Appendix E-J

The first half of today was spent listening to my Arrested Development (Speech, not Jason Bateman) Pandora station whilst helping on bar. Business meetings soundtracked by The Fugees, Digable Planets, De La Soul, and Tribe among others. For a short while, hip-hop took over 144 S. Mason.

Of course, this isn’t the first time this has happened. Our friend Listener has played the Everyday Joe’s stage several times, most recently in May opening for Aaron Strumpel & taking part in the Elephants extravaganza.

Listener has a new video out to an old song. That washing machine isn’t a prop, folks, it’s an institution.

FURTHER:

• Official Listener Site
• SALE! at the Listener store

Popularity: 9% [?]

Everyday Joe’s has a good, good, good friend named Adam Mackie. He’s a beautiful soul. He often treats you better than you deserve.

Adam is quite the crafter of words. He loves them. “We’re prisoners of the language,” he told me the other day.

Not sure we’ve ever posted poetry here on Appendix E-J, but this seems to be the time to start. I hope you get to meet Adam one day, as he will inspire you…heart & wardrobe. Adam wrote this while the train passed 144 S. Mason:

Time Passes On Rails
words by Adam Mackie

Time passes on rails the train blows its horn
Speech pauses feet stop
Engine goes moves light years on from caboose
The distance between often feels forlorn
The journey invents the destination
A beach stretching alongside an ocean
Humble grains of sand swept and forgotten
Self-aggrandize in epic delusion
Genius lives neither in tide nor the beach!
Ever elusive Spirit inside souls
Resides in the past, present, and future
Teachers teach to learn learners learn to teach
Dig deep and wide inside deep and wide holes
Truth finds wound resists stitching suture

Popularity: 8% [?]

Che-ch-ch-ch-check check it out.

It is exciting to finally be able to tell you this with all certainty and without breaking any rules.

Barista competitions are fascinating things. Think Iron Chef but with coffee, and with just 15 minutes to prepare a 3-course beverage spread for four judges: an espresso, a cappuccino, and a signature beverage. At the event in Chicago last year, we saw signature beverages made with blue cheese, rootbeer, fresh squeezed grapefruit juice, caramelized bananas, and lots of heavy cream. It’s quite a nice time.

This year, the national competition will be held April 15-18 in Anaheim, CA. Leading up to that event are the regional competitions. Colorado baristas participate in the Mountain Regional. This year, that event makes its way our way.

This has us giddy. We’d really like you to be giddy, too…though we understand if you are not. BUT, you should check it out. A lot of Everyday Joe’s folks will be there volunteering and watching and oohing and ahhing. If you need some convincing, watch last year’s national championship winning performance below. Then look forward to watching some nice hearts being poured over Valentine’s Day weekend.

View on Vimeo.

Popularity: 1% [?]

There are rumblings of the Mountain Regional Barista Competition happening in Northern Colorado next month. This has the majority of us excited. It had me daydreaming the other day as I drove down College Avenue. It had me thinking to much about coffee and not enough about people. I stopped at a light and looked at the people in another coffee shop and something quivered in my being. The reality of people. At another light, someone protesting something was talking and smiling with a young fellow who appeared extremely excited to get somewhere, as his feet wouldn’t stop moving though he stood in place. More quivers.

About this same time people in Haiti were experiencing a natural disaster. People were being buried in rubble. The earth was changing at a very rapid rate all around them. I have beliefs about these quivers I felt & we can talk about them sometime if you like…but for now it is just safe to say that earthquakes are bigger than coffee. The world is huge and we are not as big as we might think we are. But we need to take care of each other and love each other. Methinks those are part of each other.

Love people here. The people next to you. But love the people in Haiti. If you pray, pray for them please. If you have the desire, go to Haiti. If you have the means, give to Haiti. We’re not as small as we may think we are.

FURTHER:

• Avatar For Haiti
• Oxfam

Popularity: 9% [?]

If you were at the 2009 Everyday Joe’s 90/10 benefit, that card there might just mean something to you. It does to me. I keep it in my wallet.

The cards were distributed to those in attendance by one Mr. Todd Fadel of the musical superiors Agents Of Future. The cards & their suits corresponded with a certain percussive action. Before long, the audience was the backing band for the Agents, and images were being drawn on an overhead projector by those feeling the need, and dancing was happening by those who couldn’t contain it anymore.

“Come exist with me,” Mr. Fadel invited from the stage. “This is where I exist, where I am a child.”

This invitation is also the heart behind Love Is Concrete, a beautiful online community Todd has created for all of us. Folks have taken notice, including the people at Sojourner’s magazine. They recently interviewed our friend and it is a beautiful read. Go ahead and see for yourself, then join Love Is Concrete.

Popularity: 2% [?]

finally Finally FINALLY!

The video below is groundbreaking in the realm of coffee brew methods. It will change you.

View on Vimeo.

Popularity: 8% [?]

This is fun.

When I think Bon Apetit magazine, my mind immediately goes to summer evenings spent watching Next Food Network Star. What I do not think is boutique coffee shops. That, apparently, has changed.

At Everyday Joe’s, we proudly and with great care serve the beans of Novo Coffee. They are good people and we love them. Apparently, Bon Apetit does as well…at least that’s what I’d surmise from Novo being bestowed a Top 10 Boutique Coffee Shop:

Found at three retail locations and many top restaurants, this Denver roaster’s product makes it easier for java junkies to buy local.

That right there is the truth, and part of the reason we switched to the roaster. Read the rest of the Bon Apetit article and then come have some coffee…because we love you too.

FURTHER:

• Top 10 Boutique Coffee Shops
• Official Novo Site

Popularity: 6% [?]

Direct Trade coffee is important. We should all drink it this new year…but what is it? Oh, here you go:

1. The best way to get an exceptional cup of coffee, comes from knowing the hands that work on the farm.
2. Understanding the growers, plants, sites, sounds, smells and culture of each region, we can ensure that our coffee is not blindly accepted as fair or sustainable.
3. A commitment to frequent communication with our growers, giving each of us a voice in the bigger than business transaction of life and economies.

You’ve already started on this resolution…did you know that? Just by drinking at Everyday Joe’s.

But what about at your home? In your kitchen…on your deck…at your desk…on the front porch…looking out the window…in good company.

You could always buy the beans of Novo Coffee from Everyday Joe’s, but coffee from different roasters is like beer from different breweries. It comes to a point when you have a desire to try them all. A solution on the coffee front is here.

Enter the Direct Trade Coffee Club (they wrote that nice three-point summary up there). Currently a partnership between our old friends at Intelligentsia and the Grand Rapids-based Madcap Coffee, the DTCC (just coined that one) delivers Direct Trade beans to your home every month. A little bird told me they are evaluating a few more roasters and pursuing others with hopes to top out at six total, allowing each partner to provide the beans twice a year.

“We started the Direct Trade Coffee Club to connect consumers with the finest roasters of specialty coffee who purchase coffee direct from the farmer.”

The club also provides brewing, tasting, and seed-to-cup infos on their site. Information is the key, I hear. All that info & the ordering process can be found here. A wise way to spend that Christmas money, I say.

FURTHER:

• Join the Direct Trade Coffee Club
• MadCap Coffee Company
• Intelligentsia Coffee

Popularity: 1% [?]

Not trying to turn this into a Candy Claws fanblog, but you have to report the news that fits and give credit where credit is due. Plus, it’s always a nice time to see members of the EDJ family move up and up.

Our longtime pal-os in Candy Claws are turning up in quite a few places. In October they were the subject of Pitchfork’s Forkast. It now seems the once-hipster-now-career-holder listeners are ready for them, or so I would guess from a tweet by NPR’s All Songs Considered:

RT @nprobin: Today’s free download from our Second Stage: Candy Claws! http://tinyurl.com/yhx2hmf

Well, isn’t that tasty? So are the kind words from the writeup:

“After two years of writing and recording, the band self-released the stunning album early this year and were signed to the Irish label Indiecater in the fall…It’s impossible to pinpoint all of the sounds going on at one time, but digging in further yields even more surprising noises and little details that really make the music beautiful.”

You can read the rest of those kind words here, as well as listen to the featured song “Catamaran.”

Everyday Joe’s is proud of you, Candy Claws. Proud like when your child gets stitches for the first time and doesn’t shed a tear.

FURTHER:

• Follow Robin Hilton (@nprobin) on Twitter
• Follow All Songs Considered on Twitter
• Read the rest of the Second Stage piece
• Dig yourself some Candy Claws

Popularity: 8% [?]

Popularity: 2% [?]