Upcoming shows

Well, it looks like we have settled back into a foursome. We had an accordion player for a show in Astoria, and then our show at the White Eagle in September. It was fun while it lasted but now we're back down to our core 4, me, emily (who is on bass almost full time now), Aaron and Geof. We have shows lined up for the rest of the year (Halloween Dinner hour show at Mississippi Pizza, Nov 15th at East Burn in Portland and December 4th at Alberta St. Pub with our old, dear friends Cicada Omega). We have settled in nicely, having had our best practice in months last weekend. New songs in the works, as well as designs on a new CD to be out by the beginning of the new year. Stay tuned, and come out to shows if it suits your fancy.


http://www.thenewmexicanrevolution.com

Merkley and Smith

Jeff Merkley (D) is challenging Gordon Smith (R) for the senate in my adopted state of Oregon. Gordon Smith has been a tried and true backer of the Bush Administration until it became quite apparent in 2006 (when Dems swept every statewide race) that being a republican in this state might be a great deficit. So now Gordon Smith is running as a democrat, showing pictures of Obama in his campaign ads, running on traditionally democratic prinicples of environmental protection, expanded government provided health care, etc while also attacking Merkley for being a democrat. Smith has had a solid lead up to this point, but Rasmussen has their latest poll out that shows Merkley with a statistically insignificant lead, which means they are basically tied. This is bad news for Smith. He has more money, more name recognition, more to lay claim to, but he has an R by his name, which trumps all of that it would seem. Merkley has been making a steady climb while Smith's support has been flat at best.

http://www.pollster.com/08-OR-Sen-GE-SvM.php

Smith has been good on certain issues (trying to get mental health parity, whereby insurance companies would treat mental illness the same as physical illness), but his political turn around on the Iraq war in 2006 only came about after he saw that his undivided support of the war would be an anvil around his neck in 2008. He is in trouble, like many republicans this year.

the political side of things

It is presidential electioneering season, and that means tons of boredom passed off as excitement. Well, there is one exciting aspect of this whole thing, and that is watching John McCain flounder at every turn. Twice, two days running, McCain referred to the Czech Republic as Czechoslovakia. Czechoslovakia has not existed since 1993, when the one country split into two, with the other being, weirdly enough, Slovakia. As the right wing will go about relying on the fear of terrorism as their only talking point, the will undoubtedly say that Obama has a pre-9/11 mindset. Maybe we should start saying that McCain has a pre-11/9/89* mindset.

*Fall of Berlin Wall.

A new day

After having resisted blogging for such a long time, I've decided to throw my hat into the ring here, and share with world all of my trivial thoughts, well not all, but my trivial thoughts on music and politics. This thread got started when I was having a discussion about learning music as a kid the other day with Katie and her parents. Her mom asked if I took piano lessons as a kid, and I said that I did, but none of it really stuck with me. I'm sure there's some muscle memory there, and that whole spatial thinking thing that kids supposedly improve through playing piano, but nothing concrete. I don't play the things I played as a kid. It was rote reproduction. And this is the problem with music education (and mostly every type of education). Creativity isn't valued, being able to do as your told is valued. So it's no wonder that many kids, forced into music lessons or school band, abandon music shortly after they are no longer forced to go. If creativity was valued, if kids were taught not only the fundamentals, but also how to compose a piece or write a song, then I think more people would continue to play music after the lessons are done, and our world would be a richer place for it.