Weekend in ATX

This weekend I'm flying down to Austin for a few days. No big event, no holiday or music festival or anything, just a weekend visit.

Spoon is playing at Emo's, and there are enough other shows over the course of these 4 days to fill a year's calendar here in Boise. So I'm really looking forward to it.

But the question remains: Must I wax nostalgic every time I go back to Austin for a visit?

There must be a reason I do this. There's the history I have there, sure, but it's more than that. Austin the city seems rooted to cultural traditions, histories, characters, styles, and legends more so than many other places I've been--bigger places and smaller places alike.

That, in a sense, is what I miss here. And it's not just my own lack of history here, it's the lack of a sense of something larger. We're all traveling in our own temporary sports-fueled bubbles, unconnected to anything larger than ourselves or our activities. It seems thin and temporary.

I must remember: These are rose-colored glasses I'm wearing, looking at the present through this idealized vision of the past. I moved for reasons. I'm not still there. Thing is, for the life of me, those reasons don't seem so significant right now.

Snowden

Snowden kicked the Neurolux's ass on Friday night.

We showed up a bit late, around 10pm. That's only late because on weekends rock shows there go from 8 to 11, with the DJ set after. Seems sort of stupid, but really it works out pretty well. And sometimes the DJ is actually pretty good.

Anyway, we got there, and the joint was damn near empty. A few folks at scattered tables, a few more out front, and a couple more at the bar. I figured we missed the show for sure, but the doorman said they hadn't started yet. No opener.

It seemed weird that there were even a few people playing ping pong right in front of the stage. "Maybe that's the band," I said to Cathy. And it was.

Snowden finally took the stage just after 10, and I was once again embarrassed for Boise. Cool new band, great new album, and an honest-to-god Friday night booking, and this is the best we could muster? Pathetic.

Snowden rocked. From note one, they were big sounding and hard working. The lead singer was all intensity, and the bass girl was just perpetual rock motion. And hot as hell, too.

Over the course of their 45-minute-or-so set, they brought the kids in off the street and made everyone in that bar pay attention and then some. It went from me and about 6 others getting into it to a full stagefront area and a decent crowd yelling loudly for more. The band was as surprised as I was pleased, and by the end my shame turned to a hint of pride. If Boise didn't know ahead of time that they should see this show, at least, by the end, they knew they'd watch for the band next time around.

TVOTR Return to Cookie Mountain

With their second full-length release, TV On the Radio have put themselves into a small class: They've met and surpassed extremely high expectations. And this even after a label change.

Their new one, Return to Cookie Mountain, is just amazing. The essentials are still there: fantastic beats lay under intricate guitar and electronic sound collages all of which serve and enhance the vocal interplay, which itself grows more complex but natural with each outing.

But there's more.

There's an urgency to the music that is not simply loudness or politics or overstatement. It's in the fundamentals of the compositions themselves, in the interplay between lyrics and sounds, all driven home by the beats. Always the beats.

This record leaves no doubt that this band is most definitely due the hype they get. They're doing something special, creating a kind of music that speaks to rock and dance but exists as something all its own.

Get it.

Hells Yeah

Mr. Tom Danielson comes up good at the Vuelta.

He went in with big expectations, and had some trouble in the opening weeks. The early mountain stages didn't go as well as they'd hoped, and youngster Brajkovic looked like the strongest on the team. And Triki Beltran's been doing a hell of a job as well.

But Danielson has ridden himself into form, it appears, and he took a big mountain stage win ahead of Vino. No small shakes, that.

Things are looking up for Disco Boys, 2007.

(photo from VeloNews)

5 Years Later

It still grabs at you, infuriates, saddens.

Politics aside, are we safer? Better off?

We have much more work to do.

The West is Burning

There are 25 fires burning in Idaho right now.

25.














Here in Boise, it's like winter's hit early. It's not cold, but an inversion has trapped fire smoke in the valley, and we live under and in a cloud of it. Outside, it smells like campfire all day.

The Rattlesnake fire is perhaps the closest, burning in the Payette up near Garden Valley and Crouch. It's still some miles from inhabitants and not posing immediate danger, but it sure is smoky.

The heroes of summer are out there knocking themselves out to squash these blazes. The rest of us stay in town and bitch about our throats hurting when we ride our bikes.

What we need is a big nasty downpour, Texas-style.

Orchard Gulch

It's been a nice quiet Labor Day weekend here in Boise.

Left to my own devices due to an unplanned family gathering in DesMoines, I spent the weekend prowling the roads and trails and waterways in and near our town. No big road trip to Wyoming or Coloradio this, but it turns out nice nonetheless.

I got the long road climb in, I got a long dog run in, and I got an afternoon's worth of fishing in, so the only thing left was to hit the trails.

This morning I headed up Rocky Canyon Road for my new favorite 2-hour loop. Up to a mile from the summit and break off at Trail 7, Orchard Gulch. This is newly connected to the new path up 5-Mile Gulch, and it's a really nice ride. A steady climb leads to a few tough pulls before more false flat meandering along the contour, and then you're connected to 5-mile.

The top of this descent (or the middle, excluding the way up to the Ridge Road) is fairly steep and narrow, a blast in good shape and a nerve-wracker in bad. Today it was powdery; I went slowly.

When you hit the old trail, down in the true gulch, the going gets fast. A gentler grade and a solid skinny trail, this thing just invites speed and air.

Out to the road and down a short ways to the 3 Bears entrance. Then up and ouch. That climb after the descent always waked the thighs up quick, and the middle bear always gets me worst. But I stayed upright and clipped in and grunted and squatted my way to the top.

The view from the top of 3 Bears is always worth it.

Even when the air you're descending into is smog-filled. Fires ringing Boise have kept our air thick. I'm wheezy.

Another half hour downward bomb and it's back to the homestead.