Robyn Hitchcock & Nick Lowe @ Grand Ballroom with special guest Elvis Costello!

Last night, I got to see my top two, all-time favourite singer/songwriters on stage together for the first time.  And, Nick Lowe too.  ;)

During the encore, Nick introduced a very special guest, Mr. Elvis Costello.  The crowd, and myself, went wild.  They sang a duet of "Indoor Fireworks", the song Elvis wrote for Nick.   I so called this surprise visit earlier during the show when I leaned over to Jonlyn and posited how cool would it be if Elvis came on stage to sing "Peace, Love & Understanding" with Nick?!  Little did I know what was in store for the encore.

Robyn then re-joined both Nick and Elvis and sang a beautiful rendition of The Beatles' "If I Fell", and the night ended with a raucous interpretation of "Mystery Train" with all three rocking the house.  Check out the youTube clips below captured by Mike Sweden and others, and some excellent observations remembered almost verbatim by Jeremy Osner!

More shots up on Flickr.

*EDIT*  There's also a torrent of the show now up on Dime.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPjKchngIDk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eaWn6kzPZ8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnvMKMKl2B0

Sketchbot Buttons!

Here's my first test run for a new batch of 1" sketchbot buttons. You'll also notice a Joe Ledbetter pin for reference. ;)

HUGE thanks to Vince over at My Plastic Heart for letting me borrow his button machine. They'll be available at NYCC next week, along with new stickers and postcards. There's still a few tweaks that need to made here and there before cranking out the lot of 'em, so let me know which ones are your faves and any tips to bring them to their fullest.  Close-ups viewable at the sketchbot Flickr set.

sketchBot Sticker Final - Version 2

Yeah, yeah, so I just had to do 2 more tweaks. First, I felt the logo needed to be centered and more "heroic" as opposed to smaller and off center (think Batman vs. Robin logo positioning). Second, after conferring with the printers, it was determined that the die cut could be tricky with such a small gap between the pencil and the left foot, so the best bet was to close off the negative space. Which doesn't bother me too much, as the extended arm now has less chance of tearing off from the body of the sticker. I also opted to put the URL on the front for this run. Better exposure for my first sticker outing I figure. Working on some cool 1" button graphics that i'll post later...