I only learned of Snocaps existence a few days ago when one of my Music League friends sent a text with a heads up about tickets going on sale for their show(s) in New York in December. I like the Crutchfield sisters’ projects but I got busy at work and totally forgot to get in the pre-sale queue. It seems like it sold out right away.
The Music League has been on an extended hiatus which has been both a blessing and a bummer. As evidenced by knowing nothing about Snocaps, I have been kind of out of the loop when it comes to hearing new music. Most of the weekly themes were broad enough that I could usually find something to fit but there were always weeks when it was something like, a song released within the last two months. However, that’s also how I usually learned about new bands.
Sometimes I will also hear of bands from the pictures posted by concert photographers I follow. Did it look like they put on a great show? Was the audience locked in? Chances are it’s worth checking them out. Back in the day I would sometimes just go to a show because it was cheap and I knew the venue booked bands I generally liked. I do get updates from all of the venues I go to regularly but now that everything is a significant distance away, I’m not as adventurous as I was in my 20s.
Anyway, it’s probably too late for you to snag tickets for any of the short run of shows Snocaps announced but hey, here’s some new music for you!
I’ve been on the hunt for a replacement for Spotify for quite a while. They’re just a shitty company that pays the artists next to nothing while they fund highly objectionable things with their billions. Not to mention all of the annoying things about the app that have always irked me. The algorithm, the preference given to playlists and shuffle, and just little things that I feel like an app built for music people would get right, but Spotify gets it wrong.
Back in the summer I downloaded Tidal, Qobuz, my phone is an Android so it comes pre-loaded with YouTube Music, and gave them all a test run with whatever free trial they offered. I imported my Spotify library and ran them through their paces. Tidal was the worst of the three. It crashed all the time and the layout was not intuitive. Qobuz was better, though it also crashed a couple of times during my commute. Being able to listen to music on my drive is kind of the whole point. But the sound quality was great and they pay artists the most of all of the streaming platforms. YouTube Music is ok, serviceable, but I don’t know.
Stereolab’s new album had recently come out when I was doing this little experiment. I used this song, Aerial Troubles, to compare how each of the apps sounded. Qobuz won hands down. I started in Spotify then tried Qobuz and it was so much better that I went back to Spotify and made sure that I had set it to play at the highest quality setting. I then tried out the Qobuz download feature at the highest quality and listened to it offline (no crashing issues that way). When Tidal first came out the buzz was all about the audio quality. It’s better than Spotify but I also read something about a shady investor or two and the frequent crashing is just unworkable. Maybe all of the apps work better on an iPhone but since I don’t have one, that’s a moot point. It’s also why I didn’t really consider Apple Music.
Anyway, I would be happy to hear if you’re using something besides Spotify and love it. Try listening to this song and see how it sounds in comparison.
I was supposed to see Momma earlier this year but life got too busy for me to want to make the drive for the show. Luckily they announced another show closer to home so I have that to look forward to.
There’s such a 90s vibe to Momma. I’ll be interested to see what the crowd is like. I’m often surprised to see quite a few bald or gray heads in the club when I go to see young bands. That throwback sound though, I think there will be a lot of older (ahem, probably still younger than me) people there.
I’d rather have that than the reverse. That’s a post for another day though!
Friends, I am kind of freaking out. This Muskolini takeover of the Treasury is going unchecked and has the potential to wreck the economy, far beyond what the tariffs will do. It’s been two weeks. Not even. I don’t have a fat bank account or a bunch of assets to lose, but I also need every dollar I have.
I am thinking about that scene in the Wim Wenders film Until the End of the World, when Claire is someplace with sacks of money and it’s all worth nothing. I haven’t seen the movie in a super long time but that’s the way I remember it. And I know being online is NOT helping, but I kept looking to see if someone, anyone, was going to do something about it. Obviously the Democrats in Congress are useless, not that they could actually do much in the minority, but for fuck’s sake they could at least say they have a plan of attack.
How does this end? With the US becoming an authoritarian country with a tin pot dictator? I mean, duh. But really, what happens when the world’s largest economy collapses? If we go down, everyone’s taking a hit. What can the states do, anything? Withhold federal taxes? I wish the blue states could just say fuck off, we’re done. This isn’t what we voted for and you hate us anyway so we’ll just leave and let you sit in your own pile of shit.
I saw someone use the phrase “avalanche of idiocy” today and I think it perfectly describes our situation. Dullard is too much of a simpleton to see what he’s unleashed but we are all going to be buried soon, thanks to the egos of the broligarchy. They don’t even need him now that they’ve got the keys to the vault.
There are people who have it way worse than I do. People whose lives are at risk from this administration. Literally. At the current moment, nothing in my life has actually changed, yet.
I so desperately don’t want to be here. Here, meaning at this juncture, and also here, in this country. Here, the mother of two young adults who have already watched their futures implode multiple times over the past 10 years. I will get up in the morning and go to work and sit in meetings and try to keep it together, all the while thinking about the end of the world.
Down to the wire. I have seen a couple of posts where people say things like, waiting for this election feels like waiting for biopsy results. That’s pretty good, though I’ve waited for biopsy results before and I am more anxious about the malignancy gripping Trumpers than my own test results.
Another metaphor I’ve heard a fair amount is that voting is like taking a bus. Are you going to get on the bus that goes close to your destination or one headed in a completely different direction? We have a two-party system. That isn’t going to change with this election.
When I see people declaring they aren’t voting, or worse, they’re voting for quadrennial grifter Jill Stein, I want to throttle them. We all know today’s Democrats are equivalent to center-right parties in other countries. But this has been a decades-long shift ever rightward, with the MAGA takeover of the Republican party completing their slide into fascism. We don’t recover from that by throwing in the towel because you don’t like the choices.
So here’s my metaphor. We are in a tug of war. The GOP has billionaires and literal Nazis grabbing on the end of their rope and that flag that used to be in the middle has been yanked so far to the right. We need everyone grabbing on to the end of our rope to pull it back to the center. If the lefties let go and walk away, we will lose. If they help us get the flag back to the middle, then we can keep pulling and drag the Dems further to the left. That’s the only way we can get there.
If you are not on social media much, or your algorithm isn’t like mine, you might not be aware that Michael Stipe has been pretty busy lately. A couple of weeks ago he was with Jason Isbell in Pittsburgh for a GOTV rally with Doug Emhoff. Earlier today he was in Atlanta with Jon Bon Jovi at a Harris/Walz event, where you could see Tim Walz and Doug Emhoff in the audience, living their best lives.
The last time I watched a presidential debate was probably in 2008. Maybe I watched one of the Obama v. Romney debates but I don’t think I did. Debates for a primary could be worth it but the format is awful and everyone would be better served by just going to the candidates websites and reading their policy positions. So I had no intention of watching the first debate between Biden and Trump this year. I didn’t (still haven’t) see the train wreck performance that sent everyone panicking. What made me panic was everyone calling for Biden to step down. I was fearful that there’d be a messy and damaging scramble to head up the ticket. I worried that Trump’s people would challenge the validity of whoever ended up as the candidate if Biden dropped out. I felt like the only person who could legitimately take over at that late stage was Kamala Harris, who at least would be able to continue to use the money that had been donated to the campaign since her name was already on the ballot. But I was not confident that the people pushing for Joe to leave were coming to that same conclusion. I had the impression they wanted some kind of open convention and it scared the crap out of me.
Michael was one of those people calling for Biden to get out of the race. He was posting stuff on Instagram and I was increasingly anxious about it. One day he put out a poll asking if people thought Joe should bow out. I was quite sure he wouldn’t see my reply but I felt compelled to respond and I said, Kamala is the only one who can take over, do you realize that, and do you really think that counties in swing states that wouldn’t vote for Hillary will vote for a Black woman? Really?
Needless to say, he didn’t reply. I think any celebrity on social media must get flooded with so many messages that they probably have DMs turned off. I watched the chorus grow louder and louder for Biden to get out of the way and I got more and more anxious. Not that I wanted Biden to be the candidate, I just wished he had said he wasn’t running months earlier. He was too old, Gaza was a nightmare, and people did not want to rehash 2020. But replacing him felt so risky.
When the news broke that he not only dropped out but also endorsed Kamala, I thought, ok, let’s see if that carries enough weight to make the Ezra Kleins and George Clooneys step back. I did not expect the speed and force with which she took control of the situation and got all of the delegates that had pledged to support Biden, to throw their votes behind her. The difference in the campaign, the energy and enthusiasm, it is night and day. I can’t begin to imagine where we all would be right now… I don’t even want to think about it. I can admit that the people begging Joe to pass the torch were right and I thank them for being brave enough to say so.
It turns out that Michael had met Kamala and Doug at a restaurant in 2018. She came over to him and introduced herself by way of explaining that her husband was a big fan. If you haven’t seen any of the clips from any of these events where Michael has appeared, it is so obvious that Doug is still star struck. And now he’s got Tim Walz beside him, also just pinching himself. No shame, Tim. None at all.
We are still in the fight of our lives. It makes me insane that the whole country, the world, is at the mercy of a few hundred thousand people across seven states. All of us are so scarred from 2016. But a condensed campaign (can all campaigns just be three-months long, please!), that is smart, sharp, and leaves it all on the field, is giving me hope despite the times.
Back in September I got a text from a friend saying, hey, I have an extra ticket to see the Fruit Bats tomorrow, want to meet me there? They were playing at a theater about 15 minutes away from my house so that was an easy yes. While I was familiar with the band, I really didn’t know much of their music but I prepped by listening to a couple of their albums on the way home from the office. Still, I didn’t really know what to expect, partially because I wondered about the audience. The venue is close to me but it’s not a big town, not near a city, who would be there?
When I first arrived there were not a lot of people, which is good for securing yourself a spot but a little worrying if it doesn’t fill in. Thankfully there was a decent crowd by the time the Fruit Bats took the stage.
It was such a fun show! The band was tight, Eric Johnson is a magnetic frontman, and everyone was dancing. A lot of the shows I go to these days wind up being populated mostly by head-bobbers, which is fine but I have to think it’s kind of boring for the band. I’m going to be dancing either way but I like it when I’m not the only one.
You all know I don’t like winter. The cold, the dark, the ice, the dark, the lack of green, the dark. When it starts to get to me, I dream of getting away to somewhere warm and sunny, preferably by the ocean. This past winter was not a bad one when it comes to snow and freezing temperatures, a side effect of climate change I’m sure. The lack of light is persistent though and the only way to remedy that is to go somewhere farther south or west.
Back in January I was really fed up with everything. The amount of time and energy that people were needing from me was just too much, and coupled with the usual winter doldrums, I was desperate to go somewhere. I happened to be talking to one of my sisters on the phone and mentioned that I wanted a vacation, a mama vacation as I had started calling it, a vacation from being mama, where no one would bother me for a week. No phone calls, no asks to take care of something, no doing anything for anyone but me. My sister and her husband bought a summer place up in Maine and part of me was thinking about asking her if I could just use it for a week to be alone. But going to Maine in the winter is not my idea of a getaway. Then my sister said, hey, they had a week at a timeshare that they had to use or lose before March and they weren’t going to be able to use it, did I want to go?
Oh my god, did I want to go! Where could I go?!?! There were several different locations but in order to pull this off, I decided it needed to be somewhere I could drive to because I also was doing it pretty last minute and didn’t think I could swing a flight. So California and the Caribbean were out. Arizona held no appeal for me anyway, I wanted a beach. So we got on Zoom and she shared her screen with the timeshare website so we could check out the options. Virginia Beach was a maybe, but I really liked the look of one of the places in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. South Carolina was someplace I’d been through, but never to, and I liked the idea of being able to check off another state. Plus, there would be palm trees. Palm trees!! To a New Englander, a palm tree is a sure sign of vacation. You are far away. It will be warm. So she booked it, and I set about planning my mama vacation for mid-February.
I asked my best friend if she wanted in on this free vacation and she immediately said yes. Escape the frozen north? Done. We decided to rendezvous at a different sister’s house outside Philadelphia and leave my car there for the week, then drive as far as we felt up for on that first day. We made it halfway between DC and Richmond and picked a hotel from the car. The next day we headed to Richmond, another place I’d never been, and marveled at the things already blooming in the Fan District. We had some lunch and then hit the road for the long haul on I-95 through North Carolina, into South Carolina before hanging a left and heading for the coast. It started to get dark, then rain, so we had no idea what anything looked like until the next morning.
It looked green. The rain had left and the sun was breaking out. I was eager to get outside so we got ready and went to survey the resort. Resorts are not usually my thing but I am not one to look a gift condo in the mouth so I was perfectly happy to make note of the several pools, hot tubs, shuffleboard court, etc. And the palm trees. Oh, the palm trees! We then ventured off to the beach, just a short drive away. Wow. Seemingly endless miles of white sand beach.
My family was on notice; you may only call me if someone is in the hospital. We did arrange for a family group call on Valentine’s Day but otherwise I was to be left alone. My best friend and I made excursions from our timeshare but we did also make regular use of the pool and hot tubs. We walked on the beach every day. We went to Brookgreen Gardens, courtesy of an online friend (hi, Paul!) who graciously told us so much about the region and put up with our multiple stops to take pictures of things in bloom. Each day it got a little warmer and on the day we decided to go to Charleston it was approaching 80°. In February. We put our feet in the ocean in February. I was so happy.
Alas a week is never quite long enough when you’re on vacation and we had to head back north. We chose a different route on the way home, through Wilmington, NC where we had lunch at this draft house where you get a wrist band and pour your own beers from some crazy number of taps. We drove through Mt. Olive, pickle capital of the world, then the slog through every major city back to my sister’s.
We talked about making this a regular thing, and where else and what else might we do? My best friend really felt the drive down and back was not great so maybe next time, with advance planning, a cheap flight would be better. Then maybe a city, so we wouldn’t need a car. Charleston? Savannah?
I am not sure I will have the luxury of taking a week off this coming February or March with a big project at work needing to wrap up around then. But maybe a long weekend. Just to see and smell the flowers, the beach, and the palm trees. Feel the sun on my face. Go without a jacket. Put my feet in the ocean. It might be time to start thinking about it.
Yesterday I took my car in to have the brakes looked at since they had been feeling spongey. I had read that somewhere and it seemed to fit the way they felt but I don’t know if that’s a real thing car people say. They took off the wheels assessed the situation and said, the rear brakes need new shoes, drums, pads, but mostly the cylinders were leaking and it should all be replaced. $600. What are you going to do, say no, put the wheels back on, charge me $100+ for the time and then what? So I spent $600 and headed home in the evening feeling like I had done a good thing and had put myself and the car in better shape for the winter.
Hahaha! My car decided that those new brakes were just the opening act. About 2/3 of the way home the battery warning light came on. I managed to get home and backed the car into the driveway so we could come have AAA take a look in the morning. They came, looked, and said, you need a new alternator. But also, your battery is a mess and has a bad cell and you should replace it. I had specifically asked for them to send someone with a battery in hopes of that solving the problem but it did not. The AAA driver wasn’t in a tow truck so I couldn’t have it towed, but as the battery needed to be replaced, I told him to go ahead and install it. Consensus from the repair shops I called around was that I shouldn’t try to drive it to them, have it towed.
So now I’ve spent $800 on a car that still isn’t driveable. And it’s likely at least another $600 for the alternator. At this point I need to spend the money on the alternator to get my money’s worth on the previous two fixes. Did I mention it’s got 215,000 miles? It is a Toyota but still. Argh!
And there’s a show on Saturday that I have a ticket for and I’ve been looking forward to it. There is no reselling this ticket since it’s a small independent theater. That money was spent months ago but why not add it to the tally?😵💫
I just can’t help but feel like every decision I make when it comes to cars is the wrong one. Then I become paralyzed and don’t want to do anything because inevitably I will have made the wrong choice. I wanted to sell my husband’s car to CarMax or someplace, then get something with fewer miles on it for me to drive and let him have my car. But he felt like it could limp along a while longer. Until the serpentine belt broke a few weeks ago and it turned out it also needed a new compressor. $900.
Wish me luck. I am really not looking forward to blowing more money here but I also think I have run out of options.
There was a frost last night, first one of the season. It was 75 degrees on Saturday. This is why we just have coats of various weights hanging out in the hallway year round.
Last year I took to wearing a coat my son had outgrown. You know how teenagers would rather freeze than be caught in school with a coat? I hated that it hardly got any use, and I didn’t have a good in-between coat, so now it’s mine. I put it on this morning and instinctively shoved my hands in the pockets. One pocket had a bunch of napkins from some fast food place, the other pocket had an Aldi quarter. I always enjoy that little moment of acknowledgement. Sometimes it’s a revelation; that’s where my good chapstick went! Most often it’s just a nod and a smile. It’s me, the napkins and Aldi quarter person, gearing up for the day. It would be nice to pretend that the me of spring was thinking ahead for the me of fall, but really it is probably just the reverse of the weather situation we had this week and I hadn’t expected it to be the last time I wore the coat for the season.
Were I the sort of on the ball person who routinely washed the coats and stored them away once it was likely they wouldn’t be worn, I’d have those little aha moments before they went into the laundry. But I like it better this way. I’ll hate putting those coats on soon enough. Might as well rub my fingers over that Aldi quarter and take a second to reminisce.
Noisy Cats 