Great Landings

In case you missed the official announcement from Ryan Seacrest last night, it was New Years Eve. Erin and I celebrated with about 15 other families at the Holidome near Dayton and we had a total blast. There was tons of fun stuff for the kids to do like swimming, games, free popcorn and cotton candy, ping pong, and a putting green. There was even a DJ who did some fun stuff like a limbo and hula hoop contests. The adults had lots of fun stuff to do as well like drinking, eating, getting drunk, and of course consuming alcohol. All of course except Erin and the other expecting mothers. They just stood around and laughed at the rest of us. All and all the night was a ton of fun and I am really glad Adam A. stepped up to get it planned. I would for sure go back to that place again. But I guess we have another 364 days to get that figured out.

I took a few pictures, but most of the credit goes to Erin. While I was preoccupied with drinking she stepped up and handled the camera for most of the night. You can check them out in the New Years 2009 album on the Greatlandings Photo site. Happy New Year y’all!

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To celebrate the new year I have a video for you all to see, and in my opinion it is nothing short of Amazing. I have cut and pasted the background story that goes with it below. But if you ask me it is a great message to start 2010 on. Happy New Year!

Stand By Me | Playing For Change | Song Around The World from Concord Music Group on Vimeo.

This cover of Stand By Me was recorded by completely unknown artists in a street virtual studio all around the world. It all started with a base track—vocals and guitar—recorded on the streets of Santa Monica, California, by a street musician called Roger Ridley. The base track was then taken to New Orleans, Louisiana, where Grandpa Elliott—a blind singer from the French Quarter—added vocals and harmonica while listening to Ridley’s base track on headphones. In the same city, Washboard Chaz’s added some metal percussion to it.

And from there, it just gets rock ‘n’ rolling bananas: The producers took the resulting mix all through Europe, Africa, and South America, adding new tracks with multiple instruments and vocals that were assembled in the final version you are seeing in this video. All done with a simple laptop and some microphones.

I don’t know about you, but it blew me away. Best version of Ben E. King’s classic I’ve ever heard in my life. And I’ve probably heard between five and two billion of them. [via Gizmodo and Playing for Change]

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