The Great ATC Exchange

The Great ATC Exchange. opening Friday (tomorrow, May 23rd) at around 7:00pm. Kerry Michaels and Tom Reynolds will be playing tunes at around 8:00.

ATC by Colleen Ansbaugh

Here's a little more info about ATCs from cedarseed.com (love their homepage...this is the ATC link).

As their name indicates, ATC are collectables, a brilliant idea born of the older sports-themed trading cards. The one rule that makes an ATC derives from their origins: the dimensions of the ATC must be 2.5"x3.5", or 64x89mm.

To this rule are appended a couple of conventions. First, an ATC mustn't be sold, only exchanged, as the whole essence of these tiny works of art is about artists meeting (by correspondence or online if need be) and exchanging their works, thus meeting many artists and getting exposed to many personal styles. Second, on the back of each ATC the artist writes part or all of the following information: name, contact information, title of the ATC and number (1/8, 2/8...) if it's part of an edition. By definition ATCs are made in limited numbers, often no more than one of a kind. Unique ATCs are called originals; sets of identical ATCs are called editions and are numbered; sets of ATCs that are based on one theme but that are different are called series. Don't be intimidated by the concept of small editions or originals: very few people are anal about this. What most collectors really want are cards that were made with care. Based on that, numbers are meaningless.

That's all! The above is all you need to know to start making your own ATCs. Common sense dictates that they should be sturdy enough to survive mailing, and of reasonable thickness (unless you specifically want them otherwise. Transparent card sleeves are useful to protect the cards if need be. This is particularly true if they can easily get smudged or if the medium might stick during transport.

So, if you want to join the fun make yourself some ATCs and bring them in, peruse what's up, and make a trade by replacing the one you want with your own. The show will be up for the next four weeks or so.

This weekend's music and art

I just saw Kerry and he ragged on me "How come your blog ain't posted?" Oyvey! I BEEN BUSY THIS MORNING, DUDE! Ok, so here is the announcement for this weekend.

This Friday night, May 23rd, at 7:00 will be the opening of the ATC (Artist Trading Cards) exhibit and at 8:00 Kerry Michaels and Tom Reynolds will be laying down the vibe for the rest of the night. Tom is a helluva guitar player, having been the band leader for the Larry McCarren show, along with working as a musician in Hollywood in the mid-80s. We went over to Element a couple weeks ago to catch the tail-end of Kerry and Tom's gig there and, I'm telling you, this guy can play! He is as smooth and effortless as a studio musician, as technically skilled as a road warrior needs to be, and with a hardcore rock & blues sensibility. Kerry and Tom sounded excellent together, and we could see and hear a marked increase in Kerry's enthusiasm and excitement at performing with Tom. Catch them here this Friday night.

I'll explain more about the ATC exhibition tomorrow. For now you can learn a little bit about it on Kim's Persimmon's blog.

cool poster huh...

Saturday, May 24th, at 8:00 Jeannie Mayotte will be coming up from Milwaukee to blow us away again with her sweetness and her music. JoAnn Riedl was scheduled to perform again with Jeannie but JoAnn had to cancel this one (she'll be back again soon I'm sure), so Jeannie will be going solo, which we're very pumped about too. You have to go to her myspace site and listen to her stuff if you haven't seen her here before. The girl knows how to write a song that will stay in your head for days, and she has such a charming humility and endearing stage presence (that is, she often seems to be a little nervous...which is a great quality for a performer with talent like hers). Her lyrics are both biting and personal, and her music is melodic and hook-driven. Saturday night...girl with guitar and voice...no nonsense.

Gig pics from last couple weekends on Flickr

Click on the links below each picture (or in the right side column) to check out the images from the last couple of weeks. Not going to comment on these nights next other than to say that they were all a lot of fun...check out the pics on Flickr and you'll see. I do intend to come back to a couple of these in the next three or four days and offer a brief review, so come on back.

Yacking with Kim, Terry, Sandy, (and Roger & Deb) during Bill's night.
Bill Martell 5/2/08

Ethan pushing through the pain of an injured eye...awesome.

Ethan Keller 5/3/08

Katie & Ric: security for Matt's show...putting fear into troublemakers.
Matt Schroeder 5/9/08

Image courtesy of Bill's son Nate Walkner...dang good photographer.

Bill Walkner 5/10/08

John Willy, Nick and Brian laying it down.

John Will Balsley/Whiskey Jars & Scandals 5/16/08
Nate's Flickr set of John Willy & friends

A stinky tale

A brief story about the anti-polka band and potty mouth: http://diaryofthedaft.blogspot.com/.

Coffee Column

I've been working on a concept for a newspaper column for a while now, a regular (perhaps bi-monthly) column written by yours truly wherein I discuss certain and specific issues and subjects related to coffee, as both a commodity and as a cultural talisman of sorts. There's a good deal more to the basic concept for the column than I'll share here, but I have submitted the loose proposal to a handful of publications, including the Herald Times Reporter here in Manitowoc/Two Rivers. A few have expressed some interest, and I need to follow up with them.

The basic proposal I submitted to editors included elements of the following outline:

The specific topics that can be culled from the general subject of coffee are expansive and varied enough that there is no danger of undo repetition or staleness, and it is a subject that virtually everyone has at least some interest in, either as a casual consumer of coffee in their daily routine or as passionate aficionados

Besides the ever-interesting, albeit obvious subject of all of the various coffee producing countries and geographical regions (and what each specific region imparts to its particular coffee in terms of flavors, aromas, body, etc), other topics under the same umbrella include processing methods (and how they affect the final product); the cultural impact of coffee from both consumer and producer perspectives; the modern coffee culture as its own unique entity; and even the always fun drink mixology itself. We would, however, focus primarily on the different coffees from different regions and estates and what interesting and unique attributes they all have to offer.

We would not, of course, engage in any overt advertising or Stumpjack promotion in any of the columns.

I must give credit where credit is due, in that my idea for a coffee column was sparked by Todd Haefer's "Beer Man" column, which appears semi-regularly in our own HTR, among other publications in the state. Haefer does a great job with his column, creating a nice mix of opinion with factual information, in a well written and informal format. His column is one that I regularly look forward to reading in the newspaper. So, I thought, "beer column...coffee column? Of course!" And given my background in both coffee and writing...well, there you go! We would not, of course, mimic Haefer's excellent column. My style of writing is much different than his and I am not interested in talking about varieties of coffees alone, as Haefer does with beer by discussing a single particular beer each column.

I'll keep you abreast of what, if anything, develops with this. But it should be fun!