I heard someone in the crowd telling a friend, "The last time I saw Lucero was on a boat." They had a slide guitarist that night, but I was thinking that if you hadn't seen or heard Lucero in 18 months, seeing them Sunday night would have been something of a shock. Lucero officially added keyboardist Rick Steff and slide guitarist Todd Beene to the band, cementing the lineup of the last couple shows I've seen. And at least on this tour in support of their new album 1372 Overton Park, they're playing with a three piece horn section. Adding 5 (FIVE!) additional people to a 4 piece band will obviously change things.

1372 Overton Park features horns on every track except the last, so it was pretty clear Lucero would bring a horn section on the road for at least this tour, but I wondered how they'd work the horns in with the older material. If I remember correctly, the solution was a set list that looked like this: a couple of new ones with horns, a couple of old ones with horns, a couple of new ones with horns, a couple of old ones with horns, horns take a break while band plays a couple of old ones, Ben with slide and keyboards, horns come back for a couple of new ones, a couple of old ones with horns, a new one with horns, thank you, good night. Mixing the horns in and out, was something that may have been better suited to 2 distinct sets, but I'm not sure how that would have flowed.They didn't play "What are you Willing to Lose" (which they skipped the night before in New York), unfortunately, but they did hit most of the new album, along with a rousing version of "The Blue and The Gray" "The War", "Mom", "Chain Link Fence", "I Can Get Us Out of Here", "All Sewn Up", and "Last Pale Light" from Ben's solo album.

Overall, it was a solid set, lacking some of the drunken sloppiness that had characterized shows from a couple years ago (though we got some of that towards the end, too). The last couple shows have been more sober than the first couple I saw, and while previously, that relative sobriety brought something of a stiffness to the sets, the band seems to be growing into it more.

I also sensed something of a self-consciousness to the band's set choices... Lucero likes playing and cares about their fans, to be sure, but a two hour set is long for a band with punk rock roots. I wondered if that was acknowledgment of the $20 ticket price. A price, by the way, which probably kept the Middle East from selling out, but just barely, as the room was mostly full. (Incidentally, Lucero played for OVER 2 hours this spring at the Paradise, and tickets were $15 then, so who knows.) Mixing the horns in and out, was something that may have been better suited to 2 distinct sets, but I'm not sure how that would have flowed. There was definitely a desire to play the new songs, but also a willingness to take requests from the crowd for old songs, even if horn arrangements weren't prepared for those songs. Maybe by the end of the tour it will be horns all night, but I couldn't tell if that was the plan.

A note about the sound. I had planned to watch the show from the raised bar area at stage right, but the sound was so bad up there I retreated to the floor in the middle of the first song where the sound was fine (after a song or 2). I think it might have been an issue with the stage volume being too loud for the sound guy to mix appropriately, but the sound on the floor straightened out eventually, while the sound on the raised bar area never did.

I'm interested to see Lucero next time around. Have they kept the horns and added arrangements to all of the old songs, reworked the new songs to accommodate missing horn lines, or have they done what they did Sunday and mixed it all together? This last option would surprise me. Frankly, Lucero has a relatively standard base sound and song structure; 2 guitars, bass, drums, no crazy solos, versechorusbridgerepeat, etc. And yet, as a band, they've continued to grow, as songwriters and as performers, while continuing to write songs that resonate with their fans. Because of this, it's unlikely they'll come back through town without changing something up, which is about all you want from a band.

I hope this works, but for some reason, I feel kind of pessimistic about it. However, the comments on this article do not disappoint!

-Props in the NYTimes for Boston's efforts to become a friendlier city for bicyclists.

-Plans to bring bikesharing to Boston [Yes please]:

Bike sharing is the next step. The city envisions making available between 1,000 and 3,000 bikes at stations 300 or 400 yards apart, located at subway and bus stops, main squares, tourist sites, and across city neighborhoods.

-The Boston Globe takes on Boston's poorly mannered bikers and Boston Biker takes them to task for not really getting to the heart of the problem; that it's not just bicyclists in Boston that are irresponsible rule breakers.

I've written before about "Fake Traffic" and a developed theory called "The Wave Theory of Traffic" and I'm happy once again to write that scientists have used math and science to prove that ‘Phantom’ Traffic Jams exist and they're working to mitigate them.

The MIT team found speed, traffic density and other factors can determine conditions that will lead to a jamiton and how quickly it will spread. Once the jam forms, the researchers say, drivers have no choice but to wait for it to clear. The new model could lead to roads designed with sufficient capacity to keep traffic density below the point at which a jamiton can form.

Via Boing Boing.

Mike sent over this video comparing the future of biking on 2 of Boston's bigger streets, Mass Ave and Comm Ave. The short documentary makes the point that the streets are going in opposite directions (as it were) in regards to bike safety.



And here, via Dave, is a short story about London city planners using a 3D sidewalk design to try to slow bikers down. I don't think it's going to work more than once.

Chef Will Gilson of Cambridge's Garden at the Cellar is raising two cute pigs, Porcini and Truffle, for slaughter later this summer in anticipation of a dinner at the James Beard House in New York. The pigs are being raised on a farm, not at the restaurant, but I still think it's notable. I like eating meat, but I also think people should make a conscious decision about what they're eating. Articles like this that put a cute face on your pork chop force you to think about it. More chefs raising their own animals (hopefully as close to the restaurant as possible) will mean better educated eaters, and I hope more local chefs adopt this way of sourcing meat.

So says this report from the UK:

The reasons for this inverse correlation are many, according to Peck, and include the likelihood of better cycling infrastructure in areas where more people ride, the fact that if car drivers also occasionally cycle they are likely to be more careful with bikes, and the statistical quirk that a higher proportion of riders in low-cycling areas tend to be young men with a higher than average threshold for risk.

I love the "statistical quirk". It's good to put a scientific survey behind something that seems intuitively obvious. I would have also thought that drivers who are more used to cyclists on the road would drive more carefully, but that didn't seem to make the cut. Boston/Cambridge is just going to keep getting safer and safer the more people ride.

Via Twitter.

I might be the only one on the internet talking about this, but all Matzo sold during Passover should be Passover safe. Look, I know I have to take personal responsibility for this, but I could have used a little help. Streit's, I'm looking at you. Shaw's Porter Square, you should be ashamed. You can't have a "Passover Section" and include foods that aren't for Passover.

Incidentally, you might wonder why it's OK for Matzo to be made out of flour, but not be able to eat any other unleavened flour products. Matzo is made under strict supervision and must come out of the oven less than 18 minutes after water is first mixed with the flour. No word on why no one has made pita bread or tortilla wraps in less than 18 minutes. There could be something there.

After the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004, I didn’t quite know what to do to help myself take it all in. I found a message board called ‘Win it For’ that was started at some point before the World Series and was filled with stories from people who wanted the Red Sox to win the World Series for someone or other. I spent about 5 hours, reading it straight through, the morning after the World Series and it was the best way I could have celebrated the Red Sox winning.

On November 4, when Barack Obama was announced the winner of the 2008 Presidential Election I was searching for a similar sort of catharsis. Not so much because of Obama winning (which was nice) but because the election had been building as an event for almost 3 years – from the speculation of who would run, to the announcements, to the campaigns, to the primaries, to the general, and finally, November 4th came and went. I thought maybe I’ll collect a few thoughts from friends, or collect all the Facebook status messages, or collect a few links that helped tell the story. As I thought about it, I decided I wouldn’t be able to do what I wanted without going overboard. And I won’t lie, despite my attempts at making this document impartial, there’s no way it could have been. And though I’ve tried to make its focus 11/4, Election Day, there were certain events from the campaign that creeped in.

I wanted to create something to look at a couple years from now to remember the election and hopefully present a good representation of what both sides of America were feeling on that day as evidenced by the response in the press and on the blogs. I didn’t capture everything, though I’ve certainly tried. I want to consume all of this information, have it put on a microchip in my brain. Until that’s possible, I just read a lot. I don’t know how many of these links will work in a year or 5 years, (when this doc might be helpful to show younger people who may not have ever remembered having a president who isn’t black), but here’s what I’ve got. At the bottom is a list of all the sites I used and the domains that helped.

This is a LONG post, when you get bored, bookmark it so you can come back later. There are several different sections. If you want to skip around, you can use the Contents Section below.

Celebrate! - A run down of the celebrations.
WINS! - A list of 38 sites and their winning posts.
Winners and Losers - 18 lists of election winners and losers.
Turnout, Voting, and Polling - Articles and stories about voting, polling, and turn out.
Reactions - Reactions from the world, pundits, and celebrities.
How Obama Won - Some thoughts on how Obama won.
Why McCain Lost - Some thoughts on why McCain lost and what next for the GOP.
Expectations and Advice - There are a lot of people with expectations and a lot of people with advice.
Race - Obviously electing the first black president is going to bring up comments on race.
Money and Business - What will the impact on your money and you business be?
The Media - Without the media, wherever would we be!?
Humor - Without the humor, wherever would we be!?
Miscellaneous - Without the miscellaneous, wherever would we be!?
Personal Stories from Friends - Just what it says.
273 Status Political Status Messages in 27 Hours - Just what it says.
Via - Here’s a list of all the sites I used in putting this together – the sources.

“If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.”

(The original post, with everything on one page was too long to load. Hopefully this will fix that.)

And now, finally, I can have my life back, not having to worry about politics every second of every day.

(Many, many thanks to the following websites for making the above possible. Seriously. Via Wonkette, Andrew Sullivan’s Daily Dish, Apelad, Soldier’s Home, Rob Pitingolo, Wired, Mark Cuban, SF Weekly, The New Republic, Change.gov, The Corner, Culture11, Daily Kos, Callie Shell, Dooce, Ed Cone, ESPN, Gawker, Gothamist, Wicked Local, Jezebel, Kottke, Nicholas Kristof, Paul Krugman, Marc Ambinder, Marketplace, Media Matters, Miami Herald, MyWay.com, Google News, Yahoo News, New York Magazine, Obama 2008 Headlines, Opinionator Blog, Perez Hiltion, Political Ticker Blog, Politico, Ross Douthat, Salon, Slate, The Stranger, Der Souegel, Swamland Blog, Talking Points Memo, The Board Blog, Think Progress, Tucson Citizen, Z on TV, The Wall Street Journal, Michelle Malkin, Curt Schilling, AfterEllen, The American Conservative, Baloon Juice, Barry Eisler, BeyondChron, The Boston Globe, The Big Picture (Boston Globe), Brand Week, Chris Piascik’s Blogzilla, CNN, Controlled Greed, Christian Science Monitor, Dallas News, Digby, D Magazine, EbonyJet, The Economist, Bill Whittle, Wikipedia, Atrios, Chicago News Examiner, FiveThirtyEight.com, FOX News, GQ, The Huffington Post, Los Angeles Times, LA Weekly, Mother Jones, msnbc.com, National Journal, Saturday Night Live, Newseum.com, Newspaper Index, Newsweek, The New Yorker, New York Daily News, The New York Post, The New York Times, Patrick Mosberg, Bill Moyers Journal, Playboy, Pollster.com, Portfolio, The American Prospect, Real Clear Politics, Reason, RedState, Republicans for Obama, The Big Picture (Barry Ritholtz), Rolling Stone, Glenn Greenwald, Salon War Room, sarahpalin.com, Hello Everybody, Steven Johnson, The Next Right, The Onion, The Root, Time, Tiny Revolution, USA Today, Washington Monthly, The Washington Post, YouTube, Zefrank)