the frig blig

Mingling within the crushing yet friendly crowds of San Francisco’s Hardly Strictly Bluegrass concert in Golden Gate Park the weekend before last, I managed to see a baker’s dozen of bands. I could have seen more given stricter organization, a keener sense of direction, and less sleep. However I can still claim to have had a great time.

Watched over by pines of loving grace

For those keeping score, the acts I saw in chronological order were: John Prine, The Band of Heathens, Ruthie Foster, Kris Kristofferson & Merle Haggard, Irma Thomas, Buckethead, Conspiracy of Beards, Laurie Lewis & the Right Hands, Bela Fleck w Zakir Hussain & Edgar Meyer, Bob Mould, Ollabelle, Justin Townes Earle, and last but not least The Jayhawks.

Heathens

Approximately half of those bands were new to me. The quality was overall outstanding, although there were pros and cons, likes and dislikes.

Nazi tarp plan

Best Overall Transcendent Music award goes to Bela Fleck Zakir Hussain & Edgar Meyer. Best Hitherto Unknown Band award [aka Frog’s Latest Discovery] goes to The Band of Heathens. Most Robotic Metal award goes to Buckethead [although the wafting strains from Broken Social Scene while I was at an adjacent stage were quite intriguing]. Most Fearless Performer award goes to battle-worn Bob Mould who performed solo without backup. Most Interesting Arrangements award goes to Ollabelle. Best GD Cover award goes to Band of Heathens’ rendition of Broke-Down Palace.

L-R: mystery Indian flute playe, Bela Fleck, Edgar Meyer, and Zakir Hussain

I had been looking forward to seeing The Jayhawks, my only familiarity being the occasional broadcasts of homie radio station KEXP. They could be described as roots-rock, alternative country, somewhat REM-influenced. With doses of god, which turned little old atheist me off.

My biggest regret was missing the Punch Brothers. Maybe they’ll schedule a gig in the PNW?

Finally, a big shout out of appreciation to fellow travelers Sandy, Peter, Nancy and Bob for all they did to make our SF weekend a great time!

I picked up a copy of Nick Lowe’s 2001 CD The Convincer in the used bin at Everyday Music the other day. I had high hopes, since I was a big fan of Pure Pop for Now, People and Rockpile back in the day.

Well, I am very disappointed. Let this be a warning to anyone who’s wondering how NL’s doing these days. Some nice titles, a couple of covers, but on the whole pretty lame I’m sad to report. Save your money for something better.

As a guitar player, I use my fingernails as little string pickers (I finger pick rather than strum with a plastic pick). So when I split my right thumbnail going through airport security, the result was that I couldn’t use my thumb for playing guitar. This is a major problem if I want to play.

I mentioned my torn thumbnail to my guitar teacher in an email, and he replied:

‘You can just cut up a tea bag and place it over the crack as a patch and then super glue on top.’

Long story short: I tried it and voila — it works! I just played a little Bach using all my picking fingers. Cool tip, thanks to JW.

1. I first heard Earth (Dylan Carlson’s band) when their CD A Beaurocratic Desire For Extra-Capsular Extraction was playing in Everyday Music on Capitol Hill. I had to ask the girl behind the counter what it was. I was intrigued even more upon learning that Carlson was a friend of Kurt Cobain’s from Olympia, and that the band was local.

Then a couple of months later my physical therapist mentioned he was a fan, and I decided to buy their recordings. I got The Bees Made Honey in the Lion’s Skull because the title and cover art is so cool.

Well, to an old fart like me this band basically sounds like heavy metal Eno. Slow, heavy riffs repeated endlessly. Nice ambiance, but not on my top ten list. OTOH they’re playing a new CD release gig at the Tractor on Thursday, and I’m sorely tempted — I bet they’re killer live!

If you do like this sort of thing, I suggest checking out Sunn O))) who do the same thing but are way more panoramic and less typical.

2. I wanted to scan one of Earth’s CD inserts and clip the band’s logo for illustrating this blog post, but couldn’t because my scanner is a Canon Pixma MP990 aka ‘piece of crap’. Anyone considering this multifunction printer/scanner/copier, beware! The only thing it does well is scan. But, if the printer runs low on ink, it won’t scan! Which is the height of stupidity because you don’t need ink for scanning. The paper feed mechanism the printer uses jams more often than not, and even when miraculously it doesn’t jam, it takes forever to print. Grrrr.

3. The server hosting this blog was running Ubuntu Server 6.06 LTS until a few hours ago, when I upgraded it to 8.04 LTS. Support for version 6.06 runs out in April so I got in gear, gritted my teeth and upgraded the distro. Happily, it took less than two hours and I had no major problems (YMMV). I figured jumping two major versions was safer than going all the way to 10.04 LTS in one leap. This should make it easier to upgrade Apache2, PHP, etc.

Rocked out with The Tripwires at the Sunset Tavern in Ballard last night. Opening were Orange Peel, a young pop band from San Francisco, and Spanish for 100, energetic rockers with an insanely hot lead guitar cat.

The Tripwires did not disappoint. They encored with a cover of ‘Crawling From the Wreckage’ — sweet! I never realized before how much the Tripwires sound resembles a hard, tight, hook-laden Rockpile.

[If my keyboard had a key to type the equivalence rather than equals sign, sigh…]

Much has been written by musicians over the past several weeks about the influence Alex Chilton had on their various careers etc.

I myself was never a fan, since I didn’t particularly care for ‘The Letter’ (AC’s big hit). I may have even seen AC once in the 1980s in Tallahassee. If I did, I wasn’t impressed.

But all the recent attention motivated me to download the third Big Star album ‘Third/Sister Lovers’, which I have been listening to on the Metro 16 on my way to work.

And now I hear what I missed. This morning during ‘Nature Boy’ I felt a similarity between AC and Syd Barrett. In the way they approach songwriting; their actual music, voices and styles are not overtly similar.

Who knew? Apparently lots of people, I’m just late to the club.

BAD.

GOOD.

During a recent trip to Vancouver BC (no, I didn’t attend the winter Olympics) I saw posters for a concert by Canadian band Pointed Sticks. The blurb said they were an old punk rock band who had released a new recording in 2009 after a multi-year hiatus. I liked the album art and title — ‘Three Lefts Make a Right’.

Hard to find in the U.S., so I downloaded the MP3s from Amazon.

Long story short — don’t waste your time. I’d call it a cross between lukewarm Green Day and The Carpenters. These sticks are more like wet noodles.

While the musicianship is competent, the words are saccharine. If this band got a better songwriter perhaps they’d be more interesting.

You have been warned.

Every few years I enjoy listening to some songs of Linda Cohen. The ones I like best are quiet, comforting, with satisfying chord changes and gentle chutzpa — a blend of classical, blues and folk. So today I decided to find out more about this talented but obscure guitarist and Googled her.

Turns out she died in January, in her home in Philly where she taught guitar. Sigh.

I discovered her in a slightly roundabout fashion — I was studying graphic arts in college, and one of my heros was Milton Glaser. He did the album cover art for Angel Alley by Linda Cohen, whom I’d never heard of but didn’t care — I ordered the album for the cover alone. Turned out the music wasn’t bad either. A little heavy on the electronics for solo acoustic guitar (is how I feel today), but some tasteful tunes.

I hope to play one of her tunes myself before I die.

Lovers Lookout is the new CD from local fellows Red Jacket Mine. Released just a couple of weeks ago, the timing is appropriate — autumn’s display of red gold and brown hues and shorter, darker days are a perfect compliment for RJM’s melancholy sound.

All the tunes are by songsmith and frontman Lincoln Barr, a moody bastard. His best songs are slow, arty, dark, and complex. Barr is a brooder, not a screamer. RJM’s music is like red wine rather than beer — to be savored. There’s a bit of a Ryan Adams feel, which Patrick Porter’s pedal steel helps along.

The love in this title is not ecstatic. But there is passion here — ironic, angry, disappointed passion. Even the rockers on this album, like opener Stay Golden, Childish Things and The Pose aren’t about having fun.

Stay Golden starts out upbeat but Barr can’t help himself — he ends up singing “You were so brave, but when they asked you to, you sold me out…”.

The Pose sounds a bit like The Posies…and since Ken Stringfellow helped with the production, who knows, maybe it’s alluding to that 90’s band, although it’s plainly expressive of the song’s meaning too. Can’t tell you, only the band knows for sure. Regardless, “Took a chance on an inside joke” is a great opening line.

The strongest tunes are soulful and anthemic, like Deseret News, Apricot Moon and So Long, Radiant Flower (which despite the bitterness has a sweetness too, as S points out).