A much need September 2009 update!

This is obviously my last chance to get a blog in this month. I have a bit of a decent excuse for not posting one already, besides spending too much time on Facebook and Twitter, I had surgery this month and spent three days in the hospital. They took out my gallbladder and a two inch section of my Omentum. The latter was actually what was causing the pain but they couldn't tell that for sure until they were doing their thing. It felt like it was my appendix but really the Omentum was twisted and the blood supply was cut off from it. I'm pretty much healed right now and glad everything went ok. We are not too excited about the pending doctor bills though.



I am excited about this Thursday's Live on the Green. Lightning 100's FREE! all ages outdoor concert series in downtown Nashville, in front of the metro courthouse on public square plaza. This week's show will feature Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings, The Dynamites featuring Charles Walker, and Maureen Murphy. I know we are working on interviews with Sharon & The Dynamites and Maureen is coming by the Lightning 100 studios this Thursday at 1pm. She is bringing her keyboard player to perform and show off her amazing vocals! Maureen was one of the finalists in the Music City Mayhem contest and the Hard Rock Ambassadors of Rock competition. Here is a video of Maureen performing at a Lightning 100 showcase at the Mercy Lounge. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qmu5F-4Flt8



The Dynamites have a new album out on Outta Site records. It's their second album with singer and frontman Charles Walker and an amazing production. I've had an advance copy on my ipod for a while now and know they will be selling a bunch of them this Thursday at Live on the Green. You can also pick it up anytime at Grimey's New & Preloved music. The co-owner of Grimey's is Doyle Davis, also known as D-Funk, and both of the Dynamites albums have been on his record label. Here is a preview of what you will get for free this week. It is a song from their debut album. I'm excited about hearing the new material this week! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMSKk8imYEI



Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings are this week's headlining act. They should be on stage around 9pm and will play for a little over an hour. I have all their records and have been a big fan for many years now. It will be my first time catching them live though and I can't wait! Here is a video for the song we have been featuring this week on the Live on the Green spotlight. It has over a million views! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ouI5KcyHfE



Live on the Green is a six week concert series and October first is week number five. There will only be one more show after that and it will feature Citizen Cope, Ricky Young, and Next Big Nashville artist Courtney Jaye. Clarence Greenwood, aka Citizen Cope, always puts on a great live show, so that should be a fun way to end the series! I missed most of the concerts unfortunately, because of my health issues this month. The first week was suppose to be my only week off. I had 6th row seats to the Titans game against Green Bay. We caught the end of The Toadies set after Tennessee won. That was the first night I started having pain in my right side. It felt like a cramp you get when you are running and drink too much water. The pain just never went away. I had to DJ a wedding and reception Saturday night at the Music City Sheraton. That night we weren't sure if I would make it though the whole event. It turned out ok but I didn't tell the bride or groom I was afraid I was about to head to the ER. What they don't know can't hurt them, right? All's well that ends well...Actually, it did not end well. Sunday night the pain was so bad I did head to the ER and the rest is history...



My surgery was on Wednesday September 9th and I missed week two of Live on the Green. That week featured Here Come The Mummies, Space Capone, and H-Beam. My first day back to work was Monday, the week Derek Trucks headlined Live on the Green. That show was set to be our biggest one yet and we we're all excited, minus the torrential rain that was in the forecast. We ended up getting lucky that week. It was raining all morning and when we decided to go ahead with the concert that night at 1pm it was still raining. Somehow around 4pm it stopped raining and before it set, the sun even shined on us before the moon took over its duties. That is what I heard at least. I was still taking it easy, and from what I heard, I missed a spectacular live show. With Jack Pearson sharing a large portion of the Derek Trucks Band set. The opener that week is a local band named Homemade Water. They stopped by the Lightning 100 studios to chat and perform for David Hall. Here is the video footage from that afternoon. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-PsnfJ34Fc



The day of the concert around 3pm, the owner of our company personally brought over Derek Trucks for an interview. I thought was really cool and that the interview went really smoothly. I do wish he had performed but there is always next year! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qK5jjCuLvCM



Last Thursday was my first full week and one I certainly enjoyed. I was on site around six pm and grabbed one of the many open parking meters, that are free after six pm weekdays downtown. There is also three dollar parking underneath Live on the Green, below the metro courthouse in the underground five story parking garage, and a free manned bicycle check thanks to Walk Bike Nashville. There were break dancers performing at first. Then Thad Cockrell took the stage. He had performed earlier that day on my show and really impressed me. He has a great voice and has written with a ton of people in town. Here is one of the videos from when he was on my show. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDcQSE3wtHY



David Hall spoke with the other two acts from last week. Here is footage from Dave Barnes performance on his show. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APsjZUv3pYE



Here is David Hall chatting with Matthew Perryman Jones about Dave Barnes and his sense of humor... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gGxlqutwfE



I also want to include in this post footage from last Fridays Colin Hay interview and performance. I had only gotten a couple hours sleep after Live on the Green and was a bit punchy. They say some of the best airshifts are done when you are not feeling your best. I'm not sure if that is true here but Colin Hay (of Men at Work) is hilarious at times and performs two songs in the studio. I'll start with part three of this video series, where he has some incredibly funny things to say about Ringo Starr and performing during the 2000 Summer Olympics in Australia. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nU9b0_4_tGE



Here is Colin Hay performing Oh California in the Lightning 100 studios. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyJZmV3qtT0



Later that afternoon around three pm, Nashville's own Katie Herzig stopped by the Lightning 100 studios to chat with David Hall and perform for us. Here is a live acoustic version of her song, Wish You Well, which you've been hearing on Lightning 100. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yytlRpF204U



I'll leave you this month with a funny video from the Nashville Dragon Boat races. My dad and I were on the Lightning 100 team this year and it was my first time to be a part of the event. It was a lot of fun and really great to beat the Pirates! Especially since we didn't beat too many other teams! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSt0Ae_sWVk

All the way to August

From http://danbuckley.blogspot.com/

It has been an interesting summer for your good friend Lt. Dan.

I got to take three vacations so far this summer. In June I took my family to visit my Grandma in Reno, NV. She had been in poor health earlier this year and we wanted to introduce her to her new Great Grandson. That was a wonderful visit. It was our third time visiting her and for the first time we stayed in a Casino in town. It was the Peppermill Casino and it really was beautiful. We were in a great room that overlooked a huge swimming area. There were two big pools, three hot tubs, a waterfall flowing from five stories up into an oval heated pool. The water felt like a massage from above. That really was a great experience.







Unfortunately, as in our first trip there when our first daughter was less than a year old, we ended up in the Emergency room again. Last time she had an ear infection and a terrible fever in the middle of the night. This time she had strep throat and an ear infection. Plus, the fever wouldn't respond to the medicine she was on. That was pretty stressful and expensive again. We did buy trip insurance with our travel package and they supposedly will pay the balance of what our insurance company does not. I'll be sure to let you know if that works out. I would highly recommend end it if it does.



For the fourth of July we went to the beautiful area of Galena, IL. It was a fun weekend celebration, although it was also the weekend that Steve McNair was killed. That was such tragic news to receive on the way to the party. I got a text message from a friend, who was in Nashville watching the local coverage. No one there knew at the time, since it was an outdoor barbecue. It was such a harsh and shocking crime. I'll always remember Steve for the hard working athlete he was.

We had a great time on the fourth though. Fireworks are not available in that area and we had brought a bunch of good ones from Tennessee. I guess we have a reputation for having some pretty good fireworks in this part of the country. The do sell them for pest control in Wisconsin but no one had any of those. So my father in law and I shot them off for about an hour. When we were done, the downtown Galena fireworks display began. It was perfect timing and great we could see them well on the hill, without dealing with any kind of traffic or inconveniences.






We not only celebrated the independence of our country that day, we celebrated my father in law's birthday! Check out how cool is cake was!





The week after July fourth, I had the opportunity to attend the Forecastle Festival in Louisville, KY. I went with my good friend Justin, whom I've known since he worked at Lightning 100, back when we were at the L&C Tower in downtown Nashville. We had a great time there. We arrived Saturday afternoon and got a hotel room at the Residence Inn by Marriott. Justin negotiated a killer deal, since they only had one room left, which had maintenance issues. They told us the room only had one of the two sinks in working condition. LOL! Like that mattered!



We saw some great bands at Forecastle. A UK funk band called the New Mastersounds, The Black Crowes, Yonder Mountain String Band, and Widespread Panic headlined two nights. One of my favorite bands we caught was the Avett Brothers. They have a show booked in Nashville at the historic Ryman auditorium on Halloween. The Ryman always seems to have great shows on Halloween. I remember moe. playing, one of the only bands that will never be invited back. Not because they weren't great on stage, but because the show got a little too wild for The Ryman. I wonder if Widespread Panic will ever play there again? My guess is that they will not. I know the Ryman had to do some major cleaning, after their October three night run a couple years ago. They also shattered all previous beer records that week. I was lucky enough to do an interview with Dave Schools backstage and attend a backstage party with their keyboard player Jojo. He has been living in the Middle Tennessee area for quite a few years now.

There is lots more to tell and not enough time to write. I have lots of chores to do this weekend. My wife and kids are returning from that vacation in Galena on Monday! I am really excited to see them! It's time to clean the house! I sure have been enjoying listening to music today though. Caught a bunch of Fred's show Retro Lightning. He was featuring the year 1971. I love listening to the late 60's early 70's music on Retro. It always feels like a bit of an education and I like that. I've also been listening to The Raconteurs wonderful record Consoler of the Lonely. It is one of the rare albums that resonates track for track with me. I just love listening to it. I also just listened to the new Features record again, Some kind of Salvation. What a great album that is! As I'm sure you'll hear many times again from me, I am a sucker for horns. I just love how they work them into some of the songs. It's the kind of music that puts you in a good mood, while you listen to it. I actually had the chance to interview them again this past Tuesday. They had self-released their latest album almost a year ago, and it was just made available nationwide, thanks to some help from their old friends Kings Of Leon. The Followills and Features have toured together in the past and have similar success patterns, as far as being bigger over seas than in the Unites States. I really believe the Features should blow it out with their latest effort. Time will tell of course but I am definitely pulling for the guys!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYX1wXgpT-E

This is Josh Combs again, Dan's intern. I first came to Bonnaroo in 2005 and was thoroughly impressed with just how much amazing music there was in one place. This year has been no exception, the only down side is that is just so hard to make up your mind on where you want to be. For the most part, I've been trying to catch a few songs at almost every show. Wilco wowed the crowd with what some are calling the best performance they had ever seen. Nine Inch Nails was an unbeleivable sensory overload. Ben Harper and Relentless 7 was a show I was looking forward to the most, and it was no disappointment. Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band played an enduring set that lasted almost 4 hours! MGMT was no surprise one of the best shows of the night for me. Finally, Moe. wrapped things up playing into the sunrise, and this is all just what happened last night! I wish I could see every band that's here this weekend, but sometimes you have to make sacrifices. Here are a couple more pictures from the weekend so far.

From http://danbuckley.blogspot.com/