Dylan

Walking toward the amphitheater, I saw as close to a complete double rainbow as I've ever seen. The lower one was bright and strong, horizon to horizon. The top one was fainter, but visible except for maybe the very top 10 percent. Framed in glory -- what a way to approach a show.
Tonight was my 10th Bob Dylan show, stretching back to 1996. (I had to check online to count 'em all: 1996 in Mesa, Dylan & Simon in San Diego and Phoenix in 1999, San Diego in 2000, Sun City in 2001, Phoenix and Tucson in 2002, Sun City and Tucson last year and then last night.)
Last night definitely beat last April at the TCC arena, largely due to the crowd, but mainly just the vibe in general.
I have to admit, I was looking forward to tonight's show with the least amount of enthusiasm I've had yet approaching a Dylan show. For one it's midweek, no road trip involved, I just saw him twice last year, and I don't really dig shows at the casino. Hell, I only bought my ticket last night and finalized plans on going with friends practically on the way there. I damn near felt guilty that I wasn't set on fire to see this show.
But hell, it's just about as strong a show as I've seen outta the man -- and I wasn't even backstage (like four of my 10 shows).
I love the songs off the new album. Dylan busted out five of the 10 Modern Times tracks, plus another two from Love and Theft. And he played for probably as long as any show I've seen -- 17 songs, when the last two were just 14.
My favorites from the night were the unexpected "Señor" (which I've really been digging in a new light after hearing an incredible Calexico version) and "Simple Twist of Fate" (which I've never seen before), "Masters of War" (which just gets more jagged every time I hear it performed) and "Workingman's Blues" (with a favorite line of mine, thanks to a shirt I have with it on the back -- 'You can hang back or fight you best on the front line'). And the band lit "Summer Days" and "Thunder on the Mountain" on fire, no doubt.
All in all a damn fine show, certainly in the top half of my 10 shows and definitely the best I've seen in a long while (maybe back to the last AVA performance), though last year's Sun City show had a very unique and intriguing set list.
My props go out to Josh and Andrea for taking in the show with me and transportating. Proper companions definitely take a show to the next level.
I guess that just leaves me with a final statement on Dylan's Never Ending Tour, the only one I've ever gotten to see and one I know a great deal about, with an insider's perspective courtesy of a certain "uncle" bus driver: each Dylan show gives you something unique; the set list couldn't be more flexible; but you have to kind of know what to expect (new melodies, a crazy sense of juxtaposition in regard to albums and eras; blues and folk sounds as much as rock; no banter); and more than anything, if his voice is sounding clear, you know you're in for a treat.

And as a last note, here's the most random and eerie thing of the whole endeavor:
Leaving the parking lot after the show, we were behind a car with the license plate: 724-AVA, which was the date and the venue of the show. Trippy dude, trippy.

Quick report...

How, exactly, should one react to being voted "Most Changed" at his 10-year high school reunion?

Commercials

I have no outright beef generally with good music being placed in advertisements, but I gotta admit shock whenever I hear a band I dig on the TV backing something or another.
I just now saw a University of Phoenix ad featuring the New Pornographers.


And then there's the new VW/Wilco ad:


I can clearly remember hearing Richard Buckner in another VW ad. And the first I heard Devendra Banhart was in a New Belguim ad (I actually discovered the world of music-in-TV-ads message boards searching out what the hell that tune was).

In my mind, the notion of "selling out" as it's usually applied to music certainly predates Napster, if not the mass use of the Internet itself. Between the Net and digital music distribution methods and Clear Channel and the unapologetically dirty world of record label consolidation, things just ain't remotely the same any more.
I don't think that excuses anything outright. But I think there needs to be a new conversation on the matter, including everybody who holds an opinion.

Having met folks from most of the bands mentioned above (if just in the fan-at-a-show way), I can't bring myself to hold a hard line on the subject. Frankly, it just may be a post-modern, anti-anti sort of way of excusing previously DIY-banned behavior, but I reckon the phrase "sell out" is just about done.

Catfish on the way to the nightclub

It's almost time to head out and catch Shearwater. I'm curious about what I've heard from the Austin band (a good chunk of the latest record as it was first released, plus an earlier split 7 inch) and excited to see some quasi friends again. Shearwater shares at least two members with Okkervil River, hands down one of my favorite bands these days. The difference is the songwriting, and it's a hell of a difference because without knowing, I'd never guess the bands shared some members.
Shearwater is fronted by Jonathan Meiburg, the keyboardist and ornithologist, while Okkervil River is fronted by Will Sheff, the guitarist and movie critic. And that's a gross oversimplification of each of them, but they're both in both bands.
I mention quasi friends because Okkervil River played show here on Thanksgiving a few years back and all ate dinner at my house and crashed there later. I've chatted with them each time they've been through since and you'd have a tough time finding a more fascinating group of musicians and all-around weirdos.
Anyway, high hopes for a band that I'm fairly unfamiliar with musically despite what else I know of its membership.

That's the Thanks I Get

It's of course highly dubious that Jeff Tweedy read my blog review on Sky Blue Sky and rushed the band back into the studio, but the end result is the same: I'm sitting here listening to a rocking full-band version of "Is That The Thanks I Get?" The band does not disappoint. Rush out and get your own Sky Blue Sky copy now if you haven't already, and make sure to stick it in your computer to download the bonus song. It's the best of the whole bunch.

Happy Birthday Mr. Dylan!

In honor of Mr. Dylan's 66th birthday today, check out this parody. But, after you do, go ahead and listen to some real Dylan. Take your pick, but you owe it to the man today to celebrate his tunes.

Sky Blue Sky - soulful rock 'n' roll glory

Sky Blue Sky is Jeff Tweedy’s most soulful batch of tunes, yet the record unquestioningly will go down as the “Nels Cline” Wilco album. The new lead guitarist is prevalent in every track, at every turn and twist in the music and completely in step with Tweedy throughout, giving the singer and songwriter a freedom he’s never had before in recording.

Critically (and in the blogs), the record is discussed overall as mellow, classic-rock sounding, safe and (for those who can’t live without bashing good music) dull. Bullshit. Sky Blue Sky may be Wilco’s most subtle and most layered record, but it’s also full of tension and mobility. Where before there was swagger, now there’s smarts; where there was noise, now there’s tunefulness; where there was angst, there’s now a songwriter navigating his struggles with wisdom.

Wilco was never anywhere near as “experimental” as they got labeled in regards to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, mostly by people who were new to the band. Nor was the band ever as “country” as previously labeled, by the people who ignored them until YHF.

Tweedy says as much in an interview with Pitchfork, a publication which then turned around as if it hadn’t been listening one bit and panned the album, dismissively calling it “dad-rock” in a review I consider the publication’s shark-jumping moment, losing the last bit of relevance on the road from “take it with a grain of salt” to “don’t even bother reading.”

The one moment on the album that nails me to the wall – and hits the mark so clearly in defining the album’s strengths – is the latter two thirds or so of “Impossible Germany.” The song is just swept up by its own guitar solos, an intertwining dance of Cline and Tweedy, two couldn’t-be-more-different styles hopscotching around each other in joy and kindness. The song conjures both night and day, childhood and today. It’s truly a conversation, drenched in amazing emotions, always balancing each other out. The guitars are filled with motion, creating a spinning sensation and an exploration that embarks and retreats, over and over. I can’t begin to pinpoint a meaning in the lyrics overall (Impossible Germany / Unlikely Japan ?? Is there some WWII connection?), but toward the end, when Tweedy sings “This is what love is for / To be out of place / Gorgeous and alone / Face to face,” he captures that same sensation, a sort of necessary tension that holds life together.

The music is so compelling and Tweedy not only brings his best singing voice after quitting the smokes, but has reached a new level in terms of creating incredible melodies. So in that sense it’s disappointing that some of Tweedy’s lyrics this time around are, if not his least evocative and least insightful (watch the Sunken Treasure DVD for that joke), definitely his least adventurous.
There’s no “I dreamed about killing you again last night” or “a fixed bayonet through the great Southwest to forget here” or even a sly “You’re gonna make me spill my beer” to be found, but it seems like Tweedy is perfectly content in the simpler images.
“Shake It Off” starts with Tweedy describing how the “Sunlight angles on / A wooden floor at dawn.” “A ceiling fan is on / Chopping up my dreams,” he continues, but the song, lyrically at least, never gets much more interesting.
Anyone in search of an overall artistic statement on the album would do best to zero in on the second-to-last song, the terrific and catchy “What Light.”

To me perhaps the thing that has defined Wilco most as a band is the fact that while no album sounds quite like another, each contains at least one song that would mesh perfectly with any other album (a contention I’ve made before: A.M. – Dash 7; Being There – Misunderstood, at least; Summerteeth – How To Fight Lonliness; YHF – Poor Places; A Ghost Is Born – The Late Greats, which is absolutely the most Wilco of all Wilco songs).

“What Light” holds that position here, an even-tempoed rocker that starts jangly strummed 12-string acoustic guitar and in perfect measure adds three other guitars, piano and organ, a sound that’s never too much and never too little. Tweedy opens with a stanza that’s daring in its simplicity, a purposeful and unapologetic bit of advice that could easily double as a self-fulfilling mantra he built the record around: “If you feel like singing a song / And you want other people to sing along / Just sing what you feel / Don’t let anyone say it’s wrong.”

The repeated chorus in “Leave Me Like You Found Me” sounds like it’s coming from somebody whose been shoved under a microscope and from Tweedy, it could be a plea to just about anybody – perhaps spurred by his band’s new found place as Rock’s Most Scrutinize, or leftover from his scrutinized trip to rehab, or his epic record-company battles, band-mate exists, or even the dissolution of Uncle Tupelo.

Other highlights are the laid-back, almost funky groove of “I Hate It Here,” the jaunty “Walken” and “You Are My Face,” which musically sounds closest to the Mermaid Avenue sessions and lyrically like Tweedy picked a little bit out of ol’ Woody’s pocket: “Why is there no breeze / no currency of leaves.”

Most songs build and turn, shifting instruments flawlessly, with a sound much more like a live performance than they’ve ever nailed on record. Which is definitely encouraging, after listening to how the live show gave new life to the A Ghost is Born songs on Kicking Television.

By biggest (and really only) complaint is the absence of “Is That the Thanks I Get,” which showed up in a Tweedy solo version on the Live in the Northwest DVD. Well, I’ve heard a full-band version, last summer on Conan O’Brien’s show, and it was incredible. It’s a tune Tweedy wrote for Solomon Burke to sing on the the Don’t Give Up On Me album and I love the spare version. But backed by the rest of his Wilco mates, the song comes alive as a bouncy soul groove, with a hooky sing-along chorus and chocked full of guitars, piano and organ fills. It’s the same direction I see Tweedy going with the Sky Blue Sky songs, so I hope a new recording turns up somewhere.

Now, I’ll repeat a little drill I did in writing about A Ghost Is Born, listing the opening lyrics from each Wilco album, chronologically backwards:

“When I sat down on the bed next to you / You started to cry”
“I am an American aquarium drinker / I assassin down the avenue”
“The way things go / You get so low / Struggle to find your skin”
“When you're back in your old neighborhood / The cigarettes taste so good”
“You always wanted more time / To do what you / Always wanted to do”

As I pointed out then, it’s full of I’s and You’s, all infused with this mobility, a certain sort of tension there that bore out as the albums wore on. There’s always been a sort of struggle that has defined Tweedy’s lyrics up until now. And while it’s certainly not gone, this is the first time it’s really matched by contentment, or wisdom, or maybe best described as a sly “So it goes” attitude.

So when Tweedy open Sky Blue Sky with “Maybe the sun will shine today / The clouds will blow away / Maybe I won’t feel so afraid / I will try to understand / Either way,” he really sounds like a new man in a sense.

In interviews he’s said just as much: that this was the easiest Wilco album to make, the most collaborative recording process, overall the simplest and most fruitful experience. I love the notion that music making doesn’t have to involve tremendous stress or heartbreak or struggle, or that songs don’t have to come out of a dark place to relate something important. Why Wilco has been dinged some for this album I’ll never understand – it’s beautiful, but not achingly or hauntingly so, just comfortable whether it’s spare or full in sound, with a core of emotion that’s neither dark or soaring, just occasionally content. There’s no doubt the new players, particularly Cline, have pushed this band musically, and that they made perhaps a simpler and subtler record than they’re capable of just means to me that it was what the songs called for. And the songs are tremendous, with a soulful rock ‘n’ roll glory throughout that no other band today can match.

An open letter to David Stern and Stu Jackson

(Which, if their email addresses are dstern@nba.com and sjackson@nba.com they might actually read, because the messages weren't sent back to me undeliverable.)

Dear Commissioner and Commissioner's Lackey:
Your suspension of Stoudemire and Diaw for game five is the most appalling and unnatural intrusion into playoff competition by any league office in the history of professional sports.
There are plenty of ways to parse words regarding the interpretation of "altercation" and "immediate bench area," but the fact is you have illogically chosen to suspend two players for merely standing up from the bench chairs and taking a few steps (hardly a wrong by any reasonable person's definition).
The incident in Monday night's game was wholy and entirely the result of one player: Spurs journeyman thug Robert Horry.
No Suns players from the bench even so much as attempted to participate in any physical altercation or escalate the situation to any degree.
If your defense of these suspensions is nothing more than "We have to follow the rules and they left the bench," than you, sirs, are devoid of any intellectual honesty.
The NBA's image problems are nothing but the harvest of what the league has sown itself, but even worse, it's ill-conceived "solution" has proven to be more damaging to the spirit of competition, the hard-working teams and the devoted fans than any fight has been yet.
It's no surprise that you have already cancelled plans to attend game five in Phoenix. Nothing could possibly reveal more the fact that you have no confidence in your decision, a fact which should have prevented you from making it in the first place.
Nobody knows what will happen the next two or three games of this series, but league office has certainly assured the outcome on the court will be anything but the result of pure competition.
You sirs have shamed the series and the game and should immediately reverse the suspensions of Stoudemire and Diaw. Barring that, I and a great many fans (of all teams), will have lost any confidence remaining in your abilities to administer the responsibilities of the league office and fully expect your resignation.
Sincerely,
Catfish Vegas,
lifelong Arizonan and Suns fan.

Fresh Disorders

Since I randomly shared my favorite quote with two friends lately, I thought I'd also note it here:

"Most of us lead lives of chaotic improvisation from day to day, bawling for peace while plunging grimly into fresh disorders." - Ed Abbey

Arlo! Concluded...

For a Brooklyn-born hippie best known for a cleverly nonsensical anti-war ballad disguised by 'Aw, shucks' simple-mindedness and a harmless, looping guitar line, Arlo Guthrie is an amazingly complex performer.
The spare stage Sunday night held Arlo, his son Abe on keyboards, a friend switching between pedal steel and mandolin and Arlo's daughter Sarah Lee and son-in-law Johnny, a pair of guitarists and wonderful harmonizing singers.
The wild, white hair of a 59-year-old - Arlo's most dominating physical attribute - is strange considering I've only seen the performer in the oddly dark Alice's Restaurant movie and record covers, where there's a definite boyishness mixed in with the hippie.
I do have a bootleg recording of Arlo doing a short set at a folk festival last summer, so I knew pretty well what to expect from the sound.
The show opened with plenty of Woody songs, including “Oklahoma Hills” and “Talking Dust Bowl Blues.” Arlo's young granddaughter ran out to join her mother in singing the chorus to "Union Maid." And the performance of "1913 Massacre" was beautiful and sad in ways I don't think Woody ever quite wrapped his head around.
Sarah Lee and Johnny sang a couple of their own tunes, which fit right into the Guthrie canon, especially sung in such a delicate harmony. The couple even brought out their own version of "Another Man's Done Gone," after giving some great props to Wilco and Billy Bragg for their Mermaid Avenue records.
An old New Orleans tune, "St. James Infirmary," and a new Arlo composition probably called "In Times Like These" touched on Arlo's experience playing a series of charity shows after Katrina hit the Gulf Coast.
After intermission (intermission?! oh yeah, it's a sit-down folk show with an audience median age of at least 60), Arlo came out with a romping Irish tune to warm up.
Then he hit into "Alice's Restaurant Massacre," the nearly 20-minute career defining tune I thought he'd retired. Still funny and still poignant, the song had me shouting along with the final chorus ("If you want to end war, you have to sing loud") and couldn't have been more uplifting.
Arlo the storyteller took up a lot of the second set, primarily with this long rambling set of loosely connected stories about Australia and flying that Josh and I were pretty sure was a set-up for "Coming into Los Angeles." And eventually it was, after an ever-more-excited Arlo told of flying back into the country once and seeing a man 1,000 miles away smelling his plane, zeroing in on new present - exactly the type of illicit material you'd expect he'd try to smuggle into the States. So Arlo ate it, and when the plane landed he was still flyin' so high that he saw the passengers one by one get sucked down the time tunnel, until he himself was escorted down the time tunnel, where at long last he came face to face with the man who'd been sniffing him for the past 1,000 miles. "Heh, Heh, Heh, You ate it," said the inspector's grin, to which Arlo smiled back "Yep." A circuitous route, to be sure, but hilarious all along the way and "Coming into Los Angeles" indeed followed, a smashing quick and loud version considering there were no drums or amps.
After playing a bit of newly unearthed Woody audio, Arlo sang a Woody tune he'd put music too. Then came the sing-along "This Land is Your Land" to close the show and an encore that started with "City of New Orleans."
All in all it was an amazing show, despite not even hearing my two favorite Arlo tunes - "Motorcycle Song" (which I'm not sure he plays any more) and "Darkest Hour" (which is just about my favorite song of all time, for anybody, and one I know he still plays 'cause it's on that bootleg I have from last summer).

Afterwards, Josh and I discussed the show over a couple of beers, talking about how Arlo bridged his father and the hippies, how the peace and love movement is not only fueled by its songs, but takes comfort in them and drives more new tunes. I'd say that by virtue of the fact that he had Woody as a father and teacher, plus strong friendships from his youth with Pete Seeger and Cisco Houston, Arlo is probably the only great post-Dylan songwriter never influenced by Dylan.
We talked about how the War experiences of both Woody (Merchant Marines) and Johnny Cash (Air Force) only strengthened their individualism. I wouldn't call the experience foundational for either man's character - there were just too many experiences earlier for that - but in a way both men became more isolated by their service, pushed more into the art of song, drawing on that inner artistic strength to push them through the experience (though to my recollection neither faced anything in the way of direct combat, that doesn't mean the service was a comfortable time) and returning more a musician and song-writer than before. Cash was obviously a lot younger during his time in the service than Woody was, but Woody was even more prolific writing songs later in life, though most are just words on paper these days, with thousands of melodies dying inside his head as he succumbed to Huntington's disease.

Arlo!

My two favorite quotes from Arlo Guthrie tonight:
"I'm not as big of a threat as I hoped I'd become."
"The Peace & Love Types come out of the woodwork for things like this."
More later, but it was such an amazing show. Arlo is as good of a banterer as there is. It's humor but not comedy, humanity but not preaching, sentimentality but not sappy, with nothing but love and charity and peace as the ultimate goal. And a good dose of America's most prolific and best songwriter.

Bait and Switch

So I'm back from Portland and done with a visit from the folks and just chillin' in the post-vacation vacuum, supposedly content, but really just wanting to get out of town again. I've figured out that it's never the duration of the trip, nor precisely what I did or who I saw, but some other, harder-to-define internal thing that determines to what degree a vacation relaxes me vs. just inspiring more freedom and travel. Three years ago, I took a trip to Prescott for a friend's wedding, then flew out to Chicago and took a bus up to Madison, in total spending more than 10 days out of town, and it was the most relaxing, rejuvenating time I could have hoped for.
But this trip did little more than make me want to move to Portland, or take a long trip to San Francisco, or Chicago, or D.C. or New Orleans or wherever I have a couch and good company. So it is.
As far as specifics, we had an overwhelmingly bar heavy night on the front end of my trip, then chilled out the next day on a drive through the Columbia Gorge out to Hood River (the Full Sail brewery's tap room was closed for renovations -- damn). Son Volt was that night. Then it worked out that the sunniest day of my trip, one of those perfect days in which a rainy city wakes up to the warm sun after months, Chair and I hit a great disc golf course. Other highlights include a jaunt out to Astoria, numerous more bars, Powell's, and a dinner, cool tunes and Taboo with some cool canvassing kids.

So now it's just returning to routine, hoping for some good shows to break up the days (which by the way are quickly turning hot). Arlo Guthrie is coming to town. Robyn Hitchcock. Alejandro Escovedo with Drive-by Truckers. The Little Morts at Club Crawl. Social D. The Hold Steady. And my local favorites.

Favorite new quote of the day (honorable mention): "I am like a whore up front and a nun in the back." -- The General.

Favorite new quote of the day: "It's so much more fun to be the bait than the switch." -- Arnie.

Catfish in flight

I'm just hours away from jettin' off to visit Mr. Chair, Ms. Lippy and various other folks in the wonderful city of Stumptown U.S.A. You might wonder why someone would leave 75 degrees and beautiful sunshine for 57 and drizzly rain, but that slides right on past the point. This is a damn well-earned vacation and it'll be lived up to the fullest.
Wednesday we'll go catch Son Volt, who have a pretty damn outstanding new album. For years and years I was neutral on the Uncle Tupelo split, giving equal props to the first two albums from both Tweedy and Farrar. I even caught Son Volt on the Wide Swing Tremolo tour and still think Medicine Hat is one of the best Dylan songs that Dylan never wrote (lyrics here).
But then came Summerteeth and I finally had a preference for Wilco over Son Volt.
Still, I've followed everything Farrar has done and dig the new tunes. The show should be something special, definitely.
Little else is planned out ahead of time for Portland, but I'll get to visit an old friend I grew up with and haven't seen in 10 years. I 'spose myspace can be a good thing from time to time if it brings folks out of the woodwork.
So here's to a decent week for everybody and though I'm not promising, perhaps I'll get a bug up my nose to send an update from the Northwest.

Catfish goes a-shufflin'

This is a gimmick I see all over the Web, so I’ll steal it for mine own purposes. I’ll take my iPod, set it to random, and then chat about what pops up. Should be fun. But first, I ought to note that the gizmo in question is filled with downloads and new purchases, not remotely indicative of the entire collection, but absolutely what I’ve been listening to most lately.
I’ll run y’all through 13 tunes, since that’s my favorite number. (Note: I did skip one song, but it was “Monster” by Band of Horses, and they’re already represented in the shuffle, so I elected to just continue along.)

Band of Horses - Our Swords
“Everything All the Time” is an amazing album, my favorite from the past year. This tune isn’t quite among my handful of favorites from the album, but that’s just because it’s such a strong collection of songs.
“Count on us all stepping on our own toes
Count on us all falling on our own swords tonight.”

Wilco - Is That the Thanks I Get - Live on Late Night with Conan O’Brien
Tweedy’s solo version on the Live in the Northwest DVD is the only one officially released, but I dig this whole band version. To bad it isn’t listed among the tracks on the new Sky Blue Sky album, it would fit right in. On another live show I have, Tweedy says it’s a tune he wrote for Solomon Burke to sing on the the Don’t Give Up On Me album and I’d love to hear that. It’s a soul groove, with a hooky sing-along chorus and chocked full of guitars, piano and organ fills, that definitely points in the direction Tweedy is going with his latest songwriting. I hope a full band version shows up on some EP or single or soundtrack or something soon.

Mike Doughty - St. Louise is Listening - The Gambler EP
It’s an iTunes exclusive EP, with Doughty trotting St. Louise out of the Soul Coughing back catalog. It’s one of the only SC tunes he’s kept playing, along with True Dreams of Wichita, my all-time favorite Doughty tune, and Janine, which still sounds mysterious.
The EP is a fun experiment in covers, from the unlikely Kenny Rogers’ hit “The Gambler” to the more properly aligned “King of Carrot Flowers” from Neutral Milk Hotel and “Strange Powers” from the Magnetic Fields.

Arcade Fire - (Antichrist Television Blues) - Neon Bible
This new album is amazing and I gotta say this is the first track that has really grabbed me. It’ll surely end up on the next mix I throw together. I never once thought of any Springsteen comparisons before this song, but it comes through to me so clearly. Imagine a reincarnation of the skinny, bearded and knit-cap wearing Bohemian Bruce, long before Born to Run, and you’ve pretty much got it. It’s that early Circus Bruce, the overly wordy worshipper of Dylan and teenage nights. And that’s just the sound. I haven’t really honed in on the lyrics yet - the song clocks well past five minutes and there isn’t really a chorus or even an instrumental break. This is a song to get to love slowly and surely.

Gin Blossoms - Hey Jealousy (Live) - New Miserable Experience reissue
It’s absolutely one of the most overlooked albums of the 1990s. This version comes from the two-disc reissue. The Gin Blossoms then had hit on their own brand of perfect guitar rock, both punky and jangly, as if the Replacements grew up in the desert. And it’s not a comparison I make lightly either. Had Doug Hopkins not been kicked out of the band and killed himself, the Gin Blossoms would be a hell of a lot more than nostalgia concerts right now, they’d have a catalog full of pent-up anger and profound sorrow.

Rainer - Last Fair Deal - Live at the Sound Factory
Tucson’s late blues master, a foreign-born, Chicago-bred slide player, Rainer Ptacek is amazing. Here he turns out the best version of this Robert Johnson standard I’ve ever heard. Seriously, go check out this entire show, April 8, 1986, an astoundingly clear recording available for free and legally at the live music archive:
http://www.archive.org/details/rainer1986-04-08.flac16. It’s a two-part show, acoustic and electric, part of an old KXCI series.

Billy Bragg - Greetings to the New Brunette - The Peel Sessions
A solo radio performance of one of Bragg’s first great love songs, it’s got one of my favorite lines of his: “Celebrating my love for you with a pint of beer and a new tattoo.” Like in most of Bragg’s love songs, the sentiment is fairly simple, but the relationship seems much more complex. Few writers can capture it in quite the same way, the conflict of basic desires and the much more complicated underlying reality that emerges whenever two people lay eyes on each other.

The Swim - Let’s Get Unknown - We’re Green
The fact that they’re good friends from Prescott aside, I’d recommend this band to anyone who digs the Shins, A.C. Newman or Band of Horses. Caleb and Colton sing great together and the guitar interplay is fantastic. Check them at myspace.com/yeahtheswim.

The Format - Matches (live) - Live on the World Cafe
This is a somber, acoustic performance by a band that’s typically one of the most unapologetically poppy around. The Dog Problems album from last year is damned OK, but I prefer the earlier Interventions and Lullabys and even their first EP.

Audrey Hepburn - Moon River - From Breakfast at Tiffany's
I had a couple of stretches my freshman and sophomore years when I’d watch lots of Audrey Hepburn movies, courtesy of Tony, and like anyone else paying attention fell in love with her screen presence. She’s a sweet singer (if not the best) and this subtle version to me is the gold standard.

Rilo Kiley - Portions for Foxes - Live on the Current
This stripped-down radio performance of the centerpiece to the band’s More Adventurous album (their best) shows how great of a singer Jenny Lewis can be. On the album, she screams the lyric “Come here!” but in this version it’s just a whisper, turning the song’s tone from feisty to vulnerable. The repeated “bad news” chorus loses a bit of steam, but I’m always a fan of hearing songs performed in different styles, whether it’s a cover or a reimagined original.

Alejandro Escovedo - Arizona - The Boxing Mirror
This legend’s latest album wastes no time screwing around before punching you in the gut. “Have another drink on me, I’ve been empty since Arizona,” he sings in the opening line. Surrounded by disoriented, wailing electric guitars, the song talks about his collapse on stage of hepatitis a few years ago, in Phoenix, I think, though I’ve also heard it was Tucson. The Por Vida tribute album collected some amazing performances of his songs.
I caught him live a couple years back and he was as powerful as he was versatile. This album catches both and on its way to becoming my favorite of his. I can’t wait for his return to Tucson, Cinco de Mayo at the Rialto, with Drive-by Truckers. Be there.

Dan Bern - Breathe - Breathe
The folk singer’s latest is another well-produced (I’d say over-produced, but I like all the little touches just too much to use that negative term) rock album. I don’t think the album in general quite has the songs of New American Language, but this title track is definitely among his best ever. The song has the post-Bush reelection Bern starting out cynical and weary (“There's nothing innocent about a newborn babe / That a few years here can't cure”), only to turn things around with the “Stop what you’re doing and breathe” chorus.

Catfish Vegas on 2006

I'm still digesting 2006. I'm not sure if I like it all that much. The world seemed to continue it's march toward being a really horrible place far too much of the time. But that might start changing. November's elections were amazing, all in all.
Personalwise, I had another year of heavy travel, though much of it was for work. Highlights include starting the year in Portland, Chapel Hill, N.C., Lake Powell, Lake Patagonia, Pecos, N.M., and one weekend I went on vacation in Downtown Tucson. Some good friends got married, some moved, some graduated and pretty much everybody just kept on livin'.
I dug more into music than ever, thanks in large part to high-speed internet and my at-long-last decision to stop being so damn cheap and actually my myself one of those iPod gizmos. Excellent choice.
I took in the Minions and resurrected the Kitchen Bed for a few weeks. And finally I headed for the hills right at the end, to unwire myself and forget about as much of the world as I could. (Mixed results there, I missed two Wildcats games, but on the plus side know almost nothing of Saddam's execution and heard just the scarcest of Jerry Ford eulogies - though as far as my stake in the Death Pool 2006 was concerned his passing was welcome.)

So here we go with the Year in Review, starting first with:

Catfish at the (increasingly virtual) Record Shop
2006 was big for the veterans and as much as new indie bands can keep turning out wildly creative albums, I lean just as much toward the tried and true. Here's the top:
1. Band of Horses - Everything All The Time
2. Bob Dylan - Modern Times
3. Neko Case - Fox Confessor Brings the Flood
4. Hold Steady - Boys and Girls in America
5. Decemberists - Crane Wife
6. Robyn Hitchcock & the Venus 3 - Ole Tarantula!
7. Calexico - Garden Ruin
8. Tom Petty - Highway Companions
9. M. Ward - Post War
10. Bruce Springsteen - The Seeger Sessions
Honorable Mentions (there're a lot, some that probably ought to be top 10, but I only have so much time for tunes and some good albums still need more listenin'):
Richard Buckner, The Format, The Walkmen, Dan Bern, TV on the Radio, Destroyer, Gin Blossoms, Pearl Jam, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Beck, Johnny Cash, Neil Young, Cold War Kids, Mountain Goats, Regina Spektor, Drive-by Truckers, Shearwater, Josh Ritter and Alejandro Escovedo).

Catfish at the Cinema:
Well, I saw XMen 3 and Tenacious D, and that's it for theatre-going. That's not much to make a list on. I caught some of last year's best on DVD (Syriana, Good Night and Good Luck, Brick, Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, Constant Gardener, Squid and the Whale, Me and You and Everyone We Know, The Devil's Rejects, Broken Flowers). But mainly I stuck to TV shows, so here's a set of recommendations: Northern Exposure, Weeds, The Shield, The Wire.

Catfish in front of the Tube:
As far as new/current shows go, Earl and the Office are the shit and pretty much everything else (network at least) seems kinda like wasted time.

So that's that. Bring on 2007, for Bob sakes, and may it be a damn bit better than the one that just passed.
Happy New Year everybody, and now head over to the 2007 Death Poll for some morbid fun. Stay proper.

Distant Gold

Band of Horses - Monsters
Joe Strummer - Coma Girl
Guided By Voices - Everywhere with Helicopter
Lost Armada - All Light Exchanged for Sight
The Swim - Julie
Jesse Malin - Wendy
Jeff Tweedy - Is That the Thanks I Get?
(Bob Dylan on drinking)
The Little Morts - Sober
Merle Haggard - Mama Tried
Guy Clark - She Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere
Bob Dylan - Dixie
Emmylou Harris - Red-Dirt Girl
Neko Case - Hold On, Hold On
Jackson Browne - For a Dancer (live)
Iron & Wine - Trapeze Swinger (live)
Rainer - Last Fair Deal (live)
Honeysocks - De La Sierra
Sam Cooke - You Send Me
Brenton Wood - Lovey Dovey Kind of Love
Fishbone - Everywhere Sunshine

September

September is a yo-yo; September branches out, roots digging deep and wide for life, for a chance, for stability, to raise itself upright.

September is worldly, a traveling rogue and a fond friend, the long-faced journeyer back after years in the cold, a horseman ready at last to dismount.

September is loud and fast, a clock-racing hellion on a last-call weekend bender. It wants urgency, but doesn’t need it. September is a curly-haired goofball, a wedding reception dancing machine, never asked to leave, but always watched with a wary displeasure.

September is the open highway, a dotted-line mentor free and kinetic, always a half-step short of an answer it’s learned how to do without.

September has a broken-knuckled swagger, a brawler made of dynamite, swinging wildly in a crowd, unprovoked and furious. September is a waterfall, suspended beauty and rock-crunching force.

September is the Institute for the Betterment of Summer’s Weary.

September is an entrepreneur, a wide-eyed genius, a gizmo inventor entranced by subtlety and dream-driven to new heights.

September is intergalactic, a cosmic philosopher, a MacGyver for the digital age, poised to conquer the inconsequential with uncompromising flair. September is space, at a dreamer’s pace.

I drove through a moonscape battlefield, midnight fast approaching with a party just over the horizon. I drove down a canyon and up a hill-perched ghost town. I drove up and over and across, a perpetually content horizon chaser.

September is seeds flung away, a last-chance effort, trying to find solid ground.

September asks for sunsets, delivered sparingly against mountain backdrops of bruised oranges dancing in the pale blue of a late evening.

September was never meant to last, time passing unbidden, through waking hours unbroken by sleep, a misery lost in the rain. September is circular, brightly painted memories of a love that couldn’t last, with an element of danger hidden just out of reach.

Vacation, BBQ, friends and tunes...

Sitting here with a cd going on the stereo, trying to put myself back in the mindset of an overwhelming weekend, what I’m struck with most is the notion that recorded music is shit.

And that, friends, is how awesome the Club Congress 21^st birthday festival was.

The wake of three days of live tunes – of hours and hours of watching and nodding and even some unlikely dancing – is infested with an inability to really grab onto these sounds coming out of the stereo, even from one of my favorite local albums.

In the wake of the past weekend, recorded music seems mild, sedate, lifeless, part of a damn little black box across the room instead of a living, breathing, sweaty, wrinkled, (likely drunk), dude or dudette.

You climb a mountain, you gotta come back down, and it’s the same with this. It’s just far too much to ask that all the music I listen to could come from a band or a performer 10 feet away, amps turned high, the singer’s face scrunched with pain or joy. The sound envelopes you in the live context, whereas it just kinda comes atcha recorded.

And what I was enveloped in was such a strange mix of styles and sounds, from aging punk legends taking the acoustic route to guitar torch mechanics to rock ‘n’ roll bands as full and broad and pounding as there ever were.

Club Congress commands much, and for its 21^st the bar is set even higher. Last year was historic, but this year is when it got to come alive, bring along a few friends and settle into being a tradition.

I took a vacationer’s strategy for the weekend, leaving my apartment (just four miles away) about 7 p.m. Friday and returning home just after noon on Monday. In between it was me and Congress, friends and music and downtown and three nights spent on my brother’s floor.

I hit into the Rialto just before Dave Alvin’s set on Friday, anxious to hear an artist full of contradictions. His history is all blues and rockabilly, then he joined X briefly, continuing on with the Knitters before turning out amazing solo albums. With a deep, rich, outdoorsy voice, Alvin the singer is best as a country-folk acoustic dude. But his guitar work screams and shimmies, an effortless expertise best suited to the old school rock ‘n’ roll of his roots. But he’s not necessarily a bandleader – so often an appreciator of his own influences. Stu ditched out not too far into Alvin’s set – just too damn much guitar. I can understand that, but I was transfixed.

Friday closed with the Pork Torta and Weird Lovemakers both cramming sets into the final hour, but the energy was incredible. I jutted out to catch a bit of the Jons meld of Arizona horn-punk on the outside stage for a bit and jammed with some Chango Malo friends. Back inside, rock was punk and the crowd was pogo sticks, at least up front near the stage where I finished the night.

Waking up, there was no doubt that Saturday’s low-key time was going to be devoted to the new Bob Dylan. It was the only album I brought on vacation and Stu hadn’t heard it at all. So we chilled with that for a while before catching lunch and friends at Epic Café. I spent the afternoon with a girl and some dogs before reloading for Congress 21: Night Two.

Al Perry’s BBQ Extravaganza served up some old school guitar crunch in Gila Bend, train-whistle-blues-harp from the Hecklers (I swear the local legends at the helm made that band up, complete with back story), beautifully crafted neo-country from Lonna Kelly and the Broken-Hearted Lovers (or as I called them: Hot Chick and the Dudes), and beef brisket or pulled pork at $8 a pop.

The Tucsonan in me couldn’t stop running into the Tap Room (shout out Tokar!) to catch the Wildcats score, another world away even though the lights atop Arizona Stadium were just visible from outside the club.

Jello Biafra was in all likelihood the most anticipated act of the weekend, a politically radical punk whose spoken word work of late had a lot of humor and more than a touch of vaudeville. Biafra came out with a satiric screed on the new world order of G.W. Bush and then got political. He toned it down for a long list of bad band names, going as far as Dr. Chung and I used to in assigning them genres as well. Some weren’t bad – or maybe were bad but just barely so; I thought Sausage Gong could’ve fit as a real band name. Jello’s performance continued with the backing of Al Perry, a see-it-to-believe-it combo if there ever was one. The Phil Ochs cover “Love Me I’m a Liberal” and the newly anti-war spin on Haggard’s “The Fightin’ Side of Me” were true gems, and the showmanship of Biafra, combined with Perry’s hot-shit band, was the weekend’s highlight.

The schedule threw a curveball and I missed the first song from the Drakes, who’d been moved inside. One of the highlights of last year’s festival put on probably an even better show this time around, with more of the two guitar attack and a violinist the whole way. Gene the Audiologist and Tom the Newsman turn it up and turn it down, jam on cue and drop a spare tune beautifully on a dime. Add in a brass section for a few numbers and just enjoy.

Following the Drakes inside was Richard Buckner, an honorary Tucsonan I’d seen close to a dozen times before. It’s been amazing to watch as he’s become an absolute expert in looping guitar parts on top of each other. The performances have become more nuanced and detailed as his distinctive strumming has evolved into a whole other instrument with the technique. The trouble is, it leaves little room for applause, but I reckon Bucker kinda set it up that way. He played more songs of Since than I’ve seen in ages, and from the buzz of his new record being more of a full rock band affair in the same lines of Since, I’m excited.

That was mostly it for the tunes Saturday, as Stu and I got to talkin’ a lot with Charlie and folks, riding high on the great sets of the festival so far.

Club Congress isn’t Lollapalooza, or Coachella, or SXSW – the scale just isn’t possible, but even more importantly it isn’t driven by the fly-by-night buzz of new acts. Every set there was earned by years and years of good records and Tucson-crowd-pleasing shows. And in that you have an audience so tailored to the music, performers so tailored to the fans, that it can’t fail, not for a second.

I seem to recall Sunday morning being a bit easier to digest than Saturday… Epic Café again was the lunch spot and again I couldn’t have had a better afternoon with a girl and her dogs…

Howe Gelb was BBQ Master for Sundays festivities, and my only regret is missing the Golden Boots set by just a few minutes. I’m told that band has great promise… but onto the main acts.

Vic Chesnutt blew me away, with a passionate voice and brilliantly crafted songs. Kristin Hersh was the perfect antidote to Chesnutt’s pained tales. John Doe covered Joni Mitchell… and for a moment I could imagine “A Case of You” as an X song, with Doe and Exene’s intertwined wail turning folk to punk – just as Doe has turned punk to folk.

Howe sang his “Ballad of the Tucson Two,” celebrating the reemergence of common sense, with felony charges against two activists dropped, a reaffirmation of human dignity.

Howe brought up the night’s supergroup – Vic, Kristin and Doe – to sing “Wayfaring Stranger” and then Dylan’s new “The Levee’s Gonna Break.” It’s just a shame they kept it to two songs.

Fourkiller Flats took the stage next and for a band that took a three-year hiatus, proved its return to the fold of Tucson’s best with no questions. It was the third time in a month or so I’d seen the Flats, following a loose Che’s show and opening for the Little Morts. About six or seven songs in their set were unrecorded, at least to my knowledge, so here’s to another album from one of Tucson’s finest rock bands.

The manic Doo Rag closed out the festival with rapid-fire slide blues and trash can banging that probably would have never existed if not for them. Every Congress festival should close with Doo Rag, if for no other reason than to remind you you’re in Tucson.

Fare Thee Well

I never saw anybody smash a banjo before. But neither could I have dreamt of a better description of the drunken punk-country of the Little Morts, or a more fitting moment as their final show spun out of control and crashed in sweat, smiles and tears.

It helps that the Morts aren’t just another band, but friends and a tremendous set of musicians, some who are off to Austin, counting down the miles as in another of the band’s hard-charging fiddle and Telecaster romps.

Irish and proud, Daniel Long is a red-headed growler, not so much a stranger as an friend as he writes of booze, jail, travelin’ and the last moments of reason in a day, the strange, uncomfortable, curious sobriety of a bright noon. Just wonder.

The Little Morts stole from Johnny Cash and Tom Russell and the Stones (and not just songs for their last show), a while back borrowed a guitarist who elevated the performance past great to incredible and begged a lot from their audience (mostly shots of whiskey and Jaegermeister). But they loved a lot too, the tunes, the fans and the stage.

I’ll leave it to someone down the line to write the history of the Little Morts, because they sure as shit ain’t done yet. Bigger stages are waiting out in the Texas night.

But I will say that as I stood in front for their final show, head bobbing in a corduroy cowboy hat, ears open and joyous and mind swimming in a whiskey river, the Little Morts couldn’t have been better. It was a good-bye full of swagger and joy and 20 songs that weren’t nearly enough.

May

May is the long dusk of a Sonoran summer. May is solitude.

May is an exploration, a down-river journey, camping on a soft beach under sandstone canyon walls. May is the vibrations of the silent moon.

May is a guitar solo – bended triumphant notes disappearing into feedback ether.

May is cellophane-wrapped and hand-crafted, a craft-fair treasure, just what you’ve been looking for.

May breaks open, a wide, bright expanding cloud of stars and dust and hours and emotions and new realities, reflections by the hundreds blending into one light.

But May is hesitant of taking too many steps, of becoming his own self too soon, of leaving too many behind, of staring too long into the sunlight.

May battles its way through new heat and old messes, through new noise and old crushes, through new addresses and fumbled old promises.

May is standing in the kitchen, window-paned light on bare feet, distracted by fleeting memories, fictionalized by distance and desire.

May is momentary, a blood-red rising moon balanced on the horizon.

May is a storyteller. It paces and gestures, voice rising with danger and falling with secrets, as ancients dance from his lips to the eyes-closed curtains of cinema-mindscape.

I didn’t plan May, but it signed me up. Signed me up for sunburns and mirage, signed me up for mainstreet handshakes and empty pages. Signed me up for stacks of songs and typical absurdity. Signed me up and sent me off.

May is a sky-lit lake, downtown walls of glass and neon eyes.