The Right Stuff

In 1990 a bunch of brash youth from Beantown had already paved the way for the pop revolution of the coming decade, and were beginning their descent into the hell of declining sales, solo projects, pubertym and probation. It all came to an apex with a little ditty customized with the classic top-40 parenthetical title of "You've Got It (The Right Stuff.)"

Well, about that same time in America a not-so-brash bunch of not-so-youthful youth were paying homage to that number one hit in order to bring attention to themselves, and to let audiences, everywhere, know that an evening was about to happen.

Here, friends, is the first of what will probably be many, clips of the late, great Mobile Hombres. This is from the start of a show at SLO Brew in January (or February) of 1990. Opening that night was an acoustic third of Rhythm Akimbo. The second clip is one of my favorite things we did, the trumpet-led arrangement of "I Go Blind," a nearly-known track by Canada's 54-40. That is the phenomenal Jen Elson playin' her horn.

The film was shot by RA trombonist and all-round amazing talent Brad Bennet who, so many years later, is about to unveil his cinematic directorial debut, Breakfast on Catalina, this week at the SLO International Film Festival!

So, here's to Brad, and here's to the Hombres. I will be adding more from this show and others in the weeks to come.

The First Podcast is Jettisoned!

Well after many months of trial and error, and just plain I'm-too-busy-ness, I have finally finished the first ever Frank's Best of Podcast!

Frank's Best of 2007 Podcast
(It's just an mp3 file, Right-click, Save Target As, and play it in your favorite player)

This replaces 15 years of cassettes and cd's handed out to friends and passers-by, containing my favorite tracks and bits from the year previous. For now, gone are the recycled jewel cases and hard-to-read liner notes, replaced by the wheels of technology.

So, hopefully you can download, put on your iPod, iTunes, iDog, or other iMp3 player and take an hour and a half to enjoy. The music is great, my yammering will get annoying I am sure.

I am not quite up on getting the whole RSS feed thing down yet, but I am working on it. You can find this podcast blog in iTunes, but it doesn't seem to work yet. More to come.

Thanks to Jason Wells, my podcast benefactor, who has been patient and supportive. He gave me the entire set-up to get this done back at my June graduation, and I just never got around to it. Hopefully this will work and more will be on their way!

Go here to see my top 10 albums of the year!

**Wondering about the "cover" photo? Go here for all the sad details.

Send thoughts and feedback!

The Music is Coming

Jaon Wells has given Frank a blog site and podcast gear to get his act together, now that his Master's study is over. Hope we hear something soon...