RATT at Oakland Metro Operahouse

Haha! Got a chance to see RATT at the Oakland Metro on Tuesday night. Had a total blast! I feel like this summer has been a string of show after show, lately going to and planning on going to see bands that are old enough to be my fathers. Awesome! Gotta do it now, may never happen again. Anyway, my friend Amanda runs Lava Booking, a local talent buying/agent company responsible for a lot of great shows here! She put on the RATT show, dealt with the band's shit, and still managed to come out stoked. What a woman! The dudes made the crowd wait a SUPER long time before coming onstage...for whatever reasons rockstars have for doing things that piss their fans off. When they finally did play though, they did us all proud and brought everyone back to their hair metal roots in a goooood way. Originally I was sort of questioning going, but since I'm saying yes to experiencing pretty much everything nowadays, (and I knew deep down it'd be fun), off to the show we went and thank baby metal jesus we did! Fun, fun, fun.

Scorpions at Concord Pavilion, Le Cheval - Oakland

Sunday was an amazing day! I got a chance to see one of the bands that was a big part of my youth, Scorpions, on their farewell tour's Bay Area stop. Sonny, Stash and I started out the day with a stop at Le Cheval, a Vietnamese restaurant in downtown Oakland I'd never been to. They value the relationship between a balanced, healthy diet and overall good health, and construct their menu of French/Chinese/Southeast Asian cooking concepts accordingly. Tasty!!!

From there, we picked up the lovely Katie and headed out East to Concord. I wasn't quite sure what to expect from the show, since these dudes have literally been a touring band for 45 years. Regardless, they have a firm spot in the memories of my childhood roadtrips, the most formative years, which obviously helped to form my preferences for music in general. Must go! I had luckily won tickets for the show about a month prior, and about 20 of out other friends were going, so it was a total no brainer.
Unfortunately the sound set-up at the pavilion seemed like it was only half on. For those of us up on the lawn level, there was a bit left to be desired as far as how much noise was getting thrown at us. However, what we could hear was great! Everyone was completely right on music wise. Klaus' vocals were phenomenal. The energy of the band was totally rockin! I got like 0 good pictures, but for some pretty good ones check out the umlaut blog.

Lazy Dogs, Victory Warehouse, Tidal Wave Metal Fest

This was one of those days where you just feel antsy to clock out and get the weekend started. Don't get me wrong, I love my job...but there's definitely something to be said for cutting loose and lettin your hair down!

On this night, Andrea and I headed out to Victory Warehouse on 24th and San Pablo in Oakland to meet up with everyone and check out Sonny's roomie's band, Lazy Dogs. Love those kids. Good times.




After that show we all headed back to the house and somehow started up a spontaneous reggae dance party in Tar's room. So many different people, into totally different stuff, just dropping all inhibition and shakin what they got for a bit. Nice nitecap!!

Day 2: July 24th

Happy Saturday! Day 1 of the Tidal Wave Festival, a yearly free metal fest put on entirely by donations from fans and vendors! It's a 2 day event, of which I only got to see 1 day due to work today, but fun and full of friends, dogs, blankets and beer...the mild San Francisco summer day was absolutely perfect! The venue, The Jerry Garcia Ampitheatre was killer as well!

Wandering Eye @ Oakland Metro

The other night I went to keep the dude company while sound engineering a Pirate Cat Radio sponsored show at Oakland Metro Operahouse. The company was great, but all of the bands spoke Spanish, the crowd was mostly teens, and the music was primarily blah..

naturally my eye and mind began to wander around the space.

Earthless Mabel

When one takes on 7 million responsibilities...one forgets to update their blog. Ah, such is the life of a newly promoted supervisor...
Poe has been making great strides in exploring the warehouse, and heck it only took him 6 months to come down the stairs!


Poe and Pickle spend time antagonizing each other...

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This is Mabel...mooshy face pitbull. So ridiculously sweet!

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We saw Earthless and Witch play at the Brookdale Lodge in the Santa Cruz Mtns. This place has been around forever, and has a million different stories about various ghostly inhabitants, weird sightings, strange occurrences, and other sordid tales..



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I found this broken down lounger outside our front door when I was cleaning up stuff. I think If I cut off all of the broken plastic...I could make a pretty decent woven seat and back for it!

Every good project needs somewhere to start!

continuing to catch as catch can

Today is one of my scheduled days off, but I got called in to work a half day later on... Barrett just left to drive down south for a tattoo appt with this guy


and to see these guys


I was supposed to go down too..to hang out and get my other shin done, but plans got a little messed up. So, Chris and Brooke are comin up next weekend and we'll so it then!

Yesterday was Super Tuesday, which included California's primary vote. I voted. This is the most important vote this country has ever seen for so many reasons. If we continue down the path we're currently on, we'll no doubt see the implosion of this country..much to the delight of the hopeful-population-minimizing republicans I'm sure..
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We saw Saviours and High on Fire not too long ago at the Blank Club downtown. That place is tiny and the sound is not too great, but I loved seeing them again..







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I got a new piece of art from Adrian at Guru Tattoo in San Jose



blurry picture



so I have a touch up scheduled next tuesday, and we'll be adding in a glow coming off the lantern.
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baby Baxter. poodle, chihuahua, terrier... Terchipoo?



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We got to doggie-sit for Kristi and Ray.
Barrett and Stella, the vicious pitbull

Me and Daisy, the equally vicious chow/shepherd

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don't forget to shake it

a long dusty road

So it has been going on my whole life. This fog. This dark room. This suffocating silence. Coming in waves every few months. Getting too heavy to bear every year or so. It usually results in a failure at whatever I'm trying to accomplish in life at that point, then forces a move. I've lived all over because of it.

Today I don't want to leave. So I'm not. I'm trying to fight.






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In the past couple weeks we saw Big Business and Isis. I couldn't take any pictures because I was too into the show. My neck was sore the next day haha. We also went downtown and saw Sarah's band, Man Versus. She's got an amazing voice for sure..

Some of the whole foodies moved into a new house in San Jose. Its this huge rad old place that has old cars in the backyard and a bathroom completely tiled in pink! We had a little candlelit get together on their first night (they didn't have electricity yet). There have also been a couple nights of "Rock Band"...oh lordy.

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Kittens sleep on top of each other...its so f'n cute






Chinese Silky Bantams


Rocky the Bulldoggie






Sinclair in sweatshirt

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Mt little helper...loves folding socks


and doing dishes........



Our fabulous under-an-hour Thanksgiving meal for two...
Baked tofu, garlic broccoli, heaps of smashed taters, punkin pie and vino!




until next time...