Firsts of 2010

First Salamander of the Year
March 23, 2010 Black Hawk County, Iowa

Blue-spotted Salamander (Ambystoma laterale)

It was perfect weather and I was in the area for work this day. I got out a little early and figured I would hit a spot that I always find blue spots at, to feed my early season crave for finding some BD. I think I found this guy flipping my second log, and proceeded to flip about a hundred more logs with no results. I headed to the other little area that they are found and found a second after a few minutes. These guys were too squirmy and I couldnt get a good shot.

First Snake of the Year

March 29, 2010 Polk County, Iowa

Red-sided Garter Snake (Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis)

The weather was beyond perfect, temps reaching 70, wicked sunny skies, barely a cloud in the sky. I had heard from others that they had seen some snakes out and about in Iowa already and seeing as I had struck out a few days prior, I was on a mission to find something. It didnt take long before I saw my first, second and third snake, all eluding my grasp and slipping into holes or deep grass. It wasnt until seeing my fourth garter that I was able to get a hand on it.  After that I proceeded to find about a dozen more garters.

First Frog of the Year

Chorus Frog. No picture. Started hearing these guys around the second week in March. Didnt bother getting a photo though.

First Turtle of the Year

Painted Turtle. All the pictures I have are kinda boring and from far away, not worth posting. The first turtle of the year I saw was on March 19th.

Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings - I Learned the Hard Way

Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings - I Learned the Hard Way  (Daptone Records 2010)

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Produced by Bosco Mann and recorded on an Ampex eight-track tape machine by Gabriel Roth in Daptone Records’ House of Soul studios, this record drips with a warmth and spontaneity rarely found since the golden days of Muscle Shoals and Stax. Sharon’s raw power, rhythmic swagger, moaning soulfulness, and melodic command set her firmly alongside Tina Turner, James Brown, Mavis Staples, and Aretha as a fixture in the canon of soul music. From the lushPhilly-Soul fanfare that ushers in “The Game Gets Old” at the top of the record, to the stripped down Sam Cooke-style“Mama Don’t Like My Man” at the tail, the Dap-Kings dance seamlessly through both the most crafted and simple arrangements with subtlety and discipline. I Learned the Hard Way is the “Daptone Sound” at its finest.

Eddy Current Suppression Ring - Rush to Relax

Eddy Current Suppression Ring - Rush to Relax (Goner Records 2010)

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Four Australian guys meet at their factory job, and decide to form a band. Favoring a more straight-ahead sound that looks back at mid-to-late ‘70s proto- and punk proper with hardly a sideways glance, they release a few singles, a couple of great albums, and even manage tour the States a couple of times, all to the acclaim of the punk/garage cognoscenti. A Pulitzer-worthy story this is most decidedly not, as the only thing more remarkable about Eddy Current Suppression Ring’s bare bones tracks is the absolutely unremarkable nature of the four gents who craft them. Not that that’s a problem, mind you — one suspects that a significant part of the band’s appeal and relative success (especially in their home country) is due to the fact that they’ve always written songs that mirror their own disposition as run-of-the-mill dudes.


It took Eddy Current Suppression Ring just six studio hours to craft a follow up to their sophomore LP, Primary Colours. That's less time than most Americans will spend at work in a day. While that pace created a final product much less polished than the band's previous work, Rush to Relax is also a more accurate, interesting sonic articulation of the band's frenetic frontman, Brendan Suppression. "Anxiety" picks up right where Colours left off-- its rubber-band riffs wrapped tightly around Suppression's existential babbling. The guitar sound is still a spring-loaded hybrid cobbled together from Saints and Stooges records.

Basic, unassuming, and calling to mind a grip of classic material without going to great lengths to mimic it, Rush to Relax, the band’s third LP, adds almost nothing new to Eddy Current Suppression Ring’s repertoire. There’s the band-cited Pagans and Troggs similarities, but also bits of the Fall’s slang rants and Wire’s early, deceptively simple primitivism. That’s largely a good thing, though — recorded in a day and often showing it, this album is loose and limber, sacrificing pinpoint precision for an unkempt energy few can match.

Quietly-laced and hardly lo-fi when quite a few of their contemporaries are anything but, Eddy Current Suppression Ring’s Rush to Relax is that rare record, asking nothing up front, but yielding more and more rewards with each passing listen.

Snake Road - Union County, Illinois April 1st, 2010

I got out of work early on Wednesday and had the next few days off. The weather was going to be perfect so some rad dudes and I decided to make the trek to southeastern Illinois to the infamous snake road. I had been wanting to check it out for the last few years after hearing the stories from many people. For those that don't know Snake Road is a 2.5 mile gravel B level road that runs between a swamp and some limestone bluffs. Each spring and fall there is a mass migration of herps when they come out of hibernation, so much so that the county shuts the road down. Its almost as if the road is paved with snakes. The allure of snakes everywhere was too great and so the mission began.

We traveled the some 6 or 7 hours through the night to our fabeled destination, passing the time with scrabble scratch offs. We arrived real late and pitched our tents and went to bed with snakes in our dreams. The next morning was a little chilly, but as the sun rose in the cloudless sky things started to heat up. We arrived at the road about 11 and I couldnt wait to jump out of the car and start searching. It was like Christmas morning to a 6 year old.

Road itself, limestone bluffs to the right, swamp to the left.

Limestone cliffs, tons of great holes and crevices for hibernation.

Swamps, home to tons of frogs and turtles.

Within minutes we had found our first snake, now while not a very impressive find it still filled us with the hope that this was going to be a great day.

Northern Redbelly Snake (Storeria occipitomaculata occipitomaculata)

This was just a small snake, about 8 inches, with a plain colored red belly. Unfortunately, I did not take any shots of the belly.

Next we found our first large snake of the day only a few feet down the road from our first find. It was a 4 foot Black Rat Snake. Unfortunately this is another species found in Iowa, but it was still a lifer snake for some of the guys in the group.

Black Rat Snake (Elaphe obsoleta obsoleta)

Next we found the species of snake that would prove to be the most plentiful of the trip and also our first venomous of the day, the Western Cottonmouth. Turns out you don't have to look for these guys here, you just have to look out for them. I think at last count we found close to 40 on the day. They were everywhere. I think at least each member of our group would be walking along only to be startled by one of these guys flashing the warning sign cottonmouth at us as we were about to step on it.

Most of the time they were found like this sprawled across the road trying to soak up some afternoon rays.

Defensive pose, hence the name.

Western Cottonmouth (Agkistrodon piscivorous leucostoma)

We only found one species of water snake on the day, the Yellowbelly Water Snake, another species found in Iowa as well. These guys were spotted basking up in a shrub about 3 feet above the water. This was the only good shot I got of them.

 

Yellowbelly Water Snake (Nerodia erythrogaster flavigaster)

We also found a few garters and a bunch of ribbon snakes on the day as well. I did hear a frog giving a distress call and followed the recognizable sound to a sight I had expected to see. A Western Ribbon Snake eating a Leopard Frog.

Western Ribbon Snake (Thamnophis proximus proximus)

We also found loads of amphibians on the day. Tons of frogs and toads were calling and those that we did find I was too anxious to get on and find stuff we couldn't in Iowa so I didn't any good shots. I did get the obligatory toads doing it shot though.

American Toad (Bufo americanus)

We also saw a few lizards.

Five Line Skink (Eumeces fasciatus)

Northern Fence Lizard (Sceloporus undulatus hyacinthus)

And flipped a bunch of salamanders.

The most common we found under almost every log was the Zigzag Salamander. With as many as we found I didnt really get any good shots.

Eastern Zigzag Salamander (Plethodon dorsalis dorsalis) lifer!

Northern Slimy Salamander (Plethodon glutinosus glutinosus) lifer!

Cave Salamander (Eurycea lucifuga) lifer!

Cave Salamander as found.

Longtail Salamander (Eurycea longicauda longicauda) lifer!

We also saw a bit of other cool wildlife. It was nice to see a bunch of butterflies out and about down there.

Zebra swallowtail (Eurytides marcellus)

Goatweed Leafwing (Anaea andria)

Hopefully I can make it back again soon and spend some more time here. I think in the one afternoon that we were there we ended with 28 total herp species, and this was still a few days before the big migration.

Up the nature punx!

Social Circkle - City Shock

Social Circkle - City Shock (No Way Records)

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First full length from the these dudes from Boston and it is a total rager.  Combining melody and speed to bring a perfect blend of 80's hardcore and late 70's garage punk rock.  This doesn't sound like just another rehash record, there is enough rockin midtempo jams on this with a good splash of blistering hardcore fury numbers in the mix to give it a uniqueness all of its own.

King Khan & BBQ Show - Invisible Girl

King Khan & BBQ Show - Invisible Girl (In the Red Records 2009)
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The King Khan & BBQ Show is King Khan and Mark Sultan. They have their approach fairly locked down on this third full-length: blisteringly infectious bdoo-wop-heavy garage numbers share space with classic-R&B ballads, 1960s pop, and more straight-ahead punk — clanging guitars and papa-oom-mow-mows abound. The main thing differentiating Invisible Girl from past albums is the novelty factor -- it’s higher than ever.

When you’re a two-man operation where one guy wears a turban and the other a fringed mini-skirt, you’re bound to here the word gimmick tossed around. But rather than feel offended by this potentially pejorative notion, Khan and BBQ seem to fully embrace it. The duo pumps out the kind of novelty music that made early rock & roll so much fun, with Khan's trashy Sam Cooke and Bo Diddley impersonations are uncannier than ever, but it's Invisible Girl's ratio of 1960s tribute to 21st-century blaspheming that makes it his most immediately enjoyable work yet. To think about Invisible Girl too much would most certainly do it a disservice. Khan and BBQ are obviously not reinventing the wheel -- they’re just reveling in the eternal command of lock-up-your-daughters rock & roll.

Madison County, IA 4-6-2010

Temps were reaching close to 80 today and it was pretty sunny. Decided to hike around a hot spot in Madison County for a few hours.

Found 76 Prairie Ringneck Snakes (Diadophis punctatus)

I was finding 4 to a rock in some places. After flipping nearly 30 ringnecks I flipped my first milk snake of the season. 1 Milk Snake (Lampropeltis triangulum)

Then I flipped my first Northern Water Snake of the Year. 1 Northern Water Snake (Nerodia sipedon)

I found 3 juvenile Eastern Yellowbelly Racers (Coluber constrictor flaviventris)

I then proceeded to flip a ton more Prairie Ringnecks, many of which were the size of this guy.
I was then so consumed with flipping rocks I wasnt paying any attention and when I looked up I saw this beast sunning itself on the rocks. 1 Timber Rattlesnake (Crotalus horridus). It was still looking fairly dirty, probably just recently emerged from a den so I snapped a few shots and left it be.

Also found on this day: 2 Eastern Garter Snakes (Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis), a bunch of Painted Turtles (Chrysemys picta), 1 large Snapping Turtle (Chelydra serpentina), Chorus Frogs (Psuedacris triseriata), Cricket Frogs, (Acris crepitans), Northern Leopard Frogs (Rana pipiens), and American Toads (Bufo americanus)

Up the nature punx!

Up the nature punx!