Jump Jive

Found this video of Cab Calloway on Sesame Street on a friend's web site:

The Blue Vipers of Brooklyn

Last night a guy named Tim hosted a dance at the Elks Club in Summit, New Jersey. He's hosted such dances on several occasions but I don't think they've been well-attended - I had not been to one myself - at least until last night. This time Tim had a hit with a cool band called The Blue Vipers of Brooklyn.

Yep, I took this picture with my phone. It doesn't have a flash on it, and the dance hall was dimly lit. So this is about as good a photo as you're gonna get form me.

Anyway I almost didn't go to this dance, but I'm glad I changed my mind. I quite like the Blue Vipers. Their music is filled with lots of little fun sounds a dancer can play with. And I liked that, with the exception of the bass player, all the band members played relaxed and sitting down. When I was not busy dancing, I really enjoyed watching the percussionist, David Langlois, tickle his washboard, which he tricked out with an assortment of old tin items from the kitchen, with his metal-thimbled fingertips.

While I guess they are a swing band, I don't lump the Blue Vipers into the category of neo-swing bands; I feel like their sound is more authentic. I bought one of their CDs - Forty Days and Forty Nights - though I had to borrow $5 from Gretchen to do so. Apparently they recorded this CD as a result of winning Fox TV's Morning Show with Mike & Juliette Subway Idol contest last summer. Anyway hopefully the Blue Vipers will get more gigs in New Jersey.

Oh here's a nice podcast from WNYC talking with the Blue Vipers.

Better Music Video :)

Today the Gas House Gorillas sent a message to their mailing list, of which I am a subscriber. In the message, they had a link to a video that was recorded of them playing Run Run Rudolph at Stanhope House last December. If you look reeeeealllly hard, you can see Kenji and me dancing in the crowd between the Gorillas and the camera (though you can't really see us till like 20 seconds into the video). :)

New License Plates

This evening I went with Tiff on a little adventure. Our mission was to drive to Woodbridge to pick up the new license plates for the car Tiff bought on Saturday. Instead of taking the Parkway, we took the little roads. Along the way, we drove through the town of Westfield.

It just so happened that Terraplane Blues, a local blues band, was playing on the sidewalk, outside of Westfield's Bombay store. After fetching Tiff's license plates, we stopped by and enjoyed the last set of the show. We saw two of the band members, Gary and Jen, perform as guest musicians at a Gas House Gorillas show back in January. Gary and Jen were awesome then, and they were awesome tonight! That's why I bought one of their CDs. If you like blues, you should buy one too. :)

Paul and Storm

Last night I went to a very tiny little concert (audience of no more than 20-something people) at the library in Maplewood. The music and comedy was by Paul and Storm, a duo I'd never heard of until I went to see them with shoe-changer triangle member Joe.

Paul and Storm are a comedy music duo, and indeed they are very funny. They are also very interactive with the audience. I had the fortune (or misfortune) of admitting I didn't know what the next words were of a particular song they were singing... which resulted in Paul and Storm serenading me personally with some very silly lyrics that I won't repeat here.

Should have added this to my last post...

I just noticed on ReverbNation that you can add widgets to your web pages. Here's some stuff from the Gas House Gorillas for those who are interested...

Just a Bunch of Gorillas, and I Get the Top Bunk

Kenji was out of town this past week and through the weekend, and with the exception of my ten-minute date with Petco to fetch more food for the kitties, I've spent pretty much all of my evenings in. New Jersey finally got a smattering of snow this week - just enough for me to take a broom to dust off the sidewalk and driveway, but not enough for me to take a picture.

I also fell ill in the middle of the week with a sore throat. I thought for sure I had strep, so before the symptoms got out of hand, I visited a doctor. She did a test and said it was not strep, though it might be too early to tell, prescribed an antibiotic for me just in case my symptoms got worse, and sent me on my merry way. I guess I'm turning into a hypochondriac, since my sore throat was already gone by Friday night and now I'm just battling a bit of congestion.

Saturday night I had planned to go with my friend, Tiffany, to see our favorite fun local band, the Gas House Gorillas play way the heck down in Long Branch, NJ. The Gorillas are a favorite among the NJ swing dance community, so this is probably the seventh or eighth time I've seen them play. This time the venue was the lounge at the Ocean Place Resort and Spa, which was nice because it has a plethora of comfy chairs, and the band got to play with a boat as a backdrop. This lounge has no dance floor to speak of, but at least it has a dance carpet, which gives your legs an extra-good workout. In the picture to the left, Hiro Suzuki is on the guitar, Joe Geary on drums, Rick Fink performing vocals, "Handsome" Dan Alvaro on the saxophone, and somewhere in the background behind Dan is Crusher Carmean on the upright bass.

The Gas House Gorillas have a blog of their own, but it seems there's been some kind of controversy over it and therefore will be going away. I teased them last night that I brought my camera so that I could continue the blog on my own blog, but I know I'm just to lazy to make this a regular thing. Plus I don't have the same penchant for witty prose that "Handsome" Dan has (he was the keeper of their blog), so I'll just share a few shots from last night, maybe say a few words about them and then call it a day.

During the break between the first and second set, Tiff got to hear some of the funny music Crusher listens to. In this one photo of Tiff and my forehead (proof that I really was there), I got to listen to some Crusher's music too. I forget what the song was, but it was about worms and dirt, and it was delightfully ridiculous in a manner similar to one of my favorite bands, They Might Be Giants. Haha, a quick Google search for "worms make dirt" reveals that the band is The Aquabats!, and the name of the song is Worms Make Dirt. How wonderfully silly.

Moving right along - here are the Gorillas performing my favorite of their songs, One of These Days. I hesitate to add that link because it's one of those annoying links that forces your browser to resize itself... so I apologize if you already clicked it and were annoyed.


Note the pretty boat in the background. :)

Hiro rockin' the house!

During the third set, the Gorillas were joined by two local blues artists, Jen and Gary. I forget their last name, but Tiffany has their business card, so maybe if she reads this she can leave a comment saying who they are. They were great, and it was a real treat to watch them jam with the Gorillas.

And of course there is a little story that goes with this photo of Tiffany wearing "Handsome" Dan's hat. Following the jam session with Jen and Gary, Dan managed to knock his mic out of its stand with his saxophone (he was obviously rockin' the house). Not only did the mic fall out of its stand, but it also became disconnected, and when Dan reconnected it, it didn't seem to work quite right anymore. Or at least that's how it seemed to me. So he took off his hat and threw it on the floor in front of the band. Rick (the vocalist) then picked it up and handed it to Tiff. Then she put it on. Then I took a picture of her. The End.

Well, the show didn't actually end after that song, but after the show did end, Tiff and I stopped at the diner on the way home. I saw the word diner on the sign, but I say that was a misnomer. In my book, it's not a real diner unless it is open 24 hours, and this one was not - but we made it there just in time for milkshakes, bread pudding, and Tiffany's ambivalent bacon pancake:


Because the show was way down south on the Jersey Shore (well certainly not as far south on the Jersey Shore as it could have been), we knew this was going to be a late night. Before I left my house earlier in the evening, Tiffany suggested I stay over at her house afterwards so I wouldn't have to drive home by myself at 2-3:00 a.m. She sealed the deal when she said she had a bunk bed, and I could have the top bunk. Woo-hoo!

Old Cape Cod Potato Chips

I just made a new playlist for my iPod. I had to chuckle when I sorted the list by song title, and saw Pattie Page's "Old Cape Cod" and Slim Gaillard's "Potato Chips" fell one right after the other alphabetically. Tee-hee!

Gone to a Go-Go

I managed to get some free tickets for Kenji and I to go see the Go-Go's perform at the Starland Ballroom in Sayreville, NJ. We just got home - it was a lot of fun! Well, the Go-Go's performing was fun - of course they played all kinds of songs that I haven't heard in twenty years. I'd listen to them again right now, except all those songs are on vinyl, hiding in the top of my old closet in Massachusetts. Yep, so even if they wern't in Massachusetts, I still wouldn't be able to listen to them. And no I'm not about to go download them all. Why not? Because I'm lazy. And cheap.

The part of the concert that was not fun was...

The opening act! Some loud whiny acoustic guitar strumming chick named April something or other. She was so depressing to listen to. She made me just want to plug my ears. I would gladly have kept listening to recorded 80s music instead of her, thank you very much.

But the Go-Go's rock! You'd never know they are middle aged, except they do look a little like really cool moms rockin' out on stage.

Potato Chips

This weekend has been a good weekend for physical activity. On Friday, I drove down to Princeton to go to their monthly swing dance, and had a lotta good fun.

However, I was disappointed to find out that those people down there don't like to dance to the Slim Gaillard's Potato Chips. That's one of my favorite songs to dance to ever. I think the DJ thought it was cool that I requested the song, but he told me that whenever he plays that song there, people look at him weird. So I asked a couple of the guys I danced with if I am the only one who really enjoys dancing to that song, and they pretty much confirmed it. One guy, Mike, said, "Well, I generally don't like dancing to songs about food." How can that be???!!! So many great jazz tunes are about food, or are somehow food-related! I even have an entire playlist on my iPod dedicated to food-related songs, of which these are very danceable:

Potato Chips - Slim Gaillard
Matzoh Balls - Slim Gaillard
Saturday Night Fish-Fry - Louis Jordan
Beans and Cornbread - Louis Jordan
Everybody Eats When They Come to My House - Cab Calloway
The Frim Fram Sauce - Ella Fitzgerals & Louis Armstrong
Shew Fly Pie - Ella Fitzgerald
Banana Split for My Baby - Louis Prima
Hold Tight (Want Some Seafood, Mama) - The Andrew Sisters

Seems like guys named Louis like to sing about food...