A bit back I decided it was time to leap into the all new sparkling html5 and css3. Think it was a move to a browser that can handle the new markup – from the old Mozilla based Flock to Firefox, which of course is still Mozilla based but was a few versions on from the base of Flock and then onto Chrome.

So which site to go with, after a few experiments for this place I decided that Rauhouse’s site could do with a bit of spit and polish, nothing drastic design wise and would be easier. The existing markup was pretty much valid xhtml 1.1 so it was easy to replace the old <div> with the various new elements – <header> <footer> <section> <nav> <article> etc. Does make things easier to read and know exactly where you are. Also of course means workarounds for IE, so the shiv is added.

Now one of the first problems I came across was also present in the previous version of the site so nothing to do with the new markup or style. It was the problem of using hash links in a page when there’s a static header at the top of a page.

So the style for the header includes position:fixed; and is about 80px heigh. So when the page contains internal hash links – <a href="#track-list">Track Listing</a> – and they are clicked the page scrolls down so the block the link corresponds to – <section id="track-list"> – is visible. Unfortunately the way it works is the page scrolls down until you can see the maximum amount of the section so basically until the top of the section is as far up the window as possible and so a number of times the top of the section is at the top of the window and thus underneath the header.

Not ideal as you can’t now see the first 80px of the section.

I racked my brain for a while previously when I came up with the design and again when redoing it how to get over this. First idea is to give the section a top padding of about 80px but that leaves a whacking big space on the page if you just scroll down manually. Second could I give the section the padding but only when the corresponding hash link is clicked, could work but still a bit of an ugly workaround. Third, move the id from the section to somewhere at least 80px higher on the page, very ugly.

And then when it was really bugging me what pops up but the perfect solution in my feed reader. A fancier clean html/css method to achieve the perfect results. Using :before for the sections in the css.

  section:before {
  display: block;
  content: " ";
  margin-top: -85px;
  height: 85px;
  visibility: hidden;
  }

So thanks to Chris Coyier on css-tricks.com. At the bottom he points out there can be difficulties under certain circumstances which Nicolas Gallagher has addressed.

For my part the simple version above works for the main browsers for the site I’ve used it on – as you can see on any of the Solo Recording pages on Jon’s site – so perfect.

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Neko Case was back at the Ò'ran Mór in Glasgow on Monday night with her band, nearly three years since the last visit, illness prevented me getting down to the London show earlier in the year.

They (Neko Case: vocals, tenor guitar, 7 string acoustic – Paul Rigby: guitar – Tom V. Ray: bass double & electric – Kelly Hogan: vocals – Barry Mirochnick: drums – Jon Rauhouse: pedal steel, guitar, banjo) put on another great show in the old church’s basement, from the classics, “Favorite”, “Deep Red Bells”, to tracks from her current, excellent, album “Middle Cyclone” all top notch stuff.

Actually remembered to use my camera before it was time for them to pack up all their gear, can view some dark blurry pics like that on the right either at Jon’s site or on flickr.

Also got a couple of videos from the sound check, here’s Jon and part of Paul…

click to play

…the rest of Mr. Rigby’s is again either at Jon’s site or on YouTube.

There’s still a number of dates to go on the tour in England, one in Scotland tonight and one in Amsterdam so if you want to hear some damn fine music check if there’s somewhere near you now, tickets are a very reasonably price and enjoy… can’t guarantee the same price I paid, little pass with AAA meant it was a little cheaper than usual.

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If you didn’t manage to make the Newport Festival – Festival at 50 – over the weekend then you’ll have missed Neko Case with me good mate Jon Rauhouse on the Fort Stage.

Well no problem you can download (or stream – though don’t know why you’d do that when you can have it for keeps) the whole set free and legit at NPR.

Set list:

Set list:

1. “Things That Scare Me”
2. “Sparrow”
3. “People Got a Lotta Nerve”
4. “Fever”
5. “Animal”
6. “Teenage Feeling”
7. “Hold On, Hold On”
8. “Middle Cyclone”
9. “Pharaohs”
10. “Tigers”
11. “Wish I Was the Moon”
12. “Polar Nettles”
13. “Red Tide”
14. “Don’t Forget Me”
15. “This Tornado Loves You”
16. “Vengeance”
17. (Band Intros)
18. Encore: “Train From KC”

Download it now at NPR.

You can also check out a few more free Neko gigs at NPR:

Washington, D.C.’s 9:30 Club on April 9th, 2009

From Nov. 16, 2007, at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles.

From 2006 at Washington, D.C.’s 9:30 Club

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Well, not strictly true as after the first listen to the disc I transfered it to a HD, that aside the album has been playing over and over from the moment it arrived in the post.

Why? Well that’s simple it’s damn good stuff, yeah I know I’m slightly biased but following on from “Air Show” & “Rodeo” of the Steel Guitar variety “Heart Attack” is another masterpiece from Jon Rauhouse.

Of course it’s not just steel guitar, there’s Hawaiin guitar, banjo, normal guitars as well as drums from the man himself, along with all the guitar work from Tommy Connell and everything from…well the usual suspects on a Rauhouse record, the guys from Calexico Joey Burns & John Convertino, Jacob Valenzuela, Will Lovell, Bill Herzog etc.

Included in that are the great female vocalists you associate with Jon, Sally Timms, Neko Case & Kelly Hogan with the addition this time round of Visqueen’s Rachel Flotard. Some male vocalists did come as a shock mind, didn’t expect to see Mr. Don (Windham) down as part of the “Idaho Choir”

Through the mix of great standards such as “I’ll Be Seeing You“, “Begin The Beguine” & “Big Iron” to classic TV tunes, Lalo Schifrin’s “Mannix” theme and the Andy Griffith Show “The Fishin’ Pole” to Jon’s own compositions – my fav is still “the Ballad Of The Black Chihuahua” (MP3 download – right click and save) it’s another cracking album from Orchid Fingers, that thanks to those doctors and medical intitutes it’s dedicated to we get to hear.

Out on March 13th, pre-order your copy now.

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Well he did tell me to “do with this what you will”

Jon Rauhouse and Norm Pratt circa 1984 – great pedal steel playing

click to play

Also stuck up on his site the video of JR playing Lowell George’s “Willin’” with Billy Bragg at SxSW last year.

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Yes the classic pics of JR tidying up post gig, this time from the Neko Case gig in Glasgow at the Oran Mor on November 8th, are up on his site Tour Pics Page, with bigger versions on Flickr.

Also stuck up bigger versions of the Shepherds Bush clean up pics on Flickr, after finally signing up with them, will now have to remember to take my camera with me places and to actually take some photos.

Also thought I’d stick up the info about some upcoming gigs Rauhouse’s band is doing in the Northwest US in December on last.fm, so while there I saw the site link wasn’t on there so I stuck on the bio I’d put up a number of months back but by the time I’d done all that the bio had gone. Shit had I wiped it instead, no, it had been deleted by a mod for not following the rules – I voz only obeying orders. Seemed to be alright for them for 7 months but 10 mins after adding the site uri it was gone, yeah OK it was the daft one from Bloodshot (see below) which was better than the nothing they had previously.

Oh well fucking humourless tard – “!!! belongs nowhere in a factual, unbiased artist description.” – Only dull facts and figures do, heyzeus give someone some power. I imagine it was the mention of Alice Cooper’s snake that did it.

Original version of bio

Raised on Easter Island in the Southern Pacific, his destiny as the next tribal chief was derailed when he was struck on his ample head by an eleven-pound coconut. His three weeks of recovery were characterized by feverish rantings about Santo & Johnny and Speedy & Jimmy and cross-dressing. When fully recovered, Jon was uncontrollably lured to the rusty pedal steel guitar that laid for years in the hold of a World War II cargo plane that had crashed on the wrong side of the island many decades before. His playing was flawless; technically proficient, yet totally swashbuckling and swoony. The rest of the islanders quickly grew tired of his noodling and persistent good nature and threw him and his instrument into a hastily constructed out rigger canoe, and cast him from the island. Eventually, Jon found his way to the brown air that shrouds Phoenix and started his career as a stand in for Alice Cooper’s snake.

The 70′s saw Jon being nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975. It was his soothing and tropical guitar wizardry that helped set an amicable tone during the negotiations between Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho to end the Vietnam War. Henry, being the 20th Century’s biggest jackass refused, however, to share the award three ways. (Just one more reason to hate the man). His ego bruised, Jon spent the remainder of the decade defending his enthusiasm for the trend of “streaking.”

Currently, he spends his free time justifying the six acres of lush, green lawn he maintains at his Phoenix hacienda.

The keepers at the Bloodshot asylum first noticed him playing with the Grievous Angels. A steel guitar player in a rock band?? Hell YES!!!! His hunched over demeanor and the madman gleam in his eye told us that we had found a kindred spirit.

Since then, Jon has lent his considerable talents to tours and recordings by Neko Case, Sally Timms, Kelly Hogan, Calexico, the Waco Brothers, and Giant Sand. Let’s not forget that the steel guitar and Hawaiian guitar are HARD to play, and he makes it look so easy.

He is also revered in Nottingham, England. Seriously.

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A night of great music at the Ò'ran Mór in Glasgow from Neko Case and her band, including the opening act which, after Visqueen had to pull out, was three tracks each from Paul Pigat, Jon Rauhouse & Kelly Hogan. A bit of old time blues from Paul, some nice Hawaiian tinged swing from Rauhouse, didn’t expect him to be singing mind, and a touch of country from Kelly (great voice).

Neko’s set was as usual top notch, all the top tracks were there from “Favorite” to tracks from “Fox Confessor” such as “Hold On, Hold On” & “Maybe Sparrow”.

Now as I said in the Calexico gig post I can never remember set lists after seeing a band but I felt somewhat better about this when after the gig the band were trying to put their list in alphabetical order and were doing a pretty miserable job of remembering any the tracks they played never mind in any order. Rauhouse was, it has to be said, exceptionally bad at it

And that just shows what rock and or roll is all about, one minute you’re supporting Willie Nelson infront of thousands at the Hollywood Bowl the next your stuck out the back of a converted church in Glasgow, standing next to the bins trying to remember what you’ve just played in the couple of hours beforehand (and every night for the last week) while waiting for the bus to take you to the ferry and Ireland.

Will get the usual pics of Rauhouse post gig tidying up and trying to avoid getting his picture taken on his site soon.

*Yes I was on the guest list so the price of admission was zip and worth every penny and would have been so if I’d have had to pay, excellent show.

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Neko and her band are heading over here for another stint on the “Fox Confessor” tour, taking in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic. A good move as there was only the Shepherds Bush gig in London on the last leg.

The dates – all in November, towns/cities and venues can be found at Jon Rauhouse’s site Tour Page.

Get along check out some good, real music and see what alt.country is all about.

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Was late getting the video clip ready of Jon’s appearence on “The Late Show with David Letterman” so there was another version already put up on YouTube, it was probably a better version – widescreeen and no annoying ITV4 logo or what’s on next strip.

Anyway here it is Jon Rauhouse playing banjo with Neko Case’s band on the track “Maybe Sparrow” live on “The Late Show with David Letterman”.

click to play

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Over on Jon Rauhouse site’s tour page, as the “Fox Confessor Brings The Flood” tour continues into June, July, August & Spetember.

Next leg starts off with an appearance on “The Late Show with David Letterman” and finishes* supporting Willie Nelson at The Hollywood Bowl. *though of course more dates may follow.

Also stuck up a very short video clip of Jon & Paul Rigby tuning up before the recent Shepherds Bush Empire gig.

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