moon traveller herald

The New England Patriots’ season came to end. It had been exciting, and was looking to us like a Super Bowl was in reach. The day after their AFC Championship Game loss to the Indianapolis Colts, we are looking at regular life again, and significantly down-sized Super Bowl parties. The Colts and Peyton Manning were better – enough so to win. They showed a much improved defense, but the game toward the end became a typical Colts-Patriots affair – where the teams trade hectic drives until the clock runs out. In the first half we got touchdowns on such drives, and the Colts got field goals; that was to be somewhat reversed in the second half. Manning was very much on target; although under a fair amount of pressure. Dallas Clark did what Marvin Harris did to the Pats in the regular season game. Stabbed us repeatedly with vaulting catches followed by speedy gallops.. I remember at the time of the regular season game [saw the game from a bar at the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas where a playoff...

click image to enlarge Sunnyland Slim - Mr. Blues Piano - was hard to capture for sure. One thing about him was a movement. I do have one 8mm film [60 sec] of him driving. Otherwise, its pictures in photos and words on tape - a few misc documents. And these particular picks using my old Brownie Reflex ... which sometimes caught a lot of motion. I took a series of pictures once, as he headed to hail a cab and go to Seattle. i think this was 61st St. This handcolored art was used as part of promotion for the 45 "Tired But I Havent Got Started" - which we called "Travelling Man Blues" up to the time Slim put it on vinyl. The words went: "The Greyhound Bus and the Trailways, the airplanes did not let me down." Click on the image and access a slightly-larger [full-size] version on my Flckr pages.

Music grows and is learned in cultures. ‘Music hath power to charm the savage beast,’ is how the saying goes, or, as Ed Sanders, counter-played upon the theme, ‘music hath power to alarm the civilized beast.’ Music also hath its language, its points and counterpoints. These matters are considered in This Is Your Brain on Music, a recent book by Daniel J. Levitin, that fleshes out a lot of concepts about music and how it works upon the brain. The books goes a bit further than just that, considering how the mind processes music. It touches upon a lot of recent research on the brain, and takes a scientific look at this essential art. It’s bias is on display in its full title: This Is Your Brain on Music:The Science of a Human Obsession. I’ve looked at the CDs and vinyl and tapes that line my apartment, and I have seen it as something like an obsession .. but I think ‘obsession’ is a loaded term for a scientific tome. The author might have taken a bit more care in naming the book, as neuro...

Further on down the road Who? Where? JIM HAAS’S HOUSE BASEMENT, AUGUSTA ST, RACINE, WIS.JOHN RUETZ, GUITAR; BOB STEPIEN, BASS, PAUL DEMARK, DRUMS, MIKE BRUSHA, SAX, JIM HAAS, HARP; JACK VAUGHAN, VOCALS. It ain’t been a bad year. Got to be with the buds through the miracle of the Web. Funny thing learned .. memory plays tricks. Who said what when? We have different recollections. I know some of mine are false, but nevertheless, incredibly vivid. I’ve carried around a document of a set list we did one New Years, surely one of the greatest parties. Thanks to Marguerite and Norbert Haas as well as Jim. I’d like to think this document doesn’t lie, and that we can agree that this happened in this order. Shalom all! 1-LITTLE QUEENIE 2-LAST TIME 3-I’M 18 4-HEART OF STONE 5-JUMPIN JACK FLASH 6-HONEY DON’T 7-PACKED FAIR AND SQUARE 8-ALL ALONG THE WATCHTOWER 9-STILL GOT A LONG WAY TO GO  Here's the podcast radio show!  Correction: Note at least two mistakes in audio commentary… 1. Loa...

Motto for year: On the whole, I'd rather be in Philadelphia. Doug's Pool Hall -Poem - 2.2006 Blues Reunion with Jim and Dave in SF -Journal - 2.2006 The Pogues, The Orpheum, Boston, Mar. 15, 2006 -Review - 3.2006 Cuttin’d’News - Judas: God’s Man in Judea? -Essay 4.2006 Hey what about punk music? -Essay 5.2006 Art of Jeff Hull - Review 5.2006 Dr. Shroud - In June and July, a series of .. er Fragments and -Drawings 6.2006 American Primitive Vol. 2, I Got a NuGrape, Soda Pop Art - Review - 6.2006 Ben-Hur Epic: Gordon Thomas goes long Review by Gordon Thomas - 7.2006 Filene and Steffens - Essay - 7.2006 Spysmasher Serial -Poem - 7.2006 One’s 2 many…and a hundered’s not enough Ruetz and Co take NY - Journal - 8.2006 Dylan in Modern Times - Review - 9.2006 Dreamland Sea Bound A group grope - Group Poem Experiment - 10.2006 Long-buried Robert Junior Lockwood interview - Interview/Appreciation/Obituary - 11.2006

I have been fooling around with something called StripGenerator for a while. Some Slovene* cats made it. Right now it is being worked on [a new release - but once it's rev'd you can try it at stripgenerator.com. Let's you create cartoons, up to a point. With the help of Nuno Texiera, I was able to add color to the rudimentary pieces, so that now we are quite competitive with the production quality standards of, say, SouthPark. We are Zorb. See the latest drawing - Microsoft Speechwriters' HQ *Correction

Here’s this years picks that clicked. This year I’m gonna focus on songs rather than albums. Don’t know, may have done that last year too, for that matter. As we’ve said, the industry is moving back to this idea of the single. And it is probably what people want, and what the artists are capable of. I don’t mind paying 99 cents to see if there is a there there, as for example, with JJ Cale and Eric Clapton, or Cat Ibraham Stevens or the Holy Modal Rounders meet Godzilla. But before I babble on too much … here is the List of Jack’s Best 2006. The Levee’s Gonna Break - Bob Dylan, from Modern Times Till I Gain Control Again - Van Morrison, from Pay the Devil That Kind of Fool – Jerry Lee Lewis (duet with Keith Richards), from Last Man Standing Maimed Happiness – The New York Dolls, from One Day it Will Please Us to Remember Even This This Is Us – Mark Knopfler and Emmy Lou Harris Buried Alive in the Blues – Chicago Blues Reunion, from Buried Alive in the Blues But different this yea...