What happened to January?
Posted on 02/03/2023 in misc
Has anybody seen January? It was just here, I swear. How the hell have we blown through an entire month already?
I completed 4 books in January, including two that were outright fabulous that you should read, The Cartographers and The Measure. Details are on the 2023 books page, which you can find via the “Books” link on the left if you are reading on a desktop. I don’t remember where that link is on a mobile viewport, I’m sure you’ll find it if you want to.
We had three concerts planned for January, and I made it to one with my son. Everything else was a victim of the flu and pneumonia that established a beachhead in our house for most of January.
Around the house, I’ve been listening to a lot of The New Roses, Ginger Wildheart, The Commoners, and Vic Ruggiero.
The New Roses are a German band creating music that would have sold millions of copies in 1987. Their songs carry influences from pretty much any major rock act of the mid to late 80s, from AC/DC to GnR, yet none of it sounds dated. Well, some of the power ballads I could do without, but the high energy stuff is all really great.
Ginger Wildheart is a classic barroom rock and roll band from the UK. I don’t know how else to describe them. They start with a solid blues based rock and roll base and mix in some country influences to produce songs that sound great at 2 in the afternoon, or at 2 AM coming from a jukebox on a beer soaked dance floor in a pub.
The Commoners are a Canadian act that clearly grew up listening to The Black Crowes. I saw a review of their new album online somewhere, clicked play on the embedded video, and was looking for a buy button about 15 seconds later. It’s one of those records that hit me right in the sweet spot from the opening riffs of the first song I heard. I still need to go back and explore their back catalog.
Vic Ruggiero is a real wild card. A friend posted a video on Mastodon and I clicked through out of curiosity, and found myself going back to it several times that day, before just buying the album. Vic is best known as the frontman for some Ska bands, I think, but this solo effort is him and a piano playing a modern take on ragtime, and it’s frigging good.
Never Go Back Home - Vic Ruggiero (On The Rag Time) - YouTube
I also found myself revisiting the Lawrence catalog last month. If you are not familiar with the brother-sister team known as Lawrence, your life is about to get much better. The amount of talent in that family is phenomenal. Go find them on YouTube.
On TV, we binged Wednesday on Netflix, which was fabulous. We should also finish up The Sandman tonight, which has also been excellent, although I could have done without the diner episode. We also watched the two part Netflix miniseries on Manti Te'o getting catfished back before catfish was a verb. I know the Internet made fun of him back in 2009, but in getting the real story, he is the real victim. We are still working our way through a rewatch of Warehouse 13 too. We are in season 3.
Not surprisingly, we did not travel in January. So that’s over 90 days, and it is definitely getting to me. Camping season can’t get here soon enough. Life has conspired to postpone the Spring camping trip on the Natchez Trace until fall, but we’ll fill in local state parks in April to make up for it. We are going to Atlanta for a week in February, though, and I’m looking forward to catching up with friends and family that live there.
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