Inman Park Restaurant Week 2013
(Published on atlantabuzz.com, March 2013)
Budget-minded foodies rejoice! It’s time once again for Inman Park Restaurant Week 2013. Home to many of the city’s most popular restaurants—tried and true standbys and trendy hot spots alike—Inman Park’s delicious dining selection needs to be celebrated.
Beginning Monday, April 15 and running through the 21st, Inman Park Restaurant Week will feature specially-crafted menus from 14 of the neighborhood’s best eateries. Participating restaurants include Rathbun’s, Kevin Rathbun Steak, Pure Taqueria, The Albert, il Localino, Fritti, North Highland Pub, Sotto Sotto, Parish Food and Goods, One Eared Stag, The Wrecking Bar Brew Pub, Wisteria, Park’s Edge and Barcelona Wine Bar. Each restaurant will offer a three-course prix fixe menu, all priced at either $15, $25 or $35.
This biannual gustatory showcase is the perfect opportunity to give that new restaurant a try or to get a delicious meal at one of your favorite spots all for a great price. Many of the participating locals do take reservations so don’t forget to secure your seat at the table soon.
Budget-minded foodies rejoice! It’s time once again for Inman Park Restaurant Week 2013. Home to many of the city’s most popular restaurants—tried and true standbys and trendy hot spots alike—Inman Park’s delicious dining selection needs to be celebrated.
Beginning Monday, April 15 and running through the 21st, Inman Park Restaurant Week will feature specially-crafted menus from 14 of the neighborhood’s best eateries. Participating restaurants include Rathbun’s, Kevin Rathbun Steak, Pure Taqueria, The Albert, il Localino, Fritti, North Highland Pub, Sotto Sotto, Parish Food and Goods, One Eared Stag, The Wrecking Bar Brew Pub, Wisteria, Park’s Edge and Barcelona Wine Bar. Each restaurant will offer a three-course prix fixe menu, all priced at either $15, $25 or $35.
This biannual gustatory showcase is the perfect opportunity to give that new restaurant a try or to get a delicious meal at one of your favorite spots all for a great price. Many of the participating locals do take reservations so don’t forget to secure your seat at the table soon.
Artist of The Day: The Shaky Hands
(Published on AthensBlur.com, November 2009)
Portland, Ore. is a breeding grounds for indie bands — scruffy-faced, guitar-playing dudes in flannel abound. So what about The Shaky Hands sets them apart from the rest of the pack? It’s a mixture of frontman Nicholas Delffs’ rattly vocals and the band’s lo-fi, upbeat tunes that makes you want to listen to The Shaky Hand’s on repeat.
Formed in Portland in 2003, the group self-released its first album, The Skidmore Days. The album was recorded in a basement and was the first step in making a name for The Shaky Hands in the Portland music scene.
After being signed to Halocene Music, TSH released 2007’s The Shaky Hands, a folky run-through-the-prairie album whiched gained the band positive attention from critics and further expanded its growing fan base, moving the band from a local sensation to up-and-coming band to watch.
In 2008 came Lunglight, followed by this year’s Let it Die, released by Kill Rock Stars. Let it Die marked shift in TSH’s music. Not as lo-fi as earlier recordings, but some of the tracks maintained the uppbeat tone (”Allison and the Ancient Eyes”) from earlier material while others were a demonstrated a more slow, almost alt-country tinged feel (”Gonna Hold You Tonight”).
The Shaky Hands are currently touring Europe before coming back to the U.S. in December. You can see TSH in Atlanta at the Drunken Unicorn on December 5.
Who’s Who: Nicholas Delffs (vocals), Mayhaw Hoons (bass), Jeff Lehman (guitar), and Jake Morris (drums)
Label: Kill Rock Stars/Halocene
Latest release: Let It Die (2009)
On the web: www.myspace.com/shakyhands
Portland, Ore. is a breeding grounds for indie bands — scruffy-faced, guitar-playing dudes in flannel abound. So what about The Shaky Hands sets them apart from the rest of the pack? It’s a mixture of frontman Nicholas Delffs’ rattly vocals and the band’s lo-fi, upbeat tunes that makes you want to listen to The Shaky Hand’s on repeat.
Formed in Portland in 2003, the group self-released its first album, The Skidmore Days. The album was recorded in a basement and was the first step in making a name for The Shaky Hands in the Portland music scene.
After being signed to Halocene Music, TSH released 2007’s The Shaky Hands, a folky run-through-the-prairie album whiched gained the band positive attention from critics and further expanded its growing fan base, moving the band from a local sensation to up-and-coming band to watch.
In 2008 came Lunglight, followed by this year’s Let it Die, released by Kill Rock Stars. Let it Die marked shift in TSH’s music. Not as lo-fi as earlier recordings, but some of the tracks maintained the uppbeat tone (”Allison and the Ancient Eyes”) from earlier material while others were a demonstrated a more slow, almost alt-country tinged feel (”Gonna Hold You Tonight”).
The Shaky Hands are currently touring Europe before coming back to the U.S. in December. You can see TSH in Atlanta at the Drunken Unicorn on December 5.
Who’s Who: Nicholas Delffs (vocals), Mayhaw Hoons (bass), Jeff Lehman (guitar), and Jake Morris (drums)
Label: Kill Rock Stars/Halocene
Latest release: Let It Die (2009)
On the web: www.myspace.com/shakyhands
She & Him second album coming in 2010
(Published on AthensBlur.com, December 2009)
Actress and songtress Zooey Deschanel and folk monster M. Ward — a.k.a. She & Him — have finished the follow up to their 2008 debut Volume One. The aptly titled Volume Two is slated for a spring 2010 release. The duo became indie folk’s golden children with Volume One’s sweet love songs, unexpected covers (”You Really Got a Hold On Me,” “Swing Low Sweet Chariot”) and Deschanel’s rich voice.
According toboth Ward and Deschanel, Volume Two will delve deeper into the pair’s musical talents and see more strong songwriting from Mrs. Gibbard (Deschanel wed Death Cab For Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard earlier this year.)
Actress and songtress Zooey Deschanel and folk monster M. Ward — a.k.a. She & Him — have finished the follow up to their 2008 debut Volume One. The aptly titled Volume Two is slated for a spring 2010 release. The duo became indie folk’s golden children with Volume One’s sweet love songs, unexpected covers (”You Really Got a Hold On Me,” “Swing Low Sweet Chariot”) and Deschanel’s rich voice.
According toboth Ward and Deschanel, Volume Two will delve deeper into the pair’s musical talents and see more strong songwriting from Mrs. Gibbard (Deschanel wed Death Cab For Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard earlier this year.)
Have a singing saw bring you Christmas cheer
(Published on AthensBlur.com, November 2009)
It’s nearly Thanksgiving which means it’s nearly the Christmas season. The holiday lights are already up in downtown Athens, and the Christmas music inundation should be starting next week.
So why not embrace the ever-earlier Christmas season by signing up to have carolers come to your house? This isn’t just any group of bundled-up wandering singers, but Julian Koster and his singing saw.
A seasoned Athens musician, Koster is a member of Elephant 6, frontman of The Music Tapes and a former member of Neutral Milk Hotel so you can expect some top-notch caroling.
Koster’s 2009 Holiday Cheer caroling dates are up, and he’ll be in Georgia (and Tenn., Ind. and Ill.) Dec. 7-9. If you want to be serenaded by a singing saw, all you have to do is e-mail [email protected]. Don’t forget to include a contact e-mail and phone number, and let the carolers know if you’re willing to host them for a night or have other guests over to enjoy the music, because Koster and his band of merry-makers probably won’t be able to visit every home.
It’s nearly Thanksgiving which means it’s nearly the Christmas season. The holiday lights are already up in downtown Athens, and the Christmas music inundation should be starting next week.
So why not embrace the ever-earlier Christmas season by signing up to have carolers come to your house? This isn’t just any group of bundled-up wandering singers, but Julian Koster and his singing saw.
A seasoned Athens musician, Koster is a member of Elephant 6, frontman of The Music Tapes and a former member of Neutral Milk Hotel so you can expect some top-notch caroling.
Koster’s 2009 Holiday Cheer caroling dates are up, and he’ll be in Georgia (and Tenn., Ind. and Ill.) Dec. 7-9. If you want to be serenaded by a singing saw, all you have to do is e-mail [email protected]. Don’t forget to include a contact e-mail and phone number, and let the carolers know if you’re willing to host them for a night or have other guests over to enjoy the music, because Koster and his band of merry-makers probably won’t be able to visit every home.
Independent Woman
(Published in The Athens Blur Magazine issue 12, December 2009)
MUSICIAN, ARTIST & DIY QUEEN THAYER SARRANO DOES THINGS HER WAY
Thayer Sarrano had to employ some pretty extreme measures to get her debut album King on the shelves.
"I don't know how I would've done it," says the reserved singer/multi-instrumentalist, "if I didn't have my friends as my sweatshop."
As the clock was ticking toward King's release date, Sarrano had to work non-stop to get the discs ready for stores. Her house became an arts-and-crafts factory set up to create all the handmade CD cases.
"I would just spend nights the week before the CD release with friends — including the sound engineers — stamping and gluing," she says. "We had this kind of assembly line."
While this process was "very time consuming," it was just another outlet for Sarrano's creativity. The CD booklet, a collection of drawings and paintings that she's done over the years, corresponds with the tracks, with some songs ever being directly based off of a painting or vice versa.
This at-home album art production was just part of the DIY process for King. When listening to the album, one gets the feeling that Sarrano's been cooped up in her house during a bleak winter day with only her journal to keep her company, the product being a somber, but beautiful, collection of dark folk tunes.
"I wrote a lot of the songs that are on the album in that house during the winter," she says.
Then, in April of last year, with help from friends, Sarrano converted her living room into a makeshift recording studio with enough room for the lap steel, drums, bass and guitar and set to work on her first full-length effort.
Recording at home was a choice made out of necessity, but one that soon became an integral part of the final product.
"At first it was 'cause of money, but it felt really good, and for what we were doing I thought it made [recording] feel really natural," she says. "So I was happy with it."
Armed with a homegrown collection of tunes, Sarrano's been touring and playing shows in Athens. A show at the 40 Watt rattles her nerves less than her recent performance at Flicker Theatre & Bar, because she gets "more nervous at the smaller places," when the performance is more intimate. Maybe it's because her songs are already so deeply personal that sharing them with an audience is difficult.
"I don't write about things I don't know or make up stories. [My songs] are all about things that have happened personally, for the most part. And then the way I end up putting it is almost like just trying to describe the pictures. It's very visual for me. So it's just kind of like looking at things and trying to describe them in a way that gets the idea across."
One listen through King's 11 tracks and one might think Sarrano wrote the songs for the record during a lonely hibernation.
"I'm not depressed or anything," she laughs. "I think I tend toward serious subject matter; it's not intentional. There's not a subject that I'm like, 'Okay, I'm gonna write about this, this, this and this,' it's just kinds of things I feel . . . You know, I'm affected by things, and a lot of times the things that affect you to the point of creating something, at least for me, maybe aren't the lightest topics."
Not that this heavy subject matter weighs down the music. Instead, her airy vocals lend the songs a lightness and a sincerity that is uniquely Sarrano's.
While she may be a reserved southern girl, she's focused on one thing: making and performing music that is both personally meaningful and affecting to those who listen. And she's managed to launch a career all by her lonesome (well, with some help from her friends/sweatshop workers), and with almost a full second album's worth of material ready to go, she'll probably be needing some free labor again soon.
MUSICIAN, ARTIST & DIY QUEEN THAYER SARRANO DOES THINGS HER WAY
Thayer Sarrano had to employ some pretty extreme measures to get her debut album King on the shelves.
"I don't know how I would've done it," says the reserved singer/multi-instrumentalist, "if I didn't have my friends as my sweatshop."
As the clock was ticking toward King's release date, Sarrano had to work non-stop to get the discs ready for stores. Her house became an arts-and-crafts factory set up to create all the handmade CD cases.
"I would just spend nights the week before the CD release with friends — including the sound engineers — stamping and gluing," she says. "We had this kind of assembly line."
While this process was "very time consuming," it was just another outlet for Sarrano's creativity. The CD booklet, a collection of drawings and paintings that she's done over the years, corresponds with the tracks, with some songs ever being directly based off of a painting or vice versa.
This at-home album art production was just part of the DIY process for King. When listening to the album, one gets the feeling that Sarrano's been cooped up in her house during a bleak winter day with only her journal to keep her company, the product being a somber, but beautiful, collection of dark folk tunes.
"I wrote a lot of the songs that are on the album in that house during the winter," she says.
Then, in April of last year, with help from friends, Sarrano converted her living room into a makeshift recording studio with enough room for the lap steel, drums, bass and guitar and set to work on her first full-length effort.
Recording at home was a choice made out of necessity, but one that soon became an integral part of the final product.
"At first it was 'cause of money, but it felt really good, and for what we were doing I thought it made [recording] feel really natural," she says. "So I was happy with it."
Armed with a homegrown collection of tunes, Sarrano's been touring and playing shows in Athens. A show at the 40 Watt rattles her nerves less than her recent performance at Flicker Theatre & Bar, because she gets "more nervous at the smaller places," when the performance is more intimate. Maybe it's because her songs are already so deeply personal that sharing them with an audience is difficult.
"I don't write about things I don't know or make up stories. [My songs] are all about things that have happened personally, for the most part. And then the way I end up putting it is almost like just trying to describe the pictures. It's very visual for me. So it's just kind of like looking at things and trying to describe them in a way that gets the idea across."
One listen through King's 11 tracks and one might think Sarrano wrote the songs for the record during a lonely hibernation.
"I'm not depressed or anything," she laughs. "I think I tend toward serious subject matter; it's not intentional. There's not a subject that I'm like, 'Okay, I'm gonna write about this, this, this and this,' it's just kinds of things I feel . . . You know, I'm affected by things, and a lot of times the things that affect you to the point of creating something, at least for me, maybe aren't the lightest topics."
Not that this heavy subject matter weighs down the music. Instead, her airy vocals lend the songs a lightness and a sincerity that is uniquely Sarrano's.
While she may be a reserved southern girl, she's focused on one thing: making and performing music that is both personally meaningful and affecting to those who listen. And she's managed to launch a career all by her lonesome (well, with some help from her friends/sweatshop workers), and with almost a full second album's worth of material ready to go, she'll probably be needing some free labor again soon.
Noises to Be Heard
(Published in Jake, August 2009)
NATE NELSON AND CORTRIGHT
Nate Nelson and Cortright have been performing in Athens for years. Nelson, a native Athenian, looks and sounds like the product of a promise-ring-tarnishing tryst between Pete Yorn and one of the Jonas Brothers. His latest album "Knobs Have Turned," released in 2007, showcases Nelson's lyrical abilities with songs that simultaneously full of emotion and simple and straightforward. He's the right kind of poetic singer/songwriter; the insightful, not saccharine, kind.
THE WARM FUZZIES
While some bands wax poetic about life and love, others choose more imaginative topics on which to dwell. For instance, have you ever considered a life with a bunch of fully programmable robotic friends? Well, The Warm Fuzzies have.
The Fuzzies' name sums up this quartet's musical philosophy: power pop that puts a smile on your face. Think Of Montrea — back when they sang about yellow bumble bees instead of condom-clad ice cream cones — or Weezer before they were on that sunny island. Their catchy melodies keep the music bouncing along. Despite their lighthearted tunes, The Fuzzies' singer and guitarist Jason Harwell insists the band is serious about its music: "We want to melt your face just like every other loud band in town, but we hope to see you smiling right before your features turn to goo and slide down your chin." If the thought of your liquified face in a puddle at your feet doesn't make you feel all happy inside, it's hard to know what will.
NATE NELSON AND CORTRIGHT
Nate Nelson and Cortright have been performing in Athens for years. Nelson, a native Athenian, looks and sounds like the product of a promise-ring-tarnishing tryst between Pete Yorn and one of the Jonas Brothers. His latest album "Knobs Have Turned," released in 2007, showcases Nelson's lyrical abilities with songs that simultaneously full of emotion and simple and straightforward. He's the right kind of poetic singer/songwriter; the insightful, not saccharine, kind.
THE WARM FUZZIES
While some bands wax poetic about life and love, others choose more imaginative topics on which to dwell. For instance, have you ever considered a life with a bunch of fully programmable robotic friends? Well, The Warm Fuzzies have.
The Fuzzies' name sums up this quartet's musical philosophy: power pop that puts a smile on your face. Think Of Montrea — back when they sang about yellow bumble bees instead of condom-clad ice cream cones — or Weezer before they were on that sunny island. Their catchy melodies keep the music bouncing along. Despite their lighthearted tunes, The Fuzzies' singer and guitarist Jason Harwell insists the band is serious about its music: "We want to melt your face just like every other loud band in town, but we hope to see you smiling right before your features turn to goo and slide down your chin." If the thought of your liquified face in a puddle at your feet doesn't make you feel all happy inside, it's hard to know what will.
Book Review: Immovable Feast by John Baxter
(Published on UGA Arts Review student-run blog, December 2009)
Food. It’s one of the things that we (really) can’t live without, and a thing that most of us spend the better part of our day thinking about, preparing and consuming. But for some people food is more than a way to stave off that rumbling stomach. In John Baxter’s Immovable Feast,a memoir of an outsider in France who embraces — and becomes mildly obsessed with — French food culture, we see how food can be a portal into other societies and also a kind of keepsake to remind us of life’s experiences, both good and bad. The book follows Baxter from the first Christmas spent with his future in-laws, to a Christmas many years later when he decides to prepare a very un-French menu for his wife’s very French family. As he searches for the perfect ingredients for the yuletide menu, Baxter takes us on a tour of Paris, both modern and historical, as well as on journeys to other parts of France and faraway countries.
Immovable Feast is essentially a story about a man planning a menu but in reality it’s so much more. Baxter’s neatly written prose jumps from past to present through this easy to read story. If you care anything at all about food or France or good writing, you’ll like this book.
He mixes historical tidbits with funny anecdotes (“This occasion could have been more cheerless, I suppose — if, for instance, we . . . invited a Jehovah’s Witness to lead us in prayer”), and even throws in a recipe here and there. In the tidy 270-package of Immovable Feast we get Baxter’s wit and culinary expertise along with some interesting facts.
Baxter recounts trips to the French countryside, growing up in Australia and England, traveling to Mumbai with his wife, all with the effect of making us readers extremely jealous and, in the end, a little more knowledgeable. The language he uses to describe these travels is that of an acute observer, but his most beautiful phrases are reserved to elaborate on his various edible characters.
We see each memory, each trip, each Christmas through a gustatory lens, and it’s when describing cooking, grocery shopping, or eating that Baxter’s language flourishes. Instead of using the typical culinary terms, he describes things in a more imaginative way. To Baxter, a baked wheel of brie isn’t an oversized mess, but an “oozing horror” that makes “one’s feelings twinge and one’s arteries begin to clog.”
At the same time, he injects a humorous tone that keeps this “I spend holidays in a French country home” memoir from veering down the path of absolute snobbism. For example, Baxter recounts a childhood memory of a meal at an Italian neighbor’s home and the curiosity it created in him: “I’ve forgotten nothing about that meal . . . If this was what Venusians ate, it could not have been more alien and exotic.”
Baxter’s quest to prepare a perfect and unexpected holiday meal meanders through time and space and the span of his life. Looking at an apple in the farmers market can send him through a rich and detailed memory that makes the book all the more enjoyable to read. But in the end, it’s all about that one holiday meal, even though as Baxter puts it, “edibility was enormously far from the point.”
Food. It’s one of the things that we (really) can’t live without, and a thing that most of us spend the better part of our day thinking about, preparing and consuming. But for some people food is more than a way to stave off that rumbling stomach. In John Baxter’s Immovable Feast,a memoir of an outsider in France who embraces — and becomes mildly obsessed with — French food culture, we see how food can be a portal into other societies and also a kind of keepsake to remind us of life’s experiences, both good and bad. The book follows Baxter from the first Christmas spent with his future in-laws, to a Christmas many years later when he decides to prepare a very un-French menu for his wife’s very French family. As he searches for the perfect ingredients for the yuletide menu, Baxter takes us on a tour of Paris, both modern and historical, as well as on journeys to other parts of France and faraway countries.
Immovable Feast is essentially a story about a man planning a menu but in reality it’s so much more. Baxter’s neatly written prose jumps from past to present through this easy to read story. If you care anything at all about food or France or good writing, you’ll like this book.
He mixes historical tidbits with funny anecdotes (“This occasion could have been more cheerless, I suppose — if, for instance, we . . . invited a Jehovah’s Witness to lead us in prayer”), and even throws in a recipe here and there. In the tidy 270-package of Immovable Feast we get Baxter’s wit and culinary expertise along with some interesting facts.
Baxter recounts trips to the French countryside, growing up in Australia and England, traveling to Mumbai with his wife, all with the effect of making us readers extremely jealous and, in the end, a little more knowledgeable. The language he uses to describe these travels is that of an acute observer, but his most beautiful phrases are reserved to elaborate on his various edible characters.
We see each memory, each trip, each Christmas through a gustatory lens, and it’s when describing cooking, grocery shopping, or eating that Baxter’s language flourishes. Instead of using the typical culinary terms, he describes things in a more imaginative way. To Baxter, a baked wheel of brie isn’t an oversized mess, but an “oozing horror” that makes “one’s feelings twinge and one’s arteries begin to clog.”
At the same time, he injects a humorous tone that keeps this “I spend holidays in a French country home” memoir from veering down the path of absolute snobbism. For example, Baxter recounts a childhood memory of a meal at an Italian neighbor’s home and the curiosity it created in him: “I’ve forgotten nothing about that meal . . . If this was what Venusians ate, it could not have been more alien and exotic.”
Baxter’s quest to prepare a perfect and unexpected holiday meal meanders through time and space and the span of his life. Looking at an apple in the farmers market can send him through a rich and detailed memory that makes the book all the more enjoyable to read. But in the end, it’s all about that one holiday meal, even though as Baxter puts it, “edibility was enormously far from the point.”