Well, I love a rainy night. Especially when there is music-making going on. Last night I picked up Greg Saulmon and Mark Schwaber in Easthampton. After a stop at Local Burger for a quick meal, we headed up to Sackamusic in Conway, MA in order to Schwaberize and Saulmonize two songs, Flowers On The Fire Escape and Fight Or Flight.

I recorded a scratch piano track and some vocals. Then for Flowers On The Fire Escape, Greg added some pretty eerie guitars and Mark added some harmony melody guitar too. For Fight or Flight, they both worked out various guitar parts, culminating with a wall-of-sound noisy guitar finish that blew me away. Greg wound up using a bottle of Arrogant Bastard Ale for part of the scratchy slide guitar stuff. Mark also played bass on both tunes.

I’m taking a little break for the next couple weeks while I celebrate my wedding anniversary, head to Cape Cod for a week’s vacation, and sit with these songs for awhile to come up with vocal arrangements.

I went with my friend Jamie to Local Burger & Fries at 16 Main St. in Northampton, Massachusetts. It was delicious. Exceptionally good onion rings and fries, especially… served with chipotle ketchup. We didn’t try the fried pickles, but maybe next time. Here’s a copy of their menu.

Kristen and I get food from El Guanaco Salvadorian & Mexican Food quite often since it’s delicious and within a close proximity to our house in Holyoke. Over the past couple years, we’ve seen it grow and have enjoyed their food while doing so. Last night, Kristen noticed an “Under New Management” sign, and picked up their recently revised menu.

I never understood why restaurants want to advertise that they’re under new management. Those signs don’t really affect my decision either way. As long as you’re advertising, why not a banner that says “New Menu Items!” or something related to the delicious food that they make?

Anyway, it’s awesome that El Guanaco has been able to thrive despite its somewhat odd location in South Hadley Falls. It goes to show you that people ARE willing to seek you out if the food is good enough. With that in mind, I hope the same success formula rings true for La Casita Azteca in Easthampton, MA.

Last week, Kristen and I went with our friends to La Casita Azteca in Easthampton. The space was previously occupied by The Pirate’s Den and Mi Casa. Both of the previous places were mediocre at best, but I’m happy to report that La Casita Azteca is FANTASTIC. Here’s a copy of their menu!

Kristen and I have this big shindig coming up this weekend with family and friends in a park in my hometown. It’s going to be great. I’m really psyched about it. Being the non-traditional quiet types that we are, we decided that a traditional wedding wasn’t for us and semi-eloped to Martha’s Vineyard to get married. But we wanted to still be able to celebrate with family and friends, and that’s how this whole picnic idea came about.

My mom Judy was gracious enough to plan and procure and sort of take on a lot of the stress of putting this together. Our families and friends also helped my mom too. So we luckily got off pretty easy. We just have to shmooze and enjoy, for the most part. It’ll be nice to visit with everyone and have our families meet and get to know each other… and to celebrate with friends too.

BUT THERE’S LOTS TO DO!

We’re cleaning things, organizing things, figuring out who will be where at what time, what to drink, etc. It starts to get a little nutty. I hope we are able to make it a great weekend for everyone who is visiting.

WHAT IF SOMEONE DOESN’T HAVE A GOOD TIME?!

Most important is for Kristen and I to be able to look around us at this thing– recognize all the wonderful people in our lives, and move forward in our marriage knowing that we can count on their love and support.

I was looking at my site one day and began to realize how seemingly quickly things become out of date and never get updated. It happens to everyone, and I suppose I could tell you that it won’t happen here since I have a fancy new blog setup so it makes it easier for me to post things. I suppose I could pledge to keep this updated as frequently as possible, not acknowledging the inevitable slackage that will creep up from time to time.

Instead I’ll just post about how I’m kind of excited about the whole blog setup. Ever since I started working at MassLive, and since meeting my lovely fiancee Kristen, I’ve been keen to the idea of starting one, but just didn’t have the time to explore it. Finally, I did.

So here we are. As I get into the swing of things, I hope some of these posts aren’t total snoozers.