It's been awhile since I've done one of the Ohio Spotlight entries.  I attempted to draw a logo for it using my tablet and the drawing pen that came with it.  As you can see clearly here, this is not a skill set that I possess.

You know something that I can do? I can identify when a band is funky.  You know who's funky?  Lakeside.

Lakeside is from right here in Dayton, Ohio.  They were one of several well-known funk bands from The Gem City around forty years ago.  I've only listened to three of their albums - Shot of Love, Rough Riders, and Fantastic Voyage - but I'll surely catch up with the rest of them. These songs make you want to, as they say, get on up and jam.  The groove is infectious, which is, of course, a characteristic of funk bands.

Here's their most well-known song:

Yeah, this still holds up.  This specific song, along with many other Lakeside songs, have been often sampled by hip hop and rap artists over the last thirty years.  It's good music, and since I'm currently taking inspiration for bass lines from their songs, this music is timeless.

There are several "first" experiences in my life that happened on the beautiful island of Sri Lanka.  Most of these things are educational and positive experiences. It was the first place that I saw the sun set over the Indian Ocean. It was the first place I toured a tea plantation.  It was my first time feeding and riding an elephant.  (That last one scared me out of my mind.)  I had my first delicious encounter with Singapore Chili Crab, a dish that is popular where you might expect based on its name, but the crabs are imported from Sri Lanka.  I tried kankun for the first time. I saw a water monitor crossing the road. I smelled a cinnamon plant that was right next to the street, as common as any deciduous tree would be here. Several foods that were unfamiliar to me at the time found their way onto my personal list of favorite things to eat; barramundi, sprats, pol sambol, hoppers, string hoppers, lamprais... everything but sweets, essentially.  Arrack was also a nice discovery for me. I learned the Sinhalese greeting "ayubowan".

There were also, however, some "first" experiences that were not quite as happy or pleasant.  Colombo was the first city I have visited where the army was deployed to the streets around the city.  I had my first experiences with military checkpoints. It was my first time being completely and utterly lost in a country where I could not speak the language. 

The sum of my experiences - both positive and negative - are the backdrop for the song "A Morning Like Yours".  Before I get into the details of the song, I'd like to share some photos based on the memories I mention above.

That right there is a Sri Lankan lagoon crab as the featured star of the Singapore Chili Crab dish.

Here's a typical Sri Lankan breakfast for me: Egg hopper, red string hoppers, coconut sambol, another sambol that tasted like burning, mutton curry.

This will likely never happen again.  I am not a small human being, right?  I look downright tiny on top of this kind and gentle and somewhat elderly elephant. Yeah, interacting with creatures that are larger than me, it's not my thing.

Oh, hello there Galle Face Green and World Trade Center.

The first time I set foot in Colombo was 2010. Unlike well-known traveler Anthony Bourdain, I didn't visit during the war.  In fact, while I was there the first time, the Sri Lankan government was planning a parade and a celebration to commemorate the one year anniversary of the war ending... there were roads blocked off, warships gathering off the West coast of the island, and the occasional tank... and then it poured rain for a couple of days, and the celebration didn't happen.  (A Google search tells me that the parade was held the following month.) The war was over, but the army was still in the streets. That was a somewhat frightening experience for me, as I had never been in a place with active military members on patrol. When I would walk around the neighborhood, I would see the soldiers - all of whom looked impossibly young - and hope that I wasn't going to give any of them reason to point those large weapons they carried in my general direction.

As I continued to visit over the years, the military presence diminished.  The checkpoints went away.  I felt safe, which is, of course, a mirage, as there isn't really any such thing as a place that is "safe".  

I stayed in four different hotels across my visits to Sri Lanka: Cinnamon Grand, Cinnamon Lakeside, and The Kingsbury in Columbo, and Mount Lavinia Hotel in Mount Lavinia.  These are all luxury hotels with varying degrees of opulence in the region, but due to exchange rates and the world economy, the cost per night is about the same as your average Marriott here in my home state of Ohio. No, it's definitely not fair, and it's one of those things I would try not to think too deeply about when I visited.  I was there to work, and it was rather nice that accommodations with that level of comfort were an acceptable price for my company to pay.  I would have breakfast in a hotel restaurant specifically open for that purpose every day, then head off to work...  after breakfast on the weekends, I might stroll around the neighborhood, go out on a touristy-type visit, spend time in the hotel gym, play tennis with the designated hotel staff member for that, walk around an air-conditioned mall... you know, that sort of thing.

I reference those normal activities with the lyrics of the opening verse to  "A Morning Like Yours".

Take my coffee by the window
Looking at your ocean 
Text my wife a little hello 
Put the day in motion 
Get a smile from the hopper station with my dal and sambol 
Just a morning like yours 
Just a morning like yours

The time zone difference between Sri Lanka and the United States is such that my mornings corresponded to late evening over here. Sometimes Misty was awake, sometimes she was not... at any rate, my mornings were never the time for conversation outside of a brief text or two.  The lyric about the hopper station... well, I certainly don't know how to make egg hoppers, so the hotels would all have a staff member assigned to handle that during breakfast. These people were at work, so maybe they weren't really feeling cheerful, but they always smiled and said "good morning" when I would ask them to please cook me an egg hopper.

Take a walk around Colombo
Looking at your ocean 
Heavy traffic from the get-go 
Bustle and commotion 
Get a smile from the hopper station with my dal and sambol 
Just a morning like yours 
Just a morning like yours

Colombo is a densely populated city with common large city afflictions.  There are a lot of cars.  There are traffic jams.  There are people everywhere.  That said, from three of the four hotels I have had the pleasure to stay in whilst on the island, the ocean is a short stroll away. Depending on which side of the building your room is located, you can even see the ocean from the windows at The Kingsbury and Mount Lavinia Hotel.  Here in Ohio, I don't have an ocean to look at, so this was a nice treat for me.

A terrible thing happened on April 21, 2019.

Be honest.  Do you even remember this happening?  I'm not sure if it is the case in your particular city, state, or country, dear reader, but where I live, most people tend to be poorly informed of world events, of different cultures, and even of horrible evil like the bomb attacks on 21st April 2019.  I would like to think that this is something that would make me angry and sad no matter where it happened, however, I am certainly more deeply emotionally affected by this event because I've spent time in Colombo. There are folks who I was proud to call colleagues in Sri Lanka. I've had rewarding conversations with regular every day people in Sri Lanka. These are people who had to deal with a lengthy civil war in the not-too-distant past, and after that ended, surely it felt as if things were headed in a positive direction... and then this.  There isn't any such thing as a place that is "safe".

Two of the locations that were bombed are restaurants where I would sit for breakfast every day... the one at The Kingsbury on the third floor (I do not remember what it is called), and Taprobane at Cinnamon Grand, down on the lower level. On this particular Sunday, these restaurants were filled with regular people going about their lives; families on vacation, business travelers who were on multi-week trips, local folks who felt like having a special breakfast.  These restaurants, of course, were also filled with hard-working employees and fellow citizens of the people who carried out the attacks. Lives ended or permanently changed by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. On another day, that could have been me. These thoughts inspired the last part of the song.

Take your tea by the same window 
Looking at your ocean 
Just an ordinary Sunday 
Until the explosion 
Get a smile from the hopper station when the shrapnel hit you 
Just a morning like mine 
Just a morning like mine 
Wrong place and wrong time 
Just a morning like mine

I don't think this song is good enough to take to a recording studio.  Maybe I'll change my mind about that someday, but right now, that's where it stands.  That said, it accurately sums up how I feel, which is kind of the point of songwriting.  As a wise man once said, "time and chance happen to all".

If you'd like to hear the song, my home demo is attached to this blog entry.

I left my corporate job earlier this month.  I had been employed at the same place for 17 years, which is a not-insignificant portion of my life.  In the culture here, it is difficult to not be defined by what you do, rather than who you are... and that is true of how others see us as well as how we might see ourselves.  For the first few days after leaving employment, I struggled a bit to determine what exactly I am supposed to do with myself now.

I've written about my struggles with anxiety and depression before. It's not like I'm hiding it, and it's an ongoing fight, and the corporate job was not contributing to my healing, so I figured that the best choice for my health at the moment was to step away.  There is some irony that health is a concern here, since not being employed by a corporation means I am losing my health insurance.  (For my friends who do not live in the United States, one's health care in this country is often tied to one's employment.)  

There was some fantastic life experiences over those 17 years.  Quite a bit of travel was involved for awhile, and my job took me to Mexico, El Salvador, England a few times, India many times, Sri Lanka many times, China, Hong Kong, and Sweden. How horizon-broadening it was to experience so many different cities, cultures, and cuisines!  I was able to interact with colleagues from all over the United States and from all over the world. Long after the memories of the stress and the bitter times fade, I'll keep pleasant memories of lovely people. I thought I might share just a couple of those here.

That's me with the team I was sent to train on my first ever trip to Sri Lanka.  It's a beautiful island, with lovely beaches (if that's your thing), urban hustle and bustle (if that's your thing), dense jungle (if that's your thing), and great food.

Here are some of the folks who were in El Salvador while I was there.  

This is what a day of training would look like in Bangalore.

Ok, onward.  What's next?  Is that what you're wondering?

Well, that's what I'm wondering as well.  For the moment, I'm going to keep taking my medication and try to find a therapist with whom I am comfortable.  It might be some time before I'm ready to get back into corporate work.  

I'm still writing songs.  As I've written before, songwriting is cathartic for me. I also have a few recording projects in various stages of completion.  If you'd like to support me, my online store is here, I have a page over on Ko-Fi (even though I don't exactly know how it works yet), and of course, my music is on whatever tool you use to stream music.  

You know I love music.  For some reason that I fail to understand, there exists a subset of artistic people - whether musical or otherwise - that have some kind of strange aversion to sport in general, and really love to make their disdain known. Fear not, I'm not one of those people whose interests are so limited. I enjoy all sorts of different stuff, and some of that stuff, well, that includes many forms of sport.  I happen to especially love baseball. I've written here about baseball before.  No, really, I have.  Last year, I ranked my favorite ballparks.  (Click here to read.) I love going to games.  I love watching games on television.  I love reading about baseball.  I love playing fantasy baseball.  It's fair to say that I have a deeper emotional connection to baseball than any other sport.  Why is that?

Part of that surely goes back to childhood.  I remember swinging plastic bats at plastic balls thrown by my grandfather and my father.  Playing catch with one's father is somewhat of a male American cliché, but it's cliché because it's true... I played catch with my dad for countless hours over many years. Baseball is a place where being left-handed is an advantage.

Consider this quote from the well-known 1989 motion picture Field of Dreams, said by a character played by James Earl Jones:

The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. 

America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It's been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time.

Now, I am completely uninterested in nostalgia as a tool of patriotism, and there is no part of me that yearns for past times when people who looked like me were publicly executed with impunity.  Wait, that still happens, let me rephrase... there is no part of me that yeans for a past when the greatest baseball player of all time was not allowed to play in Major League Baseball. That said, despite how much the game has changed, the basic tenets remain.  To quote another baseball film, "It's a simple game... You throw the ball, catch the ball, hit the ball.  Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains."  I find that simplicity to be beautiful.

Despite the big picture simplicity, if you look closely, baseball has a certain level of complexity and is filled with infinite possibilities.  For example, there are nine (9!) ways that a batter can safely reach base.  Not all of them involve actually hitting the ball.  There are deep cat/mouse games between batters and pitchers. There are well-coordinated movements by the defenders for who backs up which base (I love watching catchers running down to back up first in their gear), for who the cut off man will be on a given play, whether a throw should even be cut in the first place, who covers second on a steal attempt, and the intricate dance of a run down play.

I don't quite remember what year it was when my parents decided to get cable, but I absolutely remember that TBS was one of the channels that we had.  The gentleman who owned that television channel also owned a baseball team, and did plenty of cross promotion with these holdings.  This meant that just about every evening, there was a baseball game on TV, and it was always the same team.  I watched a lot of games.  I became a supporter of this team.  The broadcasters who I listened to night after night - Skip Caray, Ernie Johnson, Pete Van Wieren, Don Sutton - they became my friends.  My favorite players were Murphy and Horner, Rafael Ramirez and Oberkfell and Hubbard... then Blauser and Andrés Thomas and Zane Smith... then Smoltz and Glavine and Avery and Gant and Justice and Pendleton. (As someone once said, at the end of the day, we support laundry.)  I watched so many games, that as an elementary school kid, I memorized the disclaimer that would be read on the air each game.  These days, I don't quite remember whether they would read it in the 3rd inning or the 4th inning, but I still remember every single word.  

This telecast is authorized under broadcasting rights granted by the Atlanta National League Baseball Club and is intended solely for the entertainment of our audience. Any rebroadcast, retransmission, or other use of the pictures, descriptions, or accounts of this game without the express written consent of the Atlanta National League Baseball Club is prohibited.

The Atlanta National League Baseball Club won the World Series this week, on Tuesday 2nd November. They are champions.  CHAMPIONS. The last time this happened was my senior year of high school.  This made me happy, albeit briefly.  I don't really do happy... but I freely admit that I am deeply emotionally connected to the Atlanta National League Baseball Club.  When I was young, they were horrid. They lost 106 games in 1988.  They very nearly lost 100 games again in 1989.  I watched the games anyway.  They unexpectedly won the pennant in 1991, going from last place to first place in a year, and lost a very exciting World Series in 7 Games to the Twins.  (I still haven't forgiven Hrbek.)  They were pretty good throughout all of the 90s, but only managed to win that one championship.  That is a championship I will never forget, in part because their opposition was a team from Ohio, but I think I'll remember this one for longer.

Of course, part of that is recency bias. Part of it is how this team managed to win.  Their best player blew out his knee halfway through the season.  One of their other major contributors turned out to be a terrible human being and domestic abuser, and was away from the team for that reason. There were several other injuries.  Of all the teams that made the playoffs in baseball this year, Atlanta was near-unanimously declared to be the worst of them.  Strange things can happen in small sample sizes, however, and baseball is decidedly odd that way.  Of course, you can never really know how all of these professionals are as people, but this group of players comes across as eminently likeable, and they never quit.  I kind of like how the article I link to in the previous paragraph puts it:

Atlanta completed a mathematically improbable journey to Tuesday’s champagne bath. The NL East champs didn’t have a winning record until Aug. 6, and they had the lowest win total of any team to reach MLB’s postseason this year, including the Wild Card clubs. The Braves are just the eighth sub-90-win team to win a World Series in a non-shortened season.

Improbable.  But the improbable happens fairly often in baseball, in ever-changing ways.  That's probably another reason I love baseball so much.

It appeared on social media, seemingly out of nowhere, this guerilla style deliciousness, this purveyor of flavor with punk rock ethos, this underground Detroit style pizzeria.  Specifically, "Underground Detroit Style Pizzeria" is how they describe themselves on their Facebook page. I, for one, happen to love Detroit-style pizza, and since I don't spend a great deal of time in Detroit, I am in favor of finding someone who will make it somewhat closer to home.  The challenge is, well, you can't really find these folks.  They are somewhere out there, out of reach, and the only way to corral them is to get on their waiting list.  I did so as soon as I could, which was back in July 2021.

Finally, the last week of October, my turn came up.  The waiting list is clearly quite long, which means that business is good for these folks.  I received a message via Facebook Messenger, asking me to select the pizzas of my choice, and then to select from a limited amount of available pick-up times.  What happens if you cannot make any of the selected pickup times?  Well, your name goes back to the top of the queue, and the Pig Slice Pizza folks make a social media post saying that they have an opening, and it can be claimed immediately by the first person to message them. Thankfully, Misty and I were able to be available for one of the pick-up times.  We obtained two delicious pizzas.

This is the first one.

Here's the Pig Slice Pizza description for what you see above: 

The Original PigSlice Pepperoni Pizza. 

Detroit Style with house made sauce, mozzarella and provolone cheeses, topped with pepperoni and a hot honey drizzle and finished with parmesan and basil ribbons. 

You're gonna want this one every time.

My thoughts?  Well, this was delicious.  I love this style of pizza for the crunchy crust, the crispy bits of melted/charred cheese around the edges, and the doughy depth of the crust once you get past the crunch.  The sausage on top (pepperoni is a kind of sausage of course) also got some crispiness to the edges, which was nice. Also, a good way to get me to really like a food presentation visually is to chiffonade some basil.  The only objection I have here is the honey.  I don't need my pizza to be sweet, thank you.  When my turn comes up again in the queue in what will surely be several months from now, I'll either ask them to not add the honey to this one, or I'll make another selection.

Here is a picture of the other pizza.

Here's the accompanying Pig Slice Pizza description:

THE cheese pizza. 

House made sauce, mozzarella, romano and parmesan cheeses topped with seasoned ricotta, basil and thyme. 

Cheese on cheese on cheese on cheese.

This was also delicious, and hey look, there's more basil, and again with the chiffonade. This one is simple, but there's nothing wrong with simple if you execute it well.  The ricotta gave this a creamy mouth feel. I might have selected a different combination of cheeses, but there isn't anything wrong with this pie. I would certainly eat it again.

The folks at Pig Slice Pizza seem to be content being an underground establishment for now.  Really, I shouldn't even call them a "restaurant", as you can't show up and sit down and be fed.  When you are contacted for your selections, you are given a pickup time as I mention above... on the actual day of pickup, you get another message with the location where you make the pickup.  You arrive, message them that you have arrived, and someone brings you pizza.  It works, they don't have to deal with the overhead of having a permanent non-residential location, and their dance card is full, so I don't know that they really have any motivation to change their business model.

If you live in the greater Dayton area, go ahead and find these folks online and sign up for their wait list.  It's delicious pizza.

In March 2020, just after finishing up Anxious Inventions & Fictions, I was able to schedule a visit to Juliet Fromholt's Kaleidoscope show on WYSO. Then, the pandemic lockdown happened.  Juliet was kind enough to have a conversation with me about the album to put on the air.  It would have been SO much cooler to head over there in person and play some songs, though.  Well, last week, on 13th October 2021, we finally made that happen.

The room where live music happens over at WYSO is larger than I thought it would be.  Here's Juliet, MD at WYSO, getting the gear set up for us to play.  Over in the corner, that's Allan Ware, who played guitar with me.

Here's where I stood.  My amp is over at the far side of the picture.

Here are the kind folks who played with me.

You might recognize Kyleen Downes from last week's blog entry. She played guitar and sang harmonies.  Right there next to me is Ray Owens, who normally plays drums for Sadbox, and he kindly provided the percussion.

I am thankful to Allan, Kyleen, and Ray for being my band for the evening.  This involved taking the time to learn my songs, rehearse them, and come play with me on the radio.  I am thankful to Juliet for inviting me to play, and for her continued support of the independent artists in our area.  

Kyleen Downes is a true professional. She plays, she writes, she sings, she teaches... and radiates joy when making music.  Every time I go see Kyleen play a show, I end up less grumpy when the show is over than I was before it started.  The community of musicians in the greater Dayton area is better for having her be a part it. 

This is her official music page. I have everything here on compact disc, and I assure you, it's all good.  Why not get yourself a copy of her latest album, Come On Sit Down, on vinyl or CD?

How about we get to know Kyleen a little better?  After the photo, I amplify her voice.

Photo by Jennifer Taylor

1.  Let's hear the elevator pitch for your skill set and genre. 

The best one I’ve come up with is my music sounds like if Tom Petty and Sheryl Crow were raised on TRL. 

2.  You have a Bachelor's degree in Music.  For musicians who are not formally educated in music, but wish to improve, what's a simple piece of advice you could give? 

While I was getting my degree I was inundated with so much information, I was discouraged that I wasn’t retaining what I was learning. But as the years have gone by, many concepts have clicked. So my advice would be, don’t feel like you need to know it all, incorporate what you do know (value it!) and more will come as you go. 

3.  What was the first album you can remember buying with your own money? 

I made two album purchases that day with my own money: The Men In Black soundtrack and Weird Al Yankovic Bad Hair Day.

4.  Tell me about the last concert you saw. 

I saw Cat Power, Garbage and Alanis Morissette at Riverbend in September. A friend invited me and had 3rd row seats, I’ve never been that close before! Cat Power’s performance was gorgeous and humble. Then Garbage performed and they damn near killed me with the bass, but it was awesome. Shirley Manson now has a place on my badass women list. Halfway through one of her songs she called someone out in the audience and said “Hey Kelly” then proceeded to finish the song. Afterwards, she proclaimed how amazing the universe is that in a sea of people she saw their server from the night before, Kelly. She then told the audience that Kelly was in a band called Flying Underground and that she checked them out on the Instagram and said their stuff was great! SO fun! Finally Alanis Morissette came out with her stellar band and washed us all in her unbelievable voice and energy. The concert was incredibly uplifting and an experience that I got to have with two of my closest friends. 

5.  When did you start playing guitar?  Why did you choose guitar as your instrument? 

I started playing guitar when I was 12 years old after my parents gave me one for Christmas. I wish I knew why I chose guitar because it has become such a huge part of my life. As a kid I did love singing musical and Disney songs, and I also played clarinet, but I really don’t know why I chose guitar. I asked my mom once why they got me a guitar for Christmas and she said, “I guess you must have asked for it.” Makes sense Mom, haha! 

6.  You're a solo artist, even though you write full band compositions.  I can relate.  When you finish a song and are thinking about heading to the studio with it, how do you approach making choices for arrangement and instrumentation? 

The songs I take to the band, I work out structure and instruments parts with them. The songs I’ve worked out on my own will often take shape in the studio. I may have an idea of trying something on a particular instrument but won’t know until I try it. I now have an interface and some GarageBand skills to try out more arranging beforehand, I’m excited to see how it works out! 

7. Can you name three influences on your songwriting and sound, along with some details on how you incorporate those influences? 

I’m influenced by whoever I am listening to or perhaps learning to play on guitar. I developed one song on guitar when I was pretending to be Jimi Hendrix in my basement. It sounds nothing like Jimi Hendrix but who does!? It was more how he moves his fingers on the neck that I was trying to imitate. That song I co-wrote with Emma Woodruff for her album Longing for Something I Ain’t Got and it’s called "Yellow Springs Thing". 

A song of mine, not yet released, called "Tell Me What I Want to Hear" was influenced by Prince. I was hearing something in my head that sounded sexy and staccato, so I developed the song with his aesthetic in mind. 

A local influence came out when I was writing my song "Big Top" and that’s the duo Biscuits and Gravy. The acoustic punch of Harold Hensley and the sassiness of Cassandra Barker really drove the tone of that song. 

8.  So... when do we get more new music from Kyleen Downes? 

2022! No specific details but I’ve got new songs written and will be recording soon. They each have very distinct voices so I plan to release them as singles throughout the year.

***

The video for "Give Up the Ghost" is great, and you should watch it.  I've already linked to the official home of Kyleen Downes on the Internet, but here's her website again.  You can find her music there, as well as on all of your normal streaming services.  You can also find Kyleen on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

I am absolutely thrilled that Kyleen is willing to play with me THIS WEEK, when I play live on WYSO.  Again, she is a true professional.  Rehearsals have been solid, and I warmly invite you all to tune in on WYSO dot org Wednesday 13th October at 8 PM Eastern, and you'll hear Kyleen's fine guitar work and harmony vocals.

Have you watched the music video for "Wapakoneta" yet?

If not, well, this is it:

Do you see that black shirt with the red roses that I am wearing in the video?  I am giving that away.  I have worn it exactly once.  It has been laundered, and is hanging in my closet, waiting to meet someone new.

If you would like the shirt off my back, all you have to do is join my mailing list.  You can do that by clicking here, or by heading to the home page of this website and scrolling down.  To enter, just add your email address, your first name, and your last name.  That's it.  Simple, right?

I will do a drawing in two weeks from all of the eligible entries, and I'll send the shirt to the winner in the mail.  You'll also get a present right away, just for signing up.

Yes, I realize it has been a few months since my last blog.   Part of that is general life business.  Part of that is struggling with being in a dark place that I've written about before.  Let's agree to call it a brief hiatus, and I'll make an effort to get back to regular updates.

Hey, here's some news!  You might be aware that I released a new single on 20th July.  Well, I decided to shoot a music video for it.  Now, this is not a skill set that I have.  How did I go about making a music video in nearly complete DIY fashion?

First, I looked for information.  I found every Internet source that I could find about "how to make a music video".  I consulted fellow musicians who had experience in producing and releasing their own videos.  I took the information I learned and set about preparing in advance how best to execute the project. 

One of the things I learned is that before you decide to shoot a video, you need to decide WHERE to shoot the video.  For a song called "Wapakoneta" that specifically mentions Auglaize County in the lyrics, I figured that as much of the video as possible should be filmed in that city and that county.  Here are some photos from location scouting:

I'd really like to have draped by bass over Neil Armstrong there and taken a photo, but I think that might have landed us in some trouble with the local authorities.

My wife and I had different ideas about how to go about doing the video, so in the spirit of cooperation and compromise, we co-directed.  We plotted all of the scenes in advance on a shot sheet, and matched each of them up to specific segments of the song.  On the days where Misty was the director, I stayed out of the decision-making process.  On one of those days, I didn't even attend the shoot.  On the days where I was the director, well, I tried to keep her out of the decision making process.  A dear friend of ours (shout out to Cara Shay) filmed everything on an iPhone of some sort.  Since I do not have video editing skills, I hired a professional to take care of that.  Other than fuel and time, the editing was the only expense.

The video for "Wapakoneta" makes its debut next Monday 27th September via a Facebook Premiere... well, if I can figure that out.  I posted it by accident, then immediately deleted it.  I'll do a YouTube Premiere on Tuesday 28th September.  See, the nice thing about a premiere is that we all get to watch the video together and have an online chat about it at the same time.  While we're all waiting for next Monday, I'll upload brief snippets so you can have an advance look and maybe also a behind the scenes peek at the process.

Welcome to Concert Memories May!  All of my Monday blog entries this month will be about memorable concerts.

Toadies had to tread a long and winding road on the way to getting their second full-length album released.  That's a strange thing to write, and is indicative of how much nonsense comes with the music business.  Toadies had a massive radio single and a platinum album, but still had to fight with their label to get Hell Below/Stars Above released.  The release was unsupported by their label, which never made any sense to me.  I think it's a stronger album than their debut.  For me and a few of my friends, it was certainly highly anticipated.  Once the album was released, Toadies hit the road to support it.  They played three shows in Ohio.  I attended all three.

My memories of these shows are too thick and convoluted to write into a cohesive narrative.  I think a bullet list would better fit here.  Here are just some of the things I remember:

• Driving to Columbus, meeting up with friends, then driving to the show in Cleveland
• Meeting Diffuser, conversing with Lawrence, the bass player, and him remembering us at future shows
• Seeing "Dollskin" live for the first time
• Walking down the street with Toadies after the show because we had parked in the same general direction as the tour bus
• Stopping for a snack in Lodi and having that stop be longer than anticipated because the keys had been locked in the car
• Learning all of the Diffuser songs by the next time we caught the show
• Talking to Toadies about Bands on the Run
• Realizing that "Paper Dress" was making a serious challenge as my favorite Toadies song 
• Enjoying the Toadies' nod to their influences, as they covered "Where Is My Mind?" every show

Here's a picture with my friend Brandy after the Cincinnati show, with Mark and Clark from Toadies.