The Dirt Is Red! | oh… and what's a grit?

Real Music: Snarky Puppy – Thing of Gold

This isn’t the first time I’ve featured these guys for their contribution to real music. If you’re into progressive or jam bands and you don’t know about Snarky Puppy yet you’re doing it wrong. These guys recently won a Grammy for “Best R&B Performance” for their song, “Something” which features Lalah Hathaway and they’ve spent…

New and Improved… Finally!

Over the past few months (ok, ok, maybe more) I’ve been resisting posting to this blog. Not because of any good reason, but because every time I went to post I found that there were things about the blog I wanted to change. In particular I wanted to change the look. Unfortunately, each time I…

Negative Facebook!

I work hard to surround myself with positive things. I try to filter out as much negativity as I possibly can. I’m pretty serious about that, as anyone who spends much time around me can attest to. Facebook is one of the few things I haven’t been able to figure out. No matter how I…

What is a black sheep?

I was shown what I think is a pretty cool clip from a show where Oprah Winfrey was interviewing Dr. Shefali Tsabary. I’ve included the quote below: The person who’s been labeled the ‘black sheep’ or the troublemaker or whatever of the family is the child who was the most sensitive in the family. Everybody…

Real Music: Improptu Henri Herbert

Would you recognize amazing music if you met it on the street? It’s a question I’ve asked before, although admittedly I can no longer find my own post about it. I know if I’d been one of the people in this video not playing the piano I would have made a bigger deal about the…

Real Music: Jimmy Herring Band

It never hurts when a member of the band is from your town, but even without Matt being from Birmingham this is just a bad jam.

Loss, Coping and Learning

I’ve spent some time thinking about a good friend who suddenly lost someone very close to them recently. Tomorrow I’ll be joining him, his family and friends in bidding his loved one as fond a farewell as we can muster. Tonight I’ve been listening to some of his favorite music and pondering what he must…

Real Music: Iron Horse Covers Rocketman

Covers are hit or miss for me, especially ones I like as much as Rocketman. But Bluegrass is amazing when done right, and the song is amazing when done right, so I’m digging this one.

Real Music: Valentina Lisitsa

Did you know that Beethoven intended many of his pieces to be played far faster than we’re used to hearing them? The guy was metal before there was metal to be metal’d. This video shows one of his pieces being played at the intended tempo. After seeing this you may have a better idea of…