Safe As Milk

Keeping in tune with my Get It Local mantra these days, i have become enamored with the beans from the good people at Blanchard’s Coffee Company. We are hooked on their Dark As Dark blend They have a stand set up at the Farmer’s Market we go to every Saturday so they save us a trip, too.

They have a couple of coupons there for online orders so if you should check them out if you’re interested.

I got blindsided by a cold over the weekend so I am pouring in as much gunpowder and Hojicha green teas as I can.

I hate having a cold.

One of the guys in our weekly Gears of War group dubbed one of the other guys a “straight up giblet chef” for the way he was mowing dudes down. All I could think of was how awesome Burger Chef used to be so I knocked together that above logo rip. It made me laugh. I’m still giggling a little about it.

Built mostly on lo-fi loops and bordering on too-precious thanks to the vocals and some of the lyrics, the High Places (<-MySpace link) have collected their to-date output on '03/07-09/07‘ and it’s a good listen if you’re into their sound. I’m a fan of it, for sure, but I get my fill of them pretty quickly. It’s always a treat when it shows up on a mix or in a Shuffle, though.

‘Jump In (for Gilkey Elementary School)‘ will be the song you’ve heard by them if there is one. It’s damn irresistible.

I’m a soul music dork and Eli “Paperboy” Reed & The True Loves are another excellent example of young people making music that sounds 50 years old. I can only imagine that these guys are exponentially better in person, and they’re pretty damn good on disc.

‘I’m Gonna Getcha Back‘ will show you what I am talking about. Listen to this and tell me it doesn’t sound like it fell out of 1963. From the conversational intro to the scale-climbing horns it’s a big slice of classic Soul. Enjoy.

I’m a sucker for a well-built mashup and a Tron-inspired album cover. There’s something about new sounds out of known songs that I can’t get enough of. There isn’t much to the Audiobytes for Autobots site but the link to his latest mix 2.0″ is enough. I have probably listened to this whole thing 100 times. With so damn many layers of sound I can usually hear something new every time.

‘Titled‘ is my fave of these thanks to the Oasis and the Back to The Future. The Outkast is nice, too. Enjoy.

Caught a solid ride today while Michelle and the troops were at the Gurney Tourney but I didn’t take into account how g-damn hot it was going to be. Here’s a grab of the temp at 4 in the afternoon. I don’t even want to know what it was when I was out there at noon. I need a bigger water bottle…

Here’s the 26+ miles I knocked out:

I really like the run out to the Battlefield on Osbourne Tnpk. so I stretched it out to get all the way to the boat landing. It’s a really, really pretty ride and it caught me completely by surprise. One of the things I love best about these bicycle excursions is that I get to see parts of the City that I don’t know anything about and I get to really see them because I’m not flying by at 50 miles an hour. I took small detours up around the boat landing and again into the Battlefield Park before heading back into town via Route 5. I definitely prefer making a loop as opposed to going A<->B because the scenery changes are nice but more because you don’t have to slog up and down the same hills twice.

I want to mix it up a bit now and I might look to head out West for my next ride or maybe North to Ashland. So many roads!

“Denny’s Drums” was a cool song I found on an old Beach Boys record my dad has so I was pretty pumped when I read that Dennis Wilson’s only solo album was getting the super-deluxe cd re-issue treatment. One look at that cover told me that I would be among friends (what a beard! -ed.) so I went into this one with an open, positive mindset. I tried, but I just couldn’t get into it. I’m sure it’s a wonderful snapshot of a cool guy making cool music but it really didn’t hit me like I hoped it would. There are a couple of cool songs on there but nothing I would consider must-listen. Oh well, can’t win them all.

‘Pacific Ocean Blue‘ is one of the songs here I enjoy. I hope you will, too.

Freestyle Rap Battle Translated:

You know there is more to Otis Redding than that Dock he sat on, right? He was a blistering soul singer who wrote some indisputable, all-time, cream-of-the-crop, pop classics. Soul music is a hobby of mine and I try (“try”? maybe “beat people over the head with” is a better way of saying that?-ed.) to share it when I can. The world is a better place thanks to the great Soul Singers of the 60’s. I believe that as a natural fact.

Did you know that Otis Redding wrote “Respect“, the famous Aretha Franklin song? Well he did, and when you hear him sing it there is a really clever switch on what is traditionally a feminist theme song. And since this is from a 15-year-old box set I will thrown in another song for you guys. “These Arms of Mine” belongs in the dictionary next to “Soul Ballad”. Please listen to these songs. They are the shiz.