soundboard de cheevo

It's been a July full of travels and busyness which has made the month fly by and that's okay seeing as we're in the thick of the dog days. My A/C runs non-stop, the power bill is too high and being outside during the day is not recommended for "sensitive" groups such as myself -- referring to my asthma here and not my keen life-long ability to get my feelings hurt quickly. Yeah, I'm ready for fall to get here. We all are in the deep South. The month started out with an excellent fireworks show on Red Mountain that I saw from the News parking deck with some friends and co-workers. I worked that night and wasn't really in the photographing spirit, but Jeff Roberts at the News got some good snaps. The next week Clare and I went to Joe Wheeler State Park in north Alabama and caught some bream and me a decent-sized bass. Wheeler Lake is beautiful -- 87 miles long and full of huge fish. The last night I stayed up until 3:30 a.m. fishing, I saw an Alligator Gar...

Bush Tours America To Survey Damage Caused By His Disastrous Presidency Thanks to Christina Tutor for the forward. I heart The Onion more than ever.

Acca/Dacca consisted of Birmingham youth rockers DaGoajes who transformed themselves into the pre-1980 AC/DC with a crazy look-alike lead singer. Their version of Angus Young , above, had a dry ice pack attached to his guitar at one time for some serious stage theatrics. I hope the late Bon Scott was smiling somewhere. This show was conceptualized by one of his cousins who lives in Birmingham and featured local bands: The Exhibit(s) Arkadelphia Bo Butler and Jody Nelson Plate Six Every Alice On Earth (my peeps) Acca / Dacca The Dirty Lungs Through the Sparks 13 Ghosts Official poster I did for the show Simple little web-only flier I did for my band in honor of 1970s and '80s bored-as-hell high school kids everywhere. I was definitely one of them. My photos of the show can be seen here. J. Purvis's photos of the show reside here.

It turns out that one video clip I took at City Stages didn't completely suck so here it is. This is the end of the The Flaming Lips' "Do You Realize," which is one of the my favorites. Regardless of its quality, it still doesn't hold a birthday candle to how great this show was in person. I didn't have a tripod and I'm no videographer so bear with me. Between April's Shelby Lynne show, The Flaming Lips and Tom Waits, I see no need to ever think this city doesn't exist on the map of excellent live music ... so there!

Here's all a crappy cell phone camera could provide. I approached last night's concert not a huge fan of Tom Waits as many of my friends and sister are, but with appreciation for his talent and legend as a multi-faceted artist. It was two hours of pure amazement. The stage set-up was immaculately designed with Waits' son Casey to his right on percussion and the rest of the band, surrounding him in semi-circle and featuring a wide array of instrumentation included stand-up bass, mandolin, soprano and baritone sax, oboe and bass clarinet. Waits stood on a circular platform lined with what looked like antique circus lights and covered in a fine chalk-like powder that emitted a smoke like affect when he laid down his signature stomps. Friend and co-worker Mary Colurso summed it up much better in a review today in which she gave the show five out of five stars. I've seen just one other show that got such accolades this year if memory serves. Although not taken at the Alaba...

The Dolly Parton tour bus from 1994. According to the dude working the place, there is a new bus in the works in Canada that will cost $2 million. This one cost $750,000 and gets seven miles to the gallon. Dolly's tour bus suite. Dolly's dressing room. I'm not even going to process how better equipped her bus is versus my current dwelling. Big scary fun swings that I could have stayed on for an hour or so. Last ride of the day on the Dollywood Express. I wonder if it hurts when a fudge knife cuts you. Does chocolate syrup come out? The most excellent part of Dollywood, the museum of all her costumes and memorabilia, didn't allow any photography and that was painful, but I rule I of course abided by. I don't think there are words to describe how star struck I was just seeing a beaded dress that I know took months to make by hand. There is an inner gay man in me and I'm not ashamed of that. One of Dolly's dress makers altered my sister's wedding dress ...

Photos by Jennifer Garland McGinty The show with Balthrop, Alabama was a good one with three very well-played performances, but the turnout was fairly crappy. I attribute that partially to the bar, which at one point smelled like vomit -- not sort of like vomit, exactly like vomit, allegedly due to microwave popcorn. The bartender says it always smells like that and everyone always complains. That to me is a great reason to continue to cook microwave popcorn, right, but such are the ways of the Upside Down Plaza -- a last resort as a venue for this show. Mike Kitchen had the quote of the night to the bartender, "Did someone throw up in your microwave?" Opening for us was Andrew Vladeck, a banjo player and one-man band with all sorts of pedals, foot percussion (a little stomp board with a mic on one foot and a tambourine on the other) and a harmonica. It was amazingly impressive. Our show went pretty well I thought vocally. Some jackass threw a lit cigarette at us after our fi...