mick laBriola

Once again I have secured the Percussion Chair for this Alien Plant Consuming production of LSOH by Theatre 55. Music supported by Shirley Mier, Lyra Olson, Jamie Carter and mick Bamboula. Along with my stellar vocalists Van Nixon & Patty Lacy. Awesome!

“If a pick pocket meets a Holy Man, he will see only his pockets.” Baba Hari Dass

Sunday 12-8-24 3pm Alto Cumulous Clouds spotted due west from Webber Park in North Minneapolis.

Located in the Centaurus constellation, this gas cloud is part of the giant Running Chicken Nebula. Some people see it as the head of the chicken, others see the chicken’s rear end. But as much as scientists love fun names for nebulae, they are often not very conducive to clear communication in an international field like astronomy. That is why this nebula is formally known by two names that sound, well… a little less funky. In 1955, Australian astronomer Colin Stanley Gum made an inventory of 84 emission nebulae in the southern sky: the Gum catalog. This one is known, quite dryly, as Gum 40. Long before Gum, in 1888, Danish astronomer John Louis Emil Dreyer had already compiled the ambitious New General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars (NGC), an index of 7840 astronomical objects such as galaxies, star clusters and emission nebulae like this one. Dreyer later added two Index Catalogues (IC) to his work, describing another 5386 celestial objects. This nebula was labelled IC 2872. The NGC is still used today: it got its most recent update in 2019, with 13 957 new objects. This image of IC 2872 — or Gum 40, the chicken head or whatever nickname you might wish to give it — was captured by the VLT Survey Telescope (VST), hosted at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile. As telescopes and instruments keep getting better, more and more deep-sky objects are discovered, so the lists and catalogues will never be complete. But that shouldn’t keep us from trying to compile them — or making up fun nicknames, right?

Jessie Hill (December 9, 1932 – September 17, 1996) was an American R&B and Louisiana blues singer and songwriter, best remembered for the classic song “Ooh Poo Pah Doo“.

Hill was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. By his teens he was playing drums in local bands, and in 1951 he formed his own group, the House Rockers. After periods performing as drummer with Professor Longhair and then Huey “Piano” Smith, Hill formed a new version of the House Rockers in 1958, which enabled him to focus on singing with the band. He is the grandfather of James and Troy Andrews.

The origins of “Ooh Poo Pah Doo” were apparently created from a tune played by a local pianist, who was known only as Big Four. Hill wrote the lyrics and melody, later expanding the work with an intro taken from Dave Bartholomew. It was further honed on stage, before Hill recorded a demo that he shopped to local record labels, finally recording a session at Cosimo Matassa‘s studio produced by Allen Toussaint.

Upon its 1960 release on Minit Records, “Ooh Poo Pah Doo” emerged as a favorite at Mardi Gras, selling 800,000 copies and reaching #3 on the Billboard R&B chart and No. 28 in the Billboard Hot 100 pop chart. There have been over 100 cover versions of “Ooh Poo Pah Doo” recorded and performed live over the years by other popular musicians, most notably The Shirelles and Ike and Tina Turner.

His follow-up “Whip It On Me” reached No. 91 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1960. Further recordings in New Orleans were less successful, and he moved to California to work with fellow New Orleans musiciansincluding Harold Battiste and Mac Rebennack. In this period, he wrote songs recorded by Ike and Tina Turner, Sonny and Cher, and Willie Nelson.

A 1972 solo album was unsuccessful, and he began to suffer financial difficulties exacerbated by a drinking problem. These problems continued after his return to New Orleans in 1977, and several benefit gigs did little to revive his personal or professional fortunes.

The Hubble Space Telescope and the Cassini spacecraft monitored Saturn’s North Pole simultaneously during Cassini’s final orbits around the gas giant in September 2017. During this time, Saturn‘s tilt caused its North Pole to be clearly visible from Earth. The featured image is a composite of ultraviolet images of auroras and optical images of Saturn’s clouds and rings, all taken by Hubble. Like on Earth, Saturn’s northern auroras can make total or partial rings around the pole. Unlike on Earth, however, Saturn’s auroras are frequently spirals — and more likely to peak in brightness just before midnight and dawn. In contrast to Jupiter’s auroras, Saturn’s auroras appear better related to connecting Saturn’s internal magnetic field to the nearby, variable, solar wind. Saturn’s southern auroras were similarly imaged back in 2004 when the planet’s South Pole was clearly visible to Earth. 896 million miles distant.

Gregory LeNoir Allman (December 8, 1947 – May 27, 2017) was an American musician, singer and songwriter. He was known for performing in the Allman Brothers Band. Allman grew up with an interest in rhythm and blues music, and the Allman Brothers Band fused it with rock music, jazz, and country. He wrote several of the band’s most popular songs, including “Whipping Post“, “Melissa“, and “Midnight Rider“. Allman also had a successful solo career, releasing seven studio albums. He was born and spent much of his childhood in Nashville, Tennessee, before relocating to Daytona Beach, Florida and then Macon, Georgia.

He and his brother Duane Allman formed the Allman Brothers Band in 1969, which reached mainstream success with their 1971 live album At Fillmore East, but shortly thereafter, Duane was killed in a motorcycle crash. The band continued, and released Brothers and Sisters, which became their most successful album, in 1973. Allman began a solo career with Laid Back the same year. He gained some additional fame for his 1975 to 1978 marriage to pop star Cher. He had an unexpected late-career hit with his cover of the song “I’m No Angel” in 1987, and his seventh solo album, Low Country Blues (2011), saw the highest chart positions of his career. Throughout his life, Allman struggled with alcohol and substance use, which formed the basis of his memoir My Cross to Bear (2012). His final album, Southern Blood, was released posthumously on September 8, 2017.

Allman performed with a Hammond organ and guitar, and was recognized for his soulful voice. For his work in music, Allman was referred to as a Southern rock pioneer and received numerous awards, including one Grammy Award; he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Georgia Music Hall of Fame. His distinctive voice placed him 70th in the Rolling Stone list of the “100 Greatest Singers of All Time”.