Yoshimi and the man from across the pond

Last weekend was pretty fun.....really fun. Friday and Saturday were spent at the McDowell Mountain Music Festival and Sunday was spent riding with a visitor from Brighton, England who was just starting his 2-week MTB adventure across the southwest. For starters, the music festival was lots of fun....two stand outs and one disappointment to talk about.

The first stand out band was Indigenous. If you have not heard these guys live....make it a point to go see them...they will blow your mind with their sheer talent. I often find my self saying things like, "I wish I were around when Jimi Hendrix was alive", or "folks just don't make good music like they used to". This band makes me glad I'm here right now.

Mato Nanji






















John Fairchild


















Aaron Wright, Jeremiah Weir and Kris Lager

















The second notable was, The Flaming Lips. Regardless of what you think of their music (which I feel is effing brilliant), the visual show is amazing. The last time I saw them was DEC 1994 at the Sooner Theater in Norman, OK with my brother and a friend, Chris....I think at the time, there were only 200 folks there....I actually found some footage from that show, albeit; crappy footage with crappy sound.



Needless to say, there were more than 200 folks at this show this time around...but their stagecraft, while much more expensive and grandiose this time around, has always been an amalgamation of Dr. Seuss meets Brian Wilson. They also covered, "Borderline" by Madonna and did a heavy tease of "Purple Rain" by Prince...how cool is that! Here is a video I shot of their intro in which Wayne puts himself into a giant Hamster Ball and rolls out onto the crowd.



And here are some better stills:

Bubble Boy

















I see rainbows






















Cool visuals

















Teletubby Parade

















Touchdown Teletubby

















Blowing Taps

















Playing the horn with my head

















Cool Smoke

















Dr. Seuss and his smoke megaphone

















Dr. Seuss and his loud megaphone

















The disappointment of the weekend was Matisyahu. What can I say....the music off the album is cool, but I've always thought his band sucks. Well....I've seen em live, and they don't get better from the studio to a live stage. Compounding this disappointment, he only played for an hour....I guess all the better...that just means I got 2 hours of Railroad Earth who kicked ass. Typical PHX people were also a bummer...most of the folks showed up, not for the festivals many talented acts leading up to the final billing...but to hear Matisyahu....I think there were more folks present for Matisyah than for the Lips! Like I said...typical PHX. They probably all left after the Matisyahu performance to go wait in line for a table at The Olive Garden.

As for the riding part, a gent from Brighton, England posted up a month or two ago on the MTBR forum about taking a 2 week MTB vacation in the Southwest and was wanting to find some folks to ride with for his first day out at Hawes. Since I live 6/10 a mile from Hawes, I was game to show him around. Joining us were liteandfast and NMPhi767. We rolled 25 miles on the day with 3625 ft in elevation gained. Afterwords, we rode to Joe's for some Arrogant Bastard and some pub grub.

Me on the rock switchback



Bearing Down























Lift


















Cool shot, but you're too tall























Big Rock






















Mine switchback exit






















Iron Cross Blister Beetle (Tegrodera aloga)


















Mine Runout






















Tree switchback






















Arrogant Bastard - The beer, not the bloke