Hixter

The founder is a friend of a friend. My last visit to Boston was several years ago (the first Solid Sound, maybe?) and my friends and I met him and his wife at a pub. The brewery was in the planning stages and we had a nice conversation about their hopes for the future and harvesting wild yeast. Sounds like it all turned out well!

Not to rub it in, but it's 84 here in Texas. I just finished brewing 11 gallons of beer and did a bit of sweating. Glad I'm not sweating with a snow shovel in hand.

I met him 40 years ago and still have the autograph.

I saw the Stooges at their reunion gig at Coachella in 2003 and Iggy did his stage diving routine right in front of me. He crowd surfed overhead and I got an unintentional handful of Iggy chest as I tried to keep him afloat. I cringed when I realized that his skin was cool and dry, despite the desert heat. Maybe he really is an iguana.

I found this old VHS-sourced, pro-shot video of Nels and the Fibbers and figured I'd upload it to YouTube as most people probably haven't seen it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cz4jcYHjqzw I really miss that band.

Back in 2005 when Pete Townshend had an online blog, his profile listed "anything by Flaming Lips or Wilco" as his favorite music. He no longer maintains the blog, but an archived version is here: http://web.archive.org/web/20051203053437/http://www.blogger.com/profile/12822857 I've heard rumors that Townshend (or his people) contacted Wilco (or their people) about some sort of collaboration, but nothing came of it. It was only a year or two after Pete's caution for downloading an indecent image, so maybe that's what kept it from happening?

I hope it means that they can find a way to work with The Who. A guy can dream, can't he?

It sounds like the murderers got what they deserved. Good riddance.

I blame the British.

13-year-olds write letters to Santa??

I saw Peaches in San Diego about 11 years ago and part of her stage routine involved becoming entangled in a guitar cord before tripping and 'injuring' herself. I was standing at the side of the stage, so I had a good view when she turned her back on the audience and popped a packet of fake blood into her mouth. After a few Gene Simmons-worthy belches of blood, she wiped her mouth with her hand and left the stage to 'recover.' On her way backstage, she used her bloody hand to smear gore all over my face and head. Peaches reappeared after a few minutes, but before she jumped up on the stage

Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard March 26th Whitewater Amphitheater New Braunfels, TX Wilco April 23rd Bayou Music Center Houston, TX The Who April 27th Frank Erwin Center Austin, TX Solid Sound June 26-28 MASS MoCA North Adams, MA

Looks like Vermont's single-payer healthcare plans have gone belly up.

Speaking of Joan Jett, I just bought overpriced cheap-seat tickets to see her open for The Who in Austin next April. It will be a nice bookend for my few dozen Who shows that began with Joan opening for them in Orlando in 1982 (B-52s were also there and were booed off the stage). I assume it'll be my last Who concert, but I've been thinking the same thing for more than 30 years.

I hope none of you are extremely tall nor fond of large hats or afros, since I might be sitting behind you in the second row. I think I have seats 10 and 11, but I don't know how close that comes to the center of the section.

They should do a deal with Apple and release a free rental on iTunes. Sort of like the recent U2 album.

Or maybe it'll cause him to act more irrationally. Only time will tell. I don't think anybody has said that they'll be more of a threat, it's just that it seems like bad form to relax the embargo when they've done nothing to earn it. North Korea wouldn't be more of a threat if we normalized relations, but that doesn't mean that we should make a lopsided deal with them. I was just watching some old Doobie Brothers videos, so I'll take that as a compliment. It doesn't change the fact that I was correct in my post about the advantage that quick strikes have in nuclear warfare. There's a rea

I was in Los Angeles a month or two ago and a festival brought some fantastic beers to town. I waited in line for 2 hours on a Friday afternoon to partake of several Hill Farmstead and Belgian beers. It was well worth the sunburn.

Session beers, as they're called, are quite popular these days and many of the craft brewers are making hoppy, flavorful IPA-ish beers in the 4-4.7% range. Founders has begun selling 15-packs of cans of their All Day IPA (4.7%) here in Texas for about $17. Stone has Go-To IPA, Lagunitas has DayTime and Firestone Walker has my favorite, Easy Jack. There's a trend toward lower alcohol beers that still have some flavor, so that IPA lovers can drink a few without falling over. The trend has also helped popularize American pale ales (I brew one that's really tasty) and English-style beers. As far

If you've been paying attention to the news, you'll notice that Russia is back to their Cold War antics and that includes recent plans to reopen/reactivate installations in Cuba. At the beginning of President Obama's first term, his administration famously promised to "reset"Russia-American relations. It failed miserably and Russia is now back to their Cold War selves, threatening the world with nuclear weapons and resuming provocative, offensive military actions. With the ruble in free-fall, who knows what the next few months will bring. Things could get ugly. The Cold War is alive a

Actually, it still is. The flight time for a missile from Russia or China is about 20 or 30 minutes; a launch from a closer location allows for less reaction time. The game plan in nuclear war is to destroy the other guy's warheads before his can destroy yours, so closer is still better. There's a reason that Russian missile subs patrol not far off our shores.

Ones less than a hundred miles from our shores who were pointing nuclear weapons at us? Oh well, this can't possibly turn out any worse than the pathetic "reset" of our relations with Russia. Maybe I'll even get some nice cigars out of it.

I know what you mean: Oops, my bad, that was a Democratic senator.

I made the drive up to Middlebury before the first day of last year's festival. I arrived at opening time, grabbed a couple of cases and bolted back to North Adams. It was one of the last weeks that the brewery sold unlimited cases of beer and not long after that they stopped selling them at all. I'm going to research my options, make a road trip and then come back with as much as I can fly home with. And consume post-festival nights.

Have they ever done a brewing demonstration at Solid Sound? I know they've done things like poster making before, so it seems like a demonstration by a brewery and/or a local homebrew club would be a cool addition to the festival. And imagine fresh cans of Heady Topper for, say, $7.