soundboard de cheevo

There was no need to wait in endless Atlanta traffic to seek entertainment this past week as entertainment came to us. The amazing Audrey Rose, star of her mom Angela's blog , came over to Clare's house with her parents while my sister and I were in town for a visit. Not only can she walk and talk, but this 15-month-old has also mastered the art of the grown folks spoon and showed us her skills with strawberries, chocolate shavings and vanilla ice cream. Like Angela said about Audrey eyeing a bacon, egg and cheese biscuit at the ripe old age of 3 months , Audrey knows a good thing when she sees it. More flickr foto fun is right here.

The Sound of Birmingham show was actually better than I anticipated. The turnout was incredible, the largest crowd Bottletree has had yet, and the performances were fantastic. Ralph "Soul" Jackson was my favorite of the night. He had the crowd wrapped around his little finger and at one point there wasn't a single member of the audience not shaking it, whatever it was. The previously mentioned Sara Leah Miller , who is our hometown girl who helped make the show and album happen, not only got up on stage and shook it five times like the song said, but also sang part of Roscoe's Robinson's "If I had a Hammer." The good energy was contagious and it was one of those moments, like an amusement park ride, where you just can't help but smile. Thanks to Sara, John Ciba and the folks from Bottletree for putting on the best local show most of us have seen in a long time.

Driving to a big box office supply store holds about as much excitment as waiting in line at the DMV so I decided against buying a paper shreader. There's no place to put it in my cramped office/guest room anyway. Why buy a paper shreader when a mini Smokey Joe, a bottle of lighter fluid and a match can do the same thing with much more drama. See ya financial statements, until the next pyrotechnic display that is.

Roy, left, with Stoltze design head honcho, Cliff Stoltze at a recent type conference. Photo by Eben Sorkin (reposted with permission) - - Roy Burns is one of my best friends who lives in Boston. I have known him since my freshman year in college. When Roy used to design CD covers for in his Graphic Design courses, I doubt he ever thought that someday he would design the greatest hits album cover for America's most obnoxious hair metal band. We had a phone conversation about it last Christmas day that went something like this: Roy: "You won't believe whose greatest hits album cover I'm designing." Me: "Barry Manilow" Roy: "No, worse." Me: "Motley Crue" Roy: "WORSE!" Me: "Poison?" Roy: "YES!" Roy and I share a lot of musical tastes in common. Two of our exceptions have been '80s hair metal and new Nashville country so I think it's kind of funny that this high profile job features one of thos...

The final design.

THE BIRMINGHAM SOUND: THE SOUL OF NEAL HEMPHILL VOL. 1 - CD RELEASE - SATURDAY, AUGUST 19 BOTTLETREE CAFE 3719 3rd Ave. S Birmingham, Ala. 35222 with performances by: The Legendary Roscoe Robinson Ralph "Soul" Jackson Roger Hallmark and special appearances by many of the original Sound of Birmingham/ Hemphill Studios members DJs Brian Poust (Atlanta) MLE (Chicago) and John Ciba (Chicago) (Photo and poster design by Ryan Russell .)

(This article was written by Chicago-based writer and music aficionado John Ciba, who was the main organizer of this project. This article is lengthy, but worth the read as it uncovers a very interesting and little known chapter in music history.) Birmingham Sound: The Soul of Neal Hemphill celebrates the body of work recorded at the original Sound of Birmingham and Hemphill Studios in the working-class suburb of Midfield, AL. Although the material from these studios crossed all genres this compilation focuses on the soul music produced from the mid '60s till the late '70s. Neal Hemphill was a plumber by trade with a deep passion for music. He opened a studio in the basement of his plumbing shop to record local and touring acts and named it the Sound of Birmingham. The one difference between Neal's studio and the others was that he welcomed all kinds of music by anybody willing to come in and play him a song. Some of that young talent was songwriters and performers like F...

Sid Vance with bronzed hero, Ted Kluszewski, a Reds first baseman hall-of-famer from 1947-57. Great baseball, great food and crappy customer service are what I will take away from my trip to Cincinnati. I am not sure what was so strange about Cincinnati and its Kentucky suburbs. We had some real twilight zone moments dealing with service industry people and their rude, idiotic ways, but it became funny after a while. They weren't going to rain on our vacation parade. Sid, Clare and I scored some excellent souveniers, got down with Deutschland at the Goetta Festival and at a German brewhouse afterwards and most importantly saw two great games in the Red's new ballpark. The trip home was pure madness as a wreck involving three semis shut I-75 down completely for four hours in southern Kentucky. The detour we took getting around the wreck took about that long making our total travel time back to Atlanta twelve hours. With good music and great conversation, we pressed on toward At...

The Roebling bridge is one of the oldest in the country. It was built in 1869 as a model for the Brooklyn Bridge.

Staying cool does not necessarily go hand-in-hand with looking cool as this photo illustrates.

One well-packed Camry, three passengers and 10 tickets to the Reds/Braves series and here we have landed, not quite in Ohio, but across the river in Covington, Kentucky. After a sun-drenched, beer-soaked Saturday, I don't have a lot of creative writing juices flowing, but I will say that Cincinnati has the nicest baseball park I have ever been to, the new and lamely-named, Great American Ballpark. My best friend Clare, her dad Sid and I got to see Ken Griffey Jr. live and in person today as the Reds beat the Braves for the second time in the series. It's as hot up here as it in Birmingham, but that doesn't stop locals from scarfing up heavy German fare, like peppers and sausages, at the ball park. Across the river is the Goetta Festival (pronounced "Getta" -- rhymes with Jetta), a celebration honoring the strange combination of sausage and raw oats. It sounds absolutely disgusting, but is actually wonderful -- more so on a cold winter morning when Clare's gra...