"Louis Collins" Jerry Garcia-Grateful Dead Hour Show #362

I've been on the run a lot lately and then when I finally came home just felt even more unsettled and wanting to ramble. Mentally I haven't been there, in one sense the creeping depression and misanthropy started creeping in while on the other side on the coin I discovered a treasure trove of Springsteen's finest years live (late 70's) that had me dreaming about Emerson-Thoreauian spouts of self reliance and self preservation through music. Since most everything comes back to Springsteen I couldn't stand to hear myself spout posts of saying the same thing over and over again. I mean this is supposed to be about music are likely to have not heard and I felt as though my message was getting somewhat redundant.

At the same time when I started this blog it was about the music and then something I never expected to happen emerged. I don't know why it wouldn't have but it became mostly about me, about women and I used the songs as a springboard to rant about whatever was in my head at that particular time. I think this last part is a good one and one that I not only like to write about but something insightful. Everyone hears a song in a different way and possibly my personal experiences bring to light a different side one has never thought of in regards to music.

For some reason right now I feel at peace with whatever mental muck I was sloshing though for the past month or two and finally clear enough to write about something with a clarity people would want to hear.

Jerry died only a year or so after I had gotten into his music. The Grateful Dead hour that week was an amazing example of a man's work constrained into a one hour program. A tough task indeed for a man who defied being stuck into a genre and had a working catalogue of over five hundred songs played not only on guitar but banjo, pedal steel and while never played himself, trumpet-jazz tunes played though midi machines.

Episode 362 began with this song. You can hear versions of it on "The Pizza Tapes" and "Shady Grove" but this particular version, an outtake from a Grisman Acoustic Disc Sampler shines in ways the others could never touch. Jerry plays a fingerpicked progression used by Elizabeth Cotten (famous for "Oh Babe it Ain't No Lie" and "Freight Train") of terrible simplicity and stark beauty. Such a simple song about a man being laid down under the clay. It encompasses a view of death that must have been the norm over one hundred years ago before advances in modern science staved off the reaper as they now do until we are wearing diapers, hooked up to machines under the ultraviolet, clinical light of the death factories we call hospitals.

Recently I was in one for a little while and while my affliction was not life threatening it dug in deep and possibly produced the malaise I've been feeling for the past month or so. I wasn't faced with my own mortality but rather faced with how I want my own life to end. It certainly was not like the person in the bed next to me in a building on 69th and York. Not to belittle that man's demise for possibly that was the correct choice for him personally but I can only pray that it is not the way in which I depart. I say this knowing full well that man had no intention of departing in that fashion when he was thirty three years old.

Maybe that is what Jerry was feeling, for no one really knows how he died, not that it is that important. Rather, the way he lived is the heart of the matter and Goddamn if I could just leave one piece of music this concise and beautiful, this honest and truthful with a somewhat shaky voice uttered over a simple chord progression finger picked on a utensil crafted by hand of wood and steel...well then that would be saying something.

It is a marvelous song and tonight after I arrived home, after the gym, after a few drinks and dealing with shitheads at the bar engaged with each other in miscellaneous ramblings it came to me. It had been years, possibly a decade since I had last played it both through speakers and myself taking my own utensil into my lap and trying to keep up with the old grey bearded man. She came back to me as when you go through your old drawers in your parent's home and find a note, a t shirt you once wore until the threads had worn beyond serviceability. When you take that shirt up to your skin it all comes flooding back and a blanket of good vibes comes over you with a striking clarity.

This song does all that and more. It floods the senses like walking into a neon electric steam room flooded with the scent of fresh cut grass and a shower of lemon ice water in the corner ready with a pull of the precisely cut stainless ring that is hot to the touch and it is something to immerse one's self in until drowned to death only if your mind hadn't short circuited and gave out well before the waters actually rose.

Springsteen Devils and Dust Tour

Right now I'm just about over Winslow Arizona wishing I was driving through that country instead of flying above it at 36K'. Believe it or not Arizona (home state of Rick Kane!) was the first place I ever saw Springsteen live in concert, maybe that is the reason I don't hold a NJ driver's license anymore, they simply won't let me have one because of it!

This show was one of the most personal and connected concert experiences I ever had, two thousand people in an arena, concessions and you were not allowed to leave. Seriously, once could not leave their seats, if you did that was the end of the show for you. I often wonder if maybe the reason why the concert touched me in the way it did was because of the drive from southern California and back...through the desert, seeing many of the songs he would sing about those few hours trapped in a room with the man. I guess there's other reasons and they all made it up for a special show.

April 30 / Glendale, AZ / Glendale Arena
Notes: Though "All I'm Thinkin' About" is one of the catchiest songs on Devils & Dust, it's one of the last to be played live. That song had its concert premiere at Saturday night's Phoenix show, also the first show of the tour in one of these half-arena configurations. Compared to theaters, the setup was a mixed bag in terms of acoustics and atmosphere, but by several accounts it didn't hamper audience attentiveness or the effectiveness of the show (having the concessions shut down during the performance couldn't have hurt). The crowd was rewarded with the ultra-rare "Book of Dreams" (a song only played live a handful of times, and not since the 1992 Plugged performance), on piano for the first time. Bruce described it as "a song about wedding days," before chuckling, "I say 'days' plural, unfortunately...." Also on the piano, "Racing in the Street" brought the biggest audience response of the night; as on 4/22, Springsteen introduced it by talking about the 1971 film Two-Lane Blacktop. "Highway Patrolman" came back to the set, and in the encores, the first E Street guest of the tour: part-time Arizona resident Nils Lofgren on dobro for "This Hard Land."

Setlist:
Reason to Believe
Devils and Dust
Youngstown
Lonesome Day
Long Time Comin'
Silver Palomino
For You*
Book of Dreams*
Part Man, Part Monkey
Maria's Bed
Highway Patrolman
Reno
All I'm Thinkin' About
Racing in the Street*
The Rising
Further On (Up the Road)
Jesus Was an Only Son*
Leah
The Hitter
Matamoros Banks

Encore:
This Hard Land (with Nils Lofgren)
Waitin' on a Sunny Day
My Best Was Never Good Enough
The Promised Land

Eric Clapton/Wynton Marsalis Live in Seattle

My brother is a much better guitar player than I am, as a matter of fact I shouldn't even consider myself one in comparison. My brother likes cuff links and I never even button any cuffs. He likes ties, I barely button my shirt with a suit. He likes Audi and I wouldn't take one for a dollar. He was always skinny while I constantly fight the fat war. He is Army, I am Navy. While I do like Clapton he is my brother's cuff link to my Springsteen unbuttoned. So from a slightly different perspective, a review of the show written by my brother:

It shouldn't be any wonder why Eric Clapton is the only person inducted into the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame three times (once with the Yardbirds, once with Cream and once as a solo artist), and he will probably remain the only person to hold the honor. The man's mastery of the blues pentatonic scale and versatility in applying it to every possible genre of music has sustained him since 1963 with his beginnings in the English pop/blues scene. Influenced by Robert Johnson, Sonny Thompson, BB King, Big Bill Broonzy et al, he conquered psychedelic sounds with "White Room" and "Sunshine of Your Love," rock and roll with his 80s tracks "Pretending," "Bad Love," "Forever Man," and "I Can't Stand It," country rhythms in "Lay Down Sally" and "Willie and the Hand Jive," slow soul with "Old Love," pop with "Change the World" and "Pilgrim," soft ballads "Tears in Heaven," "Wonderful Tonight," "Blue Eyes Blue," and the entire soundtrack to the film The Story of Us, reggae with the only version of Bob Marley's "I Shot the Sheriff" that should ever be played, Latin style paired with Santana on "The Calling," and even dabbled in techno electronica as T.D.F. for an album called "Retail Therapy." Now he turned his eyes to a more jazzy form of blues.

In April 2011, he performed three nights with Wynton Marsalis for the trumpeter's Jazz from Lincoln Center series in New York City. The show was broadcast to movie theaters across the nation for a one night only viewing on 7 September; I was one of eight people in the theater(It is Seattle...go figure). The band may have been Wynton's, but the setlist and show was stolen by Eric. Backed by an orchestra of eight (percussion, banjo, trombone, clarinet, piano, keyboards, stand-up bass, trumpet) they focused heavily on early New Orleans style blues and jazz, the more upbeat songs reminiscent of Woody Allen's "Wild Man Blues." In fact the first tack "Ice Cream" could have easily been played over one of Woody's movies, with Diane Keaton mis-pronouncing Van Gogh in black and white strolling the streets of Manhattan.

Giving everyone in the band a solo on many of the songs, you get an appreciative view of how Eric has lasted this long: all the genres he's delved into are very similar. Wynton's trumpet solos complement Eric's guitar solos and, if the notes were switched between instruments, the sound would have been similar in pitch, tone, and phrasing, with each performer putting their own spin on the classic tunes.

Playing a jazz-style plug-in Gibson, Clapton's sound was a little more muted than the usual loud and crisp Stratocaster, but, he's as fast and smooth as ever. He tears it up especially well on the second and seventh tracks "Forty Four" and "Layla."

This version of his most famous song (recorded as Derek and the Dominos with Duane Allman), is slowed dramatically more than the unplugged version that brought EC back into the forefront of music in the 90s, and gives the guitarist a new twist on the famous riff to master. The famous Clapton growl is still there from his decades of drinking and smoking, but he can change it soft and high pitched-almost falsetto- on "Joe Turner's Blues."

Taj Mahal makes a guest appearance for the final song, a New Orleans funeral march called "Just a Closer Walk With Thee" and stays on for vocals and a banjo solo on the encore "Corrina, Corrina," paired with the opening song is a perfect way to bookend the show and send people off happy.

The Complete setlist: 1. Ice Cream, 2. Forty Four, 3. Joe Turners Blues, 4. The Last Time, 5. Careless Love, 6. Kid Man Blues, 7. Layla, 8. Joliet Bound, 9. Just A Closer Walk With Thee, 10. Corrina Corrina

The highlight of the show for most was probably "Layla" but for my money, "Forty Four" and "The Last Time" (an old Louis Armstrong cover) make the album. If you ever think that Clapton is losing his touch or is getting old, slow and soft, take a listen to these tracks. He reminds you why he's quite possibly the greatest guitarist ever (personal opinion). The deaths of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Richie Valens may have been the day the music died, but, when Clapton goes, the days of the guitar gods will pass with him; and he, Stevie Ray Vaughan, George Harrison, Jimi Hendrix and Robert Johnson will have such an amazing jam session that God Himself might not know how to respond.

The CD/DVD set of this show is set to be released 13 September.

"Multiply" Jamie Lidell-Multiply

I checked out Jamie Lidell's albums a while ago and rendered it as pseudo-hippster-wigger crap. Maybe it isn't but it certainly is not my speed. This track from the 2005 album of same title is something different. Always makes one wonder how an artist can roll out a song that is so good and the remainder of his/her work just leaves you feeling bland and indifferent.

A fusion of soul, funk and hints of reggae (at least in the intro) this tune brings to mind the sweet soul of Junior Walker, Joe Cocker's "Feeling Alright", Arthur Conley, Mitch Rider and the Detroit Wheel as well as Gary U.S. Bonds. Almost on the verge of Shag music or what we call up here in the northeast, beach music.

You can picture this song in a vacation commercial, two couples running in the sand, splashing in the waters. It could be used in a scene depicting a woman struggling home from work during rush hour in the big city then fading to her getting ready followed by a shot of her dancing into the wee hours with a few girlfriends.

What comes to my mind is a small place where I used to live in north Florida, about two hundred yards away from my house it was one of the only places that was open late night that served hard booze because of the draconian Southern Baptist laws. It was a strange place, I've walked into the bathroom countless times and seen someone shooting smack, there were a lot of tattoos, weirdos, whores sitting at the bar alone; basically the dregs of society. On many occasions I wound up getting either kicked out or on the cusp of putting a bottle across a forehead.

They had good tunes though and if not live the jukebox had a badass selection. Maybe because of the people, mostly because of the music, I always felt terribly comfortable in this place and it can be proud to know that it was one of the few places I would actually dance. I would dance not because I had to by coercion from a woman or because everyone else would but rather because the groove would hit me right in the face, at that point there is only one other option.

An old buddy's girlfriend taught me how to Shag properly and it was put to good use in this dimly lit place at one in the morning. Usually I was there alone sans friends on a random weeknight which is probably why when they are reading this they are crying "bullshit" but I used to get down at times. And in something I've never really heard a woman say before, they'd utter "You are a really good dancer." followed by "Though you don't look like you would be one at all." Which at 6'3" and 245 pounds was certainly true. They weren't bullshitting, I could tell. I could tell because I was entranced and lost myself, lost everything around me except her and the tunes.

I always said to those who would beg me to dance, "Give me something to dance to and I'll be there on the floor before you know it." To me this is the only thing to dance to. Techno/House/Electronic can be good but it doesn't hit me. I can Tango, Waltz and even two step (though it has been a while) and while cool they are too constricting. This groove however just as: Sam Cooke, Otis, Parliament and those mentioned before in this post hold they key to true movement in my mind. It touches you so down deep inside, the combination of Phil Spector-esque wall of sound, a great rhythm and that raspy growl...it is hard not to get caught up and find yourself out there without even realizing what you are doing.

"When Rita Leaves" Delbert McClinton-Nothing Personal

A while back I wrote a post about one of the slickest Marty Robbins tunes in the vaults. Days ago I was driving up the FDR eventually up to the country to do 18 and "When Rita Leaves" came on the radio. Strange because I rarely listen to music on the radio and stranger still was what popped into my mind.

I thought about the woman in "Devil Woman" and how Rita where probably the same person. It is nothing earth shattering but it gave me a smile to think of this one woman who wanders around the boarders of the southwest enchanting men and destroying their lives in the process. Then I thought about the song "Dry Lightning" that comes from Springsteen's The Ghost of Tom Joad album and again how it was written about Rita and then finally about Warren Zevon's "Carmelita" and once again how it was Rita he was singing about. My thoughts were awash with the similarities and story that could be written tying all these snippets of life together, all by different artists who probably had different women in mind. Hell most everything written, sung and painted has been stolen from someone else.

I had a friend whose mother loved Delbert McClinton and probably because of that never paid him much attention, however every once in a while he'd knock on the door of my ear and pry his way in. This song always finds its way in. The silky gut string's lead that trickles throughout the song placating the dearth of love the voice is singing of with a hint of strings barely audible in the corner combined with matter of fact lyrics in Delbert's honest voice is a wonderful combination.

Years ago in South America I ran into my own Rita in a small bar late in the evening. There had been ones before and after but this Rita burned a scar in my memory that will never heal. She spoke little English but we found ways to communicate, jet black hair with a small mole on her left cheek and complex deep brown eyes that matched the hue of her skin. I woke up the next morning in a small room with commotion outside the windows below the first story of which I was laying, A Saturday market in a part of town I could never place. Seven in the a.m. and it was already over thirty three degrees and close to that in the room, the ceiling fan doing little other than ensuring the heat was properly scattered throughout the room; Rita looking adorable and better than the night before sleeping in bed like an angel in the clouds wrapped in white sheets.

Until it was time to leave and I walked home up the hills of the campamentos with a throbbing headache from five bottles of bad champagne and a pack of Belmonts, though cigs and champagne never throbbed such as this. Maybe it was because of the difference in brands, maybe it was because this was the fourth day in a row of doing the same but more so it was withdraw of Rita and the views I had had of her silhouette against the fire lights of the streets and the strange words that rolled off of her tongue like the gut string in this song.

I keep saying I'm going to go back down there and find her but it is probably better to not take up such a logistically impossible request and just return there in my mind while Delbert's musical silhouette projects itself onto the walls of my living room, with instead of dark hips in my hands merely an old Yamaha that has a dead low E and cracks across the back.

"Carmelita" Warren Zevon-Warren Zevon

I write this in a strange mood for I usually listen to the song while writing, however now George Jones and Tammy Wynette are on, their best album "Golden Ring". I feel as though I beat that horse to death, like Springsteen I can listen and write about George Jones for years upon years.

But there's other music out there.

Carmelita has one of the smoothest gut string guitar solos in history breaking up the somewhat drole and depressing lyrics. Having a few buddies who battled with addiction I find it always striking to listen to a man write a song about heroin. In some ways this song (though I've never reached out to the junk) reflects the jones and the creepingly horrible sensation of wandering around looking for your next fix.

I think the best testament to this song was a drive I had a month ago with a very good friend who listens to bullshit music. Dance, techno, maybe some Pink Floyd and Tom Petty...strange combination for sure. We were driving back from a weekend in the Hamptons, his girlfriend passed out in the back seat and my iPod on random, Carmelita came on and he was instantly transfixed with the tune. Though he has lived in the states for quite some time his speech is somewhat broken English with the other seven languages he speaks thrown into the mix. After it was over he stuccato-ly said "I like that song, you put it one again."

I did, five more times over and we cruised back into town on 495 in and out of traffic after a sun drenched-Petrus infused weekend in various wheel's estates. It was the perfect decompression after the social scene. And that is one thing I've always dug about the man who sat shotgun. He is part of that scene but, like myself, always had the feeling he would feel much more comfortable away from all the climbing and out west in the country or even in a Bukowski suite wasting away on the outskirts of Hollywood.

So dig this song when you have a bit of a buzz or the next day after a very big one when the anxiety is building and you check your Amex account with one eye open, the sweats and shakes making it all the much more enjoyable. Hopefully there isn't someone else whose name you can't recall laying next to you but if he/she is then let them in on the secret as well for we all need that shot of methadone whether it is proverbial or literal the morning after.

"Slightly Used Woman" Georgette Jones-Slightly Used Woman

I think it has been a while since I've checked in. Hard to tell since the past weeks I have been lulled into afternoons reading "Do" and "Don't" on Vice Magazine, weekends drinking bottles of wine by myself sliced with nauseating trips to the Hamptons and golf every other day followed by six hour lunches and a handle of Sapphire all while not having been inside a woman since that tour of the Statue of Liberty. But in between there has been a lot of driving alone which is always the best way to drive with few exceptions of a good buddy or a woman who sits shotgun mostly sleeping, looking like an angel.

I've been really fucking bored, fucking being a rude term but the adjective that encapsulates the feeling in the best way. Hell everything is cyclical, seven months from now I'll be on a jet to Afghanistan after a month of sucking it in the Carolina woods humping a pack. When you are bored and somewhat melancholy there's songs such as this.

Georgette Jones, born Tamala from the best stock of country music imaginable: George Jones and Tammy Wynette. She adds to the myth herself by not engaging in the music industry in full for some time and having an equally unsettled life just as her two parents before her.

It comes out in her voice, her phrasing and songwriting. I can listen to this song forever. I can listen to it alone in the car, or sitting on the couch; on the beach or laying in bed alone or accompanied. I can listen to her say "She's just waitinnnng for someone to love herrrr" over and over again until it burrows a whole into my skull. The stark almost banal and bland lyrics with a whining pedal steel sliding through the background and how the last line of every verse leave the opening for Georgette to sew it all up and paint the picture as few can.

Maybe it takes a slightly used man to recognize one of his own kind and possibly one will never see those flaws mentioned in that vividly tight refrain:

But inside there’s a slightly used woman,
On her body there’s scars and there’s dents.
She’s just waitin’ for someone to love her,
And ignore all his deep fingerprints.

Wow, it reminds me of one of my favorite lines in songwriting using similar imagery:

Well you've been broke and yea you've been hurt,
Show me somebody who ain't.
Yea I know I ain't nobodies bargain but
Hell a little touch up and a little paint.

Kinda funny how the first selection was written by a woman and the second by a man, I guess the world takes its toll on everyone. I'd love for both of them to get together and do a few songs together.

"Lonesome Cities" Frank Sinatra-A Man Alone

I haven't listened to Frank in quite some time. I think I can call him Frank since I've known him for thirty three years, shared the same soil of his birth and long before the Swingers type revolution of Sinatra and standards being cool I've stuck up for the man to all takers. Many times though I feel as though his studio albums are over produced and his live albums and populated with too many jokes and too much of the idea of his persona being played out in front of a crowd, him basically doing an impersonation of Sinatra much like towards the end of his career Elvis was the best Elvis impersonator on the planet.

You listen to him for the gems though, for the "Angel Eyes", the "Nancy" and the "What Now My Love" that come across as so blisteringly heartfelt and introspective from his smoke and Jack Daniel's voice that it leaves you gasping for breath stunned. It makes you want to grab the closest woman available and slow dance the night away, to lose whatever baggage you both carry on a daily basis and believe again that the withered old idea of love still exists somewhere.

"A Man Alone" is a cover album of the songs of Rod McKuen and has said to be one of Sinatra's favorite albums and collection of favorite songs. Short of Dante and Shakespeare Mckuen is one of the most prolific and widely read poets of all time. He also wrote well over 1500 songs during his life. Growing up in a household of an alcoholic father, at age eleven he ran away from home and made a living as a logger, cowboy, rail hand and rodeo cowboy until he ran into the spoken word poetry crowd the likes of Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg who he shared stages with. The hard core literary critics (who are filled with more bullshit than Rod ever dealt with on the ranch) dismissed his works but as always they never appreciate anyone who is liked and adored by many.

Later in life he was a strong proponent of AIDS awareness, and demanded black performers receive equal treatment as their white counterparts. Sinatra in the same way was significantly more open minded than people give him credit for, it is probably hard for people to imagine that one of his favorite songwriters and poets cohorted with the likes of Beat generation hip poets. But Sinatra was a man who was much more than he appeared on so many levels. His strong persona was marred by ruined relationships, suicide attempts, along with constant depression and alcoholism.

I feel sheepish to say I never was much aware of this song until just the other day when it came on at random. When it did, with the first notes, I felt as though I had heard it a million times before and treasured its value greatly. The only other two songs I have felt this way about upon first hearing was Morrison's "Tupelo Honey" and Springsteen's "Frankie". I had never heard them before in my life and with their beginning I felt as though it was an old lover calling my name while making circles with her toe in nothing but my dress shirt with two buttons hiding what was below.

The meaning is your own but for myself with just one reading of the lyrics I am sure it was penned to describe my own life. Constantly running and no matter how complete life was always wondering about those last few cities out there awaiting me on the hill with embraceable arms. In leading such a life said new cities are usually met with lonesomeness and chagrin at leaving the previous one. However within those cities there are always one more woman, one more restaurant to be sat in with her and one more train to take me away when it is all over; then at the end of the day the realization that you can never run away from yourself and your foolish urges of romantic wanderlust. I like it that way.

"Reflecting Light" Sam Philips-A Boat and a Shoe

I've had this song stuck in my head for months. It has such and ethereal, sultry sexiness to it. A sense of placation and worship by the singer towards what I perceive as her muse. There's a steady tempo of sublime, steadfast hopelessness, the chord progression in Bb with a quaint happy-sad violin juxtaposed against the steady movement of the guitar and nothing else. Stripped down to the bone with a bit of bass fiddle thrown into the mix.

I have always loved the Die Hard series of movies, in particular the third one and in particular the terrorist who is the love interest of Jeremy Irons. Her plain, fit and Nordic look and propensity to get aroused at the hint of violence.

Also I have always loved T Bone Burnett's work in so many spaces and genres. A month ago at the Elvis Costello concert, seated next to him I was thrilled to just be in his presence. Adoring Roy Orbison's "Black and White Night" of which he produced as well as "August and Everything After", "O Brother Where Art Thou", "Raising Sand", "Walk The Line" and a plethora of Elvis Costello and Sam Philips albums he is a legend in the music industry while at the same time being anonymous.

So tonight when I sat down to play this song on the guitar and eventually deciding to write about this song I was amazed that Sam Philips was the female terrorist in Die Hard with a Vengeance. Being entranced (and admittedly turned on) by both the movie and this song...I don't know, it validated my opinions of what I am attracted to in women. Couple that with her landing such a mate as T Bone and what we have is a terribly talented women that makes me unhappy to know that she is taken.

I have heard this song prostituted itself in the show Gilmore Girls however I remember it mostly from the wonderful movie, my favorite movie of the past decade Crazy Heart. I saw it on a date with a particularly fascinating Lebanese woman who didn't drink and hence the movie date. She was a wonderful person, shy in a sense and cute in every sense of the word, a person who broke me out of my malaise in a way as while she encompassed much of which I desire, lived a life much different than my own, I don't think I ever even went on a movie date in high school. We sat in the theatre in SoHo on a frightfully cold night entranced with the film and walked almost all the way uptown, freezing and holding each other as per her suggestion as I would almost certainly have taken a car.

She took me to a church in midtown which had a southern Gospel feel to it with preachers and singing, a meeting at the Waldorf Towers with a man who was part of the Lebanese Civil War, him telling stories about smuggling arms in and out of the country for the Christian fighters. Her stories of Catholic boarding school in Cyprus, her knowledge of the blues and wonderful music, how she used to speak to me in French and I would half ass my way some type of reply...

So I think of her a bit when I listen to this song and how someone who was very suited for me just didn't work, how when we decided not to see each other and just be friends at Mon Petit Cafe on 62nd and Lexington how hard it was for me to bring up the subject that is just wasn't working out. But I also think of someone else who is out there in waiting who encompasses so many of those good qualities I enjoy along with the extra few that could make it really work, leading to nights and encounters such as those from the scene in Crazy Heart of which this song is used.

As a word it is used too frequently but this song is truly beautiful in its composition, its lyrics and the feel that it delivers. I'm going to go back to playing it a few times over before I retire and dream about that mystical person I have in my mind and have been waiting for.

"Never Never Gonna Give You Up" Barry White-Stone Gon'

I remember listening to Barry driving up to hockey practice when I was ten years old, my father had it blasting, the standard tunes, "My Everything", "Can't Get Enough of Your Love", etc. In today's world he would probably be in jail for some type of sexual offense, there would probably be some shrink that would convince me that he touched me in a certain way and my father would spend the rest of his life in jail on a bullshit charge. Even though at the time I had no idea what the man was truly speaking of his music resonated within me. How could a voice like that not? Impossible.

Barry White taught a lot of men (well at least the ones who were listening) that it doesn't matter how fat you were (as BW was a big boy) nor did it matter how sub par you looks were (he wasn't the best looking fellow) you could still get laid with one thing: Swagger. As a man who never had any homosexual tendencies, having that soul, bass, ridden voice echo in my ear....well I would be hard pressed to not give the man some action. Years later after those rides to hockey practice I would remember my first experiences in the realm of love (in a terrible cliche) formed on this man's music.

You can have your Marvin Gaye and Al Greene and whomever else could be construed as love making music but nothing comes close to Barry. Somehow it even transcends the physical act itself. Tonight as I write this after many drinks in multiple places I found myself home alone. Somewhere in the course of the night this song was played and it came to me as an old friend.

So I am here in a robe, alone and in the most non-sexual atmosphere imaginable, writing this on my laptop trying to hit the correct keys in my drunkenness. I put this song on as it had been stuck in my mind for the entire night. The thing about it is the groove is still there, the bass line, the tempo and most importantly the lyrics blasted out by a three hundred plus pound man with enough attitude to serenade and seduce the world, as well as myself through my shitty speakers, echoing off of my old plaster walls.

It is a beautiful experience. No one encapsulates what it is like to be in love, to have a ten hour, sweaty, change the sheets after while drinking champagne session more than this man. It should only be reserved for those that deserve such a night. As a single man in New York there have been a plethora of opportunities that have breached the threshold of my door but only a few who have been worthy of a Barry playlist. He is the forty year old scotch, the '51 Bollinger champagne of the music realm and only broken out when it is truly warranted and deserved.

Clarence Clemons

I had heard he had a stroke a week ago, I had also heard that he has been in bad shape for some time before that. But yesterday on the phone talking to my brother I couldn't believe he was dead. I couldn't believe I hadn't heard at first, and then couldn't stand the fact it was true.

As a disciple of Springsteen, Clarence is part of his Holy Trinity, even non-believers associate The Big Man with almost nothing but The E Street Band. So it may be a surprise that when I think of Clarence the first thing I think of is a magical Grateful Dead show on December 31, 1988. In my mind it was the height of the band with Bret Mydland on keyboards and Jerry's licks were in full bloom. I found the video in my possession somehow and remember sitting on my college couch excited that I had another video to check out. About midway through I noticed a large black mass standing on the side of the stage with a sax in his hand and couldn't believe it was Clarence. I mean what the hell was he doing playing at a Dead show?

To me it showed the connection of music in a way that many people don't see or even think about. Hey man if you are a musician you dig music, then good music regardless of the Genre is what you dig. The show culminated with two epic, long running Dead tunes: "Morning Dew" in which one is privy to probably the greatest Garcia solo ever performed, there is one section where Jerry brings it together with so much skill it boggles the mind, at that point I will never forget Clarence taking his mouth off of the reed and mouthing "Wow" as he was bending at the back backwards and looking up to the sky. Then it was "Standing on the Moon" which admittedly gets me all choked up every time it comes on, Clarence noticeably was affected in the same way.

At the time I couldn't stand how people didn't get the Dead and wrote me off as that typical college fake hippie (meanwhile I was the farthest thing from it) but they got Springsteen and screamed "Thunder Road" at crowded parties dancing on tables. Now right there in front of me and my roommate's faces was the validity that I craved. From that point on they opened their minds and forgot about the stereotypes, they just started digging the music.

Not a lot of people know that Clarence had a tryout for the Cleveland Browns but the day before was involved in a terribly serious car accident or that after moving to Newark, New Jersey he worked for eight years as a counselor for disturbed and troubled boys at Jamesburg (which was the Juvie hall my parents would threaten me with whenever I got out of line). Nor that he was a devout Baptist from his youth in Virginia.

But they know the sound, if Bruce was the nervous system for the band then there is no doubt Clarence was the backbone. At times his playing was melodic and haunting ("Jungleland") then other times it was a Harley Davidson with straight pipes grinding up eardrums and elevating heartbeats (solo from "Promised Land"). Without Clarence there as no band.

I often wonder if the music created the brotherhood between Bruce and Clarence or the brotherhood created the music. But look at some old pictures of the two from the 70's and you can see it, feel it right there in front of you. Black, White...skinny, fat. It didn't matter they were brothers. In today's world where every commercial has some bullshit group of friends all of different ethnic races, constructed to appease the political massses here was a real life representation of color blindness. But hell, music has been breaking down barriers for decades. Frank and Sammy (where Frank wouldn't play anyplace that made him walk in the back door), Elvis, and Keith Richards' colorless life.

And with his passing another musician whom the next generation will never have the privilege of knowing. I hope to God the industry will change sometime so my son will have the heros I had growing up in music. I hope the Boss will continue to play in some capacity but pray they don't supplant the sax with a lesser human much like the remaining members of the Dead did after Jerry's death. If you want to play Bruce then do so with the E Street Band sans sax if you could make it work. I can't imagine it will and as much as I would love to head out to Giants Stadium for four hours of preaching you can't have a mass without the cornerstone the chuch was founded upon.

"Let Your Loss Be Your Lesson" Robert Plant and Alison Krauss-Raising Sand

I sat down to play this song on guitar, it had a strange chord progression, the key was in a Beach Boys "Pet Sounds" sound, A, E and D flats which can be strange to play on guitar. The type that you really can't hammer out to mindlessly. Taken back at first until the groove filled my soul intravenously and on a Sunday night I was sitting around half in the bag trying to channel old Led Zep with a dash of George Jones, Chuck Berry and Emmylou Harris.

The song is straight forward, little subtext, face value; but it couldn't be better. I was blasting it this morning driving like a maniac north of Manhattan on 287 with little traffic and the windows down. After a round of golf and a stimulating phone conversation with a new female friend I headed two blocks away for a late afternoon martini and oddly enough this song came on. I asked the waitress to turn it up, she complied, and sat there in the glorious June sun, empty bistro looking out on east 65th street while the sun collapsed over the concrete canyons.

A marvelous way to end a weekend and while the scenery didn't quite fit the music on the surface, someplace inside it did. Whether it be the juxtaposition or simply the mood I was in, the sultry phrasing of Alison combined with that honky tonk guitar...it just worked. Pure American music after days of listening to Serge Gainsburg and Leonard Cohen preaching about love and revolution. Road music you can dig sans road while being stationary on a bar stool in a French bistro a thousand miles away from the closest honky tonk.

"Sign Language" Eric Clapton-No Reason To Cry

There are some songs that are so good that the lyrics don't even matter, or rather a few lines that just don't jive. In this song we have the third line of the song: "...as I'm eating a sandwich in a small cafe, at a quarter to three" and you just want to smack yourself in the face and wonder what the hell they were thinking. If I was to write a line such as that and sing it to someone they would never stop laughing. But when you attached the names Clapton, Dylan and Robertson to the liner notes it suddenly becomes genius.

Poor start notwithstanding this song just works. It works on so many levels, the chill slide guitar, smooth melodic tempo and southern-flavored licks played low on the bottom pickup that snap coarsely contrasting with the vibe, the mandolin like start to the first solo; it all comes together giving one the sense that it was put together ad hoc with a dozen joints burning at four in the morning.

The first time I heard this song was in a forty dollar hotel room in Van Horn, Texas about three hours east of El Paso in the middle of nowhere while a non English speaking Mexican welded the tongue of a trailer for thirty dollars in the parking lot of the diner next door at midnight. It had broken during a drive from Florida to San Diego when I first became transfixed with the American Southwest. Walking out of my door on the first and only floor that stepped right out to the parking lot I saw the shadows of the mountains lingering in the background behind the few neon lights of the main strip on a Saturday night. The scene was Hopper-esque in the style of "Nighthawks" with hints of "American Graffiti" mixed in as the Mexican boys rolled up and down the thin strip looking for something that was never there and never would be.

That slide echoing through my head and out off of the mountains, the surrender of the August heat that would soon begin again in a few hours. The desolation and openness under a pitch black sky perforated by specks of white brilliance and the knowledge that there was not one person on the planet who knew where I was or where to find me, the juxtaposition of seeing my Range Rover with three surfboards on the roof in the middle of the desert; all of it coming together to be one of the most beautiful experiences of my life. To know what freedom truly was and just how sacred it could be when experienced fully.

Later on in that new day I would cross the Continental Divide in New Mexico and roll downhill into the Pacific where the mountains were green and flower ridden, sweet smells of eucalyptus and jasmine permeated the air flowing through my sunroof and all four open windows while Clapton and Bob whined through the speakers once more.

All of which has nothing to do with the meaning of this song. Save it for a time and place where you can make a memory to savor years later while sitting in traffic surrounded by canyons of concrete and steel.

Naomi Shelton & The Gospel Queens-What Have You Done My Brother

Goddamn man just check out the fine ladies in this picture and the soul leaking out of their pores. The truth and honesty in their smiles, the pain and heart contained within those ample bodies, toothy smiles and heart-fucking-breaking voices that harmonize with reckless abandon. If you were to channel Otis Redding, Sam Cooke, Melvin Seals, Bobby Womack, Bootsy Collins, James Brown, Jackie LaBranch, Gloria Jones and Gladys Knight, squeeze them all together in a French Press, add pure soul concentrate and have a child with Van Morrison the offspring would be this band.

It is impossible to just pick out one song from this album. I would say that "He Knows My Heart" belongs in some dark scene of a Scorsese movie just as it does being sung in a Baptist Church in Memphis along the muddy rivers by a congregation soaked with sweat. "By Your Side"...if there's a woman who can sing that to me or even give me that feeling then there's a five carat ring in the picture and a life of selfless devotion waiting for her while I cry on my knees. I never knew there could be a song that would make me bust out in dance outside of a few Smokey Robinson and Sam Cooke numbers until "I Need You to Hold My Hand" came through the speakers in an orgasm of ecstasy. They are all testifying, they all bring me down genuflecting in humble piety while my consciousness climbs to the stratos.

You can sing it in the car when no one is looking, you can sing it to someone in the moonlight with the sand between your toes, salt caked on dark skin after a midnight swim and a warm six pack stashed on the dunes. You can sing it in a low roofed club up in the 120's in Harlem with a zoot suit and feather in your cap. In truth you can sing it every and anywhere because good vibe tunes such as these contained in this album should be sung as much as possible. But you have to have the heart, the groove and the spirit to do it right. If you don't and you don't get this album then there's no hope; go back to your life and loveless cubicle. Go back to shades of grey and leave the rest of the spectrum for the enlightened, I want every band of it, I want to house it and have it explode out of my door every morning when I arise and take on the new day touched by my sisters, stick my chest out greet it all with a smile.

"Shave 'Em Dry II" Lucille Bogan-The Best of Lucille Bogan

In the late years of the 20th century there were a bunch of people who decided that we all weren't responsible enough to police ourselves and our children. I won't digress into a political rant but just to let you know I am a pure Libertarian. I should be able to listen to what I want, drink what I want no matter of the age, smoke what I want no matter what it is and say what I want no matter how derogatory.

But that is another matter. What I am speaking of is the Parental Advisory label affixed to records deemed offensive by those in power. I still don't know how Tipper Gore and her friends at the Parents Music Resource Center are qualified to state what is obscene. When the label became popular some of the first albums with the honor of having said label were from: Guns and Roses, 2 Live Crew, Danzing and Soundgarden, all of which pale in comparison to this song. I'm not saying that they are great bands and albums but what I find funny is the fact that the world thought that this was a new thing; as if this was a recent movement in music.

It has been around for a long time. Blues music used carefully coded slang to hide the sexual content of lyrics. "Jellyroll" is slang for Vagina, hell it occurs in too many songs to list. When B.B. King sings "I have a sweet little angel, man you ought to see the way she spreads her wings..." just what do you think he is speaking about? Or in the classic "Come into my Kitchen", hmmmm. I am pretty sure they ain't speaking of cooking. There were artist more blunt and rough around the edges in the past, without a doubt. Songs that were sung in juke joints in the south where prostitutes danced for a dime and then took you upstairs in the muggy heat to squeeze a few extra cents out of the deal.

One of them was Lucille Bogan who was born in 1897 and started recording in 1923 in New York City, a far cry from her Alabama roots. What this woman spoke of was impossible of being mistaken. Here's the lyrics:

I got nipples on my titties, big as the end of my thumb,
I got somethin' between my legs'll make a dead man come,
Oh daddy, baby won't you shave 'em dry?

Want you to grind me baby, grind me until I cry.
Say I fucked all night, and all the night before baby,
And I feel just like I wanna, fuck some more,
Oh great God daddy,
Grind me honey and shave me dry,
And when you hear me holler baby, want you to shave it dry.

I got nipples on my titties, big as the end of my thumb,
Daddy you say that's the kind of 'em you want, and you can make 'em come,
Oh, daddy shave me dry,

And I'll give you somethin' baby, swear it'll make you cry.
I'm gon' turn back my mattress, and let you oil my springs,
I want you to grind me daddy, 'til the bell do ring,
Oh daddy, want you to shave 'em dry,
Oh great God daddy, if you can't shave 'em baby won't you try?

Now if fuckin' was the thing, that would take me to heaven,
I'd be fuckin' in the studio, till the clock strike eleven,
Oh daddy, daddy shave 'em dry,

I would fuck you baby, honey I'd make you cry.
Now your nuts hang down like a damn bell sapper,
And your dick stands up like a steeple,
Your goddam ass-hole stands open like a church door,
And the crabs walks in like people.

A big sow gets fat from eatin' corn,
And a pig gets fat from suckin',
Reason you see this whore, fat like I am,
Great God, I got fat from fuckin'.

My back is made of whalebone,
And my cock is made of brass,
And my fuckin' is made for workin' men's two dollars,
Great God, round to kiss my ass.


I'm not trying to shock people or be rude. I just figured that in keeping with the title of this blog I would be remiss to not include this song that I first learned from Keith Richards. The man is a wealth of knowledge. Also, whenever we think of ourselves as a collective species living in a specific time; that we came up with kink and whatever perverted and however perverted we think our society has become, well someone else has been there before and they were probably much worse than ourselves. From what I've seen we still came out all right.

"Vanlose Stairway/Trans-Euro Train/A Fool For You" Van Morrison-A Night in San Francisco

The only part of this medley that matters is "Vanlose Stairway", the remainder is just fill for the set. I put this song on once on a drive through eastern California with a dear friend I haven't seen in a long time en route to the east coast. We were terribly hung over and feeling like bloody hell, we'd been in the car for a few hours with just some background music while we caught up and bullshitted. During a lull in our conversation I put this song on and my companion started laughing the second he started singing.

The reason why is you can't understand a word he says throughout the entire song. I challenge you to listen to this song without looking at the lyrics and tell me what he is actually saying.

With Van what he is saying isn't even the point. What is you can derive from the emotions bleeding out through the speakers, rattling off of your eardrums and settling down in you gut, your heart; filling you with a warmth and soul that cracks a smile and sets your blood running through your veins in an autobahn of traffic engorging you and everyone around.

But if you want to go beyond that and dig into the words you'll find that it is about a Danish girl in Copenhagen who lived on the fourth floor of an old building. It is about Van's spiritual awakening and his eastern beliefs, about Gita and Krishna, about love and the pursuit of Brahman.

So throw it on and revel in the mysticism that is Van when he is live and cranking, when the words are flowing and the meaning is understood without comprehension. He is a force of nature whipping across the planes taking out trailers and trees, across oceans sending ships to the deep and taking my existence onto another plane beyond the comprehension of so many who simply do not get it in the end.

"No Expectations" The Rolling Stones-Beggars Banquet

It is always funny the inspiration I get to do a post here, at times I have something in my head so inspiring and visceral I almost don't have a choice but to write. Then again at times I simply feel as though I should write but don't have a clue. Sitting here tonight after two very hardcore days of drinking until the sun came up I am tired and spent. I walked over to First Avenue and had dinner alone on the sidewalk with a bottle of Sicilian wine which I am always impartial to for some reason. Delaying laying in bed for a while until sleep approached I was texting a friend about a few things and reviewing each other's night I was still searching for a song until in reference to her night and one particular facet of it she stated: "I have to change my state of mind, that's really it. No expectations." With that she gave me an answer unknowingly and this sublime piece of old Stones shot through my head. A song that is the last example of Brian Jones' creative work with the group until he spiraled out of control and died at his own hands. A song that displays a narrator being at piece with his hopelessness and lot in life.

In construction this song is a monumental work. The open tuning used by Richards, at the time new for his playing, would become the hallmark of his style. Jones' earthy, metallic slide channeling the old Mississippi blues masters, Charlie Watts' simple claves is all that is necessary to keep the beat and Mick's lack of Rock and Roll, Hollywood pretense is refreshing; sadly it is something we would see less and less of as the years transpired.

And it is somewhat funny that the person who inspired this song would be someone who put me in the narrator's situation one day at a train station years ago. The station being out in eastern Long Island. I remember hanging up the phone with my mechanic after he just told me that I had a dead cylinder in my old Porsche. I had just moved back up to the northeast and living with my parents while I was looking for a place in Manhattan (at 31 years old) and, well let's just say it wasn't the homecoming I was expecting. While waiting for the train to arrive to take me back to Manhattan so I could take another train another hour back to my childhood home, broke and staring an engine replacement and at least another ten grand in moving expenses the final truss broke and we broke up on that platform. I could tell it was moving in that direction but the last thing I needed was to contemplate it with three hours of solitude staring me in the face.

As bad as it was in retrospect it was quite romantic to deal with it on a desolate platform in the cool spring air, alone surrounded by hundreds of people after boarding and watching the landscape sweep past in a small blur. If I was the artist that Richards and Jagger were I would have had a song for it, instead I went home and listened to this one in the bedroom I grew up in, a bedroom that still housed plane models, an old Nintendo and animal wallpaper that matched a shag green rug. People always love to tell others not to forget where they came from and the act of saying is strikes me as the biggest verbal dirarreah imaginable. That night surrounded by the child I had been as the adult that I was humbled me in a frightening way. There's a reason why you can never go home again, then again there's a better reason for events playing out in this life and whatever reason I bore that crucible of abject humility for two months, hopefully I'll find the answer one day.

"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"