Day 1 - Dawn of Demolition

Thank god I bought this house, since I've been having such a hard time coming up with anything interesting to write about. It's not that my life is really that boring, rather, it's been so strange that I am afraid of future repercussions should I actually spill everything in this public forum. But I've said enough already.

Instead of baring the frightening machinery of my soul here for a while, I'm going to use this space to memorialize the renovation of my house. It began Sunday. Matt, in from Seattle for the weekend, came over for a couple hours to check the place out, and we couldn't resist getting into it with the hammers and pry bars. Before too long we'd torn down half a wall in the kitchen. I use the term "kitchen" loosely. It's really a room that contains a sink, a couple cabinets, and a stove, none of which are functioning properly. The stove has since been banished to the backyard. The sink is going to be salvaged temporarily though -- I am going to create a temporary kitchen in the next room, what will be my dining room. Actually, this room is where the kitchen originally was in this house -- the current "kitchen" is in an addition on the bacl. The dining room has a floor-to-ceiling built-in cabinet with glass doors, and you can see discoloring on the wood floor against the back wall, a legacy of the original counter. The water pipes still poke through the floor at the back of the dining room - when the kitchen addition was built, they just elbowed them through the wall, leaving about 8 inches still sticking up from the dining room floor. So it's back to the roots for a little while as the new kitchen is built.

That project begins tonight. Pictures tomorrow.

Moving

It's been almost a month since I last posted. What a month it has been. I don't have time to give every last detail here today, but suffice it to say that I am once again a homeowner. I closed yesterday on a 1913 row house in Columbia Heights, about three blocks from the Petworth metro. According to Wikipedia the northern boundary of Columbia Heights is Spring Road, and the eastern is Sherman Street, so that puts me in the far northeastern corner of the neighborhood, a mere three blocks from the Petworth metro. I like to think of it as the quiet, suburban corner of Columbia Heights - far away from the riff-raff near the Giant, future Target, and Ruby Tuesday's (yes, really) on 14th Street. It's a pretty well kept block, seems pretty quiet, and everyone I've met so far has been very friendly.

The house has some really cool architectural features but (true to my nature) it needs a lot of work. While this isn't unfamiliar territory for me, this is a little more than usual... this one doesn't just need work, it needs a whole kitchen. So I'll be living out of a microwave oven for a while as the work progresses. No matter - it'll be worth it to be back in my own space.

Anyway, lots to do. Here's a couple pics for now.

Music to my ears

I've seen a lot of music lately. Not a surprise, really, since I spent last weekend in New Orleans for weekend one of Jazz Fest. But I've also been listening to some other new (or new to me) music that's worth mentioning.

First - the bad. Last night, I saw Meshell Ndegeocello at the 9:30 club. I've always loved her unique and ever-morphing style, and was looking forward to the show. Unfortunately, Meshell phoned it in. The show was, from start to finish, a disjointed series of what amounted to radio-edits from her catalog. Nothing ever clicked, no effort was made to engage the audience or move outside the most basic interpretation of each number. On top of that, the sound was bad - the bass was smeared, overmixed and washed out the whole sound. You could barely hear the guitar and vocals. The entire uninspired show clocked in at barely over 45 minutes.

Well, that's out of the way, and I don't begrudge her despite my disappointment - everyone's got bad days. A commenter on her myspace page mentions allergies or something, so maybe she just wasn't feeling well. Following the show (which was over by 11:30) I walked back to Utopia to catch up with a friend there. En route from 9:30, I passed no fewer than 8 cafes and clubs with live music plainly audible from the street. It's funny how these things creep up on you. U street is by all rights the new center of the DC music scene, reclaiming some measure of it's cool from the 50's and 60's. I never really gave it a second thought until last night, when you could hardly walk out of earshot of one band before you heard the next one a few doors down.

We ended up at Cafe Nema where The Young Lions were playing their regular Thursday gig. Over the course of the set, they were joined by a few other musicians who seemed to just keep walking in off the street, instruments in hand. The band was rocking - and there was no shortage of surprises as the lineup kept morphing with each cat who walked in the door. Highly recommended. They also play every Friday night at Bohemian Caverns.

Speaking of Bohemian Caverns, I've caught the Thad Wilson Jazz Orchestra twice at Bohemian on Monday nights, which appears to be the TWJO's new home. It's an intimate and unusual space, which has been graced by many legendary jazz performers in decades past (see the History page on their web site). The two nights I saw TWJO play, they put on completely different shows, with selections ranging from standards to eclectic original compositions. The performances were consistently excellent.

Back to New Orleans... Thursday night I caught Rotary Downs at d.b.a. on Frenchman. They put on a great show - largely consisting of eclectic tunes somewhere between alt-country and indie-rock. At the same time they aren't ashamed to throw in a few hooks which kept at least one song stuck in my head for a day afterwards. Good stuff - definitely worth the price of a CD after the show.

Kirk Joseph

On stage Friday I was largely camped out at the Congo Stage, which began with Kirk Joseph's Backyard Groove. Kirk Joseph, formerly of Dirty Dozen, heads this outstanding funk/rock/jazz group.

When The Saints Go Rhyming In

Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue took the stage next, producing a variety of funk-rock, hip-hop, not to mention a good dose of rock-n-roll as they exploited AC/DC's "Back in Black" - an interesting juxtaposition to the rapped-out "When The Saints Go Marching In."

The final act of the day was Soulive, by now an old-school jazz/jam band. However, both their lineup and style have evolved since I've last seen them, most notably with the addition of reggae singler Toussaint as a full-time vocalist. I wasn't familiar with most of the songs they played, presumably many of which will appear on their upcoming album, No Place Like Soul., but the new sound and style that Toussaint brings is fresh, funky and welcome.

Loose Ends (Part 3)

David S's shop is a converted garage adjoining his home in Boiling Springs, PA. It is simple and professional. The primary workspace is a "countertop" directly inside the door with a carpeted surface to protect the delicate wooden instruments on which he works his craft. A special neck rest permits laying guitars flat on their back while supporting the headpiece.

I'd given David my own guitar as well as another from my friend Joe - an old Epiphone that needed some serious help. Joe had been holding onto this guitar for a while, but it was unplayable in its current condition. The neck had broken and been poorly repaired with a large bolt (perhaps from Home Depot?); the fretboard was cracked clean through where the neck joined the top; and a smattering of other less serious problems were pointed out by David as he made his inspection. At the same time, the body itself appeared to be in nearly perfect condition, probably the saving grace for this unfortunate-looking relic. David's estimate for the Epi was about 500 bucks. Not a lot of money for the amount of work that would probably go into it - but nonetheless, a lot to pay for an instrument that you'd never even heard before. In the end Joe decided to do the work.

David had already done a lot of work on the Epi and it was clearly coming together nicely. The neck was reset and reglued, the fretboard repaired, and some fretwork done. In fact it looked nearly done except for a lot of cosmetic work on the neck. I am dying of curiosity to hear what this thing sounds like.

My guitar, on the other hand was finished, and, as usual, played beautifully. The D16s of this era had a construction known as "forward shifted scalloped bracing" which to my understanding, makes the guitar lighter and creates more resonance, giving a huge, full sound - especially in the middle. The light construction, of course, also makes this thing react to every change in the weather, which is why it was here in the first place. The last time it had been repaired, David added cleats under the top to keep hold the crack together. He'd initially just thought it had shrunk due to dehydration and broken the cleats. In fact, the cleats under the top held, but the wood shrunk unevenly, creating a small crack only on the top surface, and not underneath. Rather than try to humidify the crack back together this time, he filled it. With any luck this should make it less likely to crack again in the future. Of course I could actually try to take CARE of this thing too... but that requires filling up the humidifier very day all winter long. If only I had such discipline!

We got what we came for and didn't hang around too long, because we still had a lot of driving ahead. The guitar found a safe nook in the back of the pickup truck, nestled along side the pressure washer. The ride was definitely starting to get the complete redneck appearance: beat up pickup truck, gas-powered tools, guitars... if I could just find a mangy, underfed golden retriever on the side of the road and throw him in the back with the rest of the stuff, I'd probably fit right in! That, and a "Freedom isn't Free" bumper sticker, and I could probably pass for someone's cousin.

But I digress. We pushed on and an hour later arrived in Gettysburg. It was turning out to be a spectacular day. Sunny and high 60's were the perfect remedy for a winter that had been lingering for too long. Mark wasn't home, so I went in through the back door. Ah, life in the country, where everyone is honest. Or maybe Mark's just absent minded. No matter - I obtained the necessary access and opened up the garage, where the grill was stored.

As you might remember from earlier in the story, we were here to pick up my propane grill and deliver it to Tyler's house. This thing is large. Very large. It is made entirely of stainless steel which doesn't do much to keep the weight down. Even for two strapping individuals such as ourselves, lifting it is a bit of a dangerous prospect. After some reflection we decided to take off the side burner, which would reduce the weight a little bit and also make it easier to get purchase on it from that end. The problem wasn't so much here in Gettysburg, getting it on the truck, but at the other end - we knew we had a couple tight turns to get around in order to bring it into Tyler's house. It seemed sensible to get it in as compact a form as possible before trying to maneuver this beast up the stairs in Columbia.

A few minutes later I had the side burner off, which revealed a rather shocking amount of grease and other nasty byproducts of a grill that hadn't been cleaned in a long time. And then sat in storage for an even longer time. It was clear that we had some work to do before we brought this thing back to Tyler's pristine new home. So we rolled the thing out the the backyard and tackled it with grill cleaner, engine block degreaser, liquid soap, sponges, steel wool, and whatever other implements we could find to get two years' worth of fat and oil off the grill.

To be continued...