Iron and Wine and Califone

So we were backstage at the Iron and Wine and Califone show at the Vic in Chicago last night. I am so glad I got turned onto Iron and Wine and wouldn’t have if our friend, Ben didn’t play percussion for them. I think they are my new favorite band. Great sound and great lyrics, but definitely on the mellow side

Here is a cool clip of an Iron and Wine show in Amsterdam on 01.21.08. You can see Benedetto behind Sam in almost the whole video of the show.

Ogden Elementary Variety Show

Here are Rowan, Grace and Jillian dancing to “Let’s Dance” by Miley Cyrus in the Ogden Elementary School Variety Show.

Grateful Dead – Frost Ampitheatre – 1982-10-09

I am testing the embedded player from Archive.org to see if I can put it into the blog.

I went to 84 Grateful Dead shows from 1981 to 1995 and I started documenting some of the experiences at my page on Dead.net . But, I thought I would add some actual concert audio on this blog with some commentary about the music and leave the real (and potentially not so family friendly) commentary about the concert experiences at Dead.net.

I was a tape collector and I still have DAT copies of 100’s of shows. I am going to post the audio of concerts that I attended and many more that I didn’t attend here.

The first post is a show that I did not attend. It is from the Frost Ampitheatre at Stanford in Palo Alto, CA in 1982. I had seen the Dead by this point, but hadn’t started traveling to see them yet. That really started in 1983. I had an audience recorded cassette of this show for years and I think I literally wore it out. Some nice soundboard copies have come around over the years and I have a good one on DAT. I am not sure I like the board copy better than the audience because it’s missing some of the energy and Bobby’s guitar is not high enough, but I have to put it here because the quality is so good. So, here is one of my favorite Grateful Dead concerts of all time:

The whole show is just about as perfect as the Dead were in 1982. The first set is extemely high energy and erupts with Music Never Stopped and Deal (the best I have ever heard). The second set has some of the first versions of Throwing Stones and Touch of Grey, before they were cheesed out and made into pop songs.

Tomorrow I will try to post the following night at Frost because it is considered in the top 10 of Grateful Dead shows to get on tape.

Enjoy!

(Update) Oh hell! I had to include the audience copy of this show because you just can’t hear Bobby’s guitar work well enough on the board copy. Listen to Deal to see what I mean. It’s a nice contrast:

Interactive Marketing Consultant – Jeff Ownby Accepts a Job

Well, I think I found the perfect job for me. I am expecting to accept a position with a digital marketing company in Chicago that is building out a new Interactive Marketing deparment. This means we won’t have to relocate and I get to do what I enjoy doing best; all sorts of projects for really good clients. Yep, Jeff Ownby is accepting a position.

There really were a lot of job options for me with the Internet still booming, even while traditional advertising companies are looking to downsize right now. It seems like I turned down at least 3 SEM ( search engine marketing) positions a week. I didn’t want to get pigeon-holed into search. I also decided not to pursue a few other out of town postions including one with Dell in Austin. We’ll get to warmer weather eventually. (It’s 10 degrees here in Chicago today)

The point at which I was sold on this new position was when they told me there may be instances when a project comes in that nobody really knows how to handle and we just have to figure it out. They also told me they don’t have a specific job description for me since they are not 100% sure how this new group will be evolving.

Sold!

I can’t imagine a better situation for me. I have spent the last 7 years “figuring out” all the interactive marketing I have done.

Zappa Plays Zappa – Zomby Woof

I mentioned getting Dweezil Zappa’s autograph in a previous post. I managed to get 5th row tickets to Zappa Plays Zappa at Orchestra Hall in Chicago in 2007, and the crowd energy was so intense that Dweezil stuck around at the front of the stage for about 1/2 hour after the show ended. Zappa Plays Zappa is basically a band that Dweezil put together to play his father’s music. I saw them 2 years in a row and in 2006 (where my seats were not so good) the special guests included former Zappa band members Napoleon Murphy Brock, Terry Bozio and Steve Vai.

Here is a clip of the song Zomby Woof from the 2006 tour featuring an unbelievable solo by Steve Vai, who, in my opinion is the best guitar player alive. Even if you don’t go for wanky guitar playing, you have to appreciate his absolute mastery of his instrument.

UPDATE: Youtube removed the Zomby Woof video so I am posting Echidna’s Arf from the same tour. It’s a pretty nice composition too. Hard to believe a band playing this live, but Zappa did it way back in 1972.

Summer and Smoke

Laura Leo Ownby finally got a lead at Theatre of Western Springs and it was a HUGE lead.  She played Alma Winemiller in Summer and Smoke by Tennessee Williams for Mainstage 2, 2007.   This show was a personal favorite of the theatre’s creative director so it was a big deal.  The part was gigantic with huge monologues and lines on all but 2 pages of the script.

As I have written about before,  I think Laura is a great dramatic actor and she really nailed this part. 

Clarksdale, Mississippi, Tom Williams and Betty Ellis

In July, Laura and I took a drive down to Clarksdale Mississippi to study the accent for her upcoming role as Alma Winemiller in Tennessee Williams’ Summer and Smoke. Clarksdale is where Tennessee Williams grew up and was the inspiration for the town Glorious Hill, where the play is set. Clarksdale is also the home of the Crossroads and is the birthplace of the Delta Blues.

We rolled into town in late afternoon and checked around for a hotel, but it appeared that Clarksdale had seen better days. We decided to head up to the Moon Lake area to stay at a crappy casino on the river. There is a Moon Lake Casino in the play, which is where John Buchanan spends many a debaucherous night so we thought this was an appropriate place to stay. In the morning we headed back into town and found the downtown area, the Delta Blues Museum and Morgan Freeman’s juke joint, Ground Zero, where we had lunch. A kindly, unofficial tour guide of Clarksdale pointed us in the direction of Tennessee Williams park so we went across the center of town to visit his 20 foot by 50 foot park. Then something pretty amazing happened.

We were there about 15 minutes just soaking up the hot Delta air, trying to absorb some Tennessee Williams energy when an older woman pulled up in her car and started walking her dog around the park and eventually found her way over to us. At some point we mentioned that we were there to research accents and the area because of Laura’s part in the play. The woman, whose name is Betty Ellis, then proceeded to tell us the story of how she met Tom (Tennessee) Williams and how Summer and Smoke was her favorite play by him. She told us that Tom stayed in the rectory of St. George Episcopal church, the church she was active in all of her life. As we were recording her voice so we could study her accent more later, she told us about how the character Alma was based on her grade school piano teacher and that the character John Buchanan, was based on the son of the real life Blanche Dubois.

We were wondering how we just happened to be in that park at the same time as Clarksdale’s eyewitness expert on Tennessee Williams when she asked to borrow my cell phone so she could call her son to come let us into the church and rectory that is so prominent in Summer and Smoke. We tried to insist this wasn’t necessary but trying to talk an older Southern woman out of this kind of hospitality was futile. So, we followed her over to the church and toured the rectory where Tennessee Williams lived and where Alma, through his writing lived. It was quite a magical moment.

Thank you, Miss Betty!

Time and The Conways

Laura played Madge Conway in the Mainstage 4, 2007 production of Time and The Conways. I think Laura’s performance in this role really caught the attention of people at the theatre and she will likely be doing a big part every year. 

Job Search

I am now in a brutal search for a job.  I really love marketing and what better product to market than yourself.  But the whole process really sucks, dealing with sleezy recruiters and indecisive hiring managers.  It’s frustrating and I just want to start doing something productive for someone,  fast. 

You can  see my Linkedin profile,  by clicking this button:

Advise and Consent

 Laura played Mabel Anderson, the main character’s wife in the Mainstage 4, 2006 production of Advise and Consent.  It was a smaller role but I think it really showed Laura’s dramatic side very well.  She always calls herself a comedic actress,  but I always knew she could play these roles.   This play was very outdated,  but it did provide a glimpse into the workings of the Executive branch and the US Senate.  There were some themes that resonated well in the current and unfortunate Bush presidency.