Buz’s Crab is a Redding institution. We are lucky to live within a reasonable radius of a truck drive to the coast for fresh Dungeness Crab. Buz’s always has fresh plenty of fresh seafood. Consequently, this is a very popular tradition around here, making for a tasty but crabby finish to the old year. Happy New Year from ReallyRedding!
Photos from today, by Skip. Buz’s is on East Street in Redding CA.
Rails -new ambient work
Feeling creative over Christmas, I recorded this ambient piece I titled Rails. A little over 8 minutes. I hope you enjoy it.
Rails by SkipMurphy
A musical gift from the Planetarium past
This isn’t related to Christmas, but I recently completed this project from the archives I’ve been editing, and so I’m putting it up. Sometime in the late 1990s, Craig Padilla produced a series of music events at the Schreder Planetarium in Redding. We played as a 4 piece band in darkness, while special lighting effects and the stars wheeled overhead on the dome. Along with Craig playing synths and guitar, I played more synthesizers, and ran some lighting. Al Mires of Music Max in Palo Cedro played electric guitar, and Dave Barnett of local band Montuno Salad played drums and percussion. I have offered some of the individual tracks before, but this is the first time I have presented the entire first set as a whole. It runs just over 40 minutes. This set of music is different when heard in totality, rather than as individual tracks.
Planetarium Show Live (Set 1) by SkipMurphy
I think it holds up very well over time. Hearing it again today , this rainy Christmas day, I am struck by just how ambitious the whole project was. It’s a fairly complex composition, played in near total darkness. As any live recording, it has some imperfections, and since it was recorded to analog 2 track, there’s no remixing. It is what it is. I feel proud of the effort, and I relish the artistic eloquence we brought to the planetarium venue. Thanks to Craig for putting the shows together, and for letting me contribute to his unique and original music. Thanks to Al and Dave as well. It was hard work, but we had fun too. Give it a listen and see what you think.
The spoken word art at the conclusion is Craig’s long departed grandmother, taken from a cherished message machine tape, speaking to us all from the across the divide between this world and the next:
Oh fudge and damn
I forgot
Roses are red
Violets are blue
Stick this machine
in your maple surple
That’s prose
This is Mom
Just being a little silly on Valentine’s Day
Love y’all.
Although it’s not specifically Christmas music, I hope you enjoy the mix. I submit that it’s the indigenous music of 21st Century Redding; it’s ReallyRedding.
Short SF film was created on low budget, high creativity
MODERN TIMES from BC2010 on Vimeo.
Awkward family photos for our ’80s Christmas cards
Daughter Erin has been getting some mileage on Facebook posting our family Christmas card images from the ’80s, and labeling them awkwardly for a laugh. Actually, they are pretty amusing in retrospect. Growing up Murphy meant that you couldn’t just have a “normal” family photo. Oh no. It had to be some unique creative expression. Of course, not every kid grows up with a paper-mâché T-Rex in their yard with flashlights for eyes, so the scenes may have raised an eyebrow or two. But it was the ’80s, you know. A different time. Anyway, laugh if you must. We certainly did when we made them. Click to embiggen.
Awkward family Christmas photos. If you don’t have any, well, sorry. We have plenty.
Merry Christmas from ReallyRedding.
Holiday Greetings from the space station
Total e-clips photos from Redding
I really wanted to take images of last night’s rare total eclipse of the moon from Redding, but it was too cloudy. So I went and found the total of e-clips that I had in my shop instead. All 5 of them.
I also found d-clips, c-clips, and snap-rings too. Save ’em for later. I have blogspace to fill, you know.
If you think my blog headline was misleading, check out this doosey from the RS yesterday, and then do the math per-capita. Reading the post, I reached the exact opposite conclusion than that of the headline. Made you click though. I’m sympathetic. Like I said, I’ve got blogspace to fill too. But I don’t pretend to be a newspaper.
Stormy Saturday images
A couple of shots from a few minutes ago in Redding. An excellent rainy day.
Makes you want to head up to the Ski Park.
Rainy days. They’re ReallyRedding.
Getting high at Highland Park -images
High on a lift known as a cherry picker, that is. I went up yesterday to take some photos and video of the beautiful new subdivision under construction by Palomar Builders in Redding. It was a spectacular day, and the view from the lift was gorgeous. It’s really fun to see this spectacular new neighborhood under construction, and imagine it as a built out neighborhood of energy efficient homes. Especially nice too, to see many people hard at work, employed at things getting done. Many thanks to Tom Papac and Jeb Allen of Palomar for inviting me out for the unparalleled bird’s eye view. Click on the first image to see our new slideshow.
Sunny December days in our glorious valley town. It’s ReallyRedding.
Visualizing friendships
Ran into this interesting blogpost over at Facebook by Paul Butler. A statistician plotted pairs of friendships by location, and came up with this really interesting graphic.
Click on the image to enlarge to 3.3mb. It’s a persuasive graphic. And, in view of the fact that founder Mark Z has been named Time Magazine’s person of the year, it seems even more compelling. Do read the blogpost.
Me, I haven’t been much of Facebook fan. I suppose I should be. In my line of work, much of the value I bring is in knowing people and networking, and it appears FB has really become “all that.” The very real privacy concerns are well justified. But again, being a “secret agent” in the real estate field leads to slow starvation. So much for personal privacy.
I am resolved to do better at Facebook. I think you can find me at this link. “Friend” me and I’ll try to be a better online amigo.