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.

Self portrait

Self portrait
Originally uploaded by lionelfrailey.

Late Sunday sun...

Double Dylan

You wouldn’t believe how tough it is to catch a Dylan song on the radio the day he’s playing a local show. Amazing. Speeding through the desert Saturday I had my fingers scanning every Phoenix station I knew, just waiting and hoping the classic rock stations would throw me a tune to set up the evening.
One, just one, beamed into my car, from the random Wild West station in Florence that inexplicably never has commercials. And of course, it was Don’t Think Twice, and for the several hundredth time, I was certain I knew exactly what Dylan was talking about. Don’t Think Twice encapsulates that singular moment when the protagonist finally shuts the door on his unrequited love, finally can say that it just doesn’t matter, that the target of so many intense thoughts just can’t take up space in the mind anymore.
It’s not a “fuck off” – not like Positively Fourth Street – there’s no venom. It’s not a “you got what you had coming” as in Like a Rolling Stone. It’s not the tattered broken soul of Idiot Wind or the deep longing of Sara. Don’t Think Twice applies to the protagonist as well. There are no second thoughts once you’ve made peace by separating yourself from the longing, cut off the bad fruit and closed your life to the one who never cared.
And damn if the high empty desert on a silver cloudy day, windows down in a clunker just hanging together, the clarity of a mind relaxed for a few days and a notion of freedom just don’t make Dylan all that much clearer.
I hit the PHX and caught up with the Butterman, concert companion in light of Stu’s Fiscal Plan. We chatted and swapped stories, but really the reward was perspective, to see how a pal from the olden days has fared, to hone in on where the hometowner took the different path, to see choices and results all at the same time.
Then, of course, there was the show.
The Hag was already on as we crept toward the seats, a legend in clear, crisp voice backed by a band all eager to please. I don’t know much of the Hag, but whooped it up when he hit into Mama Tried. Most of his set switched back and forth between boogie and ballad, short enough to be a good appetizer and long enough to say you’ve seen a legend.
I hit the can and walked around between sets, and saw Bill Walton just kicking it. We didn’t chat, unfortunately.
The lights dimmed and the curiously chosen Copeland music led into Dylan’s introduction. The set was an amazing mix of unexpected gems. I follow set lists closely and this show had just one repeat so far this tour, outside the written-in-stone encore.
Particularly appreciated gems were Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll and Every Grain of Sand. Mr. Tambourine Man was a great showcase for his new band, a soulful, bluesy new mix with Dylan on keyboards exclusively and amazing pedal steel work.
Absolutely Sweet Marie heated up the show, but Masters of War sent it into a different realm. Dylan sang it angry, sang it with an accusatory ring he never achieved in the original recording. He sang it so my only reaction was instinctual – to scream and yell and holler as chills hit me that had less to do with Dylan himself than the visceral truth he spoke to our country this very day.
He played Don’t Think Twice and I got to relive my afternoon revelation, just as true, but softened, by time and distance, mentally and physically. You never forget the doors you shut; that’s not the point. You just shut ‘em ‘cause they’re done; you don’t need ‘em anymore.
Dylan’s encore is as close as he gets to trying to actually please the crowd in general. Geeks like me may go nutso when he plays a long-forgotten tune and will appreciate how he just twisted one of his most memorable melodies into something else entirely. But two thirds of the crowd – easily – fought to be more appreciative than bewildered until he played Like a Rolling Stone, with George Recile’s gunshot drum launching the gig into orbit. Here’s where I loved Dylan’s keyboard playing the most – finally I got to hear Al Kooper’s light-as-air bouncy organ part duplicated live.
And if it’s mean, loud, guitar-driven rock ‘n’ roll you want, just try and catch Dylan and his band’s current run through All Along the Watchtower without burning your fingertips. It’s 99 percent Hendrix and 1 percent John Wesley Harding, a flaming ball of outsider honesty and ancient intrigue.

Part two of Double Dylan was the hometown show, in an arena I last got to experience for the couldn’t-be-different Motley Crue. For every tucked-in polo shirt of the middle-aged Monday there were a few missing teeth in October. I probably fit in better with Tucson’s skuzzy than I did with the disappointingly minded “better see him before he’s dead” crowd that showed up for Dylan. Tough to blame, though, I was the same at a B.B. King show a few ticks back, giving more weight to my presence there than to any of the songs, save the one or two “hits” I actually knew.
I caught the start of the Hag’s set this time, with his band running through a hopped up version of Okie for a while before he strode on stage. He had the same stately presence, the same command of a crowd that wasn’t his as before. Hag hits a bit of a lull when he throws too many ballads in, but goddamn it if he can’t turn right around and knock your skull with the most righteous version of Folsom Prison Blues ever performed (outside the composer, of course). I’d do hard time to sing Cash like that.
Once again, Bill Walton was in full effect. He had two fannie packs on – front and back – and just Frankenstein-loped his way around the arena at will, frequently passing to my right and emerging from the beer stand to head back to his seat.
SKC was the concert companion (and Dylan newbie) this go ‘round.
It must be said that the security guards were absolute asshole-fascists who needed punches in the teeth pretty much across the board. I just don’t buy the line that it’s “Dylan’s rules” that every ass must be planted into a seat not to move for the show. That big vacant area right behind the floor seats was ripe for dancin’ – either the middle-aged honky-tonk slow dancers who emerged during Just Like a Woman or the Outcast Patrol of high schoolers who were inclined to invent a new version of hippie dancing.
This show returned to the set-list pattern of the tour's first four shows, kicking off with an amazing Maggie’s Farm, bluesified remarkably.
Dylan stuck in the past next for She Belongs to Me, than jumped right up to the present with Lonesome Day Blues.
The fact that enough years have passed for Time Out of Mind and Love and Theft to have sunk into the Dylan fan consciousness is just incredible, because it allows such pairings without ever seeming disjointed or forced.
Queen Jane made me wish I had been “That Guy” and worn my weirdest Dylan shirt to the show (I went with the Superchunk Monday and the Son Volt Saturday).
It’s Alright Ma approximated the force of Saturday’s Masters of War, and the “president must stand naked” line got the biggest in-song cheer of the night.
To Make You Feel My Love made me wish hacks like Billy Joel and Garth Fucking Brooks just left the damn thing alone. Corruption of art in the name of record sales is a bit disgusting, but then again, Dylan’s had to deal with that his entire career. And I wouldn’t want to put the complete kibosh on covers, so I’ll just chose to talk shit about hacks like Billy Joel (late career only) and Garth “how many sappy ballads do I need to sing to take batting practice with the Padres?” Brooks.
Girl From the North Country took the late-show, back-catalog ballad slot over Boots of Spanish Leather (which was played tonight in El Paso). What’d ya think, SKC?
The most unexpected treasure of the night was High Water, with a banjo solo unlike anything I’ve heard before. It was as rough as an electric guitar, but quicker, and without screaming. Dylan’s completely reinterpreted that one in less than five years and it hit with such force you knew it was the set closer. It’s amazing, that performance got more out of the crowd than his Saturday night closer of Rainy Day Women, which you could just tell set the Barely Fans at ease, finally hearing something they knew.
The encore again was Greatest Hits Bob, his only real in-show concession to the fact that he wrote not only generation-changing songs, but actual popular ones too.
The Stones and McCartney charge well over $100 per show. Dylan easily could too, if he stuck to faithful reinterpretations of the chart-toppers. The comparison makes me think a lot less of the Stones and McCartney. Caution is the word least likely to be used in reference to Dylan – and praise his name for it.
Dylan on just keyboard infused the shows with a whole new focus and purpose. His current band hasn’t reached the battle-tested brilliance of the Larry-Charlie-Tony-George era, but they’re no slouches either. Donnie Herron is the star of this lineup, no doubt.

So that’s that. It’s been three and a half years since my last Dylan shows and in an era of unprecedented personal show-going, he still stands out among the rest, still compels me to write thousands of words when others don't.
He’s a chameleon, the single most adaptable artist in American history. Picasso would’ve loved to have had as many periods as Dylan. He’s into a new one now, I reckon. His Never Ending Tour had its start toward the end of the 1980s when he set his mind to recapture audiences – and succeeded. This epoch had its middle period, when Dylan’s cultural renaissance started with Time Out of Mind and continued through his memoirs and Scorsese blowjob. And now it’s a new scene in this late-career act. He has a new band, has reclaimed every bit of relevance he ever had, wows fans in bigger arenas than he has in years. And, perhaps most importantly, I have it on good authority that a new album is due, a step toward the soulful, a sound unlike anything he’s created before. Just keep listenin’.

funky glasses

funky glasses
Originally uploaded by lionelfrailey.

Trophy

Too many times blank, too many times lost.
Too much time unequilibriumized.
Fight through the Tuesdays, with their beatnik rhymes and Circle K poetry.
Fight through cable television.
Fight through atrophy…
The quads, the heart and the brain…
Photographs of smiles – no memories to match,
Tripping time to mind, the key’s lost in the latch.

To many, time’s blank – two-penny time’s boss
Two such crime’s inconsequencialized.
Fight through my blues ways, uncommitted eyes and Glory-Tried growing beans.
Bite two ladle-dipped contusions.
Fight through apathy…
Death squads depart from the train…
Photographs of miles – never eyes-glazing back,
It’s my mind to trip – three knives into the back.

March

March is shining. March is a symmetry.
March has been awake too long.
March is extended family, after too many years. March is sunlight in the leaves, tea in a lawnchair, feet crossed, head back and eyes closed.
It’s when your dark T-shirt soaks up the sun and you hunch your shoulders to transfer the energy right to your spine.
March is when things get started. March is certainly an endeavor, long but balanced.
March is social and eager, a teen-ager hitting his stride. March is baseball, in short sleeves and
March is hookey. It’s a long to-do list with next to nothing scratched off. It’s audacious and bold, but behind closed doors.
March has been trained to be polite, but doesn’t always remember.
March is that new song you just heard and can’t get out of your head. You’ll be lucky if it stays there.
March is complex – it’s two directions at once, choices at either fork of the road that are calling. March could use a road map.
March is an old friend’s laughter echoing in your head once again. It’s an inside joke that cascades from a chuckle to belly pain.
March’s equinox is the perfect metaphor. March is in the pen of the greats and the songs of the ancients. It holds more inspiration than all of winter combined.
March is batting third, just ready to jump on a hanging curveball. It’s a nice hamstring stretch, energized blood giving muscles new electricity.
March is a dandelion chase. I’ve drifted and caught myself and been lost again.
March is a confusing calm, an un-quiet relaxation and a conscripted vacation. March has already built a little steam.
March has been winning at the black jack table, but isn’t quite ready for craps.
Don’t confuse March as a preview – it’s the real deal.

Westward Look

I survived a weekend in the Valley of the Sun. Actually it was a great time. I saw three different groups of friends and family I hadn't seen in ages.
I proved my resourcefulness at least once.
I caught a ballgame.
And the bad omen of starting the journey by driving away with to-be-returned DVDs on top of my car only manifested itself in a forgotten phone charger and a flat tire that fortuitously occurred mere blocks from a Discount Tire that had me on the road again in less than 45 minutes.
The return drive - the back way - was beautiful as usual and with the sun sinking as I sped through the northern suburbs, I stumbled on a road named Westward Look. I turned and drove along to a resort parking lot, where I captured the sunset you see below.
Today is the vernal equinox and it's been downright decent.

Equinox sunset

Equinox sunset
Originally uploaded by lionelfrailey.

Spring becomes Summer

(This form, rythym, style and all copped from one of my new favorite songs: The Trapeze Swinger)

Please remember me, leisurely
While you’re pacing in the kitchen
And light, window-paned, falls ‘cross your face
With the warmth of Mexico.
A trip two other lives took in love
Now seems faraway fiction.
In life, senses fail, love is bare
And all memory is stealthy.

Please remember me, as you sleep
In a land not seen in daylight.
My face, young again, as we met,
A swirl of colors never painted.
And as you walk, across the falls,
The clouds start raining blood like roses
You dropped in fear, feather-light
And tears washed my gifts away.

And please remember me, at nineteen,
Surprised at your affection –
A new friend, hesitant,
My dreams all wrapped around you
And despite freckled cheeks and nervous eyes,
I pretended I was cool.
We danced on your bed, in monsoon rain
And in the back of your old house.

Please remember me, across the street
Washing dishes in the café,
Your hair spiked and bleached, you call to me
“Baby let’s take off today…”
Your tanktop tan, and mischief eyes,
You were an artist with my time,
But, at summer’s end, your back to me
With downcast eyes on your doorstep.

So please, remember me, through whiskey –
Fleeting wisdom your new power
And your eyes, in soft light
Neon iris reflection.
The candle in your hand, a cigarette –
A burst of immortality.
But nothing’s free, not whiskey
Not your mind to forget me.

Please remember me, before you leave –
I was once your promised future
But now, my time has shrunk,
Like dried flowers on your dresser.
And when we meet again, a shoulder shrug,
Our eyes blind to recognize
The rebel youth, impatient truth
Devouring all we ever wanted.

And I’ll remember you, as I please,
Casting off all the danger
Of growing close, like as one –
Airport hugs lift off the ground.
So, when we talk, long-distance calls
All the strength I have is for you
Just as if our time had never stopped
And the spring’s becoming summer.

Masked and Anonymous

Etc.
So, the Wildcats are teetering – at best. But the Suns are riding the NBA’s best winning streak and spring training is in full swing, so maybe it all evens out in my sports world.
Backup tournament favorites: UAB, because they have a guy named Squeaky Johnson; Gonzaga, for the NCAA’s Bravest Moustache; NAU (hopefully), for the pot-smokin’ brethren on the mountain; and SIU, for Spills’ one-time residence and the ridiculous notion of a small-town Midwestern school with an Egyptian dog for a mascot.
Actual tournament prediction: Connecticut, I ‘spose, because from what I’ve seen they really can suffocate teams. Just so long as it ain’t those pricks from Duke…
My days of giving Barry Bonds the benefit of the doubt are officially over. I never really cared – my thoughts on steroids in baseball are complex and I’ve always considered Bonds primarily a fierce competitor, which he is.
As a sport, baseball has gone through so many evolutions that to set steroid use apart completely from everything else that has gone before it just misses the point. I don’t support steroids in any way, but I think their impact on the game is overstated. Until the 1980s, baseball players never even thought about lifting weights or training year round. And you better believe pitchers are every bit in the mix as much as the hitters. Steroids are another evolution in the game – though perhaps the most unfortunate one. I don’t think any records should be abandoned outright, just understood within the proper context.
My solution on steroids and performance-enhancing drugs and all the like is to institute one single standard. Ban everything, starting with the Olympic committee and running on down to every professional league in the world, and college athletics. Everyone should ban the same stuff, test the same way and to the greatest degree possible penalize athletes the same way for violations.
But to throw away all that’s been done in baseball’s “steroid era” seems to be extreme. It’s not a good thing and it must be corrected, but objectively it’s one of the evolutions of the game, just as variations in mound heights, segregated teams, relief pitching, athletic conditioning, expansion, night games and domes.

This crazy guy in Mesa frat-guy’d a sheep. And got caught red... handed.

So, during my mostly upheld, personally imposed ban on political writing in the last 16 months, our criminal president and his trigger-happy first mate sure have slid downhill, haven’t they? (Just thought I’d point that one out – and say how enjoyable some commentary on scandals 1 through whatever might have been. But I’m good like that, yo.)

Anybody heard any good records lately?

Live music season is slowly but surely returning here to the desert. My note page of dates and bands is mostly full and looking really incredible.

I’ve turned back to Masked and Anonymous a couple times lately, trying to burrow myself deeper into what even I will acknowledge is at first glance an absolutely nonsensical, really quite awful movie. But that’s certainly not the end of it. I keep finding pockets of brilliance in the allegory and the commentary. Basically, as I’ve told the Minions, it’s a feature length music video (with dialogue, a rough plot and at times allegorically heavy-handed characters) to a Dylan song that hasn’t been written yet. That doesn’t quite make sense, and neither does the movie, but to simply dismiss it as nonsense or a vanity project risks throwing away an awful lot of intriguing notions.

February

February is a rainbow; February is midnight. It’s a month both rare and strange – beautiful in the right light, at the right moment. February might be a treat, or you might never see it before it’s gone.
February is still, an after-the-storm still, more wrapped up in hesitancy than expectation. February is tentative and a bit lost, just behind the curve, waiting for cohesion to step in and order things.
February is quiet, shying away from the blustery antics of January’s new year. February is an arrival of a different sort, the underlying reality on the other side of the coin. February bids goodbye to football and keeps checking his watch for baseball.
February is content with 28 days. It’s more efficient, quicker, taking a no-nonsense approach to the calendar.
February asks little and is well suited to give little in return. February’s treats are irregular – a wildflower bloom one year but not the next, feet of snow or days of sunshine, the occasional late Christmas gift will trickle in.
The advertisements will tell you February is a month devoted to love, but it’s far more devoted to expression. February is imposed tradition, a manufactured series of holidays and observances, from Valentine’s to the Super Bowl.
February can be drab, dry and dreary. It’s the universal movie setting for the doldrums. But that’s just the spin – February is also true and honest, curt and direct at times, but unfailingly accurate.
You’ll learn more in February than any of its 11 brothers and sisters. February is an introverted bookworm who’ll grow up to be a Trivial Pursuit master. February is a time to improvise and expand, it’s a trial run for yourself.

Pine tree glory

Pine tree glory
Originally uploaded by lionelfrailey.

Two years...

Two years and a few days ago, a bright new face in blogging burst on the scene.
Even from his first tentative posts, it was evident that Catfish Vegas was a singular talent, ready to turn the blogging world on its ear.
Vegas' strengths were in his voracious posting, usually several a day, and his keen eye for new details in the latest political scandals of our land, or the latest in cinema and popular music.
Vegas' popularity grew and grew, with thousands of new readers pouring in day by day like pilgrims to soak up his poetic wisdom.
It's safe to say the world would be a frightfully different place without the measured wit and soothing observations Vegas brings to his blog.
If he accomplishes little else over the course of his long life, Catfish Vegas will be remembered as an American hero for even his first two years on the blog. Vegas has profound insights and a deep connection to the shared human experience. His words ring out as if from mountaintops, and soothe as if from the very springs that have eternally kept man alive.
Check out a review of his first year.
For the sake of his millions of fans, here's a prayer for Vegas to continue his amazing blog, less we all suffer as life dims. Rejoice in the Vegas!

Catfish at the record shop

I started blogging just 'cause I wanted my own place to write about the top albums of the year. Go check out 2003 and 2004. And without futher ado, Catfish Vegas Presents... the 20 best albums of 2005:

1. Okkervil River – Black Sheep Boy / Black Sheep Boy Appendix.
2. Calexico and Iron & Wine – In the Reins
3. New Pornographers – Twin Cinema
4. Crooked Fingers – Dignity and Shame
5. Sufjan Stevens – Illinois
6. White Stripes – Get Behind Me Satan
7. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
8. Bruce Springsteen – Devils and Dust
9. Bright Eyes – I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning
10. Mike Doughty – Haughty Melodic
11. Wolf Parade – Apologies to the Queen Mary
12. Rogue Wave – Descended Like Vultures
13. Broken Social Scene – Broken Social Scene
14. Death Cab for Cutie – Plans
15. Decemberists – Picaresque
16. Beck – Guero
17. My Morning Jacket – Z
And a live album, a collection of outtakes and demos and a reissue:
18. Wilco - Kicking Television
19. Bob Dylan - No Direction Home
20. Bruce Springsteen - Born to Run 30th Anniversary

As usual, I ought to mention that I'm neither filthy rich nor an actual music critic with access to free records. So I miss some stuff. Here's a list of 'honorable mentions,' albums I really feel I ought to catch up to, and ones that based on what else I've read could very well be among the top: Sleater-Kinney - The Woods; Andrew Bird - The Mysterious Production of Eggs; Son Volt - Okemah and the Melody of Riot; Mountain Goats - The Sunset Tree

Thanks for visiting and have a kick-ass 2006! - Catfish

Catfish on 2005

I decided I'd take 2005 a little bit further and start 2006 today. Never mind the New Year's Celebration, I just didn't want to go through the whole internal reflective stuff whiles out of town.

On the personal/friends front, it was an entirely absurd year. People lost their minds, their homes, their jobs, their pancreases... Good, bad or otherwise, the word of the year was FLUX.
People found and lost love and just simply moved, moved, moved and moved.

I kicked into a few new gears, switched from working nights to days, joined the world of the Property Owners, saw about as much damn live music as I possibly could, wrote weird cryptic things about months, hit the road a hell of a lot, spun myself in circles on a few issues and generally absorbed an awful lot of FLUX. It's out there; it'll catch you.

The world was in many ways a terrible, terrible place in 2005. We found out our president is a criminal, and an unrepentant one at that. Our societies racial divide was shown so clearly in the mishandled response to an actual whole (black) city being destroyed. The War of Stupidity chugs along. The dominant party of Congress is collecting scandals faster than I can count. What a political mess.

The entertainment world was dominated by batshit crazy, talentless people: Tom Cruise, Paris Hilton, Trump... Most movies sucked, record sales tanked (not for lack of good music, but for major labels being blind to what's great out there).

Anyway, thanks for sticking around. Music deserves its own post, but here's Catfish Vegas' rundown of some of his favorite shite from 2005.

Cinema:
1. Sin City
2. History of Violence
3. The Aristocrats
4. Crash
5. King Kong
6. Batman Begins
7. Land of the Dead
8. Forty-Year-Old Virgin
9. A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
10. Star Wars - Revenge of the Sith

(And that's all I even saw, so no complaining.)

Television - I usually try to stay away, but here's a thin list:
1. Arrested Development - quite simply the funniest show ever.
2. Grey's Anatomy - Tremendous cast lifts hospital drams from cliche land.
3. My Name is Earl - Jason Lee plays the funniest sit-com character around.
4. The Office - Strange and snappy humor borrowed from the British.
5. Craig Ferguson - Now the funniest man on late night television.

Stay tuned...

December

December is the star at the top of the Christmas tree of the whole damn year, the ham at the fulcrum of the Feast of 12 Months, the beautiful wrapping and gorgeous bow on the biggest present in sight, the long and low belch as a gluttonous day fades into an afternoon nap.

When it comes down to it, December really is the Godfather, the patriarch who’s earned all of the feasts and grandchildren's smiles out there. December will eat until he’s full.

On one side of December is a warm nest, comfortable like your youngest days, fitting just right. On the other is a steep cliff, a dizzying drop-off into the uncertain but deadly ether.

December is a vice, 31 turns that’ll squeeze your mind out your ears.

December overflowed a long time ago, and you’re left slurping at the edge of the mug, trying to catch more of the steaming tea. Scald your tongue or scald you toes; that’s how it goes.

December’s a mug of hot chocolate – sweet but fattening, a treat that’ll cost you, rich but deadly.

They put December at the end of the year because nobody could take another month.

December brings the house down, smashing guitars and hurling drumsticks at the crowd. Not another note out of this year’s band.

December’s motto: Saddle up and get spit out. He’s better than you.

December’s like Manhattan stretching across all of West Texas. Jesus F’ing Cristo…

December is when you realize you’re not young anymore, when the excitement of innocence seems quaint rather than urgent. If only December would pull the wool over your eyes like it used to.

I went home, saw 1,000 people per hour, celebrated quickly and left even quicker. December is a hit-and-fade attack, everybody’s last damn chance to do something before the year rolls over zeroes again.

But in the end December is merciful, an opponent who knocked you down on the way to glorious victory, but before settling into the post-game celebration and interviews, walks back and gives you a hand up. “Don’t worry about it, chief,” December says. “January’s coming soon and you can take it easy.” Then he winks and trots off.

The Bottle and the Mountain

The Bottle and the Mountain
Originally uploaded by lionelfrailey.

November

November’s usually undercover – incognito. You turn you head quickly as it walks by, never quite sure if you really saw it.

November’s half October, half December – only its own month because the other two would be far too long otherwise.

November’s a stage hand, a background assistant. It helps fall make sense, never wanting much recognition though. November prefers anonymity.

November likes the work, likes the preparation, likes it when things go right and nobody pays attention why. I woke up every day in November, never thinking it was November, always with my mind on something else.

November starts when Halloween ends, and ends with the fading memories of Thanksgiving. It’s bookended by the strangest holidays we have – one celebrating misdirection and disguise and the other embracing a gluttony so remarkable it leaves a week’s worth of leftovers.

I love November – it’s a timeout if you really want to take it. Deep breaths for free.

November tries to squirm a bit, though, sneaking into both fall and winter, both Christmas and Halloween, both warm family embraces and solitary exhales, steam-breath dancing from the lips. Who’s to blame November, the middle child, from proclaiming that it’s both young and old? Who’s to blame when November wants just a bit of it all?

I left town for a bit in November, damn near everybody does. November facilitates gatherings, a perpetual host, making bold introductions across broad groups of friends and families. Many a November gathering is likely to never be repeated.

November’s a little slow, by design. It’s protective, nurturing. November ain’t trying to leave anyone behind. Patience all around, November urges, and we’ll all have a piece of pie, all get a good time in at some point, all have time to make sense of the fall before the winter hits.

Kelvin-Helmholtz Records

Look out, it’s here. The only record company I know of named after an obscure atmospheric phenomenon has dropped its first release, a 16-song compilation appropriately named “Prescott Made Me Do It.”

And I suppose it did – Prescott that is, making them record, making them create, making them take a dreamer’s idea and give it life.

This Kelvin-Helmholtz is a family affair, helmed by my bro, Stu Leblanc, and his cohorts, Colton and Andrew. They pulled it off, and pulled it off in style, with a nine-hour, 13-band show, all in a sleepy little hick town.

I know that hick town all too well, and I know that for some damn reason many of its young inhabitants are forced into creativity, forced to make do somehow, forced to turn weird and vibrant in the face of boredom and oppression.

Stu and Colton have long talked about starting their own record label, and here it is. One compilation, however, is but a first step. Promising, though, are at least two of the bands on the compilation, in fact the two bands who will form the cornerstone of the label’s stable. Keep your ears open and one day you’ll hear Blankets and the Swim.

Those two were for me the highlight of the show and the album, by far. Much of the rest tilts too hardcore or screamy for my tastes. My own friends who contributed made probably the weirdest music on the set, which is to be expected coming from them.

As far as the label goes, I’ll likely have at least some peripheral role as it develops, with Stu one of the leaders and half of the Swim soon to be moving into my pad here in Tucson. Maybe I’ll pick up the guitar more then.

There’s a lot of damn music in the world, a hell of a lot of it amazing and a hell of a lot of it terrible. A great portion I’ll never hear. But why not make more of it? So here’s to Kelvin-Helmholtz Records, and to a long life of great music.

Anchors

New Pornographers – Sing Me Spanish Techno
Okkervil River – Black
Crooked Fingers – Call to Love
Luna – Speedbumps
Neko Case – If You Knew
Alejandro Escovedo – Crooked Frame
Dead Hot Workshop – Burger Christ
Al Perry – Little Bird
Townies – Fantasy Jones
Calexico & Iron and Wine – History of Lovers
Mike Doughty – Unsingable Name
White Stripes – Take, Take, Take
Ozlo – Windows Down
William Shatner – Common People
Neutral Milk Hotel – In the Aeroplane over the Sea
Sundays – Here’s Where the Story Ends
Lucinda Williams – Greenville
Tom Waits – Heart of Saturday Night
Bob Dylan – When the Ship Comes In
Woody Guthrie – I Ain’t Got No Home

Bye Bye Restraint

This post is about politics. It’s about lying, murderous sons of bitches and blinding stupidity. It’s about anger, a full pot of anger that can’t hold another drop and keeps boiling over. It’s about corruption deep enough to embarrass even the arch enemies of the power mongers. It’s about right and wrong and how deeply they’ve been obscured through a campaign of lies. It’s about unnecessarily dead soldiers by the hundreds. It’s about wanting a fucking change so bad a pacifist unknowingly clenches his fists.

George W. Bush has led this country into a crusade the last thousand years should have ensured wasn’t possible. He’s subjugated every single notion of American democracy for a holy war. He’s raided the treasury as if he were a king. His arrogant and unrealistic worldview has reinstituted sadness and hatred as American ways of life.

Dick Cheney is so slimy it’s hard to believe there’s a human heart beating inside. His sneer is only fitting as a symbol of Evil. His lies are among the biggest and the boldest of all time. Dick Cheney’s existence alone is enough to disprove God – or to prove the Almighty has lost big time.

The Republican Congress is a crack whore that repeatedly drops its baby right on its head. “There’s cock to suck,” it tells the whining, malnourished brat at suppertime. “Fend for yourself. I didn’t want you.” Congress’ management of the country has done nothing but create losses for the least deserving. And the rich get richer, the corporations get tax breaks, policy breaks and pretty much the run of the place.

And this goddamn war… Mr. Bush, here’s the truth, since you’re so disinclined to tell it:

We torture. That’s right, America is a goddamned torture machine. And we don’t care. You’re brown. We’re ordained by God as rightful owners of your oil. And we like it. The “loose cannon” soldier is perhaps the ugliest myth of this whole damn Iraq conflict. Torture climbs the chain of command like a limber monkey up a tree.

We have no business in Iraq in the first place. You lied. The justifications that won you congressional approval to use the threat of force were horseshit. There’s not even a debate on that topic, except for what you keep insisting. This new war against critics is surely to backfire, unfortunately it will almost certainly be far too late.

Your closest advisors conspired to illegal uncover a CIA agent, just to attack her husband, who had the audacity to be factually correct, on the opposite side of your assertions.

This war is lost already. This war could never be won because it never had an objective. Iraq will never be a democracy because there’s no historic basis to even make it a singular nation. Removing Saddam Hussein from power accomplished nothing more than paving the way for his successor, who in all likelihood will be equally awful.

This war has killed American interests worldwide and is accomplishing little else than to enflame tensions throughout the Middle East, making the U.S. look like the bad guy to any number of disillusioned teens who are just waiting for a target for their anger.

So, Mr. Bush, why do you keep lying to your country? Do you think that little of us? Are we even worth the truth? Can I please have a tax break? I promise I’ll pray to your unnecessarily vengeful, racist God. I’ll shut up. I’ll look the other way. I’ll hate, as much as you do, every piece of shit liberal who has the fucking gall to step in front of your imperial march, or challenge your monarchical birthright to “lead” this country (to ruin).

This post is about politics; it’s about being fed up. It’s about the inefficacy of turning your head because it seems “easier.” It’s about boiling over every once in a while. It’s about fuming and churning inside because the crooks and the warmongers have lied their way into control again. It’s about trying not to lose all hope for the future. It’s also about the easy way out, about writing instead of marching, about engaging in a liberal roundtable rather than getting in anybody’s face. It’s about fear and hesitancy, the unfortunate trademarks of the comfortable.

Appendix: Necessary

Okkervil River’s Black Sheep Boy is the first record I’ve ever heard that was followed by its own appendix.

The cynic’s first thought might be that appendix is a cutesy clever title for a follow-up EP, but I swear it’s the absolute best description of the record.

Black Sheep Boy is a stunning record, full of harsh imagery and chaotic, crashing sounds that all fit together to create the feeling of a lost outsider, hurt and strange and longing for solid ground. It’s like the swirling TV static dizziness of a head rush, but with emotions and more dimensions than you know what to do with. The songs build together, each taking little detours into its own little world of abandonment and the identity-questioning of a born outsider.

And the appendix takes a few more detours, from the “you never earned your soul” chorus of “No Key, No Plan” to the familiar refrain and melody of “Black Sheep Boy #4.”

Will Sheff has written one of the most intricately meditative records in all of rock, spinning the notion of the black sheep over and over and over and over, digging songs out of every crack he can find. There’s hopelessness, anger, abandonment, listfullness, optimism, confusion, paranoia, love and hate and it’s all just stacked together and molded just right, more of a long windows-down drive than a roller coaster ride. Running through it all is a sense of solitude, for good and bad, out of choice and out of necessity. Sheff has bred his black sheep into dozens of different varieties, each its own creature, few even sharing in resemblance anything but that black sheep DNA.

At two recent live shows, I saw the band – Will especially – perform with more confidence and assuredness than ever before. They’re in command, from the softest chord strumming to the wildest drum pounding. It’s a performance, but it’s unstaged. No two set lists are the same. No patter is pre-written. It’s just a band whose members appear to feel most comfortable and alive when they’re playing music for people. And those are the best.

The Tucson show was just the second back in the states, after two days off following a 22-show, 22-day Europe tour. The band was wiped, Will’s voice in sharp decline, and it was the first show back for keyboardist Jonathan Meiburg. Will busted strings and damn near killed his voice, but it all seemed to enrich the performance. Okkervil River isn’t the fucking Sound of Music. It’s chaotic tumbling music, full of unbridled energy and fueled by some of the strangest, most poetic lyrics ever screamed out at the top of the lungs. The crowd wouldn’t let them end, with a forceful contingent to my right lobbying heavily for Kansas City, one of the screamiest songs in the catalog. And Will complied. I snagged a set list after the show: it wasn’t even on their list, but they brought the house down.

I later learned the next day’s show in San Diego was cancelled so Will could visit a doctor, who diagnosed him with strep throat and told him not to talk for a week. Will said the tour must go on, and it did, with steroids for his throat and plenty of tea.

I caught up with them in San Francisco a few days later for a show that couldn’t have been more different except for its quality. There must’ve been only two or three songs that were the same in both sets. It was remarkably high energy, and in talking with band members afterwards they only looked rejuvenated, thrilled to have just finished having that much damn fun.

Some long overdue music writing

The Calexico and Iron and Wine collaboration In the Reins is a near perfect marriage, rich intricate music, subtle lyrics and all sorts of harmonies across the board.

Think of it as a grapefruit-cactus record, players from the sunny, bright lands of spring training finally getting together.

I’m an Iron and Wine novice, but close to a Calexico expert, so what I hear most is Calexico breathing a new life into Sam Beam’s tunes, taking the skeletal chord arrangements and melodies and dressing it all up. No other band could back Beam like this, melting themselves nearly away to fit perfectly with the front man. It’s a Calexico record like you can tell Richard Buckner’s Devotion + Doubt or Neko Case’s Blacklisted is.

Calexico’s “Southwestern” sound is played up too much in national articles or record reviews. They’re almost written off as a novelty in that respect and while in some senses the label is accurate, it misses what the band does best: embrace versatility. The horns and mariachi are just a small part of the band, which keeps drifting further from the hyphenised descriptions they’ve been given before, and even from the “desert noir” tag. Calexico has grown from a Giant Sand side project, through all the easy descriptions, to emerge as one of the most talented, unique bands around today, indie or not.

Perhaps the most apt comparison now for Calexico would be to the Band. They’re a group of incredibly talented musicians, feeding off older sounds and spinning and weaving it all together into an unmistakably singular sound. They can back anyone, with incredible skill and selflessness. Of course, Calexico is a much looser arrangement than the Band, and nearly entirely lacking the crazy personalities, but musically they’re cousins beyond a doubt.

Joey Burns holds court, a versatile guitarist and the band’s essential visionary. John Convertino is the most distinctive drummer I’ve ever heard. He gives the snare a “pop” that nobody else can come up with. And the rest of the players fill it all in perfectly.

“He Lays in the Reins” is a perfect opener, perhaps the most “Calexico” of the seven-song EP. It has the same kick and urgency of “Alone Again Or” from Convict Pool and “Sunken Waltz” from Feast of Wire. And then Salvador Duran breaks in, the first signal that the album is full of surprises, things that at first glance might seem out of place, but in the end give the album its texture, its uniqueness.

“Prison on Route 41” is a straight-forward folk stomp, mid-tempo. The narrator has let his family more or less rot in prison for the sake of a woman. It’s a sad tale, rendered with banjo and harmonica, with the strongest country undercurrent of the record.

“A History of Lovers” is harmony like they used to do it, peppy, bright and given great bounce by head-nodding horns. The darkness of the lyrics juxtaposed only lend the song a more interesting aura. Beam’s writing is near it’s strongest here, taking a love-triangle story song nearly into Dylan territory.

The blues-boogie of “Red Dust” was the toughest act to settle into on the album, seemingly out of place, a dusty Southern track that might fill the “rowdy” slot on a Lucinda Williams record. But it sinks in. The sound is the furthest from either band, yet more evidence of the enriching nature of the entire project.

“Sixteen, Maybe Less” returns to more of an Iron and Wine style tune, lyrics turning heartbreaking, far more whispered than sung.

“Burn that Broken Bed” is where the trumpets rule. Muted and haunting, I’m never quite certain when they’re going to come in or fade out. It’s that uncertainty, that suspense, that really drives the song. Again, it’s a touch that only Calexico could add.

“Dead Man’s Will” closes the album and just may be the strongest track. The poignant, simple lyrics are haunting. It’s timeless and heartfelt, something Woody Guthrie could’ve written. And the high praise is warranted. It’s the most stripped song, but again it’s so much more than simply Beam’s fingerpicked guitar that defines his other records.

Time runs as a theme through the album, with Beam musing on losses and regrets, with soft, slow tunes and minor keys rounding it out. But the difference from his Iron and Wine records is the fullness of the sound. Quiet doesn’t mean sparse, or singular, as anyone who’s spent any time sitting in a lawn chair in the sunshine in the middle of a forest can tell you. It’s that quiet that opens the ears up to all the different little sounds, and lets each one reach its full potential, making the whole mix better.

And I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that the record probably wouldn’t have been anywhere near as strong if it wasn’t recorded in Tucson. It has that mystery in sound that so many of this town’s records have. There’s always an instrument in the mix that you wouldn’t expect, always a turn seemingly out of character for the performers.

When the bands got together in concert, it was a nearly five-hour event, a full set from each, then a set together, with the EP played in its entirety, plus a few covers including: “All Tomorrow’s Parties” and “Wild Horses.” At one point I think there were 12 people on stage. Incredible.

I’d like to see another collaboration, but not for a while. Let each band grow and evolve and change and then get back together. I could guarantee the sound wouldn’t be anywhere near the same. And that’s the strength of all the players.

In the Reins ranks among the best albums of the year, and is probably in a class by its own as far as indie collaborations go.

Another Stab at the Rolling Stone Contest

The one that hit my mailbox yesterday has Bono gracing (defacing?) the cover. Who is going to be on the next one?

Place your bets in comments and the winner can assert dominance over the mere mortals.

San Francisco highlights:

Go karting

Fish, fish ‘n’ chips, clam chowder, Thai, Indian, burgers, burritos, bangers, pizza and on and on

Spending $130 at Amoeba records

Watching hippies twirl

Aerobe in the park

VFW ale

Freaktown and Scotter

Okkervil River at the Café du Nord

Halloween combo of a keg and a zombie nurse

Robert Anthony Peters on stage

Talking football with cabbies

Mild synchronicity

The Zeitgeist

Laughter

Yo!

SAN FRANCISCO-

That dog'll hunt!

October

October is what we’ve been waiting for. It’s the turning point between summer’s furnace heat and winter’s crackling fireplace.
October can’t decide what kind of pie it wants, but it doesn’t matter because they’re all delicious.
October has a beauty so complex even 11 different shades of brown delight the eyes. It’s a waltz, bright and full. October has some of the best ground of the year.
October is a small town kid off to the city for college on a full-ride scholarship.
October’s probably going to grow up to be president one day.
October is the all-American kid, broad-shouldered and sandy-haired, with a soft grin and bright eyes. October is a young Robert Redford.
October tastes great – spicy sausage and creamy caramels. October is a month of pretend and redemption. October is everyone’s favorite uncle. It’s psychedelic and wholesome.
October is playoffs and kickoffs. October’s middle name is Classic.
October can see no wrong in you. “Have a hug,” October says, “I’m a month-long festival.” You grew up with October, and it’s good to see him doing so well, healthy and happy, with a gorgeous wife and a beautiful young daughter.
October starts getting mystical, but knows how to laugh at itself.
October just had its first grandkid and is as happy as a little Buddha statue.
It’s October, and I’m going to the mountain, then to the city by the bay. October’s the trifecta – a perfect month for a friend’s birthday.
October reserved its place long in advance, claimed the mild days so nobody else would get in the way. October is probably the world’s most shared secret.

Bookends

Two incredible indie acts, two album of the year candidates, two personal favorites, two tremendous nights of music. And in between, a working “vacation” in Flagstaff. NTB, NTB.

When a five-day span includes Mike Doughty, the New Pornographers and an escape from the desert to the Northlands, it’s hard to formulate much of an argument. Flagstaff is beautiful, Doughty has a new band and is making some of the best music he ever has, and the New Pornographers are fun incarnate.

Doughty has assembled an upright bassist, a drummer who can handle the funk and even leans a bit hip-hop and a funky keyboard dude. This isn’t the subtle “small rock” of the last tour that brought him through Tucson, this is a crack group that actually starts to resemble a stripped-down, restrained Soul Coughing. Doughty’s music is all the better for it. He doesn’t need to toe the line on his old band, but his guitar style and vocal rhythms fit right into a loose funky band.

He stuck mainly to Haughty Melodic tunes, which was fine by me. He dipped a couple of times into Rockity Roll and Skittish tunes and played just two Soul Coughing ones – True Dreams and St. Louise, both personal favorites.

Not only was Soul Coughing one of my first concerts, it was probably the first new, hip, underground band I ever got into. The neo beat funky jazz or whatever they could be called really hit home when I was 15 and the sound has never left my soul since. Sure, I was big into Dylan and Springsteen and embraced both folk and punk, but Soul Coughing was pretty much the first band that I could listen to with knowledge that it made me intrinsically cooler than most people.

And from that first show in 1996 I haven’t turned away. Doughty’s solo re-emergence assured that. And two live shows the last two years have cemented my fandom.

Doughty is a tricky artist, and a tricky performer. Even with the band, I’m tempted to think of his solo stuff as mostly the folk-derived songs of Skittish. But he’s far beyond that and even though there’s a similar sound, solo he’s far divergent from Soul Coughing. Anyway, a hell of a Tuesday night.

Wednesday night was the drive to Flagstaff – my most profound home away from home. Flagstaff is a treat, a recharge and as prophetic as a nice high. Previously unknown nuggets of the self emerge, for some reason, in the mountain air. New ideas spring from my mind when I’m in tune with Flagstaff. I want to live there, someday, to see whether an extended exposure will enhance the magic or simply render it mundane.

The friends are few there now, but hospitable and warm. I’ll go again soon, and pay better attention next time to the whisperings and the frequencies of the place and the land.

As if to prove that diversity can have a decidedly ugly side, I left Flagstaff Friday for Phoenix. Arizona has a good deal of this planet’s most beautiful places, and one of Earth’s cruelest jokes, an ugly hole devoid of redemption unless you are one of the soul-less who thinks they find it at a car dealership or mega strip mall. Phoenix shouldn’t be necessary, but it is. Republicans have to live somewhere.

The rural reservation farmlands of Coolidge and the high deserts from Florence to Oracle guided me home, a re-energized thinker of fresh thoughts on a pilgrimage back to where he started.

And with hardly enough time to fire up a load of laundry I had to jet, destination Downtown and indie rock heaven. I stopped by Congress for a patio beer and alt-weekly reading before heading over to the Vaudeville-era Rialto, host to perhaps as many of my happiest moments as any other building on Earth. It’s the perfect “small” theater for “big” bands. Live music in Tucson is a unique thing for national acts. Sure the city doesn’t get the biggest acts, but for the most part Tucson fans can see touring bands in the smallest venues they’ll play, likely paying less than any other fans anywhere.

In my mind, the New Pornographers are honorary locals, thanks to Neko Case. This was the second time I’ve seen them at the Rialto and it was top-to-bottom great, a fast and intense show designed to get you moving. I’m no NewPorno expert, but I was glad to hear my two favorite pre-Twin Cinema songs: “Gradual Descent into Alcoholism” and “All for Spinning You Around,” if that’s what they’re named. Highlights from the new album included “Jackie Dressed in Cobras,” “Use it” and “Sing Me Spanish Techno,” but every song was captivating.

If only every week could bookend Flagstaff with two great shows… I’d quickly fall into a pit of exhaustion, but man, I’d be enjoying it.