July 2004

The Purple Pragmatist

Filed under: Imported

The Pragmatist has several issues to tackle today, so it's best to jump in with both feet first and start swinging.

The only thing more important than having a good seat on Sundays for maximum comfort during your football viewing experiences is getting your bets down with all the right people, and, having them pay off in the end. Millions of dollars exchange hands every Sunday in this country, shifting the entire economies in towns like Buffalo, Kansas City, and Green Bay. There are straight ahead, missionary position bets like Vikings over Cowboys, straight up, that produce nice little sums that can typically cover your average Joe Sixpack's lunch for a few days at work. But the big money vomits in rivers on the kinky bets...taking the over on a 400 yard passing day for Manning against the Pats, doubling down on the Bengals covering the spread after you know you've lost your straight-up, upset bet, and, betting on the newly poisoned Miami Dolphins to do anything but roll over and die each week. These are the kind of bets that cancel vacations, put off home remodelling, and make you squeeze 8,000 miles out of your vehicle between oil changes.

It helps to be informed in these cases, especially with respect to your hometown squad. Vegas has the Purple at 6/1 to win the Super Bowl right now. The Pack is at 7/1, the Bears at 30/1, and Motor City Kitties at 50/1. I find some of this perplexing, really. If you examine the chart, the Vikes are the 3rd highest favorite, behind a repeat from the Patriots (recent NFL history says don't hold your breath) and the Philadelphia Eagles. Being a Purple Pragmatist, I don't doubt the individual talents within the Vikings' organization, but as a team, they didn't even make the playoffs last year, after starting the season 6-0. If you're objective, you'll say to yourself that this particular set of odds is saying that a team that missed the playoffs last year is at least a favorite to be in the conference championship game...not just a possibility, but a favorite. There's been a lot of out-of/into the playoffs turnover in the NFL in recent seasons, so I won't dispute that. But I think there are a lot of loose numbers in this list, and the Vikings' number is one of them. I think the 7/1 that they have the Pack, Rams, and Colts at is a more realistic number, and I like for them to move that direction in the weeks before the season, or have some of these other teams move up to 6/1 and discourage the 7/1 money. And mark my words, there are worse teams to bet on covering the spread than the Detroit Lions this year; I have this creepy feeling that their offense is going to be better than anyone thinks.

God knows why the Dolphins are only 17/1, but you're a fool if you think their whole act didn't just get submarined by that flake Ricky Williams. Their offense was specifically set up with him as the big gun, and now he's gone. You don't need a star running back to compete in the NFL, but you need a bona fide NFL rusher, someone to keep defenses honest, and Minor just hasn't proven he's it. Just as a side note, though: if you're in a fantasy league with several teams and your draft goes really deep into the burned knees and retirees crowd, take a flier on Williams with your last pick. Until game 17 comes and goes, my heart is filled with fear that he's going to come back, get picked up by some fantasy opponent, and totally obliterate the league's momentum. And that's really what his little drama comes down to, betting on or against the Dolphins. There's no higher ethical, moral, or philosophical dilemma here, it's just football.

Finally the Pragmatist has really enjoyed the Brock Lesnar circus for the past couple of days. Being a booster for the University of Minnesota Wrestling program, I'm acquainted with the man, and wish him nothing but the best. Several friends have asked me my opinion of his choice and his chances, and my answer has a couple of points to it. First, Brock lost the heavyweight title his junior year to Steve Neal from Cal-State Bakersfield, an absolute human gorilla who went on to win a World Freestyle title. He's now a reserve Guard for the defending Super Bowl Champion Patriots, having made the transition from amature wrestler to professional football player. Neal and Lesnar are two different types of athlete, but I think the overal point is that there is evidence that the transition can be made under the right circumstances. Second, Lesnar is probably the strongest human being I've ever met up close. Some men his size have leveraged, push people around, type strength. He has explosive strength, the kind where he's on you and has you ass over tea kettle in the blink of an eye. I watched him grab hold of the University of Illinois' heavyweight in a match once and snap his hip like a chicken wing, a truly sickening sound, followed by a blood-curdling yelp that made my hair stand on end. There isn't anyone in that Vikings camp that is going to impress or bully Brock on a physical level, he's just too strong and mean. If he can learn some football technique, he could make a lot of opponents very sorry that he even considered taking up the sport.

Posted by Jack Sparks at July 29, 2004 3:10 PM

1313 Fuck You Lane

Filed under: Imported

Unfortunately, it's time for me to ADDRESS an issue that has reared its ugly head more than once on the radar on which I rely to keep myself grounded, informed, and humble.

Something called Big & Rich and something called Gretchen Wilson have been running around calling themselves alternatives to what's produced by Nashville, while being produced by Nashville. Two or three searching pairs of eyes have asked me my opinion of these situations, shaking in a kind of waking REM pattern of jittery ocular ballet, hoping that my cynicism has somehow leapt beyond the "cooler than thou" hipsterism of which I'm constantly accused.

But...come and listen to my story 'bout a label named Lucky Dog...

Somewhere around the year of OUR lord 2000, there was a label called Lucky Dog that built, sponsored, and cajoled Charlie Robison, Jack Ingram, BR5-49, and the Derailers into throwing in with them in the hopes of cracking the facade of the shit heels who run the big labels in Nashville and the terrible, terrible, terrible, fucking awful Mainstream country radio that we're all subjected to in the cities and towns across the greatest country in the world. The idea was that these four acts were the finest representations of what was good, pure, and on the edge of country...grass roots populism and a middle finger in the air at the Garths, Kennys, Tims, Shanias and Faiths of the world. But, the middle manager accountant types who run country radio and know fuck-all about country music ruined everything and the whole thing blew up in everyone's face. The coke-snorting MBA's at Sony Nashville (the Gordon Gecko takeover entity of Lucky Dog) were all fired, and everyone was cut loose to fend for themselves...again.

So what were the lessons learned?

Well, for one, the lepers in the Country music industry in Nashville learned that they're so fucking gone on pimping their bullshit genre/format to the Trailer Tammy/Oprah crowd that they've forgotten how to market actual bona fide product to actual country fans...people who drive tractors, clean their own fish, and race the cops home from the 1 acre bar off the state highway just outside the last suburb.

Two, Charlie, Jack, Chuck, and the boys of the Derailers learned that if it looks like shit and smells like shit, it must be shit.

Three, EVERYTHING that comes out of Nashville is guilty until proven innocent. One of these cheap pimps in something called Big & Rich was in Lonestar, the worst fucking piece of shit "country" act in the history of time. I mean really, if there's a song about redneck women that sounds like it was written by the marketing department of some multinational agri-business concern, and it was recorded and pressed in Nashville, then by-God, call the street department and get that fucking pile scraped off the asphalt so we can all go about our business.

At some point in this country's timeline, we need to learn to divorce record sales from music quality and say "fuck you" to the people shoving it down our throats. Those stupid fucks running country radio STILL wouldn't know a country song if it walked up and smacked them in their chicken eye. And, just because some song sells a lot of CD's after a massive media blitz, doesn't mean it's worth a shit.

My name is Jack, and if a Nashville act can't tell me who Joe Buck is, they might as well be the manicured, botoxed, plastic surgeried McGraw family of Nashville, Tennesee.

Posted by Jack Sparks at July 29, 2004 1:47 AM

Who's that pickin' a banjee?

Filed under: Imported

ROGERSVILLE, Tennessee (AP) -- The party's over for four inmates accused of going on a beer run after the jail's doors were accidentally left unlocked.

The men were charged Monday with escape and bringing alcohol into a jail.

The breakout occurred Thursday night after cellblock doors at the Hawkins County Jail were left unlocked and a faulty control panel failed to alert jailers, Sheriff Warren Rimer said.

Two of the inmates walked out through a fire exit, leaving the door propped open with a Bible, and made a hole in the exercise yard fence. They walked to a market, bought some beer and returned to the jail to share it with other prisoners. When the booze ran out, the other two inmates made another beer run to a different store.

Authorities believe the inmates bought more than two cases of beer in all.

"I guess they thought if they came back they wouldn't be charged with escape," Rimer said, "but they were wrong."

All a hillbilly really needs during the warm summer months is walking weather, cold beer, good tunes, and good friends. Hell, we could be in jail, but if the conversation is good and the seats are comfortable, it makes more sense to make a beer run if the doors swing wide open, than it does to go home or hide in the bushes. In a town like Rogersville (pop. 4,240), the sheriff was probably a fishing buddy, and the whole episode was probably more like Jerry Reed's "When You're Hot, You're Hot," than "America's Most Wanted." My own summer has been bubbling along nicely, and I figured it was time to drop an album review or two on you while you're out in the backyard doin' yer chores.

The Old97's, Drag It Up

I'll be honest and say that I pretty much hated Satellite Rides, the previous album from the Old97's. There was a period there where a handful of Roots/Alt Twang stars thought they were actually Alt Pop/Rock stars, and they put out some albums that were puzzling at best, and just plain boring at worst. To be sure, the 97's have always been out on the twang edge, but when Murray playfully puts down Rhett on stage, all teeth and glasses and downhome drawl, it's hard to divorce them from their hillbilly roots. So I just hated Satellite; it didn't make sense to me. I really haven't listened to it all that much in the past few years, but I can remember thinking, "this is a Rhett record." It wasn't as far off the charts as Robbie Fulks' disastrous Couples in Trouble (a record I still can't believe exists), but I wanted the old Old97's back, in some form. Thank God for Drag It Up. Now we're talkin'. This record has all the bravado of Wreck Your Life, with just a dash of age and maturity, that seems more of a natural progression from where these guys started. It's hard to put your finger on it, but that guitar sound is back. It's kind of biscuit mixed and gasoline fed, and it sounds crude next to Rhett's aching heart throb of a voice, but THAT'S the core of what they do. Just plug this into your car's outputs and get on the damn road. Murray's "In the Satellite Rides a Star," and Rhett's "Adelaide" will absolutely break your heart, and the opening track "Won't Be Home" is the kind of Friday night, rip the tops off the six pack, and get her rollin' anthem that this summer needed.

Eleven Hundred Springs, Bandwagon

The battle between Trashville and Texas has its many folds and crevices, but it can be neatly summed up by one particular dynamic: Nashville encourages and promotes a lot of beautiful, manicured dumbasses who are just playing dress-up when they act like "outlaws;" whereas Texas prefers their long-haired, stoned, smelly hillbillies to really be long-haired, stoned and smelly hillbillies. I haven't stopped listening to Bandwagon by Eleven Hundred Springs since my copy got to the station on Saturday. Doing this radio program week after week, I have about 3 standing wishes: 1) that at least one chick calls the studio during the show, 2) that the music geeks in my audience never give up on me, and 3) that at least one, solid, original COUNTRY record comes down the pipe during the summer, something I can listen to while slow roasting a pig's ass in my New Braunfels smoker...something I can play for friends while the señoritas mix up margaritas and the mosquitos get drunk from our forearms...something that makes owning an 8 year old pickup that you drive around town with the windows rolled down, hanging your arm out the window and whistling at girls, make sense...you know, a damn COUNTRY record. My friends and I once spent an entire weekend down at the South by Southwest festival leaning out the window and yelling at pretty girls, "Hey girl, goin' to th' show?" No show in particular, just "th' show." This is this summer's "goin' to th' show" record. I like standing around in my old blue jeans, barefoot, half anesthetized, howling along with a good ol' steel guitar; if you do too, you need to jump on the Bandwagon.

Posted by Jack Sparks at July 26, 2004 11:12 AM

The Purple Pragmatist

Filed under: Imported

If there's one thing hillbillies love, it's football. That's why it's important for me to start a weekly Vikings column in this space, even though I'm a die hard Chiefs' fan, and this is supposed to be a music blog. The Vikings have a long rich history of gridiron triumph and accomplishment, but, they're also possibly the most snake-bit franchise in the history of the NFL. So, regardless of whether you love them or hate them, they provide hour upon hour of endless entertainment, both on and off the field.

I have a number of ideas for in-season columns, angles to flesh out, sub-plots to examine, so these summer months can be spent on the kind of rampant speculation and hyperbole that can only cause the blood of the average football fan to boil, and his eyes to go wide like plates, just like a junkie crawling across the floor to a box of fresh needles left just inside the doorway.

First, I'd like to pull a cheap maneuver and solicit emails for a column I'm working on which will be titled, "Ten Reasons Why the Vikings Will Never Win a Super Bowl." Before you start nailing me with 100 reasons why the Chiefs suck, remember, this is a Vikings column, and I already know that you think the Chiefs suck compared to the Vikings, and we're not examining why the Chiefs are never going to win a Super Bowl, because A) they've already won one, and B) I'm just as defeatist about my Chiefs as you are about your Vikings. So if you have a thoughtful, measured, and inciteful idea about why the Vikes will never grab the Lombardi, I'd love to hear it. I have my own ideas, but would enjoy any other input there is out there. And, to all the boozehounds from across the river who want to chime in about Title Town and the Green and Gold...please...put down the paint thinner. We know...no, we know...I said no...we simply DON'T need THAT kind of input.

But onto the news...There was a bit of interesting Purple Patter yesterday as former All-Pro running back Bobbie Smith did a short interview with Barreiro on The Fan. I was tooling up to Rockford to check out my buddy Brandon's new purchase, The 4 Alarm Bar just off Highway 55, and listening to the former Buckeye hold forth on the various topics of his new book, The Rest of the Iceberg, from Inkwater Books. The interview was such a good tease, that I decided to rube it up and buy a paperback copy. It will be interesting to see whether Smith has some real insight on sports, the game we all love, and life in general, or if he's just another self-righteous bastard with a soapbox. In his interview with Barreiro, he kind of downplayed the friction between him and Randall Gene Moss. Barreiro, who has always been a good interviewer, got Smith to more or less echo Bill Cosby's rant from a few days ago, and also got the bulk of why Smith quit the game out of him. Sadly, there were no skeletons, feuds, or life-threatening injuries, it just seems to have been a combination of competitive frustration, monetary satisfaction, and tired knees.

No one from the team got arrested this past week, which is always good news in Purple Paradise. Coach Mike Tice (aka "Putty" or "Eight Ball") is going to have make all downtown nightlife off-limits to his squad, it seems, if he wants to keep them out of the Hennepin County lockdown. One of the old knocks against our fair Metropolis as it started to grow and professional athletics began to integrate, was that this town was too white, so Afro-American athletes could only hang out in a few spots in town, and those few spots always ended up attracting troublemakers and causing controversy. This whole Tabu business is starting to get painted as a black athlete issue in the bars, pizza joints, barber shops, and burrito stands I frequent, and I think that's nuts. The true issue is that this is a small town, in a relative sense, and when a few athletes find some place they like to hang, regardless of whether they're white, black, Hispanic, Asian, etc., word travels fast, and the little league heroes, follow the drug dealers, who follow the hoochie mammas, trying to get through the door and up next to them. To be sure, if a bunch of gooned up pro athletes start gang-stomping some idiot who didn't walk away from the fight, they're still culpable. But, jocksniffers the world over need to grasp that there are a lot of these guys who think they're above the law, and, that most of them could crush you, me, and your big brother Jake like grapes. A 6'4", 260 pound man who runs the 40 in 4.5 seconds is not someone you take lightly, no matter how many Karate classes you've attended. And, if you run into one of these guys hanging out in the room full of knuckleheads that is Tabu, you should realize that none of you are really playing with a full deck.

This has been your moment of Purple Pragmatism.

Posted by Jack Sparks at July 22, 2004 11:15 AM

Mailbag

Filed under: Imported

PHOENIX, Arizona (AP) -- Country star Glen Campbell called it "a captive audience" -- and he wasn't kidding.

Campbell, nearing the end of his 10-day sentence for extreme drunken driving, gave a free 30-minute concert Friday night for about 1,000 inmates at Maricopa County's outdoor jail.

"Tent City, you're gentle on my mind," Campbell sang during his opening song, the million-selling "Gentle on My Mind."

The Phoenix-based singer-guitarist performed several of his Top-10 hits on a makeshift stage atop a flatbed truck with some hay bales as a countrified backdrop.

Country music has never suffered from overexposure to prison. In fact, there are few types of American art more ideally suited to the institution than Twang in all its forms. Sadly, there's only about a 50% chance that some meathead had the foresight to bring some nice recording equipment to hook into the sound board to record Glen Campbell, End of Sentence: Live from Tent City, Maricopa County Jail, a long title to be sure, but not overkill.

Country has had a lot of great run-ins, brush-ups, side-steps, and sponsorships, courtesy of Johnny Law. There simply wouldn't be a Merle Haggard, David Allan Coe, Johnny Rodriguez, or Steve Earle without a little institutionalized rehabilitation. And then there's the Monumental At Folsom Prison, by the Man in Black, easily one of the five or ten best country albums ever (strange it doesn't get more airplay). For those of you with more of an open mind about music reflecting environment, I might also recommend 18 X-Rated Hits, by David Allan Coe. Just a word of warning, this contains possibly the most misogynistic, racist lyrics ever recorded, but I think there's a certain context you can put it in to justify maybe having it in your collection. First, I guess if you're a racist misogynist, well, this is your record. But second, and I think a little more valid, you have to examine this as a record made by a hillbilly in prison, up against the wall and turning to the only thing he thinks is going to get him out...music. Also, you could probably compare this to HBO's series, Oz, not the most PC language or themes either. Hell, even Cantwell and Friskics-Warren included some porn songs in their 500 greatest singles book. Anyway, that's that.

I've really fallen down on the job with emails, album reviews, concert reviews, and general invective aimed at the Nashville recording industry. So boys and girls...let's get caught up...

Hey Jack,

As you've probably gathered, I'm generally pretty laid back, but not at the moment. I used to have 3 main sources of music, and now I'm down to one. One was KHYI.com, which I used to listen to at work until we got a new firewall or some other "upgrade" that now prevents me from listening to streaming audio at work.

Another was Music Choice on cable. The Americana Channel was actually very good. But, of course, these assholes get rid of one channel, and guess which one it was? They won't mention what they dropped, but they're happy to trumpet the wonderful changes they made::

In order to continually provide you with diverse music genres and cutting edge programming, MUSIC CHOICE will update our channel line-up on July 7, 2004. These changes are based on music industry trends, market research, and customer feedback.

NEW TO MUSIC CHOICE:

Radio Disney: We are proud to announce the addition of this channel! Radio Disney is the family friendly home of cool music that kids are passionate about and parents love to hear. Featured artists include Hilary Duff, Avril Lavigne, Cheetah Girls, and Aaron Carter. Radio Disney has replaced For Kids Only in the MUSIC CHOICE line-up. '90s: Due to the huge popularity of Pop, Rock, and R&B music, the biggest hits of the decade are here! Featured artists include Mariah Carey, Madonna, Pearl Jam, Bon Jovi, Sheryl Crow, Nirvana and Boys II Men.

R&B Hits: Relive the New Jack Swing and the best R&B jams of the late '80s, '90s and today. Featured artists include Janet, Guy, New Edition, TLC, and Keith Sweat.

Now, I've never been naive enough to think that most of what we listen to will ever be played on mainstream radio. It won't. But when you have a zillion fucking channels, and you drop your only decent one for "cutting edge" artists like Hilary Duff, Aaron Carter, Boys II Men, and TLC, there's something seriously wrong. And when I went to Music Choice's website to bitch, one of the first things you notice is the message that you will not receive a response to your email. "Thank you for your feedback, but we don't give a shit enough about it to even respond to you."

I'm just glad that my favorite hillbilly radio program is still going strong, especially with an extra hour for the hillbilly host to detoxify from Friday night.

--S.

Preach it brother S., preach it. Generally speaking (being one only too eager to make sweeping generalizations), you're NEVER going to get much daring anymore in the mainstream media, especially any kind of broadcast outlets like Radio, TV, and yes, even those weird cable channels. Program and Music directors in these situations are at worst cowards, and at best idiots. Most of them are glorified accountants who don't know shit about music. I hate to overstep my bounds and pontificate on all genres, but I know for a fact that within my own little niche of Twang, most country PD's and MD's just open the little box from Nashville each month and plug in the shit they've been spoonfed by the marketing gurus in Shit Music City. That's why the talentless Kenny Chesney gets played around the clock on shit stations like the ones in this town. We know he sucks, they know he sucks, but hey, he sells his shit and their shit to a very specific block of people, so they don't care if they've sold their souls to the devil and ruined country music. That whole Hilary Duff/Aaron Carter bit is all about the worst demo in music...the fucking children...see, kids don't get outside and play anymore because they might get hit by a bus, bitten by an AIDS-infected mosquito, or molested by their uncle down the street. Therefore, there have to be a million things inside the house to keep them occupied while they eat entire bags of M&M's, namely, fifteen manifestations of Disney...Mickey fucking Mouse never taught anybody to throw a curve ball, catch a fish, or jump rope.

Jack,

Outstanding job on the website. I am a huge Gourds fan who is looking for a review of the June 2 show at First Ave. It ain't no thing, but I really dig the band and was looking for a less biased opinion on the show. I kind of thought it was amazing. I saw them at the Turf last spring and drove the the New Year's Eve show in Austin. They kicked ass at both, but I thought the First Avenue show was the best I've ever seen. Comments?

--Mat Walsh

What the hell is wrong with me? The Gourds show at First Ave on June 2nd was easily the best show I've seen all year. I still catch moments of it in my cerebral synapses which give me short bursts of blinding euphoria. Their show-ending/show-stopping rendition of "Gin & Juice" into "Miss You" by the Rolling Stones is something you only get to see maybe once in a lifetime. The Gourds' followers are scattered around the country in little knots, but they're fiercely loyal. I firmly believe they're the best country band in the World. But they'll never get a shot on the country stations in this town because they write hot, upbeat, hip, twangy tunes that people like to bop and dance to, and play over and over again in their CD players until they wear the disks out. Kenny Chesney sucks compared to everyone, but he especially sucks compared to the Gourds. There are few bands with such a great dual songwriting dynamic like the one between Kev Russell and Jimmy Smith. They're two pretty different guys who somehow blend seemlessly onstage and compliment each other in some strange alien way. Consider yourself cursed if you missed this show.

Jack,

It isn't lack of market. It isn't even that this show (and others) were on school nights. We've all seen too much evidence to disprove both. My theory is just the opposite, so many opportunities that people take it for granted. With the exception of any city in Texas there isn't anywhere in the world with more chances to see bands that fall within the genre we're interested in than Minneapolis/St. Paul, although some (St. Louis, Nashville - yes, Nashville, Raleigh, and Ann Arbor) might come close. With so many chances (and at times so many choices) people take it for granted. This leads to reactions like, "my friends want to do _______ tonight, I'll have plenty of other chances to see BSOJC, I'll catch them next time." I've done that. In fact I've never seen BSOJC for just that reason.

--Al Kunz

When my Hillbilly Consigliere takes time out to weigh in on a topic I put forth in an earlier blog, I take his input very seriously. I think he has a really good point here too. The clubs in this town are choking on their own vomit to some extent because some people have become apathetic about the many choices we have.

But I think there's another phenomenon at work here. Namely, the "suburbanization" of cities (is that a fucking word?). My day job takes me to an outter ring suburb, and most of the people I work with wouldn't know First Avenue if they wrecked their immaculate SUV's that have never left the pavement into it. Why is that? Well first, suburban people think downtown is dangerous; I'm not going to say it's not, I'm just going to say they think it is. Second, suburban people go to places that are like the shit meat market bars they have in their shitty suburbs when they come downtown. Third, most of them don't know who's playing. Maybe they don't read Riemenschneider; maybe they don't read the CityPages; maybe they don't give a shit. But, after you've been club-hopping as long as I have, you start seeing the same people over and over again at shows; you get to know some of them; you get to know where they live; very few of them live outside the first ring. Finally, if they're going to go watch live music, they're going to go watch the safe, unchallenging shit they're used to hearing on the god awful radio in this town; bands that cover Michael Bolton and Dave Matthews and have never taken one fucking chance in their lives beyond plugging in a mic and turning up an amp. I'm not discounting the balls it takes to sing live, I'm discounting the glorified piano lounge schtick (queue Bill Murray: "Star Warrrrs/Beautiful Star Warrrs...").

Hey Jack,

Kris from Moonshine Hangover here.

Please, Please, Please, be working on a long and seething review of the Fan Fair concert that was on CBS last night. I know it is obvious, but watching the concert (whilst The Restaurant was on comercial) I couldn't stop wishing I was sitting on a couch next to you while you loaded up the pistol and pre-paired to shoot the TV Elvis style.

So let's get to the rant!!

Kris
www.moonshinehangover.com

PS... When the long haired guy towards the end sang a song about "Your one hot Mama" I had milk shoot out my nose!

Kris, had I watched it, I doubt my review would have been better than yours. A while back, I kept a little running commentary on one of these shows and was so disgusted by the end of it, I had to run down to the basement and listen to about 3 hours of The Gourds, Uncle Tupelo, and Buck Owens just to get it out of my head. Unfortunately...or fortunately...I'm too busy during the Minnesota summers playing outside to sit inside and watch much TV; especially shitty TV like "Country" music award shows. Those people can all go fuck themselves for all I care. Hopefully, the program director of the local "Country" station was quoted somewhere in a local paper about the winners, being an "expert" and all. Maybe someday, I'll get around to seeing which songs about children turning into angels and women who simply aren't going to put up with anymore of our bullshit, won awards, beating out the ubiquitous high school sweetheart/county fair/margaritas in the moonlight genre. Was anyone wearing a black hat?

Posted by Jack Sparks at July 20, 2004 12:05 AM

C'mon Seabiscuit!!!

Filed under: Imported

I wish I could buy paramutuel tickets on things like, "some annorexic chick will drag her birthday party down to the Turf Club on a Thursday night and drunkenly shake her hips to a song about the mind-numbing nausea of chemotherapy, sung by a guy none of them have ever heard of." It would hit the post at 25-1, and I would box it in a trifecta with something like "there will be a cigarette with only one drag taken off of it soaking in the urinal before midnight," and, "some guy with one eye will buy me a drink and tell me what a great name I have" and clean up. You'd see me pulling up in front of the Turf in a new truck the next week from my vast winnings.

I'm going to borrow from Perfesser Emeritus Al Kunz' as yet unpublished theory (see this space sometime in the next few days) that there's a certain amount of apathy and ennui in this town about our local music scene. When you can unzip at the head at any given moment in this town with any number of the Top Ten edgy, alternative, cutting edge music stars of the last 20 years, it tends to create a lot of yawns and empty weeknight gigs.

But that's a crying shame, and for the 50 or 60 brave souls that stumbled into the Turf last night, they got a real treat. I knew Eric Athey as a great songwriter and the guy who penned one of my favorite albums of the past year. I had no idea that he was also a very accomplished guitarist, and was very pleasantly surprised by the friendly dueling done by him and Dave Boquist throughout their set. More than a few of the folks I coaxed down said Athey reminded them of Steve Earle, something that really took hold in his live performance. The key difference I think, though, is the material. Athey's songs and act aren't frontloaded with all of Earle's moonshine bomber, smack addict bullshit. There's kind of a Lancaster, PA tough-guy with six strings and a heart vibe to it, more Springsteen than Earle; but even that comparison is overcooked, because Athey's just kind of a laid back good ol' boy in the end.

At any rate, he played his axe--and the drunks down front--well all night, and got a handful of CD sales for the effort. It didn't hurt one bit that he had one of the finest instrumentalists of 90's roots music standing off to his right the whole evening blistering the shit out of a guitar, fiddle, and lap steel.

Posted by Jack Sparks at July 9, 2004 3:27 PM

And where was Demko?

Filed under: Imported

None of you know Dan Lent. But, Lent and I were having a conversation on the Fourth of July...well, actually it was a monologue that digressed into a diatribe that finally disintegrated into a bellowing rant on my part, inside of a garage in Northeast Minneapolis, no less, so that everyone within 5 blocks could hear it...but...the thrust of my thought was that Independence Day is really my favorite holiday of the year. New Year's...amature night, Valentine's Day...made up phoney fucking Hallmark shit, St. Patrick's Day...amature night stretched out for 24 hours, Easter...well, let's not get into that, Memorial Day...not really time to party, Labor Day...huh?, Halloween...better when I was a kid, and, see Easter, Thanksgiving...probably a close second, but not for the reasons you might think, Christmas...I'm weird, but I just don't like getting presents.

Give me the Fourth of July. This is a holiday where the proper mode of celebration is to get sunburnt, drunk, eat undercooked food, and blow shit up! Freedom baby, sweet freedom. The only bedrock rule of the United States of America is: as long as you look like you know what you're doing, nobody is going to fuck with you. And, the Fourth of July is all about that. Burn your thumb, wear your cowboy hat backwards, and piss on the neighbors' rose bush...for beautiful, for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain...

I bring all this up, because I get a little bummed when The Bastard Sons of Johnny Cash play in front of me, Nagel, Adrian, a wedding party, 15 pedestrians, various scenesters, and a partridge in a pear tree down at Lee's on a Wednesday night in the dead of summer. The clubs in this town are choking on their own vomit for some reason. I like to believe that the people who run them love what they're doing, and love the musicians who shake one out for them every night, regardless of talent level, personality, or local cred. But it kills me to watch this bad shit happen to good people.

First, a show review: Fucking great. The Bastard Sons of Johnny Cash are one of the most consistent gigs on the roots circuit. They play a mix of originals and covers that is both respectful of the past and part of the present. "It has a snappy beat and you can dance to it," as they used to say on rate-a-record, and they don't dog it just because nobody showed up. True, Adrian and I were remembering a night at the 400 a few years back when they just about killed themselves and everybody in the joint; but that kind of energy is rare, and one can only hope these days that the bands show up and play their goddamned song, dispense with the bullshit, and win a few new fans for the NEXT time they hit town, hoping that the environment improves automagically by the grapevine.

But what the hell is going on in this town? If anybody has any answers, email me, I'll print and react to the good ones. I have a few theories of my own, but I'll leave that shit storm for another rant, on another day, after I've measured my words, and donned my chest protector and cup.

Posted by Jack Sparks at July 8, 2004 1:33 AM

Get out of the House...It's summer...no really

Filed under: Imported

The Bastard Sons of Johnny Cash, Distance Between

Not even Brock Lesnar could give you a double shot to the solar plexis like Wednesday and Thursday nights this week. First, The Bastard Sons of Johnny Cash are hitting Lee's Liquor Lounge, making up a rescheduled gig that was supposed to happen about a month or so ago. It's an oft-repeated cliché, but these are some of the hardest workin' boys in show biz. This is old school honky-tonk energy, with new school sound, mean and two-fisted, smooth as aged whiskey, and sweaty like July, if it would ever warm up for good. Wear your dancin' shoes and your drinkin' shirt.

Eric Athey, Open House

I've been anticipating Thursday night's gig at The Turf Club for several weeks now. Eric Athey kind of sent me his CD out of the blue, but once I saw who had played on it, it was pretty much a no-brainer to slap it on the air. With various members of the Boquist clan, chief among them Dave, pickin' and grinnin' with this Pennsylvania native, the record is a fine addition to anyone's alt-twang collection. There are two things that especially standout about the record: one, it has 14 great songs on it, that are well-written and well-recorded; and two, it really feeds off of many twang styles, you can hear a little bit of LA, Austin, Minneapolis, Chicago, North Carolina, and yes, Pennsylvania in it. I've spent many fine nights down at the Turf Club, foot-tappin on a stool to music that just made me feel better after listening to it, and I think Thursday is going to be another one of those affairs. Call 3 Friends, and tell 'em Jack sent ya!

Posted by Jack Sparks at July 6, 2004 10:11 PM

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