Month: July 2004

Recent music acquisitions

Stone, Steel, & Bright Lights, Jay Farrar. A great live album featuring mainly stuff from Terroir Blues and Sebastopol plus two covers. It also comes with a DVD called Live at Slim’s that contains 11 live songs (including both covers).

A Ghost is Born, Wilco. I love it. What can I say that hasn’t been said by countless music critics. One of my favorite aspects of it is the harsher guitar solos spread throughout the album.

Upside Downside, Scott Miller and the Commonwealth. Scott Miller is the former frontman from the V-Roys. The V-Roys are great so I knew I’d like it. I also bought Thus Always to Tyrants. I haven’t yet listened to the latter but I like Upside Downside. Patty Griffin sings backup on a couple of tracks.

Blue Sky, Bottle Rockets. I liked it from the first track, Lucky Break. It’s about a guy who’s thankful he’s suffered an on-the-job injury because he gets to collect workers’ comp. There are a couple of tracks sung by Robert Kearns. Good songs but I prefer Brian Henneman’s distinctive vocals. Robert was not on the album 24 Hours a Day. I’m not sure when he was added to the lineup.

Next in the To Be Listened To stack are two 1998 releases from The Gourds, the new live album from Todd Snider, and the White Stripes’ White Blood Cells.

Summer Sailstice

Summer Sailstice was a lot of fun. I invited some friends to join me on the lake to celebrate the longest day of the year. We hit the water at about 10:00 or so to try to beat the heat. Unfortunately, this time of year in Texas, you aren’t going to win that battle. We were dripping with sweat before we left the slip. And, the 17-20 mph winds that had been forecasted were nowhere to be found. They were more like 0 to 7.

We had a little bit of excitement starting off. This was my first time alone in the boat with crew full of first- or second-timers. I should have taken a little more time checking the rigging before we left the dock. When I asked for the main sail to be raised, the boom goes swinging to windward detached from the mast. What made it worse was that the bolt rope on the main hadn’t been fed into the groove in the mast so the whole thing was swinging with the halyard as the pivot point. Luckily there was no wind.

I quickly realized that the downhaul had come uncleated. That allowed the boom to rise out of its groove and detach. Prior to this day, that downhaul didn’t look like it had been touched in 30 years but my Dad just threaded a new main sheet so maybe it came loose during that or maybe it just worked itself free.

In any case, no one took a boom in the face and we quickly recovered. After that we sailed a bit before heaving to and enjoying a refreshing dip. We actually did that a couple of times in between breezes. All in all, a below-average day of sailing but a great day of hanging out with friends on the boat.