He's with The Band

The whole point of our roadtrip to Woodstock was to attend a Midnight Ramble. About a mile out of Woodstock, off an unsigned driveway through scribbly woods, is a little farm with a pimped out barn – the studio of Levon Helm, best known as the drummer for The Band. Every second Saturday Levon hosts a Ramble, and 200 or so people pay handsomely to hear hours of music from Levon and his amazing band, plus special guests. The night we went, Steve Earle opened proceedings with an unaccompanied acoustic set. The sound quality was phenomenal and I was amazed at how many of Earle’s songs I knew. Of course he closed with "Copperhead Road".

No cameras allowed inside, sadly

While we waited for the main set, we chatted to cashed-up baby boomers from Jersey and Long Island, nibbled free food (everyone has to bring a plate) and browsed Levon’s collection of Band memorabilia. Levon himself looks incredibly old and frail, but the blissed out expression on his face when he’s behind the drum kit is proof enough that he really just loves to perform. He lost his voice after an operation to remove his throat cancer, it has slowly come back. Now his voice is barely a croak, but he still takes the reins on vocals occasionally.

The rest of the band was incredible – piano, organ, trumpet, trombone, saxophone, sousaphone, double bass, a few guitarists and a female vocalist. Some of the horn players are in Conan O’Brien’s house band. From our balcony perch above the band, we could look down and see the set list - epic Band numbers, classic rhythm and blues, a cameo from Steve Earle... And the big closer: "The Weight". Unfortunately we had to leave before the show finished so we'll never know just how amazing that was, but we did see them do "Ophelia", "Long Black Veil", and a bunch of other killer tunes.



In all it was an expensive trip and tragically cut short, but the music was that good that there are no regrets. My Morning Jacket did a ramble recently. This report on the gig from Rolling Stone is killing me.

Halloween: A miner addendum

Can't believe I forgot to include this in my post on Halloween: by far the most common and topical costume choice was mobs of people dressed as Chilean miners...

This is my church

These clear, crisp mornings, fall chilling into winter, the sky so blue it’s painful. Coffee steaming in hand. Fingers jammed in coat pockets. The light is strong and golden and strains through red and orange leaves like so much stained glass; trees reach to each other from opposite sides of the street and I don’t feel like such an atheist. Forget the Sistine Chapel. This is my cathedral. This is what I believe in.

Playing dress-ups

Well, it's only taken me half the week to recover, but I've been hanging to post about my first Halloween. In Australia it's a holiday that's only observed by a handful of candy-greedy kids and uni students looking for yet another excuse to party, particularly in slutty costumes. Here in the States, though, Halloween is a big deal. More than a few people have told me it's their favourite holiday, more precious to them even than Christmas. And now I get it. I'm sure for children it's a magical occasion - the costumes, parties, and forcing strangers to give you treats. But for big kids it's a night where the bars are alive with drunken monsters, historical characters and pop culture icons, all united by a camraderie that is equal parts nostalgia and the chance to pretend to be someone else. A chance to wear your Marvel-comics obsession or ironic sense of humour on your sleeve. And your back. And your head.

It's so hard to pick a favourite costume of the night (and I'm here I mean Saturday night, though Sunday was the actual day of Halloween and the hectic parade through West Village), but I think mine was a merry band of muppets we kept bumping into as we bar crawled through the Lower East Side. There was a Swedish Chef, a chicken, Gonzo, Fozzie, Ralph, Beaker, Kermit and two yip-yip-yip-yip aliens. I'm not sure if all of them made their own costumes, but this lass dressed as Kermit made that amazing headpiece herself from fabric and a bike helmet. Well played.

Inspector Gadget was another well-executed costume that scored extra points for being one of my absolute favourite childhood cartoons. On that note, sadly I didn't see a Danger Mouse. But I did see a number of Kenny Powers (cf newfound Eastbound & Down obsession, get on board people!)... and high-fived every one of them. "You're fuckin out!"

There was a Ron Burgundy (Anchorman), a number of Kim Jong Ils, a very impressive Che Guevara T-shirt (the guy made himself up as Che and put a cardboard shirt around his head), and a heroin addict with a syringe dangling from his arm. He said it made saying no to beggars on the street much more entertaining. There was an awful lot of goose-pimpled female flesh on show in the inevitable slutty-(insert character here) costumes, so it was nice to see the objectification balance redressed occasionally. For example, there was a giant cock-and-balls sighted. And there was this guy (stilts and top hat sadly cropped out):

Everybody on the L train was trying so hard not to look. NB bare bottoms on the subway = not hygienic for anyone

A mini-trend was social media themed costumes. My friend went as the "sad FourSquare mayor" which is something I do not understand but proved a hit for more social-media savvy New Yorkers. At one point she had 10 people "checked in" to her and I believe it was the highlight of her night. For Twitter fans there was a great Fail Whale, and my favourite of all was an ostensibly uncostumed guy who was Mark Zuckerberg. He was even handing out business cards that said "I'm CEO, bitch". (You have seen The Social Network by now, right?)

Then there are those costumes that are just plain cute. Like French Toast here....

I opted for warmth and an excuse to smoke by dressing as Margot Tenenbaum. Unfortunately many people didn't get it because I struggled to maintain the requisite surly expression because I was having too much fun! I wish it could be Halloween every weekend..

A million little pieces

One of the (many) tiny, unexpected pleasures of New York has been checking out the various mosaic artworks in the city's subway stations. Some are as utilitarian as announcing the station name, but others shatter platform boredom with their cracked colours. Some have been freshly commissioned, others have been preserved from bygone eras. All can be found in a great online directory here. So many I want to go and see now!

These fish were an exciting discovery last night.

And Prince Street's tiny commuters scurrying along the walls were one of my first favourite discoveries. What a clever way to lighten up people's journeys!

You don't know Jack

So there were much more intricately carved jack-o-lanterns to be seen, but for a first attempt by three Aussies with no clue, I reckon we did OK...

Photobooth

You guys, Halloween is the BEST.