aaaaaaahhhhhhhhh

Friday night, Momma's seriously late night at work, the boys are in bed, and I don't hear the sound of Big Brother rolling around fighting bad guys and kicking the wall. It's a pretty common ocurrence with him, as he spends most days fighting bad guys so why not go to sleep fighting them some more? I'm guessing he actually went to sleep fairly quickly tonight.

I'm enjoying a Bridgeport IPA and realizing that it's much too quiet. Momma and I spent last night listening to the different bands that will be playing in a few short hours at Ska Weekend. We're taking the boys and want to be prepared, so we've made a list. The listening though is all on Myspace, so it's one song at a time, then I have to go back there from whatever I'm doing while the song plays and play the next song. What this means is that I hear a song, then realize it's quiet and the cycle just keeps on turning, turning, turning.

But all that work is for "the list." We have a three part list consisting of bands that we are definitely going to see, bands that we may or may not work in depending on the schedule and finally the bands that we don't need to bother to see, as in "Oh-my-fucking-god!!! is this emo ska? Who the fuck thought that would be okay?" With this list and the schedule, we'll be able to navigate the several stages that will be set up in the Old City.

Which brings us to the Old City. I love the Old City, and my best jobs here have been there, though I may not have said so at the time. The whole staying at home thing being how it is, I don't make it out of the house so often these days, but when I do, if I don't have other plans, it's the place I'm drawn to, for better or worse. One of the places I worked is Patrick Sullivans. If your interested, follow the link. Rumor has it that the bullet holes are still in the wall. They could be. Oddly enough, I just realized that the pint glass my beer is in is from Sullivans. Small world?

And another one of those "why's it so quiet?" moments before I'm back to the Myspace page to play the next song. I'm really excited about the show tomorrow. I know I've gone on about it some lately, but it's such a huge deal. It's a really huge show in the world of ska music. It's also showing one of those growing up things for me personally, something I've just realized about this particular show. Not so many years ago I'd already know about many of these bands. As it is now we've had to decide based on 2 to 4 songs how much we want to see many of these bands. There are a couple of bands that I've wanted to see for years, so it's that much more exciting.

Here are some Myspace links to a band or two. If you aren't familiar with Myspace, clicking the link will take you to the band's page and after a few moments, music will begin to make you happier as the sounds of the ska caress your brain in a mixture of Jamaica and America and England.

The Pietasters alone would be a great show for me personally. King Django I've seen once before, in Knoxville oddly enough. He does all kinds of things, sort of a renaissance man. Deals Gone Bad is one of the bands I'm not really familiar with, but the songs I've heard are really good, better than average. I'll take a couple of extra dollars for a cd from them for sure.

And this post has taken me an entire beer to write. I went a little link crazy because it's so damn fun. Maybe I just end the night here with some dub to lull me into a fall sense of sleepiness. I'm stopping here before I get into why I think that ska and dub music were the parents of hip hop/rap music. It's true, but it's not for tonight. Actually, by the time most people read this, both of you, it might already be tomorrow, which is Saturday.

As per usual, more beer, a smoke and thee my love.