Update (3/25/09): Nuts to this, it’s too much of a pain to keep updated each time I run. If you’ve come here looking for any updates, sorry to disappoint! I’ve kept the original post below…
Went for my first run using Nike+ yesterday (Thursday). It’s very motivational: I had planned to run only 2.5 or 3 miles at most (when I ran on the treadmill for the first time a few days before, I ran for only 2 miles), but this time I pushed myself and ran for a good 4.01 miles.
I’m posting the songs I listened to up on iTunes as iMixes. Of course, they exclude the few songs that aren’t available in iTunes, but check them out, give a listen and see what I had pumping me up for my run that day:
Monday night I went to see my third “Zappa Plays Zappa” concert…
2006: Warner Theater, Washington, D.C. 2007: Ram’s Head Live!, Baltimore, Md. 2008: The Birchmere, Alexandria, Va.
This was part of of their “You Can’t Fit On Stage Anymore” tour – designed for the more devoted fans, it had a few things that you wouldn’t expect from a normal concert:
A few days before the concert, an email was sent to the attendees with 70 songs to pick from. Each person could vote for up to five songs, and the top picks were included in the setlist for the evening. (The website says folks can vote for up to ten songs, but the email I received specified five.)
The concerts are being held in smaller venues that hold just a few hundred people at most, for a more intimate setting with the band. Smaller stages, too, hence the name of the tour.
Admission includes being able to download a recording of that night’s performance in MP3 format about a week after the concert, at no extra cost.
The performances also include a guitar giveaway, and the winner is able to go up on stage to claim their prize, plug in their new guitar and jam with the band.
Or, in a more entertaining version of my four bullet-point recap:
I only wished that I was able to get there earlier: I went to the concert straight from work and drove through the District in order to get to the venue, and arrived only 10 minutes before the show was supposed to start. Since the Birchmere is set up like a dinner theatre, I ended up in an open seat at a table to the right of the stage. Not the best vantage point – I saw about as much of the sound man as I could of the band itself – but being close to the stage door meant that I was the first one who noticed the band coming out and was the first one who started the applause as they came towards the stage, so that’s got to be worth something, right? Anyway, I didn’t care too much since I’ll be able to hear the whole performance when I can download the MP3 files soon. Hopefully they’re good quality! It’d be nicer if they were lossless, but I’ll take what I can get. Here was the whole setlist for the night (from the ZPZ review forum):
Inca Roads
Tell Me You Love Me
Dog Breath
Joe’s Garage
Packard Goose
Peaches en Regalia
Billy The Mountain
Pound for a Brown on the Bus
[ Guitar giveaway ]
Blues Jam
Dirty Love
Echidna’s Arf (Of You)
G-Spot Tornado
Oh No
Son of Orange County
More Trouble Everyday
Token of My Extreme
Encore:
Camarillo Brillo
Muffin Man
Zomby Woof
Willie The Pimp
Hopefully they’ll return to Baltimore again soon. The band does such a good job of entertaining (I like concerts to be experiences, not just musical performances), I can’t not go when they come by my area.
The other day I was poking around The Sound Garden, an independent new/used music/video store with a location in Baltimore. Sometimes I’ll come across an album that I just have to buy because of the album cover, and this trip was no exception. I ended up purchasing this used CD just because of the cover:
See, on first glance while scanning through the stacks of CDs, I originally thought it was this one by The Who:
But on closer inspection, you’ll notice that’s not Big Ben, that’s the Bromo-Seltzer tower here in Baltimore. Clever mimicking!
February 6, 2009 · No Comments 
