You Never Can Tell

Chuck Berry is going to be 85 years old on Tuesday. So I figured I should really get on that whole seeing Chuck at a small club in St. Louis--and getting his autograph after the show--thing. Who knows how much longer he'll be doing his monthly gig at Blueberry Hill, and, even if he does, who knows how much longer I'll want to see it. I'm all about paying respects to the heroes of rock and roll where they're still among us, but hopping on a plane to St. Louis (not the most exciting place on earth) to see one of those heroes in a severely diminished capacity might not be the best use of my money going forward.

So, while initially planning a trip to Nashville, I began to look into cheap flights to St. Louis so I could start the trip there. I found a pretty cheap one, but then getting from St. Louis to Nashville turned out to be problematic. There were no direct flights, and the only other option was a ridiculously long Greyhound trip that might have seemed appealing (or at least like something fun to write about) 10 years ago but now seems like a nightmare on wheels. The trip to Nashville went by the wayside. Maybe next year, Music City.

While holding on to the St. Louis idea like Wilson Phillips, I started concocting baseball playoffs scenarios. Milwaukee was within reach, so I could plan a side trip there. And then Atlanta started collapsing, and it seemed like St. Louis might make the playoffs. Very interesting. But I needed to lock in my flights/trains/hotels so I wouldn't be spending more of the money I couldn't afford to be spending. So I went with this itinerary: fly into St. Louis for Chuck on Wednesday, take the train to Milwaukee (via Chicago) for a Brewers playoff game on Thursday (or, if tickets were too tough to come by, a Jets-Blackhawks game in Chicago), and then fly out of Milwaukee on Friday. So I booked all that on the last night of the baseball season (a/k/a The Greatest Night of Baseball Ever), as the Brewers clinched the #2 seed in the NL and the Cardinals won the Wild Card. Cool. I figured the Great Almighty Phillies Pitching Staff would easily beat the Cardinals, and hoped the Brewers would have enough to get by a tough Diamondbacks team.

One out of two aint bad.

The Phillies' choking threw a wrench into the plan, because now the Brewers were the home team in that series, and that meant Game 4 on that Thursday would now be in St. Louis. And seeing a playoff game at Busch was less appealing than one at Miller Park. Did I really want to break the bank to see a playoff game where I'd be rooting against the home team? Eh, maybe.

Then, a fortuitous comedy club booking was revealed over the Internet. David Koechner, better known as Champ Kind in Anchorman (or best known to me as Gerald "T-Bones" Tibbons of the Naked Trucker and T-Bones comedy duo), was doing a comedy show that Thursday night at a hotel comedy club in Illinois that advertised itself as 14 minutes from the Gateway Arch (or 44 minutes via MetroLink and bus). Whammy!

Trip itinerary completed. St. Louis and Chuck on Wednesday, Fairview Heights, Illinois, and T-Bones on Thursday, and then a ridiculously early train to Chicago Friday morning before another train ride to Milwaukee and my flight home Friday night.

Well, that was easy enough.



Chuck Berry shows, or, for that matter, any rock and roll shows by 84-year-old men, are an iffy proposition. Some nights he's so wildly off that it makes you sad (e.g., the first time I saw him, at a baseball stadium in New Jersey), and some nights you see enough of the old magic that you feel grateful to be alive to see a pioneer of rock and roll a few feet away from you (e.g., the second time I saw him, at a festival in New Jersey). You pay your money, you take your chances (although the time he was good was free, so that was even better).

So as I made my second trip to the Delmar Loop of the day (the first was right from the airport to do a Vintage Vinyl run), my expectations were pretty measured. If it stunk, I could still say I saw Chuck Berry in a small club with a few hundred people. If it was great, well then I saw Chuck Berry in a small club with a few hundred people and it was awesome. Plus, there would be the bonus of getting Mr. Berry's autograph after the show, as the club usually sets up a table and he signs stuff after the show.

But, before all that, it was time for what I'd been saving up for my big meal of the day, at Pi Pizzeria, a few blocks away from Blueberry Hill. St. Louis is unjustly famous for its mediocre cracker-thin pizza with Provel cheese in lieu of mozzarella, but Pi, apparently a favorite of President Obama, doesn't use Provel and is best known for their deep dish pie. I'm not a huge deep dish guy, but the reviews looked promising, so I dug in.



In order to give my gorging a healthy sheen, I started with a salad, the Bada Bing (field greens, toasted almonds, gorgonzola cheese, dried bing cherries, with a raspberry vinaigrette). That was quite good. In fact, I could've left happy with just that. But then came the pizza.




And that was even better. It's the cornmeal crust that does the trick. The sauce was pretty good, too, but the cornmeal makes it stand out from your average pie. I started to feel a little bloated toward the end, but my mama didn't raise no quitter, so I dusted off the whole pie and walked to Blueberry Hill wondering if throwing up during the Chuck Berry show would ruin the trip.

There is limited seating for the Chuck shows at Blueberry Hill (120 seats, and I think they said the room is 300 capacity), so I knew to get there early. I got there around 6:30 and there were already about 25-30 people in line for the show (doors opened at 8). So I joined them, stared at the pictures of the owner and various celebrities on the wall, read a chapter of "The Maltese Falcon," watched two women almost pass out, listened for updates on the playoff game, and then, voila, it was 8 pm. I got a seat in the second row, right next to the people who looked to be about fifth in line. I'm not sure how that happened.

The opening act, Butch Wax and the Hollywoods, did a wedding-band set of oldies that was pretty good and then the stage was reset for Mr. Berry and his band. After a while, a guy came out to tune his guitar and I thought, "Hmmm...he's not in the band." Then, as I looked closer, I thought again, "Hmmm...I think that's Johnny Rivers." And it was. And he sat in for the whole set. Nice.



Having Rivers on stage seemed to loosen Mr. Berry up a bit, and the extra guitar took pressure off him too, as there are some things 84-year-old fingers can't quite do anymore. If you go see Chuck Berry now, those guitar runs aren't gonna be quite like they used to be. In fact, they're probably gonna make you cringe. A lot. But so what. He's Chuck Berry. You can cut him some slack. Going to a Chuck Berry show and complaining that he "just doesn't have it anymore" would be like meeting Thomas Jefferson in 1825 and being disappointed that he didn't write the Declaration of Independence for you. He's done the work already. Now's the time to be glad you're alive to see him.



Rivers sang a good portion of the set (with Mr. Berry joining in on a few verses here and there), starting off with "Maybellene" and continuing with "Carol," "Memphis, Tennessee," "Reelin' and Rockin'" (done twice...Why? Why not?) and "Little Queenie," among others. Mr. Berry seemed to be having just as good a time as I was, and even gave an abbreviated duck walk of sorts during "Let It Rock." If Rivers hadn't been there, I probably would have still had an OK time, but his presence made the night far more memorable than I had anticipated going in.



And then Mr. Berry left without signing. Curses! Foiled again. Oh well. What was it the old folks would say about that? Oh yeah...



It was still a really fun night. Hail! Hail! Rock and Roll!

I switched hotels on Thursday, so I could be a little closer to the train station. This made it slightly less sad to not have time or money to go to a playoff game, because the hotel I stayed at Wednesday was literally a block away from Busch Stadium. I could walk out of the lobby and see the ballpark. Sigh. I did pop into the pep rallies outside the ballpark on Wednesday and Thursday, though, where I looked so out of place not wearing any red that I feared someone would point at me and I'd soon be burned at the stake. But I wasn't. So I took some pictures of playoff fever in St. Louis.




I had nothing to do during the day on Thursday, so I decided to walk to the City Museum and check that out. I'd heard good things about it, and that though it was intended mainly for kids, adults would have a good time at it too. And that was very true, because I had a great time wasting two hours there. If you've got kids, or you're a 34-year-old single man, I highly recommend visiting it.




The City Museum is and old shoe factory and warehouse that has been turned into a completely ridiculous funhouse of sorts, with about a dozen slides (including one ten-story slide), a cave, a human hamster wheel, a ball pit, a Ferris wheel, two gutted-out airplanes, and a school bus that juts off the roof. This has to be the coolest place to take a class trip in the whole wide world. I thought about going down at least one of the slides, but I had visions of an ER visit, so I chickened out. I did go on the Ferris wheel, though. Good times.




After that, I watched some of the ALCS game in my hotel before heading out to Fairview Heights for the David Koechner show. I got there a little early, but too late to grab some food (and since the comedy club was in a hotel on a highway, the main option--TGIFriday's--wasn't exactly inviting anyway), so I went in for the 8 pm show around 7:20. And there were 5 people there. Oh boy. This might be a rough night--if not for me, then definitely for Koechner.

And it was kind of a rough night. I was sitting next to a gentleman who was celebrating his 32nd anniversary with his wife. And, man, was he chatty. Not with me, though; we had only an odd 20-second conversation in which he asked me the last name of the headliner, whom he said he had just met in the hotel.

No, he was way chattier with the opening comic, who probably wished he had never started talking to him at the beginning of his set. And that set, I would say, was about half the comedian talking and half the guy next to me talking. The guy next to me (I honestly could not determine if he had a legitimate mental handicap or was just odd; his wife seemed normal) just kept interjecting himself into the set, vowing to stop talking after every time he spoke, until he capped off his mini-set by asking, "Was she really from Soulard?" after the comedian told a story about losing his virginity to a girl in Soulard (a neighborhood in St. Louis). He then proceeded to give us his thoughts on Soulard and telling us about the time his brother fell through a floor in a house in Soulard. The comedian just gave up at that point and let him tell the whole story.

The guy was only slightly less chatty during the beginning of Koechner's set, interrupting only once, punctuating a story Koechner told about his cousin giving him chewing tobacco at the age of 10 and telling him to swallow the juice by saying, "I've heard that story a thousand times." He again vowed to stop talking after Koechner's reaction, and mainly kept his promise until he got visibly bored and antsy toward the end of the set and started what I assume he thought was whispering in his wife's ear. Which you kind of can't do in a front row in a comedy club when you're five feet from the comic. Koechner shushed him, then did so again when he and the missus started hemming and hawing on their drink order while Koechner told a story about how his wife can't give birth anymore and the scare they had with their youngest child, born via surrogate (yes, I agree, that is odd material for a comedy club). After the second gentle admonishment from Koechner, the gentleman slammed his beer bottle down and walked out. He came back later and took a picture with Koechner after the show. He sounded like he had a good time.

I'm not so sure Koechner did, but he did a good job of holding it in. I can't imagine doing a show for a quarter-full room on a Thursday night at a hotel comedy club is a thrill ride. I hope the Friday and Saturday shows went better.



In any case, I got my Champ Kind bobblehead signed (and my Naked Trucker and T-Bones CD, too), so I left happy. And that happiness almost went right away when I thought I missed the last bus to the MetroLink station. But just as I went to go call a cab, I saw the bus coming, and tragedy was averted. I finally had dinner back at the hotel bar, roughly four hours before I had to board the train to Chicago. It was at this point that this part of the trip began to seem like a terrible idea.



I took a nap and made the train on time, drifting in and out of sleep for the first few hours. We got to Chicago a little late, and I thought my plan to go to the World's Finest Chocolates outlet in a Chicago strip mall might have to be postponed, but I pulled it off. We used to sell (and by "sell," I mean, my mom would sell a few bars at work and then just give me the money for the rest of the box) World's Finest candy bars in grammar school as a fundraiser, so I wanted to relive that glorious time by buying an excessive amount of WF chocolate at their outlet store. And I did. Bought a hat and a bag, too. Here's to you, Blessed Sacrament.



Then it was back on the train to Milwaukee, buying tickets for shows I'm going to in Milwaukee with my sister at the end of the month, getting on a bus to the airport, finding out my flight was delayed for three hours (later knocked down to one-and-a-half), listening to the Brewers lose while on the plane, and finally making it home from LaGuardia around 1:30. I think I tied my record for most states visited in a 24-hour period (5) and I fell asleep in four of them, which I think is a new record.

If you've been holding your applause until the end, you can now commence clapping.

Book Revku, Vol. 34

The beat of New York
Over half a century
Deftly chronicled

All Hopped Up and Ready to Go: Music From the Streets of New York, 1927-77 by Tony Fletcher (411 pp.)

Book Revku, Vol. 25

Mostly strong profiles
Of the many musicians
Who have paid the cost

Lost Highway: Journeys and Arrivals of American Musicians by Peter Guralnick (352 pp.)

33 1/3

Saturday is Record Store Day. There is perhaps no type of store I find more deserving of its own day than the record store (well, maybe the bookstore...hey, why is there not a Book Store Day?). So to celebrate in my own little way, I present my memories of 33 and 1/3 record stores--some gone, some barely hanging on, some doing quite well, but all holding a special place in my heart. Enjoy. And go out to your local record store on Saturday and tell it how much you love it. Buy some stuff too, assuming they don't throw you out after you're spotted confessing your affection for a building.

1. Music Factory, Staten Island Mall, Staten Island, NY (RIP)

This is the first record store I can remember, though I'm not entirely sure I ever bought anything there (I want to say it's where I bought Piledriver (a/k/a The Wrestling Album, Vol. 2), but I cannot confirm that with my memory). But it was located in the sweet spot of the Staten Island Mall, the lower-level Sears wing, where you could stand in one spot and see the Music Factory, Waldenbooks (good for buying the latest wrestling magazines), Farrell's Ice Cream Parlor (with its awesome birthday drum and excellent waffle fries), and the Time Out arcade. It was, as far as I could tell at the time, the coolest spot of land in the entire world.

The strongest memory I have of the Music Factory was not its musical offerings but the posters that hung from the ceiling. As I recall, each poster had a number, and you would give that number to the cashier, who would return with your poster. I remember an awful lot of posters a young Catholic school boy shouldn't be seeing. And, oddly, I also distinctly remember a promo poster (not for sale, though I doubt anyone would've bought it) for Matthew Wilder's "Break My Stride" on the side of the store. Not sure how that got in my brain.

2. Sam Goody, Staten Island Mall, Staten Island, NY (RIP)

Music Factory closed before I ever really got into music, so the Sam Goody (lower level, Macy's wing, next to Lerner, later moved a few stores down) became my go-to spot for 45s. I'm trying to remember the price and coming up with 3 for $1.99, which sounds too low. But there was definitely some sort of 3-for deal. And I loaded up on all the cool songs. You know, like Pee Wee Herman's "Surfin' Bird," The Fat Boys' and Beach Boys'"Wipeout," the Jump 'N the Saddle Band's "The Curly Shuffle." Yes, I was born with awesome musical taste.

In any event, I still have a lot of those 45s. So, thanks, Sam Goody. You got it.

3. Majors Records and Video, Staten Island, NY

This was what passed for the local record store, tucked inside the Pathmark Shopping Plaza. I rarely bought anything there, though, because Sam Goody was so much better (and cheaper). The time I did spend in Majors was mostly spent ogling the VHS videos they had. And I did this for many years before we even had a VCR.

Majors' place in my heart, though, was established on September 11, 2001. That morning, I had thought about going downtown to J&R Music World before work to pick up the new Bob Dylan CD, "Love and Theft." But I figured I could wait until after work. By the time I got to work in midtown a little after 9, the world had changed. So, later that afternoon, after walking through the shocked city on the way to the ferry and then taking a packed boat home to Staten Island, where that awful acrid smell from downtown Manhattan wasn't completely pummeling my nose and there was still some semblance of normalcy, my dad and I went to Pathmark. And, because I still wanted, maybe at that point needed, to hear the Dylan album, I walked into Majors and bought it.

One of many times a record store came to the rescue.

4. Sam Goody, Woodbridge Center Mall, Woodbridge, NJ (RIP)

Holidays in grammar school and high school meant there were department store sales. And sales in New Jersey were even better because there was less tax. And so my mom would head to the Woodbridge Center Mall to grab some bargains at Stern's while I roamed the mall in search of music, books, and wrestling magazines. The Sam Goody in the Woodbridge mall was way bigger than the one in Staten Island, and I probably bought a few 45s there, too (pretty sure it's also where I bought Paul Simon's "Graceland"). But my favorite purchase there was the Dragnet/Thank God It's Friday t-shirt I bought when the movie come out. I wish I still had that shirt.

5. J&R Music World, Manhattan, NY

The first record store I truly loved in Manhattan, and maybe where I've spent the most money over the years. It's a shell of what it used to be, but back in the day, it was the place to go to when new stuff came out, or when I needed to buy a cassette quick so I could run over to the concerts in the World Trade Center plaza and get it signed after the show. I also have seen a bunch of cool in-stores there, too, including Joe Ely, which may have actually been the first in-store I went to.

6. Sam Goody (W. 8th St. and 6th Ave.), Manhattan, NY (RIP)

The third in the trinity of Sam Goodys I Have Loved. They also had cool in-stores here, in a large space on the second floor. I saw Jill Sobule there for the first time and remember being absolutely floored by her song "Mexican Wrestler," which I still love.

I also cleaned up here when they went out of business. There were multiple trips involved.

7. Tower Records (W. 4th and Broadway), Manhattan, NY (RIP)

Another great chain store, back in the days when chain stores each had their own unique vibe to them. Just browsing through their country section on the top floor led me to a lot of great stuff. Another place with great in-stores. Two of the best were Dick Dale and Elvis Costello. Also got Lucinda Williams's autograph here, at the end of a very long line. She seemed completely exhausted when I got to the table, so I only had her sign five things.

8. Tower Records (W. 66th and Broadway), Manhattan, NY (RIP)

Forever in my heart, because it was here that I got the Avett Brothers for the first time. I'd seen them before, but they weren't as on fire as they were at Tower. I remember watching them tear into their songs (I remember either Scott or Seth cutting his finger) and thinking that I wanted to see them again immediately. Luckily, they were playing in Brooklyn that night, so that was easily taken care of. The in-store and show came at a time when I needed music really bad, and I will forever be grateful that I was on the second floor of Tower that Saturday.

Aside from that, it was another Tower with a great selection of stuff. I think their country section was even better than the downtown one.

Other in-stores attended there: Emmylou Harris, Brian Wilson, Tony Orlando and Dawn, Marah, and Les Paul.

9. Bleecker Street Records, Manhattan, NY

Still kicking ass. Their CDs are still a tad on the high side, but the real treasures are down in the basement. I've found lots of great records there over the years, and it's generally the first place I go to when I'm looking for a specific album or 45.

10. Generation Records, Manhattan, NY

I have bought a few, ahem, unofficial CD releases there, and a few records downstairs, too (where I also once snagged an advance copy of the Drive By Truckers' Brighter Than Creation's Dark months before it was released). It's odd to say, but I like the sound of the steel stairs as you head to the basement the best. You don't get that sound when browsing online.

11. Coconuts/FYE (51st St. and 6th Ave.), Manhattan, NY (RIP)

Not a very good store if you valued things like a wide selection, good prices, and a helpful staff. But check out the people I met there: Pete Townshend, Leslie Nielsen, "Nature Boy" Ric Flair, Randy "Macho Man" Savage, Spinal Tap, and George Jones. So, yes, I miss this store.

The Townshend signing was, I think, the day after Thanksgiving (he was promoting the CD/DVD release of Psychoderelict). I expected a huge line, but when I got there, there were maybe 10 people there. And the signing was supposed to start in less than 30 minutes. All of us were stunned, but then we found out that people who called the store earlier in the day were told Townshend had to cancel because of a family emergency. Then, somehow he un-cancelled. But it wasn't clear if the un-cancellation was actually happening. Then, as we were pondering this (and watching Psychoderelict over and over again), in comes Pete. I think I went up to the table three times. He signed a card for me, a Who album for my sister, and a Psychoderelict promo flyer for my sister's boyfriend. So I got three Pete Townshend autographs and bought nothing. It was a good day. For me. Not so much for Coconuts or Pete Townshend.

12. Disc-o-Rama Clearance Outlet, Manhattan, NY (RIP)

Back in the days when I would think nothing of bending down, I used to spend hours going through the 49-cent and 99-cent crates here, buying anything that sounded even vaguely familiar. I can't recall everything I unearthed, but I definitely remember taking home a promo CD of Whiskeytown's Strangers Almanac because I'd read an article about the band and they sounded cool. After the CD spent years in the vehicles and apartments of retired journalist Bryan Chambala, it now rests in my collection.

13. Academy Records (W. 18th St.), Manhattan, NY

Maybe my favorite used CD store of all time. If I've spent the most money at J&R, I've definitely bought the most CDs at Academy, likely in the hundreds. I fondly look back on one day when they were boxing up all the 99-cent CDs and selling boxes for like $5 or something. I bought two, and the best of the yield was a Jimmy Sturr CD and Bobby Brown's Don't Be Cruel.

I don't go in as much as I used to, because it makes me a little sad. Their country/folk selection, which used to take up six big rows, is now down to a few dozen. But they do have a good vinyl selection these days, so all hope is not lost.

14. St. Marks Sounds, Manhattan, NY

I first discovered the used CD stores of Saint Marks Place before going to see Sponge at Coney Island High with my sister, her friend, and her friend's sister. My first go-to spot was the place right next to Coney Island High (which I am so bummed I can't remember the name of), but the two Sounds stores (now down to just one) quickly became my favorites. The smaller one (where you gave the sleeve with the liner notes to the cashier, who then went in the back to get you the actual CD) was actually my favorite of the two, though I learned to love the bigger place after awhile.

15. Pier Platters, Hoboken, NJ (RIP)

I was around for the last few years of Pier Platters (because my sister lived in Hoboken), and I'm still a little pissed I passed on the vinyl Last Waltz (with booklet), leaving it for the next time only to find it snatched up the next time. Lesson learned. Buy first, think later.

16. Tunes, Hoboken, NJ

Another of my current favorites, walkable from the office and still with a pretty good selection. If I want a CD the day it comes out, I go to Tunes. Their cheap used CD selection still occasionally turns up some gems, but, back in the day, it was phenomenal. I spent hours going through them, and I don't regret a single minute of it.

17. Curmudgeon Records, Somerville, NJ

Employers of Maybe Pete drummer extraordinaire (and frequent driver of me to cool places) Johnny Macko and the site of another of my favorite in-stores. I also snagged a bitchin' mummers LP and a treasure trove of polka records while I was there. And any place where I can leave with a bunch of polka LPs is cool with me.

18. Rhino Records, New Paltz, NY

Rhino was on the way home from upstate (if we took the scenic route), and its space in my heart was created when I bought my first copies of No Depression there. So, in that way, it's one of the more important record stores in my life. I'd noticed a long time ago that it was gone from the plaza where it once stood, so I was happy to discover last month that it reopened in a different space in downtown New Paltz. And I was happy to spend some money there when I visited.

19. Strawberries, Hudson, NY (RIP)

Conveniently located two doors down from the Fairview Cinema, so after I saw a movie, I would immediately go look for the soundtrack there. Definitely bought the Dragnet soundtrack there. Also bought Comic Relief cassettes there. And, because I feel close to you, I will also let you know that this is the only record store where I purchased a Grateful Dead product, the grey vinyl 45 of "Touch of Grey." We all have our youthful indiscretions.

20. Rebop Records, Ithaca, NY (RIP)

For a reasonably hip college town, Ithaca was not a hotbed of good record stores in the mid to late 1990s. Of the crop, Rebop in Collegetown was the best. They had a good selection of stuff outside the mainstream, decent prices, cool posters you could buy for your wall (I picked up a Bottle Rockets poster, a Whiskeytown poster, and, my favorite, a poster of the cover of The Band's Jericho, with a Peter Max painting of Big Pink). They also came up to campus to sell CDs once a week, and I remember asking them if they had a copy of The Band's High on the Hog when it came out. They said they doubted it (I'm not sure they even knew The Band had a new CD out) but took my number anyway and promised to give me a call. The call came quickly, and they apologized for leading me astray, because they definitely did have a copy. And after a short bus ride, that copy was mine.

21. Sounds Fine, Ithaca, NY (RIP)

The worst of the Ithaca record stores, but the place where I found the first few NRBQ tapes I love, so they get a tip of the hat from me. And my copy of Mojo Nixon's Whereabouts Unknown was bought here. Several years later, after many group listenings/singalongs to "Tie My Pecker To My Leg" and further adventure in Mojo World, a few of my friends and I (mostly my friends; I was the money) started a magazine named after a line in a Mojo Nixon/Jello Biafra song. And 12 years later, that magazine (sadly, minus its "Haircut") still exists. Let's hear it for us!

22. Discount Records, Ithaca, NY (RIP)

Also not a great store, but it was better than Sounds Fine (and right next to Rebop, so it wasn't like you had to make an extra trip). They were good about getting new releases, too, so I would often peruse the racks and try to find something to review for the newspaper (we were on an integrity kick and didn't accept free CDs). I didn't review it (or I don't think I did), but I bought the Bottle Rockets' 24 Hours a Day here.

23. Academy Records, Brooklyn, NY

When I get off the L train, I put my head down so I don't get angered by the hipsters and lift my head up only when I get to Academy Records on North 6th. I rarely leave without something good (last trip: a Shel Silverstein record and a Peggy Seeger/Ewan MacColl record that was signed the next night by Ms. Seeger in Woodstock). I'm still not entirely sure how a record store in Williamsburg has such a consistently good selection of country LPs, but I'm not complaining.

24. AKA Music, Philadelphia, PA

The Reading Terminal Market is the first stop when I arrive in Philly, but if I've got some extra time and I haven't completely stuffed myself, I'll walk off some of the calories on the way to AKA. I've left there empty-handed a few times in the recent past, but I'm hoping that's just because I'm being more selective in my old age.

25. Ernest Tubb Record Shop, Nashville, TN

I have the downtown location (the one by the Opry's cool, too, and they have the Green Hornet) to thank for my Porter Wagoner figurine (and Bocephus and George Jones magnets). And it's also where I picked up my first Elizabeth Cook CD after I saw her on the Opry. Now she's the host of my second favorite show on Sirius, which, sadly, I don't get to hear anymore because my work computer is too old to handle the SiriusXM Internet player. Damn you, once again, Technology.

26. Grimey's, Nashville, TN

I made a point of taking the bus out to the old location on my first trip to Nashville and walked way too long (out of my own stubbornness) to check out their new (well, new to me) digs on my trip last year. Grabbed a bunch of cool stuff (Wanda Jackson 45, Government Cheese and Jason D. Williams CDs) and would've likely done more damage if they weren't setting up for a Ra Ra Riot in-store at the time. Fear not. I'll be back.

27. Vintage Vinyl, St. Louis, MO

Another record store where I saw an Avett Brothers in-store performance. This one was less intense, because they'd had some van troubles on the way to Twangfest and were both quite late and noticeably fatigued. But their van troubles gave me more time to browse through the many, many records, and I found a good copy of Shel Silverstein's Freakin' at the Freakers Ball LP. And, of course, on my last trip, I found Gaye Cox. I'm not sure I want to go back to St. Louis again, but if I do, I'll definitely be back at Vintage Vinyl.

28. Amoeba Records, San Francisco, CA

My favorite of the three, I think. I've certainly spent the most time there. And though there is no more harrowing bus ride I've ever taken than the bus that takes you to and from the Haight, I will gladly brave that journey again the next time I'm in San Francisco (I'm aiming for the fall; please send your donations directly to me).

29. Amoeba Records, Hollywood, CA

Number two on the list. I had a slight panic attack when I was in there and realized that the brick of Griddle Cafe pancakes sitting in my stomach was itching to get out immediately, thus potentially putting a damper on my first Amoeba Hollywood experience. After trying to will the feeling away, I decided the time was now. But I wasn't done browsing. So I stashed my records away, bolted across Sunset to use the bathroom at the coffee place, and soon all was once again right with the world. And my bowels. I've said too much. Let's move on.

30. Amoeba Records, Berkeley, CA

Just because it's third doesn't mean it's bad. I should also note that it is one of only two record stores where I have shopped after a shard of glass nearly took off part of my finger roughly two hours prior.

31. Rasputin's, Berkeley, CA

And this would be the other place. Not only is it the better of the Bay Area Rasputin's, but I also like it better than the Berkeley Amoeba. They've got a great selection of vinyl downstairs, and I bought a bad-ass Steve Earle poster there, too.

32. Rasputin's, San Francisco, CA

My Record Store Day selection for 2010. Their elevator's a little scary, but if a scary elevator ride is all I need to get through to find a copy of Pete Seeger's Goofing-Off Suite 10-inch LP in good shape, then bring on the rickety elevator. And that album's all nice and signed now, so thanks for making that happen, Rasputin's.

33. Angry Mom Records, Ithaca, NY

After a quick visit there last Friday, I am ready to declare it my Current Favorite Record Store (I got two--yes, two--Freddie Blassie records!). It's in the basement of the excellent Autumn Leaves (I bought many cool books from them when they were in the tinier space across the Commons), and it is a testament to how much I love Angry Mom that I now barely even pause to look at the books upstairs anymore. If this store existed while I was in college (there was a pseudo-Christian bookstore--Logos--there at the time; I don't think they even used the basement), I would have developed my vinyl obsession much earlier and thus appeared even less attractive to the young women of Ithaca College. Hard to believe, but true.

33 1/3. Nobody Beats the Wiz, Staten Island, NY (RIP)

Not really a record store at all, but that didn't stop me from spending endless hours staring at their wall of cassettes and racks of CDs while my mom and/or dad waited for me to make up my mind. I am still not a very decisive shopper, but I was worse in my younger days (and I was particularly terrible in video stores; it would take me just short of forever to pick something at Palmer or Blockbuster Video). Still, my diligence paid off at the Wiz, where I distinctly recall buying two of my favorite double-cassette sets, The Last Waltz and The Bob Dylan 30th Anniversary Concert Celebration. I also met Tommy John and Harry Carson there when the store opened, but then some creep stole my Giants yearbook and baseball card in the parking lot as my friend and I were playing.

There are other record stores I could tell you about, but that'll do for now. And, remember, Saturday's the day. But you don't need a special day to shop at your local record store. They'll gladly take your money--and give you good music in return--any day of the year,

Sometimes I Wish Gary Busey Had Pursued a Career in Music

...because then there would be more clips like this:



Almost as great as the Danko/Busey/Butterfield supergroup (no longer available on YouTube, but still worth your $2 here).

More of Keith and Jerry Lee (without Mr. Busey) here.

Is it too much to ask for a reunion special?

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.

Shock and Wow

I had already bought my ticket to the Pete Seeger show when I noticed on the Bearsville Theater website that what was billed as a Pete Seeger Performance and Book Signing was now "Radio Woodstock and The Smile Revolution Presents [sic] Pete Seeger with special guests Princess Wow and Roland." I was not familiar with Princess Wow, Roland, or The Smile Revolution, but the mere appearance of the words together did not inspire hope, particularly since I would be taking the bus to Bearsville roughly nine hours after I'd returned from bowling 10 (and a 1/2) games in five states. I suspected that I would be in no mood for princesses on Sunday afternoon. I did a Google search and grew no more hopeful.

But the money was already spent, so, after some 8 a.m. churching, it was back to the Port Authority Bus Terminal (I'm hoping they'll name a gate for me one day) for the Trailways bus to Bearsville. I was a little bleary-eyed, but I rallied when we got to Kingston, at which point our driver told us we had a seven-minute break before we continued in. Seven minutes is about two more minutes than I need to run to Deising's Bakery, quickly get two things that look good (in this case, a cheese danish and a cherry cheese danish), and dart back to the bus. As I polished off the cheese danish back on the bus, I was feeling much better about this Princess Wow thing. Deising's cures all.

When we pulled in to Bearsville at a little after noon, there was already a long line of people waiting to get in, a product of the Bearsville Theater's excellent policy to not mail out tickets or let you print them at home (some people had physical tickets, so I'm guessing they sell tickets at the box office). So, basically, 98 percent of the people had to get their tickets at the will call window. Good thinking, hippies. Oh well, at least I got to see Pete Seeger arrive.

I finally got inside after about a half-hour, but the line behind me was still plenty long. So it seemed like the 1 p.m. start was not going to happen. I picked up my autographed copy of Where Have All The Flowers Gone (part of my special $40 admission ticket, which was a swell deal). Despite the initial billing, I figured Mr. Seeger wouldn't actually be signing the books, so I wasn't surprised to see the books presigned. And I was happy to see that he'd drawn the banjo with his signature, giving me my second banjo Pete Seeger autograph (I have two without, too...it's a fun life I have). And now that I had the book, I had something to read if/when my interest in Princess Wow dissipated.

It was getting close to 2 and the show still hadn't started yet, so there was a little tension in the air. I was getting a little tired of hearing "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" for the third time. The standing-room-only people were getting a little fidgety. And a woman in the row in front of me actually asked a group whose folding-chair seats hadn't been set up to go settle the matter somewhere else because all the discussion was bothering her.

Finally, after the second, maybe third time around of Michael Jackson singing Charlie Chaplin's "Smile," Princess Wow emerged from the wings, in an outfit highlighted by a large hat, a blue wig, and tie-dyed pants. This was not a promising start. But then when she had to compose herself to tell the story of why The Smile Revolution was important to her, I started to feel bad for my poor attitude toward the Princess.

She related how her father never smiled much and so neither did she, but one of the last times she visited him before he passed on, he gave her a big smile. From that point forward, she vowed to share the power of a smile with the world, because she knew what a joy it was to see that smile on her dad's face before he died. And, so, The Smile Revolution was born.

She had the crowd now.

And that was the last time she did.

After talking about The Smile Revolution for a bit, she then introduced her husband Roland to lead his band in the theme song of The Smile Revolution, with the help of the children who were watching the show on the stage. The song was, um, not so good, and it seemed to go on just short of forever. I could feel the crowd starting to turn, but the fact that children were involved ensured some polite applause at song's end.

Princess Wow then came back on stage. I think it was at this point that she started talking more about how she became Princess Wow and her life philosophies. One major chunk of her time on stage was devoted to how we should stop using the word "old" when describing our age and replace it with "new." So, for instance, I am not 33 years old; I am 33 years new! Exciting! And then she related how she starts every day by saying, "I'm fresh and new."

At this point, I was mainly looking down at my book and occasionally the floor and thinking about heading out to the lobby until this was over. I was all the way in the back of the theater, so I could've snuck out without too much fuss, but I figured that might be rude. And I didn't want to give Jersey a bad mark in the eyes of the people of Bearsville.

But the people of Bearsville, or at least a healthy portion of the people in the Bearsville Theater, had no such aversion to rudeness. Because just about the time the good Princess started talking about why she started buying wigs, someone yelled out, "We want Pete!" And then more people joined in the vocal uprising. Soon after, people started stomping their feet on the wooden floor as the Princess persevered.

Wow, did it get awkward.

The Princess introduced local songwriter Tom Pacheco to do a song, and he avoided being booed, though his song wasn't exactly a thrill ride either. I suspect, however, that the song's message of "the world was better before these darn kids got hold of it" offered more appeal to the saltier elements in the crowd than the "everybody smile and be happy" vibe of Princess Wow.

And speaking of Ms. Wow, she came back on stage after Pacheco was done, talked a little bit more (reading quotes from index cards) as the natives grew more restless, and then called out Roland and his band for another number. And that was when I heard the loudest communal groan I've ever heard at a concert. I was torn between laughter and feelings of pity, so I combined the two by hanging my head, staring at the floor, and laughing. And, to be fair, as I was laughing, I was also smiling. So I really was doing the work of The Smile Revolution. I'm fresh and new!

To their credit, Roland (and band) and Princess Wow never let the crowd see them sweat and just kept plowing through their portion of the show. But when Roland wrapped up his second song (slightly more tolerable than the first), and Princess Wow came back out and started talking about how Roland had met Pete, the crowd had had enough. At this point, if there had been a stake, they might've tied her to it. As Princess Wow told the story of Roland hitchhiking across the country and then looking for a way to meet Pete Seeger, a voice cried out, "I want to meet Pete!"

Disrespectful?

Probably.

Hilarious?

Absolutely.

Some people were lucky enough to be at the Manchester Free Trade Hall to hear a disgruntled folkie yell "Judas!" at Bob Dylan. I will settle for hearing a disgruntled folkie yell "I want to meet Pete!" at a woman in a blue wig named Princess Wow. And I'm OK with that.



After the Princess hurried through her intro of Mr. Seeger, the crowd finally was sated by the appearance of the 91-year-old man they had come to see. He is, naturally, not at the peak of his powers anymore, but some concerts are more about just being in the same room as the performer rather than the actual performance. Mr. Seeger spent his 90 minutes on stage going through selected songs in the book, chapter by chapter, telling stories and leading singalongs among the now relieved and fully engaged crowd. He also invited women on stage to sing one song, at which point the woman in the row in front of me who had earlier pitched a fit at people talking in her presence practically sprinted out of her seat. Her sprint came as little surprise, for she had spent most of the show laughing at everything that came out of Pete Seeger's mouth, regardless of whether it was intended to be humorous or was a simple statement of fact. She was certainly pleased to be in the same room as Mr. Seeger (and she was, to the best of my knowledge, accepting of Princess Wow and Roland) and jumped at the chance to be on the same stage as her hero (to be fair, if he had asked for dudes to come up, I might've sprinted, too). Unfortunately, the enthusiasm of the women on stage didn't translate into something musically inspiring, but, hey, they tried. And they've sung on a stage with Pete Seeger, so they've got that going for them.



Mr. Seeger also had banjo players Eric Weissberg (of "Dueling Banjos" fame) and Bill Keith come out to play two songs in the middle of his "set," which was a nice bonus. They returned, along with the Princess Wow and Roland crew, for the big finale. Afterward, a line formed by the merch table, which seemed odd to me, because I couldn't imagine Pete Seeger sitting down to sign autographs for a few hundred people after being on stage for 90 minutes. But I had my "Goofing Off Suite" record with me just in case, so I hopped on line. But Mr. Seeger headed out after blowing a kiss to the crowd, at which point a crowd surrounded him outside (while everybody on line inexplicably stayed in place as they watched him leave). Before I left, I inquired about the price of the signed event posters.

"They're a hundred dollars," the woman at the merch table told me. "The proceeds go to The Smile Revolution."

"Um, OK, thanks," I said, wondering what exactly is the overhead on something whose main goal is to have people smile more. Seems to me you don't need a lot of funds for something like that, though I guess those blue wigs and tie-dyed pants don't buy themselves.

When I made my way outside, there was a woman with a parrot on her shoulder standing next to a slightly bewildered Mr. Seeger, I guess trying to get a picture with him. I'm not sure that picture ever happened, but I snapped a few parrot-less photos before walking back to Woodstock and finishing that cherry cheese danish.



In a capper to my weekend, I completely forgot that Sunday is Drum Circle Day in Woodstock, and said drum circle, which featured roughly 50 drummers, was directly across the street from the bus stop (I thought about filming a bit of it for you, but why should you have to suffer?). So as I waited for the bus, I got a taste of what hell would be like for about a half hour. I promise to do better, God.

But eventually the wheels on the bus went round and round, I got home at a reasonable hour, and my weekend of bowling, blues, banjos, and belligerent folkies came to an end.

With a smile.

A Month of Festivals: Riverfront Blues Festival

This should have been a larger post, and there should have been much better pictures. But because of the sheer disregard for the after-hours bowler displayed by both Lucky Strike Lanes in Manhattan and Brooklyn Bowl in Williamsburg (and, to a lesser extent, Leisure Time Bowl in Manhattan), I did not make it to the Riverfront Blues Festival in Wilmington, DE, to see Matt "Guitar" Murphy, inexplicably snubbed by the Academy for Best Supporting Actor for his star turn as Matt "Guitar" Murphy in "The Blues Brothers," at 1:30 in the afternoon. At 1:30, I was on a bus somewhere in New Jersey, having made it past the heavy turnpike traffic but still not close enough to Wilmington to ensure that I would see any portion of the set by Matt "Guitar" Murphy and the Nouveaux Honkies. And because of my quest for the rest of the day, I didn't exactly have a prime spot when I finally got to the festival around 8:30. So, that, combined with the fact that I was using my auxiliary camera because it was smaller (an important thing to consider when you're already carrying a bowling ball across five states), means good photos were hard to come by.

But all those complications are a story for another post, a post detailing the thrilling journey of a New Jersey-based man and his quest to bowl in five states in one day. For this post, I will focus only on the 70 minutes or so I wound up spending at the Riverfront Blues Festival, where I arrived just in time to see the Perfect Age of Rock and Roll Blues Band.

The Perfect Age of Rock and Roll Blues Band (so named because "The Perfect Age of Rock and Roll" is the name of a movie in which said band is featured) clocks in at a combined age somewhere around 470 years. There's drummer Willie "Big Eyes" Smith (74), bass player Bob Stroger (78 [unconfirmed]), harmonica player George "Mojo" Buford (80), guitarist Hubert Sumlin (78), youngster (and owner of my favorite music nickname) guitarist "Steady Rollin'" Bob Margolin (61), and piano player (and fervent smoker) Pinetop Perkins (97).

Not a bad band to see on a nice summer night.





The show started with just Margolin, Stroger, and Smith on stage, and after each of those three guys had their turn at the mike, they brought out the others one at a time, starting with Buford, who still plays a pretty strong harmonica for an 80-year-old guy. Sumlin came out next, trailed closely by an oxygen tank, which I suppose you can take one of two ways: (1) it's one of the saddest things you've ever seen, because a 78-year-old man shouldn't have to be dragging himself out to play with an oxygen tank or (2) you've never seen anything quite as badass as a 78-year-old man so into performing that he'll even play while hooked into an oxygen tank. I choose to go with the latter, though there's likely some financial element tied into him still playing at this stage in the game, particularly since there has been a steady stream of shows raising money for Sumlin's medical expenses.

Sumlin definitely took a song or two to get going, but once he settled in, he shot off some strong solos. And when a song ended and the applause grew in the park, Sumlin's simple hand-over-heart gesture was the perfect portrait of why live music is so important, for everyone involved.



Soon, Margolin announced it was "star time," and the 97-year-old Perkins took the stage. He too took a little while to get into the swing of things, but he was soon there, and though it seemed, oh, a trifle odd that he essentially did the same two songs twice, well, it's Pinetop Perkins. I'm giving him leeway.



I had to bolt a little early to make sure I got my Amtrak home, but I could still see the stage and hear "Got My Mojo Working" just fine from the train platform. The Riverfront Blues Festival didn't turn out quite as planned for me, but seeing a band like The Perfect Age of Rock and Roll Blues Band was a damn fine way to cap a damn fine day.

More on the rest of the day coming soon...