Top 10 in 2011

I went out of my way to see a huge amount of live music in 2011. I've decided to pick my favorites in 3 main categories: favorite national acts, local favorites and new favorites. There aren't always ten winners, I only pick 7 national acts, 11 local favorites and eleven new favorites. I also pick 5 best songs and 4 additional accomplishments.

Best National Acts local favorites who've gone national and my favorite non-local big acts

Presidents of the USA - I saw them twice, at PUSA Fest and at Bumbershoot on the main stage. Both times I had Ben, Carina and Heather with me, and enjoyed the crap out of it. The Prez still rock out and get big crowds bouncing around to the beat and sweating all over each other. Having my kids along puts it over the top, the Presidents kept me and my kids rocking in 2011!


Das Racist played the Sasquatch Preview show, Sasquatch, the Capitol Hill Block Party and Bumbershoot, so they went from unknown to my favorite rappers. All tan everything indeed.


Two of my top national acts - Death Cab For Cutie and Maklemore & Ryan Lewis - get props for best live song (Where Soul Meets Body and Just Dance, respectively) below.

Decembrists added an additional voice, I think the original female vocalist left the band later in 2011 after this show.


Finally caught up with The Reverend Horton Heat live, the kids and I have some fond memories of his hits a decade or so back.



Foo Fighters did their bombastic rock show at the Gorge Friday night at Sasquatch.




Local Favorites

Mad Rad always puts on a great show with standout songs like Life On Party Mountain and You Only Live Once (air keyboards!)

Kimya Dawson is an idiosyncratic performer who brings passion and creativity and thoughtful patter into a show like nobody else does!

The Thermals reliably kick my ass and this year I got multiple ass kickings at the Sasquatch kick-off show, at Sasquatch and Bumbershoot.

PWRFL Power made a rare appearance at Magma Fest doing thrashy guitar work, nice to see him again, it had been way too long.

Brite Futures matures into an arena rocking heavy weight. I remember seeing them as Natalie Portmans Shaved Head at the EMP Sound Off many years ago, they've made it almost to the top.

Land of Pines - saw them at least 3 times: at the Vera, CHBP, and Reverb.

Ryan LaPlante

Kinski always puts on a solid set of great music

Silicon Girls - got to know a nice kid in the band while he was volunteering for the All Ages Movement Project, I enjoy their shows.

Hey Marseilles has consistently brought it - I still remember a cover of Love Insurgent from a few Bumbershoots back that ruled. They were in prime form in 2011.




Bear Cove from Bellingham kicked it out




New Favorites - Bands that I immediately liked that I had never seen before, sometimes I'd never heard them either.
Titus Andronicus

The Globes - listed in best song for "A Stitch Can't Save the World" and here's "Stay Awake" from Sasquatch:

Antlers - one of many excellent Sasquatch performances, need to see them again

The Smith and Westerns - another band I was unfamiliar with that played an excellent set at Sasquatch.

Other Lives were another discovery at Sasquatch

Tokyo Police Club - another unknown to me band that ruled. Sensing a trend?

Champagne Champagne did shows at the Vera Project and CHBP and Bumbershoot, I believe. Hip hop rap duo, excellent material and the two voices are different and play well together; every performance is an instance party, worth checking out if you ever get the opportunity. They've spent a fair amount of time touring with STRFKR recently.

Sol broke out some, I like the live lineup here with a drum set, bass, backing vocals, and a DJ who might have some keyboards.

TacocaT - palindromes and bright punk thrashing, gotta love it!


Sleeper Agent


My Goodness packed quite a punch for a duo.




Best Live Song

I Like Giants by Kimya Dawson Kimya had another one about a friend dying that had me in tears, and Alphabut is the Stairway to Heaven of little kids songs

And We Danced by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis. The Town, My Oh My, and Dark Side all hit it out of the park or is it the Key



Where Soul Meets Body by Death Cab For Cutie (I'll Follow You Into the Dark, Title and Registration, that one jealous one "Gotta spend some time love... I will posses your heart")Listening to Where Soul Meets body at Sasquatch as my Mom's soul was losing it's last tenuous hold on her body sure gave it a wallop.

A Stitch Can't Save the World by the Globes

The River Runs Deep by Knowmads




Special props

At 4,078 views Macklemore & Ryan Lewis playing "And We Danced" is my most popular video. I managed to post it a few weeks before they got the song out which drove traffic; their video came out a little later and it has 652 thousand views.

My blog on the Craft Spells show at the Vera Project was my most viewed blog. Every week multiple people were viewing it; I'm not sure why it had so much more staying power, I have to attribute it to the audience - the fans. I can't see that I did anything special that was different from my other blogs. If it was something I did, I'd do it more!



I saw Knowmads at the Vera Project right before my fiftieth birthday. Shortly after that I took a class in interviewing musicians and had to select somebody to interview so I contacted their agent and set up an interview. They were young and therefore less intimidating, I suppose. My first on camera interview was with Knowmads Tom Wilson and Tom Pepe.


My video of the interview got 567 views, and blackout3842 (who does media, social media and web wangling for the Knowmads) posted excerpts that got more than 2,300 views.


Sea Cats were my son's first local band crush. We saw them at a Veracity show and got an inexpensive CD that Ben enjoyed, then he randomly got to see them do an outdoor show at the Seattle Center when he and Carina were wandering around. They got a nice gig at the Vera Project and I interviewed Josh Davis before it.

Sunday at Bumbershoot

Day two of Bumbershoot started out more well organized than day one so we managed to catch the first few bands this time.

SOL Kicked things off on the Fountain Stage

I can't tell in this video but the fountain directly out in front of the stage behind the sound boards is reflected in the screen behind the band to some degree, depending on the sun's angle and the ambient light which makes for a nice effect, I wonder if they planned that? I got a more complete song from Sol called the Rundown:
I'm a fan of the live instrumentation so I enjoy the bass, drums and keyboards along with the backing vocals, gives the song a very real human feel, not mechanical or computerized and repetitive the way so many sequenced bits end up.

We zipped over to the EMP Level 3 stage to catch the Gail Pettis Quartet, a nice jazz quartet with talented musicians and a great vocalist. They really show the Level 3 Stage acoustics off favorably, the audience finger snaps and the instrument noises are very clear. Nice, but the 3 flights of stairs on the opposite end of the Seattle Center from the other live music venues definitely wore me down.


On the way out you exit almost onto 5th Avenue and you can see the 5th Avenue entrance and here the street musicians:


We looped over to the Mural Amphitheater to listen to Kasey Anderson and the Honkies play an interesting set. I like the vocals and the way the song builds, very nice sound. Fun band, they had the smaller crowd moving and dancing and enjoying themselves. The early shows without that large a crowd often end up with some great bands that are easy to get close to but they tend to have limited crowd participation - the crowd mostly hasn't shown up yet for the early sets.


Kore Ionz had a good sound, this song starts out with some romantic sounding personal vocals, then goes into a good reggae groove. Good reggae in the sun shine is a nice combination, definitely a solid set. Gotta love the horns too!


Davilla 666 sounded more melodic and mainstream than I had expected from the name:

Fun sound, enjoyable if slightly unpredictable, here's another bit by them, on this one I'm closer and the bass tends to distort the audio so it's marginal at best, too bad.


I think this was Whalebones, the band we saw next. I've never seen them before so I could be wrong; the drum set sorta looks like it's spelling something like Whalebones, anyway.

The second Whalebones video is a complete song that I enjoyed:


Next we caught Lonely Forest on the Key Arena Mainstage, their sound fit the venue well. I suspect this is one of the larger venues they've ever played, certainly it's the biggest venue I've ever seen them in. It suits them - as I said, their sound works well in a large venue.


Next it was back to the Fisher Green for a fun dancy Mad Rad set. Mad Rad is a reliably entertaining hip hop group that always puts on a great show. I like the cello player, it adds an interesting sound to the transition bit in Life On Party Mountain:

Party Mountain and You Only Live Once are both instant classics:

The "air keyboards" in particular always amuses the heck out of me. Mad Rad is probably my favorite local party oriented hip hop band.

Next we caught Massey Ferguson at the Mural Amphitheater, I'd vaguely heard of them but never actually heard their music. Interesting song with some good pedal steel guitar work:

You may notice this common pattern with my videos: the first one is kind of short _ I start recording as soon as I get there, in the middle of a song, so it ends early. If they're good I'll stay and record some more, so here's another 7+ minutes of Massey Ferguson, I think there are two songs in this:


No Means No put on a good set in the Exhibition Hall, somewhere between a punk approach and a rockabilly beat with an almost anthemic feel to this number:


Broken Social Scene was cool, but we ran into a limitation. We got there a little late and the ushers wouldn't let us onto the show floor, effectively it was full. It seemed to have some room, but we were stuck up in the reserved seating fairly far from the stage. Sound is pretty good though:

I have to admit I don't enjoy it as much if I have to sit far away in a "reserved" section: reserved is the last thing I want to associate with a show, I want energetic and outgoing and over the top! I don't mean to criticize Broken Social Scene, they put on a good set that had the main floor crowd moving, the fault was mine for getting there too late to get onto the floor. We got better at that as the weekend passed, but we still ended up watching a fair amount of music from far away at the key.

Next we went out and caught some of Thee Oh Sees on the Fountain stage:

Thee Oh Sees were fun, good rhythms and twangy guitars with interesting vocals. I got a longer video too:


We caught some of DaN Funk + Master Blazter but I didn't get any usable video from them. Oops. I did manage to get some video of the Jim Jones Review, they were fun:


I think this is Tennis, I had to look at their web site to be sure since I never saw them before. This video is short but intriguing, wish I got more. I like the sound and the woman's vocals are very good.


Jessica Lea Mayfield (another assumed correct performer, never heard or seen them before but the photo looks roughly correct) was another interesting appealing performer:


Next up was Das Racist, I like them but my daughters weren't feeling them as much. I've seen them 4 times now and they are more creative than most in odd ways. The guy I always think of as the lead vocalist is always going off on some odd tangent; at Sasquatch he was calling every number a "cool jazz" song or something like that; at Bumbershoot he was talking about classic rock and fiddling with the Mac in the middle of the show, dropping different beats and samples I've never heard them use before, and the chatter between the performers is funny but also somewhat pointed, one of the members told another "Man you're mean, I liked you better before you lost weight!" The chatter changes so much from show to show that it doesn't feel canned or faked, it seems to be pretty authentic as they talk about things and mess around with their songs and patter.

I like the guy up front hoisting his crutches - I can;t see the guy, but I can see his crutches. He or she must be ambitious getting up that close!
I got a longer recording here:


We stopped for a bit of HTRK, they played more instruments than most of the performers at the Decibel Fest EMP Sky Church venue, the instruments gave it a nice sound:


Warpaint put on a great set, I'd never heard of them. An all woman band with a great sound both on vocals and instruments, I really enjoyed them and would like to see them again. This is one of those "I enjoyed it too much so the video is a little shaky" videos, sorry about that. I kept getting distracted by the band or the urge to move in time to the music, good bands do that to me. You can always tell when the focus drifts off the band that I'm no longer paying attention to the camera. On the plus side that means I'm enjoying the show!


Butthole Surfers were talented but the backdrop of horror movie gore projected on the screen behind them was distracting to me and actively detracted from the show.

I like the occasional violent horror movie, but the gore is usually spread out a little more and integrated into some kind of plot. Watching all of the spattering and limbs being cut off just made me want to see something else sooner.

Luckily there was a great alternative available!

This is the first time I've seen Macklemore & Ryan Lewis live and I enjoyed it immensely. We ended up in nose bleed heaven on the 3rd level so the visuals were poor and the sound was only so-so but the crowd was so enthusiastic and involved and the instrumentals were often pretty clean and the overall sound was good for being in a large venue and somewhat distorted, if that makes any sense.
The Town was a stand-out track:

I got other good bits on video like Otherside and several others, you can look them up on my youtube channel if you want; it was a great show!
I'll finish the Macklemore set up with "And We Danced" followed by "Irish Celebration" - I was hoping to see "And We Danced," I read a review about Macklemore & Ryan Lewis in Denver that called this "the full David Bowie" and it had the audience totally bonkers:


Once we got out of the Key Arena we managed to catch a short bit of what i believe is Toro y Moi:


The Kills were another band I had never seen, interesting approach, cool sound:

I got another song by the Kills too:


The last Bumbershoot act we caught on Sunday was Carbon Leaf:

This video was shot from the beer garden at the Mural Amphitheater. Carbon Leaf had a cool sound, and both of my daughters are now old enough to join me in the beer garden, Now if I could just train them to buy me beers I'd be set. If memory serves, I ended up buying a beer for Heather so the training seems to have been backwards. Hmm.

Some people were handing out flyers for a free show after Bumbershoot across the street from the Key Arena and I've got a soft spot for that venue. These guys were totally hosed when Schultz sold the Sonics to Oklahoma and they've struggled to recover and find a niche ever since. We stopped by for a couple of songs and another beer on the way home:


Including the bands I saw but didn't get recorded and the street musicians I saw 28 performances on Sunday. One more day of Bumbershoot left, hopefully I'll see even more bands!

Prepping for Bumbershoot

Bumbershoot is next weekend and I've started preparing my devices and planning my strategy. I've got a new 2 hour Flip so I can record 168 minutes of video plus whatever I add with my digital SLR. The SLR does nice HD videos but the sound fails badly when recording anything that's loud so the Flip produces usable video, SLR mostly does photos.

I'll try my new Flip out tonight at the Vera Project with Braille, Theory Hazit and Knowmads. I may borrow or purchase a field recorder too.

I'll do a few Wii Fit yoga and exercise workouts this week to keep my back limber and my strength up, and we'll pay attention to hydration and good food choices at Bumbershoot and hope things go well. No major physical trauma heading in this year, but my neck and shoulders are still out of sorts from my epic unpleasant trip back from India.

Plotting out Bumbershoot bands, why did they have to have Shelby Earl and the Presidents of the USA at the same time? Brite Futures and Craft Spells too, and Nice Nice vs. PS I Love You, tough choices, that plus Shabazz Palaces and it isn't even 6PM on the first day yet. I count 38 bands I wouldn't mind seeing, if I can get to 20 of those that's better than 50%, anyway. Saturday is shaping up to be a good day, both of my daughters and my son will be going with me. This will be the 4th or 5th time I've seen the PUSA, my daughters have seen 3 or 4 I think, and this will be Ben's 3rd at least. They're definitely a family favorite, always put on a hot energetic fun show. STRFKR, Lawnchair Generals, Meklit Hadero, Ray LaMontagne and Mavis Staples and others I've never heard of. Awesome lineup for the first night!

I should be able to get some good videos, here's a favorite from last year's Bumbershoot:

This performance is on the Broad Street stage, they aren't using that stage this year. and they also aren't using Memorial Stadium as the main stage. They are using 2 stages in the EMP, the Key Arena as the main stage, and an additional fountain stage, so the venue lineup is a little different.

Sunday kicks off with Sol, local reggae, Lonely Forest and Whalebones at the same time, Mad Rad and Massey Ferguson at the same time, No Means No overlapping with Broken Social Scene, Thee Oh Sees, DaM FunK + Master Blazter, Atari Teenage Riot, Com Truise, Das Racist, Anti-Flag, Warpaint, Butthole Surfers and Leon Russel at the same time, with Macklemore and Ryan Lewis 30 minutes later, Tori Y Moi, The Kills, Joe Pug, Whiz Khalifa and more. Sunday's lineup looks excellent.



Monday has Motopony and the Horde and the Harem at the same time, a stretch of unfamiliar (to me) bands: Legendary Oaks, Fly Moon Royalty, Quadron, Curtains For You, Kendric Lamar and DJ Introcut. Finally bands I recognize: My Goodness, Head Like A Kire, Grand Hallway, Big Boi, YACHT, WD4D, MASH HALL, Ill Cosby, LAKE, Sharon Van Etten, Vendetta Red, Urge Overkill, Ravenna Woods, Fitz and the Tantrums, Phantogram, Truckasaurus, The Reverend Horton Heat, Hall & Oates, Grant Lee Buffalo. Other new to me bands like Sallie Ford & the Sound Outside, SPLATINUM, Over the Rhine, 214, Eisley,
Charles Bradly, and Greensky Bluegrass. Quite a lineup, I hope I can do it justice!

I'll bring 2 Flips and my digital SLR and (hopefully) a field recorder. I try to get a video of a song and some photos from each band, with favorite bands (PUSA) getting several songs.

Even 168 minutes of Flip will get used up pretty quickly and I can be pretty picture happy with the SLR. I'm trying to arrange a spot for my laptop so I can download videos wile recharging the Flips and download my photos and recharge the SLR batteries too. A 45 minute pause to get downloaded and recharged (overlapped with food and water and cleanup etc.) could double the daily capacity!

Sunday at Sasquatch

After a thin Friday and an awesome Saturday I got somewhat better sleep mostly because I was exhausted but partially because it didn't get quite so flippin' cold overnight.

Sleep was only so so, I just don't do that well on the ground, so I was pretty tired. Lots of good bands on the schedule though, so we headed in, found a field mouse, and setup the booths after I got the mouse in a box and took him up the hill side before letting him go.

Typhoon took the early slot on the Bigfoot stage



Caught some of Cotton Jones on the Yeti stage.


Smith and Westerns played the Sasquatch stage

The Smith and Westerns song Weekend was a standout:


The Drums put on a great set, interesting sound, fun to listen to. The lead vocalist is cute, and the keyboard player does this sort of air conducting thing that's endearing. I thought I was going to get to interview these guys, but it fell through.

Lets Go Surfing has a good hook, fun bounce, pretty much a perfect pop gem.

This one has a similar bouncy upbeat sound, but the lyric isn't as upbeat. Still has a nice hook and a good sense of play.


Got back up the hill in time to see the Moondoggies


S. Carey on the Bigfoot stage


Then over to Other Lives on the Yeti stage

Nice use of instruments, the horn and fiddle sections are nice, I always like cellos, good build and progression in the song, lots to like here. So many good bands, the details are starting to get lost in the noise almost. Yet another great song by another talented band.

I enjoy the sound and the visual appeal is good too.


Tokyo Police Club was fun, took me a while to locate my video for them though.



Reggie Watts!


I only saw a bit of his show, but it was memorable, riffing off the sandwich and other topics. Red Bull shout out is memorable. Very stream of consciousness, I hope I see more Reggie Watts, and sooner rather than later.


Sam Roberts band, no video


Archers of Loaf

I didn't find any good video from my devices, so here's some from someone else who posted it on youtube.


City and Colour, I'm fairly sure.


Mad Rad, early (Buffalo Madonna still has his shirt on)

I got video of Mad Rad but the bass overwhelms my DSLR camera's microphone so it's pretty hard to listen to.

I went to take a photo of the sunset and a dude from the premium ticket section (they have a tap of microbrew beer in there, as he helpfully shows us) decided to customize the picture. It kind of works for me in an ironic way now.

Flogging Molly was a crowd favorite.

...and I finally got a good sunset photo without the beer


Next was Das Racist, one of my favorite hip hop/classic jazz outfits

Second time I've seen them, always enjoy their shows. High energy, fast rapping lyrics with wit and something to say.

Gayngs put on a good set.


Finally I headed down to the amphitheater stage one last time for the Flaming Lips. Nobody does spectacle like these guys!

Beautiful music too.




I got some pictures of Flying Lotus on the Banana Stage.


Caught a bit of Yeasayer too


Modest Mouse was the actual headliner later that night, but I was tiring out rapidly and would end up going to bed before they hit the stage.

I managed to see an awesome amount of music on Sunday, but I also managed to miss quite a bit of good stuff too. Oh well, I was definitely wearing down as the festival went on. I counted 19 bands documented in today's post, not bad for a tired 50 year old dude sleeping on the ground. On the other hand I skipped Modest Mouse, so I'm not as robust as I once was. All in all it was another awesome day at Sasquatch.

One last night sleeping on the ground, then the plan was most of a day of shows with an 8 PM exit - missing Wilco and other good performances, dang. I asked around about possibly going later, but things outside of my control ended up pushing in the opposite direction. More about that on tomorrow's blog.

Sasquatch Kick-off with The Thermals, Das Racist and Mad Rad

Heather and I got free tickets to the Sasquatch Kick-off show at the Showbox on Sunday, 2-6-11. We got to see the Thermals, Das Racist, and Mad Rad and a short Sasquatch promo that listed the bands playing at Sasquatch at the end of May. All 3 bands are playing Sasquatch, and so are a pile of other bands like Foo Fighters and Reggie Watts. Man I hope I can figure out a way to see it for free, because there's no way I can afford >$200 for tickets to all 4 days.

I've seen the Thermals a couple of times at Bumbershoot and I saw Mad Rad at the Capitol Hill Block Party last Summer, so I new I was going to enjoy this show.

Mad Rad kicked it off with their infectious obnoxious hip hop. They're all about partying and having a good time. They played with a dude on the drum kit, a dude scratching the turn-tables, a woman playing the cello (unusual for a hip hop band, but I loved it) and 3 guys out front rapping. One interesting problem I have is that the more I like the show the less I record of it - I hate having to stand still, I'd rather bounce around and make noise. Even when I do record some of the show I end up not being able to hold still all that much, so the video ends up a little hard to watch, like this:

That's Mad Rad doing "Life on Party Mountain" which is about Capitol Hill - these are local boys for sure! I enjoy that song, and ended up in the middle of the mosh pit which adds an additional degree of difficulty to the video recording as people bounce off of you. Nice problem to have, from my point of view, so I'm not complaining, just explaining why the video is a little jumpy.

One interesting bit is that I showed up in the Seattle Weekly slide show for the Sasquatch Kick-off show. If you follow the link and look carefully you can see me standing a little to the right of center holding up my flip video recorder and taping the show. That could be the video I posted here (I filmed 3 songs, so it could be a different one).

Between acts Todd Bary came out and told some jokes, keeping us amused. He seemed surprised at how well it went, hard to say if that was his schtick or he really just expected to get boos from a hip hop/punk show crowd.


After a short comic break Das Racist came out and did their set.

Interesting band, for much of their material racism isn't the subtext, it's the text. They recited their ethnic backgrounds as they came out, all kinds of different stuff combined, it went by too fast for me to catch, and they gave the crowd a bit of ribbing for being so white. Their rapping was fun and the hispanic looking dude in particular had a good flow. They also played with our (racial) expectations in interesting ways, but mostly we were having too much fun moshing for it to sink in.

After Das Racist and another brief appearance from Todd Barry they ran the Sasquatch promotional video announcing a huge list of bands and the crowd cheered for it's favorites (Decemberists, Foo Fighters, Reggie Watts, and on and on; I know I'm repeating myself, but I'd love to see Foo Fighters and Reggie Watts, not to mention 10 or 20 other bands, at least!).

Finally the Thermals came out and played a kick-ass set of high energy punkish rock and roll. The Thermals are an almost local (from Portland) power trio setup with a dude playing guitar and singing, a woman playing bass and singing some backup vocals, and a dude on drums. I enjoy the energy and the crowd was totally into it, moshing and thrashing all over. My first good mosh pit of 2011, lets hope for more like it!


After a short break to catch our breath the Thermals brought Das Racist and Mad Rad and another dude up and played for them while they took turns rapping. I gave up on filming by then, but I did get a picture.


The Latino looking dude from Das Racist rapped, then one of the guys from Mad Rad, and finally a different dude who hadn't performed earlier finished it off. The dude in the #18 jersey in the picture was the last rapper - I don't know who he is, but he had excellent rapping skills and finished the night off with some excellent imrpovised raps and sent us off happy. Excellent show, and man did it work: I really really want to go to Sasquatch Fest now. I better start sucking up to the Programming Committe at the Vera so I can get a free slot at Sasquatch in exchange for tabling at the show. Oh well, if that doesn't work out I'll just have to stay in Seattle for the Folk Life Festival, things could be worse.

February is Looking Up

In my January Retrospective I figured I wouldn't see all that many shows in February and matching January's 15 bands would be difficult. Now I'm not so sure.

I have tickets to the PUSA-Fest at the Showbox on Saturday 2-19, it's an all ages show and the kids get to go, should be fun.

I also have a couple of tickets to the Decemberists at the Paramont on Friday 2-18.

On Thursday I plan on getting 2 free tickets to the The Thermals, Mad Rad & Das Racist "Sasquatch Fest Announcement" show this Sunday 2-5. I saw them with my daughters at the Capitol Hill Block Party in the Summer of 2009 and again with Carina at Bumbershoot in the Summer of 2010, here's a photo from that show.

Next I glanced at the Vera schedule and realized there are 7 shows I'd like to see in February with one required - I'm cooking tacos at the Veracity show.

If I can only make it to 2 of the 6 optional Vera shows I'd end up at 3 Veracity + 3 other shows and roughly 18 bands. If I exert myself I could see 21 or even up to 30 bands on paper, but I'll be happy to match January's 15, anything more is gravy. Of course, I've always been a big fan of gravy, pouring it all over any form of potatoes and chowing down, but I digress.