I got a chance this summer to do something I had been wanting to do for 2 decades – go see DEVO perform in concert. They’ve always been one of my favorite bands, and I heard early in the year that they’d be releasing a new album and touring, so I was on the lookout. They didn’t end up playing any dates in New England, but they did come to the Albany area, which is only 2 hours drive from where I live, so I jumped at the chance to pay an inflated ticket price (plus nearly another 25% in fees to TicketBastard).
Fortunately, the show was on a Saturday night, so I drove out there in the afternoon and got some dinner before heading to the venue. They played at a large club called Northern Lights, in the suburb of Clifton Park. The place is in a strip mall – here are some pictures of it that I took after the show:
I had arrived there at 6:30 (while it was still light out), and got in line outside, as the doors wouldn’t open until 7:00. While waiting, I had to get a picture of this guy who was just a bit behind me in line:
He had an energy dome logo on the hat, as well as heavy, “Oh No, It’s DEVO” eyebrows on his glasses. Fun!
I got inside pretty quickly, and immediately made my way to the stage. This was a rare opportunity, and I wanted to be right up close. Fortunately, I was early enough to get a spot right in front of the stage, or as close as possible anyway, as there was a barrier between the stage and audience, creating a narrow area for photo and video people to do their thing during the concert.
I had thought that the band was going to take the stage at 8:00, but it turned out that they weren’t going on until 9:00, so I had 2 hours to stand and wait (spoiler: it was worth it). I talked a bit to some other fans nearby me, and got a pictures of things like this equipment case:
Also, the stage was located in a back corner of the club’s one huge room. Just over to the right of the stage was the back door of the building, which was being used as a stage door, with the band getting ready in their tour bus outside:
At one point, a car pulled up next to the bus out there, and out of the car emerged the brothers Mothersbaugh. Mark headed into the bus, but Bob1 initially walked into the building, and he was immediately greeted by a fan yelling, “BOB!” with a bunch of cheering from the rest of us. He laughed and went back outside (unfortunately I didn’t have the presence of mind to snap a picture at that moment).
One interesting feature of the stage was the background screen. They had a video screen actually made up of a bunch of large LEDs. They were difficult to photograph when off, but here’s a close-up of a small portion of the screen:
They did take the stage at 9:00 sharp, with intro music and video playing:
The band were initially wearing their new light gray outfits with masks. I had seen pictures of the outfits before coming to the show, but I didn’t know that the suits were highly reflective, so when you take a flash picture of the band, they glow:
Here’s a picture without the flash:
I captured a picture of the setlist before the show, though my view of the first few songs was blocked:
Once they played the first 3 songs, they caught up to where I could see the list. Here’s all of the songs they did, in order (the first, third, and fifth are from the new album, Something for Everybody):
- Don’t Shoot, I’m a Man
- Peek-a-boo
- What We Do Is What We Do
- Goin’ Under
- Fresh
- That’s Good
- Girl U Want
- Whip It
- Planet Earth
- Satisfaction
- Secret Agent Man
- Uncontrollable Urge
- Mongoloid
- Jocko Homo
- Smart Patrol/Mr. DNA
- Gates of Steel
- Freedom of Choice
- Beautiful World
The setlist shows a few dividing lines. The first two denote costume changes, and the third marks the planned encore.
Some pictures from the first group of songs:
Mark and Bob2 during “Peek-a-boo”:
After “Peek-a-b00″ they took off the masks.
The first costume change involved taking off the jackets and adding blue energy domes:
They played like that for 3 songs from the album Freedom of Choice. Note, the shirts have blue energy dome logos on the sleeves.
Their second costume change involved putting on yellow radiation suits (and they all grabbed guitars) for a set of songs from their first two albums:
During “Uncontrollable Urge,” Mark demonstrated his urge by ripping his suit, as well as those of his bandmates:
A few pieces of suit got thrown out into the audience, one of which was grabbed by the guy next to me. He tore off a part of that and gave it to me, so I have a small bit of Bob1′s yellow suit.
Dancing in unison at the end of that song:
For the song”Mongoloid”, Mark would crouch at the edge of the stage with a pair of pompoms, and would jump up and shake them. Here he is crouching just a few feet in front of me:
and here he’s at the other end of the stage:
Back at the keyboard, shortly before they removed the suits entirely:
They ripped the suits off and threw them into the crowd. None of them came near me, though I was happy to have the piece I’d already received, even if it doesn’t say ‘DEVO’ on it. This left the band wearing just the black t-shirts and black shorts (and kneepads).
Mark then jumped down into the space in front of the stage, to get a bit intimate with the audience:
Sadly, he didn’t get close to my position.
I don’t recall why Bob1 was covering his ears here:
Shots from “Freedom of Choice” during the encore:
Jerry with his bass:
Mark had a few towels stuffed in the back of his shorts. During the song, he would take each one out, wipe his sweat with it, then rub it on his armpits, butt, and crotch (outside his clothes) before throwing it to the audience.
Yes, at age 60 he’s still an edgy weirdo.
Their final song was “Beautiful World” – one of my favorites of theirs.
The song featured a special appearance by Booji Boy on lead vocals! (for those not in the know, that’s pronounced ‘boogie’.)
In the middle of the song, during a long instrumental part, Booji told a story about getting to go the the Neverland Ranch to hang out with Michael Jackson. I kept expecting the story to take a creepy turn, but that didn’t happen.
All too soon, the show was over.
The above shot shows “DEVO” in silver letters on Booji’s back.
And that was that. They were only on stage for an hour-and-a-quarter, but I do feel like I got my money’s and time’s worth.
This technically should have been posted yesterday, but I didn’t get to it. In any case, it has now been 5 years since I started this blog! The first post went online August 25, 2005. Now, I don’t post as often as some people I know, so in 5 years I’ve produced the same number of postings that others would crank out in 6 months to a year, but it has been fun, and I think much of the content has been appreciated.
I have a couple of posts coming up that will relate events from the past month, and I think it’s time for a few more web comic reviews soon. I also am planning on updating the non-blog parts of this site, possibly incorporating a lot of that content into the blog’s layout theme. And then I should probably revive the Sadlibs site.
As always, people can comment here on what they think of the blog, the rest of the site, etc. I’d appreciate any feedback.
I previously posted about my bike trip over the July 4th long weekend. On the Monday of that weekend, I went for an extended hike. This was another hike of parts of the Metacomet-Monadnock trail – I covered sections 3 and 4.
As with other one-way hikes, I brought my bike along on the back of the car, parked at the end of section 4, and then biked around to the beginning of section 3.
Section 3 begins on the Northern bank of the Westfield River at a point in West Springfield (but very close to the Westfield line). The river flows behind a bunch of businesses on US-20, and I locked up my bike in a parking lot there, then took a very short path down to the river to get some pics. Here’s the view upriver to the West:
And downriver to the East:
From there, I went back up and crossed Route 20, to begin the hike in earnest. This involved a bit of walking on side streets until I got to the spot where the trail actually goes into the woods.
Once that happened, I spent nearly half a mile walking near a quarry, partially using its dirt access roads. Then, the trail went off into deeper woods near a marshy area. Just a little ways into those woods, I came across this structure:
It was very run-down, so I don’t think it gets used any more. Who knows what it was used for in the past – maybe camping for hunters? (there is a sportsman’s club of some kind near the quarry)
Just after that, I came across some large and weird fungal growths:
There’s nothing in the pictures for size reference, but each of these big ones was a good 8 inches in diameter.
The trail started skirting the edge of the marsh, so I started getting pestered by mosquitoes. I also got a few more pictures:
That lower area wasn’t completely wetland, I think, because there’s a sort-of road there, which is probably for access to the power lines that ran overhead.
Lots more traipsing through woods followed that area, without much to photograph, but I did come across an open area where a tall tree had split:
Not sure what caused it.
Eventually, section 3 comes out of the woods by the Massachusetts Turnpike. At that point, one has to walk West alongside the pike (and a bit downhill), until you come to an underpass for an old quarry road. Apparently, a number of people have been here – and they’ve left their marks. Here is the underpass before I went through:
And inside:
At the far end of the tunnel is a gate you have to climb through:
Here it is from the other side:
On the far side there are railroad tracks coming by at an angle, which also go under the Pike:
And a bunch more graffiti – these being focused on flowers!
Perhaps someone wanted to help Nature reassert itself on all this concrete in its midst. 
Once I crossed the train tracks, I was at the end of section 3. I sat down and ate the lunch I’d brought. It was a very hot day (temp in the 90′s) so I was trying to make my 2 bottles of water last. Fortunately, I’d packed a nice, juicy peach, and didn’t need to drink so much with my food. (a peach has never tasted so good)
Having eaten, I commenced section 4. It differs from section 3 in being on higher ground, so even though it’s also very wooded, there are views to be seen. Also, there are old communication towers:
Those are 2 different towers that I passed. These are on a ridge that runs North-South, and which has a number of views to the West. Here’s a view of Barnes Airport in Westfield:
Last Fall, I had taken a picture of that airport from the other side, while biking past on Route 202. At the time, I remember seeing the ridge and the towers beyond, and though of that this time.
I was also high enough up to have birds of prey flying around. Here are 2 that passed almost directly over me:
Later in the section, I saw some views of the Western part of Holyoke:
Soon after that, I got a little lost. The M-M trail is marked with white paint blazes on tree trunks (and occasionally on rocks). There was a point where I found a double blaze, which indicates a change in trail direction, and then saw a blaze on a tree off to my right. I headed off in that direction, and then had trouble locating another blaze or a well-traveled path. I did find one old, faded blaze, but nothing beyond that. I tied looking in several directions for 15 minutes or so (worrying about my water supply), until finally I made my way back to the double-blaze marker and looked further along that trail. Sure enough the trail continued on what looked like a trail, and then made a slight turn to the left. So, I got underway again. After nearly another hour, I came down to US-202 in Holyoke, near the McLean Reservoir, where I had parked the car (in which I had extra water stashed).
Total hiking distance was about 8 miles.
Over the long Independence Day weekend, I went for a bike ride into the towns of Shutesbury and Leverett (both hill towns to the North and East of Amherst). I intended to visit 2 places, and maybe make it to one or two others.
The first place I wanted to go was Baconville. What is Baconville you ask? That’s exactly what I wanted to know. There is an intersection in Shutesbury which, if you look on Mapquest, is labeled ‘Baconville’. I first spotted it on a map of the area on the National Weather Service page (it isn’t there any more). That label doesn’t show on Google maps, but if you try mapping ‘Baconville, MA’ on Google, it will point to the same intersection:
Basically, it’s where Sand Hill Rd. and Baker Rd. meet W. Pelham Rd. I couldn’t find info online about it, so I thought I’d go see what was there.
To get there, I rode through Amherst into the town of Pelham, and then came North on Buffam Rd. (which turns into W. Pelham Rd.). That road involves a good deal of climbing, so I had some slow going. On the way up, I spotted this interestingly colored house:
There were 2 flagpoles near the end of the driveway, one flying a US flag, and the other with a flag that seemed to have the same colors as the house:
However, I couldn’t get a very good look at the flag. I tried looking for flags of other countries, but couldn’t find one with that color combo.
Continuing on, I soon came to the crossroads known as Baconville. And here’s what I found:
There’s not much there. I definitely had the right place, as evidenced by the street signs:
There were a few houses, one of which had some nice stone walls:
And an electrical or phone transformer of some kind:
But nothing else to speak of.
I looked for a sign, or a historical marker of some kind, but found nothing. Perhaps I’ll have to check with the town historical society sometime.
From there I continued North, and bore slightly East toward Leverett. I ended up traveling on a dirt road for quite a ways, which is fine, as long as it doesn’t get too steep. However, there were a couple of spots where the road headed downhill to steeply for my comfort, given the loose surface, so I walked my bike in those areas.
I did come across a lovely marsh area while still in Shutesbury. Here are some views of it on either side of the road:
A bit further up the road, there was a dam that the wetland flowed over into a creek. Here are shots of the area above the dam:
And the dam itself:
Just after that dam, I entered the town of Leverett. Not long after, I came to the end of the dirt road I was on, where there was what looked like an old mill building with a creek running past (probably the same waterway that the marsh fed into).
I almost immediately turned onto another dirt road and came to my next destination, the Leverett Co-op:
Yeah, not a great picture of the building, but the sun was behind it when I was there. I stopped in for some extra water (and a cherry-cheese danish). It’s a neat little place, and would be very convenient to shop at if one lived up in the Northern part of Leverett. Besides selling groceries, there’s a little cafe there, a computer with Internet access (not sure if it’s high-speed), a playground (with old merry-go-round):
and also a quiet garden with peaceful decorations:
This fellow also resides on the grounds:
I left the co-op and traveled down the dirt road that it’s on, called Rattlesnake Gutter Rd. I had not paid close attention to the road as marked on Google Maps – if I had, I would have noticed that the road gets very thin for a while. It turns out that the road climbs up a hill, and then becomes closed to motor vehicles. It turns into a gravel path only open to bikes and pedestrians, which goes through a conservation area. Once again, I found myself having to walk the bike through parts that were downhill, but it was definitely worth going through there. Rattlesnake Gutter turns out to be a pretty gully in the hills, and I took a few photos:
Eventually, I passed a gate at the bottom of the hill, and the road turned into a road once again, and not long after intersected a paved road. From there I pedaled down through Amherst and home.
Total ride distance: 33 miles.
A few weeks back, while mowing the lawn, I spotted this (spotted) individual in the grass, hopping away from me:
Fortunately, it held still for a couple of cell phone pictures.
Back in Mid-May, during Bike Week, I took part in a fundraising bike ride for the Hotel Bridge, a little landmark in the Leeds section of Northampton. This didn’t involve me raising any money – riders just payed a registration fee and the proceeds from that went toward an engineering/restoration study of the bridge.
I wanted to go since I had not yet been on an organized ride in the Pioneer Valley. They had 10, 25, and 50-mile routes, and I chose the 25, not feeling like I was up to doing 50 yet this year (I didn’t ride at all over the winter). The ride began in this business parking lot in Leeds:
Soon after getting underway, I passed this dam at the base of a reservoir:
Here’s the other side of it:
The reservoir proper:
The actual route was a fairly easy one, with only a couple of significant hills. It did take me through parts of Northampton and Westhampton that I had not really seen before, so that was cool. The weather was very pleasant, alternating between cloudy and sunny.
There wasn’t a whole lot of interesting picture fodder along the way. What I did see included this grazing horse:
and this stone wall:
Once I got back to Leeds, the route went over the Hotel Bridge itself shortly before returning to the starting point. The bridge is open only to bike and foot traffic, but preservationists hope to have it available for cars again one day. Here’s the bridge before I crossed it:
A view from the bridge:
and here is the bridge from the other side, once I’d crossed:
My total time was about 2 hours, 20 minutes. For doing the ride, I got to take a couple of things home. They were giving away helmets (which had been donated, I believe) to anyone who filled out a survey for MassBike, and given that I’d been thinking of getting a new helmet, and that I liked the color, I got one:
These t-shirts were also available as part of the registration fee:
All in all, a fun way to spend a Sunday morning. I’ve gone on some longer rides since this one, but those will be detailed in future posts.
This year, my workplace, Holyoke Health Center, registered a contingent in the Northampton LGBT Pride parade, and I was one of the people who marched. Despite living in the Pioneer Valley for 5 years, I had not before ever seen this parade, mainly because it isn’t held at the same time as in other parts of the country. Most cities in the U.S. have Pride celebrations in the month of June, but Noho Pride takes place the first Saturday in May each year. I have not yet discovered the reason they hold it so early, but there you go.
The day turned out to be unseasonably warm – certainly a lot warmer than the days that preceded and followed it. The staging area for parade groups was in Lampron Park, about a mile from the downtown rally site. Here are some members of our contingent while we waited to line up:
Other folks around us:
Right next to us was the local shadow cast for the Rocky Horror Picture Show (who perform at the Tower Theaters in South Hadley):
Here’s our banner, which I helped carry in the parade:
After a bunch of waiting, we finally got in line:
We ended up behind a high school gay-straight alliance, but I didn’t catch which school.
Here are some shots of the crowd as we headed into downtown:
People lining the courthouse lawn and steps:
Here’s some of the HHC people while marching:
Saw this drag queen greeting paraders:
And some more crowd shots as we passed City Hall:
As the parade ended, there was a large drum and hula hoop corps performing:
As I got to the rally, the mayor (who is lesbian herself) was giving the Pride Day proclamation:
I stuck around a bit to grab some food and look at the vendor booths, but didn’t stay for the afternoon of entertainment. I did climb up to the top of the downtown parking garage to take some crowd pictures:
On my way back to the car, I noticed these rainbow sculptures in front of a store:
I certainly had a fun time, though very different from past such events I’ve done. In the past I’d usually participated in pride marches in areas which were more hostile to queer rights (i.e. the Midwest), and enough years ago that the national political and social climate was very different. It was interesting not to see anti-gay counter-protestors, and not to have a political purpose to present to the local community and/or politicians – basically, just a big party.
I went to NYC for the MoCCA Art Fest again this year. The convention has generally been held in June in the past, but this year they had it in April for some reason. I did it as day trip again, just going down for the Saturday, traveling part way by car and then taking the train into Grand Central. This time, though, I visited the actual museum as well as the convention, because I was interested in seeing their large exhibit NeoIntegrity (there were several artists’ work in the show that I wanted to check out, including Bill Griffith, from whose site I first heard of the exhibit).
I first headed to the East Village, not far from the museum, to see if I could grab lunch at teany, a vegetarian restaurant co-founded by Moby. teany had been closed since last June because of a fire, but had been making noises about reopening since February. I took a chance and stopped by, but alas, it was still not open (it has reopened since I was in NYC).
I ended up getting a falafel sandwich from a street vendor on my way over to the museum. I took in the exhibit, which was fun to look at – most of it was original art from published works, and there were a ton of artists involved. However, in general, the stuff by artists I’m familiar with was stuff I’d seen before. The vast majority of the artists were new to me, though, and there was a lot of funny and interesting work to look at and read.
I left there and headed up to the con at the 69th Regiment National Guard Armory in midtown. There was a line to get in, which I waited in for a bit before I realized that I could just walk right in, given that I had bought a ticket online (I got to go to a separate table where they looked up my registration and sent me on in – I should have remembered that from last year).
Once inside, I headed down to the panel room, as a panel I wanted to see was starting in 10 minutes. It’s a good thing I didn’t wait, because there was already a long line to get into the panel room! The panel was supposed to start at 2:00, but the con staff ended up starting to let the line in at almost 2:15. The room filled up quickly, and I thought I might not get to to see it, but I ended up standing in the doorway.
The panel was on the topic of alternate treatments of superheroes in comics, and featured artists who had done superhero work but more often (or primarily) did more alternative comics. The specific people on the panel were the reason for the large crowd: Paul Pope, Frank Miller, Kyle Baker, Jaime Hernandez, and Dean Haspiel. I snapped a few cell phone pics from my doorway perch – here’s the least bad-looking one:
The guy on the far left was the moderator. The artists proceed left to right after that in the order I named them.
After that, I had a couple of hours to wander the convention floor:
There was a brief signing by Hernandez I was able to hit, and I managed to visit Ted Rall during the hour he was at his publisher’s booth. I discovered that Rall is a Mac user!
Other creators I visited and/or bought merchandise from (but did not take pictures of) included Pat Lewis, Raina Telgemeier, Bill Roundy, Monica Gallagher, and R. Sikoryak.
One of the things Mr. Sikoryak is known for is doing slideshow presentations of his comics. The last panel of the day, which I attended, was him and a few other artists showing slideshows of their work, with parts performed by professional voice actors. It was a blast, and there were even a few slideshows at the end with images in 3-D. They passed out glasses to the audience for those:
Yes, it’s blurry – it was another cell phone picture and the room was dark.
The end of that panel marked the end of the con. I made my way back toward downtown, looking for a place for dinner. On the way, I happened by Gramercy Park:
where I noticed this sign:
Asking people in Manhattan not to honk? I wonder if this law actually works…
On my walk I also saw this rather curvy building on 3rd Ave.:
I ended up eating at a little Afghan restaurant called Khyber Pass on St. Mark’s Place. After that, I headed back toward Grand Central Station, but had some extra time, so I wandered over to Times Square. Who should I meet there, but Hello Kitty!
She was doing what she does best – waving Hello.
Despite all the light and billboards and entertainmentplexes (or perhaps because of them), there isn’t really anything I find interesting in Times Square. One neat thing I saw as I headed for the train station again was a Scottish band playing on the sidewalk:
I didn’t stick around long enough to find out who they were or anything, though. Just part of the New York color. With that, I left the big apple.
A few weeks ago I had reason to be in the Boston area, and one of the places I went was the DeCordova Museum, which is located in Lincoln, MA (a town that happens to be the birthplace of John and John of TMBG). I was there before the museum opened, which was fine, as I was interested in seeing the sculpture garden.
One of the first pieces of statuary I came upon was this set of 5 tigers:
Here are closeups of a couple of them:
A bit further along, I came upon a pair of pants and a skirt (inspired by a Dada piece):
Near that was a Tower by Sol LeWitt:
The steps spiral all the way around, so it was tempting to climb up it. However, for almost all the sculptures, the plaques say “Please do not climb on the sculpture.” This one was no exception.
This twisty, wormy one had a name that didn’t have to do with worms, or tubes, or any such thing. It’s called “Reflex”.
At a few points, there were installations almost hidden by trees. This is one, and it was also among my favorite pieces – it’s called “Pine Sharks”:
Yes, it’s three shark sculptures suspended from trees, as though they’re circling in the air. No, they don’t move, except for swaying a bit in the breeze.
Moving on, I came across this very teal “Hand”:
And another cool one made entirely of pine (and other tree) cones and wire (simply called “Cones”):
There is at least one motorized piece there. “The Merry-Go-Round of Hidden Agendas” has a windmill at the top, which powers a set of figures who have word balloons and pass through several ‘houses’.
Here’s a closeup of the moving part:
Those are the works that I found most interesting, though there are several others that are neat and fun. You can actually see pictures of many of them on the museum’s web site, like these, which I failed to take my own pictures of.
A week ago I went for a hike on trails that are nearby our house. When I say nearby, I mean that they’re behind the houses that are across the road from us.
I hadn’t had a chance to explore these trails much the last time I was on them, but I had time to go further this time, hiking uphill on something called the “College Trail.” This leads up the North side of the Holyoke Range, joining other trails and eventually linking up with the Metacomet-Monadnock trail. I didn’t make it quite that far up, as it was late in the afternoon and I needed to get back home before sundown.
I did see something I don’t think I’ve noticed on other local trails – a tree with graffiti carved in it:
The oldest carving seems to be from 1979, assuming that it was actually carved that year and not backdated by the carver.
In an unrelated event, I was in the grocery store the following day, and I saw an unusual sign in the frozen foods aisle. This is something one hears a lot about in modern American political discourse, but I didn’t think it was available for purchase at one’s local supermarket:
There you have it.
« Previous Entries