2016.10.06 Putting Germany Back Where It Belongs

3-Players: W, K, & G
Game: Imperial

Location: K

Choice: Consensus

Game One:

Player	Points
K	178
W	168
G	157

Final Tally:

• K was declared this week's winner!

As usual, Germany is nowhere near the top

Music Notes:


Cabin Mix
Grateful Dead: Steppin' Out (Recorded England 1972)
 

 

 

2016.09.29 Germany is the New Germany

 

6-Players: W, M, K, Z, J & G
Game: Imperial

Location: K

Choice: K

Game One:

Player	Points
G	139
K	116
Z	90
M	87
J	81
W	75

Final Tally:

• G was declared this week's winner!

Music Notes:

Buffalo Springfield: Buffalo Springfield (1966)

Peter Gabriel: Car (1977)
    First solo album

Genesis: Selling England by the Pound (1973)

Frank Zappa: Joe's Garage Vol 1 (1979)

2016.08.18 The Empire's Loss

6-Players: W, Si, K, Z, J & G
Game: Imperial

Location: W

Choice: Consensus

Game One:

Player	Points
G	112
Z	105
K	98
W	84
Si	83
J	78

Final Tally:

• G was declared this week's winner!
  

Music Notes:


McCoy Tyner: Sahara (1972)
Thelonius Monk & John Coltrane: Thelonious Monk with John Coltrane (1961)
Chris Joss: Teraphonic Overdubs (2008)
Max Webster: Diamonds, Diamonds (1977)

2016.06.02 Si chooses, Si loses

5-Players: W, G, Si, Z & K
Game: Imperial
Location: W
Choice: Si


Game One:


Player	Points
Z	131
G	128
W	108
K	105
Si	79

Final Tally:

• Z was declared this week's winner!

Country scores at the end of game

Game Notes:

• Starting influence was decided by bidding
• First time Z didn't start in control of Austria
• Russia was the first country to get to Credit x 5 and end the game
• Si and W were both able to name another song by Procol Harem besides Lighter Shade of Pale but nobody could name a band member

Music Notes:

Sly and the Family Stone: There's a Riot Goin On (1971)
Gov't Mule: Dub Side of the Mule (2015, Recorded New Year's 2006)
  Featuring some groovy cover tunes (including She Said, She said and Tomorrow Never Knows from the Beatles and Lighter Shade of Pale by Procol Harem and also featuring special guests Gordie Johnson from Big Sugar and Toots Hibbert from Toots and the Maytals.

2016.05.12 Put Some France in Your Pants

6-Players: Si, W, M, J, Z & G
Game: Imperial
Location: Z
Choice: G


Game One:


Player	Points
Si	80
W	77
M	75
G	61
J	60
Z	58

Final Tally:

• Si was declared this week's winner!

Game Notes:

Country	Victory Point Multiplier
France	x5
Austria	x3
England	x3
Germany	x3
Russia	x2
Italy	x2

Music Notes:

Grateful Dead: Dick's Picks Vol 4: February 14, 1970 - Not Fade Away
Grateful Dead: Dave’s Picks Volume 16: March 28, 1973 - Dark Star -> Eyes of the World
Pink Floyd: Animals (1977)
Wildcard's Choice: ?
Medeski, Martin & Wood: End of the World Party (Just in Case) (2004)

2016.03.08 Not That Kind of Game

6-Players: W, Si, K, F, G & Z
Game: Imperial + Alhambra
Location: W
Choice: W


Game One (Imperial):


Player	Points
F	82
Si	61
Z	60
G	46
K	39
W	29

Game Two (Alhambra):

Player	Points
G	97
Si	75
Z	72
K	50
F	42
W	21

Final Tally:

• F was declared this week's winner!

Game Notes:

• F's first time playing
• K announced that Imperial was not the kind of game that you could ever win the first time you play it
• Rare early finish to Imperial
• England was the first power to reach x5
• Only Game 1 counted toward the final tally
• Stove sausage is planned for the retreat

Music Notes:

Deep Purple: Made In Japan (1972)

Double live album. Recorded in August 1972. Ritchie Blackmore and Ian Gillan. Classic, though side four dragged a little until Space Truckin takes you home.

Jethro Tull: Aqualung (1971)

The classic. Their best selling album. Required listening for adulthood.

2016.03.03 What Happened to Austria

6-Players: W, Si, K, J, G & Z
Game: Imperial

Location: W
Choice: K


Game One:




Player	Points
Si	141
J	132
Z	130
G	117
K	116
W	104

Final Tally:

• Si was declared this week's winner!

Game Notes:

Music Notes:

Graham Central Station: Graham Central Station (1974)

Paul Butterfield Blues Band: East-West (1966)

Beastie Boys: Hot Sauce Committee, Part 2 (2011)

Quantic Soul Orchestra: Stampede (2003)

Frank Zappa: Apostrophe (1974)

2016.02.18 Return of the Keeng

4-Players: W, Si, K & G
Game: Imperial


Location: W
Choice: Si


Game One:

Player	Points
W	106
K	104
Si	94
G	90

Final Tally:

• W was declared this week's winner!

Game Notes:

• We played upstairs. Classy!
• G was dealt Germany as his starting country. His pleas for a re-deal fell on deaf ears and he was forced to play with the handicap.

Music Notes:

M8trix: Mix 96, Get Yourself Together (2015)

Great mixtape posted on bmbx.com. Get it yourself and get yourself together.

Liquid Soul: Revolutions (2013)

Fairport Convention: Liege & Lief (1969)

Augustus Pablo: East of the Nile (1977)

2016.01.21 Imperial: Meady Beady Big and Bouncy

4-Players: W, K, Si, G
Game: Imperial
Location: W
Choice: Si

Game One:

Player	Points
G	95
W	81
Si	69
K	60

Final Tally:

G was declared this week's winner.

Music Notes:

Circles Around the Sun: Interludes for the Dead (2015)

Former Black Crowes and CRB members jam on the key of GD. This double-cd was commissioned by the film-makers responsible for the video/still montage that aired before and during the intermissions for the Grateful Dead's Fare Thee Well shows this past summer. We only listened to the first two jams before popular opinion forced a change in music. This was unfortunate because we didn't hear either of the two best songs from the set: Kasey's Bones and Farewell Franklins. Neal Casal, the guitarist said this of the latter song: "That song is a tip of the hat to the 'Eyes of the World' vibe; not exactly like the song, but just as a feeling, the breezy feeling about 'Eyes of the World' that was always an important pillar in their catalog," Casal explains. The quartet had originally finished the song at about 13 minutes, but MacDougall kept playing after the other three put their instruments down. "He developed this new, simple theme he was playing over and over again. We all just stood there silently watching and listening to him do this and realized he was not finished yet, so we put our instruments back on and started another theme and developed the second movement of the song. It happened on the spot and we went on for another 10 minutes into an entirely different feeling and sound and ended up with a 25-minute piece of music out of just trying to give Grateful Dead fans a little taste of 'The Eyes of the World.'" Don't fear, dear reader, one day soon this song will find it's way to the air some game night for all to enjoy.


Kamasi Washington: The Epic (2015)

Favourite jazz album of the year. This triple cd treasure trove is the debut for this artist who gained some notoriety for collaborating with Kendrick Lamar on his popular album To Pimp a Butterfly. Just give a listen to the heavy fusion reminiscent of Miles Davis' Bitches Brew line-up: Re Run Home. We listened to discs two and three.

2015.05.13 “Only he who has no use for the empire is fit to be entrusted with it.” - Zhuangzi, The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu

Everything that has transpired has done so, according to my design.

5 Players: G, W,  K, Sc, M
Game: Imperial
Location: K
Choice: group


 

Game One:

G(100pts), M(97pts), Sc(95pts), W(89pts) & K(85pts)

 

Final Tally:

G was declared victor for this week.

 

Notes:




• France was the first country to reach 25 points
• Italy was the worst run country

 

Music Features

Phish 2012-09-01 Commerce City, CO (Dick's Sporting Goods Park)

A fantastic example of Phish 3.0. This was the second night of a three-night run at Dick's. These three shows would end the 2012 Summer Tour. A three-night run at Dick's to end the Summer Tour has become a new tradition for the band and this was a night to remember. Just check out the killer setlist:

 

Set 1:

Run Like an Antelope

Backwards Down the Number Line >

Tweezer >

Fluffhead >

Roses Are Free (Ween cover) >

Funky Bitch >

The Moma Dance >

When the Circus Comes to Town (Los Lobos cover)

Theme From the Bottom >

Golgi Apparatus

Stealing Time From the Faulty Plan

 

Set 2:

Golden Age (TV on the Radio cover) >

Prince Caspian >

Light

Boogie On Reggae Woman (Stevie Wonder cover) >

The Wedge

The Horse >

Silent in the Morning >

Mike's Song >

No Quarter (Led Zeppelin cover) >

Weekapaug Groove

 

Encore:

Sleeping Monkey >

Tweezer Reprise

 

 

 

2015.05.07 Putting the "Imp" in Imperial

Except for Germany, that is.



W had the same faraway look
as we tallied the victory points

5 Players: G, W,  K, J, S
Game: Imperial
Location: K
Choice: G


 

Game One:

G(113pts), J(87pts), K(82pts), S(77pts) & W(75pts)

 

Final Tally:

G was declared victor for this week.

 

Notes:




• Italy was the first country to reach 25 points
• England was the worst run country
• Before the game began, W was asked if he would like to swap starting flags from Germany to England. His reply: "What does it matter? I'm still going to lose this fucking game?"
• To the shock of all participants, one of us revealed that he cries every time he watches Disney's Frozen. He also wept at Disney on ice. He's a crier.
• Possible non-canon game this coming Saturday

 

Music Features

Frank Zappa: Over-Nite Sensation (1973)

Love it or hate it, Over-Nite Sensation was a watershed album for Frank Zappa, the point where his post-'60s aesthetic was truly established; it became his second gold album, and most of these songs became staples of his live shows for years to come.

 

Whereas the Flo and Eddie years were dominated by rambling, off-color comedy routines, Over-Nite Sensation tightened up the song structures and tucked sexual and social humor into melodic, technically accomplished heavy guitar rock with jazzy chord changes and funky rhythms; meanwhile, Zappa's growling new post-accident voice takes over the storytelling.

Frank always dressed up
for games of Imperial

 

While the music is some of Zappa's most accessible, the apparent callousness and/or stunning sexual explicitness of "Camarillo Brillo," "Dirty Love," and especially "Dinah-Moe Humm" leave him on shaky aesthetic ground. Zappa often protested that the charges of misogyny leveled at such material missed out on the implicit satire of male stupidity, and also confirmed intellectuals' self-conscious reticence about indulging in dumb fun; however, the glee in his voice as he spins his adolescent fantasies can undermine his point. Indeed, that enjoyment, also evident in the silly wordplay, suggests that Zappa is throwing his juvenile crassness in the face of critical expectation, asserting his right to follow his muse even if it leads him into blatant stupidity (ironic or otherwise).

 

One can read this motif into the absurd shaggy-dog story of a dental floss rancher in "Montana," the album's indisputable highlight, which features amazing, uncredited vocal backing from Tina Turner and the Ikettes. As with much of Zappa's best '70s and '80s material, Over-Nite Sensation could be perceived as ideologically problematic (if you haven't got the constitution for FZ's humor), but musically, it's terrific.

 (from AllMusic.com May 2015)

 

Fred Eaglesmith wouldn't make W cry

G's Folk Mix: Fall '06 Vol. 1

Included tunes from several artists that have played Blue Skies Music Festival. Some highlights:

 

Ian Tamblyn's Vancouver Island Song, Fred Eaglesmith's Cumberland County, Ani Difranco, Roy Harper, Greg Brown, Chuck Brodsky & Bruce Cockburn covering Mississippi John Hurt

 

The Grateful Dead: Two from the Vault (Recorded August 1968)

 

( Notes from Stereophile.com )

What I've always liked about the Dead is their willingness to take chances, to screw up in public and on record. To paraphrase Miles Davis, if you're not making mistakes, you're not making music.

 

Seriously, why isn't this a rule?

Live Dead, the classic 1960s Grateful Dead concert album, was so good it became a bit of a problem for the band. In an interview years later, lead guitarist Jerry Garcia griped good-naturedly about how the version of "Dark Star" on that album became, for a while, the version for record-oriented Deadheads nonplussed by the Dead's wildly varying performances of the tune. That concert was one moment in time, Garcia said (and I paraphrase), never to be repeated. After all, if the Dead are about anything, they're about improvisation.

 

Well, yes and no. Two from the Vault, recorded on two August nights in 1968, roughly the same era as Live Dead and the same songlist (with additions from Anthem of the Sun), proves at once how much mileage the Dead could get out of the same handful of tunes, and just how much variety they could come up with without changing the arrangements a bit.

 

Same thing happened to me once.
well, more than once actually...

Reading between the lines of producer Dan Healy's lengthy technical notes, I get the strong hunch that a number of Vault 2's versions of the '68 set list—particularly of "The Eleven," "Death Don't Have No Mercy," and "Turn On Your Lovelight"—would have made it on to Live Dead had the technology then been available to salvage tapes which have only recently been rendered usable.

 

Healy tells a fascinating story of conservative engineers from Warner Bros. (the Dead's label at the time) not trusting Healy, et al, with Warner's fancy new 8-track recording equipment. "The engineers they sent to us were accustomed to recording Big Band style and were not familiar with Rock & Roll close microphone techniques." Warners used a small number of mikes placed at considerable distances: vocal and audience mikes combined, each drumkit premixed to a single track, etc. Healy's challenges were those of "severe phase cancellation and time smear that reduced the time image to nothing." Using a B&K 2032 FFT analyzer and TC1280 delay units, Healy and Don Pearson were able to individually delay each of the tracks to compensate for their different mike distances, the result being a convincing semblance of "a nearly perfect stereo image." Think of that: the term "stereo image" discussed by a rock engineer. Amazing.

After all that, Two from the Vault sounds a lot like Live Dead, but with a less digitally friendly high end. Besides, two of the things I always enjoyed about early Dead albums were the natural dynamics and that distant drum miking; the drums sounded like real, homemade, wooden instruments, even if kickdrum went missing.

 

( Notes from Stereophile.com )



2015.04.24-2015.04.26 Unverifiable "facts"

 

 

Games In Review

Game 0: Dominion (Base + Seaside)

Time: Friday (day)
Scores: K (20pts), S (12pts), J (10pts) & G (10pts)
Final Verdict: K was the clear winner
Notes:

• Only four of six gamers were present
• Custom deck: (Moat, Woodcutter, Thief, Library, Festival, Salvager, Ghost Ship, Lookout, Smugglers, Native Village)



Caverna waits patiently by the fire while Friday's dinner is served and enjoyed

Game 1: Caverna

I smelled like this
when I got home

Time: Friday (night)Scores: S (74pts), G (71pts), K (64pts), J (60pts), W (53pts) & M (42pts)
Final Verdict: S was the clear winner




nah

Game 2 Stone Age

Time: Saturday (day)
Scores Fireplace: K (195pts), G (153pts), & S (132pts)
Scores Dining Table: M (120pts), J (103pts) & W (99pts)
Final Verdict: K was the clear winner
Notes:

• Two simultaneous games

I'm the one in the hat



Game 3: Imperial

Time: Saturday (day)
Scores: G (84pts), M (77pts), K (60pts), J (59pts), W (59pts) & S (59pts)
Final Verdict: G was the clear winner




Game 4: Alhambra

Time: Saturday (night)
Scores: G (103pts), J (70pts), K (64pts), M (60pts), S (55pts) & W (37pts)
Final Verdict: G was the clear winner and was also presented (in his dreams a la Corporal Clegg) with the prestigious Doctor Johnny Fever award for his unrestrained performance.


I even ate my vegetables

Game 5: 7 Wonders (Cities expansion)

Time: Saturday (night)
Scores: J (66pts), S (66pts), G (57pts), K (57pts), M (56pts) & W (55pts)
Final Verdict: J was the winner
Notes:

• Tiebreakers:
• J takes first place with 24 gold, beating S with 7 gold, and
• G takes third place with 19 gold, beating K with 12 gold.

I love this card but, then again, I mostly lose at this game

Game 6: 7 Wonders (Cities expansion)

Time: Saturday (night)
Scores: J (62pts), M (61pts), K (56pts), W (55pts), S (54pts) & G (53pts)
Final Verdict: J was the clear winner




pussies. I stand by that

Game 7: Dominion (Base + Intrigue)

Time: Sunday (day)
Scores Fireplace: K (35pts), M (31pts), & S (25pts)
Scores Dining Table: G (47pts), W (41pts) & J (18pts)
Final Verdict: G was the winner
Notes:

• Two simultaneous games
• Custom deck



I don't remember
this card bring played...

Game 8: Dominion (Base + Intrigue)

Time: Sunday (day)
Scores Fireplace: W (42pts), G (26pts), & M (15pts)
Scores Dining Table: K (35pts), S (31pts) & J (27pts)
Final Verdict: W was the winner
Notes:

• Two simultaneous games
• Custom deck
• Slightly modified custom deck from earlier game

meanwhile... over at the stock ticker table,
 the economy suffered

Game 9: Stock Ticker

Time: All weekend
Scores: J ($7 450), M ($7 050), S ($4 475), K ($4 475), G ($3 350) & W ($2 250)
Final Verdict: J was the winner
Notes:

• Tiebreaker: S drew the higher random card

 

Weekend Review

Notes:

• stopped here on the way up for a great selection of Quebec microbrews: Depanneur Rapido
• even match-ups: every single player was able to win at least one game
• J won the overall weekend score as tabulated by K
• there's great poutine in a little diner in Shawville on Hwy 148 just after the 303 turn-off
• the cottage was a bit cold at first but once the fireplace had been burning for a few hours the place quickly grew quite warm
• only one instance of vomitus horriblis
• there were shiny new bellies and hairy old ones
• mouse poop was ubiquitous
• we fixed the broken water pipe!
• S managed, after several others haplessly tried, to put up the %#& eavestrough
• a disappointing amount of chips were consumed despite the overabundance of said snack items
• all agreed that the weekend was a success
• big thank you to Laurie and family: a collection was struck up to purchase a suitable bottle de vin for the generous proprietress