sing alongs

the wood brothers put on a great show. 

gotta love when they call for an encore sing-a-long and the crowd is not too pretentious to oblige. 

orange peel on wednesday night such a thing happened. 

so damn heartwarming!

runnin' is useless, fightin' is foolish
you're not gonna win but still
you're the luckiest man
you're up against
too many horses
and mysterious forces
whatcha don't know is
you are the luckiest man

whitney houston

the first* real concert i ever attended was whitney houston at the providence civic center in 1986. she was unbelievable. that voice. that VOICE.

boston garden 1986

 i learned about whitney after spending much of that year in the back of a woody jeep wagoneer limited being driven back and forth between rhode island and long island. 

 we listened to her debut album "whitney houston" over and over.  and over.

it was a tape we all could agree on. (unlike lionel richie "dancing on the ceiling" which was thrown from the car window in a fit of scorn along route 95 in connecticut.) i memorized every word. the lyrics taught me all a 10 year old needed to know about love and relationships. "how will i know" "someone for me" "all at once" and of course "greatest love of all" - i feel like i LIVED these songs! in the 5th grade! 

her voice was like a damn bell. this is before auto-tune and computers, she was a huge natural talent. huge.

sorry she's gone too soon, sorry her path was a disaster, but her debut album will always have a giant place in my heart. 

*the first not-real concert i attended was rosenshontz. they were awesome and incredible in their own way.

whirlwind of fun

the past week has been a veritable fun-a-palooza.

started with seeing the trey pistachio band at thomas wolfe auditorium. ripping! dance party! covered gorillaz 'clint eastwood' which has been in my head ever since.

continued the next night with all kinds of smoked meat and cheese in bite size portions at curate tapas bar with a table full of fun folks. the porron was a medieval device whereby you pour lemon beer all over your face and clothes. then onto louis ck show, again at thomas wolfe auditorium. which i noticed is having ceiling issues but is still a beautiful venue.

kevin's parents and their sweet ebony bitch rose came for a few days this week and we toured the biltmore house. i've been in asheville for over 4 years and never been down there. it was pretty spectacular. highlights were the hand-tooled leather wallpaper in one room, the cantilevered staircases, and the ridiculous view. the winery was also fun, because hey! free wine!

on to tupelo honey with the fried green tomatoes over goat cheese grits under strips of fresh basil. my mouth waters still. 

spent time yesterday at the grovewood gallery at the grove park inn. when i saw 95% of the things in there i said "i LOVE that!" these chairs were amazing. the lamps! the benches! everything is handmade and so unique. if i had unlimited budget and an empty house, i'd go there first.

then i sold a t-shirt for $120 today. one t-shirt. i was kind of kidding with the price, but some lucky girl in pennsylvania was not. i was sad to see it go but hope it has a new fun life.

Crazy Critters and the Downtown Asheville Hurricane of Vintage T-shirts

(originally posted at Skippy Haha Vintage blog)

I recently went downtown Asheville with a hamper of my finest Skippy Haha Vintage t-shirts.

Alli Marshall of Asheville StreetStyle had arranged for local rock band The Critters to meet up and shoot a video for their song "Visions of Light."

The rough concept was for them to try on a shirt, come through the Flat Iron, show the camera, go around back and try on another shirt, ad infinitum, until the hamper was empty. Something sped-up and lighthearted like the intro to the Monkees TV show.

What actually happened was, as the Mountain Xpress said - total mayhem. It was a hurricane of t-shirts, a t-shirt-ornado. No one could have been prepared for the energy and enthusiasm displayed by those Critters. 

Here is the video, expertly edited by Steve Shanafelt of the Mountain Xpress. You can see me at the end, as shirts are being flung into the trees of Wall Street, silently screaming in my head "AAAAACKKK! My precious heirlooms! Save my precious heirlooms!" 

No really, it was fun. Really fun. It was all over in under 10 minutes. I came home and washed all the shirts.

Mountain Xpress article here

nachodoggy!

nacho's fame grew exponentially last night when the dj on wwoz (new orleans jazz &  heritage station) said his name, no fewer than 4 times, on the air in the middle of a blazing blues guitar set.

it's their pledge drive time and they had a roller girl on air reading new pledges in between songs. she said "we have a new pledge from kevin radey in asheville. and the comment is somewhat perplexing." 

the dj said "what is it?" 

she said "it says nachodoggy!"

"nachodoggy?"

"yeah nachodoggy!"

they went back and forth for seriously a minute about  it laughing and wondering what is a nachodoggy, saying they didn't know but somebody out there was probably laughing about it. 


hell yeah. 


nachodoggy! labrador overbite!

colorado for labor day

i spent the past 5 days in colorado, and it was glorious.

on the first day kevin's brother teddy took us on a hike to diamond lake - which is not a dammed river, but a true mountain lake. good lord there's a difference.

we had great lunch and beer in boulder and listened to a barefoot hippie play classical piano in the middle pearl street.

we went to breckenridge and hung out with kevin's parents and his incredibly cute niece and nephew, piper and jack, for the weekend.

this is an actual conversation i had with piper:

(after hearing that rose, the 13 year old black lab bed hog climbed on piper's air mattress and slept with her all night, eventually pushing piper's legs off the bed)

me: it was cold last night, so rose was probably keeping you warm, and you were keeping her warm.

piper: yes, and she was keeping my heart warm!

i walked around the astonishingly beautiful breckenridge golf course and witnessed kevin's dad chip in from out of a bunker that was over his head. it was incredible!

i played no fewer than 50 games of hullabaloo.

we went to the phish show sunday night. it was my 3rd time seeing them and BY FAR the best. there was much platypus slapping and dance party USA. one strange coincidence was that they covered for the first time 'the way it goes' - gillian welch's new song that we heard her play (better) a few weeks ago at the orange peel. but cool of them to try! the whole night was a blast.

we flew back across the country on monday straight into a tropical storm and other than a few in-air and on-runway delays, we got home close to schedule. this lady was rolling this girl around the charlotte airport like so. not sure of the safety implications here. 

i hope your labor day was labor-free and even 1/10 as much fun as mine.

friday

yesterday i ran my left pinky toe as hard as i could into a concrete step.

i get no sympathy from a person whose pinky toes are permanently in this position, i'm told i don't need it and i kind of agree.

i killed a small black widow spider. on the freakin couch.

i wore a skirt for a dress. not outside the house.

i saw gilian welch & david rawlings. 

my soul was stirred. there was banjo but it was low, slow & sincere & i liked it.

it was dangerously hot in the orange peel until we weaseled our way under the giant ceiling fan. dangerously hot. 

i'll fly away!

Behind the Radio Tragedy!

sweet, exciting, insightful recent video here. new album coming out next week.

http://tealeafgreen.com

new orleans

we left the house at 230AM thursday night (or friday morning depending how you count), drove an hour and a half to the greenville, SC amtrak station, and at 5AM boarded the crescent bound for new orleans. i woke up 4 hours later pulling out of the atlanta station.

we had a roomette which was nice because you can lower the seats and put on a bedroll they provide and completely lie down, also can close the door and curtain. there's a toilet in there, which is too close for comfort for me.

in the dining car they sat you with strangers if you didn't have a party of 4. they ran out of things like nobody's business. the service took forever. the coffee was piping hot. the salad had dark green lettuce not just iceberg. the meals were extremely overpriced, but free for those who were traveling in the roomettes.

the train slowed way down through tuscaloosa alabama. there were neighborhoods completely leveled by the tornadoes 2 days before. so many snapped trees and then 100 year old trees on their sides - their red roots unnaturally perpendicular. factories a heap of twisted steel and cinder blocks. people in neon yellow shirts handing out water. old men in their backyards surrounded by shredded belongings watching the train go by. (slide show of the destruction)

there is no open container law in new orleans and no last call. (or seemingly). there's a casino. where you can't take pictures of the blackjack table. you can take bloody marys and walk down by the mississippi river while an old lady plays the pipes on top of the natchez paddle boat, it's so windy the pipe steam cloud is blowing right back in her face.

tipitinas uptown is a legendary venue and i loved seeing two of my alltime favorite bands share the stage there and also some old friends on the dancefloor. the show was supposed to start at 1, but instead doors opened at 2 and it was sunrise when we stumbled out. my time's coming but it's not tonight.

the food at the fairgrounds of jazz fest is worth the price of admission alone. ingested included: giant strawberry lemonade with chunks of real strawberries, chicken fricassee, fried plantains, and 'jama jama' (spinach) from the african food court. to die for. a bowl of shrimp and grits. perfection.

old timers playing the blues and some mardi gras indians. sunday morning. can you beat it? no.

as a last hurrah, later that night mr. b's had the best dining experience of my life. perfect service and timing and not too stuffy and awesome AWESOME food.

the floor of the blue nile has the arabic patterned tile. waiting for the show to start a man asked us "did they find his body?" which is how i found out they killed bin laden. the hippie next to me said super sarcastic "a trillion in war debt and how many thousands killed? mission accomplished! yay america! are the troops on their way home?" i tend to agree. watching teenagers rejoice in front of the white house on tv later i didn't feel like celebrating and i didn't feel any safer.

the train left new orleans at 7am. we got to the station in a cab whose driver had lived in the city for 4 days and had to plug the train station into the gps. he moved to new orleans from charlotte where his wife and kids still live because he couldn't find work in charlotte.

we got back to greenville at 1130 monday night, back home at 1. we got mooned in mississippi.

wait your turno

i love this time of year!

it's warm. and green. and gold. and growing.

we are taking a train from south carolina to louisiana for jazzfest this weekend.

ALO and Tea Leaf Green are playing a show at Tipitina's that starts at 1AM on my birthday.

i can barely wait my turno!

orange peel redux

last time i wrote about the orange peel it was after feeling unfairly violated by security at an ozomatli show two years ago.

i went back last night for the lucinda williams show and am THRILLED to report that entry was smooth and easy and my civil rights remained intact. everybody was friendly and there were no harsh searches or pat downs or anything. it was amazingly refreshing.

lucinda williams. her voice is one in a million. she makes me believe she's had a grizzled life and lived to sing about it. she was on.

she did a 3 song encore. and after that came BACK OUT for one more - cover of buffalo springfield's 'for what it's worth.' she left the stage triumphant yelling 'peace love and revolution.'

the vintage empress in me thinks it was too bad she and her lead guitarist were wearing basically matching blue bandanna style western shirts.

dylan leblanc opened for her. this kid is GOING PLACES. mark my words. 21 years old from shreveport louisiana. looks like townes van zandt. great stage presence. haunting emotional raw voice a la jim james, proficient moving finger style guitar, he'll be back at the orange peel in june opening for the drive-by truckers. don't miss it. his cover of bruce springsteens 'i'm on fire' was imminently memorable and smoldering.

father daughter dance (1984)

i went to cedar hill elementary school for kindergarten through second grade. every year they had a 'father daughter dance' and i went both years. i think i wore this same blue velvet vest get-up both years. this picture is the second year and the get-up barely fits. i have a muffin top. or as my dad would say 'it's not fat, it's extended stomach...really...it's hard." i love my giant corsage and the rope bracelet i wore for YEARS until it was so nasty it had to be cut off.

i remember the dance being FUN. dancing in the school cafeteria. at night. to the go-go's and 'the boy from new york city.' and doing the thing where you hold your dad's hands and he flings you under his legs and then you go flying up in the air.

those wicker thrones are called peacock chairs. i found & scanned this photo to add to the listing of a peacock chair wall-hanging i'm selling on etsy.

http://www.etsy.com/listing/65561177/vintage-80s-peacock-chair-wicker-throne

nose ear guitar and slipper socks

1 love

i read nick hornby's "high fidelity" this week. it's just as good as the movie, and the movie is excellent.

"The Beatles were bubblegum cards and Help at the Saturday morning cinema and toy plastic guitars and singing `Yellow Submarine' at the top of my voice in the back row of the coach on school trips. They belong to me, not to me and Laura, or me and Charlie, or me and Alison Ashworth, and though they'll make me feel something, they won't make me feel anything bad."

i feel this way about james mcmurtry. and tea leaf green. and surprise me mr. davis. and the wood brothers. and billy joel (don't judge!). and dozens of other bands and artists who have recorded music that i have listened to obsessively at one time or another. 

ALO "I LOVE MUSIC" VIDEO

new video from ALO! riding on the head of a giraffe!

made by guadalajara joe!

ALO's robes courtesy of skippy haha vintage!

golden

Watchin' a stretch of road, miles of light explode.
Driftin' off a thing i'd never done before
Watchin' a crowd roll in. out go the lights it begins.
A feelin' in my bones i never felt before...

Mmm... people always told me. that bars are dark and lonely
And talk is often cheap and filled with air.
Sure sometimes they thrill me
But nothin' could ever chill me
Like the way they make the time just disappear

Feelin' you are here again. hot on my skin again.
Feelin good a thing i'd never known before
What does it mean to feel?
Millions of dreams come real
A feelin' in my soul i'd never felt before... mmm...

And you always told me.
No matter how long it holds me if it falls apart
Or makes us millonaires. you'll be right here forever.
We'll go thru this thing together
And on heaven's golden shore we'll lay our heads

- my morning jacket

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zz8qn1_iQ5w = video made to the studio version of the song)

road to shambala

everyone is lucky, everyone is kind

holiday advice from charles-pierre baudelaire

Always be drunk.
That's it!
The great imperative!
In order not to feel
Time's horrid fardel
bruise your shoulders,
grinding you into the earth,
Get drunk and stay that way.
On what?
On wine, poetry, virtue, whatever.
But get drunk.
And if you sometimes happen to wake up
on the porches of a palace,
in the green grass of a ditch,
in the dismal loneliness of your own room,
your drunkenness gone or disappearing,
ask the wind,
the wave,
the star,
the bird,
the clock,
ask everything that flees,
everything that groans
or rolls
or sings,
everything that speaks,
ask what time it is;
and the wind,
the wave,
the star,
the bird,
the clock
will answer you:
"Time to get drunk!
Don't be martyred slaves of Time,
Get drunk!
Stay drunk!
On wine, virtue, poetry, whatever!"

-Charles-Pierre Baudelaire

shine on

no more tiles in the bag, and this is the message the scrabble gods sent me last night.

here's a video of john cruz singing his song of the same name.

The morning sun comes through the window on your hair
I find your love & spirit everywhere
I may not have that much to give in material things
But what i have is this song & to you i sing

Shine on, shine on let your light fill up this world til' dawn
Shine on, shine on let your light fill up this world til' dawn

All night long i wait for you and you're finally there
I'm amazed at the loving that we both have shared
I may not have that much to give in material things
But what i have i give to you so freely

Shine on, shine on let your light fill up this world til' dawn
Shine on, shine on let your light fill up this world til' dawn.

All night long, i will wait for your fire
All night long, i will wait for your fire
All night long, i will wait for your fire
All night long, i will wait for your fire

Well, the morning sun comes through the window on your hair
I awake to find your spirit everywhere
I know i may not have that much to give in material things
But what i have i give to you so freely

So, shine on, shine on let your light fill up this world til' dawn
Shine on, shine on just let your light fill up this world til' dawn

All night long, i will wait for your fire
All night long, i will wait for your fire
All night long, i will wait for your fire
All night long, i will wait for your fire

skedaddling

highlights of the past week include:

- tea and crumpets (okay coffee and chocolate) with friends and their chubby babies

- a chubby 1 year old who slaps his legs instead of clapping

- a chubby 1 year old who tumbled gracefully head first into a diaper pail and didn't even cry

- corn pudding and collared greens from 12 bones

- for 4 meals in a row

- behind the scenes after hours tour of a fantastic brewery in the woods with fun friends old and new

- lap sitting in the back of a cab down the interstate

- finding a stray lace thong at our house after a party, for the second party in a row

- finger painting a mannequin flesh color

- sub-zero wind chills forcing me to stay inside

- for 4 days in a row