Kool and the Gang performed exactly ten songs:  Fresh, Tonight, Emergency, Misled, Too Hot, Hollywood Swinging, Jungle Boogie, Ladies’ Night, Get Down On It, and Celebration.  They’re a very solid band.  It felt like they’ve been doing this forever… oh wait, they have!  They don’t have the original lead singer (apparently that guy left in the ’80s) but the newer guy sounds EXACTLY like him and the only giveaway is he’s younger than the rest of the band.

For this show, the audience into it, but I blame the pairing with Van Halen.  Most of the concertgoers were of the cornfed, mullet-clad variety.  Think “My Name is Earl.”  I didn’t see many black people in the crowd.  This gave the show a “working” feel, as if the band were just trying to get through the gig.  Their amazing musical output was more automatic than inspired.  I probably would have enjoyed them more in a smaller venue in Oakland vs. this show.

I wish I could write more about them, but I have never paid much attention to them over the years.  I’ve never bought a Kool and the Gang record because I’ve never felt the need.  Their music is EVERYWHERE.  In fact, Celebration was on my “do not play list” for my wedding reception ’cause I can’t stand that DJs seems to use this song for EVERY event.  I did enjoy hearing the song live by the original band, though… probably the only time I’ve really enjoyed the song.

Van Halen:  Also very solid.  Opening with flawless renditions of Unchained immediately followed by Runnin’ With The Devil made me feel like I was somehow transported to 1981 again.  It made it not so bad when they played their new single She’s the Woman third… it sounds like their old stuff and fit quite well.  In fact, I’ve since read that the song was written in the old days and never released, so that makes sense.

They played for two hours, covering what seemed to be the entire catalog of their David-Lee-Roth-era hit material (they played no “Van Hagar” songs).  Only four of the songs were from the new album, thankfully, ’cause let’s face it, nobody was there to hear the new stuff.  I already mentioned She’s the Woman.  Tattoo sounds live just as it does in the video: Meh.  I’ve forgotten the other two already.

The two things that bugged me most I would bet aren’t things most people will mention.  First, Alex seemed to try making the drums more complicated than the studio tracks, which didn’t always work. Secondly, for Jump and I’ll Wait they used a sequencer instead of a real keyboard player, which didn’t work so well because the band started playing out of synch with the machine… in fact, Jump got to be quite a mess during the solo.

David stylized the vocals on some of the songs in such a way that I’m sure lots of people will say he “doesn’t have it anymore,” but actually some of his stylistic changes were more tricky than the original vocals.   He still did his trademark high kicks, spinning jumps, jump kicks, and sliding up to standing position from a full side split.  The trick, I saw, was that they install a gymnastics floor for his portion of the stage.  He didn’t do any backflips or jumps from high platforms, but the guy’s pushing 60, so let’s give him a break, yes?  His vocals seemed to have suffered over the years, but he’s still got more range than most any other rock singer.

Lots of people will complain about Wolfgang Van Halen, I’m sure, simply ’cause he’s not Michael Anthony… but facts have gotta be faced.  Egos have gotten in the way and now that the new bassist is family, unless the kid splits off into his own band, Wolfie is here to stay.  Besides, although I’m sure the reports of his looking out-of-place in 2007 are true, now that he’s 21, he doesn’t look so much like a teenage boy who’s won a “play with Van Halen” contest and more just like a replacement bassist.  No more out-of-place than any other replacement musician.  He plays very well (of course… considering who taught him), and his backing vocals are adequate.  His dad helps him with the backing vocals.

Alex Van Halen is a very solid drummer.  Sometimes more complicated than he needs to be.  His drum solo was impressive technically, but it wasn’t very engaging for the crowd.  Many people sat down and waited it out vs. standing and cheering.  Maybe the days of the drum solo are dead?  He included lots of interactive lights, sequencers, electronic instruments, and the like, taking a page out of Neal Peart’s book of drum solos, although I’d rather watch Neal any day.

Eddie Van Halen certainly still has it, or apparently does again, as I’ve heard he’s been sloppy in the recent past.  Although many of his solos get to where one sounds like another, near the end of the show he did a version of Eruption that was extended into a very long solo guitar performance spanning many styles.  I was absolutely blown away.  I probably would have enjoyed watching a solo concert of Eddie Van Halen doing various things with a guitar just as much as watching the whole band.  No matter what you read about him, the man is an impressive guitarist.  For a guy who apparently has a prosthetic hip, false teeth, and two-thirds of a tongue, he’s pulled it together well to make a great stage presence.

One of the highlights of the show was Ice Cream Man.  Originally I’d thought it was an encore, because the band had said “Thank you” and left the stage beforehand, but they played for another 30 minutes (Ice Cream Man, Panama, Eddie’s big Eruption solo, and Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love).  For Ice Cream Man, David Lee Roth came on stage alone with an acoustic guitar.  Behind him on the drive-in-movie sized video screen was a video of some farm dogs herding animals.  As he riffed on the guitar, Roth explained how he’d grown up on farms in Indiana, how his pastime is raising, training, and showing dogs, how he only owns pickup trucks, exclaiming “There IS no other car,”  and such.  He said training dogs is a great way to get outside and get some sunshine, which he followed by a loose segue about ice cream, starting the song.  He performed the first part of the song solo and was joined onstage by the band for the hard rock part.  It made for a great change of pace, breaking the concert up a bit from the bit of monotony it was starting to get into.  Panama seems to have a different sound than many of the other classics, so that song and the Eruption solo were also nice changes of pace.

The real encore was Jump.  The band didn’t even leave the stage, Roth just asked the audience, “Do you want an encore?” and they played the song.  I think that might have had something to do with the venue requiring the show to be over by 11pm.  During that song, paper butterflies, balloons, and a huge checkered flag were employed, which were almost an adequate distraction to the fact that Jump was one of their weaker songs and not the best encore choice.

Overall, I’d say if you need to cross a Van Halen concert off your bucket list, they won’t disappoint.  If you want to see a great rock show, you’ll also be quite pleased, although it gets a little grueling in the middle, before the Ice Cream Man bit and the Eruption solo.  If you’re going to compare them to the Van Halen of the old days, you’re probably going to be a bit disappointed.  If you’re a Sammy Hagar fan, skip it.

I actually kinda love the idea; it’s practical and it employs the homeless.  People can say it “dehumanizes” them, but I’d say society has already done that.  When’s the last time YOU bought a “Street Sheet” from a homeless person hawking them.  You ignore them, right?  Yeah… I thought so.  In this case, not only does the homeless person get a chance to earn some money, but there’s likely a social interaction involved as well.  Homeless people don’t get a lot of that.  Most people don’t even look them in the eye.

Regarding exploitation, there’s so much worse a person on the streets could get themselves into just to get by: theft, prostitution, bum fights…
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The story at Wired
Homeless Hotspots website

Thing is, my backup had some irreplaceable files on it.  What files, I’m not exactly sure.  Some are duplicated in different places on my two MacBooks.  Well, actually I have three MacBooks although I never use the first one (the one that got dropped).  The third one’s original hard drive might have some files on it I can scrounge too.  The drive I lost on that one was a clone of the original with more volume (and more files).

Aaaaaaanyway… so I lost some files.  Wedding pictures?  Got those on DVD.  Honeymoon?  Still have copies on one of the Macs.  Pictures from this past holiday season when my brother’s family and my in-laws visited?  Still have those too.  So this bears the question of whether it’s worth rescuing the backup drive.

Likely most of what I’ve lost are pictures and video I’ve taken between early 2009 and early 2011.  Lots of snapshots, lots of YouTube stuff.  Basically, I’ve been too lazy to delete the original files from the MacBooks since about a year ago, so thankfully I have those (and two very full MacBook hard drives).  Stuff from early 2009 and before will still be on the old Mac.

Tomorrow I’ll take the drive into a shop where they’ll see if they can rescue it software-wise.  If it requires a forensic recovery, though…

I’m swinging back and forth between the idea of buying two backup drives and keeping identical stuff on them, storing the drives in different physical locations, or buying one backup and signing up for a cloud based backup service.  Frankly I’ve always been leery of using a cloud service for backup, but I see the advantages.  For sure I’ll also have my own physical copy too, though.

What a headache.  Thing is, I’m sure it’ll happen to me again sometime.

We were probably about five and eight years old, my younger brother and I… maybe a bit older.  It was summer.  We were wearing Durango-style motorcycle boots, as we often did.  You know, the kind with the metal rings on the side held in place by three straps, one that goes to the sole, one that goes around the front, and one that goes around the back of your heel?  They were brown leather and almost resembled cowboy boots except they had squared toes and a lower heel.  Oddly enough, I believe we were also wearing shorts and tank tops, the both of us.  This wasn’t an infrequent style of dress for us.  We hadn’t yet begun to develop into the attentive slaves to fashion we have become in our adulthood.

I don’t remember the argument, but I know we were yelling at each other.  We were leaving the Farm King store, a regular stop on Saturday shopping at the time, and heading toward our mom’s lime green 1973 Ford Pinto.  I stopped and turned toward my brother, face to face, and said something.  I don’t remember what I said, but I know it pissed him off.  I can still picture the slow-motion image of that boot swinging up from the ground, propelled by a skinny white leg.  I stabbing pain took over my whole core.  I stumbled backward and started to cry, partly because I needed to cry and partly to get our mom’s attention so that my brother could be punished for his heinous wrongdoing.

He didn’t get punished, but mom did yell at him quite a bit and tell him he should never kick anyone in the balls because he could “really hurt them permanently.“  I briefly wondered if my own nuts might be hurt permanently, but dismissed it.  I was more bothered that my brother didn’t get slapped or grounded or something.  The whole trip home I held and guarded my nuts and stewed that my brother had basically gotten away with it.  In retrospect, I probably deserved it.
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Photo purchased from 123rf.com

I realized so much of our year has gone by while updating my “pushupometer” in the sidebar of this blog.  I’m at a total of 703 pushups for the year.  That averages out to 19 a day, although the total for today was 37, but you know that already if you’ve read my previous post regarding this.

The pushup thing and my pledge to make a video every day on my secondary YouTube channel, NotChristopherMast, the one I use  for blogs, are the two resolutions I’ve stuck to best.  I’ve indeed made a video every day (with varying quality).  I’ve indeed increased my pushups every day.  It’s inspiring.

I’ve also logged all my non-commute cycling miles, but the number is as yet unimpressive.  I did manage a ride Saturday, with a bit of excitement, and I’m heading out on an organized ride in Napa County this coming Saturday, so that goal should see some progress too.

Hopefully, this will be “my year.”  We shall see…

It’ll be available on iTunes and the whole of the “digital music for sale” internet spectrum, but I’ll also produce 100 physical CDs that’ll be hand-autographed in case I become hugely famous sometime long after I’m dead so your grandchildren can argue about who gets the profits from the estate auction.

On a side note, I have some more songs that’ll get released in digital download under a different title to be determined.  These songs will be completely different from the usual… shooting for a retro-80s loop feel there.  Not even sure if I’ll bother with the whole iTunes thing for that.

So… sometime around April or May look for “There Will Be Cake” by yours truly.