A Month of Festivals: Hot August Blues (With Bonus Eastern European Content)

Let's start with this fact: any set that begins with "Walk the Dinosaur" is almost certain to be great.

So, when Lyle Lovett's Large Band kicked off with that song before Lovett took the stage, I immediately shook off the torpor of constant weekend traveling, an ambitious walk up the giant hill at Oregon Ridge Park, and an afternoon spent in a sloping field in the muggy August heat and settled in for what was probably the most enjoyable set of A Month of Festivals.

But I'll get back to that later. Let's go with a chronological recap of my first visit to the Hot August Blues festival in Cockeysville, MD.

After wandering around the grounds for a bit, dropping our chairs, and taking in a little of the side-stage action, my friend and I headed back to our chairs for The Bridge's set. And when we returned we were greeted by a woman and her two children, who had decided to take the space in front of us and set up a big umbrella that blocked my view of the stage. Awesome. And the umbrella was set up in a way that provided almost no shade, thus rendering it particularly annoying. I was able to bob and weave around it for a bit (and my friend closed it when she left to go play with the kids in an open area of the field), and it didn't really hinder much of my enjoyment of the show, because I wasn't digging the band anyway. They seem like hardworking chaps, though, so good for them.



Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears were next, and I was psyched to see them. I liked their "Tell 'Em What Your Name Is" CD a lot and had heard good things about their live show. They put on a good set but seemed to be feeling the heat a little bit (and perhaps the effects of a late-night, early-morning drive from Hoboken the night before). The show wasn't as high-energy as I expected based on the CD, but, then again, my energy wasn't at the top of the charts during their set, either. On a positive note, though, the umbrella family packed up their things and left, so that was a small victory.



Then it was time to sample some of the festival food. I'd had a mini coconut chess pie from Dangerously Delicious Pies soon after we arrived, but now it was time for something a little more substantial. Just about everything had a long line at this point, but the fare at the Mike's Hot Dogs Truck seemed promising. Well, for the most part. The mere thought of both The Cameron (with cream cheese and scallions) and the Skylar (with mayonnaise) made my stomach turn a bit, but I'm always up for a good Chicago Dog. Mike's delivered on that front, with a Chicago every bit as good as Shake Shack's. Based on the lines, I figured I might as well order a plain New Yorker, too, because I wasn't sure I wanted to stand in line for a half-hour for food again.



We went back to the main stage to see Keb' Mo', or, as we know him here on Tinsel and Rot, the man whose CD was graciously put back in my bag by the two gentlemen who mugged me in Manhattan. ("Tell us, that story," you beg. Certainly. Go buy my book and you'll get that story and a bunch more. Cheap!) I'd never officially seen Keb' Mo' in concert, though I did see a taping of the late, lamented "Sessions at West 54th" in which he was featured. In fact, that might've been the first "Sessions" taping I went to (it was either his or Billy Bragg's). I still have the setlist.

Anyway, back to 2010. It had been a while since I played any of my Keb' Mo' CDs (and, truth be told, time has established that if the muggers had decided to take the CD--his second--I'd've been OK with that), so I wasn't sure if I'd enjoy him as much as I did on "Sessions." But with the exception of a few numbers that were a little too much adult contemporary and not enough blues (my general problem with him as his career has progressed), I dug him a lot, especially when he played songs off his first CD. The set-closing "City Boy" (seen below from the "Sessions" taping) still hits me pretty hard, especially in a field in rural Maryland after a long night of bus and train travel.





Since there was an hour-plus break scheduled between the end of Keb' Mo's set and the beginning of Lyle Lovett's, we went for another walk around for dessert. I was intrigued by the guy selling what seemed to be a lemon with a candy cane shoved in it, so I took the $2 plunge (after discovering it was, in fact, a lemon with a peppermint stick shoved in it) and was told by the vendor to "have fun with it." I'm not sure what he meant by that, but I was pleased to discover the lemon and peppermint combo was quite refreshing.



Then, after surviving my solo jaunt up the giant hill and back for kicks, I settled into my chair for Lyle Lovett and His Large Band and was soon greeted by the aforementioned "Walk the Dinosaur." Two members of the Large Band--Sweet Pea Atkinson and Sir Harry Bowens--are also in Was (Not Was), so it wasn't as bizarre a choice as you might think. And it sounded phenomenal as played by the Large Band, a 14-member group in which just about everybody is unbelievably good at what they do. This is my third time seeing Lovett and His Large Band, and each time I leave stunned by just how good the band is. And, as a bonus, on this tour, the bass spot was held down by Leland Sklar (a/k/a that dude with the long beard whose name you don't know), who has played on, oh, everything.



The band can play any number of styles of music without seeming like they're stretching. And Lovett gives everybody a chance to shine throughout the show, highlighting the fiddle of Luke Bulla one moment and then letting the backup singers--Atkinson, Bowens, Willie Greene Jr., and Arnold McCuller--have their turn the next. The show started to sag in places, but never for long, and the smiles brought by songs like "Farmer Brown/Chicken Reel" (with its repetition of the phrase "choke my chicken" and barnyard shouts from the backup singers), "That's Right (You're Not From Texas)," and "Pantry" lasted long after the songs themselves ended. And, as for Lovett himself, well, he aint too shabby of a singer and songwriter. He remains an inspiration to journalism majors everywhere.



Of course, it's a bit of a stretch to call this group a blues band, so having them headline Hot August Blues was a bit odd. But in the end, who cares? Good music is good music. Though I'm pretty sure it wasn't blues, hot damn, it was good.

***



Then, of course, because sitting in an open field for 8 hours isn't enough for a weekend, I convinced my friend to bring his wife and younger daughter (the older daughter was away for the weekend, which I'm reasonably certain wasn't due to the fact that I was coming) to Blob's Park in Jessup, MD. Blob's is a beer hall offering the best in polka music several days a week, mixed in with the occasional non-polka act. I had made my initial visit with another friend several years ago and had been hoping to get back ever since. It looked like my dream would die, as Blob's seemingly rolled out its last barrel in 2007, shutting its doors after a New Year's Eve blowout. But Blob's rose from the dead and reopened last year.



The countdown to My Triumphant Return to Blob's Park began soon after I'd read about their reopening and figured this'd be a good weekend for an excursion. My friend was surprisingly easy to convince (he's the only non-family member I've lived with that still speaks to me, so clearly there's something amiss with him ... plus one of his first jobs was scaring people during the Haunted Hayride at Blob's, so nostalgia may have helped), so there we were, after a bit of traffic, pulling into the Blob's parking lot with a child who was getting a little cranky in the late afternoon.

But after a short period of adjustment and some time on the dance floor, she was enjoying Blob's as much as I was. Well, maybe not as much, but close. She, after all, didn't buy a hat and a t-shirt in the gift shop (which I don't think existed in the previous Blob's incarnation) and wasn't seriously considering buying a $30 beer stein with Max Blob's face on it. But she was having fun dancing with Mom and Dad to the Rheinlanders, a three-piece band that started off with some decidedly non-polka songs but gradually eased their way into Polkatown (they later covered Blake Shelton's "Some Beach" as a cha-cha, which resulted in a line dance). Eventually it was my turn on the dance floor, where I mainly followed the young tyke's lead and, because of that, got very dizzy after a lot of spinning for two songs. I did, however, draw the line at doing a split.

And for all you whiners who say I never dance, here's proof you're a liar.



Now the countdown begins to My Triumphant Return to Blob's Park After My Initial Triumphant Return to Blob's Park.

***

After four weekends of travel, I decided to spend the last weekend of August at home. Luckily, there was a festival nearby, though, so I made it five weekends of festivals in a row by popping into the Jersey City Polish Festival just long enough to grab some pierogies, hear a woman with a high soprano sing Polish songs, and watch some dudes in ye olde Polish garb slice Poland Spring bottles in half with swords.



That's how we do it in Jersey City, punks.

So, I think we can go ahead and call A Month of Festivals a success (and I even left out the Holy Rosary Italian Festival a block from my apartment, where I had some strong bundt cake and my first zeppoles of the summer). If you're scoring at home (and, really, you oughta be), I stopped in eight states (New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, plus a brief stop in the District of Columbia), went to six festivals, saw lots of bands I love, spent time with family members and friends I love even more, and, generally, had more fun than any 33-year-old copy editor has the right to have.

And now, I will rest for a bit.

But not too long.

A Month of Festivals: German Alps Festival

The German Alps Festival in Hunter, NY, is circled on the calendar every year for a number of reasons. Do I go to see 18-time Grammy winner Jimmy Sturr and the Jimmy Sturr Orchestra? Sure. Do I go to get sauerbraten? Yeah, kind of. Do I go to see what musical freaks of nature they have brought over "direct from Germany"? Absolutely. And, while we're on that subject, if you will permit me to brag for a moment, it is because of the promoters of the German Alps Festival that--brace yourself, hipsters--I have actually seen German pop sensation Heino live and in person. Oh, I don't remember much about it because I was a young lad at the time, but when you see a guy like this, you don't lose the memory entirely.



Now that I've spent the last 15 minutes looking at Heino clips on YouTube, I've forgotten what my point was...oh, yeah, now I remember. I do my best to get to the German Alps Festival for all the reasons mentioned above, but also because of the memories of summers in the Catskills and the festivals at Hunter Mountain. Though there are now really just two festivals still running at Hunter Mountain (the Celtic is the other), and they are operating on a much smaller scale than the glory days, there used to be a summer full of festivals at Hunter Mountain, from the cultural ones--Italian, Polish, American Indian--to the music-based ones--the Country Music Festival (split into two parts and with lineups that I was generally indifferent to then but now readily drool over...though I did see Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson there) and Rockstalgia (added at the end of the glory days; I think that's the one where I saw Carl Perkins).

But the crown jewel was always the German Alps Festival, which at its peak ran for an entire month and seemed to always have, in addition to a large brass band with a name like Stadtkapelle Gundelfingen (sadly, not on YouTube), this lunatic named Tony Marshall, whom my mom was quite fond of, as the headline act.



Must...not...look...for...more...Tony Marshall...clips...must focus...

And there would be lots of oom-pah music, the fantastically named appelflappen (which I think is actually Dutch, but no matter) dessert, a guy playing a zither in the ski lodge, someone playing either the saw or musical glasses (or both) in a side tent, at least a few Chicken Dances a day (my mom had--and probably still has--her own Chicken Dance hat), and plastic souvenir cup after plastic souvenir cup of Dinkel Acker beer (I didn't drink it, but it sure was fun to say), generally full for only a short period of time before they would be stacked high on the checkered-tablecloth-covered tables in the main tent, which was pretty enormous and almost always close to full. And there was another big tent full of tchotchkes, German or otherwise, for sale, which always pretty much had the same vendors in it but nevertheless was good for at least an hour's worth of wandering every year. The whole thing, in fact, didn't change all that much from year to year (except for the year Heino and Hannelore came...that was a big deal), but it was the reliability that made it great. I don't ever remember having a bad time at the German Alps Festival, or any of the festivals at Hunter Mountain.

But things are different now. Several years ago, they stopped putting up the giant main tent in the parking lot and instead set up a smaller tent closer to the ski lodge for the entertainment. The big tchotchke tent, as well as the one or two smaller ones, went away, too, and there were now only a handful of vendors in the ski lodge and in the area around the music tent. Neither Tony Marshall nor Heino were in the budget anymore. No one played the saw or glasses. And, worst of all, there were no more plastic souvenir cups and no more Dinkel Acker (replaced by Warsteiner, which is fun to say, too, but not as fun as Dinkel Acker).

Still, I go. For the good times had and the good times still to be had, even if it's not 1988 anymore. After all, Jimmy Sturr's still there, they're still making sauerbraten, and, as this video I took last year and will now repost for your entertainment shows, the Germans still know how to party.

This year, I subjected not only my mother to the gemütlichkeit (look it up...it's good to learn new words), but also two retired journalists and their sons. But, of course, first we stopped at Sweet Sue's in Phoenicia and I ate this (or most of it).



Then after the pancakes were sufficiently digested, we headed to Hunter Mountain. The two retired journalists knew what they were getting into, as they are repeat customers. The young boys were a little more taken aback, as will happen to the first-timer. But after some solid rock-wall climbing, they seemed a little more at ease, though I did capture the older boy in a pose struck by every first-time attendee: The What Exactly Is All This and Why Am I Here? stance.



If the Enzian Bavarian Band did "Rucki Zucki" this year, I missed it. I did hear another band do it, but it wasn't as strong. Oh well. At least I got to see some of the Schuhplattlers. What are they, you ask? Maybe these photos will refresh your memories of "National Lampoon's European Vacation":




If the Schuhplattlers stop coming to the German Alps Festival, I might have to stop going too.

Sadly, the boys were dragging and a little lemonade-drunk by the time the first notes of "Also Sprach Zarathustra" were struck, which is, of course, the signal that the Jimmy Sturr show is about to begin. So we headed out and, after stopping to get their things together at the Family Compound, they headed back home...but not before they dropped me back at the festival for the nighttime portion of the show.

I stopped in to see my boys in the Enzian Bavarian Band do their final set of the day, a mainly low-key affair that I'm pretty sure featured "Edelweiss," only because I'm pretty sure every set I've seen them do features "Edelweiss." I must admit, after 25 years I think I'm starting to warm up to the song.



Then I went back to the main tent to see my fellow Ithaca Bomber Alex Meixner kick some polka ass with his quartet. We attended school at the same time and, though I knew of his polka heritage from an article in the school newspaper, I somehow never sought him out and became his best friend ever as we sang Frankie Yankovic songs and debated the merits of the oberek. Alas, a missed opportunity. But I've seen him several times after college, and he's quite good. Anybody who can play the trumpet and accordion equally well really deserves your respect. And if not for that, then at least give him props for stage clothes.



After Meixner came the second Jimmy Sturr set, which is generally the looser and decidedly less traditional set of the day. There are almost never any straight polkas in the evening set. It's mainly oldies, which Mr. Sturr can do because most of the tour buses full of older people of German heritage have departed for the day. In my observations, the Germans don't care much for modernity when it comes to their polka music. Last year, a gentleman at my table stood up during Sturr's early set and yelled, "Play some German music" in that vaguely menacing German accent that makes everything sound like someone might be killed soon if heed is not paid. I get the impression that the older German folk aren't huge Jimmy Sturr fans. Hey, they've been wrong about other things in the past, too (don't mention the war). I still like Jimmy Sturr, though, even during the rock set.



Then, because I'm 33 years old, my mom came to pick me up from the concert and we headed back to the Family Compound, another German Alps Festival in the books.

Auf wiedersehen, Hunter Mountain.

A Month of Festivals: Newport Folk Festival

So, I'm now in my third straight weekend of travel. I guess now's as good a time as any to start writing up some recaps for the three of you reading this blog. And awaaaaaaaay we go...



The plan was to get to the Newport Folk Festival sometime in the early afternoon on Saturday. But the best-laid schemes of mice, men, and anyone taking 1-95 through Connecticut gang aft agley. So, as the family truckster crawled through Connecticut with my sister behind the wheel, me in the navigator seat, and my mom in the back, we figured we might as well make some dreams come true and take a little pit stop before our officially planned brunch break. And that is how it came to be that, after several trips to New England and several glimpses of the sign, we wound up at Super Duper Weenie in Fairfield, CT, at a little after 11 a.m. on a Saturday.



I suppose I could have just bought the t-shirt and headed back into the car, but it didn't seem right to buy the shirt without sampling the goods. So I got a Chicagoan, and though I'd stop short of calling it super duper, it wasn't half bad.



And what do you eat after you shove a hot dog down your throat at 11:30 a.m.? Why, pancakes, of course--specifically the Coconut Crunch pancakes at Chip's in Orange, CT. The pancakes were much more super duper than the weenie.



After that, we headed back out into the Connecticut traffic and moved in fits and starts the rest of the way, until we finally made it to Fort Adams State Park in Newport at just around 4 p.m. We'd missed a bunch of bands, but there was still enough to see to make the day worthwhile (plus, we already had tickets, so it seemed like a good idea to use them). And sitting out along the water as the day grew short wasn't such a bad place to be, music or no music.

I scoped out the new layout with my sister, and the new stage inside the fort, where Dawes was playing when we got there, was definitely an upgrade from last year. Plus, it was just cool to be inside the fort. The second stage, where Doc Watson held court as we passed by, had made a 90-degree turn from last year, which I think may have actually been a turn for the worse, as it was harder to see from outside the tent, and the traffic into and out of the stage seemed a little more hectic than last year.

But I only really have minor complaints like that when it comes to the Newport Folk Festival (I suspect if I drove, I'd be more apt to complain, but, hey, stubbornness has its privileges...and thanks, Laura [and Sam, for last year's efforts]). And since the sun was not nearly as broiling as last year, it was a much more pleasant, less sweaty experience this time around.

The highlights of the first day for me were Andrew Bird covering Bob Dylan's "Oh, Sister" and John Prine's whole set, which ended with Prine and Jim James from My Morning Jacket (or Yim Yames, if you prefer) singing "All the Best," before bringing Jim Rooney on stage to close with "Paradise." And, thanks to my favorite part of the Newport Folk Festival--its generous, you-can-come-to-the-front-to-take-pictures-for-the-first-three-songs-of-a-set policy, I got one of my favorite pictures ever, of Prine.



And we got a special music bonus as we waited on the shuttle line to get back to the parking lot--a performance by the What Cheer? Brigade, a roving, ragtag brass band of sorts who played sets throughout the park on Saturday and Sunday. Check them out if you get the chance.



After the postshow family collapse on Saturday night, we were up and at 'em again early Saturday morning. I was up and at 'em a bit earlier than the ladies, as I had churching to do, right after some johnnycakes at the nearby diner (the 'cakes were OK, but nothing worth switching teams and risking your cushy mafia career over). When I returned to the hotel, a quick dropoff so I could pin down a spot on the main lawn for the day quickly turned into "we might as well just all stay and cobble together breakfast from Clif bar samples and free Stonyfield Farms yogurt." My mom and sis holed up under the tent at the second stage and saw Cory Chisel and the Punch Brothers while I took in Tao Rodriguez-Seeger and Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings. My camera, seemingly believing that it had done its job for the weekend after the top-notch Prine photo, decided to take most of Sunday off and gave me all sorts of problems throughout the day. Still, I eked out a couple of good ones in the early part of the day among strong sets from both Rodriguez-Seeger and Jones.





I also snuck a picture of the festival impresario, and generally swell guy, George Wein, without whom I would have not been able to get in a car on a Saturday afternoon with my family, have a hot dog and pancakes, and see some of my favorite musicians.



The fam reconvened on the main lawn for the Avett Brothers' set, though my sister and I left my mom to head up front early on. After a little confusion, I made my way up to the photo section while my sister chilled in the new Standing Area right behind the photo section. She was originally skeptical of positioning herself in the tightly packed space, but when I made my way back to where my mom was, she was firmly entrenched, trying unsuccessfully to keep her freshly unstitched kneecap in place and unaffected by "Colorshow." She failed. Sorry, doc. The knee made it through OK, though. And the Avetts came through with another good set, even playing a new song that sounded right in place with the others.




I darted during "I and Love and You" to get to the second stage to see the end of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band's set and grab a spot for the Felice Brothers' set. The booking of the Avetts and the PHJB at the same time was the big scheduling bummer of the weekend, but I cut it a little bit by making a rare trip to the Music Hall of Williamsburg Friday night to see the PHJB open for (and play a few songs with) Ben Sollee, Daniel Martin Moore, and Yim Yames (all three of whom also played at Newport). That show left me sufficiently satisfied (and was one of the best I've seen this year), but I still wanted to see if I could catch a few PHJB songs at Newport. I got there in time to see the end of "St. James Infirmary" with Yames and the set-closing "We Shall Overcome" with Rodriguez-Seeger. I highly, highly recommend checking out the PHJB at City Winery on November 3.



The Felice Brothers were also stellar, though perhaps not the best keepers of time in the world. They underestimated their allotted time on stage and wound up having to be coaxed back on stage to play two or three more songs simply because there was more than enough time to do so. But they got everybody moving during "Frankie's Gun" and "Take This Bread" before making way for the hippie mayhem of Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, at which point my mom and I headed back to the main stage to catch the end of The Swell Season, whom I enjoyed much more than the last time I saw them, particularly during covers of "Into the Mystic" and "The Auld Triangle."

Then the family again reconvened for the headliners, the Levon Helm Band, whom you may have heard that I like quite a bit. I headed up to the photo pit, where I quickly became involved in what my have been the most annoying 20 minutes of my life. It began like this:

Shirtless Guy: So, who's playing next here?
Me: [Wondering why he's up this close if he has no idea who's playing] Levon Helm.
SG: Who?
Me: Levon Helm.
SG: And who is that?
Me: [Slowly losing mind] He was the drummer for The Band.
SG: What band?
Me: [Seeing where this is going, ready to cry] THE Band.
SG: Oh, THE Band?
Me: Yeah. (SG's still perplexed.) They're in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Played behind Dylan. All that stuff.
SG: Oh, so I guess I should know who he is.
Me: [Words starting to fail] Yeah. I guess.

Then, before I could recover fully from that, the woman on the other side of me started talking to me about how she used to work for a record label that put out solo records by Levon, Rick Danko ("before he died," she helpfully added), and Garth Hudson. So, making conversation, I mentioned that I had those records, which was the wrong move, because now I had apparently demonstrated a willingness to talk not only before the show started but as it was going on and I was trying desperately to get my camera to stop focusing on the wall behind Levon rather than Levon himself so I could get one decent picture. So, I fielded comments on how Garth and Maud Hudson are broke, Garth is fried, musicians have a hard life, Levon was a financial success because he was in "Coal Miner's Daughter," and on and on and on. Then, as I was singing along to "Ophelia" and taking photos (not an easy task to begin with), she asked, "Is this one of The Band's songs?" Oh boy.

I should also point out that this was after she was trying to tell Shirtless Guy, whom I'm assuming she was friends with, about the songs of The Band. She remembered "Up On Cripple Creek," then faltered. So, of course, she asked me.

Annoying Woman: What are some of the other songs The Band does?
Me: [While taking photos) I don't know. There are lots of them. "The Weight."
AW: And how does that one go again?

And then, when Levon came out, her first comment was "He looks old." "That's because he is," I responded, because, I think we can call 70 old, right?

It was a long three songs, through no fault of Levon and his band. But between Shirtless Guy, Annoying Woman, and another Drunken Woman who seemingly thought guitarist Larry Campbell was Levon Helm, I was more than happy to depart when the fourth song, the relatively new and pretty damn incredible Levon Helm Band cover of Sam Cooke's "(Aint That) Good News" started. I got one in-focus Levon picture and a few salvageable, wall-focused ones.




After watching the Mountain Jam Levon and Friends show online, I was sort of expecting a star-studded finale (the rumor floating among the bright lights in the photo pit was that Jimmy Buffett was going to play a few songs, which would have made me cry, just not in a good way). Unfortunately, all we got was Glen Hansard from the Swell Season and Richie Havens on "The Weight," which Richie Havens knows neither the words nor melody to. He was similarly shaky on the festival-closing "I Shall Be Released," which featured all of the festival acts that cared to be on stage, including members of the Felice Brothers, The Low Anthem, Pokey LaFarge and the South City Three (who were staying at our hotel), Elvis Perkins in Dearland, Aoife O'Donovan, Sarah Jarosz, and many others.



And then the sun set on another Newport Folk Festival.



We spent the night in Newport and did some sightseeing on Monday before heading home (and making a first-time stop at the spinoff Eveready Diner in Brewster, NY), deftly avoiding I-95 and visiting the pottery shops and antique centers of Connecticut as we made our way.

All in all, a strong start to A Month of Festivals.

Three Thousand Words (with Introduction)

Because I couldn't rightly explain in words why I enjoy Andrew WK's shows so much, I will instead simply say that last week's full band show at the Fillmore New York at Irving Plaza (the first full band show in six years or so) was almost as much fun as the first time I saw him at the Birch Hill Nite Club (RIP) in Old Bridge, NJ, in 2002.

And I will give you three pictures to try to explain why.





Party hard.

Not gone

I assumed the last time I saw Split Lip Rayfield would indeed be the last time I saw Split Lip Rayfield. Kirk Rundstrom--guitarist, singer, and, in many ways, the heart of the band--was still raging against the cancer that had attacked him, but it seemed like he wasn't destined to win that battle. So, when he died a few weeks later, I figured the three remaining members of Split Lip Rayfield would call it a day and perhaps go on to other musical adventures.

So I was a little surprised (pleasantly so) when, about a year later, I saw that Split Lip had decided to continue on and, in fact, were releasing a new CD. Then came the long wait for them to come back to the east coast. I had long since stopped checking their website for tour dates when I saw in a Bowery Presents e-mail that Split Lip was coming to play the Mercury Lounge. Huzzah! I would have preferred that it wasn't a late-night show on a Tuesday (both for my own selfish, sleep-related reasons and for a potentially better crowd turnout), but huzzah nevertheless.

With recollections of sparsely attended NYC-area Split Lip shows in my head, I paid the cover at the Mercury Lounge and stepped into the main room. The opening band was wrapping up their set, and there was a pretty healthy-sized crowd for a Tuesday night. And when Split Lip came out, it seemed like the crowd had doubled. I don't think that was the case (I was up front, so I couldn't tell just how many people there were behind me), but the sheer volume and intensity of those in the crowd made it seem like a Friday night. And the band seemed to feed off that, with banjo player (and occasional guitarist) Eric Mardis declaring it the "best night of the tour, by far." And you could tell by the smile on his face throughout that the sentiment was genuine.




Mardis, mandolinist Wayne Gottstine, and gas-tank bassist (an occasional kazooist) Jeff Eaton are still playing as fast and hard as ever. And though it was a little weird not to see Kirk crouching down and firing off guitar runs, it wasn't as jarring as I thought it would be. A few nights later, I saw John Hiatt, and in dedicating a song to Jim Dickinson (about eight people at the Count Basie Theatre clapped...suck it, suburbia), Hiatt made note of the words Dickinson had inscribed on his grave: "I'm just dead, I'm not gone."

Kirk Rundstrom wasn't gone from that show on a Tuesday night in New York City. I'm sure of it. I'm glad I was there as a witness.

2010 Album of the Year Candidate #1

I'm excited to hear the new discs from Will Kimbrough ("Wings," out Feb. 23) and the Drive By Truckers ("The Big To-Do," out March 16), but after last night's Del McCoury Band/Preservation Hall Jazz Band show, I'm declaring the soon-to-be-released "Preservation: An Album to Benefit Preservation Hall and The Preservation Hall Music Outreach Program" the lead candidate for 2010 Album of the Year.

Granted, I haven't heard one full song off the album and, yeah, "special guests" albums have a tendency to be greater in concept than execution, but between reading the stellar list of special guests on the album and seeing the collaboration between the McCourys and the Preservation Hall Jazz band in person, I'm feeling pretty confident in my assessment.

Skeptical? Check this preview out.



I think an album with Pete Seeger, the Del McCoury Band, Amy LaVere, Jason Isbell, Merle Haggard, Tom Waits, Buddy Miller, Dr. John, and Steve Earle has a pretty good chance of not sucking at all. You can find out for sure on February 16.

And here's another tip: when the Del McCoury Band and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band officially start touring later this year, go.

Revku CXXIII (The Final Revku...For Now)

First came the Deadheads
Now children are showing up
I wonder who's next

Los Lobos, City Winery, NYC, 12/31/09

And so ends the yearlong revku experiment. Hope you enjoyed it. It was fun, but I'm looking forward to coming home from a show and not trying to sum up what I just saw/heard in seventeen syllables.

If I Had a Heart, I Might've Left It in San Francisco

Remember, like, two-and-a-half months ago when I wrote that I was going to San Francisco? No? Well, it's true, I did. And I did. And since I got back, I have been slammed with lots of work, a few other quick trips, and general malaise (can one be slammed with malaise?). So I never wrote a proper recap. Here's the attempt to rectify that.

Day 1

My first day was my day to not be a freeloading houseguest with my hosts in Oakland. The Finches are always nice enough to tell me they'd be happy to have me anytime, so I figured that the weekend of the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival was as good a time as any. But seeing as the festival was going to take up three full days of my trip, and I wanted to spend one of the other days checking out a Giants game at AT&T Park, that meant I wouldn't have a ton of time to spend with the Finches, particularly their awesome boys, Marcus and Dean. On festival days, I pretty much saw them for an hour in the morning and that was it.

On Day 1, however, we packed as much fun as possible into the late afternoon and early evening, and within minutes of me stepping foot in the Finch house, I was whisked away by Marcus for playtime and bughouse admiring. And though I saw some great music at the festival, I think playtime with Marcus and Dean was the bigger highlight of the trip. And dinner courtesy of the Finches was pretty damn great, too.

By the way, no photos of the kids, due to Tinsel and Rot's strict No Photos of Minors Who Have Sprung From the Loins of People I Know (Unless They're Really Great Photos) policy. It doesn't feel right to have pictures of me and Brigitte Nielsen alongside pictures of my friends' kids.

Day 2

When I booked the trip, I didn't even think to look to see if the Giants were in town. Then I saw that, not only were they in town, but they had a day game on the lone full non-festival day of the trip. Score! Then, I thought, "Well, it'd be cool if I could see Cy Young Award winner and probable weed enthusiast Tim Lincecum pitch." Sure enough he did. Score again! Every vacation should go this well.

After taking the ferry from Oakland to San Francisco (it goes right under the Bay Bridge, making it a slightly cooler trip than the Staten Island Ferry, though, on the minus side, there were far fewer crazy people), I stopped at the farmers' market at the ferry terminal and discovered my new favorite fruit--the pluot. If you're ever wondering what to get me for any occasion, I recommend dried pluots (or the real thing, if they're in season). I tore through my first, worried that I wouldn't be able to bring them into AT&T Park, but my fears were unfounded, which made me wish I (a) didn't eat one like a man heading to the electric chair and (b) bought more. But I rectified that at the Saturday farmers' market.



Then, it was on to the game. I wanted to get there right when gates open, in the hopes of seeing some batting practice. Then when I got into the stadium and saw an empty field, I realized that it was both a day game after a night game and the next-to-last series of the season for two teams out of the playoffs, so why would the teams take batting practice? So much for that plan.



I now had two hours to kill, so I explored pretty much every inch of the park, from the Levi's Landing in right field to the open-air press box behind home plate to the giant glove and Coke bottle in left field. A few weeks before the trip, I discovered that the Coke bottle was actually a functional slide. So the inner debate about whether or not to go on the slide began. And that debate continued as I stood in front of the bottle, desperately hoping to see a full-grown human being go down the slide alone to make it seem more socially acceptable. Finally, I saw a group of older teens head for the slide and thought, "Hey, close enough." So I headed up to the slide. Come on, how many times am I gonna have the chance to slide down the Coke bottle at AT&T Park? Carpe diem, no?



You may be surprised to find out that the slide is not really built for a 32-year-old man (I know, I know, I should sue, but I'm willing to let it, er, slide). So, climbing up the tiny ladder not made for my body and then contorting my legs into a position in which I would be able to both descend down the slide and not end up in the hospital upon said descent was not a particularly easy task. But, fear not gentle reader, I did it. And my knee only hurt for, like, six hours afterward, so it all went just fine. I pondered filming the slide down for your enjoyment, but, really, I can only do so much to look like a buffoon in public before my embarrassment threshold is crossed. And, in case you're wondering where my embarrassment threshold rests, look no further than carrying a camera in my hand while going down a children's slide.



Before I knew it, it was game time, and Lincecum was throwing the first pitch. All in all, it wasn't a particularly well-played game, but I saw Lincecum, Dan Haren, and Randy Johnson (in what should, if he has any sense, be one of his last appearances) pitch, had a pretty solid turkey sandwich, got to hear the Giants faithful give Rich Aurilia a standing O during his last home game as a Giant, and saw the home team win, 7-3. Plus, I got a rad Lincecum winter hat that has rarely left my head since I got home.



After the game, I checked out City Lights Bookstore (because I foolishly forgot to go last year), the slightly odd Beat Museum (featuring Allen Ginsberg's organ...write your own joke), and some other points of interest in North Beach (including The Stinking Rose, immortalized in "The Real World San Francisco"...probably should've looked for the house, too).



On the ferry ride back, I preached the You Must Go to a Ramble sermon to some guys from western New York who spotted my Levon Helm jacket. One of them was some sort of lip balm entrepreneur, because he handed me a few and told me to give them to the two women seated next to and across from me, because "they're gonna love 'em." He thought they were with me, and when he realized they weren't, pushed me even harder to give them the lip balm, making for an awkward exchange between me and a middle-aged lip-balm entrepreneur who was trying to live vicariously through me. I tried to give him back the friggin' lip balm so he'd stop talking to me, but he would have none of it. But I did not execute the "hey-here's-some-lip-balm-now-why-don't-we-go-back-to-my-cousin's-place-and-make-out-in-the-attic-while-the-kids-are-sleeping" gambit Mr. Lip Balm so desperately wanted to see come to fruition.

I got back at a reasonable enough hour to see the kids still awake (and have more good home cooking), so more fun was had. After showing me various jumping and flopping tricks on the living room furniture, Marcus informed me that he was cooler than I was, which, after thinking it over, I kind of had to concede. However, I informed him that I could whistle, and he couldn't, so I think I'm a little closer to at least being as cool as he is. It's a daily struggle.

Day 3

Friday was the opening day of Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, which meant the kickoff afternoon set from MC Hammer. Yes, MC Hammer. It was a little challenging finding a good spot to take in the Hammer Experience, as the show was intended for the children of the Bay Area, who had arrived en masse in an impressive fleet of yellow school buses. The non-teaching adults (when a security guard asked me if I was a teacher, I thought about lying just for a second, so I could get a better sightline) congregated on the sidelines, peeking around hills and tree branches to get a glimpse of Hammer Time. Some even took to climbing.



I stayed on the ground and moved around looking for a decent camera angle. Eventually, I gave up and just enjoyed the show. And, yes, "U Can't Touch This" was badass.



With a few hours to kill before the set at the main stage began, I decided I'd rather just put down my jacket and (largely empty) bag at a spot on the lawn and then come back later in the afternoon to see John Prine and Lyle Lovett. Everyone around me looked pretty friendly, and I made note of the beach umbrella and bulldog behind me in case I couldn't find my spot when I got back.

I walked through a good portion of Golden Gate Park, eventually winding my way to Amoeba Records, where I picked up a bunch of cool records (that was so many records ago, I can't rightly recall what was in that batch, other than a Tennessee Ernie Ford "Jolly Green Giant" record and an old W.C. Fields record, but it was cool). I got back to the park in the middle of The Nightwatchman (Tom Morello's) set and found the lawn pretty damn full. But I made my way over to the area where I suspected my bag and jacket would be and soon saw the beach umbrella (and a very tired bulldog). Unfortunately, I didn't see my jacket or bag. Hmmm. I plopped myself down and started panicking a bit (mainly over the Levon Helm hoodie that I now suspected might be gone), looking all around for a sign of my stuff. Finally, underneath a blanket and slightly obscured by two large camping chairs that were not there when I left, I found my stuff. Phew. Soon after, Steve Earle and Allison Moorer came out and pogoed to Morello's version of "This Land Is Your Land," and I joined them. Order had been restored to my musical universe.



John Prine and Lyle Lovett were both great, though my enjoyment of the Prine set was slightly offset by the fact that my "area" now consisted of a patch of grass slightly larger than a record album and my knees were in my nose for most of the set. But when Prine sang "Your Flag Decal Won't Get You Into Heaven Anymore," none of that mattered. And bringing Hayes Carll out to sing "Paradise" wasn't bad either. Prine came back during Lovett's set, which started with "Farmer Brown/Chicken Reel" (in which the phrase "choke my chicken" is happily repeated quite often) and hit particularly awesome heights when backup singers Sweet Pea Atkinson and Sir Harry Bowens joined in.

All in all, a pretty good day in the park. Of course, that was not enough for me, so I went to go see Jon Langford, the Sadies, Sally Timms, Rico Bell, and Rosie Flores at the Swedish American Hall. I missed the first set because I made the mistake of taking the bus through Haight Ashbury (going through there twice in one day is more than any normal man can handle), but the second set was, as is the norm at any show involving Jon Langford, ridiculously entertaining. If you don't enjoy yourself at a show where Jon Langford is on the stage, there's something irredeemably wrong with you.



It wasn't too late when the show ended, and the Finches were nice enough to give me a key to their house and instructions to come back whenever I wanted, so I felt obligated to check out the diner I passed on my way to the Swedish American Hall. If I see a sign like this, I can't walk past it twice without going in.



The It's Tops Coffee Shop gets a hearty thumbs up from me. My only regret is that I'd had pancakes for breakfast, so I felt it would be wrong to have pancakes twice in one day. I might've been delirious from all the music.



I checked the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Twitter feed when I got back Friday night and saw a Tweet from Friday afternoon that said Robert Plant was going to join Buddy Miller for a few songs at the Great American Music Hall that night. Well, that would've been cool to see, I thought, but, hey, Buddy Miller's playing Hardly Strictly Bluegrass on Saturday. If Robert Plant can wake up by noon and get to the Towers of Gold stage, maybe he'll sing a few songs with Miller then.

Day 4

He did. Right after Emmylou Harris sang a few songs with Miller. Nice.





Starting off the first full day of the festival seeing Buddy Miller, Emmylou Harris, and Robert Plant didn't suck. At that point, I could've been raped by a hippie in the woods after he forced hash brownies down my throat while singing "Uncle John's Band" and I still would've given Hardly Strictly Bluegrass the biggest seal of approval I possibly could.

And, amazingly, that's just what happened. The hippie's name was Sunshine, and he had a decent tenor. The brownies were a touch dry.

I kid. Or, do I?

No, really, I kid. The rest of the day was full of a ton of great music. As Miller's set started, I parked my gear more successfully at the Star Stage, which was back-to-back with the Towers of Gold Stage. So, after sneaking a peak at the end of Guy Clark's set at the Rooster Stage and getting the general lay of the land, I went back and forth between those two stages for a few hours (successfully finding a path in the woods that could get me from one stage to the other in about three minutes), seeing Miller and company, Dave Alvin and the Guilty Women (whose fiddle player Amy Farris was found dead earlier in the week), and Okkervil River before checking out the action at some of the other stages. I had to make the tough decision between the Old 97's and Billy Joe Shaver, but went with Shaver, a decision I don't regret at all (even though Langford joined the Old 97's for "Over the Cliff"). If there were a cable network devoted solely to Billy Joe Shaver, I don't think I'd ever leave my house. I've heard most of the jokes and between-song patter by now, but that doesn't make it any less great when I hear it again. And, of course, there are the songs. I must've missed "Georgia on a Fast Train" (damn!), but "Live Forever" and "Try Again" were just fine, thank you.


Then, I took my first long (and musically satisfying) excursion of the day, checking out The Duhks, who were running late on the Porch Stage (the smallest of the five stages), for 20 minutes or so before taking the back way past the Banjo Stage as Gillian Welch and David Rawlings sang "Look at Miss Ohio," which then blended into Rosie Flores, Jon Langford, and the Sadies doing "Big River" on the Arrow Stage, before I reached my final destination of the Towers of Gold Stage, where pretty Marty Stuart and the Fabulous Superlatives were doing their thing. As I settled in at the front of the stage and thought about all the great music I'd heard just getting to the stage, I realized that life wasn't bad at all.




It was pretty easy throughout to weasel my way into a good spot without blocking people, but I probably overstepped my bounds during my one trip onto the main lawn at the Banjo Stage to see Steve Earle and the Bluegrass Dukes. Just enough people were bailing because of the wind that had picked up over the course of the afternoon that I was able to work my way to the middle of the lawn for most of the set. I crouched as best I could and made sure I wasn't standing directly in front of anyone. I like to think I was pretty successful, and no one told me otherwise, so all was good. And it was cool to see Steve Earle with a band again, albeit a bluegrass one and not the hard-rocking Dukes. But a bluegrass band with Darrell Scott, Casey Driessen, Tim O'Brien, and Dennis Crouch aint nothing to sniff at.



Eight hours of music was enough for me, so I headed back toward Oakland.

Day 5

After the requisite churching in Oakland and a rough go through 49ers' traffic, it was back to Hardly Strictly Bluegrass and Booker T and the Drive By Truckers on the Arrow Stage. Seeing as Booker T and the DBTs didn't have any other dates booked, I figured this might be my last chance to see them supporting Booker T's "Potato Hole." Their set, in fact, was one of the main deciding factors in going to Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, and though it didn't beat Saturday's first set, it was still a good time. There was yet another brief moment of panic when I made my way out of the crowd and realized I didn't have my Levon hoodie, but I retraced my steps (probably annoying a good portion of the crowd) and found it, just in time to see Booker T pick up the guitar and sing "(Sittin' on the) Dock of the Bay."


Then it was up the hill and through the trees to see the Chieftains (well, I mostly heard them) on the Star Stage before heading back to the Arrow to see a little bit of Rodney Crowell and the Outsiders (and special guest Rosie Flores on "Leaving Louisiana in the Broad Daylight"). Then I made my first real foray into the lawn area at the Rooster Stage to see Mike Farris and the Roseland Rhythm Revue. I wanted to make sure I saw at least one band per day that I knew nothing about (Okkervil River was Saturday's band), and the bio for Farris piqued my interest, so to the Rooster Stage I went. I was able to once again find a good, nonintrusive spot up front and then thoroughly enjoyed Farris's gospel-tinged set, highlighted by the vocals of the McCrary sisters, Anna and Regina (the latter of whom also sang with Buddy Miller on Saturday).


I was tempted to stay for Mavis Staples, but since I'd seen her at Newport, I headed back to the Arrow Stage to see the end of Aimee Mann's set, and then wormed my way onto the rail for Todd Snider's set. When I saw the crew setting up for a band, I got excited, as it had been a few years since I'd seen Snider with a band. For this show, he was backed by Great American Taxi, and though the set was good, all the setting up seemed to cut into Snider's allotted set time--and prevented me from making it to the Porch Stage to see Elizabeth Cook's set. I thought about cutting out halfway through Snider's set to see Cook, but then I realized I was comfortable and in a good spot, so I stayed put.


The hardest part of Hardly Strictly Bluegrass is just accepting that you're gonna miss out on some stuff you want to see. Aside from missing Cook, I missed just about every band on the Banjo Stage over the weekend, including the unbeatable back-to-back-to-back of Doc Watson (though I did hear him sing "Workin' Man Blues" while grabbing some food), Earl Scruggs, Dr. Ralph Stanley, and Del McCoury. But, after checking out the Knitters on the Rooster Stage (and receiving several offers to buy a beer because I was standing next to someone's cooler), I did make it over to the Banjo Stage to see a little bit of Emmylou Harris before calling it a weekend and trying out some California pizza (not awful) on the way home. I appreciated their abandonment of "You've Tried the Rest, Now Try the Best" in favor of "You've Tried Them All, Now Try Pasquale's."



Over the course of three days in Golden Gate Park, I saw full or significant portions of sets from 20 different bands, got some solid exercise going from stage to stage, and had maybe the best musical experience ever--certainly the best I've ever had at a large festival. I'd like to go back next year. You oughta be there, too.

Day 6

And then I had to go home, to dreams of the next vacation.