- Speaking of bands and concerts, I just went to go see Los Straitjackets,
and my pictures taking skills with the A40 have increased
dramatically. Unlike my old camera, where I was lucky to get
1 good picture out of 20 that I took, I'm now down to 1 out
of five or so. The problem with that is that I'm getting many
many more pictures, so I have to be more choosy as to which
ones I show. That being said, on to the pictures. Now, given that I saw
them in decemeber of 2002, they had the World Famous Pontani
Sisters with them. Although the music was great, they
only played for about an hour, with a fifteen minute encore.
I think they quit early because the drummer was not feeling
so good. So, I won't show any pictures of him, because he
really lookd out of it in all the pictures, I hope he is
feeling better. Anyway, the masks are hilarious, and they really add something to
the show. But that being
said, the World Famous Pontani
Sisters added their own special charm, with their
constant costume changes,
and the surprising costume changes they went through, see before and after, to get an idea of
some of the routines that they did. But keep in mind, it was
still a family show, and throughout they kept a very family
themed atmosphere, really,
they did, heh heh, right, whatever. It was fun,
and no opening band, something I really approve of. I would
go again, and I would suggest that anyone who likes either
rock and roll, or a strong surf guitar, to check them out,
they are a real hoot to see live, yet another band which is
better live than in the studio. Yeah. Here is a collection of short
videos I took from the concert, btw, it's 7,311,105 bytes,
ie, 6.9 megabytes, so be patient downloading it from a
modem.
- Did I mention that I really like Dick Dale, King of Surf Guitar, although I wouldn't
call my self a "Dick Head" yet, I have enjoyed the two
concerts of his that I went to. To say the least for a man
that is 65, he moves with unbelieveable speed, which makes it
impossible to photograph him unless he is posing for you. Not
only that, but he like to walk around in the crowd while he
plays his guitar.
Furthermore he plays many other instruments, including the trumpet, which is kinda
funny, since aparently he doesn't read music. Well, coulda
fooled me.
- ANYWAY, your favorite
band, the Red Elvises is awesome, not for a couple of dorks, like us, but
mike of red jetta fame, see above, and steve, another cmu
lunatic, who happens to get laid more than any other single
person I know, anyway, not that i'm jealous, but on with the
story. So they were
awesome, this past August 9th and 10th at the Bethlehem Musikfest, The
Red Elvises played each
night to a rocking crowd. I have no clue what magic dust they put in the
air, or how they did
it, but the guys
really know how to dance and play until they are red in the face. They
are also very talented
and each can play all of the instruments
which they have. Unfortunately they no longer have a
dedicated drummer, which means they don't have the balalicka
anymore, oh well, maybe they'll get someone new to do it for
them.
Anyway, that that best of the pictures that I took, and I'd
like to add I took another seventy pictures at the saturday
concert, it's just they were mostly crap. If you want the
originals to the ones on this page, let me know, and I'll get
them to you somehow. But these versions were retouched by
moi, to look better, and transfer over the internet better,
if they were full scale, instead of all being about 680KB,
they would be like 8 megabytes, yeesh. Anyway.. enjoy.
- Ah, once again I went to go see the red elvises with Mike and
Laura , at the Sterling Hotel/Bar/Whatever in Allentown,
Nov 1st, 2002, and it was lots of fun, of course. It started out by seeing
the van. Then the first set was really, eh, lousy. Igor was
totally dopy. So Zhenya
and Oleg did a lot of
singing, and Igor tried to keep playing the bass. And the
crowd sucked. They weren't dancing, They weren't getting into
the music. Maybe they just weren't drunk enough, I don't
know. Needless to Sa. BUT the
second set was sooo much
better. Igor finally woke
up and started doing singing. Anyway, it was all good. Yeah.
And those were my nifty pictures. Like my othersets of
pictures, these are digested, reduced, and optimized for more
reasonable web viewing experience, should you like the full
res ones, well, I can supply them. Just let me know what you
want. Not that you, or anyone else really wants these
pictures - but you know, the one with Zhenya is actually really
good. Well, that's what I think, and I don't really care what
anyone else thinks. I don't normally take decent pictures,
and there were a bunch this time.. hmm, could I *finally* be
figuring out how to take good pictures with my digital camera
??? *cough* Powershot A20 *cough* Nah. Actually, so is the Igor picture. Well, anyway,
those are the best shots, IMHO, but I have more.
- I have been busy this fall (2002). First of all, I have a new
digital camera. err, well, not that new, but I got rid of the
Powershot A20, and I bought a Powershot A40. Not too big a
difference, right? well.. yeah, heh heh. But the A40 has all
these manual features which make it easier for me to control
- which is good and bad, because sometimes, I can control it
to make better pictures, sometimes worse. That being the way
that it is, my Souther
Culture on the Skids pictures did not turn out very well.
The first of my decent
pictures is pretty lousy, and the second is only slightly
better. UGH. I tried really hard to get a nice picture of mary, but I was barely
sucessful. I suppose I should say that the pictures kinda
reflect the time I had, so so at best. I like their studio
albums, and some of the songs are great, like Viva el Santos, perhaps
better live because of the crowd participation, - yup, they
got some random drunk guy to get up on stage and where a
santos mask. A lame one at that, but compared to Los
Straitjackets, every santos mask is lame. The belly dancing
song, and the fried chicken song were also good, because of
the crowd participation. The belly dancing song was
especially funny because, of the three women dancing on the
stage, the one was showing off her belly, then she tried to
get the other two women to show their belly's off also. It
didn't really work, because they didn't want to show their
bellys off, but ti was funny. especially because I think the
one "woman" was really a transvestite, because, she had a
five o'clock shadow, and was really tall, and frankly, didn't
really look like a woman. but whatever, I wouldn't reccomend
seeing them live, unless you like their openner band, which
played longer than the SCOTS themselves--- Br-549. Ugh. I
really didn't want to seem them. They play some kinda honky
tonk, which was totally different then the Scots style of
play. I really *really* dislike openner bands. a Curse on all
people who like to show up "fashionably-late" - poopy on
them. Right, $15 was too much for scots.
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