I just rolled in from Pickathon. I’m sure that once the dust settles (literally, I have to hose down all my camping gear). There was so much music I liked in the last five days one post can’t begin to cover it. In the next couple weeks I expect I’ll have so much to say about Pickathon that this blog will start to look like it’s Airwaves 2012 all over again. Today I’ll just start with some festival highlights – the sets that made me say, “Holy shit that was good!”
ByGD
Music I Liked – Pickathon Highlights
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Bookish Mural
China is better known for sprawling developments of faceless apartment towers, and for good reason: there are miles of them in every city. But Qingdao also has some of the best street art of any city I’ve ever visited, possibly including Reykjavik, and many of the best murals are on apartment buildings.
Qingdao is in Shandong province, which the wonderful book Oracle Bones informs me is where the titular oracle bones were found. Those carved bones are the earliest evidence of writing in the world. Shandong province was also the birthplace of Confucius, whose writings are a pillar of Chinese scholarship. So it’s not surprising that even their street art has a literary bent.
{By the way, a recent Google “On this day” alert sent me down a rabbit hole of neglected photos from the 2015 homeland trip I took with my then 10-year-old daughter. You can expect to see pictures of China in this Sunday 1000 Words space for a long time to come.}
ByGD
Music I Liked: Female Vocals
When this post publishes, I will be off-grid in the North Cascades, where I don’t have access to new music discoveries. Instead, this week I’m going to talk about a musical pet peeve. I have a few of them: I hate the word “platter” to describe an album. Likewise, “slab” is overused. But the one that really boils my blood is “female vocals.” Those of you on the indie side of the spectrum may not know what I’m talking about, but I bet the metalheads do.
ByGD
Who’s Behind Closed Doors?
Maybe I read too many portal fantasies when I was I kid, because nothing piques my curiosity more than a door in a wall. Who’s behind closed doors? What adventures await? And since this closed door is blue, it brings an old song to mind (never mind that in the song, it’s not the door, but the mysteries behind the door, that are blue.)
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Ballard Seafood Fest
It’s hard to get photos from the beer garden.
I’ve lived in Frelard, that liminal space between Fremont and Ballard, long enough to remember when Fremont was cool and Ballard was home to dive bars for fishermen. I frequent the Ballard Library and their Sunday Market as often as I visit the library and Sunday Market in Fremont. When my kids were little, I fed an unwholesome cupcake habit at Cupcake Royale. But I’ve never been to the Ballard Seafood Fest before. Because really, how much street seafood can you eat in one day? Plus, parking in Ballard is bad enough on a regular weekend. Silly me. I didn’t realize it’s a music festival.