In T minus 17 hours I will be crossing off one of the biggest items on my bucket list. I have been to so many concerts and live shows, but in all my life I could never get my path aligned to cross with a Blondie concert. Debbie Harry has been an Idol of mine since before I could grasp the concept of idolization. The music of the group Blondie has been in my life for, what seems like, forever and I can not think of a week since 1976 that I went without listening to Blondie or the iconic voice of Deborah Harry. This is huge to me!

As a boy, in a relatively small town, in WV, I used to search magazines at the local newsstand for pictures of the group hanging out in New York. I used to sit and try to dream up ways to get to the city to worm my way into to CBGB's or Andy Warhol's The Factory to become a part of the scene. Life happened, as it does, and I never made it to NY or to a Blondie concert.


When I go back and look at the old pictures I cut out and saved, I can only imagine what it would have been like at that time. Rock-n-Roll history was being made and I wonder if I would have realized it? Did the people in the crowd have any idea? Chances are I would have just been caught up in the moment, as I always am, and the next day the show would have been just a great memory.

That being said, I know Wednesday night will come and go. By Thursday morning, it will all seemed to have happened too fast. But, until then, I know that I will toss and turn and not be able to sleep tonight. I know that I will be nervous, excited and feel dizzy for most of the day Wednesday. I know that I will listen to the band with rapt attention from the first note, to the very last encore. Having seats in the front row, center, I know that if Debbie's eyes catch mine during the show I will go crazy. Chances are I will embarrass William once or twice as well by dancing, screaming and possibly becoming emotional when they play one of my faves live.

I know that I missed the opportunity to witness Blondie making history, but tomorrow evening will be one of the biggest nights in my history. And I will cherish every moment of it.




Thanks William for making it happen.

or this one

My Countdown Clock for the Blondie concert :)

Wanna see a couple movies Sunday?

We'll be heading over to Durham Sunday for the North Carolina Gay and Lesbian Film Festival to take in at least the following 2 movies. (call, text, or facebook message if you want to come along!) We'll have a gay ol' time :)

2:30 pm - Hollywood to Dollywood

4:30 pm - Bite Marks check the trailer out here.

Tiki, looks mad but he's not.

Riki, likes his new home on the balc!

Morning view from the balcony at the new place

Scotty McCreery Day in Garner, NC

The crowd loves him, he's so good natured, he's an easy person to like :)

Scotty arrives near stage @ Lake Benson in Garner via WRAL

Severe thunderstorm warning, LARGE crowd and work @ 5 kept me from going. It's still pretty exciting watch live from home :)

Crowd for Scotty on WRAL

Really wanted to be there but work @ 5...

MAY 15TH : DJ OXYGEN DUBSTEP

Friday the 13th

Anyone up for camping today?

Lunch @ The Big Easy

Beef Po' Boy and a side of deep fried spinach! (its awesome!)

"I love to laugh..."

"...the more I laugh, the more I'm a merrier me!"

"Slow down..."

"...I can't understand a word you're saying."

CIMG0025

A proud owner of the Adele cover of Rolling Stone!

Supermoon

The view of the supermoon from my home office window.

Uh-oh!

Look what the manager of DD brought us! Seriously, this could be a problem. A big, beautiful problem. (this is in addition to what I bought this a.m.)

Dunkin' Donuts

It's open! Now watch as I expand...

My musings on Yazoo and what they meant to me...

Yes, this is like 12 year old girl stuff:

• 
  
  I thought the album cover for Upstairs at Eric's was creepy/sexy and that is what got my attention:

• 
  
  I always wondered what Alison Moyet sounded like over the telephone and secretly wished she'd call me.
• 
  
  I made it my mission that year to ensure everyone heard Situation. No, not just heard it but understood it.
• 
  
  I wanted to shave my head like Vince, but was only brave enough to clipper it down to a #3, leaving the front long and a tail in the back. (but I was happy with it.)

• 
  
  You could tell which games were my faves in the arcades by the initals YAZ on the screen. (Millepede, Joust, Frogger, Dig Dug, Q-bert, Paperboy)
• 
  
  I hated that they had to shorten their name in America because of a Floridian Little Leauge team with the same name, and swore I was going to start a petition to make them change their name!. (I mean what the hell kind of name is that for a baseball team, anyway?)
• 
  
  The song And On, on You and Me Both, made me cry. Not a girlie "oh-i-love-this-song" cry, but a very sad cry... and
• 
  
  I cried when they split (yeah, I've always been a crier)
• 
  
  The first time I heard Erasure I had to pull the car over because I thought Yaz had gotten back together. I called the college radio station and had a lengthy talk with the DJ who sent me the promo 12" single of Who Needs Love Like That because we connected over our love of Yaz.

That's all that comes to mind now... more as I have flashbacks!

Reconnected Live out on cd today 09/28/10

Reconnected Live - Yazoo 

'Reconected Live' is a 2 cd set documenting the group's live performance of all of their songs from their brief time together.

They met at 21, recorded 2 albums, did about 2 dozen concerts and then parted ways, breaking my heart completely. I used to spend countless hours, In My Room, listening to Vince Clarke's amazing synth soundscapes and Alison Moyet's incredibly soulful voice, getting lost in the pre-MTV videos that would play out in my head.

I think you could walk to the moon on the list of projects Vince has had his hands in and the musicians that he has influenced. The man, in my opinion, is the reason the synth was invented. He was one of the originators of Depeche Mode, y'know.

Then, there's that voice. Alison's sultry, bluesy/rhaspy I-just-woke-up-and-now-let-me-sing-for-you voice, It demands attention but never overpowers the music.

The beauty of it all is that when you listen to this cd, it's like it never ended. They've never forgotten how beautiful they were together. It seems as though they've been secretly meeting in a basement playing together, for fun, for the last 28 years. Now it's out for the world to hear and to quote Yazoo; "...Don't it make you feel good?"

Oh, yes it does, Trust me, I'm a DJ...

You can read all about them and listen to selected tracks from Reconnected Live at the official Yazoo/Yaz website.

You can read my memories of me and Yaz in the early 80's if you are so inclined @ My Musings of Yaz

Summer, from Hot Shot.

"That's my double-cousin, Buford. He ain't right, but he never hurt nobody!" ~ the inbred Summer, from Hot Shot

William said:

 

if I "watched Sex and the City from the beginning of season 1 to the end of season 6" I might be able to understand him. I say if he watched Auntie Mame on one tv while simultaneously watching Whatever Happened to baby jane on another, he may just begin to understand me :)

"you're not gonna believe what I've done..."

...It was hard in '88 to go from vinyl and cassette to cd's. I mean really hard. I was one of those people that swore if you take the pops and crackles out of records it would ruin the music. Sure the sterile and pristine reproduction of music onto cd was great for classical, orchestra and adult contemporary, but rock and disco needed that "chet-chet" sound pre-empting (and during) the music. Liner notes and lyrics went away and you were lucky to get a picture of the band inside. What good were cd's to a dj? You couldn't cue them up, or change the pitch, let alone "scratch-mix." Good-bye Malcom McClaren, see ya later Fab-five Freddie.

Imagine my obstinance when music downloads came along. Wow, now you couldn't even hold the cd, look at the pictures, take it with you in the car. What was the point?

So, now more than a couple thousand mp3's into the 21st century, (and after converting a lot of vinyl LP's into mp3's)I find that I rarely give cd's a second glance. I have bought more records than cd's since about 2002. I will wander into a music store and see what's displayed, check bargain bins, see if there's anything in the dance/techno section that I haven't heard of... and usually, i walk out empty-handed with no human interaction at all.

BUT

Tonight was different. William and I ran to the mall with 29 minutes left before close to find a gift and you may find the following unbelievable:

First I was caught off guard by a great sale at Macy's. I found 2 Marc Ecko shirts that I could not pass up. I had two items price checked and had a conversation about an upcoming sale with the cashier. then ran into Hot Topic, bought a gift-card, discussed True Blood and Dexter with the Assistant Manager and was checking the points on my HT Card when William spotted a pair of shoes and asked if she had some in his size. She went to the backroom, found them, he tried them on, she rang us up, we chatted some more.

Leaving Hot Topic we strolled halfway down the mall, went down to the lower-level and William decided he wated to visit MAC in Nordstrom. While he was doing that, I went to the "e-bar" and stood in a line of 5 people to get a Mexi-Mocha frozen coffee beverage. (Delicious! Look out Starbucks). I found William and told him I had 5 minutes to get to f.y.e. to check out music. He said he'd meet me and I hustled off to see if it could be done.

The guy was closing the door but stopped when he saw me. He said I "looked like I knew what I wanted," and let me in. I explained I really wanted to look at the new Kelis "Flesh Tone" cd. He put it in my hand and I noticed it was alot cheaper than I was used to paying for new cd's. He assured me it was the full version and we got into a short discussion of music censorship and clean versus explicit and he was genuinely happy to talk. (more on the subject at a later time). The fact that he was friendly and not in a hurry to push me out the door amazed me.

Now 9:05 i walk right into Nordstrom and there is William and the MAC rep ringing him up. (and while 20 miles away, and in another city, she turned out to be our neighbor!) She stopped to answer another question and began pulling out product to show off. It was 9:28 when we got in the car and I played my Kelis cd for the ride home. It was an amazing experience that I would not have gotten from itunes.

The only thing that would have topped that is if the Kelis cd started with a crackle and pop, but I can add that in later.

... trust me, I'm a dj.