Panmankey

I have been doing a terrible job of keeping up with the things.  I think it's the result of a long winter, and the gloom and doom that goes along with it.  Things were especially nasty up here in the Midwest this year.  Most years we usually end up with either OK temps (days in the 30's/40's) and lots of snow, or no snow and lots of cold (cold) weather.  I probably prefer the dry conditions, but either are better than the alternative, lots of snow and extremely frigid temps.  This year and last we've had frigid temps and tons of snow.  It snowed again this past monday, in April, truly the gods must be mad at Michigan, everyone else is, why not them?

My summer schedule is coming together, even if summer still feels like a far away dream.  I will be at Wic-Can Fest (www.wiccanfest.com) outside of Toronto in June.  I'm pretty excited, this will be my third trip up there in the past four years.  It's a great little festival, and Deb Lipp will be there, and so will my old running buddy Kenny Klien.  I'm pretty thrilled.  I should be at Starwood too, and I will be attending, but not presenting at Sirius Rising.  I'm kind of enjoying taking Sirius off, it's like a real vacation for me.

I went and saw the band Lez Zeppelin this past friday night.  WOW!  My love of the Zeppelin is well known, and right now, nobody does live Led Zep better than the Lez ladies.  Other than guitar player Steph Paynes, it was a completely new band this time around (this was my second LezZep show), and it was better than my first one.  I think I fell in love with new singer Kris Bradley.  She didn't really sound like Plant (more Janis Jopliny), but she still sounded great, and played the harmonica which about melted me into a puddle of Pagan goo.  The setlist was cool too, with the "expected" Zeppelin songs (like "Rock'n'Roll" and "Black Dog"), and a few surprises.  I went about bat-shit crazy when they started playing "Poor Tom" and "Wearing and Tearing," two songs Zeppelin never played live back in the day.  ff you get a chance to see Lez Zeppelin, do it!  You won't be dissapointed.

I have a few additions to the website coming up, most notably a long overude article on Black Sabbath that I've been struggling with for about a year.  Since the classic Dio-led lineup of the band has a new album coming out at the end of the month, I thought it was time to finish it up. There are some other offerings coming up as well, but those will be surprises. 

The weather has been taunting me here.  It just refuses to get above 54 degrees and it's driving me crazy.  I want to open up the windows and wear some sandals (while blasting some Zeppelin/Doors/Sabbath) damnit!  I hope your spring has sprung faster than mine!

-jason