Ordinary Day

Russell Crowe, joy of my movie watching and delight to my musical ears, announced on Twitter yesterday and to his fan site of choice that there are plans afoot to take the current incarnation of TOFOG (The Ordinary Fear of God) on tour next year! They’d been hoping to do August of this year as that’s ten years after TOFOG 1 (30 Odd Foot of Grunts) played in Austin–but that ain’t happening. They appear to be eying next May for a target range of dates, though–and best of all, Russell’s saying they will be bringing Alan. AND that Portland is among the cities in the US they’re eying.

My reaction to passing The Crowe on the streets of Portland in 2001 is fabled in song, story, and LJ post! (flashfire, ssha, mamishka, and kathrynt all still do give me periodic shit about it, too! ;) ) Given that, and given how I could barely manage to talk to The Doyle the couple of times I’ve encountered him, I’m figuring the chances of my brain exploding before the concert even starts are very, very high. Hell, the sheer thought of Alan and Russell on the same stage where I can actually see them perform may make my brain explode RIGHT THIS VERY INSTANT.

Because if this happens, my children, I am going to this. Oh yes, I am going. And there will be massive, massive squee. Better brace yourselves now.

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

As previously threatened (aheh), I have now added two more Russell-themed icons to my lineup, "Breathless" and "Sonata".




"Breathless" is from a screencap done by boxer_ferret (who I have credited on my pics page!) of a recent performance Russell did, and the caption on it is from one of the song titles from My Hand, My Heart. This one I expect to use for musical Russell/TOFOG type posts.

"Sonata" is from a scan of one of the stills from the album art from the Master and Commander soundtrack--Captain Jack Aubrey, armed with violin. Expect to see this one when I start talking about classical music. 'Specially when I get around to finding me some Boccherini and Corelli.

So it's Russell Crowe's 41st birthday, and his second anniversary! In celebration, I have loaded up a new playlist on my iPod with every single TOFOG ditty I own, the soundtracks from both Gladiator and Master and Commander, and White Monkey, the album I own by Russell's wife Danielle Spencer. (jessicac, mamishka, kathrynt, flashfire, shaylith, and ssha will remember that she opened for the Grunts when we saw them in 2001! I bought her album not long after.)

As I type this I'm partway through the first Gladiator soundtrack, and have been reminded of the following things:

* "Somebody Else's Princess" still rocks my socks every time I hear it.
* Gaslight, while it is the roughest of the Grunts albums, does have some gems on it.
* "Danielle", on Gaslight, is still one of Russell's sweetest ballads, and gets extra sweetness points now that he's actually, like, y'know, married to her and stuff. ^_^
* DAMN, I love "The Battle". ^_^ Especially the sixteen measures or so of the brass section all going at it when Maximus is on his horse charging down the flaming hillside, waving his sword like a maniac. That same theme gets played later during the big arena battle, too. Love, love, LOVE this orchestral work.

On the other hand, the one annoying thing about playing the Gladiator soundtrack on the iPod is that the device does this little jolt between all the tracks that are supposed to smoothly flow into one another. Foo. I don't think there's any way I can get around that easily.

Meanwhile:

Miles yesterday: 0.5
Miles out of Hobbiton: 69.73
Miles to Rivendell: 388.27

Mostly of interest to the Russell Crowe/TOFOG fans on my Friends list (ssha, shaylith, flashfire, and wildshadowstar, I'm looking in your direction ;) ), herein is a motherlode of concert pics from a show they just did in Oz. Somebody with a real good eye and a good camera!

Just what I needed to have Portland 2001 flashbacks! Credit goes to boudiccathered who provided me the link.

And kathrynt, once she and llachglin got here for mamishka's movie night tonight, turned to me and announced, "Russell Crowe does a good "Folsom Prison Blues", but it doesn't beat the original, I'm sorry!"

I didn't argue with her. Heh. darthhellokitty remarked that Russell Crowe's own WIFE probably wouldn't argue with her; I pointed out that RUSSELL probably wouldn't argue with her, as the man is a demonstrated Cash fan. ;) I have in fact been recently made aware that on their recent tour in Chicago and Winnipeg, the Grunts have been covering "Ring of Fire" along with "Folsom Prison Blues". After tripping across Cash's version in MP3 form on one of our content test servers at work, listening to a bit, and marvelling at how TOFOG did a pretty decent transformation of what is inherently a solid song, I've been anxious to hear what they might do with "Ring of Fire".

And I may have to go buy a Cash CD in his honor.

I'm going to gush about having a new album from 30 Odd Foot of Grunts now. If you're not interested, under no circumstances should you ( click here... )

Night before last... or I suppose I should say morning before last, since I have fallen back into the habit of sleeping late again... I had a dream that came in two parts. The first part involved me and all six members of 30 Odd Foot of Grunts in a high school band room somewhere, just playing instruments and jamming. ( Further dream mileage involving Alan Doyle, Honolulu, Newfoundland, and hospitals... )

Looks like the cancellation of the Grunts tour is in part because the sire of Mr. Crowe is about to have a big ol' operation for carpal tunnel syndrome in both of his wrists, and his boy has announced his intentions to be at home with Dad in the middle of said operation... ( Read more... )

So, like, I had this little section of my web page dedicated to 30 Odd Foot of Grunts. Today, I got an email from an official representative of same, politely requesting that I take down some of the material I had on said page: a few MP3's they'd previously handed out as freebies on their site, a couple lyrics pages that had lyrics not listed anywhere else that I knew of, and my archive of chords/tabulature I had been assembling to share with other TOFOG fans.

I immediately removed the material, of course, and was most grateful that the gentleman in question was extremely polite and gracious, and took the time to answer followup questions I emailed back to him: e.g., was it all right to discuss the chords and tabulature of the songs in email with other fans so long as such material was not posted to the web? (Which, I was informed, was perfectly acceptable.) I also posted an appropriate notice on that part of my site, and posted a similar notice up on the message board of Gruntland.com, and emailed the gentleman back to let him know that this had been done.

I am wondering exactly how intimidated I ought to be by being informed that, quote, "I'll let R know," unquote.

#1 - I got email from the guy who did the aboriginal dance performance as one of the opening acts to the 30 Odd Foot of Grunts show last year. He thanked me for the kind words I'd said about his act; I posted about him on my web page, but I also mentioned him in the "thank you for a helluva show" email I sent after the show last year, so I'm not sure which one he was actually responding to, but well hey. Whee. :)

#2 - My little brother brings me new news about my brother's band! Quote:

Just thought that I would update everyone on the news about OUTSPOKEN. Donnie, says that Lava Records has made their band the priority of the new label (formally LavaAtlantic). The first single will hit radio nation wide Sept 9, 2002. The album ships Aug 31 to record stores nationwide will Oct 31 being the CD release date. Just thoght you all would like to know.

HURRAY!