The Blue Moon

Went to the Blue Moon Tavern last Saturday night. Two local bands were having a record release party. Advertised as Seattle’s ” most infamous bar”. The list of literary figures that have spent time in the bar can be seen on this link. I like the one where Tom Robbins, the author, called Pablo Picasso from the bar and actually got through to him, but Mr. Picasso refused to accept the overseas phone charges. The murals in this post are on the west wall of the exterior of the bar and were taken with my iPhone.

November 6th & 7th.

Our son’s book will be released Tuesday, November 6th. It’s available on Amazon.

Wednesday  evening he’ll be at the Greenlight Bookstore in Brooklyn for a conversation and signing event with Tobias Carroll at 7:30PM. I’ve read the book and it is amazing and makes sense of the seemingly chaotic and random history of rock n roll. Laced with interviews and more, it’s a real page turner for music buffs and musicians alike.

If you live in  or near Brooklyn, stop by and say hello. I live in Seattle, otherwise I would be going. Ian is very approachable and has my self deprecating sense of humor.

PS: I took the back cover photo and the one you see on the bookstore page, via the link above.

Music Update

I’ve updated the Music Bar, on the bottom right hand column, to include the full EP, Inburst, by our son ( aka: Missing Vwls). His music can be found and purchased on Bandcamp.com. Years ago he was in an instrumental band in Seattle, WA called, Autofirelife.

Check it out!

Shameless plug! :-).

Enjoy!!

Music Bar

I added a music bar to the front page of the blog. The song that is currently available was written and played by our son, who lives in Brooklyn, NY. In addition to being a musician/composer, he is a dad, works for Simon and Schuster full time, writes music reviews online and is currently finishing a book that will be published by Harper, Collins in Jan, 2018. Busy guy!

History Intertwined

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In 1962 Seattle architect Paul Thiry did the design of some of the buildings at the Worlds Fair. Just as a side note, he also designed a house less than a mile from my home, on Marine View Drive, in Arbor Heights ( image above). The image of the NW Rooms refers to a series of rooms in a building Thiry designed. Today those rooms are no longer named NW Rooms, but are being used by SIFF and The Vera project, among others.

One of the rooms was called The Nisqually Room. In 1970, a band I was in played one or maybe two nights for some event ( I’ve been told it was a after-concert party for the All City Band in Seattle. I think we owed the music teacher of our high school a favor for letting us practice in his home basement and school music room. Mr. Terpenning was only a few years older than us and was supportive of what we were doing-which didn’t seem too odd at the time, but now……?). That was probably the largest room we ever played.  The ceiling was so high the sound went everywhere at once and kind of morphed into something long and echoing.

The article in the link does not say what the Nisqually Room morphed into over the years. It may have been  combined with an adjacent room. I have walked up and down the steps and around this set of rooms and my memory says one thing and the physical structures say another.

Anyways, I thought it was interesting that my history and that of Paul Thirys’ met 8 or so years after his design and contribution to the Worlds Fair in 1962.

TBT: Nov. 10th, 1967

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Turn the Way-Back machine 47 years: Boyd Grafmyre Presents…..Nov. 10th, 1967….Eagles Auditorium, Seattle, WA.

I’ve kept this handbill for 47 years. Seems like a couple of lifetimes ago.

( thought I would post something a bit out of the ordinary ( for me ) and since Thursdays are ‘Throw Back Thursdays’ on Facebook, why not.