Perils of Caffeine in the Evening

I thought I had things sealed up pretty well, but summer’s leaking away through fissures I never knew existed. I’m spending another precious week of it in Milwaukee, where I’m watching helplessly as the days noticeably shorten.

Last week in Seattle, we got out into the ‘hood for some quintessential summer walks. One night, we walked down to Greenlake and, on our way back, turned a corner and found a Night Out Against Crime block party in progress. Now, we’d had our own Night Out the week before, when the rest of the country had theirs. We asked a woman how they managed to stage their event a week or so later, and she said, “bad planning”.

Well, it might have been late, but it seemed to have been impeccably planned. There was, to our delight, a band, Six of One, playing some vintage rock on a parking strip, while kids rode trikes and skateboards and harassed each other with light sabers.

I had the S3 IS along, which takes pretty good video with stereo pickup. Here’s a rendition of the Allman Brothers’ tune One Way Out, with a bunch of cute kid-action shots:

This one is Del Shannon’s My Little Runaway.  At the beginning, you can hear me and Mrs. Perils guessing cluelessly at both the artist and the song.  Mrs. Perils, however, could probably get a degree in 60s musicology.  She partially saves her reputation by nailing the song title before the first word is sung, but we both strike out on the artist - we’re sure it’s The Ventures.  Some nice vocal cameos from Mrs. Perils here:

And this last number is CSN&Y’s Long Time Gone, with some delicious guitar work and, again, (possibly reluctant) vocal cameos from Mrs. Perils.  I think they’re darling:

We’re glad we discovered this little gathering, and we’ll look for the band whenever they’re giggin’.

I was working downtown on Tuesday and had a couple of hours between meetings.  It was a lovely day, and I took the opportunity to stroll around at lunchtime.  Harbor Steps is a sweeping staircase leading from the Seattle Art Museum down to the waterfront, and is a very “happening” place on a summer afternoon.

I arrived at Harbor Steps just in time to catch the last number in a lunchtime concert by Seattle R&B group Choklate.  We’d seen the band at the Bumbershoot festival several years ago.  My interest was also piqued as I recognized the keyboard player, Darius Willrich, from several other bands and jamfests that we’ve been around in the last decade.

As an added bonus, we were treated to some…eccentric…white-lady booty-shaking.  You get a glimpse of her as this video opens, and then at the end, I get a more robust lens-full.  I had the A720 and not the S3 IS, so the sound pickup is mono instead of stereo: