Mann's World

Happy Birthday to me! My friend Laura came down from New York to spend Thanksgiving (and my birthday) with me and my family at the beach. We basically did nothing but eat, crochet and watch TV for two solid days, so when we got back to Raleigh on Saturday night, we were ready to go out and actually do something. We picked up Jessica and went to Zely and Ritz, a tapas place on Glenwood, where we had roast quail in cranberry sauce, polenta with truffle oil, rack of lamb, mushrooms, roasted winter squash, creme brulee and a whole lot of wine. I'd never been there before, and I'd never had anything with truffles in it before. I definitely recommend both. I was ready to go back home and go to bed after all that, but we couldn't miss Black Taj at Kings, so we headed downtown and hung out at Poole's before the show. Jessica had forgotten to paint her nails, so she did that while one of the bartenders took our picture. The picture above shows me doing a wonder twins power move with the other bartender, whose birthday is today. Unfortunately my batteries ran out in my camera, so I only got a few pics of TV Knife (below), who really do sound a good bit like Randy Newman (but in a good way -- normally I can't stand Randy Newman) and Hall and Oates. I kept hearing bits and pieces of The Band in there too. I didn't get anything of Birds of Avalon, which really sucks because they put on a great show, and I would have loved to have gotten a movie of it. I was so addled I didn't even get a copy of the Birds of Avalon CD, which was on sale for $5 (though I did get the Black Taj CD, and will finally sit my lazy butt down to review it -- along with The Greatest Hits and Viva La Venus -- tonight). But thanks goodness for Raymond, who gave me a couple of AA batteries (Thanks Raymond!), so I was able to take some photos of Black Taj (Dave Brylawski is pictured above) and make a little movie of them. I love their music (reminds me of a cross between The Allman Brothers and Black Sabbath; my ex said they sounded like AC/DC with more complicated bass), but I must say, they don't have the most exciting stage show in the world. They definitely concentrate on the music itself. Or maybe I'm wrong about that. Check out the movie and tell me what you think.

Black Taj from Mann's World on Vimeo.

Black Taj performing "Red Jr." Flickr set of Black Taj, TV Knife and us hanging out before the show