"Bombs Away" Bob Weir-Ace

On August 9th 1995 Jerry Garcia died in Forrest Knolls, California. I was enjoying the remainder of the summer on the beach in New Jersey before my Senior year of high school and Bob Weir was in Hampton Beach, New Hampshire with his band Ratdog (unofficially the worst name for a band devised). Bob recieved word a few hours before the show, then summoned up a great deal of courage and decided to go on stage.

To Bob Jerry was more than just a band mate and a friend. Raised by his adoptive parents possessing a genius level intellect but managing to be expelled from every school attended, young Bob was an adrift sixteen year old looking for guidance and a way. New Year's Eve 1963 Bob and friend (who would help pen the majority of Weir's Grateful Dead songs) John Barlow were looking for a bar that would let them in when their heard banjo music seeping out of Dana Morgan's Music Store in Palo Alto. They walked in and met a 21 year old Jerry Garcia. From that date on Jerry taught Bob to play guitar and in my opinion gave him the father figure he was searching for. These two massive minds possessing incredible talent would form a creative relationship outside of Mccartney-Lennon-Harrison and Richards-Jagger the world had never seen; I venture to say we will never see it again in our lifetimes.

So that night Bob Weir took the stage and addressed the audience in a shaky voice on the verge of tears "Well, if there's anything our friend taught is, it's that music can be used to ease us through the sad times." With that the crowed clapped in a reserve manner and the opening riffs of "Bombs Away" hustled through the amps. The show itself would be the best Ratdog 'leg I ever heard. Every line carried a mournful weight and gravitas, Weir's usually subdued and technical rhythm playing was sharper and forceful, louder and more apparent.

It is interesting he chose this song to start the show with, possibly summoning up the title words and dropping into an unknown enviroment, except this time instead of love it was death. I find it interesting also because Weir always had a push towards the disco infused rhythms while in the Dead with songs such as "Feel Like a Stranger" and of course the entire Shakedown Street album; this track certainly has disco-mainstream vibes in direct contrast to the usual Dead tried and true combination of traditional American music and trickling extended solos.

It was a sad day to be sure but I would reckon that most beautiful songs and performances can find their conception within sad times; as different as this studio version is of this track is upon hearing it I can never get the image of Bob standing on a stage, truly alone, starting it off and leaping into, for him, the abyss.

"Love Sick" Bob Dylan-Modern Times

When I was nineteen years old I had a dream, this is not a joke and one of the creepiest things that has ever happened to me, I still cannot make out exactly the coincidence, the odds of something such as this happening and the whole weirdness of the situation. The dream went like this: I was at a masquerade party in a Louis XVI mansion with manicured lawns, impeccable art and decor in every direction. Everyone was in white tails, perfectly fitted attire except for masks on their faces. Some were Venetian-like, others were similar standard mime lifeless faces. I was instantly put in this situation in tails and a mask, the dream took off from there. I was wandering through the party by myself while it seemed as everyone in attendance knew each other. Next to a titanic seven foot high fireplace I started speaking with a woman, mysterious not only in dress and mask but also in her tone and conversation. We spoke until she said: "We have to see him." "Who is him?" She replied, "Him."

So we walked through the party towards this massive structure of steps and pedestals until at the crest we saw a man sitting in a marble throne, white tails with black piping, his mask had an enormous, cartoonesque-nose standing out from the white glossy plaster. There was a tension in the air as the both of us stood before this masked man. He nodded and my acquaintance looked over towards me and removed her mask, gesturing me to take mine off. When she did a pile of dark brunette hair fell over her shoulders and striking green eyes pierced through my chest, I felt them refract off of the inside of my back and out into the abyss of the palace of which we stood a part of. Again the masked man nodded until he removed his mask and it was Bob Dylan, nappy Jew hair a mess, sleepy eyes and squint lines over his face. It was a total surprise and I stepped back aghast wondering what a man like Dylan was doing holding court at such a bourgeoisie event. She grabbed my right arm and pulled me away as Dylan watched us depart the room into another cavernous space noddingly, we kissed deeply there, myself groping her body as she pulled her hands off of her and looked me directly in the eyes with her emeralds.

Then I awoke.

Months later in a deep sleep she came back to me, in the dream I was laying in bed, heard a noise, startled I sat up to see her walk into my room wearing a black corset and patent leather heels. She straddled me and took my mouth in her own, leaning over while I acceptingly let her pin me down. All that transpired was kissing for what felt like hours until my skin was raw when she then sat up and uttered: "Another time."

I awoke once again.

In 1964 in a press conference in San Francisco Bob Dylan was asked if he was to sell out to a commercial interest what would it be? He replied: "Women's Garments."

Forty years later in 2004 Bob Dylan used his song "Love Sick" from the album Modern Times for a Victoria's Secret advertisement. In the video a strikingly similar setting from my dream was used for the set and Bob Looked exactly as he did when he came to me in my sleep. It blew my fucking mind.

The song itself is a powerful combination of minor chords and pent up sexual aggression. From what I remember I was pretty pent up sexually at the time and the imagery from both my dreams and this video was enough for both a music junkie and a, well, a young man to make my head explode. I thought about it in class, during work in the summer and while I spoke with every young woman who crossed my path.

That was until (and this is where it gets terribly surreal) I was at the east end of Duval Street one night four years later and a brunette caught my eye as I was sitting at an open air bar facing the street. She cast a glance in the bar's direction while strolling with a female friend. In that glance I saw her face and her green eyes and realized that she was the woman from my two dreams. Ex-fucking-actly. For a moment I was paralyzed, not only by her beauty but more so because of the David Lynch moment that I was now a part of in the 90 degree heat of the Keys.

After that moment past I ran out into the street and after her. Politely I tapped her on the shoulder and when she turned around there was a full five second pause before I took a massive, deep breath and told her that I know this sounds bat shit crazy but I had two dreams about her. Surprisingly she was intrigued and still stood there. I asked her and her friend to join me for a drink in the bar so I could explain. They did and I went through the entire story.

After her friend departed I still sat next to my green eyed girl who (of course) turned out to be one of the deepest people I have ever met. From Camus to Kierkegaard, the observable universe to the Upanishads, we covered it all until we walked through dead streets back to the boat towards Sunset Key where my room waited.

We tore our clothes off in a frenzy and teased each other for what seemed like hours with kissing until it was time to move on. The next day she left with only a goodbye, just as she entered my life she was gone never to see or dream of her again.

Last night Dylan Fest was held at the Bowery Ballroom and I attended, one of the first few songs was this and whomever it was singing killed it just like Bob did in the video below. It reminded me of that night, those dreams and the crazy, fucked up, metaphysical questions that remain. Once again so many questions were opened and left unanswered while I laid in bed alone wondering just what it was all about.

"A Good Year for the Roses" Written by Jerry Chesnut

There's a lot of lowlifes in the world in some lowlife places, but the ones I am thinking of do not fit the typical definition of the word. More so the brand of lowlife envisioned are people who are truly at a low point of their lives. It is funny how different parts of America conjure up different scenes of people and their low lives.

In Boston I think of some Turkey (slang used by some of my Boston buddies in describing off the boat Irish trash because their speech patters resemble the "gobble, gobble") walking into a some South Boston shithole, firing up a pack after he banged it against his arm a few hundred times, putting on The Pouges and saying the word fuck a few more hundred times as another Turkey listens on about his problems. In New York I usually think of some suit hanging out at The Oyster Bar in Grand Central before he hops on the Metro North to go home to a wife he's out of love with after a tryst with a waitress while Sinatra's "Wee Small Hours" album drifts in and out of the conversations around him.

Out in the Pacific Northwest some absurdly hip, uber green waste product from the grunge era sits in a coffee house wondering why his band was never picked up by any labels and dreads another night at the counter in Radio Shack. South in SoCal there's a 19 year old porn star already too old to make a name for herself sitting at a table in some lounge in the valley thinking about life back out on that farm and another dreadful day on that casting couch trying to go mainstream while she circles her pink nails around a bottle of Pacifico and drifts into the feckless ether.

Maybe the first paragraph was a little misleading, while said people certainly are at a low point in their lives they are also some lowlife examples of the human existence. The point being that while the above characters possess such examples there is another part of the country where just because someone is at the end of the rope, it has always seemed more noble.

The South. Sure there are large groups of the population with the same redeeming qualities of previous examples but the scenes that arise in my mind are always so much more romantic. The reason for this is not the people, or the hot, sweaty nights of humidity but rather the music and songs such as this.

This song has been covered so frequently by so many artists that it is hard to pick just one version. So I picked two: George Jones and Alan Jackson's duet and Elvis Costello version from "Almost Blue". Both versions paint a picture of fragility, of noble resignation and happy hopelessness. Both versions I have heard on old Wurlitzers set on hardwood, worn out floors. And in each instance I felt as though I was viewing a Hopper that had yet to be painted. A snippet of classic American life that only exists in such realms. The Turkey? One can see the same guy in Dublin. The Grunge? Not far away from some emmo fag in some underground bar in Paris. The whore in SoCal? Pretty much any place women who are gunning for fame and cash exists such a scene.

For better or worse there's no where else in the world where you can walk into a bar, hear a song like this and see a hulking puddle of a man wash his blues away, A man who just got laid off from the plant, his Chevy's carbs are worn, Sissy is in another double wide with Bud and while he could probably never pen such a song the meaning of it is blowing up in his face that very minute.

At the same time though I often think of country music as a testament to the fact that such strong emotions spurn such beauty as the lyrics of this song. Jerry Chesnut didn't attend Harvard, neither did George Jones, Hank Williams, Willie Nelson, Jerry Jeff Walker, Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings. I would be willing to bet many people wrote them off as shit head rednecks. Maybe they were intelligent to begin with however I like to think that the hurt and booze used them merely as muses and that type of hurt and booze only resides between the 30th and 38th parallels on the eastern side of this great land.

*The image from the header is from the movie Paris, Texas a sublimely beautiful, little known film from the early 80's

Elvis Costello Live at The Beacon 23 May 2011

Monday morning I woke up at six in the for my tee time with a sore throat, a bad sign indeed. I wasn't smoking the night before, yelling or anything else that would lead to such an affliction. In short I was developing a dreaded summer cold. I said to myself and whatever omniscient spirits in the room, to the very virals of the infectious disease to just lay off until tomorrow of which they can then have my body. Not only did I want to have a decent round, as it was already raining and miserable out, a cold would make it exponentially worse; but also because I had a show at the Beacon later on in the evening, the first concert I was to attend for quite some time.

The round was okay, my back nine (as always) significantly better. Lunch went quite well, the Rib Eye special served well as my nasal passages were slowly closing and malaise permeating every ounce of my 240 pounds.

But it held off as I begged earlier in the day. I arrived at The Beacon caught up with strong emotions and memories. Fifteen years ago with the same cowboy boots sticking to the floor I was in the middle orchestra rows watching Dickey Betts, Greg and Warren Haynes take over the venue for the entire month of March. There have been some epic names at The Beacon over the years: The Stones, James Taylor, Springsteen, David Bowie, ZZ Top, Jackson Browne....the list is long and exhausting.

Tonight it was Elvis Costello, an undefinable artist who can't be pegged to a particular genre. Ska, Punk, almost the inventor of 80's music, country, classical, easy listening; Costello can be placed in every one of these columns without argument.

Alone I walked into The Beacon and towards my seat, on stage left there was a massive wheel with over forty songs on it Wheel Of Fortune style but vertical, stage right sat a go go dancer's cage, behind it a two seat bar with martini glasses and an old 60's black and white television producing nothing but white static. Again I took my seat in the middle orchestra rows though this time mere feet away from the stage. This being Manhattan there were the obligatory suits texting away, a few hipster and industry people off to the side looking far too cool for comfort. I spotted T Bone Burnett and his wife Sam Philips a few seats away from me (who would take the stage during the last encore with Costello's wife Diana Krall, though they just hung off to the side dancing).

The theme of the tour is Costello playing a few songs, then picking out people from the crowd to spin the wheel...strangely enough the people picked didn't seem too random (Willie Garson was one, as were some other randoms who seemed to have important names). Also strangely enough the wheel produced every song we all wanted to hear.

Costello stormed about the stage to "I Hope You're Happy Now" while the go go dancer assumed her cage, it flowed into "Heart of the City"->"Mystery Dance" finishing off with an earth shattering "Radio Radio" until he took off the fedora and replaced it with a stove pipe hat and became the MC of the evening rambling through propaganda speak and catchy inside jokes most of the audience understood.

The first spin hit a part of the wheel entitled: "Detectives vs. Hoover Factory" when brought to a vote it was unanimously decided "Watching the Detectives" was going to be the tune. The spinner, a terribly elegant looking older woman with a last name four words long in tight black pants and equally tight black shirt covered by a shall took her seat at the bar on stage and had a drink until she was urged to join the young woman adorned with go go boots and a skimpy psychedelic mini dress in the cage to shimmy. The pace started picking up while that familiar bass line echoed off of the Neo-Grecian interior and then we all starting rising to our feet.

He rolled through some big songs with the next spin, the theme being Time("Clowntime is Over", "Strict Time", Man Out of Time") until the wheel was forced to pick the next tune, one of my favorites "Oliver's Army". It brought down the house at such an early part of the timeline of the show, intelligently followed by a solo acoustic version of "A Slow Drag with Josephine" that comes from a his most recent album "Secret, Profane and Sugarcane" done with Burnett and hearkens to more country roots.

The acoustic theme continued with Costello's brother and his band "The BibleCode Sundays" taking the stage for some Celtic grooves and a bit of fiddle jamming, immediately followed by "So Like Candy"->"Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood". It brought it all back together and whatever sand deposited in the eyes during the acoustic set was wiped clean with "All Grown Up".

The last two songs lost me for a bit as I was sensing the show coming to an end. "Turpentine" and "Uncomplicated" not being some of his most inspiring, a little dark and rough around the edges for a live performance. Nonetheless he pulled it off probably better than expected.

Then came the two encores. "Lipstick Vogue" was done with Alex Turner to little fan fair. I don't know if it was because no one knew who he was (lead of the Arctic Monkeys) or because his performance wasn't too inspiring. For me it was the latter, he simply couldn't match Costello's stage presence and booming voice. But then "Waiting for the End of the World" rolled through like a freight train right into a seamless transition into Morrison's "Gloria". Finished off by "(I Don't Want to go to) Chelsea" and the sublimely beautiful "I Want You". Though it was Costello's song I can't help but think it was a slight nod to Dylan whose birthday was mere hours away. He left the stage and had everyone thinking a bit that it was over.

Until that A-E-Gm-C#m chord progression pulsed through the amps and Alison was alive, the remnants of a voice problem that caused the cancellation of a show in Jersey a week ago was no where to be seen and he hit all the highs and traversed the lows frighteningly adept. It flowed easily into some beautiful hints of classics "Tracks of My Tears", "Tears of a Clown" and of course "Suspicious Minds". (The Angels Wanna Wear my) Red Shoes came next, the backup phrasing "Oh why's that...?" callbacks from the band sprite and succinctly playing straight man to Costello's bellowing. This was followed by a mind blowing-insane "Purple Rain", then "Pump it Up" into "Subterranean Homesick Blues" (as I said Dylan's birthday was mere hours away) closed with "(What's so Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding".

I was enthralled, walked out onto Broadway in the rain, my cold coming on strong at this point, the deal was over and the price needed to be paid. It was worth it to say the least, it was the best concert I've seen in years. It brought back some hope and some beauty to the world that has been dull and grey lately. I am still reeling from it on the couch in sweats with tissues up my nose and watery eyes; with those eyes booking tickets for his return to the old Count Basie Theatre in late July another legendary venue that deserves such a legendary artist.

"Pick Yourself Up" Diana Krall-Live in Paris

I've been frequenting The Carlyle since I was twenty years old, when Bobby Short played two gigs a night, when the air was filled thick with sophistication so thick one could watch it inhaled into your nasal passage and instantly straightening your tie and fluffing your pocket square as your name was engraved into the social registry. On Mondays Woody Allen would play clarinet to a crowd who was there to hear jazz and not take pictures of the Hollywood legend. When Tony didn't have to ask people to stop taking pictures, before Rosewood purchased the property and imposed draconian cover charges simply to sit at the bar.

For a while I had enough status to sit down and not be charged with said cover as I was a regular who thwarted the advances of the professionals from Eastern Europe, and was always properly dressed, even if it was in ripped jeans and an old ripped up Oxford from Prep school. Before I lived in Manhattan it was my home in town and many magical nights transpired within its walls surrounded by a pleasant staff trained in the utmost values of class and confidentiality.

Somewhere in recent times that changed. The lobby was still pure black and white marble, the staff in white gloves and starched white captain's dress but I sat down one night and there was a twenty five dollar cover on my tab. A tab which consisted of five drinks at twenty dollars a piece. And with that I boycotted the place never to return again.

Except for every Sunday in May when Hilary Kole (pictured)came to Bemelmen's. She was perfect, sultry standing by the piano in a tight black dress and Louboutin heels, the bottoms dripping red, engorged with blood pumping through her veins rubbing off on my own. Her singing follows her sex appeal while silent and there are not many who sing traditional standards with such panache.

One empty night with myself being one of three people in the room she asked for requests, walked over to my table, leaned over, her mid waist hair falling and flowing over my shoulder showing me an ear fractions of an inch away from my lips. With such an open proposition I whispered "Pick Yourself Up" of which Diana Krall first introduced me to many years ago. She pulled away and smiled, grazed my right shoulder with her thin, petite hands which sadly housed a wedding ring and uttered she would love to do such a great song.

As a man maybe I am always thinking about sex but there is a tension in this song that makes it so seductive. Maybe it reaches back to a time when women required a man who could be their provider and savior, possibly it is the want and need to have a woman behind you who will let you fail and provide the confidence to Phoenix-ily rise from the ashes to greater horizons.

I can't really figure it out and while the track I list is not Hilary's, Diana is a terribly close second. Uplifting, whether it is from the goove, the lyrics or Hilary's sultry body grazing against combinations of Maple and Hornbeam, Beech and Spruce I may never know. But there are two weeks left and if you are looking for me on a Sunday night just know nothing is going to pick me up from table seven.

Mystery Line

Today I was listening to a song from a favorite album of mine and a line hit me. It hits me every time I hear it and then after a few days the line and the song slips back into the ether of forgottenness while life transpires around me. The entire song of which this line is constructed around is an excercise in craftsmanship, the seams of a shirt compiling an entire garment with this line being the finishing touch on the cuff, the final quarter panel on a Ferrari and the case back to a Patek Philippe.

When this song first hit me I was sitting at a bar in Jacksonville with a very good friend lamenting the loss of a woman and speaking of her. He was sympathetic, kind and caring as he could only be, but then for some reason he unconsciously uttered one of the cruelest things anyone had ever said to me, "What would you do if she walked into this place right now?" My heart dropped and I pictured her shyly stepping through the open door frames, somewhat unsure of herself as she usually was, self conscious and looking around the room with pure blue eyes scanning the room in faded jeans and rinsed out t-shirt.

I didn't know how to answer the question at first, not because I didn't know how but rather I simply couldn't tell him the answer without breaking down in front of him and the other patrons. After a few seconds, while resisting reaching for a sip of the seventh martini of which I was on I uttered "Well I really wish she would and make me happy again." And then I reached for the strength that rested on the bar in that clear V shaped glass.

It's funny that to this day he probably doesn't know how much that hurt, and ironically how he was the man that turned me on to this song that broke my heart for so long and the line that echoed through my mind every night until I had to kill it, to stop it from thinking with booze and stupid acts of masochism and unequivocal whore fucking.

A simple Google search will provide you with the song and the beautiful tear stained tapesty of which this artist created years ago when he was surely in a similar situation. The skeptic prick may say that dredging up such emotions is a not an economical utilization of one's time, however the song, like the emotions itself are ingrained for eternity, whether it be on vinyl, mp4 or in the synapses of the mind. I like to think this line was always there but the unspoken artist was the first one who ever harnessed its power, I would like to know his muse but then again I know who it was written for, the one who never walked through that door.

"I could find her in a thunderstorm just by the way that the rain would fall"

"Seven Stars" Peter Green-In The Skies

A few nights ago I was at Rose Bar in the early evening. It is the best time to head out there before the "crowd" gets there and ruins the vibe, crowds the fireplace and enforces the Manhattan club scene of too hip and far too cool to even be there aura. There's no sleek blond with sunglasses on who tells everyone she is a model but in reality is a waitress from Ohio who failed and now gives herself up late in the night for rent in her LES 300 square foot apartment. At that time there is also few boys who claim to be Managing Directors at Goldman or the washed up drugged up douche bags who keep telling said blond that they are designers working on their new line and "of course beautiful I may be able to get you on the runway, Richie Rich is a close personal friend of mine and last week I was out at Schnabel's place in Montauk." Earlier in the night there is none of that bullshit, which is the way I like it.

For a while I was caught up in that bullshit, waist high with porous waiders trying pretend that it was the place I needed to be, for of course this was the town and there was primo trim hanging around regardless of how high it piled, it was worth it in the end. Somewhere along the line I stopped caring and when that waif Ohio slut started telling me about her next gig I decided to call bullshit on it, walk home and take care of myself without the hassle of dealing with her and her ego which I would be hard pressed to fit into my apartment.

So on that early night I was lubed up and feeling high, sitting at the bar with an an acquaintance flapping about various things. Facing the bar on the right in that back corner was the DJ who was straight off the J and Q line via fixed gear bike, thick black rimmed fake glasses, flannel shirt and black skin tight jeans with headphones the size of stage monitors around his head grooving to whatever the fuck it was he though fit the mood.

When all hope was lost I heard an A minor come through the speakers, it oozed blues corrupted by acid fueled days of schizophrenia and electroconvulsive therapy, shearing vibrato and ten second sustains. I knew the song within an instant even though I couldn't place the name. It reeked of Clapton without the ego and hearkened back to the days of Mike Bloomfield and John Mayall, the Bluesbreakers, and a faithful Les Paul doing the dirty work.

Peter Green was the one of the founders of the epic fuck-each other literally-band Fleetwood Mac. Back when he was at the helm it was significantly more blues inspired, before Stevie's flowing scarves and while great, such indulgent songs as Landslide and Lindsey Buckingham's beautiful fingerpicking.

In truth it made me want to leave Rose Bar and hole up in my place, burn some incense, spark a spliff and eventually take a few tabs while I watched the walls melt around me in a chromatic haze of melody worms burrowing into my brain. To sit there incapacitated, shirtless in baggy jeans while a different, skinner blond with iron pressed hair in a headband reeking of patruli and unshaven armpits dosing on E grabbed and groped as I laid there motionless entranced in the experience.

There's something about this groove that is so perfectly fit for nights such as those, while they are far behind in my past I can recall those days, days in which that hipster spinning off in the corner has no knowledge or experience of, I still can't even fathom how he knew of this song to begin with and I must say the fact that he put it on in such a false atmosphere detracts from the work somewhat, cheapens it and makes me want to take it out of my vinyl collection.

But then again I come home and put it on in the long hours and think of those days, Peter isn't the one who sold it out, the world has sold out around him and because of that our children will never know such debaucherous, hedonistic bliss in its purest form such as I have, rather it will be a constant reaching, imitation of a past time when musicians had the balls to take their own progressions and creations to the level they envisioned in such narcotic inspired hazes.

"Lions" Dire Straits-Live at the BBC

First introduction to Mark Knopfler and Dire Straits was "Walk of Life" on MTV when they actually played videos. I was around nine years old and they showed clips of sports plays and celebrations sliced in with live footage of Mark playing with a headband on and a bunch of day glow neon clothes rocking the stage. My next recollection was the classic "Money For Nothing" which screamed 80's with its computer graphics and Max Headroom like feel. After that I remember listening to "Sultans of Swing" in my friend's basement while skulling Shafers lipping Copenhagen as the lyrics poured out of the vinyl. Years later in the movie "Spy Game" I hear his enchanting guitar when Bishop is walking off of the train in West Germany, the song was "Brothers in Arms".

Presently I play golf with a friend every Monday morning outside of the city in Westchester, on the way home we make a game of throwing the Ipod on shuffle and trying to name the songs that come on before each other. Last week this song came on and within a few notes I screamed "Lions" Dire Straits. Something clicked inside of me and my mind came back to those nights listening to this album in my friend's basement in high school, live at the BBC.

Mark Knopfler is a classic musician that they just don't make anymore these days. He can play anything and has done so. Rock, Country, Soundtracks...it doesn't matter the man can do it. I can't describe how jealous I was when I saw him singing duets with my girl, my future wife, Emmylou Harris as he played his acoustic clawhammer style instead of the standard plectrum that most musicians use.

In the intro to this song he states that "it is another strange kinda song" and I have no idea what the hell he is talking about. I think it, like most songs, has something to do with the predatory nature of men and women waiting to be trounced upon at the bar. What she is thinking and what is going around her in the world as things are taking place around her.

But in this version there is nothing better than listening to him play that first Bm chord followed by the simple D that is hit with a one-two punch of a strum. Sometimes chords are just that powerful. The chord progression in this song: Bm-D-A-G7, followed by Bm-D-A-G7 once again is worthy of the statue of the E-A-B Bo Diddley beat and the power chords of Nirvana that revolutionized modern rock music.

Knopfler's smokey barroom straining voice lulls one into a smooth state of drunkenness sans hangover the next day. He is cruising through the lyrics like a 1970 Eldorado floating along the highways at 80 mph with the top down and sunshine streaking through his hair with his axe sitting shotgun. The man knows how to tell a story in a way that the words aren't even significant as you are brought to a trance like state by his timbre and melody.

He might be one of the most underrated musicians of our day, forget about the countless iterations of Dire Straits and (just as Parliament) the many members who have called themselves a part of the band. Knopfler is a legend and not only this song proves his validity but this entire album "Live at the BBC" where the rawness and sheer sexuality comes springing at you like a pair of breasts coming to life as the bra strap is undone, the life hitting you in the face as you walk out onto wet city streets sleek and ready to head out for the night. It slaps you in the face with its rhythm and intensity just like this songs namesake is sitting in the bush waiting to pounce and capture its prey. Thankfully one should be happy to be the hyena in this metaphor and be willing to give up his meat to the predator of rock and roll.

"Sinaloa Cowboys" Bruce Springsteen-The Ghost of Tom Joad

I've ranted time and time again about Springsteen and I won't explain myself for writing another post about him because there are so many reasons to tune in and inhale this amazing poet, especially this album "The Ghost of Tom Joad".

The reasons for listening to this song is not for the G/C/D tempo, nor is it for the picturesque way he portrays the American Southwest. It isn't for such insight as "For everything the north gives it exacts a price in return." which holds truer than most every quote uttered outside of Churchill and Kipling. I think sometimes it may be worth listening to for such rhythmic words playing off each other as "drove" and eucalyptus grove". Or maybe it is the idea of two men crossing a river in a Moses like quest towards towards some promised land that never really existed. Then again you could comment on the story of two brothers reaching out and risking it all for some ideal of a better life that existed if they could only skirt the consequences of the law. At times I think of Roberto Bolano and his epic work of "2666" and how they all fit into the picture of the despair of the Mexican common man. Maybe sometimes one could draw a parallel to Hemingway and the simplicity and terseness, the frugality and power of 24 simple words that portray so much as "The hydriodic acid Could burn right through your skin They'd leave you spittin' up blood in the desert if you breathed those fumes in." Then sometimes I think of John Steinbeck writing about spending a year in the orchids for pennies handed out by the boss man.

But the ONLY reason for listening to this song is to hear the Boss' voice crack at 1:16 when he croons "Word was out some men in Sinaloa". There is nothing more pure in any song I have ever heard. In my mind he didn't make it crack on purpose but rather it occurred naturally and when cutting the track he decided to leave it in there. And the fact that he decided to do so, or maybe John Landau did is an example of a craftsmanship that rarely exists in songwriting presently.

There's a lot of hurt in the world that we pass by on a daily basis. In Manhattan no matter how chic the restaurant you are dining at the sous chef is a Mexican working for pennies. On the golf course where we all live the life of privilege the men cutting the Bermuda grass and trimming the rough trace their roots to Ciudad Juarez where the donkey shows run 24/7. We are blind to all these faceless men. I am not advocating we prop them up on a pedestal simply because of their lot in life. But I can say that their stories are a beautiful act of contrition, maybe supplication honoring the life that we lead on a daily basis. It is pure, it is holy and it makes us feel alive that there are men still willing to take a risk and endure the hardships starting with the coyotes and ending under the thumb of the big boss man threatening to send them back home across the river to a life of poverty.

"He Loves and She Loves" George and Ida Gershwin performed by The New York Philharmonic

One may say that Paris is the most romantic city in the world. I am inclined to say that wherever you are madly in love with someone, whether it is in Paris, Venice, Barcelona or Lagrange, Texas...then that is the place.

There are many who argue that New York City holds that title, whether it is because life is so terribly hard, difficult and miserable most times that the pretty parts stand out or because of those nights when you head out expecting nothing and hours later find yourself in a situation so unexpected if you were not to experience it you could never believe it true. The nights when it snows, the streets are blanketed in silence and the fires at La Lanterna are billowing. The spring when the terraces are filled as the sun rises and sets through the canyons of re bar and glass. The cab rides home from a wonderful date, the noise the rain makes on the falling leaves that find their final resting place on sidewalks. Doormen saying hello as you stroll down Park Avenue in the morning on the way to work. How every scene captured with your eyes has multiple levels, the beautiful girl walking her dog directly in front of you while cars pass behind her in front of buildings reflecting the noise and the sun, further still into the background a glimpse of a bridge, helicopters and planes flying.

And just as every glance is a scene, every person is cinema. They all have stories and many of them are quite interesting and far from banal. At times walking through the city alone I question what's her story? His story? Even that parked car and its history.

A small snippet into this life is available for one's very own viewing by coming here and most importantly staying away from Times Square, Broadway in SoHo and various other places tourist converge. But if your finances limit you from such endeavors the rental of a black and white movie from 1979 will suffice. A movie that is housed in the Library of Congress and was nominated for two Academy Awards.

"Manhattan" is a story centered around four main people and their lives. In it you will view legendary Manhattan venues starting with the opening dialogue scene at Elaine's after an gasping opening of "Rhapsody in Blue" with scenes of the city flashing under Isaac's narration into a tape recorder. The entire soundtrack is done by Gershwin as the writer was inspired to write it from the love of his music.

There's something about an Allen film where in the end one feels as though the weight of the world is off one's shoulders, it feels as such because throughout the chaotic plots everything comes into focus. When focused one realizes that everything, everything that transpires around and inside of you, good and bad is hauntingly beautiful because it is life and that life of your own is worth living and later on at times watching.

In this film, the terribly short, short version is Isaac, in his 40's and twice divorced, is dating a sublimely adorable seventeen year old, Tracy. His best friend, Yale, is having an affair with Mary of which Isaac initially finds intolerable. However one night Isaac and her meet and begin to see each other. He quits his job, moves into a small, dirty apartment, breaks up with Tracy as he always thought her age was proof of the lack of seriousness in their relationship. Life progresses, Yale is conflicted with his marriage, then confronts Mary, Tracy is going to England to study of which Isaac encouraged her to do. He is now alone and find himself in his apartment speaking into the tape recorder once again this time not about Manhattan but what makes life worth living. In doing such he rambles until he comes to a final thought: "Is Tracy's face." He goes to a draw and picks up a harmonica she gave him for his birthday "He Loves and She Loves" comes trickling in, picks up the phone to call her and then puts it down and grabs his jacket.

He runs out into the street looking for a taxi but cannot find one, begins to run and does through the wonderful busy streets, stops at phone to call, no answer, heads through Grammcery Park, until he stops at a door looking in at Tracy with her things in the hallway, the doorman carries her bags out of the building and we watch her brushing her hair until she looks up and sees Isaac. He tells her not to go, that he loves her and tries to convince her as such. She gives reasons why she can't, makes a joke about her turning 18 and how he hurt her and that it is only six months. Isaac is skeptical and it all plays out until Rhapsody in Blue oozes out of the woodwork and this innocent looking, plain 18 year old girl tells him that it isn't that long, that not everyone gets corrupted and that one needs to have a little faith in people. He smiles and it cuts to the Manhattan skyline as Rhapsody in Blue reaches its maximum volume.

Words cannot do the scene justice. It is dark and intimate while naked and exposed, like the city itself it is one of the most beautiful, well constructed and surprising endings in cinema and I'm sure that same scene is playing out on this island as I write this in my small, beautiful apartment as Gershwin floats out open, spring windows.

"(You're My) Soul and Inspiration" Righteous Brothers-Single

Man, where do I begin with this song and these boys? I guess I could start when my neighbor and I went to see Top Gun in the theaters, I was around nine years old and my neighbor who was an FBI agent told me that if I wanted to be a pilot in the Navy I needed to study as they didn't let morons fly their jets. At the time I said to him in my mind "Dude I am going to play pro hockey, I don't care about that crap". And I would go onto to try to fulfill that dream.

For some reason along the line I thought about joining the Navy and flying. I did that, went to flight school in Pensacola where so many amazing men had treaded. I met a great bunch of boys, hell, some of the best men I have ever met in my life. We would study hard, fly our asses off and drink to get rid of the stress every night at the Florabama right on that line and stumble back to my house on the beach for the early morning brief, which I would stumble through and fake my way through flights I was barely prepared for everyday.

After flight school I received orders to San Diego. I went out there before my peers, went to SERE school only to make it out in time for my best friend's arrival to town. He drove straight from Pensacola to the bar in San Dog where we met and started skulling Sapphire and Tonics. Standing around the bar these two chicks came up and started talking to us, we told them what we did for a living and they asked us to sing "You've Lost That Loving Feeling" to them. For some reason we did and casted aside whatever apprehensions we had to eventually spend a blissful weekend at the Hotel Del Coronado drinking and rolling around in the sand.

The funny thing is in our world everyone wrote off "Top Gun" as the cheesiest of cheez, while outside of the fact that it was in no way true to form, I love that movie. I love when he goes to see Charlie at her small cottage in Mission Beach, the ending of which the picture above takes place at Kansas City BBQ which has now burned down. I remember going there one day, and having to go there with my leather jacket on and aviator glasses, how my life had turned into a fantastic movie and how I reveled in it while the sun was streaking in through cloudy windows.

And it was amazing, flying jets in San Diego, running wild, playing golf weekly, surfing the La Jolla reefs in my spare time between studying and flying.

I think and hope that atmosphere still exists. I hope there are still mechanized cowboys running low levels through the desert, getting wasted at the I Bar with sunglasses on. I hope there are still guys running around like Socks and Toby that are keeping the tradition alive. I hope there are guys shooting the TACAN to 27 in the May Grey to the numbers and following it up at the bar before they serenade some lass at a Gas Lamp bar in the sweet SoCal air. And that when they come home they throw on this song because it is one of the most beautiful and inspiring songs in existence.

Man they were some good days, roaming around in a flight suit, flying and having a grand old time while B+9 and Letteri told salty old sea stories at at the debriefing table. We were kings of the world living our lives in a romantic haze a few hundred feet off of the Pacific. I wish those boys were around me at this time, I wish Doo Doo and I could head downtown and drink till black out until we had to find Cooper wandering through the streets of downtown San Diego. I wish we had Patches to make fun of and watch him drive down into oncoming traffic on the five while we were laughing and pissing ourselves. How Slackey would come out and we'd get a steak at G5 under the portrait of Duke Cunningham and Wille "Irish" Driscol, the last aces from Vietnam.

The Navy has tried to take to romance out of being a carrier aviator, they moved TOPGUN up to Nevada, gave up the base in Miramar and shut down fixed wing aviation out of North Island. Those motherfuckers will never know what they gave away and how amazing it made us feel to be a part of a fraternity of which so many wanted to be a part of, now it is just a bunch of XBox douche bags who fly by the numbers and go home to study NATOPS.

But they were heady days back then and we ran it full out without consequences, for me I did the nightly portion of my life while listening to this song with a gin and tonic in hand, eating mystic rolls at Bistro D'Asia until I staggered home to a home on the beach with the Pacific wafting in through open windows next to a raven Southern California Native. It was everything we ever thought it would be and more and whenever we get on the horn and bullshit, those days always come up as I assume they always will until we are sitting around in diapers with our teeth flapping in the breeze needing the same DLC we utilized on the ball, but our attitudes will never change and we will always be running the ragged edge of control until they sprinkle our ashes over that Point Loma hill under seven Marines taking aim towards the sky.

"Primeval Rhythm of Life" Mandango-Black Rite

This soundtrack is blaring while I am watching the second half of Apocalypse Now Redux. It's heavy, it is the scene when they are at the bridge at the Cambodian boarder and everything is spiraling out of control, the shit is so thick you can walk on it while Lance is painting his face and the Captain is trying to maintain some military bearing.

I found this song earlier in the day watching a surfing video which in some way ties into the Apocalypse Now theme. Just as Conrade before us the path up the river gets stranger and stranger, more surreal while everything gets hairier and hairier. There's flares shot at the boat, one of the men just died, the Chief is freaking out while the tape plays his mother's voice as they cry over a man's dead body.

War is the breakdown of all cultural mores, it is what happens when man becomes an animal and because of that there is no logical conclusion that can be drawn from the actions made inside of its sphere. Many people would say that it is wrong and not the way of our civilized society but in the past four thousand years of written history there have only been around two hundred and forty years of total peace. Man is made to destroy each other. Those that disagree are only living in a false reality. Do we like it? Of course not, I would rather be holding hands with my brother, running around naked with beautiful blonds listening to Jazz. But this is the world we have to live in and it is the world in which we make our stake.

This song tracks its history to the ancestral roots of African natives and the beat that emerged on the plains thousands of years ago. And make no mistake about it, regardless of what your school books tell you, it was violent. It was despicable and it was every man for himself. Today we look at death as if it was something in the ether that would never transpire, years ago it was a fact of life. The fact that death has been subjugated for worse in our society and the fact that we place it out of our minds leads to more death, more insensitivity which leads to the constant killing of men before their time. Men who wanted nothing more than to live their lives, get laid and have a drink before bed; after which they would rise to work their jobs at the factory.

It's a heavy thought, but then again life is quite heavy. Whether it is Colonel Kurtz at the end of our journey or some other political diatribe all should know that the end will come. At the very least let's hope the soundtrack is as funky as the track in this title.

Off to Sea Once More-Traditional

Out in the blue water there are some monsters in the deep. They'll take you down into their realm, for a human meaning death. They'll test your endurance, your ability to cope with the cold and sea-sickening rocking in which even the old salts will put down their glass of rum and start staring at the horizon.

I've had a lot of experience in this realm, mostly when I was younger, chasing the leviathan through the waters a hundred miles offshore where the canyons begin and the gulf stream meanders its way up into the northeast pushing warmer water towards the shore for the Benny's enjoyment. While not chasing the mammalian leviathan and rather the fish version of the water borne species, particularly Marline, Tuna, Swordfish and Shark the intensity of the pursuit is no different.

I've spent many months at sea both on civilian and military vessels, many months with the time wasting away watching the different permutations of the water, the sun's refractions, the harsh reality that exists in a world where if you are not on that vessel, that home and personal piece of small land, you are dead. In all my years as a surfer I never experienced something as heavy as being at sea in a small boat during a gale. At the very least while surfing there is the sanctuary of land if you can only hold on just a bit longer; in the deep you can't hold on long enough to survive.

And when I hear this song I think of these things. Of men from a time when there was no Gore-Tex, no neoprene or modern technological advances to shield one from the elements. There was only waxed cotton, tweed and wool. Just as George Mallory summited Everest in what we would call traditional shooting tweeds and buy at Orvis or Holland and Holland the men who roamed the seas searching for oil had little creature comforts.

"Off to Sea Once More" is a darker side, though the side we know is dark enough, of being a mariner, a whaler, back when that was the only way to procure the greasy substance worth more than gold. The "Gloucester Sleigh Ride" was fully known and experienced by most, the waking in the morning sans money and clothes, taken by the woman you had laid down with the night before, the hatred that entity which has taken the life of so many of you comrades.

In the end we derive all from the sea, we came from it in the primordial soup, and eventually we return, whether that be from it taking our lives or the disintegration of our corpses and seepage into the water table and eventually flowing into the seas. Whatever the reason we will end up in that realm with the giants who we've challenged in our living lives and in listening to this shanty one feels the terrible dread that existed and made this land what it is today while in its infancy. Gloucester was the Houston or Saudi Arabia of its day, the biggest oil boom town reaching its arms out and granting asylum in its new breasts under cover of safety. Those that chose only found heartache and death, those who did not never knew of the adventure that could possibly lay in front of them. For us those days are over never to be returned, at least we can grab a taste of the dread in this song.

"Lazybones" Jerry Garcia Band-Live Bootleg

I think one of the coolest things I have ever heard was when Hoagy Carmichael called up Keith Richards and told him that the way he sings "The Nearness of You" was the exact way he pictured it being sung when he wrote the song. Here it was two men from totally different time periods, totally different genres and two totally different personalities coming together in an understanding about the way music was meant to be made. If you don't much about the man then just take a look at Hoagy Carmichael's page. He was not only the writer of such epic songs as "Stardust" (which is the most covered song in history) but also "Heart and Soul" and "Georgia on My Mind". In addition, his likeness was what Ian Flemming used to describe his young secret agent, James Bond.

Tonight though the reason why I started with "The Nearness of You" was I was jonesing for some Keith and also in a pretty sad mood. Sentimental, feeling sorry for myself after an emotional day just wondering what the hell was going on in my current state; a state of waking up at eleven and doing a lot while still doing nothing all day. With that and maybe a product of it in and of itself, trying to snag someone who....

Well I'll just tell you the story. I was at a restaurant a few months back and couldn't take my eyes of this woman. Truly couldn't even act normal around her because of the vibe that she was giving me, I stared with longing and fear of what she was bringing out of me. She was with a man and I just left with the gentleman I was dining with and tried to put it out of my mind. When I returned to the restaurant I found that she had left her number for me. I called her and we planned to get together. On that day we were to meet, someone from my past who had found out about the situation the day prior as well as her number called her and scared her off with me knowing no idea of what she said to her about our past relationship and how she twisted it to meet her needs and spite. I tried to patch the situation to no avail. But I called again months later and she never called back. More months transpired and with the reliability of cell phones mine broke and her number was lost in the process.

Then a week ago I thought of her again, requested some old phone bills and set to the task of finding her number to call her again, frantically looking up area codes and calling similar ones to try to track her down and hoping she'd take a chance. Tonight I finally did and she actually answered, she had no idea who it was and her end was loud, horns and traffic in the background, we couldn't hear each other and she said she'd call back. She never did. Of course she determined after the fact that it was me and acted as she saw fit. So with that I headed to the gym and blocked her (again) from my mind. A few martinis after the fact I couldn't ask my brain to be up to said task, couldn't tell the man I was drinking with and simply came home and threw on Keith crooning "Nearness".

While listening to it I thought about Hoagy and the story I heard which I began this post with, and then I remembered "Lazybones". I remembered it because I had a show of the Jerry Garcia Band which was the most perfect version, the most perfect song in so many ways I have ever heard. And I looked back at the last time I had that show in my possession and utilized it accordingly.

My first junior year of college, living in an apartment after the hockey season was over and my days consisted of drinking, drinking, working out and more drinking. Boston may have some of the most terrible weather on the planet but in the spring there are a few weeks before it becomes too humid to walk where it is perfect. I skated, hit the weights on campus and walked out in Rainbow sandals, t-shirt and loose jeans feeling exhausted, strolled back to my apartment and grabbed an ice cold beer out of the cooler that I always had in my room which is far superior to any fridge, there's something about pulling a glass bottle out of 32.1 degree water. With the windows open, the sparrows chirping, I pressed play on my Aiwa and the slow meter of this song came spilling out through the speakers strategically placed around the apartment.

I fell into that pre-sleep haze that can only be experienced laying on the couch with the spring air perambulating and wafting through four walls, the streaks of the sun warming my bare legs while the bottle cooled my hand that was not down my pants. The pre-sleep environment, the selective hearing of highs, the full octave difference in Jerry's Guitar hitting me as he played to the twenty fourth fret and further on...his liquid chromatic scale solos dribbling in and out of the light and finding their way into my ears.

I never did find that bootleg show, and like the woman I called tonight maybe it is better to not ruin the moment and think about what could be if you had it/her in your possession. Nonetheless I still wish I had that show and those notes pouring out of my speakers while I laid on the couch with her on my chest in the beautiful spring sunshine.

"East Virginia Blues" Black Crowes-Live at the Fillmore San Francisco

Along the North Carolina boarder there are some of the most beautiful roads and country you could ever wish for. There are people who are friendly and hospitable, people who are in no way like their "Deliverance" counterparts are portrayed on the screen; the person who wrote that book was a massive racist and hater of all things southern. When you awake in the Great Smokey Mountains there's a slight haze surrounding the bottom quarter of those beautiful hills that waft through the valleys, the pines and flowing rivers that meander their way out towards the great Atlantic.

From this land comes a musical tradition that dates back before The Carter Family, towards bluegrass roots where the only entrainment was each other, a guitar and a banjo. "East Virginia Blues" has encompassed my mind since my friend sent it to me a week ago. It boggles and enlightens in the most visceral way. Written by said Carter Family it encompasses such beautiful songs that are credited to "Traditional" such as "Rosa Lee McFall", "Dark Hollow" and "Going Down the Road Feeling Bad" all driven into the lexicon by the Dead, Dylan and the great traditional songwriters and performers that have made musical history.

I've seen The Black Crowes multiple times, seen them together, with Jimmy Page and all the other iterations they have been over the years. They never disappoint, they are the quintessential Rock and Roll band that were born of this great land and sing out into the ether of the muddy river that is American music.

So as I sit here listening to this song over and over I am reminded of this great land, the people that make it as such and more so after a visit to my friend who sent me this tune in Nashville how I strapped into the old Porsche and made my way towards the Tail of the Dragon in those beautiful mountains, where for eleven miles there are 316 turns on the precipice of disaster, in the rain and ice I drove through the blackness not knowing where the next turn would lead me; dreaming of some dark haired maiden living in the shack I just blew by waiting for her escape from the hills and towards greener pastures. How she and I would build our lives on the solidity that was formed by time engaged in such a land that carved those hills and how perfect it would all turn out in the end. Just as the clarity of those Martin extra light strings resonated through the cherry wood of the Taylor that was being played in the background as I thought of such things, I saw her as an apparition before me.

In the end I would traverse through that land without finding her and continue through the darkness alone with only a slide solo for companionship and a whining Chris Robinson voice to keep me company. Maybe it is better that way, maybe in the end it is better to never have one's dreams realized and to keep searching for that carrot dangled before one's eyes. It keeps you hard, it keeps you on your toes. But for now sitting here with some old time-home grown whiskey delivered by a southern friend in my veins and a solid dip of Copenhagen in my lip while watching Gerry Lopez mastering Pipe, well, it is about all you can ask for outside of that maiden laying her head in my lap while I take it all in during the late hours of the night while the city pulses through its own veins around me.

"Amarillo By Morning" George Strait

I just returned home from a night at the gym followed by four martinis at a local place where one of my favorite bartenders was actually sitting at the bar and not working behind it. The moral conflict between hitting on a bartender was lingering in the air and the question remains was she really a bartender tonight or just another woman sitting at the bar having a drink? I don't know.

Before she sat down I was emailing one of my best friends and talking about another trip. A year ago we did a trip from the west to the east through some of the most beautiful, open and free places in this not so free anymore country.

I came home after the bar and put this song on, loud enough that my French neighbor probably heard it, busted out the acoustic and played it a dozen times over. It is a fun song to play with an interesting chord progression and a fantastic bridge, a key change that brings it all home.

But the technical details of this simple song are not what matters at this time in the night. What matters is the run we made from Santa Fe through Amarillo all the way to Nashville in an Audi that was a few years old with myself at the helm penetrating the darkness as we made our way through the breadbasket of America.

Before we left for that stretch we had drinks at Evangelo's on San Francisco street in Santa Fe, a bar with a very long and famous history...one of those places that you only find on the road. We traversed from there to the Cadillac Ranch simply because there was a Springsteen song written about the place; waded our way through the Texas clay out towards those ten cars all of which are positioned at an angle corresponding to the Great Pyramids of Giza in the hurling northern winds whipping across the barren landscape. Had a steak at the Big Texan where we watched a man try to eat a 72 ounce steak, dinner roll and a salad in one short hour.

Out there on the road it is pure. It is everything one could ever dream it could be with a good friend and a road that goes on forever. Even so those 895 miles of Texas passed through the windshield far too soon and we were out of the promised land into Arkansas and eventually Tennessee where we had George Jones on the radio preaching about the horrors of a lost love.

Nothing compared to the time when I shot the video above. Running across the panhandle with a snooze of Copenhagen in towards some distant goal that only existed in our fantasies. There is no end point and there is no goal. Like Homer before us it is the journey that is the point and not the destination. You don't have to get existential or metaphysical about it, you just have to do it and get your ass out there and see what the road has for you in store. A man that is free...there's nothing more noble and I promise you the ride it won't disappoint.

"It's Not My Cross to Bear" Allman Brother's Band-Peaking at the Beacon

I was barely 18 and a few of the boys and I drove down to my Uncle's place in Myrtle Beach to play some golf and just get loose. We knew it would be difficult to score booze so we bought fifty cases of beer and loaded them in the back of a Ford Ranger pickup. Two boys were in that ride and the other two rode down in another friend's Jetta that would eventually be crashed at 65 miles per hour around a telephone pole on a road in Jersey. Miraculously the friend driving it at that time walked away from the accident drunk, waited it out at a diner and then headed back to the scene of the crime with no injuries and no ramifications from the law.

It was an excellent trip, one for the records, especially when we left South Carolina at midnight and drove down to Key West for another week without planning. I sang Karaoke at Rick's and we left with three older women who took us around town including "Teaser's" Strip club and eventually ended at "Barefoot Bob's" which was a Deadhead bar that was eventually closed down because of the drug trade they were operating out of the back room. We drove home from Key West straight back to NJ and dizzy with hangovers, lulled into the malaise of the night I remember locking up the brakes to a dead stop on 95 because I thought the reflectors in the middle of the road were headlights. The whole trip: an experience? You bet your ass.

One night I remember we were on The Strand in Myrtle Beach and wandered into a bar that accepted our fake IDs. We were slamming beers when this big hulk of a man came by and asked for a dip from a tin of Copenhagen that was on our table. He asked for a pinch and said he'd buy us a round. We gave it to him and then bought him a round. Back and forth we traded rounds until he and his group of equally massive men asked us to roll with them to another place where there was some "trim". These guys were all over six four and three hundred pounds, they were the O line from NC's football team and were in a mood to rage. We followed and rolled into this bar running the show with no consequences. No one was a problem with these boys and we certainly took advantage of the back we had.

Of course we went home alone and drunk to our cases of beer we had stashed in the fridge. As a group we had done Allman shows throughout high school. I'll never forget seeing my 15 year old sister shitfaced wandering though the crowd when I never knew she was even attending. I'll never forget walking out of the bathroom in jean, cowboy boots and a skin tight black t-shirt and this biker chick grabbing me to stick her tongue down my throat and telling me how hot I was....at seventeen this was a big deal.

But the music was the real reason we were there and while the Allman's setlists became banal over the years and one could usually expect what was going to be played there was this one time when they ripped out this gem and brought then entire house down.

Greg was sitting there at his Hammond B-3 organ with the three Solo cups atop, from what I was told by a roadie he would not step out on stage without them. Two cups were straight Vodka and the other was ice water. With his long hair flowing in the hot New Jersey night he laid down this track while we stood there on the lawn aghast at the phrasing and sincerity of a song about a bad woman and the ramifications of her and his departure.

Flash back to South Carolina and the post NC linemen at the bar activities. We slid out of a DUI on the drive back home and of course for some reason had our Awia machine installed at the residence, put that thing on Karaoke setting and my boy Bobby belted out this song. He drew out that first "Sat down and wrote you a long letter..." screaming it from the top of his lungs. We were dying of laughter and that sense that comes around so few times of the world being at one's fingertips. The cops were called and we talked our way out of it, we slammed more Shafers that were dripping with ice cold water from the cooler and sat out on the balcony with the muggy lowland humidity steaming up the windows dipping Copenhagen and bullshitting about what we were gonna do and how the world was going to bow at our fingertips.

I never knew what Gregg was singing about until I sat down and wrote her a long letter, and the one after that. I never knew that there were crosses to be borne and what the hell he was singing about when we screamed it that night before the cops came. But with time the blues speaks to you in ways that you never though possible.

In the end it was a trip of a lifetime and eventually we would all fall apart. The Allmans would as well, Dickey would leave as well as Warren Haynes. The way of the world it may be but it was a lot better before we were nailed to that cross and stepped through that door in the floor that is experience.

"Downbound Train" Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band-Born in the USA

Well from the previous post in case you were wondering what I was referring to here is the answer and at the end the video. I listen, think and write (well attempt) music on a constant basis and in doing so I think gives gravitas to me saying this is one of the best songs ever written in this genre.

Born in the USA was released right after his Nebraska album which was a toned down, four track collection of songs that he never really intended to release. I challenge you to listen to this album and not become choked up while doing so. Personally there are two songs on the album that I only listen to alone because I will start crying. The album created a stir among Springsteen fans, it polarized those who grouped him in with that Mellencamp heartland music (Mellencamp is and always will be a joke, perhaps I could deal with his music sans that personality. Go ahead and listen to an interview with him, his self love is the most inflated I have ever experienced) and those who thought that he was much more than just a rocker. Not a lot of people who say they are Springsteen fans can even stand this album, for me it is what I use to change someone's mind about Springsteen being some red-neck hero.

For the true believers after Nebraska there were rumours about an "electric" Nebraska constantly, to this day people are asking for it when in reality it already exists with the title "Born in the USA" probably the most misunderstood record of all time and certainly the most of Springsteen's. It is true that Bruce and his management propagated this in a way with massive concerts being played behind American flags, the music videos that were produced along with the album and all of the hype. However the story of Nebraska still carries on in this album even in songs such as "Dancing in the Dark" which if you never heard before and just read the lyrics would change your entire opinion, how about this line for understated misery: "You sit around getting older, there's a joke here somewhere and its on me" Take away the beat, the 80's synthesizers and it is a totally different line. "Born in the USA", "My Hometown", "I'm on Fire" ("...sometimes it's like someone took a knife baby edgy and dull and cut a six in valley through the middle of my skull"), "No Surrender" and "Bobby Jean"; sing those songs on an acoustic and it is right there on Nebraska with all its heartbreak.

And this song belongs on this list as well, it belongs on the top of the list and at the top of any list of any songs of greatness.

It starts off simply like all great pieces of literature, poetry and music, real simple almost as if it was not written by someone of his skill. But to me when the line: "Now I work down at the car wash where all it ever does is rain." comes in I am smacked in the face by the fact that I and very few people could ever write such a meaningful and succinct line that translates so much so simply.

This continues for the remainder of the song, "Joe I have to go, we had it once we ain't got it any more." It doesn't matter how much you explain the shatters of a relationship it always comes down to this fact, nothing more needs to be said. But even more than the words are the tempo in which he sings them and in all honesty I can't put my finger exactly on what makes it so appealing. However it is difficult to actually sing this song as there are too many syllables in certain parts which ensures that one will need to strain words together as if there were all one to begin with.

The bridge might be the most heartbreaking ever written, it is also the most universal. How many nights have you woke up in a sweat after a dream of an ex you were still in love with right after it was all over? If you haven't you never were in love, don't kid yourself. The halting of most of the music in the bridge invokes a dream like state, one of which you along with the narrator's heart is stopping. Could this be the break in the story when the reconcile? Is she going to be there?

"Last night I heard your voice
You were crying, crying, you were so alone
You said your love had never died
You were waiting for me at home
Put on my jacket, I ran through the woods
I ran till I thought my chest would explode
There in the clearing, beyond the highway
In the moonlight, our wedding house shone
I rushed through the yard, I burst through the front door
My head pounding hard, up the stairs I climbed
The room was dark, our bed was empty
Then I heard that long whistle whine
And I dropped to my knees, hung my head and cried"

She won't be, there's just that same whistle which is that same device used earlier, the whistle of loneliness.

Throughout the song there is the building up of steam to some resolution, to an end and in the final verse it comes to judgement. Just as the train is barrelling down the track the song is heading almost out of control, he awakes from the dream in the refrain and things have gotten progressively worse. No more car wash, no more dreams of her, only the nightmare of working a chain gang all hours of the day.

"Now I swing a sledge Hammer onaHARAILroaDGAng

Knockingdown themcrossties working in the rain
Now don't it feel like you're a riiiider on a doOOHOUNDWNbound train"

He could have killed her, he could have knocked off a liquor store (as in "Johnny 99"), he could have done anything but the fact remains that there is no happy ending nor even an ending at all here. This man's life is still barrelling forward while staying in the same place and it will be, by his current actions he is both literally and figuratively building the track for his downbound train to continue onward.

I have been listening to this version for almost a week now and have been while writing this (as an aside the best format to read these posts are while that particular song is playing, that is what I intend for the reader to do with all of them) and I can barely contain myself. My head is swimming around with so much emotion and visuals I don't even know if what I am writing is making sense. If in watching this video you are doing so as well then my idea is coming through, and if not give it some time.

"If I Should Fall Behind" Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band-Live in New York City

It should come as no surprise to readers of this blog what I think about this band and its leader. I can say that almost every time I sit down to bang out a post I have the urge to make it about Springsteen. To date I think I have only done one out of eighty something so I haven't beaten it to death.

I was raised Catholic but as the years progressed I never felt that relationship or connection, at times I worked at it, perhaps not hard enough, but still it never came about. That blissful revelation and connection people describe receiving through religion comes to me with his music. I learn, see life and have grown for the past fifteen years under his preachings.

Right now it is the early evening. I am sitting on my bed on the 20th floor of a hotel overlooking the Las Vegas skyline. I sit here waiting for a friend who, like most good friends, I met by pure luck and accident. That was four years ago and we have never lived remotely close to each other. However we get together a few times a year, as much as we can with our hectic, erratic schedules and it is always an awakening experience.

While doing cardio this song came on at random. Years ago while living on Perdido Key this was the song that came on after my six mile job, on the playlist it was just timed perfectly to come on at 51 minutes which was constantly my pace. I'd cool down with a walk along the azure waters of the Gulf and feel the sand between my toes before I went back to the house to study all night with the breezes wafting through the open windows until I passed out with a NATOPS on my chest.

The two connections above as well as others not mentioned, lovers, family and myriad of meanings that could be drawn on the existential level from this song carries gravitas and makes the song (which is usually just sung by Springsteen himself only) another little known classic by this legend. And forgive me for making this post a little more didactic.

The beauty of this version is that all members of the band sing a verse, in doing so we see five different singing styles, all unique and sublime. And when I listen to music I listen for the very small things: a chord here and there, a trail off of the voice, a hint of pain in the tone...many aspects which usually go unnoticed. In this selection it is easy to hear these things near the end when each member sings the same line:

"I'll wait for you, and should I fall behind, wait for me"

The Boss starts his in a very a matter of fact manner "Should we loose each other in the shadow of the evening's trees..". as if it is a foregone conclusion that it will happen.

Clarence sings as if he still has a sax in his mouth, you can hear the air moving in and out of his mouth in a deep, blowing gust of baritone.

Patti comes in at a high soprano which is her trademark singing style but then as she trails off a tiny bit of fragility and sexuality arises in the last "wait" like a sex kitten purring snuggled up in the sheets.

Stevie's voice is two six shooters drawn in rock and roll defiance, throwing in baby and drawing out the long "A" the first time, you can picture the blood dripping from his nails as he grapples and tears at her as she slides out of his grasp.

Nils's voice sounds like a mix between Tracy Chapman and Natalie Merchant with testosterone thrown in for measure, it is one of the strongest, subtle voices I have ever heard. I just get gitty when he starts with "Darling".

Finally they all come together and end with the same verse, and in doing so it is evident how they change and leave off a bit of their own styles when the quintet is joined. Listen to it time and time again and see how different aspects come to light.

I know not many people know of this song and even if they do I challenge them to listen to this version and concentrate on each note and breath, then apply that to every song you hear from this point on. In this song it is easy to point out the differences, others are significantly more difficult. Jazz and Classical is the final frontier in this matter and the scales are so much more complex that to the untrained ear it all blends together. It is out there though and I guarantee your musical life will be enhanced when it becomes natural.

"Djobi Djoba" Gipsy Kings-Gipsy Kings Live

The man in this picture is named Carlos O'Connor. With a last name like that I am pretty sure Carlos is not his first name but rather one that was given or taken later on in his life. He owns a Mexican restaurant in Red Bank and the place is cluttered with souvenirs from his travels. It is a small establishment and when I make the statement that one can barely move it is not hyperbole. It is cramped with surfboards, paintings, Christmas lights, old doors and windows and probably just about any other type of junk he picked up in his travels through Mexico, Central and South America.

I spent a great deal of time in this place as a teenager and the first few years of my 20's, funny thing is I hate Mexican food. Nonetheless, in high school myself, Bobby, Clancy, and MJ used to take the twenty minute trek southbound for very long dinners after a stressful day of high school, (trying to keep a straight face typing that line). The main reason why we went was not for the great atmosphere (which was second) but rather it was BYOB and Carlos being the laid back man that he was would let us drink away our sixteen year old troubles whenever we felt the need.

And that need arose quite frequently. We'd stop at the liquor store that served us on the way and grab two cases: One of Corona and the second, New Castle. Walking through the door we were always greeted by the six foot four frame, encased in black with a black hat of Carlos, always with a smile and a few kind words asking us how the sports teams were doing and more importantly how were those teenage girls treating us. He would have two large tin buckets of ice brought out in which to stuff our beers and we'd sit down usually at the same table with the post card of Springsteen tacked to the wall (this was mere miles away from his home) next to a pinata glowing with the red, green and orange lights that permeated the air.

We'd bullshit and be politely loud, never causing trouble while the other patrons looked on with delight rather than disdain. We'd laugh at each other and rarely at anyone else. It was pure and wholesome regardless of what the drinking laws stated. It was beautiful in the summer when we would pile in through the hot kitchen in the back with sand on our bare feet and salt in our hair, the boards on the roof of Bobby's CRX still dripping from the surf. We'd bring chicks and laugh harder while eying their tan legs void of any veins or cellulite and wonder what lied beneath their short jean shorts and tight t shirts. All the while The Gipsy Kings serenaded us in the background under the watchful eye of Carlos who, when engaged with a glance would smile and then look back down at the table he was sitting at and reach for a nacho (Carlos never drank).

I remember our waitress was usually this jet black haired exotic woman who resembled Al Pacino's character's wife in "Heat". Yea that one that is not particularly beautiful but possessed something that made her so terribly sexy. It was usually her who brought us our check for $45 dollars no matter how long we stayed to which we usually tipped 300% for her troubles and taking up the table for so long. It got to a point where we didn't even pay for food anymore and they stopped bringing us checks but rather knew we'd lay enough cash on the table to cover the night.

A few months ago I went back to Carlo's. It didn't have the same feel and was disappointing. It took a while for to register what the problem was until I discovered it was twofold. Bobby I hadn't seen in years even though he lives five miles away, MJ has a wife and kid, while Clancy was just gone. They all had their fall outs with each other and when I left (as I was the only one who was friends with all of them still) it just fell apart. After contemplating the trials of growing up and the separation I also realized that there was no salt and sand in my hair because I was balding and while the woman I was with was only three years older than the ones we brought in high school I knew what was under her short skirt and under all the short skirts in the world. It wasn't a score to know just as it wasn't a score to walk into the liquor store and get served. I had an Amex now, two cars, a career, fought in two wars, countless lovers, an ex-wife, a niece, a brother in law, a close call with addiction and over fifty countries that I've set foot in. I am not sure that corrupted the evening as much as not seeing a group of four sixteen year olds there laughing and drinking with the promise of the world ahead of them. I am not sure if it was corrupted because I desperately wished the boys were here with me, or that girl I saw in high school who is now eight months pregnant and slept on my lap the whole drive home one summer afternoon before I left for college. I guess it was all of it and because of that every time the Gipsy Kings come on I am torn between a smile and a tear. Maybe I should give them all a call.