CWB 20: Babes and Barbarians

[JaamE]

Originally Posted by chuck3

Of course, this will be after cooking dinner with the seven fishes etc. ... it's the most exhausting day/night of the year. I'm sort of a grinch at heart but I go along with it since the rest of the fam digs it.

What's that for? Christmas? Other families traditions interest me.
We mostly celebrate Solstice now, with my mom and I being generically Spiritual/Pagan and my youngest being a Hellenist. DH is an escaped Catholic and my oldest will only claim the word "Esoteric".
We do a huge Puerto Rican feast for Solstice since that's what his side of the family would do, and we invite friends like my Army friend over for the evening. We fill the house full of candles and celebrate friends and family and the return of the sun.

[pointbass]

Originally Posted by chuck3

whew ... had a lot going on musically the last couple of weeks, now a little bit of a break. Next gig on bass is Jan. 6 with the Shoemakers, then the Vague Assurances hoping to make our Manhattan debut in late Jan. or early Feb. - we are flatterered, a club on the lower East Side reached out to us after hearing us on our website.

in the meantime ... and this gig I really have to practice for ... I've been called on to play keyboards while the assembled multitudes sing Christmas songs on Christmas Eve at Chez C3 in Brooklyn.

lol ... I'm going to have some fun with this. The keyboard is a decent Yamaha with organ and Rhodes piano and some other effects along with regular piano. I can hear seguing from God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen on organ into Garth Hudson's intro to The Band's "Chest Fever."

Of course, this will be after cooking dinner with the seven fishes etc. ... it's the most exhausting day/night of the year. I'm sort of a grinch at heart but I go along with it since the rest of the fam digs it.

It's weird when you get one of these "alternate instrument" gigs, isn't it? I have one coming up on cello, which I'm reasonably proficient on but WAY out of practice .... I play cello at home a lot for my dogs (it soothes them somehow or another???), but I haven't gigged on cello in over a year. I need some serious shed time over the next week or so

[chuck3]

Originally Posted by JaamE

What's that for? Christmas? Other families traditions interest me.

Having seven fish dishes on Christmas Eve is an Italian tradition and, although neither Mrs S nor I is ethnically Italian, we have lived in Brooklyn for over 30 years (closer to 40 in my case) so we're kind of culturally Italian. (That's partly tongue-in-cheek, partly not.) Seven full fish dishes is out of the question, but I'll do some kind of seafood appetizers, one main fish dish (like swordfish on the grill) and then make it up to seven or more with a seafood pasta that has all kinds of stuff in it. It's a crowd-pleaser and easy enough cooking-wise.

Mrs C was raised Catholic as it happens. I was raised Protestant but my real roots are Quaker - the Quakers would thoroughly disapprove of the bass-playing, hard-drinking bum that I've become, but I still value my Quaker roots and had an incredible trip to Ireland in October where I connected up with some of those folks.

from wikipedia -

Origins

The Feast of the Seven Fishes is an Italian Christmas celebration. Today, it is a feast that typically consists of seven different seafood dishes. However, some Italian-American families have been known to celebrate with nine, eleven or thirteen different seafood dishes. This celebration commemorates the wait, the Vigilia di Natale, for the midnight birth of the baby Jesus. It is unclear when the term "Feast of the Seven Fishes" was popularized.

[edit] Tradition

The long tradition of eating seafood on Christmas Eve dates from the Roman Catholic tradition of abstinence – in this case, refraining from the consumption of meat or milk products – on Wednesdays, Fridays and (in the Latin Church) Saturdays, as well as during Lent and on the eve of specific holy days. As no meat or butter could be used on such days, observant Catholics would instead eat fish, typically fried in oil.

The meal may include seven, eight, or even nine specific fishes that are considered traditional. The most famous dish Southern Italians are known for is baccalà (salted cod fish). The custom of celebrating with a simple fish such as baccalà is attributed to the greatly impoverished regions of Southern Italy. Fried smelts, calamari and other types of seafood have been incorporated into the Christmas Eve dinner over the years.

[chuck3]

Originally Posted by pointbass

It's weird when you get one of these "alternate instrument" gigs, isn't it? I have one coming up on cello, which I'm reasonably proficient on but WAY out of practice .... I play cello at home a lot for my dogs (it soothes them somehow or another???), but I haven't gigged on cello in over a year. I need some serious shed time over the next week or so

Cello is great. My bandmate through college years was a classically-trained cellist and we worked cello into our songs ... he went on to do like two world tours with the Mahavishnu Orchestra as its cellist.

[JaamE]

Originally Posted by chuck3

Having seven fish dishes on Christmas Eve is an Italian tradition and, although neither Mrs S nor I is ethnically Italian, we have lived in Brooklyn for over 30 years (closer to 40 in my case) so we're kind of culturally Italian. (That's partly tongue-in-cheek, partly not.) Seven full fish dishes is out of the question, but I'll do some kind of seafood appetizers, one main fish dish (like swordfish on the grill) and then make it up to seven or more with a seafood pasta that has all kinds of stuff in it. It's a crowd-pleaser and easy enough cooking-wise.

Funny, i found out recently i have Quaker roots too.
DH is ethnically Puerto Rican, as are the kids, i suppose. So we try to do something that is his side of the family for the Dec holiday and the generic Thanksgiving thing in November. We'll have a tree and gift on Dec 25th too, but that's smaller and just us. I totally understand adopting traditions from where you grew up, DH grew up in The Bronx. I have trouble finding some of the foods, but with the internet (and more diversity) it's getting better. Finding plantains that haven't been sitting so long that they're ripe is hard still though.

[Thor]

Originally Posted by DerTeufel

I just sold the KTM..YAY!!


Jaame, my band has what seems to be a revolving door for female singers and rhythm guitarists. We've decided that doing the power trio thing is much easier. I find that even after a bad practice session, I find myself looking forward to coming back to play.

That's cheating! That's like being married to only 2 people instead of 4!

Originally Posted by JaamE

What's that for? Christmas? Other families traditions interest me.
We mostly celebrate Solstice now, with my mom and I being generically Spiritual/Pagan and my youngest being a Hellenist. DH is an escaped Catholic and my oldest will only claim the word "Esoteric".
We do a huge Puerto Rican feast for Solstice since that's what his side of the family would do, and we invite friends like my Army friend over for the evening. We fill the house full of candles and celebrate friends and family and the return of the sun.

Festivus for the Rest of Us.

(I grew up a Lutheran but who knows now... we still celebrate Xmas as an old habit.)

The Icelanders were originally Pagans, until the country's mass conversion to Christianity in the year 1000. OTOH, most people up there still believe in 'huldufolk' i.e. the 'hidden people', spirits and such as there seems to be a fair amount of unusual supernatural activity associated with the consumption of so much liquor.

Regardless, tales of certain places that are haunted by potentially malevolent spirits abound. One example was a farmer who was certain that he could not enter his barn during the dark hours even to care for his animals, and if he did, trouble would come to the farm.

And then there was a construction project back a few years where the main highway East from Reykjavik had to be rerouted in a large half circle around an enormous boulder that could not be moved and was considered haunted by a spirit that broke all the bulldozer blades that tried to move it. Blasting had no effect either, so route relocation was the solution.

Paganism has made a return in Iceland, and the price of DT hats has come down. There are a number of festivals during the year where you can dress up in animal skins, duel with swords, drink yourself silly on beer, organize an orgy or two and whatnot. All good clean fun.

Don't ask about the traditional Thorrablot foods, you DON'T want to know.



In other news, the guitarist who got dumped along with me called me for a jam tonight with another guitar player and possibly a drummer. Cool.

I touched base today, and asked if the drummer was coming. Nope. Ok, I guess that's no surprise.

So then I asked who the other guitar player was, the guy co-owns a music store, so I figure he knows a bunch of guys. He said, "His name is Steve, he responded to my CL post for a guy to jam with on original music, sounds like he might fit in..."

(I recall the reason we got dumped was because we didn't want to play all original music written by the other guy all the time.)

This could get interesting ...

Chrismukkah Party tomorrow with friends, plenty of weekend chores to do. Time seems to go into warp drive this time of year.

[BassGen]

Me, I'm just being too busy with work. I'd like to unwind this time of year but this is when my real life demands the most of me. It is not as bad as the past when I would bring home stacks of work on the days before Christmas to. Work on up to the day and then in the days after at least. I always liked the Christmas holiday. Born Catholic, converted to Episcopalian (Actually Anglican in Canada) to get married. So the traditional beliefs are there but I'm really not a Christian at heart. But I like the spirit of the true meaning of the season. It just seemed that I never get to unwind and really enjoy it.

No gigs and no jams in the works. Put the call out to the band. Only heard from our lead guitar, I won't use that term that is thrown around on is board because she is as sweet and innocent and gentle a person as you will ever meet, and her personal situation got worse. Her hubby of 25 years has moved out and yesterday was their daughters birthday and in the mail their is a Thank-you not from some hotel thanking her hubby and a woman of another name for their recent stay. I can't imagine how much that hurt. If you knew her you would just not understand how someone could do that to her.

Maybe some luck next week. Company Christmas party in NY. We're back at a hotel that will have a live band in the bar. Last time that happened my employees tipped off the band that I played and they dragged me on stage to fill in for their bassist (he had a Gibson Ripper that played like soft butter - it really was sweet) while he danced with his wife for about 4 songs. I had not played for some time then and we did "Wonderful Tonight" being a song on their set lost that I knew. Their keyboard player complimented me on playing all the notes that most people miss so that was a positive.

Otherwise, life is mostly steady and reasonably cool. Little nuisance stuff going on but nothing super critical for me.

[Thor]

You sell a lot of tape this time of year? I thought you did the industrial stuff, do you also do packing and cellophane tapes?

The party bands don't get weird about putting somebody up, especially DA BOSS. Gives a guy a break, grab a cocktail, watch the band from the room and hear how his rig sounds live, which is always a great thing.

Have done that a few times and it was always fun. I just made sure not to overstay my welcome.

[DerTeufel]

No lutefisk on your table, eh Thor?

I just looked up the Thorrablot menu..ewwwwwwwww.

I really don't have any Christmas traditions, other than consuming more than a few beers and then setting stuff out before passing out.

[etoncrow]

Originally Posted by Thor

...In other news, the guitarist who got dumped along with me called me for a jam tonight with another guitar player and possibly a drummer. Cool.

I touched base today, and asked if the drummer was coming. Nope. Ok, I guess that's no surprise.

So then I asked who the other guitar player was, the guy co-owns a music store, so I figure he knows a bunch of guys. He said, "His name is Steve, he responded to my CL post for a guy to jam with on original music, sounds like he might fit in..."

(I recall the reason we got dumped was because we didn't want to play all original music written by the other guy all the time.) ...

You know, my Nordic Brother, you would have thought that all this freaking drama would have lessened at this point in our lives...go figure.

[Tat2dHeart]

I do not uphold any of the traditions of Christmas that I grew up with. The annual Christmas Family Fight just wasn't endearing or emotionally satisfying enough to keep around.

So..this year, I'm taking a few days off work and taking a road trip back home to visit my grand babies and see their excitement, then I'm going to take a couple of days for a Thumpketeer event in Chicago, and drive back to celebrate one of the granddaughter birthdays, then coming back home to ring in the new year with live music and poor decisions. Probably drink that night till my check liver light comes on......it'll be relaxing.

[JimB52]

A few days off from work is the perfect time to drive a couple thousand miles. Especially around the holidays.

[chuck3]

Originally Posted by Tat2dHeart

a couple of days for a Thumpketeer event in Chicago

you say that so casually, as though it doesn't get all our hearts beating fast ...

[tomydacat]

TAT if flatfoot56 is playing in Chicago say Hi..

[Tat2dHeart]

Originally Posted by chuck3

you say that so casually, as though it doesn't get all our hearts beating fast ...

I didn't want anyone hospitalized with heart irregularities or stroke this close to the holidays.

Originally Posted by tomydacat

TAT if flatfoot56 is playing in Chicago say Hi..

Messaged you for details.

[SpecialBlender]

Originally Posted by Tat2dHeart

ring in the new year with live music and poor decisions. Probably drink that night till my check liver light comes on......it'll be relaxing.

New Years Eve gigs are the only time I ever have more than one drink at a gig. I don't get falling down but have been know to have a s**t eating grin on my face all night. All my gig rules about partying get tossed out for one night.

This will be my 27th New Years gig with our drummer (our 3rd band together) and the 17th with our lead guitarist (2nd band). It won't be the same though this year with our fiddle/mando player being sick.

No matter how silly I get though I can walk/stagger home in under 10 minutes from the gig.

[Tat2dHeart]

Originally Posted by SpecialBlender

New Years Eve gigs are the only time I ever have more than one drink at a gig. I don't get falling down but have been know to have a s**t eating grin on my face all night. All my gig rules about partying get tossed out for one night.

This will be my 27th New Years gig with our drummer (our 3rd band together) and the 17th with our lead guitarist (2nd band). It won't be the same though this year with our fiddle/mando player being sick.

No matter how silly I get though I can walk/stagger home in under 10 minutes from the gig.

I don't drink anything stronger than water or coffee when I'm playing. But we aren't playing on New Years so....I'm just going to have fun.

[JaamE]

Originally Posted by Tat2dHeart

I don't drink anything stronger than water or coffee when I'm playing. But we aren't playing on New Years so....I'm just going to have fun.

i dont go out for New Years. Too many hard-core partiers and people in general for this introvert.

I did go out dancing last night to blow off the stress of the crappy practice. So today i'm in a better mood. Stole some kisses from a friend, had a few beers, flirted a bit and danced my ass off shakin my boobs at the bass player... just a general good night out

[JimB52]

Went out to a local vinery to listen to our singer cover Cole Porter songs. A pleasant way to spend an afternoon, and the tasting peeps liked her so much that I was given complementary wine and cheese just for being in her other band.

[Vandy]

On another note . . .
How are you, PassiveAggressive?
Am curious as to your input regarding the JaamE, Tat2dHeart and FurryMonkey naughtiness . . .
I'm just trying to be an "Official moCWB Stalker" . . .