I hear the ticking of the clock...

I literally hear the clock tick every day now. The old blue alarm clock that my grandmother gave to me almost 20 years ago finally bit the dust. Much as I would love for time to reset itself to midnight at any given moment, the rest of the world isn't having any of it. I was tempted to pick up one of those CD player clocks, or one of those units that plays music from a portable mp3 player. But I already have enough music playing devices. All I wanted was a time-keeping device and alarm, and I found what I was looking for in one of those wind-up clocks with a real bell alarm. Yes, they are still being made! And if it weren't for the glow-in-the-dark numerals on the clock's face, it could be mistaken for a much older device. The bell alarm is jarring, and since it's wind-up powered, I won't have to worry about waking up late if the power goes out at night (or changing batteries for back-up). Simple solution, quickly implemented.

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More reviews posted since last time... I covered Dengue Fever's new one for Bullz Eye, and a disc by a local band called Diego's Umbrella for West Coast Performer in their current issue. More to come on that front, as always.

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Band workshop is nearing the halfway point. We have now rehearsed half of the songs we've decided on playing, and we're sounding better every time. I had my first shot at singing and playing bass at the same time (on a Dylan tune) in yesterday's rehearsal, which went much better than I thought it would. The instructor encouraged me to immitate some of Dylan's phrasing, and everyone seemed really happy with the results. Our keyboard player, Ziggy, was struggling with the changes, but I'm pretty confident that he'll be comfortably acing 'em in no time. The form of the tune is outside of what he usually plays, and is ironically much simpler than what he generally excells at (progressive, new age-type material). Maybe it's like trying to make Philip Glass play the blues, but fortunately rock n' roll was made for this kind of mixing of musical backgrounds. It's the great bastard genre, and we're finding a way to make it work for us. Being that we all like each other personally, I know it's going to sound great in the end.

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Birthday is coming up (that ticking clock won't let me forget!)... but I have no big celebration planned this time. Nope, just a trip up to Portland next weekend to visit Chris and check out a Saturday night performance by Rachel Taylor Brown (whose new album is excellent, by the way -- look for a Bullz Eye review on that one in the not too distant future). The Portland scene has held my interest since reconnecting with Chris last Fall, so I'm particularly looking forward to visiting the city for the first time and hearing some of the music live, in its natural environment, not to mention hangin' again with an old friend...