Talk to me

I have been frustrated with not having as much time for music listening, even with sprinkling album reviews into the mix. I have gotten somewhat better about the other topic blogging, but at this time two music reviews a week is not possible (except with live shows, sometimes).

Blogging every single day may not be practical anyway; I don't know when I will get back to the travel blog or the preparedness blog regardless. I have been thinking about this hole on Thursdays, though, and I kind of want to start running interviews.

Speaking of things where you don't know if they're practical...

With the band reviews, there are many times where I have thought it would be nice to be able to interview some of the musicians when they come to town anyway. That is not new. More recently, it has seemed more possible. Every now and then at a smaller gig someone recognizes me from the reviews, or I am there because I know them some other way. I probably could get those people to answer a few questions. For the bands that follow me on Twitter and end up on the review list because of that, well, they are following people to get more attention; they might be open to more detailed attention.

So there are definite possibilities there. I don't know that I could interview someone related to the Friday music review every week, but that leads to something else.

Several years ago, I had this idea that I would like to do something like a magazine that focused on people. The name People was already taken, but maybe it could be Persons.

The idea came partly from the Smithsonian magazine. There was an article on pernambuco, a wood that is particularly well-suited to violin bows. In the course of the article they spoke to someone who makes bows, and a musician, and someone who harvests the wood, I think. They were all there about the wood, but it seemed like there could be room to learn about them too.

Also, there was something about Andrew Steele.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-XYsDNh4-886rMNLnnwR_w

It is easier to find information on him now, but then he was part of a story where they couldn't get good analytical photos of these Martian rocks, so - if I recall correctly - he requested the samples and invented a camera to get the right angles, and he was a student when he did this. I believe it was a graduate student, not a high school student, but still! The confidence and ingenuity there was amazing.

Finally, I saw this guy on the Metro in DC who stood out because he looked like a young Viggo Mortenson. Also, we were near the Pentagon, and he had a badge on so I knew his name and rank. Shallow, perhaps, but a friend explained that for his rank based on his evident age, he must have risen through the ranks pretty quickly. There would be a story there, beyond his being good-looking. (Though he was really good looking.).

At the time those factors all worked together to impress me that everyone has a story. I'm not the only one to know that. Now there are options like Humans of New York and Faces of Homelessness that delve into that more. I certainly didn't do anything with it at the time, but now I kind of want to.

But also, Friday is going to be an album review of Torche's latest, Admission, and there was a member that I used to interact with sometimes but he is no longer on the band. I don't anticipate any post tomorrow.