Amos

Something must be wrong with me.

This past weekend was supposed to be dedicated to packing and preparing for our trip to Sydney. I get terrible travel stress. Until I am actually on the plane, I am very nervous that something will go wrong, be it missing my flight or forgetting all my underwear. I suppose it is because I don't travel all that often and therefore feel certain to screw something up.

In any case, rather than take care of all my business, I went to three separate music shows; Manu Chau at the Greek on Friday, Soul of Man at Mighty on Saturday, and Amos Lee at the Indie on Sunday. For some reason, rather than calming my nerves by completing everything on my list, I tend to push the envelope and squeeze in lots of fun as well.

Monica bought the Manu Chau tickets and invited Shannon and Michael along as well. Shannon and Monica had both traveled in South America, and Manu Chau's music was a nostalgic part of both their trips. I was especially impressed, however, by his opening act, Kinky. Kinky is a band from Monterey, Mexico that seems to have concocted the best fusion I have heard so far between live rock and electronic music. It was very dancable and reminded me of The Mutaytor, Latin style. I am now offically a fan.

I had noticed earlier in the week that Soul of Man was playing at Mighty, but resolved to stay home to be responsible and pack and work on bills. It only took one phone call from someone else itching to go see music, and of course I ended up going. I wasn't disappointed. I had heard of Soul of Man during the Love Parade this year. I wanted to go and see them but they were playing too late-night for me, like 5am or something crazy. I had gone on to the website of their record label, Fingerlickin' and was delighted with the funky breaks they had, and bought a few tracks online. I have to say that the live set wasn't exactly what I expected, but the crowd that night was gleeful and getting down in a big way, so a great time was had by all. We'd been "licked"!

By Sunday, I was wondering what I was thinking by getting tickets for that night's Amos Lee show at the Independent. I had heard a couple of tracks I liked but wasn't a huge fan or anything, so now the show sort of felt obligatory.

When we got there, I was surprised to see the place packed to capacity while the opener, Mutlu, was still playing. That level of crowd anticipation is even unusual on a weekend night, much less a Sunday. We struggled to figure out what the huge attraction was. As soon as Amos Lee came on, we found out. From note one, he put on a captivating set of music that was flawlessly executed and seemingly effortless. I kept being reminded of many great musicians while he played. While he sang, I heard Jim Croce, Paul Simon, Ray Charles, Bonnie Raitt, Randy Newman, and others. It's like they were all bouncing around inside him. This constant recognition became distracting, reminding me that I wasn't seeing a lot of originality. However, I was so enthralled with the musicality of the performance, that it didn't seem to matter that only one or two songs sounded fresh and new.

I couldn't help feeling like I was at an important show. I also couldn't help feeling like he came off very self important. When speaking, he was very curt and seemed insincere. I think the audience was actually put off by his intense demeanor. Maybe he fancies himself as mysterious. I think if he lightens up a bit, he might actually become somebody.

Just kidding, Amos.

Elan

I'm not really a Reggae guy.

However, I read a review of a singer, Elan Atias, another young Jewish Reggae singer who previously toured with The Wailers as the voice of Bob Marley. That piqued my interest enough to have a listen. And, sure enough, he had a lovely, silky voice. Very easy on the ears.

As luck would have it, he was playing at The Indie, opening for another group, The B-Side Players. His set was scheduled for 9:30, so we went down earlier than we normally would for a Friday night show.

I expected a room full of Rasta hippies and an Irie smoky room. Unfortunately, as I should have expected, the place was almost completely empty. People don't really show up to that place until 10:30 or 11:00 normally. Apparently his arrival was not highly anticipated.

He proceeded to put on a show that would easily play to a giant stadium of cheering Bob lovers. It felt extremely awkward and uncomfortable, to me at least, that he was actually playing to about four Marina girls shimmying and stirring their cocktails. I felt bad for Elan and embarrassed for San Francisco. I'm sure he expected a larger crowd with a different demographic. The crowd eventually thickened somewhat by the end of his set and so at least a few more folks got to hear him. But ultimately, it felt like a waste of a great show to me. I couldn't help thinking to myself, "I think Reggae is officially dead."

I happened to notice that he was wearing an Ocean Pacific khaki jacket on stage. I felt a great sense of irony since his outfit seemed to scream out "I'm a communist!" - very Fidel Castro. So the small, faint OP logo struck me. I thought maybe we weren't supposed to see that.

Then yesterday, I picked up a copy of my favorite music magazine, URB, and guess who was inside the front cover in a two page Ocean Pacific spread. None other than our friend Elan.

I suppose we all have to make those tough career choices. It just seems so non-authentic for a communist-dressing Reggae singer to be sponsored by a big corporate clothing company. I know that the music should be independent of politics. I should be able to compartmentalize the two. But something about seeing that ad made me laugh out loud.

I still think his music is pleasant, and I'll keep listening. But my general admiration, I'd have to say, has faded.

Whobar

I launched a new web site this weekend. It's called whobar.net. I felt the need to learn about using Google's mapping API. The tools they have made available for free public use are so powerful, I feel I would be a fool not to take advantage. However, these things always require a bit of a learning curve.

I generally like to marry my learning experiences to something at least potentially useful to other people. I thought about what kind of maps I could build that would be new and different.

I decided to collect reports from individuals about the cell phone signal strength they are experiencing at any given address around the (Google-enabled) globe. Then I could plot color coded points on a map showing visually how strong the signal was from different mobile carriers.

"Can you hear me now?"

It won't be too useful to anyone until there are a lot of points plotted on the map, which means thousands of people will have to be kind enough to report their signal strength without getting anything meaningful in return.

Who knows if this will happen, but at least now the world has the opportunity to make it happen.

Whobar!