August: Osage County

‘August: Osage County’ is fantastic. I saw it last night and was absolutely amazed. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised that a Pulitzer Prize-winning play was actually good (outstanding, actually), but I was a little intimidated by the 3.5 hour running time at first. Last time I saw a play that long it was ‘Hamlet,’ and, well, that doesn’t really have a whole lot of laughs in it.

Not that ‘August: Osage County’ is a comedy - it is often hilarious though. All I’ll really say about the plot is that it’s about a family with two problematic parents and three daughters. That’s totally an oversimplification, obviously, but since I have two sisters, I love watching that dynamic on stage and screen (see also: ‘Playing By Heart,’ a totally underrated movie, and ‘King Lear’).

Anyway, go see this play. It’s really great.

Happy Birthday Elizabeth!

Usually our fearless vice president Mark Satlof posts the Shore Fire birthday blog entries. As he is enjoying his sabbatical, I have the honors this time.


That's the birthday girl, Elizabeth Lutz, looking smashing in orange with Shore Fire president Marilyn Laverty to the right, Nora Lyons on the left and Rebecca Shapiro in the foreground.



And what would a birthday celebration be without a delicious cake? Elizabeth chose a decadent black forest cake for her birthday. Here she is blowing out the candles before we all dig in. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ELIZABETH!

Food, Glorious Food

Eponymous locally owned eateries in New York state = 4
McDonalds = 0

Well you can't say I went hungry during my family road trip to Niagara Falls, during week one of the first Shore Fire sabbatical. After consulting one of my meal bibles, Jane and Michael Stern's Roadfood (and their terrific website), and in thrall to our trusty GPS, I routed us through some key roadfood landmarks in New York state.

First up was Sharkey's in Binghampton, home of the spiedie, marinated pork chunks on a metal skewer. I loved my flight of spiedies (three) - each skewer comes with a piece of sturdy white bread which you use as a mitt to pull the meat off and make into a sandwich - but my favorite on the menu was "city chicken," breaded, deep fried spiedies. The kids had french fries.

Grade: A+ for atmosphere, A+ for food



"City Chicken" on top, one spiedie below



Just a few hour hours later everyone in the family groaned as I headed towards another landmark meat joint, Schwabl's, just outside Buffalo. Schwabl's is known as the home of "beef on weck," hand-sliced (at station in the middle of the olde- tavern-to-a-T dining room) roast beef on a German-derived hummelweck salty roll. I found the whole ensemble a bit on the dry side, and while I'll admit my experience was tainted by the fact I was still stuffed from lunch, I'll give Schwabl's an A+ for atmosphere and a B+ for food. The kids had french fries.


Midway through a beef on weck sandwich.



On the way back, Ted's was conveniently located in a northern Buffalo suburb. We pulled up next to a state policeman just getting out of his unmarked sedan. I took that as a good sign.



Here's a foot long with mustard and relish on the left, a chili cheese foot long with onions on the right, then a tub of famous hot sauce and excellent onion rings. The kids had french fries and a couple of bites of hot dog. A+ for atmosphere, A+ for eats.



Finally, halfway through our drive home, dawned on me that we'd be in striking distance of one of my long time favorites, Bob's Diner in Watervliet. I've been there a dozen times since stumbling across it fifteen years ago. Alas, Bob's has lost its luster. The key to the small menu has always been the roast beef with homemade gravy, but this time the brown stuff looked unreal. I even suspected it might be canned. Bob's has lost the spark that made it a get-off-the-highway destination, and the cozy dining room was more depressing than convivial as in the past. It was downhill from the cold soup to the wan, tough sliced beef, and the bored, surly service didn't help much either. The kids had pasta. B+ for atmosphere, B for food.

Songwriter Summit

Spent a lovely afternoon yesterday with Joan Osborne. Backstage at Bloomberg's Night Talk w/ Mike Schneider, we ran into fellow songwriter Rodney Crowell. Next up for Joan in New York: a headlining show at Music Hall of Williamsburg Sept 25.

Best Spam Ever

Apparently, according to two identical pieces of spam email received this afternoon at 3:42pm, I am a beneficiary of Luciano Pavarotti. Well, me and also "the poor." Check out excerpts below:

Notification of Bequest

On behalf of the Trustees and Executor of the Estate of late Luciano Pavarotti,I hereby attempt to reach you again .

I wish to notify you that Late Luciano Pavoratti made you a beneficiary to His will.

He left the sum of Thirty one Million five Hundred Thousand Dollars.($31,500,000.00 )to you in The codici land last testament to his will.

This may sound strange and Unbelievable to you, but it is real and true. Luciano Pavarotti was known for his humanitarian work. He was the founder and the host of the 'Pavarotti Friends' annual charity concerts and related activities in Modena , Italy ...

His great philanthropy earned him numerous awards during his life time, late Luciano Pavarotti died at the Age of 71 years. According to him this money is to support your activities and to help the poor and the Needy...

Bishop of the Blues

Blues legend and Delta Groove recording artist Elvin Bishop, his guitarist Mighty Mike Schermer, and I hung out on Friday while Elvin got a few interviews done.

We went by SIRIUS Satellite Radio where Elvin played guest DJ, choosing cuts by Ray Charles, Muddy Waters, and Clifton Chenier. Here's SIRIUS blues DJ Liam Davenport, Elvin, and Mike.



We ran into Louisiana pianist Marcia Ball at SIRIUS!



Here's Elvin speaking with Tara Gore at MLB.com, presumably talking about the size of a fish he and Dusty Baker caught (this big!). The bluesman and the baseball manager are fishing buddies, having met years ago at John Lee Hooker's house.



Elvin knows Japanese. I asked him why and how he learned Japanese. "Persistence!," he declared. Here's my name, as written by him:

Michael Phelps' favorite music?

Many of us have been glued to the tube watching the Summer Olympics so I thought I'd share this interesting Today Show segment revealing what the athletes listen to on their iPods and the effect is has on their performance.

Vintage Herbie Hancock on NPR

This appearance by Herbie Hancock on Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz was taped in 1987 and re-aired today. I had it streaming as I was hard at work but I found myself in awe of the duo's improv towards the end of the broadcast. Two truly brilliant minds at work!

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93561473

Roger, Wilco - last night at McCarren Pool

Like Jeff Tweedy says “out of site out of mind” which is why I forgot how much I loved WILCO until I saw them perform last night at the McCaren Pool. They are one of my all time favorite live bands (up there with My Morning Jacket and Radiohead) and it’s been almost three years since I’ve seen them perform. The first time was at Radio City and the last time was NYE 2006 at MSG with the Flaming Lips – both spectacular shows.

However there was something different about last night’s show – the music was mind-blowing as usual but Jeff Tweedy was more engaging than ever. He joked with the Brooklyn crowd and complimented them on their clapping skills calling them “free-thinkers” for creating a new rhythm – he boosted everyone’s spirits and the energy at the show was overwhelmingly positive. They played songs from ‘Sky Blue Sky,’ ‘A Ghost Is Born,’ one of my personal faves from ‘Mermaid Ave.,’ Woody Guthrie’s “California Stars” and they pulled out some old hits from ‘Being There’ (which happens to be the first Wilco record I bought) and ‘Summerteeth.’ Check out Brooklyn Vegan’s review of the show here:

Wilco @ McCarren Pool, Brooklyn, NYC - pics & setlist

Interesting the different take he has on Tweedy’s banter – guess it’s all about perspective.

ALL POINTS WEST

This weekend Lauretta and I went to the All Points West Music Festival. We trekked from downtown Manhattan via the Path train and the Light Rail to Jersey’s fine Liberty State Park. It was a lovely day for an outdoor festival.



The festival grounds were a little chaotic with 30,000 music fans roaming freely but interestingly enough we ran into our friends without the aid of cell phones. In the massive crowd watching the Kings Of Leon I spotted my childhood friend Katie and her boyfriend Matt. Then a stage away we ran into Shore Fire staffer Robby Krauser and his wife Natalie who were hanging with music scribe Tad Hendrickson.


Me, Robby, Natalie and Tad Hendrickson watching The Roots

Sadly due to the insane lines we missed one of my favorite bands the Felice Brothers. The music was great! We saw sets by The Black Angels, The Roots, The Kings Of Leon and the evening was capped off by Radiohead's phenomenal closing set. From now on as long as I live I vow to never miss a local Radiohead show.


RADIOHEAD!!!!

You see this cat Shaft is a bad mother...

(Shut your mouth.)

That would be Shaft, John Shaft. Sadly, the man who penned the film's immortal theme, Isaac Hayes, has died, at 65. The Times obituary by Ben Sisario may forever redefine the parenthetical use of "furthermore."

Hayes' first recording session was with Otis Redding. With his partner David Porter, he helped create the distinctive sound of Stax Records, which released some of my favorite music of all time.

I produced a soul music project once that wound up being mostly Stax artists, and when I drove cross-country on my way back from LA to NYC, planned my route so I could visit the Stax Museum of American Soul Music on McLemore Avenue in Memphis , one of the better museums anywhere, which contains, among other exhibits, Hayes'1972 peacock blue, gold-trimmed two-door Eldorado Cadillac.

The next time you use a manual toothbrush, try doing it in rhythm to the opening of this tune and see if your recommended two minutes don't go a lot faster:

Sending Out An S.O.S

The B-52s put on a thrilling show last night at Madison Square Garden. (Yes that's a picture of The Bs on the left.) The set highlight for me was the Cindy Wilson led bouncy tune "Give Me Back My Man," a song they've just started playing live again on the European leg of their tour.

The Bs opened for The Police's final show of their tour. The coolest moment of that set was when the police (as in the NYPD marching band) accompanied The Police on "Message in A Bottle."

Brooklyn to the Core: Carrie & Mark Pick Juniors for B-Day Celebration

Who knew that the famous Brooklyn culinary landmark Juniors did frosting on their cheesecake? Not me, so it was a nice surprise yesterday when Carrie (August 5) and me (August 7) actually got the icing on our cakes. Mine was the traditional plain while Carrie picked chocolate swirl. I swear they each weighed 30 pounds. Man are they heavy, in a good way.





Here we are in action. I guess turnabout is fair play...since I usually take the pictures and they're often embarrassing I got the same (maybe worse!) in return from fill-in photog Rob Krauser.


And here's the assembled staff in our lunch room

Joan Osborne Debuts 'Little Wild One' Live

Last night in a private WFUV members show at the Cutting Room, Joan Osborne debuted material from her upcoming album 'Little Wild One,' out Sept 9. It was an incredible set, ending with a goosebump-inducing version of "Cathedrals." The riveting "Hallelujah in the City" was another highlight, a song that Joan labeled a "secular hymn." Tune into WFUV on Sept 9 at 9pm to hear them for yourself.

Here's WFUV's Rita Houston with me.














After the show, George Whipple of NY1 interviewed Joan.














Here's Joan w/ me, Matt Hanks, and Maggie Poulos (L-R).

Flowers for an 'Echo'

Shore Fire client Alyssa Graham started her day yesterday with a review for her new CD 'Echo' in the New York Times that called her voice "a sumptuous and flexible croon."

I had the pleasure of hearing that voice last night at a special event at the Barnes & Noble across from Lincoln Center, as well as gorgeous solos by Jon Cowherd (who also produced the record) on piano, Doug Graham on guitar, Ben Wittman on drums and Richard Hammond on bass. I couldn't figure out why Richard looked familiar, until he reminded me that he accompanied Brandi Shearer when she did a New York residency last year.

It's interesting to see musicians in a bookstore, what with the bright lights and lack of cocktails, but they clearly pulled it off, as the room was full and the crowd ecstatic. The cocktails were in full effect at the after-party at the newly furbished and now very swanky Empire Hotel.

Several well-wishers brought Alyssa flowers (did they know she'd be wearing a flowered top?), so many that I had to help her carry them. Here we are, enflowered, at the afterparty:

For The Eagle-Eyed Apple Obsessives

Have you see the new iPhone ads? If so, you've seen where we work every day. I caught the new commercial on TV last night and had to do a DVR double take. Was that really our neighorhood in Brooklyn Heights that just popped up on Google maps? Yep. Take a close look. See the little icon for Borough Hall? We're right across the street. Why Google hasn't given Shore Fire our own icon yet is a matter for another blog post....

Good Day Brendan James

This morning I had the pleasure of accompanying Brendan James to Fox in midtown for an appearance on Good Day NY. After arriving to the studio as the sun rose over Manhattan, he performed his single Green from his debut album The Day is Brave.

Here's a shot of him warming up with his manager Ben Singer close by on the set.


Here he is being interviewed by Anchor Karen Hepp (fun fact: Karen and I went to the same high school in Philadelphia!)


After his performance we had a bit of fun with the news desk. Here's Brendan accompanied by his bandmates Malcolm, Chris and Owen.


Don't Brendan and Ben look like movie critics?


Of course, I couldn't resist. I think Brendan and I would make excellent early morning hosts! (but who could ever get used to that schedule?)


Before he hits the road this month for a national tour with Kate Voegele, Brendan plays the Mercury Lounge tomorrow night (8/6) at 8 PM!