Concourse

Had a pretty active day yesterday. After doing grocery shopping, I went to Outdoors Inc. and bought myself a fuckin' bicycle! Big moment, made possible by the birthday money my dad gave me (intended to go towards getting a bike). And other glamorous things like a helmet and a pump. My weight was referenced when talking about tire pressure in the context of "big guys such as yourself need to be careful...". Well, maybe if I actually use the damn thing regularly it'll help bring my weight back down. Haven't really used it yet other than test riding it around a parking lot. When I got home I was just pouring sweat from standing around in that hot ass goddamn sun. Jacques came over for a few minutes yesterday and he gave me a copy of Bippp: French Synth Wave 1979-85 as he had a duplicate copy 'cuz he got this one with the case cracked. Okay, then I went up to the grand opening celebration of the Crosstown Concourse. I knew there'd be a lot of people but goddamn it was way more packed than I'd even anticipated. I mean, just wall-to-wall people thronging in this huge space and outside and in different rooms and areas and floors. Black Lodge had a tent outside and I stopped by and they were talking about the new space that actually is going to open this time. No longer Cooper-Young but in a space in crosstown across the street from the Hi-Tone. Hopefully should be pretty awesome. They'll have a music performance space and I'm hoping a theater and it'll be an actual dedicated indie theater in Memphis. We'll see how and if it goes. Saw a few people around. I mainly went over to the Crosstown Arts area. That stage had the acts I'd come to see. First was Blueshift Ensemble. They were backing Harlan T. Bobo so it was really more of his show. Never really listened before. Soft country music. It wasn't bad but it wasn't particularly thrilling either. And the strings were mostly just used as barely-audible backup faintly reinforcing the acoustic guitar in the background. After a while I wandered to the balcony outside nearby and caught the very very end of I Make Mad Beats (like, the last two or three minutes of his set). It was pretty damn good and I'd wished I'd come earlier for more. After that I came back for Ben Bauermeister's set. It was good, similar to what he played at Memphis Concrète (this time I had more ability to watch and focus and notice the way the live percussion was robotically controlled, also forgot he has an all Make Noise system). And I was watching and didn't notice right away that, behind me, the Urban Ballet group had started dancing and doing a thing to his music. When I finally (well, who know how long it took maybe it wasn't long at all) noticed people paying attention to something in the other direction, I turned around to watch and it was pretty awesome. Crosstown Arts's spaces are still unfinished but you could look into the rooms and see what they'll be. Aside from the galleries there's going to be a listening room (for music and all) and that's going to be really exciting. Then back home. Anyway, was pretty fun. Alright, I guess that's about it for now.