There’s been some confusion on how to create an account on the joey.org gallery. It’s not totally obvious. The link is at the bottom of the main gallery page and is called “register“.
I’ve had people asking me to do this for a while:
If you want to view photos in the joey.org gallery, you will have to sign up for an account. I’ll be approving them manually, so as to ensure photos are only viewable by folks we all know.
Bonuses we get with this are:
How’s that for fun!? YAY!!!
We all have our bands that we feel should have “made it”. For me, Forever Goldrush was one of those bands.
Some of you may know that around the turn of the century, I lived in Sacramento. Sacramento the city was interesting, a surprise really. My expectations about the town that plays host to the Kings were a bit out of alignment with the reality of the situation. It turned out the Kings played out by the airport. The downtown was pretty sleepy. There really didn’t seem to be too many people my age around. In the town of Cake and Tesla, I had to search for music, and maybe that’s why when I finally found some that I really liked, I was all the more stoked.
There were a handful of clubs with live music, but the one that every act seemed to hit was Old Ironsides. It was here that I first had the opportunity to see Forever Goldrush. It was my first foray into Alt Country music and an ear and eye opener that really altered my Phish-only listening ways. The lead singer, Damon Wyckoff had an Eddie Vedder rasp and rattle to his vocals. The lead guitarist, Josh Lacey tore into kick-ass riffs on an Epiphone. Mason, the bassist, provided solid, thumping bass guitar. He also got around the smoking ban by being a performer. Nate Gonzalez was Goldrush’s Ringo.
My friend Miles and I became fans of their music and went to just about every show we could. I picked up both of their CDs at shows and Miles even went to the trouble of transcribing some of their charts. After moving back to Minnesota, I kept their two albums in my rotation. They always got positive feedback from friends. With Wilco’s success, the genre was definitely not as sheltered as it used to be. It was nearly impossible to find any information about the band online. Their website disappeared and the only online mention of the band was an old Sacramento News and Review article from back in 2002.
So imagine my surprise when in 2007, I ran a search on the band and came across a Sacramento Bee post which indicated they not only had done a reunion show (which I missed and probably would have traveled back to Sac-Town to see), but released a new CD of old material. I was thrilled and wanted to get my hands on that album. I found they’d been busy and had established a myspace page. After emailing them through the page, Damon came through for me and promised to send me a copy of the new CD, on his dime! How many bands have done that for you?
So last week the package shows up. Damon went ahead and threw in copies of their first two discs as well. Talk about fan relations! The disc contains some gems. Some of my favorite tunes from the live shows made it onto the album: “Come On”, “Money Don’t Count” and “The Letters”. “Money Don’t Count” was classic Forever Goldrush. I’ll let Miles’ review of the song step in here:
“”Money Don’t Count”, … is still pure kick ass. It has the old guitar sound (original Epi Casino into a Matchless Chieftain), clear prominent vocals, stiff and commanding drums and thumping bass guitar. That track is a killer whale..”
Long story short, I’m thrilled to have the entire Forever Goldrush library. I’m hoping this isn’t the end for these guys. They definitely had something special going on that in the right time and right place could have definitely received some national attention.
We had some fun in Mexico.
My band has its second gig. I think we’re going to aim for one every six months or so. That seems realistic.
Monday Night Band Club be playing at the Terminal Bar on Friday, September 28 at 9pm sharp. We’ll be the opening act, with three other bands performing later. We’ve actually put together some new numbers for the occasion. I hope ya’ll can make it.
Christine and I have just returned from Mexico. The trip gave me an opportunity to relax and let my hair down for a week. Highlights for me included a long drive with a man named Manuel, a scuba diving adventure and my performance of “Kum on Feel the Noize“. Christine’s highlight was a monkey peeing on her arm. What fun!
I’m feeling well refreshed and eager to do some site maintenance. Enjoy some new photos in the 2006 and 2007 galleries!
Remember the Brittanica guy? This commercial was on WAAAY too much when I was a kid.
After being offline for several weeks, I finally managed to secure a host that isn’t going to drive away with my server during the wee hours of the night and stay offline for weeks. The server I’m hosting this on now is located within the state, and hosted by some really nice folks at Area51 Services.
I think that when you’ve found something useful, it’s worthwhile to recommend it. In what will hopefully become a regular feature of joey.org, I’m going to begin recommending things that I think are great. My recommendation may not be the latest thing going, simply something I find useful. I’m going assign these things under the “I Like ‘Em!” category.
Useful thing #1
If you haven’t checked out Firefox yet, you need to. It’s the greatest browser on earth. Once you’ve gone tabbin’ you’ll never go back.
Also, be sure to check out some of its extensions. My favorites:
BugMeNot
Greasemonkey
Gmail Notifier
ForecastFox
Roboform
