I’m excited to be showing 20 photographs for a month in a show I’ve titled “Landscapes I’ve Dreamed” at Trabant Coffee & Chai in the U-District.

Over the past several years, I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to travel to many parts of the world, and the photos in this show are some of my very favorites. You will see landscapes taken from as close as West Seattle and as far as a small hill town in south India where my best friend’s family grew up.

The showing officially starts on April 7th, but we are ushering the show in with style by having a reception on the night of April 12th from 7 to 9pm. Come join me and my closest friends for some excellent espresso, some good laughs and the opportunity to see and buy some of my favorite photographs from my collection.

I will be serving some limited sweets and eats, but due to liquor license restrictions, there won’t be any booze. Apologies to all my alcohol loving friends However, Trabant is well known for their great espresso and chai so I encourage you to help support their business (and desire to support local artists) by buying something to drink while you’re there.

All of the photographs in the show are available in multiple sizes and can come framed or unframed. If you’re interested in purchasing any of the pieces, please contact me by email for pricing.

Evite: http://www.evite.com/pages/invite/viewInvite.jsp?event=AAQPQFVXUNVHMMLKAPPH

I discovered The Mountain Goats early last year and fell in love with their music right away.  They have a great sound, and have a great story-telling ability through their music, which I’m finding to be a rare quality these days in music land.  Two songs I’m particularly jones’ing over are This Year and  Cobra Tattoo. Check ‘em out and you may fall in love as quickly as I did.

I had tickets for their show this Saturday, but disappointingly I had to give them away because it conflicts with a wedding I’m assisting at on the same night… sigh.  I really hope my friend loves those tickets!

I’ve been hitting the concert tip this year in a hard way and enjoying every minute of it. Here are a few of the notable shows I’ve been to this year and what’s coming up for me in music land.

Ben Gibbard (May)

I always find it weird when lead singers of band tour solo but still play songs from their bands. However, after seeing Ben Gibbard’s solo show at the Showbox, I forgave him very quickly An utterly amazing show.

Daft Punk (August)

This may have been the best show I have ever been to. Daft Punk had the sell-out crowd swimming in musical nirvana for their entire performance. See my past post for videos.

Arcade Fire with LCD Soundsystem (September)

This was unfortunately at HEC Ed Pavilion at UW and since they limited the number of people that could be on the floor, we were forced to sit in the stands which eliminated any possibility of an intimate setting. Something weird about sitting on wooden benches for a concert.

I wasn’t that impressed with LCD Soundsystem’s performance. They were WAY too loud and chose too many of their harder hitting tracks than I liked.

Arcade Fire, on the other hand, completely rocked the house. They have such an phenomenal stage presence and a really impressive stage setup.

Band of Horses (November)

I missed them the last time they came in the summer due to an insane work schedule, and regretted ever since. When I heard they were coming again, I snatched up tickets right away. They played at the the Showbox near Pike Place Market and completely rocked the house. I’m always surprised at how good the vocals are

Evanescence (November)

Amy Lee’s voice is surreal; just as good live as it is recorded. Wonderful performances of Immortal and Bring Me to Life, but I was largely unimpressed. Volume dial was turned up to deaf proportions. Thank god for ear plugs!

Here are the concerts that are on deck for me:

• Prefuse 73 @ Neumos on December 6th
• DJ Shadow @ The Showbox in February ‘08

Here’s my wish list of artists I need to see before I die:

• Radiohead
• Junior Boys
• Mute Math (yes I saw em earlier this year, but would love to see them again)
• Placebo
• Quantic (I missed him at the Decibel Festival this year)
• Explosions in the Sky (I was forced to miss this in the summer because my tickets were lost in the mail. Sigh)
• Feist (I just missed her at the Paramount!)
• Hot Chip (I had tickets for their show in June but they cancelled!)
• Nadia Ali (I just missed her show at Heaven. Damn)

I’m sure there are more artists I’m missing, but with my music insanity I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to list them all.

This sounds like fun, so I’m passing it along hoping that Seattle wins the final showing.

A Million Little Pictures is a photo exhibition run by an art coop. Everyone’s photos are welcome, everyone shoots with the same camera, and the exhibition might come to you!

The deets:

Send in $16 by October 1st, and they’ll send you a disposable camera.
Snap photos on the theme (”Adventure”) and send it back by Nov 20th.
They develop the photos and ready them for exhibition.

The twist: They haven’t decided which city the exhibition will be in, and every camera counts as a vote for your city. Get friends to join in the fun to increase your city’s odds! (This one’s only open to people in the USA)

You have to sign-up and pay the $16 fee by Paypal by October 1st.

http://www.amillionlittlepictures.com/

Saturday morning, I did a tandem sky dive out up north at Skydive Snohomish jumping out of a plane from 13,000 feet going nearly 125 miles per hour.

This was my second sky dive trailing the one I did last year in Italy by almost exactly 12 months. The free fall was 15 seconds shorter from a lower altitude but I still enjoyed this one better since it was a bigger adrenaline rush due to flipping 4 times over as we exited the plane and the 360 degree view of Ranier, Baker and the greater Seattle sky line on the descent.

I opted to not have a video taken of me this time since I had one made last year and figured I could save the extra $90 they were asking for it.

Everyone has asked me why I went to jump a second time and the answer is simple — the first time scared the hell out of me. I don’t think the novelty (or fear) ever wears off when you jump out of a plane. The rush is so freakin amazing I can’t do any better to describe it than I did when I blogged about it the first time around.

The only thing I can say is that I’ll definitely be going back next year to do jump #3. Anyone up for it?