Self Care – Emerson, Lake, and Palmer Live in Zurich, Switzerland on December 4, 1970; Aired in Belgium in 1971

Screw it… you’re getting a whole ELP show.

In 1971, Belgium TV, specifically the show Pop Music (AKA Pop Shop), aired a gig from ELP, recorded live in Zurich, Switzerland on December 4, 1970. Now, for some strange, unexplained reason, the show decided to air the gig massively out of order, starting off with the improvisation that ended the original show in Zurich.

Also, Greg Lake screws up the lyrics to Knife Edge, skipping over the first verse entirely and singing the second verse twice… which is sad, because it’s otherwise the best live version I could find of Knife Edge on video… and I want to give that to y’all in the future, as well… but I’m gonna keep looking…

Regardless, though, it’s an amazing performance from this incredible band, made up almost entirely of instrumental improvisations with some full songs and singing sprinkled here and there. Keep in mind that this is a 52 minute and 1 second watch. It’s a mesmerizing watch, though, especially when Keith does his very best to murder one of his keyboards… with knives… (skip to 16:10 to see how that starts)

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Self Care – Great Guitar Solos: King Crimson Plays The Night Watch

Another one suggested by a commenter, this time Johnny Vector.

Robert Fripp is such an incredible guitarist. His playing is very unconventional; he does some weird and very cool things with his guitar, even, somehow, when he’s just playing a straight solo. This one, King Crimson’s The Night Watch, is a nice example…

The solo starts at 2:49 and ends at 3:39.

There’s just audio here, no video…

Enjoy!

Self Care – The Struggle Bus: Sinceriously

Sorry this is going up late. My bad.

This is episode 82 of The Struggle Bus (the most recent episode). From the page:

On this episode Kate and Sally jibber jabber about the state of the US right now and how to stay engaged while taking care of yourself. Then they answer emails about how to bring up ~sex stuff~ with a prospective partner, how to cope when the shit hits the fan all at once, and the best ways to support a loved one who miiiiight be struggling with how to reconcile their sexuality with their religion.

While they do talk about current events and Sir Tony Orange Hands, it’s all in the context of self care, and ways to cope. It’s a great episode, which is why I’m posting it…

Self Care – Astronomy Picture of the Week: The Multiverse

Okay… you might be thinking I’ve jumped the shark with this series now, but before getting back to images of objects within our observable universe, I just have to go here…

You see, I’m fascinated by the idea of multiple universes, especially the idea that there could be an infinite number of universes, because that means that everything is real. In such a multiverse, there is no such thing as fiction or fantasy. I kind of love that. I won’t go into detail, because this is largely an image series, but just let your imagination go wild thinking about this.

It’s awesome.

The following image is an artist’s rendition of one idea born out of various multiverse ideas, including String Theory, Superstring theory, and M-Theory. I got it from an article on The Physics of the Universe.

Artist's visualization of rippling membranes

Artist’s visualization of rippling membranes

I remember seeing this membrane idea described on one of those TV science documentary shows. It was something like this…

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Self Care – The Great Bagel Debate

Ah, bagels. The world’s greatest comfort food (for me). Nothing, and I do mean nothing, beats a fresh-out-of-the-oven everything bagel, sliced horizontally, and topped with plain cream cheese, thick tomato slices, raw red onions, belly lox, and, if available, capers. But short of all that, even a good bagel by itself can make me feel wonderful…

J. Kenji Lopez-Alt of Serious Eats seems to agree with me. In fact, he wrote an entire manifesto about what makes a good bagel, and it’s a thing of beauty. To be fair, he put it up in May of 2015, but I only found it recently.

I’m much pickier about my bagels now than when I used to be. And this manifesto is a great breakdown of why…

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Self Care – Great Guitar Solos: Stevie Ray Vaughan and Johnny Copeland Play Tin Pan Alley Live

This next one comes to us from Marcus Ranum. I love Stevie Ray Vaughan, and miss him very much. He was an amazing guitarist. Johnny Copeland was another amazing guitarist in his own right, who I also miss very much. So Stevie and Johnny playing together?

Nothing but pure guitar magic.

This is a 13 minute and 20 second video, so make sure you’ve got that time blocked off…

The first solo, played by Stevie, starts at 0:14 and ends at 1:36. The second solo, a short one played by Johnny, starts at 3:29 and ends at 3:39. The third full solo, taken by Johnny, starts at 5:33 and ends at 6:48. Stevie immediately takes the fourth solo, which starts at 6:51 and ends at 8:05. Johnny comes in with the fifth solo at 9:31, ending it at 10:52.

It’s just… so amazing. Both guitarists are mesmerizing, and both have an amazing command of the Blues. Enjoy!