
PS – Speaking of Mr. Adams, I’m pretty sure today is the anniversary of one of the Battles of the Bands we played in. It’s also, coincidentally, the anniversary of my senior thesis concert at Dartmouth. Don’t ask me how I remember this stuff. Anyhow, Pickled Pollies Rock!
Comment [16]Amsterdam
566 days ago · from the mouth of AndyIt’s now been a month since Lisa and I left for Amsterdam. You all should have gotten your postcards by now. (Apologies to Jimmy and Sarah – I didn’t have your address!) We’ve finally sorted through all of our pictures and caught up with our lives enough that I can post. To start you off, here are a couple of pictures to set the mood:
Above you have Rembrandtplein, one of the big squares with lots of restaurants and cafes. It also includes a park with a gigantic, sculpted reproduction of Rembrandt’s The Night Watch. Notice the Hoegaarden umbrellas – they had it on draft! Below is a typical canal shot. There are views exactly like this all over the city center. There are also bikers like the lady in the shot everywhere – the Dutch, particularly in Amsterdam, are very fond of riding their bikes, and they do it in a very casual way, usually in their street/business clothes. We even saw a lady in a fur coat and high heels riding a bike!
We started out our trip in Amsterdam itself. We arrived in the afternoon on April 4, a Wednesday. We spent that day figuring out how to spend the rest of our days – it was a very short trip, and we were sure we would be pressed for time. We were pleasantly surprised to find that Amsterdam is actually small and dense enough that we could walk to most of the places we wanted to go very easily. So we ended up covering a lot of ground that first day, starting at the Bloemenmarkt, Amsterdam’s big floating flower market, working our way up to Rembrandtplein, then across town to the Pink Floyd coffee shop. Things took a slightly weird turn here – we were jetlagged and didn’t feel like lighting up, so we went with the “pastries” instead. They hit us hard, so we essentially had to call it a night after a VERY bizarre experience at an Indonesian restaurant and paranoia-fraught walk back to the hotel.
That said, though, Amsterdam is renowned for its Indonesian restaurants as well as its cannabis coffeeshops. We unfortunately only made it to one of each. I did quite enjoy, though, the potent aromas that drifted from every last coffeeshop as we walked by. Mmm, mmm, good!
Our second day started the hard-core touristing. We made the obligatory stops at the Anne Frank Huis, the Museum het Rembrandt Huis, and the Red Light District. We also did a canal walk laid out by our guidebook, and all before dinnertime! We capped the evening with a sunset canal tour by boat. Awesome.
Day 3 was Good Friday, and we were due down in ’s-Hertogenbosch for the wedding of my college friend Barbara the next day. We spent our morning hitting the big museums. Our hotel was right near the Museumplein which is a large, open park surrounded by many of Amsterdam’s large cultural institutions. We managed to get to the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh museum in plenty of time to enjoy some waffles with ice cream and check out the Concertgebouw, even though we couldn’t stay for a concert. Finally we boarded our train at Centraal Station bound for ’s-Hertogenbosch:
Also known as Den Bosch, it’s a lovely town with a cobblestoned urban center – right here is the view from the steps of town hall on Saturday, the wedding day, which also happened to be the city’s market day. The ceremony took place inside, but it was probably the smallest portion of the day. Dutch tradition dictates that the groom pick up the bride at her parents’ house in the morning before the ceremony. So all of the guests first came to a small breakfast at the groom’s parents’ house. Then it was off to the ceremony – which was all in Dutch! I understood a word or 2, and people laughed a few times… but it resulted in this:
That’s Barbara (formerly de Kruijf) and Leon de Barbanson. So Barbara is now Barbara de Barbanson. Hehe.
Anyhow, the entire wedding moved on to a museum in town, where we were served snacks and tea while they took more wedding photos. Next came a trip to the town of Houden, where we had high tea. Finally, we arrived at a large (I’m pretty sure the guest list quadrupled for this part) party, akin to a raucous wedding reception, where they played techno and had an open bar well into the wee hours of the morning. It was sweet.
Easter Sunday was our last day, but we really packed it in. We went back through Amsterdam and walked everywhere we could. We took this shot just before settling down on a bench to drink in the feeling of being there:
And now we’re back. My favorite souvenir came from a random stop in a beer store there. I asked the clerk to recommend some good Dutch beer that I wouldn’t be able to get in the states, so I came home with this colorful assortment:
I just finished drinking the last of these last night. So I guess, really, my Amsterdam vacation has only just ended. I have also, of course, used my new beer journal which Lisa gave me for my birthday to record my impressions of all of these.
Congrats if you’ve read this far. Now say something!
Comment [16]Band, Birthday, and Beer
648 days ago · from the mouth of AndyI have 3 things to share with you all. I thought about putting them in different postings, but it occurred to me that then I’d push every other posting off the top 3, and I wouldn’t want to do that to you guys. So, explanations aside, here goes.
FIRST, In a couple weeks I’m taking the Columbia Wind Ensemble on tour to Yale, for a joint concert with the Yale Concert Band. It’s our first collaboration with another major college ensemble, so I’m very excited about it. It would mean a lot to me if you local boys could make it! It’s on Friday, February 23rd at 8pm in Woolsey Hall and will feature all kinds of great music, including one from our CRHS past: Gavorkna Fanfare!
SECOND: I’ll be traveling to CT again the weekend of March 30 to April 1. Since that’s so close to my birthday, as well as Bryan’s and Jim’s and only a month after Jake’s, I thought it would be nice to plan something with you local boys for that Saturday in honor of us getting old. Who’s going to be around? Lisa has suggested that, for her amusement, we try out a drinking game called Edward 40-hands, but I’m game for regular beering as well.
FINALLY, speaking of beer, I’ve discovered a new favorite brand with a great beers and a whole lot of character. Stone Brewing has a whole selection of IPAs that are excellent, but none as good as their basic, which rivals my favorite Dogfish Head brews in its flavor, intensity, and drunk factor. They also produce Arrogant Bastard Ale, the quintessential condescending beer snob brew for the rest of us – just the text on the bottle (think “you’re not worthy” explained in two soul-crushing paragraphs) is enough to make it worth buying. The beer itself is spectacular as well, despite not being an IPA! The 7.2% alcohol content certainly helps with that…
Anyhoo, there’s 3 things that oughta get you talking.
FREE BEER! [8]Another SNL Masterpiece
699 days ago · from the mouth of AndyOn a much more pleasant note, SNL has once again outdone itself with its latest Digital Short. This one features Andy Samberg and Justin Timberlake as boy band hipsters giving their ladies a unique holiday treat. Here is Treat in a Box and the uncensored version
Also check out the New York Times article on the subject.
Comment [1]Bedbugs
699 days ago · from the mouth of AndySo Lisa dnd I found out on Wednesday that we have a bedbug infestation! And what a pain in the ass it is. Not only do we both have bites (her moreso than me), but we essentially have to pack up and sterilize our entire apartment over the next few days. The real kicker is that she’s now in Cleveland, having flown out yesterday as scheduled. So we really did most of the packing & sanitizing Wednesday night until 3am. But it’s left our apartment a mess that I have to live with until I go back to CT, and then some more once I return home. All our clothes are in the kitchen in hermetically sealed plastic bags, and our belongings are gradually moving in that direction as I check them over. Our hope right now is that the bugs haven’t spread past the bedroom, and so far we haven’t found any sign of them anywhere else, so we’re also treating the spare room as a safe-haven for now. Unfortunately we’ll be dealing with this for a while, naturally when we’d both like to be enjoying the holiday.
So, I guess, keep us in your thoughts as we get rid of these pestiferous parasites. And then come visit once we put the place back together!
On a lighter note, see my next post.
Comment [3]