Seattle trip

In June my mother and I took a trip out to Washington state to pick up my little sister, Caitlin, from Western Washington University. I never got a chance to post pictures from that week-and-a-half-long drive. So...

We got into Seattle after 3 day on the road and sat down for a really nice meal at the Oceanaire Seafood Room. I tried the oysters. They were okay...take 'em or leave 'em. Not bad. But not my taste.


















I had the blackened mahi mahi with bleu cheese and onion rings on top.














Garlic smashed potatoes on the side.














The next day we took a trip to the Experience Music Project. It's a big, aluminum-and-other-things building designed by Frank Gehry and it shares the space with the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame. For a music-and-sci-fi supernerd like myself that was like having my cake and eating it too. I looked at some stuff that was used in Star Trek in the same building as the guitar that Jimi Hendrix played the Star-Spangled Banner on at Woodstock. Way cool!


















It's right at the base of the Space Needle.














You can see the top of the EMP building from the outer deck of the Needle. My architect mother tells me that the purple material (which is made to be visible from the Needle and nowhere else) was nicknamed "purple haze." The place was funded by the owner of the biggest Jimi Hendrix collection in the world. He's obviously got a lot of money.














Once we got up to Bellingham, WA to pick up Little Shank we had a great meal at Blue Fin Sushi.













Course #2. This was a deep-fried first for me. It was really, really good.














What visit to Seattle would be complete without a visit to Pike's Place Market?














Hello! I'm a Monk Fish.

















Here is an aquatic rock formation masquerading as oysters.














Walking around the market was this guy with a possum on his shoulder. Caitlin took it upon herself to talk with him. It turns out that the creepy possum was actually pretty nice. It was eating chicken at the time.














Later that day we took a side trip to the we-don't-let-you-take-any-pictures-anywhere-but-in-the-lobby-because-we're-lame Seattle Art Museum. This was the sculpture in said lobby.














We had another great meal at McCormick & Schmick's. I think this was sea bass or something. It was like eating chicken that had the texture of steak. It was really well-prepared.

Steve, Don't Eat It!

Thanks to a cursory perusal of the Guster road journal I found my new favorite blog: Steve, Don't Eat It! It's written by a guy named Steve who, presumptively for fun, eats horrendously disgusting things that people around the world eat every day. He then blogs about the experience in graphic detail and (usually) advises his readers not to eat them because they taste like something unbelievably disgusting (who knew?).

All that being said, this dude is freakin' hilarious. My 2 personal favorites are when he makes a BLT sandwich out of Beggin' Strips and the time when he makes prison wine in a garbage bag out of moldy bread, fruit juice, sugar and a dirty sock just to see if he can do it.

For fun here are some action pics from a play date with composer Abbie Betinis. We tend to do lame, revisit-your-childhood stuff like this whenever we hang out. It's a large part of our friendship (I fully expect to eat some Cheerios or Corn Pops next time we kick it) and this particular expedition went down at a park somewhere near Prior Lake, MN. When there aren't any actual children around it's kind of hard to resist.

In this picture I'm about to take a huge chunk out of my foot. If this were taken 2 seconds later I would be bleeding profusely from my right ankle and shouting some choice words at myself. It would have been much nicer to have a shot here of my sweet jump off of the swings...but it seems there will be no evidence in this entry that I have any intelligence to speak of.


















Luckily, Abbie came away unscathed. Here she practices for when she has to break out of prison or become a building-hopping crimefighter of some sort.

best picture ever

This is hilarious. Irony rocks.

Guster

I went with a good friend to a Guster concert at the Minnesota Zoo's amphitheatre last night and, as it was my second time seeing them, had a rockin' good time. We got 2 of the last 4 tickets that were left an hour before showtime and, by some friggin' miracle, we got front row center. The lady at the ticket counter was really apologetic because we were going to have to be prepared to "stand and dance for the entire concert." Yeah, I'm pretty sure she's never been to a real rock show because being 10 feet away on the same level as the band (they weren't on a stage) is just sweet all around any way you swing it.

Here's a blurry action pic to illustrate how close we were.














It was drummer Brian Rosenworcel's birthday. Apparently, Guster celebrates by parading one of their roadies out in a giant chicken suit with a birthday cake.














Later on in their set the opening act, Ben Kweller, joined them for a few tunes. I've run into his music before when he released The Bens EP with Ben Lee and Ben Folds (it was fantastic!) but this was the first time I've ever seen him live solo. I'm totally glad I did because he was amazing. He threw down a great set that included a blues tune I'd never heard before with him screaming away on a Zeppelin-meets-Cream solo to the heavens. The guitar gods smiled...














It also seems that everyone in Guster plays at least 3 instruments really, really well. Each of the 3 guys down front played bass and lead at some point (amongst other things) but, near the end of the concert, Adam Gardner whipped out a trumpet and played a sweet solo that didn't sound easy.

The big news today is that I've been swept out of my writing space. I went to school to hole up in a practice room and hitch myself to an acoustic piano only to find that all the furniture (including the pianos) has been temporarily moved out of the rooms for cleaning. I guess it's back to the crappy old keyboard from college.

Color Madrigals, Vol. 2

I had a blast last night at the world premiere of Color Madrigals, vol. 2 with Vicki Peters and the Summer Singers. The 2-movement work is the second in a series of 3 "volumes" of madrigals that use texts by John Keats. The final pair will be premiered by The Singers: MN Choral Artists next January and you can read about the previous volume here. As it stands now there are 4 movements completed:

Serpents in Red Roses Hissing
A Grass-Green Pillow
Purple-Stained Mouth
Yellow Brooms and Cold Mushrooms

We'll see where the next 2 fit in. The pair that the Summer Singers tackled were the yellow and purple pieces which were perfect for the ensemble because they love to have a good time (the texts have to do with being drunk). Here they are throwing some sweet sounds down on the audience:













It turns out that I wasn't the only composer in attendance. They performed a great rendition of Robert Berglund's I Will Praise Thee, O Lord. He is the heavy hitter in the MN choral scene who founded the Minnesota Chorale in 1972 (they serve as the Minnesota Orchestra's choir-in-residence for those of you who didn't know...and they're really good). He was a super nice guy and we chatted about this-and-that before snapping this picture with Maestra Vicki Peters (who is also super nice).

















This choir loves to have a good time and this concert was no exception. They had a great party afterwards where they presented me with this awesome cake: the first time since my high school graduation that I've had my name on a one!

Printed on the left side of the cake was a reproduction of their concert poster. Look at the detail on this thing! How do they make cake frosting do that? It seems like it wouldn't be edible...but it is...and it's delicious.

Speaking of said concert poster, they all signed one for me.


















By far the coolest gift was personalized wine from Stillwater, Minnesota's Northern Vineyard. If you look under the title you'll see they've printed the names of the pieces along with "Keats/Shank". Booze with my name on it? How many times is that gonna happen in my life! Way cool!













They're performing the concert 2 more times and recording it as well. Hopefully they will give great gifts like these every time they perform them! I'm holding out for personalized fine Irish whiskey...

I was able to bring along an old college friend to the premiere and, after the party we went to one of my favorite restaurants in the Twin Cities, Ingredients. I had the lemon caper chicken penne. It was amazing.

Harry Potter

The final(?) Harry Potter book came out this morning and it has been impossible to escape its landing. That thing is like a black hole of nerdery for its fans and the entire world. You can't help but hear about it. Oh well.

Someday I'll probably read them. At the moment I have at least 2 or 3 books that I have yet to finish (currently on the nightstand are Hunter S. Thompson's Songs of the Doomed and John Perkins' Confessions of An Economic Hitman for starters) that leave no room for a book about a boy wizard and his teenage friends. Someday...maybe.

To close out this entry is a totally unnecessary picture of my cat, Max, guarding with lethal force a score by composer Abbie Betinis. He has a penchant for lying on any paper that finds its way onto my floor...he's a strange little dude sometimes.

California

It's been WAY too long since I posted anything...too many trips and not enough time to sit around and write about them I suppose. Every 5 years the entire Shank clan gathers somewhere in the US for a family reunion of sorts. This time around we landed in Stinson Beach, California (a beach community outside of San Francisco) for a week. It was a lot of fun.

Here's my encounter with a skimmer board. I did very poorly.













A few of us ventured back across the Golden Gate for a day in Frisco itself. The highlight for me was Alcatraz. The audio tour was amazing (and free!) and contributed to an eery scene if you didn't take it. Iimagine the prison cafeteria nearly full of people who are all just shuffling around the room not saying anything because they're all listening. It's not often that you see 70+ people all quietly pondering something.

Looking out into San Francisco Bay with my dad and sister, Caitlin. If the Shank family ever does a Christian rock album this will be the cover.













Playing some tunes with Kate.

All in all it was a damn good trip. We all mix pretty well together and I can't wait for the next time around. For now I'll be concentrating on the premiere of Color Madrigals, Vol. 2 this Sunday with the Summer Singers. I went to a rehearsal last Tuesday and they are singing the bejeezus out of them. It's gonna be sweet.

More than meets the eye

My record of super-fanboy nerdiness speaks soundly for itself so, without shame, I will just say here that I have already seen Transformers twice. Yep, that's right. I saw it on opening day at the very first show and again less then 24 hours later. Nerdy? Absolutely. I don't care.

I. Love. This. Movie.

Watching it in a theater packed to the gills with people on opening night is the absolute best way to watch a summer blockbuster movie and this one was no exception. Cheering, applause, collective gasps at the amazing visual effects (to watch these things actually transform is poetry in motion...I'll never understand how they made it look this good). I loved the Transformers when I was a kid and seeing this movie was like riding joy. Michael Bay outdid himself on this one with a generous helping of fanboy trivia thrown in. One of my favorite lines from the entire movie was when Megatron (leader of the Decepticons and voiced by Agent Smith himself: Hugo Weaving) shouts, "You've failed me yet again, Starscream." I mean, seriously...that was perfect. He used to say that ALL the time in the original show. It's actually one of the few things I remember about it from when I was a kid.

And thank you for letting Optimus Prime kick some serious ass. And thank you again for using the original iconic voice as well. I don't know who that guy is but his voice is Transformers.

As an oft-cynical bastard of an artist who is rarely impressed by anything it was nice to feel like a kid again. This is what it must have been like to see Star Wars for the first time in the theater. I just walked out thinking, "How did they do that?" I'll probably see it 3 more times (one of which definitely has to be with my brother...we used to play with Transformers all the time) and, when I go visit my parents, I'm going to dig those little beauties out. Hopefully my mom didn't throw them away. I'll be super-pissed.

Now they need to make equally-as-kickass movie versions of He-Man (the obligatory 8Os Dolph Lundgren version sucked royally), G.I. Joe, Thundercats (I heard this one might actually be coming sometime soon) and Silverhawks. I'm not holding my breath for that last one since it's a little obscure but I loved that cartoon when I was a kid. I injured my neck one time when I was about 8 when I was pretending to be Quicksilver (he's the super badass leader) and it's never been the same.

So, there you have it. My childhood received a little tender loving care via an enormous movie screen and, frankly, I'm better off for it. Thank you Michael Bay. And thank YOU Optimus Prime.

Music crosses borders

I injured my back this year in a teaching accident (don't' be fooled...conducting can be very dangerous) so I've been getting massage therapy when it flames up every couple of months. Since my masseuse, Mikayla, is so into music we've been talking about bands that we like, music we listened to in middle school, good classical stuff, etc. for most of the time I'm "on the table." She's very knowledgeable about good stuff that's going on at the moment and, when I mentioned that I enjoyed Death Cab for Cutie's stuff, we had a great time talking about it. Today when I went in I brought Transatlanticism, The Photo Album and The Stability EP with me to listen to instead of the muzak that she usually has on (which she doesn't actually like). Thanks to Ben Gibbard, Chris Walla and Co. I got an extra 20 minutes and a reduced rate. Thanks a lot, fellas!