Continuing 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…
(Still in a brownout, Internet up for nowdown 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…
A 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.
As 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:
It 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.
Stina Leicht, Mikal Trimm and Guest of Honor Joe Hill. This was right before Hill discussed that most important of philosophical question: If you have a cloth spiderman mask in your pocket (and really, who doesn’t?), and two guys rush into the store you’re in with shotguns, do you instantly put on the mask and start wailing on then? I pointed out that since this is Texas, and we’re all armed, the issue was probably less pressing here than in Maine.
Chris Roberson, Joe Hill and John Picacio doing some serious comic geeking.
Three women, six different hair colors.
Jessica Reisman.
Sanford Allen, showing Scott Cupp the ticket that doesn’t let him into Willie Wonka’s factory, but does let him on Captain Morgan’s ship.
Scott Cupp, and people I don’t know who seemed to be discussing adultery among TSR employees.
F. Paul Wilson in the center.
John Skipp, just before he went trekking off to a lost city in the jungles of Peru.
The art show reception. Even though this is Austin, in real life the room was not that shade of burnt orange.