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Roxy Music in Washington

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The Roxy Music show in DC was excellent and fun.  St Vincent opened up (and not many of the audience members knew her stuff). We rocked out.  Here are some bits.

We parked at the arena (though it cost some $$$ it was way worth it as we drove directly out in under 2 minutes).  We arrived early enough to buy a very bad gin and tonic from the sports betting center on the corner before the show.

We were in the venue about 30 minutes before the show.  Row 12!

St Vincent played lots of material from her new album.

New York

Only mother fucker in the city…

Slow disco.

 

The stage change took about 25 minutes.  And it was worth the wait.

ROXY MUSIC in the house!

The show began with Avalon interstitial into Re-Make/Re-Model.

 

A guitar solo by Phil Manzanera.

Bryan Ferry was full of energy during this show.

 

Andy Mackay on woodwinds.

The guitar gets wild

While My Heart is Still Beating

Roxy gets psychedelic.

As does Romey!  You go girl.

Many of the interludes were beautiful in just the right Roxy way.

One of our all time favorites To Turn You On


The Main Thing

The crowd was into it. And the visuals were just as much of the experience at the music.  One guy in front of us knew every word of every song.

An all time favorite (though honestly I would rather play this than listen to it), More Than This.

Romey captures some bits.

And a very much great version of Avalon (though, don’t be the asshole who talks over this song).

The Warhol set was awesome

Jealous Guy

Congrats on 50 years of being a band, Roxy Music!  You guys still rock.

 

 

 

How many paradises are there, anyway? A visit to Terzo Paradiso in Biella, Italia

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You might die, but if anything is noted as the cause of death, it will be loneliness.

There are no people doing art or even visiting Terzo Paradiso unless you count our unruly bunch.  Here’s what we saw (and what we did).

First we explored random spaces.

And then we found some art to see (but only after getting lucky).

After a short nap in the hammocks near the circles, we found the projector and those glowy rocks from Land of the Lost.

There were no Sleestaks. So here are two for good measure.  They covet the glowy rocks.

There was dirt.

There was also very silly science.  But it was arty.

Not surprisingly, the room was better than the dirt.

Watch this video. Really.

Rhine took pics too.  It was hard not to.

We got lucky and found another human who told us how to cross the highway, go down the stairs and find even more art.  Or rather more art places with not much art.  Something like that.

Rhine woke up from his long nap, dreaming of Sleestaks and late 1970s TV.

The space rang a long cool echo of lost civilizations and the empty planet to come.

So there was dance.

And reflection

We climbed back down to reality using a ladder that was too short to reach the sky.

And then we left.

 

Metallica in Germany

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What do you do when you land in Germany?  The answer involves a Camaro and the Autobahn and Metallica.

Markus’s airport car service

 

After a quick shower to wash off the metal tube, it’s time for the first Radler.  A slippery slope to lots of beer.  It is, after all, Germany.

The download festival.  Here we come.

 

The duck is your co-pilot

 

Cider for the win

 

In the van things are serious

 

The weather GOOD

 

The weather BAD

 

duckface

After a bunch of beers (who is counting?), we wound our way over a 5km spiral into the venue.  Germans are a very orderly bunch.  Bt who thought up this entrance and exit plan?

MOO.

 

Sabaton from Sweden

 

Rock and roll

 

What?!

 

My crowd.  What an unruly, fantastic bunch.

There was beer

 

Did I mention the part about the beer?

 

We pushed off the rain through sheer psychic magic, but it was only delayed.

Nap time for the American

Five Finger Death Punch

You may start with five fingers, but you will end up with four.

Finally, Metallica

Are you feeling good?  Yes, we are.

Some guitar for you.

Rocker

 

Nothing else matters in this crowd of strangers.  Metalheads are a welcoming bunch.

I am not alone.

My first metal show was the best one ever.

Music Mode: Ritt and Wilder Release Hinge (with some fiddle)

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My music has been on a COVID hiatus for way too long — only the occasional rain in the desert with Rhine or a Bitter Liberal or two.  Fortunately, along came Ritt Deitz who just released a new album and did a four show tour to promote its release.  Buy a copy of Hinge here.

 

 

I played two of the shows with Ritt and his son, multi-instrumentalist and talented child Wilder.  The shows were great.  Here are some bits.

Wilder Deitz plays mandolin

The DC date was actually in Vienna at Diego Ruiz’s house.

The lineup (near the end anyway)

An excellent place to play a house concert.  Great people.

All temporary of course.  As we are not of this world.

Cocktails by Bill Shepardson.  Where did that doctor’s bag come from?

Wilder Deitz plays piano

 

No, mandolin. Wilder plays mandolin.

The feet

Wilder plays guitar

 

 

No wait, it’s piano that Wilder plays.

 

Some other fiddler

I did play, honest.  But nobody was there to record said playing.  He said he played. He played.

Sing it.

 

Then it was on to Wilmington, NC for a Sunday evening performance (close enough to the Stick to merit a long drive).

 

Feet up between sets

The venue was a fiddle shop of the highest caliber. Ronald Sachs for the win.

Who needs people?  Music is enough.  Right?  Yes?  Music is enough?

Nope.  The people add the magic.  Connect.

The mosquito green room.

On the stage again.  The music was even better.

 

These people charge the batteries. Thank you, people.

Sing it.

 

Then it was over.  More please.

Like a puppy on the beach.

 

Fin.

 

 

DC Art Therapy: Hirshhorn, Phillips, Renwick, Plus

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The best layover ever is just about right. We made plenty of time for art on Wednesday. First stop after breakfast was the Hirshhorn. This museum is really going places. The new director has it popping. If you already did that once or twice and you have not been under the new regime, go.

Smithsonian in winter

The color wheel is the first use of the second floor circle that has perfect sensibility.

Downstairs had some cool stuff too.

 

 

 

The highlight of this Hirshhorn visit was the fact that Manifesto was playing. I saw this in Stuttgart in 2017 and was utterly blown away. This is a must see video installation, even if you don’t do video art (generally speaking, I don’t).

 

 

Here is the official trailer. Absolutely stunning masterpiece.

 

 

 

I now love Cate Blanchett. Watching her work in such a close stunning cinematic set of visuals is life changing.

 

After lunch, which may or may not have included a bottle of Gigondas, we headed to the Phillips.

 

Finally, parking karma still intact, we headed to the Renwick. Sadly, Jacob missed it.

 

 

 

 

Three museums was not enough to satisfy the art goddess. Fortunately, Richard rode to the rescue. His collection is world class.

 

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Return to Fushimi Inari (Kyoto)

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Four years is the blink of an eye for this Shinto Shrine in Kyoto since it has been here for over 1300 years. A previous visit was pre-Fall in 2015. This visit happened at the height of Fall in Japan.

Glamping in Tanzania with African Environments

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This posting is cross-posted on noplasticshowers.com

During our 15 day trip to Tanzania in September, we saw some remarkable things about as up close and personal as you could get. We hiked over 70km in four national parks. And we stayed in tents. But don’t let that last bit fool you, we were “glamping.”

So what, exactly is “glamping” anyway? That’s the subject of this posting. There are 92 pieces of media in this posting.

If you are going glamping, you will need a truck

This is the passenger seat. Just for the record.

On the way to our first tent, we did a game drive for a few hours and saw many things. Including an albino baboon. But that’s another posting.

Without further ado, our first tent in Arusha national park.

The tent in Arusha

These tents have multiple rooms, double beds, and non-plastic showers.

This bed is better than a thermarest pad

Of course, readers of noplasticshowers are going to want to know about the bathroom area. There was a chemical toilet. And some sinks that drained directly outside.

Sinks without water

Mirrors in a tent?! Dang.

The shower also had no running water. It was somebody’s job to put 3.5 liters (not quite enough, that is) into the dispenser just before a “glamping shower.”

Those little handles control the water flow.

The shower from outside

Home for a couple of nights

Then there was the food situation. Just great. Really. No camping food here. Fresh fruits and veggies. Great chefs. Delicious.

Our first lunch. This is a theme we will return to.

Of course, some lunch spots were better than others. Like, say, this one. No bees and only one land shark sighting.

 

The fig tree in Arusha is famous. This is a staged video.

 

Lots of stuff happened between camps. By the time we got to Ngorongoro crater we had seen elephants fighting, black hippos, and more. See this posting for all that nature stuff.

Driving between parks

The roads in Tanzania vary widely. This one, recently completed by a Japanese engineering firm was all shiny and new. We stopped for gas. That’s because in Africa, the cars take gas, just like ours.

Gas station. Mostly familiar.

 

We’re here for the tents, though, and so tents it is. These tents are manufactured in Arusha. They are sturdy and must weigh several hundred pounds. Fortunately, whenever we arrived, they were already set up.  Oh, and the best part about the tents?  The views.

 

 

Another cushy double bed

In the morning, hot coffee was always delivered here. Just outside the door, er, flap.

There was a lunch, this time close to some bees.

Denis does not serve honey near bees

 

 

Base camp with the Maasai includes solar panels

Our little panel pales in comparison

The Ngorongoro base camp was another two night thing.

This lion is checking the exhaust system

More lunch is in order.

Fresh

Product placement opportunity

Did we mention that lunch was great?

Lunch was at hippo-land. I counted 53 trucks.

After Ngorongoro, it was off to the Serengeti for a completely different thing.

You go, Denis!

Your faithful crew enters the Serengeti

Pre lunch yoga

Yeah, there was lunch.

More lunch

Our guide Denis was by this time a great friend.

The roads in the Serengeti get some serious use. And so they also get repaired.

Road repair happens

Our third tent in the Serengeti looked suspiciously similar

We arrived at sunset and were delayed when we came across a pair of mating lions less than a kilometer from camp. For more about the lions, see this posting.

 

The camp lions. We saw this pair 4 times.