Friday, February 15, 2008

upcoming shows

Again, I must apologize.

This time, for talking so much trash about the Giant/Pats. I am only glad I don't know much or care as much about football as I do baseball. Because, then I might be hurt.

I just like trash talking.

To that end, go Obama and I am enjoying the end of the Romney years while also enjoying watching the Republicans falling apart and fight each other over which of the candidates will not have their support.

I had no intention of bringing that up here, but I had some wine and am feeling feisty. But one of my brothers told me to get to the point earlier in my emails, so here goes.

Upcoming shows:

* Buff Tom tour of Australia in March. Charter a plane and come on down (for those of you not already residing there.)
* I am sitting in with Session Americana at the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge, MA USA on February 26. For the night, they will break out of their rule of playing only American music and will this night be temporarily named Session Britannica. You can guess why. I will of course be representing the Stones with a song that shall remain a surprise. Phil Aiken may also be playing. Last time I played with SA, it was one of my most fun nights of music EVAH.
* Buff Tom likely shows in Boston and Northampton in April, TBC.
* Buff Tom at Primavera Festival in Barcelona May 30. Maybe another show somewhere along the way where we have not yet played.

Thanks to those of you who came out see us in NY, DC, Chicago, Minneapolis.

The 2 Buff-Tom-personalized copies of the Shellac records I mentioned in the last email were auctioned off on eBay and raised over $3,000 -- and the mini auction they were a component of, organized by Drew O'Dougherty raised over $6,000 -- for the Callum Robbins Fund, for 2 y.o. Cal:

http://www.callumrobbins.blogspot.com/


All my lovin,

Bill


--
buffalotom.com
billjanovitz.com
billjanovitz.blogspot.com/

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

LP Auction for Charity

Hey all,

Rare LPs (only 700 copies printed) by the band Shellac (Steve Albni, Bob Weston, Todd Trainer) which were given only to those named on the LP cover, have been donated by the three members of Buffalo Tom for auction to raise money for the Callum Robbins Fund, for 2 y.o. Cal:


http://www.callumrobbins.blogspot.com/


These records have been know to raise $700+ a piece and it seems like a great rock & roll way to raise money for a kid with rock & roll parents.

If interested, bidding has started at Ebay. 2 of them are up so far. Look near bottom of page for 2 entries:

Shellac LPS

Thanks for your help on this and thanks also to all of you who have attended recent shows. We look forward to seeing more folks at the upcoming shows.

Bill

Monday, January 28, 2008

Nick Flynn in Esquire

I have little doubt that this will prove to be one of the most memorable things I read in 2008. From Nick Flynn, the writer with whom Buffalo Tom collaborated on the song, "Father Outside (Ink Falling)."

The Ticking Is the Bomb

I'd love to hear reaction. In fact, I would love to see any note from folks to see if anyone is checking in here apart from mentions in my email newsletter. A blog no one reads is like a town with no cheer, or a tree falling in the forest, or as Nick might say, "the falling is the tree."

Nice to see some of you out there in D.C. and N.Y. Hope to see more of you next weekend.

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

january update

hey everyone,

sorry, again. i am an apologetic sob, ain't i? i just have been lax in updates. i had such great intentions when i started my music blog (http://www.billjanovitz.blogspot.com/). actually, i see that it was updated in december. that ain't too bad, is it? anyway, i can't see too many people hanging on every word anyway.

i wish i could say it is because i am busy. but i have been less busy than i was all 2007, i think. but american idol started last week. plus someone sent me an invitation to join this facebook that i have heard so much about, from all the kids and such. but i see that it has hit some tipping point (btw, that's the title of a great book by malcom gladwell) and more modern maturity folks like me have signed up. it is actually the most useful of all the "social networking" sites i have found. i never quite latched on to myspace too much. and linked-in has some professional uses, i suppose. no one has made them apparent to me yet, but i'm willing to suspend my disbelief for now.

but with facebook, one can post the music, vids, little logos that allow you to dupe yourself into feeling like you are politically, environmentally, or gastonomically aware, etc. but the event announcements thing, in fact the whole interface seems very user-friendly. so that's where i have most recently posted upcoming bt shows that i hope many of you will attend. kevin will continue to update the bill and bt sites, but they are so web 1 or possibly 2.0 and this band is, like, very web 3.2.

i see that the shows are selling well, so i hope to see some of you out there on the cold and lonely plains. and there is a buff tom listeners group or something like that, which of course i had to join even though i don't listen to them (only like the early stuff) when i can avoid it. of course, we will have to listen to each other prattling on (this means you, tom) for an 8-hour ride in a van to dc this friday. so we have that going for us. how much would you pay for a podcast of that. have any of you heard the troggs tape? something like that.

the downside of facebook, and perhaps the real reason for my laxity in updates and other such things such as bathing and acknowledging the existence of my children is that it has this texas holdem poker app. which has ruined me. mind you, i have achieved "big dog" status in a mere couple of weeks and am ever so close to attaining the ultimate status of "shark." however, these achievements don't seem to resonate with my wife, who has never really encouraged my aspirations and dreams and so i don't expect her to all of a sudden wake up and bow down at the feet of a facebook-poker-recognized "big dog" now, january 22, 2008. further, she doesn't even seem enthusiastic when i finally win a few hands and come out on the positive side of my bi-weekly poker group in my favorite contractor's shop (which seems like a setting out of a tarantino bloodbath but is nothing of the sort in real life). so again why would i expect her to wake up lucid one morning and thank me for my visionary foresight?

so i recommend you sign up for the f-book as well so you can waste more of your time.

but as usual, i digress:

buffalo tom
January 25
night time
black cat
washington dc.

january 26
joe's pub
2 shows -- both night time, one earlier than the other
in the shadow of the astor place kmart
near/once home of the scrappy yet sadly soon-to-be defeated new jersey giants
new york, ny

february 1
first avenue
home to prince
and husker du
and grant hart
and the replacements
and that city that gave birth to the mighty hold steady men
minneapolis, mn
because, really, when you think about it, why go play some place warm in february? we want to keep our pale - broken-only-by-our-patches-of-psoriasis-because-we-are-so-dried-out-by-the-boston-winters - glow. let's pick someplace more miserable than boston in the winter. yes, minn. will do. but how about tomorrow? shall we go to hawaii then?

no.

february 2
double door
one of my favorite cities in the world
chicago, we-be-illinois

i be illin' so you keep chillin' and like lowell george be willin' and in facebook poker i make a killin',

Bill-in'

Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Tour Slide Show

Thanks to everyone who came to see us in Europe/London. We had a great time. Below is a little slide show made from some of my cell phone camera shots. More words to come soon.

Friday, November 23, 2007

Off on the Road

Hello -- We head off to Europe today for a week-long tour, which is about all that we can bite off and chew nowadays. We really look forward to it and the brevity keeps it all fresh, new, and interesting for us. It is a vacation. We also plan on sporadic weekend jaunts to certain cities in the US, a tour in Australia and possibly NZ in March, and something in Barcelona in May. Not sure if everything is 100% yet, but we are working on it.

Sorry for the infrequency of the posts here. Busy, busy. Maybe I will have some time to post photos and words from the road. Hope to see some of you out there.

Monday, October 29, 2007

Timlin and Wakefield

Hey, what can I say? Us old guys are getting more sntimental:

Wake and Timlin


Also, an exemplary post from old friend Bill Simmons

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Believe

Just in time for th World Series:

Bill Janovitz & Crown Victoria's "Believe" used for WEEI 2004 post-season re-cap:



Or just the song itself:

Powells Bookstore Blog

Hey, the piece I contributed as part of the 33 1/3 guest series at Powells is up:

Jano entry on Powells blog.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Keeping the Faith

Yeah, not looking great for the Sox. But one game at a time and we have Beckett going and then back to Fenway. Better than we had in 2004 when they came back against the Yanks and had to run 4 straight, 2 at Yanks Stadium.

Words of encouragement from Mike O'Malley:

Mike's blog for Yahoo Sports

Sunday, October 14, 2007

October Music

Yeah, the Sox got blown away in extra innings, so I'm biding my time on an off-day with actual inspiration, work, creativity, etc. Or trying. It is disconcerting how much time I spend watching, even passively, Red Sox games throughout the season -- which, for those of you unfamiliar with the details, lasts for 6 months.

I don't know how much more productive I would be with music, but I know I would read more. Right now, I am reading and re-reading some John Cheever stories. I read and appreciated them as a much younger fellow, but nothing can prepare you for their impact until you start hitting the same age as most of his characters. Some devastating stories. I left it home by mistake when we went to the Cape for Labor Day last month, so I picked up Lolita to read again. Also have Ian McEwan's Atonement to star again. It was one I put down without getting too far, not due to a judgment on my part; just got distracted by something.

Speaking of books, keep an eye on the Powell's book store blog at Powells.com (one of the great independent book stores in the world, based in Portland, OR). They will be having a guest series by authors from Continuum Books' 33 1/3 series, to which I contributed the book on Exile on Main St. I have a blog entry that will be posted there, music-related.

Here is some music I am listening to lately:

This is a song called "First Night" by a band I have finally gotten into after hearing friends recommend them for the better part of the last year or two, the Hold Steady. Look them up. Great record called Boys and Girls in America



Here is another great one, a bit more wistful:



Speaking of wistful, I will shout about these guys out of Iowa City, a band called Deathships, until everyone buys their records and makes the millions. This is one of the year's great rock records. Check out "Little Mystery." I was going to stream it here, but Divshare does not stream Mp4 files, made when you load CDs into or buy from iTunes and i am not about to start converting files and all that. If you care about me, you will seek the tunes out:

Deathships

I was riding my bike and, as often happens, the iPod gave me a great random mix, including Nina Simone's "No Opportunity Necessary"

That went into the Velvet Underground's "Sister Ray"



And on into the Faces' blistering version of "I'm Losing You"


I highly suggest Ian MacLagen's book about those years called All the Rage.

Thursday, October 4, 2007

Stevie Wonder show

I can't tell you how great the Stevie Wonder show was last week at the Bank of Whatever Pavilion in Boston. Words can simply not do justice to the almost 3 hours of incredible songs, performances, singing, emotional drama, sound, etc. I have never seen anything so thoroughly and intensely entertaining, soul-satisfying, and artful. I have been a fan since childhood, Songs in the Key of Life being the first LP I actually went to the store to purchase. I have seen him in concert once before, at the Wang Center. And that was fine, but it is as if he is now performing with heightened inspiration, which he is, apparently. In a moving introduction, accompanied by his daughter Aisha, Stevie dedicated the show to his recently deceased mother, who basically told him to get off his ass and go do what he was put on earth to do.

And there is no doubt that no one else in the world was more clearly intended to write and perform music than Wonder. I left the show absolutely stunned, gobstruck by the utter genius and mastery effortlessly demonstrated by Wonder that night. The man just exudes music. He sings as fabulously as ever. He seems to be missing zero in terms of range. And the songs -- hits and deep album track alike -- were an embarrassment of riches. I am unlikely to see anyone else that approaches this level of musical genius in my lifetime -- an expert multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, singer, improviser, performer. It has started a mini debate amongst my music buddies and so far no one has come up with any other figure in pop music that has accomplished all that Wonder has in all of those categories. I challenge you all, but perhaps not until you get to witness the man soon (hopefully he tours again soon) to remind you of just how much of a force this man is.

Rock studio

Above is the link for my real estate blog, featuring a post about my listing of the former Fort Apache Studio. The irony.

GO SOX!