Sad news from Lake Woebegone as legendary sound effects man Tom Keith has passed away. For fans of Prarie Home Companion he was the boing, the cluck, and fingernails on a chalkboard every sound for the past 25 years.
Are you one of the millions who have cut the cable tv cord in recent years? Think the suits at Time Warner and Comcast were shaking in their wingtips worried we lemmings might start exercising or paying attention to the kids? Not so writes Brian Stelter who reports cable is holding it's own against the book reading, Hulu watching infidels. Now, it's entirely possible to manage without cable(nothings really on, right?) but for a sports fan it can be pure torture to stare at a simulated game online, wait for page updates every 30 seconds and watch a crude animated ball inch around a "field". Thankfully our friends in Europe can create sites like this; free cable television via your Time Warner or Comcast internet service. (this site will periodically disappear and display a series of fake messages. Don't be fooled and your patience will be rewarded)
Watching the debut of Brian Williams new show Rock Center I expected to see a disaster but it actually held it's own. It's no 60 Minutes or seminal moment in news programming but it's modest goals were carried out as advertised. CBS reject Harry Smith, late of the Early Show, had a great piece on the boom times of North Dakota where taco huts are paying 15 bucks an hour, truck drivers are making $80,000 a year, and there are 50,000 jobs waiting to be filled. I'm not sure why there isn't a stampede to North Dakota; the money is real, oil is abundant, and our country has not seen anything like this in 100 years.
Seriously, any person with debt and a smidge of desire should be loading his shit and heading west. Right now!
My Craigslist mojo failed me as I was not able to snag a ticket to the Pixies show tonight at the State Theater, I usually count on someone dumping a ticket, typically below face value, on the day of a show but this was not to be. The glut of concerts in Maine this fall is amazing and speaks volumes about the music industry, Everyone has to tour as sales of physical product(ie compact discs) plummet and the only money is in merchandise or ticket sales. Growing up, I had to make do with Monsters of Rock in Old Orchard Beach or the occasional flyover from Bob Dylan. This week alone you have the Pixies, Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings, and to a lesser extent Further.(A Deadheads worst nightmare: all Bobby songs)
If you haven't already, please listen to soundopinions, the only rock & roll talk show on the air. Sort of Siskel and Ebert for the Lester Bangs set.
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