String Sluts Local 102

•  Yes, most things costing money are more expensive. E.g., $27 breakfast buffet, $25 CD, $10 cake slice, $75 for 1 entree, 1 cocktail, two appetizers, two desserts (which was a bargain due to Happy Hour pricing).
• Reykjavik is very walkable, and not that large. The farthest I walked from our hotel on the waterfront to a festival venue was a mile.
• And if you can't walk that much (J's knees/feet) the taxi fees are actually reasonable - we didn't pay more that about $10 to anywhere, and sometimes less.
• Lots of graffiti/tagging, but that seemed the extent of "bad" behavior. I walked back alone a mile from a venue at 1am with no issues other than women occasionally screaming our of passing car windows (not in a distressed way).
• Favorite cafe: Stofan - they had  bagel with lox & cream cheese for J, crepes and paninis, coffee and chai, beer and wine, desserts and pastries.
• The Airwaves festival was extremely well run, with great sound at every official and off venue I visited. For the bigger-drawing headliners I made sure to go at the beginning of the evening to get a seat and check out the earlier acts. This also allowed me to discover several new to me performers, like Hugar (midi guitar, keyboard, occasional trombone) and cellist/singer Gyda. 

[to be continued - writing bit by bit]

And posting from Firefox on Win10 works - so it's apparently Chrome.

As of last Thursday (2/11) my 2007 Subaru Legacy is living somewhere on Subaru of Wakefield's back lot, and I'm driving a 2016 Impreza wagon with 1,000 miles on it.

More details on my WBK blog - basically my model got added to the Takata airbag recall in mid-December, but that now involves so many millions of vehicles there are not enough parts to fix them, and currently no ETA on my dealer's back order. And while the dealer told me it was safe to drive my car until it could be fixed, the NY Times reporter with whom I started chatting via Twitter and email in mid-January said that was not true. I called national Subaru customer service, and they arranged with the dealer to give me a loaner until mine can be fixed. They offered me a Forester, but given that J has one and our driveway isn't spacious I opted for the Impreza despite its lack of some amenities (e.g., no heated seats).

It wasn't until this week that I received an actual recall notice - which states in bold not to carry passengers in the front seat until the repair is done (none of the Subaru people warned me of that) and that they don't know when parts will be available.

So it seems like it could be months before I get my Legacy back - I feel an anthropomorphic sadness about it sitting in the cold, as well as some concern since I doubt anyone is going to go start it up until they have the part (it was theoretically due for an oil change the day I dropped it off, so I'll ask them to throw that in). I'm hoping that by Bogarting one of their loaners I get bumped to the top of their to-do list.

After some delay while family and close friends were notified, it became public today that my friend Anderson Mar (who still used LJ as othniel77) was taken off life support on Friday after after being seriously burned with cardiac arrest in a house fire last Sunday night in Fall River. I had heard some info earlier in the week about an accident and being in a coma, and got word of her passing last night.

Some of you have met Anders at our Yule party (short, usually dark-haired, very energetic), others may know her as a rock band booker for the old Skybar, Cantab, and other venues/events. She was also our biweekly house cleaner, sometimes cat sitter, manager of the local Paul Green School of Rock, singer in the band Sans Nomenclature as she juggled day jobs and trying to "make it" as a musician.

She touched a lot of lives in the Boston music community - we are all sad and in shock. One of her friends has arranged for her two cats to be adopted by her BF. Anders' next scheduled show was to be at the Cantab in Central Sq on her birthday, April 11th. The show is going on, and the bands will be donating the door and other $ collected to something in her memory - probably the School of Rock scholarship fund and a no-kill cat shelter. That's the first day/night I'm teaching at Ladies Rock Camp, but I'll try to get out early to raise a toast at part of the show. There will also be an official memorial service later, probably in May.

Michael Marotta wrote about Anders on his blog today: Vanyaland.

Since the Sonicbids calendar widget is currently down, here are my upcoming gigs:

Fri 12/20/13 9:00PM - Ginger Ibex at Church of Boston

Sat 12/21/13 7:00PM - Ladies Accordion Orchestra at Somerville Armory

Sat 1/4/14 - Funk Philharmonic at Somerville Armory Disco Ball

Tue 1/28/14 8:30PM - Ginger Ibex TT the Bear's Place

Sat 2/22/14 7:00PM - Ginger Ibex at The Lily Pad

Sat 3/29/14 7:30PM - Ginger Ibex at Arts at the Armory Cafe

It's been a busy summer and early fall! Recently I've been out performing with Ginger Ibex on pianos provided by the Street Pianos Boston project:






Marching with the Ladies Accordion Orchestra in the HONK! parade:



And I'll be playing viola with Walter Sickert & the Army of Broken Toys at a Dia de Los Muertos event on November 2nd!

Apparently I last posted here in March. Short items usually go to Facebook or Twitter, and most of the time I have for longer form blogging gets put into What Betty Knows. If anyone is watching, here's a quick view of what's been up:

• I attended another Ladies Rock Camp session in April, this time playing drum kit. I liked it enough that I sold the not-satisfactory e-kit I had in my practice studio and bought a real one - especially since I'd noticed that no one in the building had complained when a couple of temporary Ginger Ibex drummers brought in their kits. I've been taking lessons a couple times a month.


• I performed Beethoven's 9th, half sight-read, in what passes for a cathedral in Boston.


• The Malden Mayor's office requested I busk in front of the Malden Center T station on Fridays. I said I'd do it for ~6 weeks through June. Half of those got rained out, and I decided it wasn't particularly what I wanted to be doing, so I've said that's it for this season.


• Because I don't have enough musical interests, I picked up a 12 bass accordion on eBay.


• My drum teacher, who is also the curriculum coordinator for Girls Rock Camp Boston convinced me to volunteer to help teach drums at their July week-long session. Since I was taking the time off anyway I also volunteered to be a band coach for one of the 12 bands formed by the age 8-16 campers. I have no experience interacting with children so this will be "interesting."


• As of today J. is retired from her job at Meditech. Among other things, this means she will no longer be asleep when I come home or leave for work at 11pm. Not sure what else this will mean re how our interactions change.

Greetings Friends & Fans!

Happy Spring (hoping for not much more snow)! I've been busy doing studio work and an on-line course recently, but do have a few things to show for it, as well as a Ginger Ibex gig this weekend.

As you may recall I usually spend the month of February participating in the RPM Challenge, which involves composing and recording an album of 10 original musical ideas in 28 days. This year my Ginger Ibex partner Sharon Crumrine asked to do it with me - the result is an album we call "The Rusty Goat Sessions". We did a lot of experimentation with new sounds and techniques in my office studio - you can hear the results on line at our Soundcloud account:

You may purchase a physical CD via this link.

And though I did record and mix the RPM Challenge album myself I have much more to learn about music production, so I'm taking a free online course from Berklee on that topic. Since the weekly homework assignments are to teach something we studied that week to other class members you can see some of my assignments as videos on my YouTube channel.

And finally: Ginger Ibex is performing this Saturday March 30th at The Lily Pad in Inman Sq Cambridge MA, starting at 10pm sharp. Tickets at the door are $10, but if you order them in advance from our presale site you not only save about 75 cents ($8 plus a fee) but you will also get a free MP3 download of the RPM Challenge album!

Coming up in April: I'll be making my drum kit debut at the Ladies Rock Camp showcase at TT the Bear's Place Sunday April 14th!

Cheers,

Betty Widerski

www.sonicbids.com/BettyWiderski

bettywiderski.com

facebook.com/bettywiderskimusic

Electric/Acoustic Improv Violist/Violinist

Don't forget to check out What Betty Knows as well!

 

I donated some fencing foil blades to a friend who makes knives and other tools, and this is what he did with one.