book words

again, another fun filled weekend in santa cruz. i really hope my boss doesn't read this blog because he's going to get pissed at all the "work" i've been getting accomplished. the highlights of this weekend included a pretty awesome show/party and rockets.

the show on saturday was pretty awesome. a great deal of friends showed up to watch me wrench my heart out over the microphone. as usual, i wasn't in the most sober of states by the time i was ready to play. due to the fact that i haven't been playing music recently, i was quite nervous and afraid of the intimacy of sam g's front room. before i went on, there was a nice meandering set played by another victor (and someone else i didn't meet) that warmed up the crowd. upon sitting down to play, i was immediately bombarded by real talk quotes. it was really really funny and fun. although the content of the music was watered down by the overall crowd interaction, i believe the show was a lot more entertaining for everyone involved. it was incredibly difficult for me to play with the distractions and eventually led to me making a few mistakes (but whatever). in the middle of the set, it was decided that my new name was book words, something i took to well. after being thrown up and down towards the ceiling, i received accolades from the people at the party and was in what, as my friends girlfriend stated, a pussy tsunami. it's funny because i'm not even sure anyone heard the music over the antics, but everyone was giving me smiles and thumbs up. it was great fun.

cliff greenwood and miles went on after me and played an, as usual, amazing set with several young college students sitting around sighing dreamily at their country-punk. pretty awesome. check out their music.

i stepped outside to do a jay and came back in to see luke janela sitting with his shoes off with cello in hand and 808 by feet. there was a throbbing techno beat coming from the 808 and i was waiting for luke to turn off the beats and start playing the cello. to my (and i believe the rest of the party's) surprise, luke started jamming with the techno, playing a distorted cello accompanied by heavily effected and delayed vocals. it was really cool and really, really blew my mind. he weaved through his set, changing the effects on the cello and his voice, mixing up the beats (with his bare feet) and generally being totally awesome. i could see this music going off at dance parties across the world. his speakers on the PA were clipping but the distorted quality of the music added to the overall sound and made it that much more sweet. i hope his speakers are okay. he ended his set by jamming to some sweet beats and we danced. it doesn't get much better than that. after we left, i guess some sc locals came and gave the ol, "i'm a local" argument at the party. you can read more about that at luke's site (linked above).

the following day, that'd be sunday i think, trevor called us over to the high school to witness the launch of his model rocket. there were three successful launches with two successful recoveries. this led us to head out to capitola to the hobby store to get rockets. i got the big bertha and trevor got one that came Ready To Fly (RTF). the guy at the hobby store was trying to tell us that estes has a monopoly on rocket engines so they can charge as much as they like. at first i thought that because they were the only hobby store in the area they were the monopoly, but, after some research, it turns out that it's difficult to get the rocket engines for less than three bucks a pop. i really wanted to spend one hundred dollars on the rocket with the digital camera, but i decided to wait and work out my recovery skills first. i'll have some pictures of the first launch once i get my rocket together.