"Any minute now I'm expecting to wake up from a dream"

So I've been away for over a month and a half. Sorry to be preoccupied and I'll post more often this fall. I was kind of driving around figuring things out, you know? Looking up the road for Tell Tale Signs, I suppose.

Is there anybody as cool as Harry Dean Stanton?

"And Still Those Voices Are Calling From Far Away..."

So I dropped my usual amount of peyote the other night before settling down to watch the AL East. Around the third inning or so, suddenly I was seized with a transcendent vision. Transported away to a mystical land, I saw four mighty spirits towering before me:

Okay, two mighty spirits, one kind of nutty spirit, and a decent, very lucky session spirit. They spoke to me about the truth of life and challenged me with a great riddle. When I successfully answered, they solemnly nodded, then compelled me to chose one of their own as a sacrifice. I made my selection...

And popular music legend Don Henley was taken out to the desert to die. I'm sorry everyone.

Anyway, most of that was probably just the peyote. On a much happier note, I saw the Eagles live in concert a couple of Saturdays back. I and twenty thousand or so other folks enjoyed the show, though the Washington Post reviewer did not. It's his loss. After thirty-five years, they still know how to deliver a great show. My parents saw their Long Run tour in 1979 back in my hometown of Roanoke, Va. Might not be a big deal otherwise, but Mom and Dad hardly ever went out much less went to a full on rock concert. (I'm pretty sure I played the Parker Brothers board game Sorry! with the lady who lived next to us while my parents waved lighters back and forth at the Civic Center. We may have also watched an episode of Rhoda, too. Or maybe this lady, who babysat me sometimes, just looked like Rhoda. Possibly both. Hey, it was 29 years ago, c'mon.)

"Hotel California"


I was excited to see Don Henley's wistful, evocative solo single "The Boys of Summer" performed live before a black and white backdrop similar to this famous 80s video. This is one of the best in a considerably overrated medium. It's a legitimate piece of art. Plus it's pretty funny they stuck Henley on the back of a flatbed truck and drove around at 4 in the morning filming him...



And speaking of deadhead stickers, here's The Dude himself. Though he and I have somewhat different musical tastes, unfortunately, I've had a number of days all too similar to this.

Glitter and Doom

Inside a broken clock, splashing the wine with all the rain dogs

Taxi, we'd rather walk, huddle a doorway

with the rain dogs

For i am a rain dog, too

Oh, how we danced and we swallowed the night

For it was all ripe for dreaming

Oh, how we danced away all of the lights

We've always been out of our minds

The rum pours strong and thin, beat out the dustman

with the rain dogs

Aboard a shipwreck train, give my umbrella

to the rain dogs

For i am a rain dog, too

Oh, how we danced with the rose of tralee

Her long hair black as a raven

Oh, how we danced and you whispered to me

You'll never be going back home

Oh, how we danced with the rose of tralee

Her long hair black as a raven

Oh, how we danced and you whispered to me

You'll never be going back home

"We sail tonight for Singapore..."

Tomorrow morning, I'll launch myself seven hours north by northwest to see Tom Waits live in concert. I had thought about flying to St. Louis to see the show last night (Tom's first in St. Louis in 30 years). However, as I was testing the online ticket waters an hour before that city's Central time zone general on sale, I clicked and scored such a stunning orchestra seat for the Columbus concert, I decided to just Sal and Dean myself to Ohio as an early birthday present to me. $4 gas? So what? This is a once in a lifetime event, man! This is living! The open road! This is rock and roll! (Plus, you know, uh, my wife said it was, you know, okay that I went and all...)

Anyway, if I get there early enough tomorrow, I'll mess around Comfest. Should be a weekend for the ages. One I'll tell my kids about someday.

"Dad, you sure were pretty weird."
"Were?"
"Well, now you're kind of a kooky, even cool Dad."
"Ah."
"Yeah. Hey, do you happen to have ten bucks?"

"Dance in the dark of night...sing to the morning light"

Alison Krauss and Robert Plant played a great set at Merriweather Post Pavilion last week. Joined by producer and player T- Bone Burnett, they featured many songs off their acclaimed, in some ways unprecedented Raising Sand album from last year, as well as additional Americana songs and creative reworkings of songs from their respective catalogs of work. It was a superlative end to my June week of four outstanding concerts in seven days. (I felt like I was on tour!)

More adventurous fans of Plant and Krauss probably turned up for this one. They had played my hometown in Roanoke a week earlier, their first stateside date after being in Europe. I was disappointed the Roanoke Civic Center, where I graduated high school in 1989, was only half full. It was still a great concert, according to the Wall Street Journal.



Raising Sand's first single was a cover of the Everly Brothers' "Gone, Gone, Gone"



They did at least a few Zeppelin songs each night on the tour. Here's "Black Dog" picked out on a banjo by none other than Marc Ribot.



"The Battle of Evermore" was a highlight, in no small part due to Alison Krauss' keening vocals. The lyrics to this song are ridiculous, but, as you know, this woman could sing all strata of silly songs and make them compelling...



Two songs I hoped to hear were "In the Mood", a reworking of Robert Plant's early 80s hit. Amidst a crushing tide of new wave synthesizers in those years, Plant sustained a memorable wash of melody. (This song features one of the most incongruous videos I've ever seen. The genre juxtapositions are so off the wall, they're like outtakes from David St. Hubbin's failed hip-hop crossover.)



They did do "In the Mood," entwining it with an early 20th century murder ballad. I missed, however, their Bo Diddley tribute "Who Do You Love?" Unfortunately, they didn't play it, but 47 miles of barbed wire and cobra snakes for neckties were definitely there in spirit.

"Another chance has been engaged"

R.E.M. talked about the passion at Merriweather Post Pavilion Wednesday night. Their studio records for the past decade have dangerously drifted to detached irrelevancy. With 2004's listless, lifeless Around the Sun, they had lost nearly everything that endeared them to millions, including me. They remained strong as a live act from 1999 to then, but with the new material from last April's Accelerate album, they're back near the top of their game.



I enjoyed strong opening sets by The National and Modest Mouse, particularly the latter's during "Float On". Modest Mouse now features The Smiths alumnus Johnny Marr. Here he is jangle rocking alongside similarly iconic alternative guitarist Peter Buck during "Fall on Me"



Since they were just a handful of miles away in Columbia, of course, you knew Mike Mills would break out a cowboy hat and sing "(Don't Go Back to) Rockville"



Nobody rocks the Andy Capp in Blade Runner look like Michael Stipe. To be fair, nobody else probably wants to, either.


Few performers are on or can even figure out his frequency. A real original. (Special thanks to my sister-in-law for my concert ticket - a fantastic early birthday present!)

Southern Accents

Two and a half hours of solid Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers songs Sunday night made enduring humid, muggy Nissan Pavilion tolerable. How hot was it? Hot enough that two heat-crazed teen girls got into a fight right behind where we were sitting, to the delight of the delirious crowd.

I know you're a proud Gainesville native, Tom, but, jeez, did you actually have to bring the entire State of Florida to open for you this 2008 tour? (Really, it was Steve Winwood and he was great.) I was dying out there waiting for the sun to go down. You were no doubt back there in a really nice air-conditioned tour bus, weren't you, Tom? That's right. So you really don't know how it feels to be me, do you?



No, he was a good sport about what his fans were going through. "Nice to be with you here on a very humid southern night," he said. The sun did eventually go down, of course, but it was still muggy. The show definitely made that worthwhile, yes, but it must be said: The Waiting was the hardest part:



I blogged about watching this 4 hour documentary earlier in the year. Here's the trailer for Runnin' Down a Dream:



And I was impressed The Heartbreakers included "Bo Diddley is a Gunslinger" in the encore. So with Sunday night's scorching show, I'm pretty much done forever with Nissan Pavilion. Biblical rain and the surface of the sun itself, respectively, the last two times out? Hmm. Think they're trying to tell me something?

Under the Blacklight

I experienced more live music joy at yet another sold out 930 Club concert this past Friday night. Rilo Kiley came through the Mid-Atlantic again in support of their 2007 album Under the Blacklight. It's a sexy, even sleazy but spirited examination of a West Coast milieu, particularly love and loss in the City of Angels. Reminds me of some of the darker material mined not just by Fleetwood Mac, whom the band is often compared to, but also The Eagles on their much-maligned 1979 The Long Run album. (I imagine "The Disco Strangler" is dangerously lurking somewhere underneath that blacklight, and even The Moneymaker might end up serving time in a "Teenage Jail".)


I first discovered Rilo Kiley's music in 2004 with More Adventurous. Elvis Costello had recommended singer songwriter Jenny Lewis for her lyrics and melodies. (Elvis collaborated this spring with her on his fantastic new album Momofuku, which I also recommend.) Jenny also released her first solo album in 2006 - Rabbit Fur Coat. It was also well-received.

I particularly love "Silver Lining" from Under the Blacklight. When they peformed this song at the concert, they tossed large silver balloons into the air the crowd bounced around until the balloons popped and released gold confetti:



This video for "The Moneymaker" allegedly features real and aspiring porn actors. That's notable, especially in how young the fanbase skewed at the 930 Club Friday. I was easily 15 or 20 years older, and maybe a few more than that, than nearly everybody around me. (Seriously, I felt a little like Jason Bateman's character in Juno.)



"Portions for Foxes"





Lastly, I want to brag that Jenny sang a verse of "With Arms Outstretched" looking directly at me. Of course, maybe that's because I was all alone in my Soccer Dad glory up near the front row. Hey, nineteen - maybe we can dance together...

So What?

Hey, Bo Diddley!

Don't let those glasses fool you. Among the early architects of Rock and Roll, none had a more bad-assed sound than Bo Diddley. A 1987 Hall of Fame inductee, he passed away today at age 79.

Let's have a moment of silence....

Okay, now turn up the volume, watch this whole clip, and tell me who do you love?

"Play that Dead Man's Song"

No, it wasn't the second coming nor a ghostly cameo. Still, Warren Zevon's presence was at undeniable at the 930 Club on May 9th as the Drive-By Truckers roared through over two hours of gritty, thoughtful, and, at times, profane rock. Warren would've been proud.


The 2008 Homefront Tour is in support of DBT's latest album Brighter Than Creation's Dark. This was my third time seeing them live, having been baptized at an amazing '06 concert so vital that singer/songwriter Patterson Hood credits that show with restoring his faith in performing live music. I was there in the front row and had a similar revelation.


The Truckers' songs are often as sharply, bitterly observant yet laced with dark humor as Zevon's were. There's also hope, too. The grim realities of life require at least sarcasm and sometimes scorn, and usually those two qualities are better served when mixed with the right amount of sincerity. At his best, Zevon could and the Truckers still craft these kinds of songs and that's a compelling reason, one of many, fans keep returning to their respective bodies work.

That said, I'm still on the fence regarding how much of Zevon's savage "Play It All Night Long" from 1980's Bad Luck Streak in Dancing School is not a mean-spirited blast not to actual country folk but to a perceived image of rural America. Warren often walked a greasy tightrope regarding his lyrical intentions. How serious can a song be with lyrics like "The cattle all have brucellosis, we'll get through somehow"?



The Truckers take Zevon's ostensible joke to the next level, however, by infusing the lyrics with their considerable heft. Much like how Elvis Costello reinvigorated Nick Lowe's mild and trippy "(What's So Funny Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding?" with wounded but defiant idealism, DBT's version of "Play It All Night Long" is not cheeky and sneaky but rather a howling, visceral open wound, one that large swaths of red and blue America both can relate to.



(My apologies if this next clip doesn't sell you on what I just wrote. Truth is, to quote another Zevon song Patterson quotes if you listen carefully, this aint' that pretty at all.)



The Drive-By Truckers are arguably the best rock band playing today. When they're on their game, and they usually are, they're better than even Springsteen at articulating working class hopes and fears. And, like Zevon, they frequently lace their songs with memorably dark wit. I can't recommend seeing them enough.

Pehdtsckjmba

Perhaps the good karma police decided to make up for my miserably wet but transcendent experience at Radiohead last weekend by making sure I got an amazing orchestra seat for Tom Waits in Columbus!



I've never seen him live and he rarely tours anymore. I expect nothing less than a once in a lifetime thrill, frankly. The last time I drove to the wilds of Ohio for live music was in October 2004. I saw one of the most emotional, incredible, and hopeful concerts I've ever experienced. I even went to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame after that. A hard act to follow, surely, yet I expect Tom Waits to surpass even that high standard. Why? He's a compelling, fascinating, wholly unique individual so striking it's impossible to take your eyes away, as evidenced by these photos of unique beauty:

Yeah, obviously very memorable and, uh, ...oh! Yeah. That reminds me. (Sorry, guess my mind kind of drifted there for a sec.) There's some other Tom Waits related news this week...

You Make Me Feel So Young

Frank Sinatra passed away ten years ago today on May 14, 1998. My mother died that same year in the fall. I know Frank was gentleman enough to meet her when she got there. (He took her coat and made her laugh, I'm sure. Asked if she needed a drink, which she probably did...)

Gwen and I danced to the bookishly passionate "Too Marvelous for Words" at our wedding last October. It's a Johnny Mercer tune Frank cut for the Songs for Swingin' Lovers! album in 1956.

One Christmas, back in the mid-90s sometime, I didn't have much money for gifts that year for my family and friends. So I made mixed cassette tapes of popular standards for everybody on my list. I called them "Lumps of Cole".

Sounds pretty gay, huh? Maybe it was a little. Still, the ladies really liked it. Frank was no fool. Here's to you, sir.

"Some say she's from Mars or one of the seven stars"

I saw The B-52's last Saturday night at their sold out 930 Club concert. They're doing a small tour to promote their first album of new material in 16 years, Funplex. It's actually pretty good. "Juliet of the Spirits" is my favorite and an apt title, since, very early on, the band briefly billed themselves as Fellini's Children. They drew as much sartorial inspiration from the famous Italian director as they did from Southern secondhand culture.


Like many folks my age, I first heard the B-52's nearly two decades ago through their massive commercial breakout single which was completely inescapable in late 1989 and at any subsequent gathering of 10 or more Caucasians, particularly at a wedding. The band, while set for life financially in no small part because of this pervasive song, has subsequently apologized (sincerely, I believe) for its frequent overplaying. Hey, it was legitimately a lot of fun the first, oh, 59 or so times I heard it.

Despite or because of this ubiquitous hit, I explored their early catalog. The summer of 1990 is when I first discovered their still best material - their strange, tacky, and irresistible eponymous debut from 1979. Few albums make me smile as spontaneously and genuinely as this one does. Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson's angelic harmonies take flight without wings, without wheels...

I've been to many, many concerts in different kinds of venues over the years, but nothing I've ever experienced at a show prepared me for the awesomely goofy and, yes, even cathartic power of "Rock Lobster" performed live. (This is the giddy song that John Lennon famously said made him want to make music again.)



They also performed "Private Idaho". (I'm pretty sure my grandmother and an aunt or two, distinguished Dixie ladies, all of them, had wigs just like Kate Pierson is wearing.)



At the concert, it was a thrill to be directly in front of the lovely Ms. Pierson, whom I've crushed on since that same summer 18 years ago. Maybe it actually was a rainy afternoon in 1990 when I first heard Iggy Pop's "Candy"...



It was a little less than a year later when I heard Kate guesting with some fellow Athens, GA residents here.

"Planet Claire" has always been one of my favorite songs. Sci-fi theme music serrated by surf guitar. Genius. Weird and wonderful, it's inspired nerdish grad students to noodle around online when they should be writing comparative papers and wigging out simultaneously.



On the eve of her improbable 60th birthday, right in front of her, I was completely enraptured as she sang sirenlike in otherworldly stage lights. Wow. Thank you, Kate. I'll take you to my leader now...

"I turned to look, but it was gone"

Insert your own "When Pigs Fly" joke here.

Somewhere, David Gilmour is still doubled over laughing like hell. They reunited for Live 8 a few years back, performing together as Pink Floyd for the first time in two and a half decades, but he and Roger Waters had one of the most acrimonious splits in pop music. Moreover, while he's still got the rights to the name, Gilmour also has some impressive friends willing to step up when he needs a vocalist.

How Many More Years?

How many more years can they keep it up? Indefinitely, if you ask them.

Saturday afternoon, I went with a couple of friends to the Smithsonian's Udvar-Hazy Center, an extended wing of the National Air and Space Museum. We saw, in IMAX, Martin Scorsese's new concert film Shine a Light documenting a Rolling Stones 2006 concert at the Beacon Theatre on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It's no Last Waltz, but it's extremely entertaining.



I've seen Elvis Costello a couple of times at the Beacon, once way up in the back of the third balcony tier and later on the ground level not too far from the stage. It's a great venue for an intimate concert. I always enjoyed looking up at the marquee on my way back up Broadway when I worked in in Midtown back in the early '00s.

Seeing the band play in IMAX was such a visceral experience, it's honestly hard to describe. Imagine sixty feet tall musicians, and you'll begin to have some idea.

Speaking of giants, during the scene when Buddy Guy guests on the Stones' cover of Muddy Waters' "Champagne and Reefer", I smiled and recalled how, way back in 1965, they refused to play on an ABC show called Shindig unless the one and only Howlin' Wolf, a blues master with a tremendous influence on rock music, could peform, too. This was the Wolf's only national television appearance. Notice how the Stones meekly (and wisely) remain seated nearby in reverence.

He later went on to eat every one of those wiggling white girls alive.

Record Store Day

Saturday April 19th was Record Store Day. If you didn't get to on the actual day itself, go to an independent music retailer sometime soon. Those places are a lot of fun for a number of reasons, and not just the passive-aggressive clerks who will brutally mock of your assumed lack of taste and/or knowledge. We have a number of great ones in the DC area. (I work right next to an Olsson's I stop in frequently...at least it's not Target or Best Buy.)

37 Record-Store Clerks Feared Dead In Yo La Tengo Concert Disaster

"Lots of people talking but few of them know...Soul of a woman was created below"

So, like, which of the following photos feature dudes and which, like, feature chicks?

Whoa. I'm...I'm...well, you know what I am.

It was a rocking Friday night at the State Theater in Falls Church as a sold out crowd took in Lez Zeppelin's performance of the legendary first album in its entirity. The last time I saw the ladies, at the same place, back in 2005, the venue was half to two-thirds full and they played a greatest hits set. This time, it was sold out and packed as they tracked through the eponymous 1969 debut. (The one with the big flaming d**k on the cover.) There are probably hundreds if not thousands of Zeppelin tribute bands, but gleeful gender subversion is Lez Zep's key appeal which likely makes them the most interesting as well as the most commercially successful. They're like Camille Paglia's most fevered wet dream not involving Madonna and/or herself.

I've blogged previously about Zep's quiet reunion late last year as well as what I think of Raising Sand, 2007's collaboration, produced by T-Bone Burnett, between Robert Plant and Alison Krauss. (I'll see all of them Friday, June 13th, at Merriweather Post Pavilion.)

From the nuanced English folk balladry of "That's the Way" from the underrated (and my favorite) Led Zeppelin III album...



to the swooping, flourished stomp of "Kashmir" off the epic Physical Graffiti ...



There are considerably worse ways to kick off your weekend. You can't beat appealing women playing Zep.

Danny Federici

Danny Federici, all the way to the left in the above photo, was Bruce Springsteen's friend and musical collaborator for four decades. He passed away yesterday in New York after a three year battle with melanoma.

Having seen "Phantom Dan" behind the keyboards at many E-Street concerts, most recently this past fall on the Magic tour, I, like countless other fans, am deeply saddened by this loss. As anyone who's been to a Springsteen show can passionately attest, it's an electric family revival hearing this material performed live.

Here's the goodbye at Danny's last show with the E-Street Band, on November 19th, 2007 ,before he took a leave of absence last fall for cancer treatment:




I had just seen them in concert, with Danny, a week earlier in DC. I'm wearing my 2007 tour baseball jersey in memoriam today at work. I dare HR to say something to me (it is casual Friday).

A clip from Danny's surprise brief return to the stage last month in Indianapolis:




"So let's take the good times as they go
And I'll meet you further on up the road"

RIP, Danny. Thanks more than I and hundreds of thousands of other E-Street fans could ever say for your significant contributions to some of the best music I've heard and performances I've ever seen.

"Anyone can understand the way I feel"

On this historic day, sixty-one years ago, Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier to become the first black player in Major League Baseball. With the Nationals' brand new stadium in the District, the Caps in the NHL playoffs, and the Wizards threatening to do...something, these are exciting times for professional sports around the Potomac!

(Uh, nevermind that the Nats only just recently broke a nine game losing streak. This is Washington, DC. What, if anything, do you honestly expect to work correctly here?)

Anyway, Tuesday is opening night for the Alexandria Co-Ed Softball League. Less historically, I'm coaching my third season for our Academy softball team. As thrilling as Robinson's Brooklyn Dodgers were, they weren't the archetype for my team. No, my team sadly has another template:

Yeah, whatever happened to them, huh?

Among other area assocation and non-profit teams, we will play PBS twice this season. Last year, as you might've read, we had a bench clearing but ultimately thoughtful brawl with the mighty Public Broadcasting System. Charlie Rose got up in my face but I kicked dirt on his big round table, so he backed down. Not before I plugged him with my latest book, however.