Wreck My Flow

Hey all. I've been draggin' all day. Not because I ran 20 miles yesterday, even though I did. Felt pretty good as I dodged snowbanks and cars, but managed to stay on my feet the whole time. No, I'm wiped because I ventured out for a rare Sunday night rock show, catching the rifftastic Black Mountain at the Middle East upstairs in Cambridge. I met up with my buddy Rob to see the British Columbians, whose latest album, In the Future, has been playing nonstop on my iPod lately. Opening act was Bon Iver, who have been getting much blogger love lately and deservedly so. The three-piece led by Justin Vernon specializes in folksy acoustic sounds that quickly accumulate into loud rockimafication and back again. Good stuff. The Middle East Up is tiny and I hadn't been up there in a loooong time; I believe the last time I saw a show there was for the late great Dandelion back in '95. Anyhoo, we went up directly to the right of the stage, where we had a great view of everything, literally five feet from the band. Black Mountain played a bunch of tracks from their latest album (including this one, which they played on Conan last Thursday night): lots of heavy Sabbath-esque riffs, eerie Witchypoo vocals from Amber Webber, and spacey keyboards. There were a lot of serious beards going on, from band leader Stephen McBean to plenty of folks in the audience. They played about 70 minutes, closing out with the awesome "Druganaut" from their first album. I was home in bed by 1 a.m., but damn, that makes for a long, sleepy Monday.

The sickness in the hizzy continues. Deb's still hurtin' and stayed home sick today, Hannah's got a cough going, and poor Lily came down with a fever today. Guess the pendulum will be swinging back to me soon. Hopefully everyone will feel better by March 8, which is Lily's 4th birthday and the date of the girls' combined birthday party.