The films seems to be getting good reviews overall. Howard and I are, ahem, less enthused…
Howard Waldrop and I Review Thor
May 9th, 2011Brownout Fixed
May 6th, 2011I guess it was local to my house. And I now have a concrete casement previously covered with dirt in the corner of the backyard I never realized was there before…
Peter Gabriel: The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, Live in NYC, With Robert Fripp on Guitar
May 6th, 2011Continuing the Peter Gabriel weekend theme, I had a vinyl bootleg of Gabriel live in New York in 1978 with Robert Fripp playing guitar on an absolutely blistering version of “The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.”
Well guess what? That’s on YouTube as well:
This is another track I’d happily purchase from iTunes…
Unreleased Peter Gabriel Track: Why Don’t We
May 6th, 2011(Still in a brownout, Internet up for now down again. Who knows how long it will last…)
I think today is going to be a Peter Gabriel Day here on Futuramen.
In my youth every day was Peter Gabriel day. The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway and Peter Gabriel III were the soundtrack of my youth in late high school and early college. I had pretty much every song Gabriel ever recorded, including such non-album rarities as “Curtains,” “Soft Dog,” and “No More Apartheid.” Not to mention a fair number of bootlegs.
<Onion-On-Belt Rant Mode On>
In my day, you couldn’t just download bootlegs from the Internet. You actually had to buy them on these round slabs of petroleum byproducts called “records.” And you couldn’t even find them in most record stores. You had to find them in the back room, or record conventions, or even more obscure venues. I remember that there used to be someplace in Austin, down on (I think) 12th Street, that was a used clothing store, except they had a small section where there were like four bins of nothing but bootlegs. And you paid more than regular price for them, only to get them home and find out half the time that the quality sucked.
Good times, good times.
<Onion-On-Belt Rant Mode Off>
Anyway, while looking for something else, I stumbled across two different videos of a completely unreleased Peter Gabriel song called “Why Don’t We.”
I would happily toss some money Peter Gabriel’s way if he would put a clean recorded version up on iTunes.
I plan to post a lot more Peter Gabriel discoveries today, power and Internet permitting…
Serious Brownout in Austin
May 6th, 2011Home waiting for FedEx. Serious brownout has rebooted my computer a couple of times. Currently offline.
By the way, blogging from an iPhone SUCKS.
Dear Renaissance Austin Hotel: Please Make Up Your Freaking Mind
May 4th, 2011A while back there was an announcement that “Blue Ribbon Restaurant opened in the Renaissance Austin Hotel, 9721 Arboretum Blvd.” Indeed, the corporate mothership mentioned the Austin version yesterday while crowing that the same menu will be trotted out to different Renaissance hotels around the country.
Fine. Dandy. Except for the fact that Renaissance Austin Hotel doesn’t seem to have ever heard of it, and it isn’t found on their list of restaurants. Calling the Renaissance and asking for the restaurant gets you Banderas-A Texas Bistrot, which I’ve eaten at before, and which I found most notable for its glacial serving pace. And when I called the Renaissance to ask if they had a Blue Ribbon Restaurant, the girl answering the phone said no.
Anyway, Blue Ribbon Restaurant sounds like the sort of place I would like to try, especially since Armadillocon will be in the Renaissance again this year. But only if it, you know, actually exists.
So THAT’S Who’s Buying the Lafferty Estate
May 3rd, 2011The Locus Foundation. Sorry I missed that after I posted the original story, though at least one emailer told me that the bidders would do right by the estate.
Though I could probably think of a few other buyers who could do as good a job, certainly the Locus Foundation should do right by Lafferty.
The Signature Art of William F. Nolan
May 2nd, 2011As previously mentioned, I attended the World Horror Convention here in Austin, where I moderated a panel with William F. Nolan. I cheekily had him sign some books while I was on the panel (all in good fun), but the real treat was grabbing several more signatures during the mass signing, as he likes to do drawings when signing. Here’s an example (or at least as much as would fit on the scanner) of the art he put on the blank page of “The Final Stone,” his story in Dennis Etchison’s Landmark Cutting Edge horror anthology:
Click to embiggen.
Thanks Bill!
Pictures from the World Horror Convention in Austin, Saturday, April 30, 2011
April 30th, 2011It looked like my Kodak Digital camera had died, but it seems to be working again after fiddling with it, removing the battery a few times, and plugging it in. Still, I’ll probably need to get a new camera before Apollocon in June, since the automatic shutter isn’t retracting all the way any more…
William F. Nolan and Rocky Wood, both of whom were with me on the “Horror Without Stephen King,” along with someone who wasn’t.
Bill Crider
Bill & Judy Crider.
Bill Spencer. A lot of Bills today, mainly because none of them had yet been signed into law.
Now THAT’s a HAT.
SF Signal’s John DeNardo, AKA “Mr. Saturday Night.”
Don Webb, in the one photo I took on my iPhone that didn’t completely suck.