It’s a dried-up neglected street shrine edged with glass from broken votive candles by the time I get to the empty storefront that used to be CBGB’s, to say a lately goodbye to Hilly Kristal.
If there’s a rock and roll heaven, Hilly’s sitting there talking about how it used to be better in the ’70s.
Look, is it just me, or is there a part of Thunder Road where you look up and think, wait, is this Thunder Road or is this Born to Run? And if it’s Born to Run, why was I so certain it was Thunder Road? And how did Born to Run get in here, anyway, when I was totally Jonesing for Thunder Road? And then it turns out to be Thunder Road in the end, and everything is all right after all. Or is it just me?
That whole New Jersey thing is way too confusing. But how pleased am I that Badly Drawn Boy does a cover of Thunder Road? At least, I think it’s Thunder Road. But don’t get me started.
Prints of the photo above are available for purchase from the ImageKind online photo service. Buy a print, and support your local Peppers (me)!
Overheard at the bar of a well-known East Village venue.
Well-Known Local Songwriter #1: “What about motherfucker then?”
Well-Known Local Songwriter #2: “No, no that won’t work; it has four syllables, it won’t fit a classic meter. Cocksucker, on the other hand, it’s a waltz, it’s natural for a waltz.”
At this year’s 20th anniversary SXSW Music Conference in Austin last month, Pierre and I pass our down-time travel day in good lazy fashion, as one will, down along South Congress. We’re hanging with career musician Bill Popp, as one might, which can be hazardous to one’s health and not least to Bill’s own health, since he’s just a couple of weeks out of quadruple-bypass surgery. This doesn’t stop him from wandering all over town, drinking copiously, chasing any girl who looks old enough to drive — “wanna see my scar?” — but that’s rock and roll for you.
After lunch and bevages at Curra’s Grill, we walk down the hill and stop at Jo’s for coffee, as one should. This visit is notable for a couple of things.
One is the murder of crows, or corvids, or blackbirds, or whatevertheywere, that loiters around waiting for unseasoned customers to leave the wooden lids on the coffee-fixin’s shelves open. When this happens they swoop down, snatch up sugar packets, clamp them to the counter, peck them open, and eat the sugar as it showers out. We rubes from New York haven’t ever seen such crafty birdworks before, and find it quite the show. “Yes,” opines one of the regulars, “that’s why we close those covers.” Chastened, we do.
The other notable is a little band poster stapled to the wall, an unassuming ragtag scrap with four figures photocopied so fuzzily that they might be teddy bears, or Teletubbies, or ancient roadworn blues singers, or four delicious young women from Minnesota. For argument’s sake. The only bit of clarity on the sign is the band’s name, Coach Said Not To, which is the funniest and most wonderful thing I’ve heard all day.
“Now that,” I announce, “is a band I would see.”
A couple of nights later, Coach Said Not To performs at The Hideout, the coffee house venue where I made my SXSW debut a couple of years ago backing up Jeff Lightning Lewis on the stately chords of C and G on guitar. But that’s another story. Coach Said Not To turns out to be a rambling, rangy, oddball, iconoclastic, curious, kitschy, and fetching outfit, with ropy songs that sometime lope and sometimes clatter about and generally get twisty in interesting ways. They emerge with spangly tops and a determined air; the ether churns for a minute or two, sizzling with text messages, and photographers start trickling in.
On May 5th, Coach Said Not To is releasing their first full-length with a big show at the 400 Bar in St. Paul. We’re flying out to see them and to have a quick photo session the next day. There are tunes for the downloading on their web site — don’t pass them up.
I forget whether it was Black Flag or Aristotle who said that anything that doesn’t change is evil — or perhaps it was both, or neither. However it turns out, Henry Rollins gets my vote.
For the most part people are steady beasts; I guess that’s why we value change. We may revel in our set ways, but we know at heart that too much rut leaves no choice of roads and locks us in to the foolish consistency of the Bureaucrat, the Dirty Tool, the Venal Moron President. Just by way of example, of course. Outside of fashionable hips, when has “narrow” ever been fielded as a compliment?
At the 2004 SXSW music conference a guitar-pickin’ friend pointed us to Jennifer Glass and her showcase at the Pecan Street Ale House, which doesn’t get a link because despite the name it caters to mass-market bad beer — better to call it the Pecan Street Sucky Suds Bar, then we’d know what to expect. Jennifer was a startling beauty who was making her early steps into legit music. She did a pretty enough set; she had a nice sturdy voice and an easy manner on stage.
When her name came up on The Gigometer I was curious to see where intervening time had led her. The music industry on most levels is both kind and violent to beautiful women; there is always someone there to offer the gentle mentoring helping hand, and every dog expects his day, if you know what I mean. Sometimes this works out, and usually it does not.
Last night at Rockwood Music Hall, by now hands-down New York’s best small venue (it even has a nice bathroom), Jennifer was simply spectacular. Her music is the knowing adult pop that lurks behind radio, and in duo format — I didn’t catch the name of her guitar player, who licks and squawks and noises off in a kind of airbrushed Dave Tronzo way — she was completely formed and ridiculously able. All that, and she can manhandle a harmonica like a pro.
There are no weapons of mass destruction at Rockwood Music Hall. You’ll have to find some other excuse to mobilize for an evening out. Jennifer Glass would be a good one.
These last few weeks I’ve been an occasional blogger, and by “occasional” I mean mostly not at all. That had a lot to do with an annual writing deadline.
Every year I come back from the South by Southwest Music Conference in Austin happy, inspired, discombobulated, and beat, but usually I’ve written up my daily reviews and thoughts for Music Dish on the fly, day by day. There was limited access to computers in the Press Suite this year, and so I decided to write up my coverage once I came back home. And that’s where I’ve been since then.
The SXSW 2005 articles are finally up and published: huzzah. I’ve written five pieces, one for each main day of the festivities. They’re all on the Music Dish front page for now (left-hand column), and for future reference here are the direct links.
Yesterday was the first Tuesday in April, so our very own Ethan Lipton was co-hosting his E-Z Tuesdays monthly revue with Zero Boy, New York’s local vocal acrobat supreme. Their monthly guest was Rachelle Garniez, who is so lovely she can make a guy rethink the accordion as a proper instrument.
The last few installations of E-Z Tuesdays were held at the Belt Theatre next door, but apparently the Belt is about to become a steak house or something, which means that’s all she wrote so far as that goes. The show moved this month to the Zipper Theater, a gorgeous space with careful pools of light and shabby Charlie-the-tramp afterthought walls. Ethan and his Orchestra (which, to date, generally runs anywhere between zero and four people) were touching and hilarious, and Zero Boy had one of his finer sets. It’s all captured in images here for your viewing pleasure: safe for work, washed in night’s shades, and fun to look at.
If you haven’t tasted Ethan’s music yet, it’s probably time, don’t you think? That link will bring you to his CD Baby page, where you can sample his sounds from the menu on the left (no charge, all legal). He’s got a listening page on his site with more tunes too. Hear them, share them, trade them with your friends. G’wan, we don’t mind.
It’s a SXSW Wednesday in Austin, and I’m standing off at the side of the ample stage at Buffalo Billiards shooting a couple of pictures of Sonya Kitchell, an acousticky girl from Ashfield, Massachusetts, who makes me a little nervous because after a drink or two I would never guess that she’s 15. Your Honor. Honest. I thought she said 50. I’ll go peacefully.
The side of the stage is favored by photographers because it relieves the big-microphone-in-the-middle-of-her-face problem and lets you mix up your angles some. It’s also favored by famous people, because mostly nobody is looking over there and you can often get out quickly if you start over there and you’re famous (“Sorry sir, there’s no backstage access.” “I’m Henry Kissinger, get out of my way.” “Right. Exit door at the back, watch the loading dock”).
I’m trying to get a shot that ultimately won’t come out, and when I come up for air there’s a girl with a gotcha look gazing my way. “You look like Elvis Costello,” she says. Since Elvis is playing in a few hours over on the west side of town, it’s a reasonable guess. I’m flattered nine ways to Thursday and explain that I’m not actually Elvis, but I could be in a certain light; she wanders off.
A few hours later on the west side of town I’m down front for the other Elvis Costello. His two-hour show is spectacular. I do look like him; the first time that came up was around Punch the Clock, which was the post-raging-geek Elvis era.
But suddenly I wonder. Maybe what she actually meant was, “Hello. You’re old, fat, and losing your hair.”
And so it comes to pass, South by Southwest 2005 comes to a close with the traditional barbecue and softball game (Print Media routs Club Bookers 14 to 3) on this sunny Sunday afternoon. Linus will explore the barbecue issues in a later installment, when he has finished digesting his half cow, and there will be a series of music retrospectives in words and pictures in the next few days. Watch this space.
Meanwhile, here’s Kristy Krüger singing Take Me Out To The Ballgame before the last at bat.
Kathleen Edwards returns to SXSW.
Also, Slaid Cleaves, Martha Wainwright, Tracy Bonham, and the ghost of Rocky Erikson, among others. And a nice little barleywine from Lovejoy’s to round up the day.