Music City Saturday

Saturday, March 10, 2011 - We spent a beautiful spring afternoon and evening in one of our favorite (and closest) cities today, good ol' Nashville, TN, doing a few things that we had not done before.

We stopped in for a quick visit to the tiny and historic Hatch Show Print Store on Broadway. 

We are big fans of these guys who produce one-of-a-kind, letter-press posters by hand. 

We added a couple more prints to our growing collection included a "Hatch Cats" poster

commemorating the store and its residents felines, as well as, one that points the way for

party-goers that we hope to use as a yearly Christmas decoration.



Next up, we bought tickets for a late afternoon Backstage Tour of the Ryman Auditorium. 
This quick 30-minute tour is quite interesting and kind of cool since each "stop"
is in the performer dressing rooms used in this beautiful, historic building. 
We also got to step briefly on to the stage where we just saw the
amazing Mumford & Sons show earlier in the week
as well as many more great shows over the years.



We capped the day off with dinner and a show at 3rd & Lindsley. 
The headliners were The Wood Brothers
who we had not really seen or heard of before, but judging by the packed house,
 it was obvious they are popular.  Now, granted, the brothers aren't much to look at,
but they sure can play the blues.  The opening act,

Seth Walker, was pretty good too.  Thanks to our friends,

Ryan and Dawn, for the invitation.

Mumford & Sons

Wednesday, March 7, 2012:  We attended the 2nd night of a historic, 3-night stand of SOLD OUT shows at The Ryman Auditorium by the amazing English folk-rock group, Mumford & Sons.  We felt lucky to attend since tickets sold out in a reported record time of under 10 minutes to all three shows.


The historic Hatch Show Print Company had a limited edition run of show prints made
 for the occasion.  We snagged the yellow one on the right to add to our collection.

photo courtesy of mumfordandsonsblog.com



The North London quartet took stage around 9:30 after two impressive opening acts. 
The Nashville-based band The Apache Relay was first up and we really enjoyed their energy and
sound.  The band,  Dawes, followed with a solid set.  We had seen them before when they opened
for Brett Dennen at The Cannery last year.  In the video below we got an additional treat when Jerry
Douglas and his dobro(who we had just missed at Bluegrass Underground - see previous blog
entry) joined the boys on stage for an excellent cover of Simon & Garfunkel's "The Boxer" as well as
 M&S's own beautiful song "Awake My Soul."



This was easily agreed upon by us to be one of the best-sounding shows we have ever
seen at The Ryman (and there have been plenty).  The crowd was enthusiastic and
appreciative of not only the songs they all knew by heart off the band's brilliant debut
album, Sigh No More, but also of several new songs that will hopefully make it onto
their much anticipated second album.  Some of which is probably being recorded here
 in Nashville.  Our folding-chair seats behind the last row in  the balcony were a
perfect vantage point.  Photo copyright Steve Lowy 2011

Bluegrass Underground

Sunday, February 26, 2012

Today we attended Day 3 of the taping of the PBS television show "Bluegrass Underground" which takes place 333 feet below ground in the Volcano Room of Cumberland Caverns in McMinnville, TN.  What a cool concept and experience!



The Sunday afternoon performance was SOLD OUT.
There was plenty of seating not only in folding chairs, but all around the cave
on stones and ledges.  They also have bathrooms and a concession stand in this
unique set-up that's been going on since 2008.
First up were, The Vespers, a young quartet out of Nashville who were very good.
Next up were The Black Lillies out of Knoxville.  We had seen these guys
briefly at Bonnaroo a few years ago.  They were quite enjoyable.

Next up was one our favorite bands to see live (and how we found out about this event),
Scott Miller and the Commonwealth, out of Knoxville.  Scott's band, the Commonwealth, was
"bluegrassified" a bit with a stand-up bass and a fiddle player which was a new twist for us, but
sounded just as good, if not better than the many times we have seen them before.  Unfortunately,
due to time constraints and other obligations, we had to depart before the last set from The Jerry
Douglas Band.  Yes, that Jerry Douglas of Alison Krauss & Union Station fame.

We hated to miss the last band, but we had RSVPed to an Oscar Party that night held annually by our friends, Danny and Brenda, and we didn't want to be late since we had a long drive from McMinnville over to Brentwood on the other side of Nashville.  But, we definitely got our money's worth with the three bands we did see in such a unique venue.  They do a show about once a month here and we will definitely be back again when we get the chance.  Speaking of The Oscars, we were happy to catch this year's Best Picture "The Artist" in Chattanooga the night before with our friends, Mike and Elizabeth.  It was pretty obvious after seeing this unique and charming black-and-white silent movie that it was going to win.

O/A/R Now and the O/S/C/A/R/S Later

Friday, February 17, 2012:

We saw one of our favorite bands again tonight at the new Marathon Music Works in Nashville.  The guys from O/A/R were spot-on but unfortunately we were not impressed with the sound in the MMW.  The venue blamed the band's sound engineer, but I doubt that since this is our fourth time seeing them and they have always sounded great (including two outdoor shows).  It was their first sell-out in the new venue and we hope they improve the acoustics because it could be a nice addition to the Nashville live music scene.

The Marathon Music Works entry stamp couldn't be cuter.  Now, if they will only work as hard on their acoustics.  Before the show we had dinner with our friends, Mike and Pam, at J. Alexander's on West End.  We listened intently about their recent trip to Peru and quickly surmised that we wanted to do the same trip.  Sounds amazing!  We spent the night after the show at the Millennium Maxwell Hotel on the north end of downtown.  We got a great, cheap rate and the hotel was decent, but nothing to really endorse.

Saturday, February 18, 2012:

After a nice sleep-in, we checked out of our hotel this morning and headed over to the Belcourt Theatre to meet our friends, Danny and Brenda, for a showing of the Oscar-nominated short films of this past year.  We saw these last year here in preparation for Danny and Brenda's annual Oscar party and they were very enjoyable.  This year was no exception.  Both the animated and live entries were all great.  It's quite hard to pick a favorite in both categories.  All of them seem to have a great chance (and deserve) to win.  I think our ballots might all read differently at the Oscar party this year.  We all had dinner afterwards at a place that is quickly becoming one of our favorite restaurants in Nashville now, Whiskey Kitchen on 12th Avenue South.  The food was delicious and very affordable.

Monday, February 20, 2012:

Since it was a holiday (thanks, presidents), we decided to head back to Nashville to grab a mid-day meal at the always-great P.F. Changs on West End and then finish up the viewing of the Oscar Shorts at Belcourt with the documentaries category.  Again, all entries that we saw were very well done, but we will give a nod to The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom, quite moving and beautifully shot.   Afterwards, we slipped over to Green Hills for a showing of one of this year's Best Picture nominees, The Descendants, starring Best Actor nominee, George Clooney.  Wow!  It's amazing how much with both absolutely HATED this movie.  Again, this blog is never intended to harp on the negative, but, folks, this movie is baaaaadd!  We were very surprised since it is getting rave reviews, and is from the director of one our favorite small-budget films of the last decade, Sideways.  But that's the great thing about art, one person's crappola is another person's treasure.

Aruba State of Mind

Saturday, February 13, 2012:  Today was a lazy day with no specific plans in Aruba.  Lots of pool time followed by lots of beach time.

Downtown Oranjestad.

We saw this guy on our way to the beach.  He was skittering across a parking lot.
Note the beer cap by his tale ruining the "natural" effect of the shot.

The beaches rock in Aruba.  It's their # 1 draw and for good reason.
They are simply spectacular with soft white sand and beautiful water.

Our only real "bust" of the trip was waiting 3 hours or so downtown
in the capital city of Oranjestad for the Carnaval Parade to pass.
Evidently "island time" applies to parades as well because we
never saw it except on a TV broadcast in one of the casinos.

Aruba Farewell

Thursday, February 12, 2011:  On our last day in Aruba, we took an early morning car-tour
around some of the island.

California Lighthouse on the NW tip of the island as seen through ancient, land-locked coral.

A windswept Divi-divi tree on the beach.

Cactus on the beach?  Well, that's different, but that's Aruba.




Mt. Jamanota, only 620 ft. above flat Aruba and covered with cacti.

 

South America is only 17 miles south of Aruba, but it's still considered in the Caribbean.

We flew back into Atlanta and landed around 8 PM (EST).  After our farewells at the airport, we hopped back in the car with Danny and Brenda for the drive back to Nashville.  We made a quick stop in downtown Atlanta at the famous Varsity Drive-In for some junk food to tide us over on the trip home.  We got home about midnight.  What a great trip!

Aruba Achieved!

Friday, February 10, 2012:  We had a leisurely morning on the "Happy Island" hanging around our villa.  Our afternoon plans included a private snorkel, sail and dinner cruise for six of us while Danny and Brenda had a scuba dive trip scheduled.

We couldn't have been happier with our set-up at the Merlot Villas.

Our snorkel destination was Spanish Lagoon.
With the boat anchored above it, we swam over to the reef
with the odd wooden deck built above it in the surf.
and then snorkeled in the lagoon itself to the left and right. 
We saw tons of fish and the water temps were perfect.

Our four-hour private sail on the Morning Star was amazing. 
The snorkeling was good.  The sailing was smooth.  And dinner was fantastic.
JJ and Katrin were great hosts.

Addendum:  Danny and Brenda's dive trip went good also.  Danny took some wonderful pictures that he shared with us included some great shots of moray eels, one of which was even out of its den which is kind of rare.  He also had a great video of a flounder swimming away from him that was very cool.