Friday night out was easy, Black Happy were playing at The Crocodile (great music venue in Bell Town formally known as The Crocodile Café). I’ve heard of Black Happy, not sure I’ve ever seen them before; they were to be the next “big thing” band out of Seattle in the mid 90’s and just never made it.
They were playing the Croc over the weekend and friends were telling me this would be good. So Friday night I went with a couple of friends and saw one of the best shows I’ve seen at a local bar in a long time. Seattle and the Northwest has a very rich music scene and a modern history that stands with any city in the country and I understand Black Happy were something of a contemporary of Sound Garden, just with a bigger sound.
Last night they showed it, the Croc was sold out and they played a great set, really fun band that looked like they were having fun. Think heavy metal with horns, a unique sound and a great concert.
Had a little poke around iTunes and brought the Black Happy album Peghead. A little rough around the edges, not as heavy the more polished band I saw last night, but worth the purchase.
Saturday brought forth a huge number of options. Hempfest had a concert going on, Lady Gaga was playing the Tacoma Dome and Ida Glass was talking at Benaroya Hall.
Hempfest is not really my scene. I got offered a Lady Gaga ticket yesterday, but I really don’t want to be around screaming pre-teens right now and I’m not sure I can stand for two hours on my rough knee. As talented as she is, and despite the potential people watching being almost as good as Vegas, I decided to pass on a big night at the T-dome.
That left Ira Glass, and it turned out to be a good choice. For those not in the know Ida Glass is the host of the long running This American Life radio show. Each week the hour-long show is broadcast on NPR and explores a particular theme. The content varies from the provocative though to the rather humourous. Current events are occasionally explored and a lot of the time a very personal first person narrative is the format.
The content is always well done, interesting and thought provoking. Over the last couple of months I’ve got into the This American Life Podcast, very entertaining and the top download on iTunes for good reason. This had the potential to be a rather interesting evening and certainly quite the change of pace from the previous night.
Benaoya hall was sold out tonight, Ida e was introduced by Dan Savage. Dan’s three proudest moments – licking doorknobs, Santorium and being a regular contributor to This American Life. If you want to know more about the first two Google them, it’s worth it.
Ira Glass spoke for eloquently for almost two hours and took time to show his skill in making balloon animals…
He talked about how the stories come to their attention; the programs are structure and how the themes come about.
The highlight for me was the stories. He shared the background behind a few of his favorite stories. The common theme was that they were personal, involved very few people and had something of a resolution at the end.
He shared the breakdown of what he feels makes a story compelling. A religious service, the bible, my racing stores along with radio stories about vending machines on an aircraft carrier or software end user agreements are all structured in the same way. Action, action, action followed by a pause for thought or reflection. Then repeat until you close with a good line.
When put out there it’s remarkably simple and effective. I get this was probably understood by everyone that’s studied English in any depth. I’ve not formally studied English language since leaving school at 16 (I think my writing and certainly my limitations with language make that clear) and one of the reasons I started doing this was to improve my writing, lets see if this helps.
I got a call to let me know I missed out last night, apparently the Lady Gaga concert was rather good. I’m still happy with my decision.