| The above will search Ashland Daily Photo. |
Next up on this tour of Seattle is a bit of Gerberding Hall on the University of Washington campus. I took this from the steps near the exit of the Suzzallo Library. The library is 85 years old (and one of the most amazing buildings I’ve experienced). Gerberding Hall is a bit over 60 years old.
I hope you don’t mind if I share Seattle photos with you for a couple weeks. This picture could have been taken in Ashland I suppose. The Pacific Northwest shares some common, or at least similar, scenes.
I took this pic on a little trail in Washington Park, just to the west of the Japanese Garden.
Last, but not least, the headliner of the show was “Shrouded In Veils.” They may have played the shortest set of the night. Is there a curfew of some sort in Seattle? I don’t know, but they ended right at midnight. No vocals from this band, just nice, grooving licks. “Heavy soundscapes” is probably a better description.
The bassist had his bass strap break early in on the first song. He tried some pink duct tape (still visible in the above photo), but it wouldn’t hold so he spent much of their set with his back to the audience and his foot up on the drum stand in order to support his bass guitar on his leg.
You can listen to Parhelion, off their new EP, here. It’s a beautiful song if you like heavy, complex, jam-type music.
Next up, after Smooth Sailing, was a band called “He Whose Ox Is Gored.” Great name, great band. If I had to compare them to another band, they sounded somewhat similar to Isis or maybe Pelican. However, they didn’t really sound like Isis or Pelican either. They are unique. I hope they come play in Ashland someday.
The venue, El Corazon, is a fun little spot. The stage is huge for a club, with a pole in the front and slightly off center. The space for the crowd is probably only two times the size of the stage. The guy in the crowd in the above picture whose ear you can see is actually the guitarist in Smooth Sailing. If I lived in Seattle I would be here at least 20 times a year. According to the posters on the wall, loads of great bands came through during the past year including Katatonia, Kreator, Nevermore, Death Angel, Finntroll, Overkill, Vader (twice), and many more.
I got back, at 1 a.m. this morning, from a couple of days in Seattle. It rained most of the time, in typical Seattle fashion, but at least it wasn’t freezing like the last time I went there this time of year.
Although there wasn’t much to do in the outdoors, due to the weather, the nightlife is always good in Seattle. I went to a place called El Corazon to see four bands I had never heard of before. I ended up really liking three of them. The first was the one pictured above, Smooth Sailing. Sans the vocals (metalcore-like vocals are not my thing), they were perfect in every way. With vocals, I will pass on purchasing anything they put out, but I would certainly like to see them live again.
Today’s entry would have been far more timely had I done it several days ago when Oregon Ducks’ fever was at an all-time high. Alas, I forgot about the photo I had of the Oregon Ducks’ Voodoo donut. After the loss to Auburn, everyone’s Duck gear seems to have disappeared.
You can see the green and yellow Ducks donut in the above photo in the back on the right. I took this photo in Eugene on the day after Thanksgiving. The Ducks were hosting Arizona that night. Since the holidays were approaching, you can see they were working on some Christmas-themed donuts. To make things look non-biased from a religious perspective, they also tossed in a Jewish one it seems.
ESPN has done some “special” game day Voodoo doughnuts made for them when they were in town.
Another picture today from my trip to Utah late last month. Viewing the Christmas lights on Temple Square are a must if you happen to be in Salt Lake City in December.
I went for a walk yesterday in the late afternoon. This was the view looking north (and maybe slightly west) towards Medford from above the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. The sky was going through sort of a pre-sunset. The clouds seemed to be coming off the mountain, almost like a fire.
I hope this house in Ashland doesn’t rely solely on its solar panels for energy as the cells haven’t been generating much lately.
On New Year’s Day I climbed up on the roof to enjoy a 360 degree panorama of the mountains surrounding town. This was the view to the northeast. Grizzly Peak is snow capped for much of the winter.