For the majority of the time I’ve been blogging, I’ve had the opportunity to be on a host that scales with how much I’ve written. That’s not the case with this site. Instead, I’m blogging with tight constraints.

It’s as much an exercise in consolidating thoughts and other media into something that’ll last for a significantly longer under tighter constraints.

Given the low traffic and the wide purpose of this site, it seems to be an fun way to see how much I can get out of limited hosting with little media.

John Mayer Solo in 2023

April 4, 2023 /

A few months ago, I wrote about our seeing John Mayer back in Atlanta for the second year in a year.

We’re going to see John Mayer during his acoustic tour in Atlanta later next month. When scouring r/JohnMayer on Reddit to see what people were saying about ticket sales (since everything was through the mess that is TicketMaster),

It’s hard to say if the show was the best we’ve ever seen with him because it was him completely solo. In one sense, it was the best; in other, there’s been no other show like it.

Set List

The following is the set list for his night in Atlanta. Between a couple of a sets, he played videos from when he first released Room for Squares and when he released Continuum.

Slow Dancing in a Burning Room
Emoji of a Wave
Heartbreak Warfare
XO

🎥 Video 1

Why Georgia
Neon
Waiting on the Day
83
Split Screen Sadness
Drifting
Something Missing / In Your Atmosphere
New Light / You’re Gonna Live Forever in Me
Changing

🎥 Video 2

Stop This Train
In The Blood
Who Says
Your Body is a Wonderland
Walt Grace’s Submarine Test, January 1963
A Face to Call Home
If I Ever Get Around To Living
Edge of Desire

👏🏻 Encore
Shouldn’t Matter But it Does / Forever Young
Free Fallin’

If Mayer ever does another show like this, it won’t be soon enough; if this is the only time he’s ever done it, it was worth far more than the price of admission.

And for those of you who have never seen him live – especially those of you who are musicians – you need to see him at least once. He’s the greatest guitar of my generation and you’re going to be missing out on more than a concert if you miss it. You’ll be missing out on an experience.

Favorite Albums of 2022

December 29, 2022 /

Each year, I maintain a folder of playlists for the music that I discover, enjoy, and end up listening to throughout the year. Sure, the “Spotify Wrapped” is fun (or the “Apple Music Replay” or whatever thing your favorite service calls it), but I don’t think it does a great job of really highlighting exactly what it is that I liked.

Part of this is because I end up looping certain songs over and over when trying to work them out on the guitar so it skews the end results a bit. But I digress.

Here’s a list of my favorite albums of the year (they didn’t necessarily come out this year, and they are in no particular order, but If found ’em and kept them on repeat):

  • Fitz and the Tantrums – Let Yourself Free
  • Hanson – Red, Green, Blue
  • Strange Things 4 OST
  • Morgan Wade – Acoustic Sessions EP
  • The Goo Goo Dolls – Chaos in Bloom
  • Patrick Droney – State of the Heart, Deluxe
  • Carole King – Beautiful
  • Larry Fleet – Stack of Records
  • Thomas Rhett – When We Started
  • The Killers – Pressure Machine, Deluxe
  • Anderson East – M.W.N.D / F.A.M.E
  • Timecop1983 – Faded Touch
  • Yebba – Live at Electric Lady
  • American Aquarium – Lamentations


Of all of the above:

  • 🎸 My absolute favorite album from a guitarists standpoint is Patrick Droney’s State of the Heart. Give The River a listen.
  • 🥃 Morgan Wade continues to be my favorite new country artist. Check out The Night, Part 2 to see just how far her talent expands from a the first part of this story.
  • 🕚 Timecop1983 is my favorite ambient retrowave. Try out Tokyo for something with lyrics if straight up ambient music isn’t your thing.
  • 💎 A gem of a find this year was Willie Nelson and Lucinda William’s cover of Billy Joe Shaver’s Live Forever.

You fathers and you mothers
Be good to one another
Please try to raise your children right
Don’t let the darkness take ’em
Don’t make ’em feel forsaken
Just lead them safely to the light.

Billy Joe Shaver, Live FOrever

And I could probably go on a bit with a few other singles like the back-to-basics punk rock of Blink 182’s newest single or the version of Don’t Be Cruel by Billy Swan featured in For All Mankind but if I did that, I’d never finish this post.

So I’m stopping here (before I end on a link to Peaches & Diesel by Eric Clapton which obviously has the flavor of Wonderful Tonight as its foundation).

That’s all for now.

Note: If you’re curious about how I sync music from Spotify to Apple Music to get the highest quality version of the audio, be sure to read this post.

This week, I finished the third season for For All Mankind. I remember wanting to watch this show when it first launched on Apple TV+ three years ago. Because life has a way of doing it’s thing, it took me until November of 2022 to start it.

I binged it as much as a working father of three can do so: I put my iPad up on the treadmill, throw on some headphones, and ran for an hour.

I have my thoughts on each season as much as anyone, but this is absolutely one of the best shows I’ve watched. It might be in my Top 5 at this point. 🤔

I can’t wait for Season 4 (or for 2003, for those of you who have watched it :).

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