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.

No More War

I spent three hours yesterday in and among some 500 anti-war demonstrators, watching as they chanted, sang, waved and marched, signs held high, in solidarity against George W. Bush’s unholy war of terror in Iraq.

What really happened there? Or, more appropriately, what will happen now?

It’s no secret this country has turned against Bush’s folly. Hell, barely half were even in support of the fucking thing in the first place, with millions of protestors worldwide shouting loudly, and nearly stopping the invasion before it began.

Only once before in history did a nation’s own people rise up and force the government to abandon a war: Vietnam.

It’s going to happen again. It’s going to happen without a draft, without violence, without major arrests and god willing without the death of 58,000 of our own soldiers, and untold thousands of others.

I don’t want to wade too deep into the politics here though. This is the sights, the sounds and the curious nature of the peace movement, by its very nature probably the widest ranging, most diverse cause imaginable.

There are the usual suspects, to be sure. In the movie PCU they’re called the “causeheads,” an appropriate label for the crowd that almost seems to protest for protest’s sake.

But the march yesterday here, and judging by the pictures and video from D.C. the same there, was virtually an Everybody’s Club. There were all ages, from 3-year-olds to folks who look like they’re pushing 90. One of the highlights was the Raging Grannies, the funniest group of post-menopausal women out there. Their reinterpretations of “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” “Guantanamera” and “God Bless America” are witty and damning.

The man in the overalls with the banjo stuck to the old standards: “Michael Row Your Boat Ashore” and one of my personal favorites, the song that should be our national anthem, Communist leanings be damned: “This Land is Your Land.” Woody captured everything this country should be like, everything it would be if the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights weren’t subjugated by the power interests from the get-go of this country.

My favorite sign of the day (creative, but don’t get lost figuring it out too literally): “Frodo failed, Bush has the Ring.”

I’ve been among protests for a while, seen a good dozen of various types.

One thing I noticed yesterday, and one thing I think will increasingly come to matter as this year progresses, is the near ubiquity of calls to impeach Bush. Like previous protests, this isn’t just saying NO WAR, it isn’t just saying BUSH LIED US INTO WAR, it’s demanding the constitutional removal of an American president. It won’t happen. It should, but it won’t. The Republican majority in Congress is far too corrupt and far too deep under Karl Rove’s spell to ever take that action.

But given the forcefulness of the impeachment call at the protests, and the fact that nearly two thirds of the country now oppose the war, I’d guess that somewhere near 20 percent of this country believe Bush should be impeached and tried. Argue with the guess if you want, offer your own, be regardless, recognize that it’s a significant portion of Americans.

But back to the color of the day. I wish I was more of a photographer, or that I’d at least brought my camera. Some of my best photography came from the protests in Los Angeles in 2000. It’s not only the color and the theatrics of the whole thing. Protests have an undeniable energy, and you can capture it in people. The expressions, the yearning eyes, the sense of duty… it all comes through in the lens.

Face it, protests can be entertaining. The redundancy of the speakers aside, there’s plenty to look at, plenty to take in. Above it all perhaps is the feeling of oneness and accomplishment that pervades the rally. Demonstrators are DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT. They’re not sitting back, not writing letters, not engaging in friendly debates. They’re idealistic, but they’re not stupid. I’d wager this country’s best educated, smartest and wisest people absolutely oppose at least this war (if not war in general) for the simple reason that they’ve gotten past the bullshit administration rhetoric and understand what the conflict really is about. And those reasons – power, oil, neo-con colonialism – do not in any way justify the action, which is why so many other “justifications” were offered.

Those “justifications” were just like a baseball lineup, building to power, then falling off.

Leading off was “Axis of evil,” up second was “Saddam is dangerous,” hitting third was “WMDs” and the administration was off and running. If that wasn’t enough, the clean-up hitter was the powerful but subtle insinuation of “nuclear capabilities.” After that, the quality of hitters started falling quickly. Fifth was “liberation.” Sixth was “Democracy.” Seventh was “Bring ‘em on.” Eighth was “the insurgency is in it’s final throes.” And up ninth, the puny, ineffective “Stay the course.”

Ninth, of course, will be the one that strikes out to end the game.

Staying a disastrous course will lead to more disaster. Any idiot can see that. America is waking up. The wave is coming. And the last idiot who realizes that the course he’s stayed is ultimate disaster will be a disgraced and hopefully impeached president.

This is a strange band to pack a 1,400 seat theatre

The last time I saw the Decemberists, there must’ve been 200 people in a little club up the road. And sure, they have what more or less qualifies as a hit album, but my best guess for the incredible difference in crowd size is simply the hype train catching up.

Colin Meloy writes things that resemble songs, but are in fact slightly more, like musical theater without the stage act. The intricacies in both story and sound give the songs an incredibly beautiful weight. The listening experience is rich. It’s hard to imagine a band that is so quirky and at the same time so good.

The songs have a fascinating postmodern love of an ancient time that never actually existed. The songs are the past as Meloy imagines it, his own classic world.

But despite this childlike creativity, these aren’t stories you tell children, they’re stories too delicate and too rich.

Follow the hype to your own record store, buy the Decemberists and embrace them. This band won’t go away – in fact their only getting better – so just submit.

The Future

Mr. Chair is correct about political blogging – it’s an unsavory pursuit. Politics heats people up like little else, and it’s an easy subject to write (or rant and rave) about. For my own part, I stuck to the politics too much, and it took a long while to get over. The embedded cynicism in political writing crosses over too easily to daily life, and the overly analytical eyes can see politics in everything. In many ways it corrupts day-to-day existence. Plus, being honest, it’s a lot more painful to lose than it is to win and after November I just couldn’t take it anymore.

But Hurricane Katrina isn’t politics. It’s world history and it’s going to shake this country’s foundation. There’s anger in the masses like I’ve never seen – anger primarily at the government in general, and rightly placed.

The Bush administration’s callous approach to the relief effort and its even more galling approach to trying to weasel out from under the mounting blame and criticism has rightfully enraged everyone but the president’s most staunch supporters.

All the details about botched preparation and immediate response are well enough known (certainly by these readers). I want to know what will come. And I’ve got a few thoughts.

If nothing else Hurricane Katrina and it’s aftermath should force every American to tear down his her own thoughts about poverty, charity, leadership and the fundamental role of government in the society. It’s time for a complete re-evaluation and a whole new set of rules in this country. And I doubt we’re going to see much of a damn bit of support for the overall philosophy and direction Bush has been leading the United States.

If there’s ever been a time since the Great Depression that the common American was demanding a populist leader it’s now.

We need to add the War on Poverty to the top of the list of goals in this country. If the U.S. military is equipped to fight two wars, it’s people can damn sure add a war on poverty to the ill-defined war on terror.

Politics is what follows all this, but for a top-of-my-head pick, I’d say John Edwards looks like a hell of a president right now.

His realistic description of the Two Americas looks prescient right now.

Thousands of people died in this natural disaster for no other reason than they were poor and their government failed them. There certainly would have been a death count in this hurricane regardless, and the scary fact is that under some other set of circumstances it may have been even worse.

But every step of the way – starting years ago when the Bush administration decided to shift crucial levy restoration funds to his fool’s errand in Iraq and in all sad likelihood continuing indefinitely – the federal government has stranded its neediest citizens when they needed help the most.

This whole scenario makes the right wing’s sneers about “welfare moms” all the more cruel. It starts with their attitude, their disdain of government, their love of power and their crusade to dismantle everything that helps their fellow citizens.

Their use of “welfare” as a dirty word is among those first cancerous cells that spread to choke all of New Orleans, leaving people to use roofs as islands, food-less, staring as bodies swirled around them, unable to defend themselves against the storm.

For years the gap between poor and rich has been expanding in this country as the shining goal of equal opportunity for all has been left to rot and rust, ignored in favor of a host of right-wing causes: prayer in school, outlawed abortion, Middle Eastern oil crusades, the demolition of science and our natural world and the abandonment of civil rights.

There will be a dramatic leap in the politics of this nation soon and it will destroy the political career and the legacy of President Bush.

The driver of Wrong Way America will be booted out the passenger side door as a real leader takes over with a true American agenda: bringing our troops home from Iraq, working to restore the good name of the United States overseas, correcting corporate crime, restoring ethics and honesty to Congress, developing a tax code that closes the loop holes and dodges for the wealthy, delivering quality health care to everybody, protecting the environment and educating, educating, educating our children, each and every one, from the youngest age until they’ve achieved what will put this nation ahead of the world once again.

Government is the people of this country, not a dirty word, not something to be drowned in a bathtub.

Hot Cong Fever Forever

I ran into Al Perry today at Los Betos. He was just sitting there, waiting on his burrito. “Blazing set, man,” I said.

He thanked me, then without any hesitation said it had been one of the best weekends of his life.

He was right – he had to be.

Club Congress 20^th Anniversary was nothing short of historic – three nights of outstanding music, accompanied by the feel that something absolutely unheard of was happening.

I felt it right away. The whole crowd was geared up; they all knew it. They all knew that this was something damn special.

I was hosting Stu LeBlanc and CH for their weekend out of the pines, a preview weekend of the eventual move. Also swinging through town for the weekend was our favorite expatriate, Mr. Tim Finagain, on loan from Paris.

I was riding high all week for the show and Tuesday’s show by the Knitters only added to the anticipation.

When thousands of people congregate – and dozens of bands reunite – to celebrate a city’s music scene over the years, there’s an obvious tendency to think there’s something special in that scene, something special in that sound, something special in that town. And it’s all right.

My own knowledge of the Tucson music scene goes back just eight years. I know most of Greyhound Soul and Fourkiller Flats, of Calexico and the latter Giant Sand years, of the newer clubs. I know nothing of the defunct clubs, nothing of the departed acts and sadly, next-to-nothing of Rainer Ptack.

But even in those few years, I’ve caught on to the enduring legends, caught a buzz from what came before.

The counterpart to the weekend, the documentary film High and Dry, spent a while pondering on what precisely makes up the Tucson sound. Some speculation went as narrow as a particular drum style, a sort of off-beat, opposite sound. Others cited the heavy guitar presence. Some spoke more esoterically about “space” in the sounds. Some merely over simplified it with the “desert rock” tag – which has been around long enough to actually come to mean something.

I can’t cite anything in particular, other than the city itself. It’s more of a feel and a character than anything else. It’s relaxed, with the only urgency in the music itself. It’s quirky at times, beyond unique at others. There’s a landscape to Tucson music. It’s four dimensional. Its connection with a Tucson listener is immediate – and deeper than pretty much all but that listener’s most favorite music. Tucson’s music is filled with contradictory characters – from the anti-hero Howe Gelb to the British bluesman Tom Walbank. Tucson’s music is contradictions piled on each other, competing sounds and genres layered as if they were instruments. And the perfect mix is achieved in so many different ways, it’s hard to cite a particular sound.

The first act I really caught Friday was the Sidewinders, and Rich Hopkins’ guitar alone is plenty enough to make you believe they were truly screwed out of hitting the big time. Leave the Gin Blossoms comparisons at home, the Sidewinders are more like a dust-baked Replacements in sound, if not impact and Paul Westerberg’s songwriting.

I caught a tantalizing bit of La Cerca – a band ready to make a big impact. Let “desert rock” now take over the indie stage.

The highlight of Friday, and probably the whole weekend, was Giant Sand. Howe Gelb has a presence alright, and it only grew with the importance of the event.

He’s certainly been the longest-playing and widely appreciated and revered performer associated with the Tucson music scene, as innovative and influential as you’d find anywhere these days.

There were new songs and old songs, with his old bandmates Calexico back in full force. I lost some of the specifics as the night grew hazy, but that sound is still in my mind: Howe Gelb doing whatever he wanted with that guitar. And I was constantly amazed.

Saturday brought the Al Perry All Star BBQ, with Al hosting court as the Legend he is. Not that he needs a lead guitarist, but Al brought out two, including Chuck Prophet, for a triple Telecaster attack that was stunning. He played a friendly set, filled with the classics: Loserville, Little Bird Flies Away (though I’m not sure on that title) and Dreaming. The best, though, was “We Got Cactus,” the near-signature song he rescued from obscurity, complete with its Bloodspasm songwriter singing backup. Incredible.

Next I caught the peyote blues of Greyound Soul inside the wonderfully renovated Rialto Theatre. Greyhound was in great form, perfect form really, but I had to make the toughest decision of the weekend and run across the street to catch the Drakes, performing under their new name, the Townies.

If Giant Sand hadn’t been so perfect, this would have easily been the set of the weekend.

The Drakes played old and new and sounded perfect. The guitar/keyboard combo was spot on. Tom Stauffer’s got some top quality new tunes – including one I woke up humming the next morning and couldn’t shake all weekend. Their brass section fit perfect. The Drakes’ sound is terribly hard to describe because it’s so versatile. They can swing between dense and spare like few others. I’m not sure if anybody else could go without a bass on some songs and have a tuba (that for some reason they kept calling a sousaphone) hold down the low end. They closed with Randy Newman’s Louisiana 1927, but the second-to-last tune was the one that really brought the house down. Here’s to more shows and more records by the Drakes/Townies, who sound like they’ve got the “Fantasy Jones.”

And the night kept going, with a shot of pure adrenaline known as Chango Malo. The boys were in high spirits, but were either forced or offered to cut their set short to get the gig back on schedule. No problem. As the drummer left his kit to announce it would be the last tune of the night for them, he invited the crowd up on stage. So there MP and I are, dancing right onstage, along with Chango Malo and about 50 other crazies. Excellent.

But Saturday wasn’t done yet. In the surprise bonus great act of the night, I finally caught Tom Walbank, playing a righteous boogie blues like it was the New Year or something. I was groovin’ and shakin’ it – and I rarely groove, and never shake it.

I caught High and Dry on Sunday and am now vastly more informed about the scene –vastly more impressed, and vastly more appreciative of the fact that I chose this place and have been here for nearly nine years.

Sunday night however was a bit tougher. The legs weren’t holding up so well. The stomach wasn’t quite sure why it’d been drowned so much the two previous days. But the music didn’t stop and despite my lower-key demeanor, I didn’t withdraw. And the bands were perfect for a sitting back time. The swooping mysterious desert jazz of the Friends of Dean Martin and Friends of Dean Martinez (I’m still not up to speed quite on the precise difference) could float right on over to me sitting on a curb without losing a thing. And then Calexico (performing as Spoke) just kept it going. The current ambassadors of the Tucson scene played the good guys, cutting their set short to get the night back on track.

Fourkiller Flats closed off the weekend for me, a second reunion gig in two weeks and I couldn’t be happier. They played with the keyboards again, a new sounds that just slides right on in and makes the music a little denser, a little richer. I’ll never figure out why Fourkiller Flats didn’t explode. Maybe they hit the alt.country wave just a bit late, but Jim Cox’s songs of heartbreak and boozing are incredible and his voice just kicks you. The set had a couple songs that thrilled me because they were familiar from shows in years past, never recorded or left off albums for whatever reason. Ah man, what a happy comfortable time standing in front of that stage.

So that’s the roundup. I’m an appreciator in the whole scene here and the weekend was mind-blowing. I hope every performer and participant can join Al Perry in proclaiming the weekend one of the best of all-time.