Friday in the heat

It's Friday and now that we're grilling out each week at work, I don't have to be there until noon. That means there's a few minutes to get on here before getting off to work.

Just got off the phone with Eleanor Friedberger for a talk that will wind up in Pittsburgh City Paper to plug her show at the end of June. She was nice but kind of hard to hear because her phone was so quiet. It didn't help that the p.r. person kept picking up an extension towards the end of my allotted 15 minutes. I was tempted to keep going with some questions but that maneuver psyched me out a bit. But Eleanor got in a lot of good quotes and information within that time frame. Her new album, Personal Record, is out next Tuesday.

Earlier this week, I turned in a feature to CP about the Pittsburgh Jazz Festival, which leaned heavily on Rudresh Mahanthappa, my intention. Then, I also got an assignment to talk to Chicago saxophonist Ernest Dawkins, who's here a few days before Friedberger. If that wasn't enough, I got the CP feature on Belle & Sebastian for their big show next month. I'm not wigging out over all that hanging over my head yet. I'm trying to take on more responsibility and manage everything like that, so there won't be any freaking out.

Over the weekend, we're going to Ohio to visit family, and staying in a hotel room there. I'm hoping to take the laptop and maybe, just maybe start posting some reviews of albums here. For now, I have to do some research on where to get a new needle for our turntable.