The Avett Brothers

I am going to blog soon for real about this past weekend's conference on the leading edge bigfoot research here in Texas (yes, bigfoot), but I couldn't wait to share something in the meantime with those of you who are already Avett Brothers fanatics like me, and with those of you who aren't yet but should be. NPR is streaming their newest album for free this week, leading up to its release (Sept. 29th). So for the next 2 days, you can listen to it over and over again like I am doing! They were supposed to play Dallas tonight, which would have lit-er-ally made my whole fall, but, alas, it got rescheduled for January. Something to look forward to in the new year, I suppose. Double-wide optimism strikes again!

To listen to one of their old songs that is a favorite of mine, check the top right corner of this page where I have added a new feature to the blog! Now, when I am going on and on about a band, I can post a song for you to listen to so you can tell right away if I am full of it. Efficient, huh? You can listen once for free, and then Lala will make you buy it if you want to listen to it again.

If you like that, and want to hear their new album in its entirety, go to:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112973444

Their live shows feel quite different than their studio albums. The album feels like this:
And their live shows feel like this:

This album, like their previous ones, is incredibly good. Unlike their previous albums though, for the first time the songs on this one poke right into my heart and it hurts. But I love it, and hope you do too....

The Teapot Dome Scandal and the Wacky Wacky Salt-Shakers

Wow! That comment thing really went over well. I have 4 readers-- other than my mom! (who adorably wrote to tell me she saw the comment gadget but couldn't figure out how to post one. Sometimes things are prohibitively technical for a reason Mom!) This, of course, has incurred the jealousy of bloggers worldwide (ok, perhaps only the jealousy of one blogger, in Ohio, whose readership [currently, n = 2] is about to go through the roof after I link his blog to my blog here, and all the overflow from the Bloomington Velo-News finds itself completely hooked on the latest musings and sociopolitical commentary from a baseball coach in Ohio. Thanks again for the nod GP!)

As you know, I was traveling a fair amount during my first 6 months of living in Arlington, and I got back from the last trip (details below; is that bad, to link to my own blog?) and was feeling a bit guilty and pretty behind schedule at work. So I was glad not to have any trips on the horizon, since it is usually the sprinkling of trips throughout my calendar that provides bookends around periods of supposed productivity during which I always have such a hard time getting anything done. But this time, the coast was clear and I was going to be able to come back to Arlington and just work! With abandon! You know, get ahead in the game! Maybe have something to show for it at the end of the day. Yeah, well I have been in Arlington for like a month straight and I am itchin' to hit the road! Good thing I have tentatively planned to go on tour with Shane around Thanksgiving.
Tour, you ask?
Yes, tour.
But Schaack,....um... you don't really play an instrument.
Um,... yeah,..... well, performance isn't entirely about musical capabibilites alright!

From where does this cockamamie idea stem? Well, last December I decided to make good on a vow I had made to myself about 6 years previous (for the full story, told in situ, click below; notice there is none of the actual music posted. There is a reason for this.)

Basically, I wanted to do an open mic night before I graduated and to help take the edge off, I somehow convinced/was blessed by all my friends who play instruments joining me for the event. We made a band called The Teapot Dome Scandal and the Wacky Wacky Salt-Shakers and we went on the "For One Night Only" Tour. Despite the fact that I have little to no musical ability, this was a magical night. You can probably tell by the impossibly wide smile on my face that it was one of the most fun nights of my life. It was certainly more fun that the vast majority of the other things I did during the pursuit of my PhD. It was so fun, in fact, that Shane Lewinski (Schaackmobile Hall of Famer and Wacky Wacky Salt-Shaker) had a brilliant idea shortly afterwards. He suggested that we go on tour, and play a bunch of open mic nights from town-to-town over a several day period-- like a real tour! Except, once again, without the musical talent or nagging details of setting up any shows! Our excitement reached its zenith when we realized that if we went on tour, we would get to make concert t-shirts!!!! After blowing an o-ring at the thought of having graphic art made specifically by or for us and a list of small dive-bar names printed on the back of a t-shirt, we decided we should probably try and write some of our own songs instead of counting on 80's glam rock ballads for our bread and butter. So far, I/we have written a handful, but it is definitely going to be hard to recapture the magic of that cold Thursday evening at the typically depauperate open mic night at the Player's Pub in Bloomington-- living out a dream, and bringing ten additional people along for the ride (not to mention the wildly supportive friends and patrons that came to watch and somehow knew that clapping was the most beautiful sound that would be made that night), is way better than any song I might be able to write. Anyway, that's my next planned trip-- November 21-25th, 2009. If we are crazy enough to make t-shirts, that's what you're all getting for Christmas.
The Teapot Dome Scandal and the Wacky Wacky Salt-Shakers are:
Sarah Schaack (guitar, volcals, tambourine)
Darron Luesse (guitar, vocals; drove 5 hours to surprise me and ended up in the band)
Shane Lewinski (guitar, vocals, rhythm egg, castenets; drove 5 hours to join the band)
Francesco Catania (guitar, vocals; labmate, original recruit for the band)
Stacy Hoobler (drums; actual musician & friend, provided much-needed base/bass for the band)
Matt Rosenthal (electric guitar; recruited to the band the night before)
Dan Jacobs (harmonica, melodica; stars & guitars regular, destined to be in the band)
Eunjin Choi (vocals; saintly undergrad working in the lab, ended up being recruited to the band)
Very nice dude at the bar (banjo; joined the band during the show)

Geraint Parry (announcer)
Sam Miller (videographer)

Like GP said during the show--
with 5 guitars and a banjo, what could go wrong?

Flashback to July 2009: Summiting Ibapah

Not all that big a leap back in time, I realize... but I just got pictures from the trek up Ibapah Peak (12,1010 ft) and wanted to share some of the summit approach because it is so extremely beautiful. As the highest peak in the Deep Creek Mountains, it emerges from the valley quite abruptly, resulting in a dramatic ascent and an amazing vista once you get to the top. Go climb this mountain if you can!

If you do, you will feel like this!

Lastly, after months of public outcry (okay, okay, ... a couple of emails), I have finally added the commenting gadget to the blog (see below) so I won't hoard the witty and insightful quips I occasionally get (which I love!) to myself anymore.  

If my mom is, in fact, the only one reading this blog (as I often suspect), it will become abundantly clear soon enough, so please feel free to make your opinions on optimism, trailer life, north central Texas, transposable elements, Todd Snider, or anything else you can think of 
known to the universe, just as I do!

The End of Summer is Still Summer in Texas

School started last week and I just wanted to share a picture of a campus vehicle here at the University of Texas-Arlington. Isn't it sweet? I asked the dude driving it if this is what they used to chauffeur important donors around when they came on campus and he chuckled and said no, but proudly told me it was a '74. I told him, so was I!

I spent the Labor Day Weekend down on the coast in Rockport-- a part of the state I had never been to before. Other than the Czech Stop, a gas station that sells incredibly tasty homemade kolaches (my favorite culinary discovery since moving to Texas), the metroplex (that's what they call the greater Dallas-Ft. Worth metropolitan area) and the ocean are separated by about 350 miles of almost featureless rural Texas landscape. The coast itself is nice and provides an ocean breeze to offset the incredible heat (it's September, and yesterday it was still 100 degrees here.) I am going to miss lots of things about fall, I can tell already. The weekend was composed of swimming, boating, and, most wonderfully, eating seafood to satiety, which one rarely gets to do. Thanks to Kerri and Mitch for hosting!

In concert news, I got to do 2 of my favorite things last week-- 1) see Todd Snider, on his old stomping grounds no less and 2) introduce someone new to the joy of Todd Snider. He played the Cheatham Street Warehouse in San Marcos, TX-- a venue owned by a guy named Kent Finlay who met Todd shortly after he bought his first guitar and taught himself the three chords he has learned to play so well while sharing his opinions which, brothers and sisters, he is not sharing because they are right, or because they are smart, but because they rhyme. Todd's first gigs were at this place and I was extremely excited to drive 4 hours south to see him play among old friends in a small Texas shack made out of rebar. The highlights for me were Waco Moon, which he rarely plays, and a slowed down, heartfelt version of Play A Train Song. Both songs are about friends who died early, but one is sad and one is celebratory. One of the reasons I love Todd is because of his ability to find both these feelings in something most people write off as simply tragic and his ability to share it with the rest of us so beautifully. It was a great show (my 16th I believe!) and I can't wait to see him again.