Music Friday: "Inverness" & "Clean Gift"

Two albums that came out today have caught my attention.

The first is Choke Cherry Tree by the Ben Miller Band, an outfit I learned about on a music blog. 

The other is Tenkiller by Marie/Lepanto, which is a collaboration of Will Johnson of Centro-matic fame and his buddy Justin Peter Kinkel-Shuster, who also has been in a number of alternative bands. 

Here's a couple of songs from the latter album, the only videos I could find on YouTube. 

Baseball Art

When I working on the last Music Friday, I checked out Centro-matic's website, and there's a portal on the site that leads you to the artwork of Will Johnson, the head man of Centro-matic/South San Gabriel.

It's great stuff.

He paints pictures about baseball players as you can see by trolling http://www.willjohnsonart.com/.

With his permission, I've provided some images of them below, but you can get the best look at them by going on the website.

Vida Blue was one hell of a pitcher.

For the Cardinal fans out there, I thought you'd appreciate the painting of Al Hrabosky.

For me, of course, I'm drawn to Banks.

A lot of the paintings are sold, but after looking at the list of them, I'm fantasizing about having a man cave with one or more of these paintings in it.

I'm considering who I would want even though I doubt Johnson paints them on demand. Nor do I have the disposable income at this moment to buy one. Those damn kids keep needing clothes and shoes.

Though I've always liked Sandberg, my favorite Cub is Andre Dawson, which is clear if you read "The Hawk Has Landed."

One of my favorite baseball cards, which I rediscovered after helping clean out my parents' house, is the 1980 George Brett card, the year he flirted with hitting .400.

And even though I don't like the Cardinals, I think Bob Gibson was one of the best pitchers ever. That man was intimidating.