Showing posts with label The Waits. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Waits. Show all posts

Monday, May 01, 2017

The Waits, San Pasqual Winery - April 29, 2017

On Saturday night, Mary Kit and I had the pleasure to see The Waits at San Pasqual Winery in La Mesa, CA. The acoustic band is Mark Hunter on guitar and vocals and Peter Lauterbach mandolin and vocals. Last night, Mark's brother, Dutch Hunter joined in as a special guest with the band and played harmonica and also backup vocals.  Dutch lives in Nevada City, CA and came down to visit Mark in San Diego this past week. MK and I were thoroughly impressed as Dutch with just one practice with The Waits did a great job of improvising with harmonies and harmonica! I love this band not to mention they cover songs that every boomer knows. Pete is fabulous on mandolin as both he and Mark do great interpretations of mostly 60's-70's songs with an Americana flare. A younger couple sitting up front were very quiet and enjoying the show and I think Dutch asked them if they even knew who Herman's Hermits were?

Back in the day, Mary Kit and I met Mark almost 42 years ago at the dorms at San Diego State in August, 1975. We were all community college transfers, Mark from Millbrea, CA and Mary Kit and I from Santa Maria, CA. Mark and I were in the same hallway in Toltec dorm and bonded as friends for life during the first episode of Saturday Night Live. I remember they had a big box console TV in the lobby/social gathering area of the dorm and we just started talking and laughing at this crazy new wonderful TV comedy. The next year, Mark and I moved in as college roommates and lived in a couple of different apartments together. We also were camp counselors up at Palomar Mountain for children and adults with disabilities through ARC of San Diego.  It is still known to this day as Camp-A-Lot and Camp-A-Little. I have great memories of Mark playing his guitar and singing songs around the campfire with all the campers and staff. We had the pleasure to enjoy the summer mountains together while being paid $10 a day to work at the camps. Mark and I would later become teachers for students with severe disabilities as both of us had a variety of experience as teachers in San Diego County. Last night in fact, a group of Mark's old teacher friends showed up to listen to the band.

Now sit back and enjoy The Waits live as MK and I recorded a few songs from the evening on our phones and made them into a YouTube Playlist. Before the first video, The intro is a shout-out to Mark's and Dutch's dad, Floyd who is 91 and a veteran of World War II who landed on the beaches of Iwo Jima. Mark once told me his dad entered the military under age at 17 and was put into one of the fiercest battles in U.S. history. The song that follows, Neil Young's Ohio is a bit ironic from his son's who grew up in a very different era during the Vietnam War near San Francisco. Anyway, Floyd has never seen Mark and Dutch play together at a venue, so Floyd this playlist was made for you! I used to listen to my old buddy sing a lot of Neil Young and all our musical heroes with his guitar on our living room floor with no more than a few dollars to stretch out together and get through the month. This just made me think of the time we were living on College Ave. in 1976 and it had been a hot hot day in sunny San Diego. We had left the front window open and when we both returned to the apartment later that day from classes, my stereo system had been stolen (my high school graduation present). I think we both heated up some tortillas on the stove, had a few peanut butter burritos and then fired up a few that night.

The Waits will be performing next on May 27th at San Pasqual Winery, 8364 La Mesa Blvd. La Mesa 7-10pm.

Link to Complete Playlist - The Waits, San Pasqual Winery - April 29, 2017









Monday, January 16, 2017

Have an IPA with your IPA

When one (me) thinks of IPA, it is India Pale Ale. San Diego County is a national leader in the micro brew industry and I'm proud of our West Coast IPA's. So, the other day, while drinking a couple of IPA's, I came up with this blog title as MK and I were playing with our new Christmas present to ourselves. This would be our Intelligent Personal Assistant (IPA), otherwise known as the Amazon Echo with the personal aka, "Alexa."

The other night we had our friend, Mark Hunter over for dinner and after a few IPA's (the beer kind), we showed him our current favorite game of, "Alexa, play Seinfeld Trivia." We also jumped into asking Alexa about music. Mark is currently learning the 1965 song (with his band The Waits), You Were On My Mind, by the We Five. So, Mark asked, "Alexa, play You Were On My Mind by We Five." The song comes on and smiles all around.

So I realize as I'm writing this it's probably going to sound like a free advertisement for Amazon; something they really don't need as the Amazon Echo did quite well and in fact sold out during the holiday season.  Anyway, we are having a blast with this IPA as the market continues to grow with these products and is probably the little canary before we get an IPA robot someday off in the future. I can't wait to get "James the Butler" for Christmas in 2020 something.

For music, we also dressed up Alexa a bit by purchasing Amazon Music Unlimited for $79.00 a year if you are an Amazon Prime member. At first, I balked at the price, but after purchasing, it was a smart move for us because now we have unlimited streaming music on several devices: our computers, phones with Bluetooth in the car and of course, Alexa. For the car, I downloaded the Amazon Music Unlimited app for my smartphone and can choose between my extensive Offline music collection on my phone and not eat into my data minutes, or stream any Online Playlist I want to. For the Echo (and I recommend the sound of the Echo vs the smaller Amazon Dot), Alexa is strategically placed on a table that is located by the bottom of our stairs. This is almost the center of our up and downstairs house, where Alexa is in earshot from almost any location in the house. While writing this on my computer upstairs, I asked "Alexa, play We Five," and she responded by giving me a mix of their music, until you simply say, "Alexa, pause or Alexa stop."

Anyway, I hope to tap into a lot of old and new music this year drinking IPA's and using the Echo which may lead to some random Monday Monday Music blog. I leave you with my We Five Playlist.