I was U-turning at 39th and Central Ave NE to pick up Kung Pao chicken and an order of Egg Rolls at the Dragon House when it hit me. Droning out of the radio on my mid 90's Chevy pickup was "Major Tom" by David Bowie, the Thin White Duke.

This song would never get played on the radio if it were new today, except for maybe on Radio K. The 105's wouldn't touch it because the Mouse hates androgynous space aliens; Snow White screwed the Prince in the end, not Marvin the Martian. Cities97 would stray away from it because it's not an acoustic guitar piece by a flop-haired guy from some liberal arts college, vaguely singing about how he'd like to fuck, kill, or do both to a quiet, but strangely alluring girl that he saw reading a comic book at the bus stop.

Maybe it's the worst kind of supposition to say something that's a huge hit from years or decades ago would never have a chance today, but I think I'm really approaching this thought from a procedural standpoint. While they were screwing up accounting practices at major bricks-and-mortar corporations, consulting firms convinced radio that pigeonholing itself was the way to survive the onslaught Cable TV and the Internet. And guess what? They MUST have been right because radio is still around. Pure genius.

You'll get laughed out of Mick Anselmo's--and many other radio power-players'--office today if you walk in there and tell him that radio stations serve more of a purpose than playing anywhere from 6 to 12 minutes worth of commercials per hour, aimed at a specific demographic, for which the "music" on the particular station has been tailored. There just isn't a Ziggy Stardust demo being targeted by a mainstream station anymore; Bowie's endeavor, while artistically interesting, would have been "passed on" to the college stations, and monitored every month or two to see if anything stuck.

So up there are Minneapolis' biggest stations in each format, according to RROnline's latest Arbitron list. Just sit there and think of a few songs that are hits from 15 to 30 years ago, but, think of the ones that have a timeless quality to them. For example, "Hey Joe" by Jimi Hendrix. I would argue that "Hey Joe" would never get on KQ if it were new today because A) they don't play new music and B) the Mouse has 93X for "Hard Rock," which Hendrix would almost certainly get crammed into.

There's no point in engaging in this exercise with respect to Country Radio at all because there's an absolutely corrupt and collusive process to getting on Country Radio, so you're just not going to get on there, regardless of whether you have a good song or any talent.

Pop Radio is an interesting situation. On the one hand, you have the pedophilia trend where any little girl whose abusive parents will get her a boob job and a push up bra at 17 years old, can be a star. But on the other hand, you have a lot of the rap and hip-hop, which I don't always fully understand, but believe has some real "edge" credit, regardless of how much of it is aimed at stone cold thuggz named Trevor who live in Wayzata. My question for pop is would old Billy Joel break in today? Short, kinda ugly, no bling bling...it's a real question. KQ's not gonna play him because of the above. Cities97 doesn't pick him up, again, because he's not a 145 pound acoustic guitarist with floppy hair, corduroy pants, and half a dozen songs about mushrooms and mountain biking.

Maybe there isn't much point to this blog, but go through your own list of favorite records or songs, and imagine they were new today, then ask yourself which station from the list above would give them airplay. I cynically believe that very few, if any, would get much consideration today. Email me with any other examples, and to tell me if I'm whack.

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People in warm weather climates, where millions of acres catch fire in great flashes of conflagration, mistakenly think of spring as a time of renewal, rebirth, and regeneration. Most of these tan refugees sleeping in sports stadia parking lots have never experienced sub-freezing temperatures and howling winds...in October. It's a rock bottom fact of life that your struggles against the elements make you respect them; in areas where that doesn't occur, your masturbatory felons play games with matches and raise everyone's insurance rates exponentially.

Those of us who live North (N) of the intersection of Interstates 80 and 35 know that Winter is the true renaissance of mankind. When your very survival can depend upon a fresh car battery, cell phone battery, or a bar of chocolate in your glove box, you tend to contemplate life's mysteries more thoroughly before applying gasoline to chamber for internal combustion and transversing life's highways in the dark of night, which comes at about 5pm.

As the immortal poet Mick Jagger once said, "You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you get what you need." Now that Al Qaeda has shifted its focus from building weapons of mass destruction in Iraq to setting wildfires in California, all while destabilizing the American economy through a two-pronged strategy of counterfeiting 20 dollar bills and joining forces with remnants of the Third Reich to get Schwarzenegger elected governator of the world's 6th largest economy, the rest of us can focus on "what we need," because it's pretty readily apparent that we're not going to get what we want in today's world.

It's hard to pretend Top Twenty lists are important when the Chiefs are 8-0, P. Diddy is running the New York Marathon, the "Mission Accomplished" banner was created by the White House, but put up by the Navy, and Solar storms are slamming the earth's atmosphere, but that's what we do here at The Other Side of Country. My service is an escape from the hum-drum world outside, especially if the hum-drum world outside of YOU is currently engulfed in flames so thick, astronauts in the space station are roasting marshmallows as they pass over your county (yes, the Other Side of Country knows that the vaccuum of space would not allow for that to actually happen, it's a joke).

Jack's Get What Ya Need Top Twenty:

1. Live at Billy Bob's, Jack Ingram
I like live albums. I've seen Jack Ingram a bunch of times and he's flat-out one of the best live shows going today.
2. Famous Anonymous Wilderness, Graham Lindsey
Perfesser Al wrote a great review of Graham's live show under my Robbie Fulks review. This album is just a great piece of music from start to finish. It's travelling minstrel hobo folk blues murder music at its best.
3. Warmth & Beauty, Thad Cockrell
Thad Cockrell is the tenor voiced hillbilly Barry White that Ryan Adams either steered clear of becoming or, never quite became.
4. Just For The Record, Bobby Flores
The best damn country dance record that's out right now.
5. Temporarily Disconnected, BR549
A funky little EP showcasing the band's new lineup. This band's strength has always been live performance, and now that they're out of the clutches of big label machinery, maybe they'll make something as strong as the "Phone" album again.
6. Swing Time, Wayne "The Train" Hancock
The Train is The Train is The Train. I just love to listen to the live version of "Thunderstorms & Neon Signs" on this record.
7. Railings, Frog Holler
Will be in Chicago and St. Louis later in November, I have my fingers crossed that they'll turn the van north for a show. Pennsylvania's finest hillbilly pickin' an' hollerin' band.
8. Guitar Pickin' Martyrs, Luther Wright & The Wrongs
"Rebuild the Wall" was such a fun album, I was worried about what they might do next. But, the process of making that album really fine tuned the band's playing and songwriting, and this is just a great disk.
9. Streets of Sin, Joe Ely
Joe Ely is an absolute legend. His voice is the almagated howl of all the ghosts of west Texas.
10. A Day at the Farm with Farmer Jason, Jason Ringenberg
When I was a kid, my grandma had all these yellow, red, and blue vinyl albums with all sorts of hillbilly kids' songs on them. This record by Jason of Jason and the Scorchers is just like those old disks. Screw Barney!!! Plug this into the CD player in the minivan while your ADD kids drink soda pop playing video games in double reinforced harnesses in the back seat.
11. ring, Big Ditch Road
This is Minnesota's best country record right now. These are some of the loneliest songs you will ever hear.
12. Freedom's Child, Billy Joe Shaver
People who don't listen to Billy Joe Shaver make the Baby Jesus cry.
13. Live Recordings from the Louisiana Hayride, Johnny Cash
Kind of a cool little disk of historical stuff. The audio quality is a little iffy on some of the tracks, but the energy of the young Cash and cohorts is remarkable.
14. It Happened in America, Sherwin Linton & Friends
There's all these young guys and gals playing country around here now, and after a few hours of sitting around telling stories, one of them inevitably starts off a story, "Sherwin Linton once told me that..." This is a disk that just reinforces that Sherwin Linton has seen and done it all.
15. The A-List, Urban Hillbilly Quartet
Another great live band from Minneapolis, this is a collection of some of their best stuff.
16. Hope is a Thing With Feathers, Trailer Bride
Lead singer and songwriter Melissa Swingle could be singing about bluebirds eating lollipops in the sunshine, and you would still feel like somebody was asking you whether to take a relative off of life support. It's a deceptively alluring sound that wiggles its way into your noodle before you know what hit ya.
17. Fool For Love, Paul Burch
There are all these guys who can sing, write, and pick in Nashville, and all the talentless people who have hits on mainstream country radio go to see them when they go out. This is a country record that ought to be a big hit, but it doesn't contain any tampon jingles, so you're not going to hear it on the FM at say 2PM on a Thursday.
18. The Lawless, Kevin Deal
Texas' finest concrete pourin', storytellin' troubador.
19. Terroir Blues, Jay Farrar
Jay's really bummed about something, but it still sounds really good.
20. "OK - I'm sorry...", Bobby Bare Jr.'s Young Criminals' Starvation League
I like this better than the original disk. There's some great live material on it and some really nice studio outtake stuff.

P.S.--How many shitty reviews does she have to get before everybody wakes up and stops feeding her, and the machinery that supports her, money? It's hard to find a review of one of her concerts that doesn't say her performances are over-choreographed, lacking personality, and wooden. But, as always, I'm wrong and the money's right. Long live piles of cash!!!

About one and a half hours ago, I turned 35 years old.

Maybe that's significant. Who cares, really?

Now that I've lived for 35 years, I just thought I'd let everyone know that the greatest Country Album ever recorded is "Stadium Blitzer" by the Gourds.

It's the truth really. If you want to waste your time listening to that other shit, more power to ya. The Gourds don't know me from shit. I'm just another radio/alt weekly scumbag to them.

I've lived 35 years. I've seen some trends, fads, and flashes in the pan. I've read extensively and exhaustively. I've listened and relistened and gave it one more shot, one last chance, and wondered if things might get better, and watched it not happen.

There are a lot of great country bands out there. The Gourds are the best.

If you're a country act pickin' a banjee somewhere, more power to you. If you're in Nashville, I don't hate you, sight unseen. I simply distrust the processes you are subjecting yourself to to ply your craft. If you are a major star on mainstream Country Radio's Top Hot Smoking 40 singles chart, you've sold yourself to the devil, it's a fact. I'm 35 years old, and the process of creating "Country" music in Nashville, Tennessee for "Country" radio is almost irrevocably ruined.

So this morning, as I contemplate the fragile life that Jack and Marnell granted me in 1968, at least in this forum, I want everyone to know, "Stadium Blitzer," by the Gourds, is better, by far, by leaps and bounds, by shutes and ladders, steppes and plateaus, than all of that nonsense we've all been subjected to for far too long.

Happy Birthday to me. Fuck you Shania.

From the Associated Press:

ALBANY, Ga. � Hunters killed just 64 alligators during Georgia's first 16-day hunt, barely denting a population that has increasingly turned up in swimming pools and on golf courses.

"It was never considered to be guaranteed odds," said Todd Holbrook, chief of game management for the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, which organized the hunt to trim the population.

The one-alligator limit may have been the problem--many of the 184 hunters chosen by lottery to participate may have waited for the big one that never showed, he said.

Alligators are hunted at night by light beam, with only the glow of their eyes visible. Hunters snare them, then either shoot them or sever their spinal cords.

Georgia has had only eight alligator attacks since 1980, none fatal, but an average of 450 alligator nuisance complaints a year. The state's alligator population has grown from near extinction four decades ago to about 200,000, due in part to conservation efforts.

Louisiana, Florida, Texas and South Carolina also have alligator hunting seasons.

North of Austin, Minnesota, there are very few snakes, and almost no poisonous ones. South and East of Austin, Texas, people encourage their children to chase and play with snakes, mostly poisonous ones. It's hard to explain to a Lutheran homemaker from East Bethel, in her lates 50's, that there actually are people in this world that like to capture wild and unruly lizards, reptiles, and bottom-feeding fish that have jagged teeth, with their bare hands, and then finish them off with some kind of razor-sharp knife move they learned in Special Forces training, right before the Section 8 discharge.

On Saturday, many people will gather in the Twin Cities to wildly bang on drums and shout in the key of G for Wellstone World Music Day. The central theory behind this event is to remember with hoots and hollers instead of tears and whispers, the life of a statesman and his wife, who did a lot of good for various folks. Many of those Lutheran homemakers don't realize that Paul Wellstone was once a wrestler at the University of North Carolina. Rasslin' is a sport where people like to capture other unruly people with their bare hands, and treat them thusly:

This photo was taken about 15 seconds after the Ohio State kid had been lying flat on his stomach, and about 2 seconds before the oxygen was cut off to his head and the ref tapped him out, pinned, before he got his neck broke, died, or both. Jacob Volkmann is a 165 pound young man from the parts of Minnesota where people capture unruly farm animals with their bare hands and turn them into supper, before homework, and one last workout before bed. He turned this Ohio State kid onto his neck by lifting him up off the mat, rolling him over on his head, and finally his neck, holding nothing but the guy's two arms behind his back, in a kind of alligator-hunting move known as a Double Arm Bar. He does that to a lot of people. It's funny.

I didn't agree on everything with Wellstone, but there were a lot of unruly people he was trying to get his bare hands on before he died, including overbearing, anti-competitive radio corporations, gouging ticket companies, large venue operators, and some not-so-separate large music labels, all of whom may or may not be the exact same people, regardless of what the different Post Office Box numbers in Dover, Delaware say. Most of the gigs are local bands in small clubs in various formations. You can pay cash to get in, and, as long as you don't sign anything, you won't end up on any of John Ashcroft's (a man who, ironically, LOST a Senate race to a dead man) lists. See ya out and about.

Paul Burch, Fool For Love

Paul Burch is an anachronism. Back when I was 15 or so, I couldn't drive yet, and I was too old for toys and such. But, every now and then, I'd find something lying around my bedroom like an old can of Play-Doh®. So, you can't drive and wreak havoc on the neighborhood, you're in your teens, you're bored, you take that big lump of clay and start chucking little balls of it at your little sister, who's 12, and on the very cusp of hormonal imbalance that makes torturing her more explosively entertaining than a 3 hour shop film of table saw accidents. "Fool For Love," on Bloodshot Records is that can of Play-Doh®. It doesn't have the "wild blue yonder" feel of your first year of driving, but it has that classic entertainment quality of a core group of toys from your childhood, and, it's just malleable enough to be something other than what it seems on the surface: an old-school Country Record.

Jack's Anti-Husker Top Twenty:

1. Live at Billy Bob's, Jack Ingram
2. Famous Anonymous Wilderness, Graham Lindsey--Fucking wow.
3. Warmth & Beauty, Thad Cockrell
4. Just For The Record, Bobby Flores
5. Terroir Blues, Jay Farrar
6. Temporarily Disconnected, BR549
7. Swing Time, Wayne "The Train" Hancock
8. Railings, Frog Holler
9. Guitar Pickin' Martyrs, Luther Wright & The Wrongs
10. Streets of Sin, Joe Ely
11. A Day at the Farm with Farmer Jason, Jason Ringenberg
12. ring, Big Ditch Road
13. Freedom's Child, Billy Joe Shaver
14. Live Recordings from the Louisiana Hayride, Johnny Cash
15. It Happened in America, Sherwin Linton & Friends
16. The A-List, Urban Hillbilly Quartet
17. Hope is a Thing With Feathers, Trailer Bride
18. Fool For Love, Paul Burch
19. The Lawless, Kevin Deal
20. No Frills Friend, Amy Allison

Bobby Bare Jr.'s Young Criminals' Starvation League, "OK - I'm sorry..."

I'll be honest with everyone, I was one of about one people who didn't crap all over themselves praising Bobby Bare Jr.'s Young Criminals Starvation League album on Blooshot Records last year when it was released. I think it was a good enough album, but it was a lot for my jutting jaw and sloped forehead to digest. Also, and I think more importantly, about a month or two after I got my copy, I saw him down at the 400 Bar, and barely recognized any of the material from the record. It would be different, say, if it were variations on the melodic themes behind the songs, but it wasn't that night. In fact, it sounded like a lot of damned noise. The whole thing went right over my head, which isn't saying much.

"OK - I'm sorry..." does what that 400 show couldn't for me. The 8 song EP is a mix of studio outtakes for the original record and live performances from the tour supporting it, that really brings home the songs for me in a different and better light. Live versions of "I'll Be Around" and "Valentine" from Abbey Pub in Chicago really stand out and provide nice examples of Bare's band's ability to support, drive, and highlight the strange, whining break of his cool, pack-a-day voice. I'll be honest with everyone again, I like this disk better than the other one.

Trailer Bride, "Hope is a Thing With Feathers"

Lead singer and songwriter Melissa Swingle's voice reminds me of weeping willow trees. She could be singing about bluebirds eating lollipops in the sunshine, and you would still feel like somebody was asking you whether to take a relative off of life support. It's a dull, aching, dreamy voice, somewhere between a hangover and pure REM sleep. Trailer Bride itself is more of an old flophouse band, singing a kind of loping country swing and torch, for hookers, Johns, and the hidden genius children of the employees, down in the basement writing Depression era novels and designing spansion bridges with slide rules.

Lucinda Williams is going to hell. Had I not seen Emmylou Harris at the State Theatre last Monday, I probably would have never known that. Monday night, about 11:59pm, I was pretty sure that Emmylou was the closest thing to an angel from God that I had ever seen. Her strangely alluring twangy voice lulls you right up to the altar, where you renew all your vows of temperance, chastity, and moderation.

And then, a cherub from Louisiana stumbles out onto the mainstage at First Avenue, wearing a black tank top, with obvious black bra straps, and begins to sing polypped voice vibratos of fallen paradise, with a fresh cigarette and caramel sauce, and you realize that she is absolutely damned to eternal hellfire. The subtle break of her voice, delicate behind the seafoam as her words rush over you in the wave, you have no defense. You HAVE to climb into the rail car, down, down, down, to the master of lies. I almost cried when the innocent son of the prairie, Gary Louris lent harmony and guitar to "Essence" while she cavorted and mashed with Mr. Anonymous onstage. Milton never scratched something so real out of the blindness.

Asian chicks in Western shirts smoking Marlboros and drinking whiskey, Eden Prairie suburbanite divorcess hitting on the bartenders and looking for personal space, 20-something spikey haired single women in tight T-shirts travelling in 3's, and neatly cut silver haired "hippies," with tucked in shirts, all crowded the floor, drawn to the smooth, smokey evil...so sweet going down, so hot on the way back up.

Robbie Fulks, Martin Devaney, and Graham Lindsey at the 400 Bar, October 18th, 2003

Being a season ticket holder, I stuck around for the kiss-your-sister ending to the regular season return of Bertuzzi, the half-man, half-ape winger for the Vancouver Canucks, to the Xcel Energy Center. As a result, I only got to hear one song by Graham Lindsey, a dark spot on my evening, as I was really anxious to see him live, after spending many fine hours with his latest disk, "Famous Anonymous Widlerness" on Catamount Records. Luckily, I spied Perfesser Al, a Minnesota/Houston Americana writing icon in the audience, and he files his report on Graham Lindsey below.

I made a promise to myself earlier in the year to start catching Martin Devaney more when he plays live around town, which, at times can seem like 2 or 3 times a week. I've had the good fortune to talk to him a bit, too, and as I told him last night, he's very 1988 to me. Back when I hit college, the peppy, staccato, angry, and poppy word play of Elvis Costello came blaring out of 3 of 5 dorm rooms every weekend evening between the hours of 11pm and 4am. But, there was more to Costello's image than that. He seemed all-encompassing and orchestral; that is to say, he always struck me as a man who wanted to be all music to all people...he needed to make sound and help others to make sound. Like Costello, Devaney has a gift for word play and monster enthusiasm. His songs hop in and out of styles, and simply explode out of him. I can't overstate enough how much enthusiasm has been coloring my opinion of live performances recently.

Which brings me to Fulks. The last time I saw him, he was skulking through the middle of a bit of touring supporting "Couples in Trouble," an album I didn't really like, and didn't really understand. Performers mature into all kinds of different roads for their voices and talents, but "Couples" just seemed like a 180 degree turn for Fulks, and that live show was so dark and confusing, I just couldn't get where he was trying to take me. Luckily, the gangly, walleyed hillbilly from North Carolina showed up at the 400 Bar last night. This was old Fulks in a new package, and it felt fresh and comfortable at the same time. He served up heaping spoonfuls of a more low key version of his typically manic, goober, between-song banter. Back in the day, Fulks shows were a double treat, because about the only thing better than his whole schtick, was his guitar playing; he can let loose on any kind of guitar at any moment and make all the amateur Roy Clarks and Chet Atkins' in the room feel pretty small. He turned a lot of that work over to his guitarist though, reserving just enough on a few songs to remind everyone to go home and keep practicing. Without playing amateur shrink too much, if I had to guess, I would say that the "Couples" period was some kind of depressive crash for an all world manic performer, who has come out on the other side a little stronger and surer of who he is up on stage. It was good to have him back in town.

Graham Lindsey, by guest blogger, Perfesser Al Kunz of Rockzillaword

It was the toughest decision of this music-filled week. One possibility was the Bottle Rockets and Lucinda at First Ave then a race across town to catch Robbie Fulks at the 400 Bar. If my old bones were up to it and if I'd liked them Saturday, then a reprise of the BRox and Lucinda on Sunday would be great. But the mixed reviews I'd been hearing about Lucinda's current tour (with the Jayhawks opening most) gave me pause. And Jack Sparks has been raving about this Graham Lindsey guy that was opening at the 400. Maybe Lucinda could wait until Sunday.

While Jack Sparks was at the Excel Center satisfying his desire to watch wild men who say a-boot play to a tie I was settled on my favorite barstool listening to Graham Lindsey. I got the better part of the deal. The Dylan comparisons are almost too easy. Tall, skinny, plaid shirt, guitar and harmonica, soft spoken, not really much of a talker anyway --- Lindsey looks the part. With the exception of his vocals (which you can actually understand) it would be easy imagining you were across the river in Dinkytown forty-some-odd years earlier as that Zimmerman kid from up north unveiled a few new songs.

Lindsey's lyrics, like Dylan's, are complex. Unlike Dylan, Lindsey's songs lean toward the dark. Imagine Chris Knight's stories written in Dylan's style or a song title of "Dead Man's Waltz." Consider lyrics like "On the porch step in the moonlight she looks out and through the cold / If I kiss you I must kill you / You told me in gentle tones." Even better catch him next time he plays in the Cities. It's a lot better than watching a game where, in the end, nobody even won.

Hey Rock! Watch me pull a rabbit outta my hat!

Now that the Yankees have ruined baseball for everyone again, it was a good time for me to walk downstairs and write a review of tonight's Fred Eaglesmith show at the The Cedar Cultural Center. Somewhere in all the hype of the hard times this country has gone through recently, this band of overpaid bastards has become synonymous in some peoples' minds with the spirit of America. But, if you take away Posada, Jeter, Soriano, Williams and Rivera, the rest of this squad is the worst kind of mercenary piece of shit. This highly paid band of knuckleheads who failed so miserably last year against the Angels, were once again shorn up by their megalomaniacal owner, who went out and purloined the highest priced free agents available, so that his numbskull manager and coaching staff couldn't possibly screw up another season. These aren't hard hat guys. They aren't hard luck stories turned 'round by one last big break. They aren't even compelling individuals sacrificing personal gain for the good of the ballclub. If you live in New York, were born there, spent most of your adult life there, or are the child of a similar individual, then fine, they're your team. But they aren't my team, there is no set of circumstances that could be dreamed up where anyone outside their fan base should ever root for them at any time. And their greedy, lowlife, front-office philosophies don't fucking represent ANYTHING about the America I like to think that I live in.

Ironically, the America that I love is articulated quite well by Fred Eaglesmith, a Canadian hillbilly singer from Southern Ontario. Fred's songs of tractors, dogs, hot dog stands, murder, love gone wrong, and lust gone weird, have more to do with your average Joe's everyday reality than anything done by a mercenary jackass professional athlete, paid more than $10 (ten) million dollars a year to be successful less than 30 (thirty) per cent of the time during his typical work day.

Fred was in strange form tonight, kind of more mellow than he's been on previous stops to the Cities. He told a lot of good stories to introduce his songs, and a lot of good cornball jokes:

Two Canadian cows were on a grassy knoll in Alberta. One cow said to the other, "what do ya think of this mad cow stuff?" The other replied, "what do I care, I'm a helicopter."

He seems to have shed a drummer somewhere along the way, but his music was always acoustic enough in its roots that constant percussion wasn't really missed.

Still, it was an uneasy crowd. The Cedar typically means a lot of "calm," silver-haired ponytails and well-fed vegetarian women in comfortable shoes. But, there were a few obviously chemically agitated spectators sprinkled throughout the room for the first time in my recent memory. If Fred had been playing at one of the local whiskey-and-cigarettes type watering holes, these pilgrims would have melted into the fog, formica, and wood-panelling. Instead, they supplied Fred with a few ill-timed shouts and hollers that caused a few awkward moments of audience play.

Fred and his band overcame this and put on a very crisp, clean show, concentrating more on his personal tunes rather than the raucous, rural Canadian eruptions that didn't jibe too well with the folk circuit, but made him a darling of the alt crowd. The Cedar crowd is always so polite, he seemed to be tailoring the material to a more low key climax, choosing to go it alone on his encores. Regardless of which Fred you get, he remains a must-see gig, like a crazy cousin who whips into to town only a few times a year, the best and worst parts of the family history packed into his guitar case, just looking for an audience and a place to crash.