Best Birthday Ever

So my birthday honestly got off to not the best of starts.  I went out to eat with my friends at one of my favorite bars and it was horrible. I really expect so much more from Tap House Grill.  I really have never been disappointed by them up until that point.  Everything I’ve had there thus far has ranged from really good to just okay.  This time they were out of most of the beers that I wanted to try.  Additionally, I think they served us the most horrible wings on the face of the planet.  I mean honestly for that I would have come out better going to a TGI Fridays.

Super Awesome Birthday Cake

That little blip aside I did have a totally awesome birthday cake, so I can’t really complain about things too much.  It was a San Francisco 49ers cake.  I loved it.  It had the logo on top and the names of players along the side.  I started to drive to Detroit, and along the way a small rock hit the windshield of my car giving me a little crack.  I’m all but ignoring said cracks, and eventually I will have to get the entire windshield replaced, but I just let my insurance cover the glass repair people filling in the cracks to prevent them from spreading.

Sicilian Pizza at Buddy's

When I got to Detroit we stopped for Pizza at Buddy’s.  I saw it as being listed as one of the thirty best slices of pizza in the nation so I had to give it a shot.  I was getting a little nervous about the choice as I got close to the place in what didn’t exactly seem like the best of neighborhoods.  Still the big signs that were advertising the various awards the place has gotten drew me in.

There were a few things that surprised me about the place.   One was that they had pretty good quality local craft beers on sale for only $4.50 each.  The place was very straightforward well priced and not too fancy.  Another surprise is that Buddy’s decided that Vegan people shouldn’t be allowed to starve and they offered a vegan pizza.  I decided to go for the New Yorker.  It seemed simple enough and you have to be able to nail the basics.  Though my favorite pizza topping hands down is mushrooms, I don’t really get mushrooms on pizzas from every pizzeria because it usually ends up in a bit of disappointment.

This pizza was pure bliss.  The crust was nice and crisp.  The sauce had a nice kick to it without being too herbaceous or spicy.  I was instantly a fan.  Detroit style square pizza deserves it’s own notoriety alongside the ranks of Chicago and New York style.  The great thing about the pizza was that it was that the cheese goes all the way to the edge and gets a little crispy at the edges.

The New Yorker at Buddy's Pizza

From there we went to the concert.  We probably should have stopped at the hotel first to check in but It was kind of close to 8 and the show started at 7 and I didn’t want to chance missing any of Robert’s set.  The shelter, where it was held was a small venue.  It had a decent bar.  The prices at the bar weren’t exactly as cheap as I expected them to be either.  Long Islands for $7 is nearing Chicago prices.

We got there well in time to see both opening acts.  The first one had a pretty decent sound but the most memorable thing about the band was the extremely long dreds on the lead singer.  Still they sounded alright.  The next group up was Ghost Beach.  They somehow make things work without having a bass player at all in their band.  I think it is more or less because of the strength of their synth.   The one thing about that particular performance was that the music was so loud that you couldn’t really make out the vocals that well.  That aside they did a pretty good performance.

This was my third time seeing Robert Delong.  It has been one of my weird obsessions musically.  I remembered I first heard the song Global Concepts on the radio when I was driving from Atlanta to Miami after the NFC Championship game(The one that my niners ended up winning in order to unfortunately loose in the Super Bowl on some BS calls against Baltimore but I digress).  Once I heard that song I wanted to hear more.  The track was for free on Amazon MP3, but I decided to go for the whole album with all the remixes.  I must have played that song like 30 times on the drive home.

In between sets, I went to get my face painted.  I don’t think I ever got my face painted as a kid and as soon as she started I was like man this feels weird.  I had the impulse to like scratch my face a bunch of times, but I totally didn’t want to mess up what she was doing.  Later on she said that it was one of the best she’s ever done, It was pretty cool and she was probably right.  Oh, to fill in some necessary information, Robert’s girlfriend does the face paint at the shows.  She is super creative and came up with the iconic X logo.

Later on when I finally decided to look up this character on YouTube, after a bit of random boredom, I was completely blown away.  It was one thing for me to hear this song and think it was pretty amazing.  It was another to watch him create the entire song on his own.  He is quite literally a one man band.  Since seeing that video, I’ve done everything to spread the good news about Robert Delong short of going door to door like a Jehovah’s Witness.

There was something about this performance, that was just amazing to me.  Maybe it was because it was my birthday.  Maybe because I was just a few feet away from the stage from where he was preforming, but it just turned out to be my favorite of his performances, and one of my favorite all time live performances.  It’s crazy to even watch because when you play as many instruments as he does in a show, there’s got to be a lot going through his head. 

In his set, you see him go from Keyboards, to a mic to drum pads, Wii Motes, Xbox Controllers, Joysticks, Drums and more.  What really caught me off guard was when he went to the Acoustic guitar on “A Few Years”.  It is one of his deepest tracks on the album and that addition kind of gave me chills.  It’s incredible to watch him make music the way he does.  I wanted to pee pretty bad during the performance but I toughed it out.  I couldn’t miss even a moment.

Robert Delong is amazing.

After the show I went to track down my friend who had my CD in his pocket that I wanted to get signed.  He went outside to smoke and they wouldn’t let us back in, because you can’t go back inside after the show is over.  I was that version of mad where I was too overcome to be able to say anything at all.  The only thing I could manage to say to this bouncer with a handlebar mustache was “But dude it’s my birthday.”  Probably honestly sounded like a bunch of bullshit at the time, but I just wanted to get my CD signed.

Drama ensued when he walked away from the door to make it look as if he was leaving from the night and he flipped his shit when we tried to go back in.  It wasn’t as if he was standing like two feet away from us when he walked away from the door he could have easily said “I’m going to get something out of my car, don’t try to sneak in I will maybe see if I can let you in to get your CD signed after the crowd thinned out.”  After some shouting back and forth there was some rational talking and he let me in to get the CD signed.

I was so excited that I completely jumped a line of people.   In that moment I wasn’t really thinking about what all of those other people were doing there.  In that moment my excitement matched my rudeness.  I was so happy that I had the chance to get my CD signed (which has amazing artwork btdubs).

Later, we were all still standing outside all stalkerish because my friends wanted the chance to say what’s up to Robert.  Then we all just kicked it and had a drink with him.  It’s kind of cool to see that he was so down to earth.  It is crazy how humble and down to earth he is, that in a couple of hours I went from completely star struck to being like oh that’s just Robbie.  Dude was so cool he even bought us shots.

After a few hours of drinking we went climbing around through a random abandoned building what looked like it was some old theater.  Took some pretty cool pictures but It is kind of a shame that such a place is about to be demolished.  I could see how it could be pretty nice if it was remodeled.
Anyhow Here's a ton of pictures from that escapade:

We finally got to the hotel at about 3am.  They had already marked me down as a no show and were doing the nightly report, so we had about a half hour wait in order to be able to check in.  This was my second stay at the Doubletree Downtown Detroit, so I knew what to expect.  The rooms are huge and value wise, it is one of the  best deals you’d be able to score on a Doubletree.

Vineyard at Cherry Creek Winery

On the way home, I was tried of driving and we made a little stop at a little winery, simply because I got a little tired of driving.  We stopped at the Cherry Creek Winery, and tasted quite a few wines and walked around the vineyard for a  little bit.  Their wines were pretty good but the one that I found the most intersting was the Maria Sangria that had a little bit of chipotle pepper.

Anyway as a bonus I’ve decided to do a little recipe writing in here.  

Change Wings

I wanted to redeem my birthday from those shitty wings I had to start off my birthday with and make some awesome ones.  I was inspired by the night tat made a good wing to bring thigns back full circle from my totally awesome birthday experience partying with Robert Delong. I know insane that I got to party with one of my favorite artists for my birthday   Robbie ordered the wings at the bar and favorite liquor being Jameson,  I decided to bring things full circle here with named for one of my favorite tracks on the album here are Change wings. For more on my birthday go here.

Change Wings

For the wings:

Up to 5 lb chicken wings (For vegan varation use Gardien Wings)

¼ Cup flour

¼ Cup fine Corn Meal

Salt and Pepper to taste

Oil For Frying

1 Tablespoon dried Thyme

For the Sauce

½ Cup Jameson Irish Whiskey

1 Cup Butter (For a vegan variation use Earth Balance Butter Sub)

1 Cup Hot Sauce (I use Frank’s For This)

3 Cloves Chopped Garlic

2 Tablespoons Siraccha (Ease back if you don’t like wings pretty spicy)

To Cook the wings:

Season the wings as desired with salt and pepper.

Mix the flour and cornmeal together and dredge the wings in the mixture

Let the wings rest on a wire rack for about 5 minutes before adding to the oil

Preheat Oil to 350°F.

Fry until fully cooked and golden brown and cooked throughout.

Let wings rest on wire rack to get rid of excess oil  for a minute before saucing.

To Make the Sauce:

In a medium sauce pan, add the Whiskey, garlic.

Cook over medium heat until liquid is reduced in half.

Add Butter and stir until melted

Add hot sauce and stir until incorporated

Mix in the sirracha and toss wings in sauce

For frying I use the T-Fal fryer that has a integrated filter system.  It is a little large, yet convenient.  

Lollapalooza: Saturday Recap

NOTE: I lost my camera on Sunday... So if all of my pictures look like they are the drawings of a six year old kid then I will have you know that that six year old kid is me.   You know what they say when life gives you Lemons:

You throw those lemons at a douche.

I'm no artist and I definitely couldn't do something as cool as this:

I woke up early enough in the morning to brace the continental breakfast offered since my room was on the Executive level of the Palmer House Hilton.  It was pretty much a circus but I still escaped with a cup of coffee, some pancakes and a banana.  Shortly thereafter, I was headed down for day two.  I was there well before the first band even started playing.  For the second time I was way early.

Completely Accurate Interpretation of Bright Light Social Hour

I got there early because from listening online I kind of fell in love with The Bright Light Social Hour.  They sound a lot like The Black Keys.  To tell the truth It has been a long time since I've heard Guitar and especially bass playing that good.  They were really fun to listen to, but they could have easily called themselves, The Beards and Excessively Long Hair Band.  Pretty easy to remember when you consider their appearance.  Jokes aside I love the bluesy melodies on songs like "Detroit".   My favorite song on their debut album has absolutely no lyrics and is called "Rhubarb Jam".


After they went off I had plenty of time before the next band that I wanted to see.   All of the bands on Saturday's Groove Stage got pushed back because of Azelia Banks not preforming.  We decided it would be a good time to get some food.  Of course the Triple Truffle Fries from Frank's 'N' Dawgs were involved again.  This time I also had a sampling of cheeseburgers from both M Burger and Edzo's.  Putting the burgers head to head I would have to give the clear advantage to M Burger.  Their burgers were made a lot closer to when they were served and the burger's from Edzo's sat in a hot box for a bit.

The cheeseburger from the M Burger follows a simple recipe, cheese, lettuce, pickles and sauce.  The sauce is sort of one of those mayo based sauces that kind of a weird (in a good way) cross between McDonald's special sauce and Thousand Island.  The burger itself, is one that most closely resembles In N Out's burger, Damn tasty and without a trip southwest.  As for Edzo's burger, the cheese on that burger tasted better, but my burger was sligthly dry and the patty was coming apart a little.  There was also a little bit of overwhelming amount of pepperonchini on the burger.

The next band  we saw was Family of the Year.  I couldn't be more indifferent about this band at all.  They were just incredibly mediocre.  So much so that I still can't decide whether that experience of listening to them was good or bad.  It was simply forgettable.  The only reason why I even remember seeing them is because we really wanted to see St. Lucia.  Had I realized the timing, we probably would have gotten


St. Lucia has a really mellow electronic sound going on.  I love the strong bass line on "September", and I;m totally not being partial to that song because I was born in September.  There music really is interestingly stays very cool and mellow despite being uptempo on many tracks. It's like Coldplay and Afrojack got together and made this amazing sublime and sexy dubstep free baby. You can't help but sing along and get involved with the incredibly catchy chorus on "We Got It Wrong".


Next we had a pretty brisk walk to the other side of Grant Park to see Local Natives.  I like this band despite being wildly unfamiliar with their music.  Funny enough they played the only two songs I really know soon after they arrived to start watching them.  I think that their song "Airplanes" I think suffered from that classic problem of me hearing it on the radio and not being able to get my phone out to shazaam it fast enough.  That catchy chorus sounds so good against the folk melody.  The song that followed was "Heavy Feet", which probably has one of the weirdest and seemingly unrelated video I've seen in a long time.  They are a a great band that has mastered those three part harmonies.
 
Continuing with the trend of walking a ton, we headed over to catch a little bit of Unknown Mortal Orchestra while catching a bite to eat. Puffs of Doom, offered something interesting that I had to try by this point.  I was a little saddened by it overall because the basic premise of the place is to create a basic choux pastry and fill it with something.  I didn't know what to expect when I ordered the bacon macaroni and cheese puff, but I also don't know why you would take a something as starchy as macaroni and stuff it inside of a choux pastry.  Other than that Unknown Mortal Orchestra was a pretty mellow band and I can't really judge them since I only heard about 15 minutes of their set.  They did get added to a long list of bands that I want to explore later and I do actually like their song "So Good At Being In Trouble" quite a bit.



Next up was The National.  While I am only vaguely familar with the band, I think by this point I have had almost enough of the the very mellow somber bands.  The funny part is that every band worth seeing was pretty mellow and somber.  I mean it's still kind of shocking to me to look at their wikipedia page and see that they've been around for fourteen years.  Their sound is incredibly relaxing and borderline melancholy.


Next up I had to catch a little bit of Blondfire.  I love Erica's voice.  It's high pitched in a way that you think would be annoying but is totally not.  Those nasally tones brightened up my day quite a bit.  I only got to see half of their set because I wanted to catch the Lumineers, but hearing her play Waves was enough to satisfy my day.  Still I wish I would have gotten to hear them play Where The Kids Are which is probably my favorite song by them.


Once again we were rushing across the park to catch The Lumineers.  I have no idea why music is trending towards a folk sound and a dubstep sound.  When I first heard the song "Ho Hey", I was suckered in to listening to their music.  You can't help but like that song because the tune is incredibly catchy.  You know a song has a good chorus when you're ready to sing along with it along the first time you hear the song.  They have a good happy energy about them and even came out into the crowd to play a couple of songs.  I only heard the echoes of sad yet very encouraging breakup song "Stubborn Love" because I wanted to beat the crowd and grab food before running across the park for The Postal Service.


This was kind of historic.  The second to last performance ever by The Postal Service.  I had been looking forward to this for a while.  The Postal Service is kind of like the McRib of music.  It's awesome and made up of mostly artificial sounds but the overall popularity of it is based somewhat on the fact that it's so incredibly rare.  Like making an album and disappearing for a decade rare.  I was impressed.  Very impressed, as soon as you heard them start to play "The District Sleeps Alone Tonight" you are transported to a place of musical bliss.

Laura Burhenn of The Postal Service

In hindsight it does seem like a little dickish to start a show saying "It's been a long time Chicago" yeah a decade is pretty long time.  It seemed like he was kind of rubbing the crowd's nose in the fact that this was one of their last performances.  That doesn't matter because "Tattered Line of String" makes up for that.

Then came the after show.  I had to battle traffic relentlessly, via the backseat of a taxi cab.  I couldn't wait because I really wanted to see Robert Delong.  I've been addicted to his music since the first time I heard his first single "Global Concepts".   It's incredible to watch him preform, and you think there would be more than just him but no it's just one dude being awesome.  He played a couple of new songs in his set, but I was slightly disappointed that I didn't hear him do "Change" which is one of my favorite songs on the album.  It starts out with him just singing the word change and the beat and words get more complex as the song goes on.  Very clever.


I got to meet Robert Delong and take a picture with him and he was a cool dude which is one of the main reasons I'm mad I lost my camera.

Then there was the Matt and Kim performance   I've got to say I was completely caught off guard by how good they were.  Let me say, it would likely be impossible to recreate the absolute fun these guys have on stage.  From the moment they start you're like yeah I want to drink and party with these guys. They are the literal life of the party.  I must say that up until I saw them live, many of the songs that I've heard from them on the radio I would instantly switch the channel the moment I heard it.  I recognized a few of the songs like "Let's Go" and "Daylight".

Me and Robert Delong
I'm really good at drawing myself

What's crazy is it takes seeing them live to truly do their music justice.  I just don't think it translates well over the radio. Their overly happy music and simple choruses seems like it's a bit of a shtick, but once you see them you're like oh that's really them, and that's really cool.  They have an amazing energy and with one performance they transformed me into a pretty dedicated fan of their music.

I mean you have to appreciate a band so fun that they will do this:

But seriously.... Even that video doesn't do the band justice.  You just have to go out and see them.  They are pretty much a band for everybody (or at least everyone that enjoys some really popular music) as they integrate lots of popular hip hop songs throughout their performance.  

Sweet Life Festival

My day started with a little bit of Shaun T's Insanity before waking up and hanging out with Sam and his son for a bit and breakfast of some scrambled eggs and toast.  He also agave me some of the most horrible coffee I've had in a long time.  I can't remember when the last time I've ever even seen anybody buy Chock Full O Nuts.  With good reason.  I think my great grandma used to drink Chock Full O Nuts.  It tasted like sludge.  We then headed over to Rio to do some of the greatest window shopping ever.  I have been budgeting myself for the most part to prepare myself for my upcoming trip to Europe.  I only made one purchase, a 750 mL bottle of Duvel.  I love that beer and was determined to get him to try it.  I would then introduce Sam to some good coffee.  Starbucks.  Not many people know this but you can order a short at Starbucks.  It's great when you want just a little bit of coffee.

The Best Method for making coffee at home starts off with good quality fair trade beans.  I would rather not drink coffee at all than to drink coffee that exploits the farmers that grow it.  I just believe that when love is put into a product it tastes that much better.  The other thing you need is a coffee grinder.  I keep two at home, one for spices and one for coffee.

We ate lunch at BGR.  I was very interested trying the lobster burger, but was drawn towards the Wellington.   It was a symphony of earthiness brightened up with the sharpness of the Dijon mustard in the sauce.  It was a messy burger, but all really good burgers are really messy in my personal opinion.  Somehow I managed to eat the entire thing like a grown up without getting any of the burger on my white shirt.  I passed on getting the roasted garlic on my fires which would have likely been my topping of choice but I figured it wouldn't be a good idea to eat a ton of garlic when I would soon be in close quarters with so many people.

I ended up going with the Parmesan to top the fries and thought the fries were pretty good as well.  I loved the mosaic tiled tables and the kid in me arose to sit at the table that had the superman logo on it.  Who passes up on Superman? (With the exception of that one Superman movie where Superman lifts an entire island of kryptonite into space.  Not only does that defy all logic of the movie, I mean a little piece of kryptonite brings Superman to his knees, now he can suddenly lift whole islands of it... Give me a break.  Not to mention the fact that the acting in that movie was abysmal.  I would rather watch slug documentaries rather than see that movie again... but I digress).  I also liked that they served beer and ended up getting a Hefewiezen.

Then as we got ready to leave disaster struck.  Car battery deadz.  After much pacing around, I had the brilliant idea of going to Target and getting jumper cables.  (I mean I am the smarter one between me and Sam).  We eventually got somebody to help us out and give us a jump because everyone we talked to before we got the cables was "Driving their wife's car which does not have jumper cables."  Why would you not have jumper cables in your wife's car?  I don't have jumper cables but I live on the wild side.  

I quickly checked into the Doubletree.  I wanted to drop off my bags and get into my room before I went out to the festival.  I mainly wanted the hotel room in case I got too drunk out there, I'd be able to take a cab back to the hotel, without bothering Sam or his very pregnant wife.  The hotel was pretty nice.  I loved the fact that it had open elevators, which may be a point of contention for those acrophobic types.  Though it is only four stories.    I checked in got the warm chocolate chip cookie and ran upstairs to the room and almost left forgetting the ticket.  A quick double-take and I was off to the festival.

I got there just in time to see Gary Clark Jr. start to preform.  I missed him a Lollapolooza last year.  I've been a pretty big fan ever since I got a chance to listen to his album Blak and Blu.  His voice is soulful and he combines skillful guitar play reminiscent of Jimi Hendrix with an amazing singing voice onto melodies that range from bluesy to upbeat.

One of the pluses at the festival was that the food and beer was pretty good too.  I had a great crabcake sandwich, but the star of the show would have to be the lobster roll which was packed with awesome fresh lobster.  The best thing I had there was the kale and chicken sandwich.  I had to go for it after hearing the guy in front of me diss it by saying that the pork and slaw sandwich had to better.  The chicken was slightly spicy and went very well with the rich lemony aoli resting against the hearty kale.

The star of the show that day for me was Robert Delong.  I love his music.  It was a few months ago when I was driving to Atlanta when I heard the song Global Concepts on the radio and had to buy it.  Then in a search for his music video, I happened across this video:

I mean in my personal opinion, the song Global Concepts is amazing in and of itself, but to watch and see him create that amazing sound all by himself.  It is amazing to me.  The music is awesome and has a bit of that electro vibe to it.  Amazingly enough the lyrics are good and pretty complex as well.

I left a little bit early since I'm not a huge fan of Pheonix or Passion Pit and I was pretty wet and cold.  I like their music just fine, after the rain, it wasn't fun at all since it was like 60 outside.  In hindsight I could have went for the regular tickets vice the VIP since I didn't get any of the benefit of the VIP.  The bar for the VIP section had a longer line than the other bars.  The VIP bathrooms also had a huge wait.  Oh well now I know.

The next morning I enjoyed breakfast at the hotel, and it was pretty good.  I'd say a little above average as far as hotel breakfast buffets go.  One added bonus was that thay had crepes.  They were filled with a sweetened up cream cheese.  It was a good start to the morning.  I enjoyed the crepes alongside crisp bacon  scrambled eggs and potatoes.  Topped everything off with some Orange Juice.