Dave Alvin gave everything he had and everything we wanted at his Montage show a couple of
weeks back. The sound was incredible — fairly loud but distinct enough to
pack a punch. The band played with such whisper-to-a-scream dynamics that it
continuously brought the SRO crowd to their feet and to their knees. Blasters
fans, country fans, blues fans, and all those that fall in the cracks in
between were completely — as Clarence Carter says — sassified.
If
you had been there you would have seen what could be deemed “newspaper music
writers gone wild.” You would have seen one (OK, it was me) dancing on a chair,
whistling and squealing like a girl, and another (OK, it was Spevak) dancing on a table with mucho
glee and abandon.
Alvin
bandmate and spiritual adviser Chris
Gafney tore down the house with a few incendiary opening numbers and amply
added color to Alvin’s weathered tones. Other than not hearing “Every Night
About This Time,” I got a taste of everything I wanted to hear from the man.
Marie Marie never sounded better and if she had been there, she surely would
have broken my heart — dancing on a table with Spevak.
If
you think Joe Cocker looks like a drowning epileptic, you should’ve gotten a
load of Southside Johnny & The
Asbury Jukes at High Falls two Thursdays ago. Thing from The Fertility Rite Brothers was there celebrating his
125th Southside Johnny show.
Johnny wallows in
and pours out a whole lotta soul. I’ve seen these legendary Jersey boys about
half a dozen times now and they consistently put on a relentlessly rockin’
show. This one in particular featured Johnny blowin’ a lot more harp.
And
speaking of harp, children, it’s time for Rob
Cullivan’s harmonica tip number three: Practice playing as softly as
possible. This will improve your breathing technique.
Volume
— the great healer. That’s just what Crosby,
Stills, and Nash used to cover up the fact that they can’t really harmonize
anymore. I’ve heard rumors they hate each other’s guts, and the 20-yard space
between each performer on the FLPAC stage attested to this fact. Roughly 6,000
people in attendance seemed to dig it except for me and The Bop Shop’s Tom
Kohn.
On
the Replacements’ song “Asking Me Lies,” Paul Westerberg sings, “at a Mexican
bar mitzvah for 700 years.” I saw Brave
Combo last week at Milestones, and now I think I know what that lyric
means.
Local
legendary punk scenester Iron Mike doesn’t
think Skate Korpse sounds like Agent
Orange. But I do. They’re young and loud and have a hint of that salty twang.
They were ill-prepared for the gig, breaking guitar and bass strings right out
of the gate, but sounded real good once they got going, warming the stage for The UV Rays who…
…rocked
and head-banged loud and heavy with healthy doses of sarcasm, cynicism, and
meaty guitar. Closing this Bug Jar Tuesday-night extravaganza were LA’s The Weirdos who looked a little weary
but rocked hard and ’77ish classic nonetheless.
I
had always considered Big Bad Voodoo
Daddy a Royal Crown Review knockoff… and I still do. But there’s no denying
the band’s musicality and swing. The band pumped and swung mightily with plenty
of brass and swagger (including a pretty cool cover of “Minnie The Moocher”)
last Thursday at The High Falls Festival site to the biggest crowd I’ve seen
there yet. Though there wasn’t a lot of room to dance — God forbid you spill
some sandal-wearing yahoo’s eighth beer — hipsters and red-hot hootchie
cootchers mingled with the average citizens. Even Thing was there… still
celebrating his Southside 125th.
Despite
my utter distain for pop culture — you know, reality TV, Brittany, low-carb
anything — I have to admit that Alicia
Keys can really sing. What an amazing voice. But the fact that she actually
writes her own stuff shouldn’t really be commended, because, frankly I feel all
artists should do this. A fairly diverse crowd piled into FLPAC Sunday night to
hear this corn-rowed-cutie warble and wail.
But
what really struck me was what I like to refer to as the 2004flash-o-flesh parade:
scads of size-14 women in size-eight outfits and heels that really don’t work
well on moist ground. Man, I loves me a full-size gal.
I
spent the weekend at Chateau Leon on
Hector Falls, contemplating my belly button while Ron Stackman’s Music From The Big
Lawn went ’round and ’round in my head.
This article appears in Aug 4-10, 2004.
