Welcome Back Garden


The garden is growing back! Welcome back garden. It's hard to imagine over the winter that it would ever come back - but here it is. We're enjoying sitting out staring at all the colour poking up from the ground :)

CatScan

Here's a piccie B sent of my fave cat - Mandu, on her scanner.

Roast Biff & Apple Pie Love Air...

Let's face it, look around the world - there's nobody who can twiddle the knobs of a synthesizer better than the Europeans. So, when Air from Paris, France scheduled a stop in Vancouver we rushed out for tickets.

M and I headed down to Richards for an intimate evening listening to the most beautiful, dare I -- 'synth-pop' sounds of Air. Their music is so epic and delicate .. they are the masters of analog beauty. They played all our favourites, and mashed up some of the songs into a heavier style with fuzz bass ... really, really great. We loved the show. Air is on heavy rotation on the sound system today.

Spotted In Glasgow ...

My brother - Renaissance>Man spotted this in Glasgow ... fantastic...


Translation for my North American friends ... "stop pissing on my street you shower of scummy bas*ards"

Local Yocal

One of the things that's going me going over the last year is -- local music. Time after time we've checked out some great local bands. I've not really experienced this for for ages - we're talking Manchester - 1987-1990 times here.... Stone Roses, Happy Mondays ...etc... heading down to the Boardwalk, heading down to The International to watch these local bands.

Anyways, M and I was feeling hungry on the way home from downtown the other night and decided to head over to one of our fave places - The Main - for some food and good times. As ever, great food .. nice people .. great ambience, we got chatting to a couple from Portland and Vancouver ... who ended up being the bands for the evening.

Well, I couldn't have been more impressed. 1st up was - Chris Robley ... bloody great. It has it's time and place ... but it's pure quality. He reminds us of our friend Al in Seattle. His CD is brilliant - great compostion, great tunes and really interesting production. In fact, he was in the Spin Magazine 2006 top-10 CD's you've never heard. That single line must be frustrating for him.

He was followed by Amy Honey .. co-owner of Red Cat Records on Main St ... fan-dabby-dosy. Great singer,a mean guitar player, great crafted songs ... I'm a fan. She's playing here in Vancouver shortly if anyone wants to come on down ... Her live performance does her more justice than her MySpace site...

Here's the links ....

Click me - Chris Moberly

Click me - Chris Moberly

Click me - Amy Honey

Toots & The Maytels

Me, M & Dubmaster C headed down to the Commodore last night to watch Toots. Now, We've never heard the dude - but on recomendation we headed down. Oz hooked us up.

Excellent show - more Soul than Reggae. Powerful singer, he kept his mike pretty far away from his mouth (odd, I never notice things like that), very soulful man - reminded me of Otis Reading. Somewhere in the middle of the set it occured to me how good it must be to be Reggae guitarist - every dances to your rythmn - must be kool.

Toots was a one-time jailbird and wrote a song about it ... 54-46 which was his inmate # number. After 25 years of knowone being bovvvered the local sensational newspaper did a story on it, which a border-guard read, which resulted in a 2-hour border-hassle-sessio -the dude was not happy. Hopefully, the warm appreciative reception made him feel better last night. Actually, it did because he was rocking on the good times going down.

Vaisahki



Today, I headed down to the Indian Harvest Festival - Vaisahki in Punjab Village. M wasn't feeling to good so I headed down with our neighbour Ms Fiji ...


We strolled the streets, enjoying all the gifts of food, happy people and smiles everywhere ... such generosity ... lovely, lovely, lovely. Families gave away food/drink outside their homes. Everything was vegetarian so we feasted on the tasy curries, deserts, teas, fruit ...





We started on Fraser St and headed over to Main St - the heart of Punjab Village ...

... and joined the mass of happy people celebrating ...

Here's a short compilation of some of todays performers ...

Powderhound AllStars

It's almost the end of the season. There maybe a chance of a cheeky night boarding session, or a day at Whistler ... or maybe not ... it may well be the end of the season.

Good times this year, and thanks to all the PowderHounds who made it great. For me, a huge part of the sessions is the comradey with all of you. I salute you all with this 'Powderhound Allstars' movie. Thanks.

Happy Easter


Hope all you had a good Easter. We had all had a very nice day. It started with a surprise from the neighbour kids. They had made us jello-filled Easter Eggs.

The neighbouring Ethopian family brought over some traditional food and drink - super nice of them.

Earlier in the day, Madame Cadiz and I went for a walk around the local park taking some photos of the Willow trees ...

And in the evening we had a delicious dinner... yum yum.

San Francisco - #5

A lazy day checking out JapanTown, walking around the neighbourhoods most of the day ... then packing. The Frisco Kid returned back from San Diego, we caught up and he asked us if we'd checked out the rooftop deck. "No!!!". We headed up past the authorized personel signs, because he was authorised and onto the roof. OMG. Unbelievable views from the 25th story. Wow.

Afterwards we headed down to the Mission District for some top Mexican Food and beers. What a great dude the Frisco Kid is.

He dropped us off at the Bart station, we said our goodbyes and we headed off to the Oakland Airport to catch our flight back to Seattle. Easy flight, lots of stars .... and so ended a fab trip ... we returned back to Vancouver feeling re-juvinated by the Californian sun and our adventures. Nice.

San Francisco - #4

Waking up bright and early we strolled around Geary, heading into downtown ... we rode a cable car or 2 and checked out Chinatown. As part of our passes we bought, we got a free cruise around the bay. So off we went, got in line .. and enoyed a kool ride in the harbour, past Alcatraz, under the Golden Gate Bridge (painted in International Red).




After the cruise we decided to check out the Sunday afternoon blues-session at The Saloon. Blues Power was playing ....



... an entertaining bunch of musicians... The original plan was to stay for a few hours ... but we met a bunch of people, had some great laughs, and before you know it... Johnny Nitro was back on-stage, I'd hooked up Frisco Kid with a date with a Peurto Rican/Spanish lady who's very nice .... had a dance with a bunch of folks.. LOL. ... met some new pals ... then it was time to go home. That place is too good.

San Francisco - #3

Today we headed down to the Asian Art Museum. First we checked out the visiting collection from India, then their permenant exhibits. Lots of great art to check out - we spent hours in there. The Frisco Kid had this great Japenese Art book of Hokusai, I found it in the museum so I bought us a copy - good stuff.

Afterwards we headed up the glass elevator of the St Francis hotel for a view of the city ...

... then for a Mexican lunch, before heading back for some much deserved rest. In the evening we headed into the Fillmore district near JapanTown ... strolled around checking the neighbourhood out before an Indian dinner ... Feeling lazy we headed back to the Frisco Kids to listen to his albums on the turntable. Nice.

San Francisco - #2


Today we headed upto Haight-Ashbury which is where the 60's hippie counter-culture scene was centred. The place has changed somewhat since we last went there 8 years ago - it's better! Bigger, a little more polished and more vibrant ... plus there's families around.

We enjoyed a hearty breakfast at our fave place -- All You Knead, complete with a couple of Mimosa's (hey, it's a tradition for us) before heading out for a walk through Golden Gate park to the ocean. En-route we stop by the Red Victorian where we've stayed in the past, to pick up some great soap they make.

After a long walk through the historical park we arrive at the ocean, and settle down watching the surfers, waves crashing and before you know it ... I was asleep. After a nice toasting in the sun we continued along the beach for a few miles, collecting sand-dollars (dried-sea-creatures) for our deck. We headed up a headland, walking along the pine trees to find an epic view of the Golden-Gate bridge and Marin County. Lovely place.

Heading back to Frisco Kids, we stop of at Trader Joes (good Californian supermarket) for snacks & supplies. Back at Frisco Kids we enjoy the sunset before heading out for dinner and music.

The original plan was to goto the Boom-Boom Room on Fillmore and watch a show. The band was a super no namer for $25 a ticket ... mmm ... seems overpriced so we switched plans and caught the bus downtown and headed to our fave Blues bar - The Saloon, surely we'd catch a good show there. 1st up was dinner, yummy Thai Food.

The Saloon - A hole in the wall locals place, it's been there for over 120 years, survived the devastating earthquake of 1906 and features great blues. I originally found the place 15 years ago when I was first in San Francisco, M and I have been in there numerous times over the years. It's a great tiny place.

We were not dissapointed. Those hairy freaks down in the bay-area can wail.The place was filled with bona-fide cool dudes, middle-aged guys in sports jackets guys grinning insesently as their re-assuring wifes encouraged them to dance. Inevitably this lead to some far-out moves exceeding anything a experimental dance-group could muster. Locals, muso's, freaks .. the lot. We met, and and had a bunch of laughs with some locals ... easy talking, cool people.

The 2nd band - Johnny Nitro was amazing. He's was a fantastic player, his band rocking and his side-kick a female saxophonist was incrediable. She was the show-person ... climbing up on the bar, rolling around the floor ... just candy compared to her unbelievable raw talent. M and I chatted with her and decided to tell our single guy friends about her, because she was kool - head down there and check her out. Striker! You'll be down there soon - go!

We met a French kid in there who was heading out to Ocean Beach area so we all decided to catch the bus together. Chatting along the way, a home-less guy fell, hit the deck and had a fit in front of us. We sorted him out, called 911 - and had him taken care off. M was really sweet, she had the guy laughing and cheered up. He ended up showing off his Black Sabbath tattoo to her. We missed the bus, so caught a cab ... wished our French friend goodbye and good-luck.

San Francisco - #1

We had a lot of fun, erm ... too much fun to be honest.

Leaving the airport we took the Bart train from Oakland Airport into downtown San Francisco. A cool train which actually goes beneath the bay. Emerging from the Station it hit us. We love this place! It's been so long since we've been here. We remembered it all ... "Check this out", "Remember that", "Wow" ... The sun shon hard on the streets filled with flowers that we only see in the summertime here in Vancouver, hustle and bustle everywhere, cable cars, lovely architecture, palm trees and leaved decidious trees all over. Nice!


We headed over to the Frisco Kid's apartment who was out of town for almost the entire duration of our trip. His place rules. Great location on Cathederal Hill, 14th floors, deck, huge windows and epic views from the Mission on the left, Golden Gate bridge forward, to Telegraph hill on the right. The place is very comfortable and funnily enough furnished with all the stuff we do - we even had the same coffee table. lol.

After a rest & refreshment we headed out for adventure ...

... Catching the cable cars and maximizing our unlimited transit passes we criss-crossed the city for hours.

Early evening we watched this ace b-boy troop - BMW - (Black Men Working) on the waterfront.



Next stop, North Beach (Italian District) (Beat-generation district) for a great dinner at Mona Lisa. Leaving we ended up chatting with the owner who was hilarious. He insisted on flagging a cab down for us, telling us all about his summer in Germany watching the world-cup, how he gave everyone the day off ... "I called them up from Germany... take the day off, go celebrate". At one point he dashed inside and brought out this old italian newspaper ... showing the Italian squad which beat England in the world-cup. We all laughed. Very nice man. At this point, after this conversation and random chats with strangers around the city, I decided ... "I love this place so much, it's double, double good!"

A fab first day, we head back and relax on the deck taking in the evening heat ...

24 Hours - Best Of The West

The West is the best, and in 24 hours we had the best of the west. lol.

Leaving Vancouver around 7:00 pm we headed down to Seattle. A smooth drive , not much traffic and a nice sunset for visuals. We spent the night at Madame Cadiz's, enjoyed a nice bottle of wine and headed off to bed for an early start to the airport.

The flight down to San Francisco was amazing. The skies were 100% clear - we could see for miles. Leaving SeaTac airport we flew over the island we lived on for 3 years ...

Over the Olympic Peninsula and along the coasts of Washington, Oregon & California checking out the mighty Columbia River and Sierra Nevada mountains ... before arriving in the bay area for sweeping views of the city and neighbouring Marin County.

Ahhh, exiting the airport we soaked up the glorious 70+degree sunshine, a major natural spa session away from the cold weather of Vancouver.