So, what is Monday Night Football up to?

The past 2 (two) weeks on MNF have featured 2 (two) separate incidents where John Madden was forced to give a response or talk at a time when he'd rather have eaten a steaming pile of poop.

The first occurred last week when he had to introduce and then talk about Al Michaels taking over the play-by-play duties of ABC's coverage of the NBA. I've been around some coaches in my lifetime, and, if there's one thing they could care less about, it's any sport other than their own. But that's minor compared to this week's transgression.

All of the sudden, there's a halftime "contest" where two football players per week, pair with two musical acts per week, to create performances for a "tournament," which will be fought out during halftime all season long by viewer vote via the internet.

Last night featured DE Marcellus Wiley of the Chargers with DMC (without Run), against Lions QB Joey Harrington with John Popper (apparently without Blues Traveller). Wiley rapped and Harrington played piano. Somewhere near the end of the 3rd quarter, the "official" voting was over and Harrington was ahead 87% to 13%, burying Wiley and his "sick" rap.

Uh huh.

Like Britney sleepwalking through a lip-synched dance routine on a be-happy cocktail of various uppers and downers before the season opener a few weeks ago, there's some kind of "sick" union going on between various suits in the recording industry and various suits at the NFL home office. MNF's numbers have been hurting the past few years, so it's stands to reason that they might pull a few stunts to reaffirm or disprove some of their theories about who's watching the games. Since the music industry has become a whore for everyone else recently, it isn't surprising they'd "go out on a limb" and do this too.

I didn't vote this week, but you can be sure I'm going to look at it more closely next week. What can we learn from Harrington's crushing defeat of Wiley? Well, with Green Bay on the tube, it's probably not a stretch to say that MNF had a predominantly white audience last night. Hey, I could be totally wrong on that one, but when the stiff white kid who struggles to keep the beat with Popper's maniacal harp playing beats the slick rapper in front of a national TV audience, you have to ask yourself, who was really watching last night.

This little contest may appear harmless my friends, but I assure you, there will be implications for everyone at the end of it. As for Madden, when Michaels revealed the numbers and the winner, he was reaching for his spoon to go after the pile of poop again.

From David Cantwell's review of some recent CD's in Pitch.com:

The knee-jerk equating of crap with pop doesn't add up, aesthetically speaking; the former is an evaluation of ends, and the latter merely describes means. Worse, it ignores that the tension between old-fashioned and newfangled is the lifeblood of tradition. As historian Richard Peterson reminds us, country has always moved from "hardcore" to "soft shell" and back around again like clockwork. This unbroken circle perpetually returns a changed genre to roots that have changed, too. Think of the way Buck Owens prompted the "traditionalist" revival of the early 1960s by playing rock and roll disguised as honky-tonk.

I've traded some emails with Cantwell in the past, and you know what? On some levels, I agree with the above. But there is a FATAL flaw to what he's saying.

Country can and will withstand, and even benefit from, an "injection" of pop music from a purely musical standpoint. But, the lionshare of pop in Country today is not there for musical reasons. It's there to deliver the female demographic to Country radio. As an example, just look at Cantwell's use of Buck Owens in the above quotation. Country was in the midst of the Countrypolitan nonsense of the Nashville Sound when Owens plugged it back in and returned some of the grit to it. But he did that because that's who he was, it was his version of Country, and it was what was making him a huge success on the West Coast. He was trolling for hits like anybody else, BUT, if he cranked up a Telecaster and blasted the wall of strings out of the recording studio, it was because he'd been doing that in a bar in Bakersfield for about ten years. If he was "disguising" anything, well, it was only a matter of degree. I guess I take issue with "disguised."

And now, the issue is the PROCESS. I've said many times that you can point to individual songs by individual singers in the mainstream and say, "well, that's not selling out." Of course. But, they're in the mainstream because the PROCESS is screwed up. People get label deals because they can sing relatively in tune, and they're good looking. The songs--as is very much the case for Brooks & Dunn--will be supplied to them. It's almost IMPOSSIBLE to find a more manufactured group than Brooks & Dunn, two guys who didn't know each other from Adam, that were put together by the marketing reps from two labels who were having a drink together and thought the two might match up well. The PROCESS is designed to provide pop songs, "disguised" as Country to radio, so that women between the ages of 25 and 45 do not turn off the radio during the Tampax commercials.

The final joke, as always, is the obligatory mention of Joe Nichols, Dierks Bentley, and Gary Allan. They get mentioned every time. It's a hallmark of country-pop apologists to finish their review, article, essay, or master's thesis by mentioning the "New Traditionalists," Nichols, Bentley and Allan. And why are these three guys the new traditionalists? I can name about a hundred acts that were new traditionalists several years before they came along; the answer is, quite simply, these are 3 handsome men whose wardrobes and haircuts we can control, who came to Nashville, and now are scared to leave. They'll ride this wave of test-marketing that the labels are doing with them, but then the cold iron bell of reality will ring. Mark it down, the next articles you read about these guys will be about how they lost their label deals because they wouldn't sing about babies, angels, or babies turning into angels after dying from an incurable disease, while at the State Fair with their high school sweetheart parents, who probably married too early. "Man," they'll say, "Nashville just chews you up and spits you out."

On stage, Jay Farrar reminds me of that Ten Commandments monument down in Alabama. He doesn't do a whole lot but stand there, kind of cold and roped off, but eveyone is going fucking nuts around him. I caught myself bobbing up and down on the First Ave mainroom floor like a college girl, to songs where he barely blinked his eyes while singing. I honestly believe that the American songwriting ladder goes something like Cole Porter, Woody Guthrie, Hank Williams, Bob Dylan, Jay Farrar. But Jesus, tap your foot, wiggle your knee, spit on somebody in the front row if you have to. I thought we were in for a real treat when he opened up the gig with Punch Drunk. "Man oh man," I thought, "here it comes." For the most part, he knocked me senseless. It's impossible to not be struck dumb by his songwriting abilities. Lovely, melodic, instrospective, intelligent, dark...always dark. You go numb in Jay's darkness after a while. As far as I know, he's happily married, has some kids, his own label and recording studio, and every long-haired, folk-rock, six string, jean jacket, college kid since about 1990 absolutely worships him.

He's been asked in every interview that he's done since 1994 if Uncle Tupelo is ever going to get back together. You know what? Who gives a shit? The first thing you Minnesota Nice people need to grasp is the aching finality of a Missouri (pronounced Missour-uh) blood feud. Brothers...BROTHERS in Missouri stop talking to each other because of one fight they had when they were 17; it's a betrayal thing. Someone you love unconditionally pisses on you and it hurts.

Well, here's our result...You were probably at the Wilco show at the Walker...Jeff Tweedy's free form jazz odyssey. What the hell was that? I'm not saying it was bad, I'm saying, "What the hell was that?"

Let me flesh this out. Standing on the floor, about ten yards away from Jay Farrar last night, I knew I was watching a master perform absolutely beautiful, original, Amercian roots music. It was good, and it made me emotional. But, it didn't appear to make Jay emotional. He got all wound up at the end of the encore for the cover of Neil Young's "Like a Hurricane" with Canyon, but his own music doesn't do that to him? And that's when it hit me.

He shook off Jeff, then the Boquist brothers, and now there's no one up there on stage with him to agitate him. Same with Tweedy...first Jay, then Jay Bennet, now it's just Jeff and the loop back feature of his keyboard player's synth.

Creative people can be extraordinary by themselves. But, they can be off the charts good with a little adverse or unusual input that shakes them up, makes them nervous, depressed, or angry. Look at some of the high water marks we got from Johnny Cash with Rick Rubin. This kind of grizzly, hardcore guy in sunglasses takes an icon and drags the fight out of him onto 4 records.

I don't know shit about Jay Farrar. His show last night was fantastic, but I wanted more. I wanted to see the fight. I wanted to see him acknowledge the raised glasses, lighters, the hoots and hollers. I wanted him to look at that 6'2", 90 pound hillbilly savant guitar player for Canyon who stood in complete darkness the whole night, wink, smile, and flip him off.

From the North Northfield StarTribune:

Bow hunter stumbles upon 200 pot plants

Associated Press
MANKATO, Minn. -- A deer hunter kicked off a three-week stakeout that ended with a million-dollar pot, literally, in Blue Earth County.

The Blue Earth Country Sheriff's Office said a bow hunter called police after stumbling upon more than 200 marijuana plants hidden in cornfields.

Authorities staked out the location, watched who came and went and arrested three men. It took a county dump truck to haul away the plants.

Charged on Monday in Blue Earth County Court were: Paul Larson, 39, from Freeborn County, and his brothers, 42-year-old Joseph Larson and 32-year-old Daniel Larson, both of Bricelyn.

Each was charged with third-degree possession of a controlled substance and third-degree conspiracy to commit a controlled substance crime. Both of those are felonies. They face up to 20 years in prison and a quarter-million dollar fine.

This warm tale from the southwestern recesses of God's country reminds me of one of the funniest 3 panel strips ever committed to the fishwrap of American discourse. I can't find an actual picture of it on the net anywhere to rip off, so I'll just reprint the dialogue:

From Berke Breathed's Bloom County

Frame 1:
Senator Befellow: A farmer! A man of the earth! My heart bleeds for good folks like you. Going through hard times, are you?

Farmer: Nope, doin dandy.

Frame 2:
Senator Bedfellow: Good! This is an excellent batch of corn you have here...

Farmer: 'Taint corn. It's dope.

Frame 3:
Senator Bedfellow: Pardon?

Farmer: Here, take some home to the wife.
(please don't sue me Mr. Breathed)

As I've been telling everyone for years now, you have to look at the cracks in the sidewalks sometimes, before you try to fix the street. If you've spent any amount of time in the outstate portions of whichever member of the union to which you belong with anyone under 40 (forty) years of age, you know that dope is like Budweiser out there. A few farmboys knocking down some corn to grow some green when it looks like it's going to be a long, hot summer is not an unusual story. Somehow, black helicopters, Willie Nelson, Farm-Aid, and Cargill fit into all of this, but I don't have the mental wherewithal this evening to make the connections. That being said...

Jack's Tain't-Corn-It's-Dope Top Twenty:

1. Live at Billy Bob's, Jack Ingram
I haven't heard this disk yet. I don't even know if they have it burned, printed, and in the case. I'm telling you right now, it will probably be one of the best disks you've ever heard.
2. Rainy Day Music, The Jayhawks
3. Guitar Pickin' Martyrs, Luther Wright & The Wrongs
4. Just For The Record, Bobby Flores
If you know how to dance, and you put this record on your stereo, and you can keep from dancing, well, just call the morgue because you are officially dead.
5. Terroir Blues, Jay Farrar
6. Wave on Wave, Pat Green
7. Swing Time, Wayne "The Train" Hancock
8. Railings, Frog Holler
9. Streets of Sin, Joe Ely
10. Temporarily Disconnected, BR549
11. No Frills Friend, Amy Allison
12. One Step Ahead, Rhonda Vincent
13. ring, Big Ditch Road
14. ...the size of planets, Haley Bonar
15. Freedom's Child, Billy Joe Shaver
16. Live, Alison Krauss & Union Station
17. Live Recordings from the Louisiana Hayride, Johnny Cash
18. The Lawless, Kevin Deal
19. It Happened in America, Sherwin Linton & Friends
20. Wise to You!, Marti Brom

From Joe Posnanski's typically good column in the Kansas City Star:

Right now, there's a guy to watch in center field. Most people around the country � even most people in Kansas City � may not think of Carlos Beltran as one of the great players in baseball. But he is. He is, in fact, the most complete player in the game right now, a five-tool wonder, a guy who breaks records without anyone noticing.

I'd like to congratulate a team that should have won this division by 15 games for finding a sack and pulling it out of their asses with a 10 game winning streak in the last week. Being a diehard fan of the sport, and, having something to cheer about with regard to my boyhood hometown team for the first time in 10 years, I am of course a little bitter that we didn't pull it out in the end. The Twins of course, should go very far in the playoffs, opening against the Yankees, a team they have dominated the past few seasons...oh wait a minute...that's not right either, is it? Having grown up a Royals fan, if EVERY SINGLE ONE of the Yankees walked out of their dugout and broke their ankles on their way onto the field, I would point, laugh, and begin cheering wildly. There is not a more supremely evil franchise at any level of sport, and everything bad that happens to them is a good thing. It would be funny if the Twins beat them, but this current incarnation of the Twins tends to shit down its leg when playing the Pukes in the Pinstripes, so you shouldn't hold your collective breath fellow citizens.

But, back to Posnanski's column. I have been having a play argument with one of my friends; he just tries to goad me into arguing whether Torii Hunter is better than Carlos Beltran. The good thing that Joe's column points out is that, not only is Beltran better than Hunter, he's better than everybody. Posnanski, as a hometown columnist may be biased, but the good thing about baseball is that numbers don't lie. Some highlights:

But one interesting new fielding statistic is �STATS Inc.'s zone rating.� It attempts to judge the percentage of plays made in that player's particular zone. I don't know how good a statistic it is, but it makes sense.

And Beltran's zone rating of .928 is the highest in baseball.

At any position.

So that old rumination about Torii Hunter being the best defensive Center Fielder in the game--something I admit even I ascribed to until this morning--is really false.

How fast is Beltran? Check this out: He has been thrown out stealing by a catcher once all year (he has been picked off twice). With one more steal, he will become just the fourth player to steal 40 bases and get caught fewer than five times.

No need to embarrass Torii by quoting his steal numbers.

You can play all sorts of fun number games with Carlos Beltran. For instance, take a look at Beltran's first five years next to another guy you might recognize.

Carlos Beltran: .287 average, 106 home runs, 461 RBIs, 490 runs, 148 stolen bases.

Barry Bonds: .265 average, 117 home runs, 336 RBIs, 468 runs, 169 stolen bases.

Last year, Carlos Beltran set an American League record for most extra-base hits by a switch hitter. The old record belonged to Mickey Mantle. Nobody made a big deal about it because nobody noticed.

Understand, I realize all of this is a lot of bitter chest puffing, now that the Twins have won the division and are moving on to the playoffs. But, I will take solace in the fact that going into next year, the Royals have the best Manager (Pena), the best Rookie (Berroa), and the best Player (Beltran) in the entire game of baseball. If they can find just 3 starting pitchers to have an average season for a FULL season, the Twins will not be able to limp and then back into a division title again.

From LAUNCH Radio Networks:

The Dixie Chicks want out of the country music scene, according to comments group member Martie Maguire made to German magazine, Spiegel. She said, "We don't feel part of the country scene any longer, it can't be our home any more."

Like nobody saw this coming...

Mainstream Nashville is a whore. If it were suddenly cool to be a cross-dressing, gay, Republican, Toby Keith would fly to the White House wearing eye-shadow and lipstick to fellate the President at a press conference in the Rose Garden with a Ford pickup in the background.

Somewhere along the way, these publicity stunts (Entertainment Weekly cover) and "controversial statements" that the Dixie Chicks have made got confused with typical Americans taking a historical stand on a particular issue.

The suits at Sony Nashville realize that despite all the alleged backlash from the pencil pushers who run radio at ClearChannel, Infinity, and Disney, the Chicks pretty much sold out their entire recent jaunt through the States...thousands and thousands of girls and women, aged 13 to 45...BUYING POWER my friend (and money in the coffers of those stations that supposedly took them off the air, but left their station logos up all around the arenas...just in case...). The only way to sell your beleaguered twangy girl act, is to make them a beleaguered twangy girl act. Call up your buddies the Mays Boys and tell them to take the Chicks off their country stations...we got a great idea to phase them into Rock/Pop when they get back from Europe...their naturally big mouths are GOLDEN!

You can start counting now...10...9...8...Toby Keith will say some knuckleheaded thing to counter this latest "statement," thus boosting HIS sales too. Create a little consumerist friction at home between the guys and gals, and pass it off as "political controversy." This isn't PoliSci 101, this is P.T. Barnum, the third and maybe most important progenitor, along with Billy Joel and Elton John, of "Today's Best Country."

The differences between the Chicks/Nashville-Keith controversy and the "feud" between Brock Lesnar and Kurt Angle are negligible...politically, personally, and most importantly, economically. I once saw Brock snap the University of Illinois heavyweight's hip like a twig (I heard the pop) at Williams Arena, and almost get disqualified for an illegal hold that resulted in a serious injury. That fight was real and there were CONSEQUENCES for the participants. Anybody catch the Chicks playing for gas money and eating tuna fish sandwiches at rest stops lately?

If I was Johnny Cash, I'da up and died too.

Blue Sky and Melissa, by the Allman Brothers, are great Country songs.
Alice's Restaurant, by Arlo Guthrie, is a great Country song.
Rocky Raccoon, by the Beatles, is a great Country song.
Wiser Time, She Talks to Angels, Thorn in My Pride, and Good Friday, by the Black Crowes are great Country songs.
Don't Think Twice, It's All Right, by Bob Dylan is a great Country song.
Atlantic City, by Bruce Springsteen is a great Country song.
A Child's Claim to Fame, by the Buffalo Springfield is a great Country song.
Sweetheart of the Rodeo, by the Byrds, is a great Country album.
Sail On, by the Commodores is a great Country song.
Sweet Jane, the Cowboy Junkies' version, is a great Country song.
Wedding Day, by Cracker, is a great Country song.
Futon Song, by Dieselhed, is a great Country song.
Black Water, by the Doobie Brothers, is a great Country song.
Into the Old Man's Shoes, by Elton John, is an underrated Country song.
Psycho, by Elvis Costello, is a great Country song.
The Zamboni Song, by the Gear Daddies, is a great Country song.
Truckin', by the Grateful Dead, is a great Country song.
Me and Bobby McGee, by Janis Joplin, is a great Country song.
Operator, by Jim Croce, is a great Country song.
As much as I wish it were true, Jimi Hendrix never recorded anything on the 3 albums that I would consider a great Country song.
Big Daddy, by John Mellencamp, is a great Country album.
Hot Dog, by Led Zeppelin, is a great Country song.
Dead Skunk, by Loudon Wainwright III, is a great Country song.
The Ballad of Curtis Loew, by Lynyrd Skynyrd, is a great Country song.
Wish You Were Here, by Pink Floyd, is a great Country song.
Fairytale of New York, by the Pogues, is a great Christmas Country song.
Wynona's Big Brown Beaver, by Primus, is a great Country song.
Amie, by Pure Prairie League, is a great Country Song.
Driver 8 and Don't Go Back to Rockville, by R.E.M., are great Country songs.
Waitress in the Sky, by the Replacements, is a great Country song.
Garden Party, by Ricky Nelson, is a great Country song.
Country Honk, Let It Bleed, Dead Flowers, Tumbling Dice, and Sweet Virginia, by the Rolling Stones, are great Country songs.
Engine Joe, by Slobberbone, is a great Country song.
Burden in My Hand, by Soundgarden, is a great Country song.
Interstate Love Song, by the Stone Temple Pilots, is a great Country song.
Cowboy Song, by Thin Lizzy, is a great Country song.
I Won't Back Down, by Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, is a great Country song.

Music isn't contemplated anymore. Any music.

My college girlfriend had these two friends from India named Nick and Subir. I used to watch these guys drink EXTRA strong coffee--maybe 10 or 11 cups--long after the sun went down, and smoke about a thousand hand-rolled cigarettes each, talking about jazz, and then fall dead asleep for the normal 8 hours. I'm one of those people who think jazz is written and recorded in Sanskrit, and, unless you personally authored the Rosetta stone, you have no chance of deciphering it. I can listen to it for a while, but soon, I get a little lost in the scales, tones, and modes, and you're just not going to throw me a lifesaver big enough to fish me out of the ocean. But you know what? Whenever I run into people like ol' Nick and Subir, it really gives me a hop in my step.

People who spend hours talking about the effect Coltrane had on music remind me of Bob Dylan. As far as what I do is concerned, Bob Dylan changed everything. There was a lot of "plight-of-the-working-man" in Woody Guthrie's music; there was a lot of "she-cheated-on-me-while-I-worked-the-3rd-shift-at-the-auto-plant" in Hank Williams' music; the guitar became a firecracker in the hands of Bo Diddly and Chuck Berry; and, there was a lot of "jammin'-on-the-one" to James Brown's music. Dylan very improbably synthesized all of this into whatever he did, is doing, and will ever do. But, where I'm going doesn't have much to do with a cursory history of the metamorphosis of music in the 50's, 60's, and 70's.

It has more to do with music's place in culture, its function if you will, and why the word "important," when associated with music, makes people cringe and write emails that the receivers delete with knowing smiles, shaking heads, and the tsk tsk tsk of your grandmother's wisdom.

Back when Coltrane was blue, Dylan was freewheelin', and TV was 3 networks and UHF, people read books and listened to music. Don't get me wrong, they still do that. But, back then, MANY people did that. Now, many people read bullshit blogs, watch end-of-civilization, reality TV shows, and have every album Britney Spears ever released. Hey, St. Augustine had a hard time looking away when the lions ate the Christians, so I'm not going to begrudge anybody their modern-day comforts. But, because of what I do, I have to believe there's an American discourse and history that takes place in our entertainments; there are moments when a song is more than a song...Cole Porter and Louis Armstrong were the voices of the American Renaissance, post World War I, etc.

Oh YES, I love to shuffle, two-step, and swing. Who gives a fuck what Nate's mumbling up there on a Friday night? I'm trying to swing this girl around the floor and into bed. No, every song doesn't have to be ABOUT something. You are so right my friend.

Now that we have that out of the way for Shania, Britney, and whatever soulless robot has yet to be launched by the perverts whose Armani suits are encrusted with Beluga caviar and semen in the bowels of the big record labels, let's get back on topic...

Let's just assume for a moment that there are people who are trying to paint portraits of America that don't pigeonhole into commercials for processed cheese slices, tartar fighting toothpaste, and feminine hygeine. I mean, Jesus...is that all there is?

Jay Farrar is or was Bob Dylan's heir. I say "is or was" because Jay still has some lead in his pencil and is working out where his mark is going to be; also, assuming for the sake of argument, that he's past his prime, no one has hit me as the next wrung in the impossible ladder I'm building at 2am.

But you should know this: just based on what he did in Uncle Tupelo (THE MOST IMPORTANT COUNTRY BAND OF THE LATE 80'S AND EARLY 90'S), Son Volt, and in his solo projects to date, Farrar is one of maybe 5 or 6 people with genuine talent who is struggling to paint the American portrait in music that will be collected and remembered 50 years from now. Sure, in 2013, Mothers in Edina will tune the FM dial in their Minivans to the ClearChannel station dedicated to the "Millenium Oldies"--Britney, Christina, AND Pink--while their kids watch the fucking purple dinosaur that just won't die, on DVD, from the back seats, buckled in tighter than any Apollo astronaut ever dreamed of being...but does that make it RIGHT?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

It took Mark Twain several years of bouncing around on the River to find out what it meant to be Mark Twain...Tennessee Williams bared scars, real scars, bleeding crusty scars, right there on stage for everyone to see and whisper about, right after they patted him on the back...and everytime I think I know what Bob Dylan has been trying to tell me and everybody else for the past 40 years, he still throws me curve balls. THIS is the stuff of ambulance driving in France in WWI, hunting lions in Africa between takes, and swinging at 3-0 pitches with the bases loaded and nobody out. Fucking turn off your monitor, your TV, your MP3 player, your combination watch-drink carbonator-dildo and fucking LIVE!!! This is still the greatest country and melting pot culture in the world; engage yourself in it.

And while you're living, go see Jay Farrar at First Avenue Wednesday night. If you aimlessly clap at some songs and heartily hoot at others, he will make note of it, and YOU my friend, will have become part of history.

What can you say that isn't hyperbolic and cliché?

While white teenagers from Wayzata named Trevor and Rebecca were being whipped into a "rap" frenzy by the Insane Clown Posse at the Target Center, we adults with less of a theatrical taste were being pushed to the edges of Minnesota Nice in the Mainroom at First Ave by the Jayhawks. Paul Westerberg's mellow sobriety spawned a kind of fearlessly sensitive, six-string, White-guy songwriter fry pond here in town, and Gary Louris has kind of either backed into or outright grabbed the "big fish" title, I still haven't made up mind which. He delivers those love songs with a kind of 500-pound-brass-balls attitude that people like John Denver, James Taylor, and Cat Stevens never seemed to have. I think it gets back to what I was saying about him yesterday on the air; I've just sort of run into him at Mayslack's, Elsie's, and other kinds of neighborhood haunts, and for someone who's such a big wheel, he's a really unassuming and seemingly normal guy. It seems to me if a normal guy were given the lead mic, a cranked up guitar, and a packed-to-the-rafters First Ave, he'd leave everything he had on stage, which is what the band did. It's possible for highly melodic, achingly tenor love songs to have forceful, dark, music-club balls, and the Jayhawks are living proof. It's chilling to hear several thousand people--truck drivers, secretaries, accountants, lawyers, doctors, pimps, pushers, hookers--reach for the falsetto of "bluuuuuuue," and then look up at Gary who seems to be blushing behind the glare of his glasses, while at the same time, reaching for more to give. Last night ranks right up there with the best shows I've ever seen.

While I'm at it, I'd like to give a huge "thumbs up" to the group for singing Tampa to Tulsa, my favorite song on the new disk. I was hoping they'd play it, and the performance was great.

The first half is over and we get the ball to start the second...which is a good thing, because we're tied at a score a-piece.

A coupla days ago I blogged a preview of the week to come at beleaguered First Avenue. It was just a few days before four great gigs would hit in 8 days.

 

Wednesday night started off with a bang as California based Throwrag hit the stage to warm things up for BR549 and Reverend Horton Heat. First Avenue is Horton Heat's territory, they play the club like they own it, and they should. There's always been a carnival huckster quality to Jim Heath's smile, and filling the spot vacated by The Blasters with Throwrag really brought that to the forefront. What looked like a late 30-something version of Buckcherry took the stage and proceeded to howl through a 45 minute set of mostly unintelligible lyrics and who-the-fuck-ordered-this bodily gyrations. They were like some over-the-hill college party band that someone forgot to tell to go ahead and graduate. It was all kind of annoying until the overweight "washboard player" took off his shirt and started jiggling himself at the crowd. Annoyance turned into entertainment when he ran down into the crowd and brought up a pretty straightlaced girl and made her play his washboard while the band played on around her...capped off by her playing his ass cheeks with spoons. Indeed, this was the perfect band to start this evening.

For those who were fretting (namely, me), BR549 just might be better without Smilin' Jay and Gary Bennet. Chris Scruggs appears to be a better guitar player than Chuck Mead, and he took a lot of the lead parts while Mead stepped out front and coursed the band through it's leaner, meaner honkytonk route. Oh, and by the way, Donnie Herron is still one of the best pickers on the entire planet, and he produces a stunning wall of sound as he deftly switches his pickup chord between 3 instruments, making it all look effortless. Like The Fat Guy, I was wondering what a matchup of BR549 and Reverend Horton Heat would be like; but it became fairly apparent that a Horton Heat crowd is almost perfect for these guys. The can alternately "Hank" it out or screw it on as they please, and the crowd that paid good money for hillbilly madness will instantly make all the right connections.

So why was that sea of people in the Mainroom Wednesday night? They were there to see a red suit with silver flames and a jett black shirt. They were there to see one of the best guitarists in the world ditch the bullshit, screw up the volume knob, and keep the noise coming until the cigarettes ran out. It used to be that these shows were mostly greasers with spider-web elbow tattoos and girlfriends that resembled Betty Paige in hair-do only. But, there's a kind of universal, shine-runner, kickoff's-at-noon-on-Sunday, whip-a-hooked-3-wood-250-and-down-out-of-the-wind, that-bass-is-as-big-as-a-goddamned-baby, vibe to what these guys do. So you had your college frat punks, your way too pretty and obviously lost single girls, your hillbillies, your Fonzies, Richies, and Potsies...a really good soup, which the boys whipped into a frenzy before the clock ever struck 11. You really have to walk around the club to get a hold on this phenomenon. There were old people in the back with ear plugs; the psychobillies were in the wings bobbing their heads and comparing lighters, and up front, by the end of the evening, there was a full scale mosh pit. Bill Haley would have been flumoxed.

But that's just what the ol' girl can deliver: a crowd, probably differing in age from top to bottom by 30 or 40 years, all gathered together to hear a driving guitar sound and rub elbows with yer fellow honkies as 3 almost completely different bands try to deliver whatever it is they do best.

 

So what the hell happened last night? I was on the list for Amy Allison, Neil Cleary, and Martin Devaney at the Entry; and it's a good thing too, because once Devaney had to leave, I was the only one left, except for the sound man and 2 friends of Amy's who looked like they needed a map to find the place from whatever suburban home they ventured out of for the first time on a Thursday night since Jesus Christ was lecturing in Omaha.

And what a damned shame it was, because the 3 of us were thoroughly entertained. Devaney et al love to play, everybody knows that; since it was a last minute gig, he decided to incorporate a little mandolin and violin into the mix and it produced a really nice effect and a bit of a different vibe to the songs I have become familiar with off of September and Somebody Somewhere.

I was really anxious to hear Cleary and Allison though, because in this "business" you want to get a feel for the different styles of roots stuff from different parts of the country. And, there's only so much you can tell about an artist from a disk, you have to see them sing their stuff live, so the sad songs sound sad and the pissed off songs sound pissed off.

The old drummer in Cleary manifested itself right away as his mic was setup in a kind of downward pointing position, so he would have to look up to sing into it. He has a kind of confessional quality to the way he peforms and the songs he writes, even admitting in the intro to a song that he could have gotten used to having his coffee made in the morning by the married woman at whose house he stayed at the previous night. Sometimes you just get lucky and nobody shows up at a gig. Then, hopefully the artists let their guard down, and sing like no one's listening...an no one was. He finished his set with When All of Us Get Famous off of his latest disk, Numbers Add Up. This should be an absolute college anthem within 12 months; it showcases the central core of Cleary's songwriting talents: that's a conversation I've had before.

Allison seemed a bit shaken by the sparse crowd, and who can blame her? How do you get excited? She stepped up to the mic though and really transformed my opinion of her stuff. When I first heard the disk, I wanted to say she was kind of an American Kasey Chambers. But, something hit me while listening to her. Anyone who hasn't listened to a lot of Americana, roots, whatever music might listen to say, Chambers, Allison, and Victoria Williams and say they all sound the same; it's a kind of unique, high pitched, twang, that has an edge to it. But, who the hell are these women? Where does this particular type of voice come from? I had this idea that theirs is Josephine's voice the first night Wyatt Earp ever saw her. It's a kind of frontier bird voice that is both delicate and harsh, like those big prairie flowers that look beautiful from your car, but smell like shit when you roll your windows down. But, that's just it; when Allison crooned, "Babe/what's the deal?" it was soft and beautiful until the content of the lyric, the purpose of the question, hit me right in the spine; then the shrill quality of it when right down my back, fucking magical.

By the way, one of the best guitarists I've ever seen was just kind of sitting off to both performers' right all night, Mark Spencer. He's one of those guys that make all sorts of sounds come out of a Strat plugged into an amp, sitting on a bar chair, trying to keep his hair out of his eyes.

And if you're reading this, you missed it....tsk tsk tsk.....