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"Seven Nation Army" by Nostalgia 77 
This is a totally crazy, soul/funk cover of The White Stripes's "Seven Nation Army" from British hip-hop artist Ben Lamdin (a.k.a. The Hermit), featuring singer Alice Russell. Not to be missed.
This version is from boutique label Ubiquity Records's Rewind! Volume 4.
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In honor of Barack Obama finally announcing his VP running mate, Joe Biden, get a free Obama button from MoveOn.org!
These high-quality Obama buttons are union-made, and made in America. Each button is 1.25 inches in diameter. Get yours free right now.
OR, you can get all three like I did for $2. :)
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"It's the Hornet" by Para
UK-based DJ Para spins killer late night club music. It just makes you wanna get up and dance. If only he were doing the Musician's Friend corporate retreat I have to attend for the next few days at Sun River Resort in Bend... Talk about livening things up.
DJ Para is part of the South London-based Funk & Hip-Hop Collective, Breakin Bread, and he also runs his own label, Hotshot Records, focused on releasing fresh new music and battle weapons for scratch musicians. Breakin Bread's monthly intimate West End session is at The Social the first Friday of every month.
Cool video of DJ Para in action:
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"Fast Blood" by Frightened Rabbit
I didn't like Frightened Rabbit much the first time I heard them--in particular, I found the vocals a tad bit grating--but this indie folk/rock band from Glasgow has really grown on me. Now, I can't stop listening to their sophomore release, The Midnight Organ Fight. It's got a raw sound, serious vulnerability, and complete lack of irony. Their song, "Good Arms vs. Bad Arms" was featured on Season 4 of the TV hit, Grey's Anatomy. Don't hold it against them. The album is still one of the best of the year.
Here's Frightened Rabbit performing "Fast Blood" at a sold-out show at Pianos in NYC 5/27/08.
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Direct marketing expert, Alan Rimm-Kaufman did an interview last week with my good friend and multichannel marketing recruiter-extraordinaire, Harry Joiner, for his popular search marketing blog, rkgblog.com.
Alan's resume is impressive--PhD from MIT, a regular speaker at multichannel and online marketing events from shop.org to the DMA, online retailing columnist for Catalog Success, prior VP of Marketing at Crutchfield, and as of five years ago, founder and president of The Rimm-Kaufman Group, a leading paid search & website effectiveness practice.
The interview, titled "How To Hire Top-Notch Online Marketing Talent," not only details Harry's philosophy of online marketing and executive search, but it even mentions yours truly several times, including a lovely quote I am quite proud of from Alan in response to apparently very good advice I once gave Harry: "So Young is a smart woman." Never let it be said I was anything but. :)
The entire interview transcript is here for your reading pleasure. To get the full effect, though, listen to the 17-minute podcast for free.
In the interest of full disclosure, let me say that at last year's shop.org, I met Alan and over a period of a few months, decided to move the Musician's Friend paid search business to RKG. Haven't regretted it a bit (no wonder he thinks I'm smart)! <g>
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Every year for the last five or so, I've gone to Phil Terry's Beach Party in Oceanside, CA. The first year, it was more of a birthday party. Subsequent years have been more work-related and now are essentially a combination networking and Customer Experience Council event. As such, they even have real caterers (no more having to run up and down the Costco aisles with Phil's mom for salsa & soda!).
This year was extra special in that the night before the beach party, we celebrated Phil & Lisa's marriage with a west coast wedding reception. It was a blast--friends, fun, dancing, and, hey, even Marines!
Check out the pictures from the 2008 beach party and the 2008 wedding party a couple weeks ago.
2007 beach party pictures are here.
And just a tip if you are ever in Oceanside, CA. Don't miss dinner at Azafran for great Cuban food and breakfast at the Beach Break Cafe where all the locals go before they surf all day.
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The Kooks's latest album, Konk, is more of the same tight, catchy, Brit-alt-pop that got my attention with their debut, Inside In/Inside Out. You've got to love a band that got their name from a David Bowie song ("Kooks" off the 1971 David Bowie album Hunky Dory). They've got an earnest sweetness, an almost teenage romanticism, that Arctic Monkeys lacks, due in large part to lead singer Luke Pritchard's high school boyfriend kind of sound. You can imagine him singing these tunes to his date at the coolest prom in the world. :)
And here's a couple of Aussie high school lads doing a cover of "Gap"--they really are pretty good! Their band is called Futarias. They take requests and post the videos of themselves performing on YouTube.
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(Left: A real lobster roll. Alas, not the one I got at The Wharf.)
After the baked potato incident from last Sunday, I felt some guilt. I noticed that traffic was coming to my blog from people typing in "the wharf medford oregon" and of course what they were getting once they arriv
ed was an absurd story about a call I had with the hostess. I figured I had to give the place a chance, so I went there for dinner after work Wednesday night.
The Wharf is cute--you can tell that it used to be a pizza joint, but it's blue and white, has a sea mural on the wall, and looks sufficiently seafood shack-y. It also purports to be a seafood market, but the halibut in the case looked a bit worse for wear.
Anyway, we were seated quickly. I opened the menu and what do I see but an alarming notice:
Dinner available all day. Baked or mashed potatoes only available after 5.
(The true impact of this only makes sense if you read the baked potato incident--here is the link.)
Why this is, I have no idea and I felt ridiculous asking, so unfortunately I have failed in solving the baked potato mystery. However, I am willing to give a quick review of the restaurant, just for the hell of it.
First, let me say that to date, I've stayed away from doing true restaurant reviews on my blog, even though I am a huge foodie. There are several reasons for this. For one thing, although I am overjoyed that Ashland has good restaurants, there are few here that can really rival what I got in NYC even on an average day. My standards are high, and as a result, if I really were honest, the vast majority of my reviews would be pretty harsh. Another reason: restaurant reviewing is a real pain. Rather than just enjoying my meal and the company, it forces me to keep track of everything going on. I don't want eating to become work. I already have a job! All that said, I'm willing to share a brief review of The Wharf with you. Enjoy.
We ordered two Walkabout Worker's Pale Ales. This is a good local beer made by a coworker of mine and her husband. The glasses weren't chilled, but otherwise, A-OK.
Needless to say, I stayed away from the dinner options. Jeff ordered a fresh fish sandwich and I ordered a lobster roll. We had a cup of clam chowder and steamed mussels to start.
The steamed mussels were well scrubbed, plump, and soft. The white wine broth had too much butter (so much, in fact, that it prevented me from spooning it up like soup which I usually love to do), but it was still pretty good. The clam chowder was also fairly acceptable--creamy and tangy and not overly potatoed which usually results in a thick, starchy mess. At this point, I was feeling hopeful.
Then the entrees arrived. The fish sandwich was pretty good--beer battered cod with all the fixins. Nothing special, but fine. The steak fries were slightly underdone.
My lobster roll, however, was an absolute travesty. The top of a roll was hollowed out to make room for a few sad pieces of lobster in a cream sauce and parmesan on top that had obviously been put in the oven. Sort of like a bizarre lobster alfredo casserole in a roll-shaped bread bowl. This was certainly not the spartan lobster roll that I know--a buttered, toasted bun (usually a hot dog-shaped one) with huge chunks of soft lobster tossed in just a tad bit of mayo and lemon, sometimes with a small amount of fine diced celery and/or onion, but with the lobster always always as the star.
I picked out the lobster (at approx. $14, each bite was $3.50) and left the rest.
The waitress, who was fine btw, asked me, "How's the lobster roll?"
"Well, it's not really a lobster roll."
"Oh...are you from the east coast or something? We've never been. I don't really know what one really is." Ack!
I'm a bit of a purist about this kind of thing, so I was compelled to explain the virtues of a real lobster roll. She was really nice about it and even came back to tell me she let the chef know (for whatever good that will do).
My bill was $50. Pretty hefty, I'd say, although if my lobster roll had been good, I would have been OK paying that. The ambiance and service were fine for the kind of restaurant that it is. The food needs some work. Two Stars out of Four using the Southern Oregon curve. **
If I still lived in NYC, I probably wouldn't go back, but honestly, I'm fairly certain I'll end up trying it once more for lunch. The choices in Medford are pretty few and far between and Ashland is too far to go back to during the work week.
Want a real lobster roll in NYC? Try Mary's Fish Camp or Pearl Oyster Bar two of my faves.
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