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Last night was just fantastic. Money was raised, chocolate beers were drunk, and a ton of music was played. The whole night was great, but Alex/frenjen’s set w/Gordon Withers on bonus cello was just brilliant; and Gordon’s closing set of Jawbox-for-cello was just amazing.

For my part, that was one hell of a half-hour on stage. Gordon joined me for a cover of Jawbox’s “Cooling Card”, and elevated my little acoustic re-take to something much cooler. Then Alex clambered up to join me on “Disappear”, followed by some actual Crash Basket material — “Mind of its Own” and “No Problem”. I don’t know when I last played the latter, but I’m sure it didn’t sound as good as it did last night. And then on my own for “Closer”.

And the crowd and staff at the Funky Buddha couldn’t have been nicer or more supportive.

Photos? Sure, have some.

Update: Jen weighs in on the night. Denny’s was, indeed, fun.

Update 2: Neil sent some more pictures

Update 3: Some more photos up on Gordon’s blog.

A reminder — this Saturday, June 16th, I’m part of “Recital for Survival”, an SMA (Spinal Muscular Atrophy) benefit show at the Funky Buddha Lounge in Boca Raton. I’ll be joining Gordon Withers, frenjen, the Fantastic Five, and Anthony Hall

Showtime is 8:30pm. As ever, see paulroub.com/gigs for addresses, times, etc.

... was just amazing.

By my count, something like 72,000 Satellite students (and recent students) showed up. And many others for whom high school is a slightly more distant memory. There were T-shirts.

James Ryan filmed some of it.

Many photos were taken, none of the good ones by me. If you have them, send them along. I’ll post them here, or somewhere.

Thanks to one and all — to Brad for playing, Christy for singing, and to the Sun Shoppe for having me one last time.

This thing is just ridiculously fun. It works perfectly, the sound quality is excellent, and it's probably the best turntable I've ever owned. I realize that for audiophiles, I might as well say I'm playing LPs with a Cheeto attached to a party hat; but from my standpoint, it's a rock-solid, heavy turntable with a really well-balanced tonearm. Old, scratchy records sound remarkably clear, and all but the deepest gouges are ignored and left unskipped.

It ships with Audacity, but I imprinted on GoldWave so long ago that I never installed it. GoldWave's pop-n-click filter is effectively magic, and my iRiver is now filling up with out-of-print or just-never-replaced-with-CDs goodies. Obscure 70s and 80s Cleveland bands (is your copy of American Noise's eponymous album autographed? no? ha!); Queen's "Jazz" and "Live Killers"; and, at my kids' request, "Peter, Paul and Mommy" -- the same copy my parents used to play for me.

Next up, Nick Lowe. Almost wish there was some Clash or Who left that I haven't picked up in smaller, shinier form. I kinda miss the clicks, and Clampdown still sounds weird without that skip in the intro. And more of my parents' stuff that I hated as a kid, but now... hey, Tom Jones Live in Las Vegas! Awesome! But then, I recently lent my dad "Sam Cooke Live at The Harlem Club", so maybe I'm cooler than he remembers, too.

Speaking of which, witnessing the proceedings, Miranda got curious:

M: What's that?

P: It's a record.

M: Is it like a kind of CD?

P: Yeah, sort of like that.

M: But how do you get music out of that?

I love that there's not a moment spent wondering how "High School Musical" comes out of an iPod Shuffle attached to a dancing toy dog. Of course that works.

Huge thanks to everyone who came out last night -- that was a lot of fun, with the percussion and the duets and the everything. Thanks, Brad. Thanks, Christy.

And just to give you a heads-up -- I'll be back at the Sun Shoppe on Saturday, January 6th, with Alesandra Valenzuela, a very cool singer/songwriter from California.

So if you missed last night, you and your holiday parties and families and wedding anniversaries and whatnot, this is your chance for redemption. Fun. I meant to say "Fun". And "Good Times" and "Music" and "Beer" and "Coffee".