Tag: Music

Posted on

Hello In There

What do you write when you don’t know what to write? No, really, I’m looking for a little help here. I guess the nature of this interaction kinda precludes getting your help today. So I’m gonna try something I’ve never done here before. While scrolling through the backstage portion of the website I noticed I’ve got 5 drafts of posts that withered on the vine. For, I think, a variety of reasons. One, for example, has a final line of “I’ve just hit a wall here…….” so I guess that one’s pretty self explanatory. But idk why I dropped this one where I did. Maybe a similar reason? At any rate, I decided I’m going to take a previously unfinished draft and, well, finish it. So, without further ado, I take you back to April of 2020 and let’s try and put a bow in this one.

Usually when I pick a title such as the one here, I apologize to the original author. Not today. Last week the world lost an incredible artist. John Prine died from complications of COVID-19.

Obviously, this is not breaking news. And, in the grand scheme of things, maybe it’s nothing more than a blip on our collective radar. I mean after all, world-wide the death toll has passed 100,000 and of that number many famous (and, I’m sure, infamous) people have died. So why did this one seem to strike the chord it did? All I know is, I’m not smart enough to know.

What I do know is this. As I’ve read the various articles written about him this past week, it was obvious how influential he was on modern music. I read one piece that described him as the “Godfather of Americana” music and I think that’s perfectly appropriate. He was an amazing songwriter and, until his passing, I never really thought about that particular skillset of his. Shame on me. I first became aware of John Prine around 1976 or 1977. I worked in a restaurant at the time, and two of the other cooks, Ray and Skip, would sing Prine songs. Specifically “Illegal Smile“ (Ray) and “Please Don’t Bury Me“ (Skip) as we worked. I was also listening to XRT by this time, so I became familiar with other John Prine songs from his first couple albums. Here’s the part I never really considered until now though. He was 24 years old when he wrote songs like “Hello In There” and “Sam Stone” and “Paradise” and if you’re not familiar with any of them hit those links. Even if you do know the songs, they’re always worth a listen. And, as always, If I knew how to link to YT without the #*%#@% ads, I would. So apologies in advance for that. One of the other things that always blows my mind about John Prine is this- he was “discovered” by Roger Ebert, the Pulitzer Prize winning movie critic from the Chicago Sun-Times, at a small club in Lincoln Park. At the time Ebert saw him, John was still a letter carrier for the USPS in suburban Chicago, Westchester, I think.

John Prine is high on the list of artists I wish I’d seen when I had the chance. Although oddly enough, B2 and I did see his son Tommy, at his, iirc first solo show, over by Chapel Hill a couple three years ago. I’m pretty sure we’ve seen him twice now and actually, as I type this out, I’m pretty sure I mentioned seeing Tommy Prine in a post shortly after the fact. Hah! Sometimes I scare myself, lol. Here is the aforementioned post and the bonus is, since it’s from the 2nd time we saw him, I can relate my little tale about the first time.

I have no recollection how I learned of the original show, probably an email from the venue, but that’s just a guess. The opener was a name that, when I read it, I thought was familiar, but couldn’t place it, so that drifted off into the ether. The night of the show came and we found ourselves (we were easy to find, we know what we look like) at a small venue (The Back Room) which is part of a larger venue (Cat’s Cradle) that is legendary in the Chapel Hill, Durham, Raleigh area. As we walked in, I saw one of the flyers for the show listing Peter Holsapple as the opening act and, once agin, the name felt familiar, but I still couldn’t place it. The show started and Peter came up on stage and started playing a song that also sounded familiar. When he got to the chorus I recognized it as a song by the DB’s and the lightbulb finally lit. Peter Holsapple was half of the songwriting team (along with Chris Stamey) of that very band.

Here we are, now six years ish after the fact so obviously I couldn’t tell you much of what either of them played, but I can tell you we had a wonderful time along with the 40 or 50 other people that came out to the show. What I do remember is that Tommy played mostly original music, although he did play one or two of his Dad’s. Maybe Paradise, maybe Angel from Montgomery, I’m not sure but he did a fine job either way.

Ok, Imma wrap this up now. I feel like I accomplished at least a little something by A.) getting an old draft wrapped up and B.) getting words on a page again, so I’ll take it as a win. Oddly enough, even though the post centers on John Prine and his son Tommy, I’ve been listening instead to one of my playlists , titled Speeding Ticket, as I try and hammer away at the keyboard. Don’t ask, I can’t explain the way my brain works (or doesn’t) but I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my musical choice du jour.

Peace

Posted on

It’s Great To Be Alive

I’m listening to XRT this morning.

I haven’t done that for years. Not a slight to “Chicago’s Finest Rock” either, I switched to satellite radio a while back for my main listening and from there, a few years ago I started listening mostly to streamed music. Mainly since it gave me (within reason) full control over what, and who, (whom?) I listened to. Admittedly, I missed XRT, but not enough to go out of my way to listen to it. I think maybe I missed the on-air talent as much as anything, although I can’t go any further without acknowledging that a very large part of my current tastes in music was developed, nurtured, and curated, by WXRT. I don’t remember exactly when I started listening, but my best guess is somewhere around 1976 or 1977, so people like Garry Lee Wright, Johnny Mars, Bobby Skafish, Tom Marker, Frank E. Lee, geez there’s so many more. Of course no list of XRT DJ’s would be complete without the inimitable Terri Hemmert, everyone’s favorite Aunt Terri. So many different voices helping to form my taste in music.

But today’s post isn’t about them. It’s only superficially about me. Rather, today I want to write about your best friend in the whole world, at least if you listened to WXRT any time over the last 30+ years. Lin Brehmer. Lin passed away yesterday, prostate cancer taking him far too soon.

In the 24 or so hours since I got the text from Ryan alerting me to Lin’s passing I’ve spent a lot of time reading tributes to Lin, so many beautiful, heartfelt words from those that knew him, knew him as more than a voice on the radio, but as a friend, coworker, or mentor. They are far more qualified to express their thoughts and process their emotions on the man than I am. I don’t say that to diminish my feelings, only to contextualize what I’m trying to say. A voice on the radio is the only way I knew Lin, and, theoretically at least, I shouldn’t feel his passing as much as I do given the nature of our “relationship”. After all, he was “only” one of the voices accompanying me down life’s highway, literally and figuratively, for many years.

I feel like I have so much more to say here, but instead I’m going to do two things- I’ve mentioned here before that I sometimes feel wholly inadequate as a writer when I listen to lyrics by songwriters I admire, Lin, through his 20 year long segment “Lin’s Bin” wherein he would answer readers emails, as well as in many other ways, was incredibly gifted with words. So I want to add a postscript in the form of one of his beautifully eloquent answers. Here, from the XRT Facebook page, are Lin’s own words. I’m gutted.

Is it still great to be alive?

What is my inheritance? What have my ancestors left for me? They have left those voices in the dark that ask questions, my own voices in the middle of the night when the mind spins slightly off its axis and wobbles like a spinning top about to roll over on its side. 
Is it still great to be alive? A delicate question subject to the eloquence of the ages.

“For in that sleep of death what dreams may come. When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause: there’s the respect that makes calamity of so long a life.”

And yet we can say it out loud. 

It’s great to be alive.

Affirmation is so much easier in a convertible with the top down.
Celebration comes naturally in the robustness of our younger years.
Optimism is a dish best served with extra appetizers to share.
Great to be alive.

How does this phrase sound to the people living on the fringes?
Living on the street. People who survive against all odds.
What is so great about alive?

Is it still great to be alive?
This question stirs the guilt we feel when we attempt to rejoice among the ruins of civilization.
So better to joke about it.
Better to sing about it.

For the thoughtful, this is an awkward question.
Some have said that It’s great to be alive is not something they would ordinarily say.
Me either. But these are not ordinary times. And they never were.

Are we shaken from our brighter purpose by the unspooling tragedies that start as a ten word tweet and grow into a news story with full team coverage and a regenerating youtube video? Sadness that proliferates like the head of the Hydra.
These events that amplify our own misery and doubt.

When the noted social critic Frank Zappa stood on a stage to announce that it is great to be alive, it might have seemed sarcastic. 

“It’s so f$%&*g great to be alive is what the theme of our show is tonight, boys and girls. And I want to tell you, if there is anybody here who doesn’t believe that it is f$%&*g great to be alive, I wish they would go now because this show will bring them down so much.”

Life is so much clearer with a guitar in your arms.
But the truly cynical observer will remind us that it is always more poetic to reject life when you’re not fighting for your own. If it’s only pretty good to be alive, we should wonder at the young and the old who struggle to breathe.

Some of us are tempted to give up. Instinct is strong but not unshakeable.

In the absence of certitude, we make choices. I’ve made mine.
Is it still great to be alive?
Actually, no.

It’s f$%&*g great to be alive.

That last line was one of the taglines Lin will leave with us.

I’m going to leave this for now but, before I go, I want to encourage you to tune in to WXRT 93.1 FM if you’re in the Chicago area, if you’re like me and somewhere else in the world, you can stream that at, for example the Audacy app or likely any number of other streaming options. Regadless how you do it, you should listen in as the station pays tribute to one of the good ones.

Rest In Peace Lin. From one of your many best friends in the whole world.

Peace

Posted on

Writer’s Block

I’ve been struggling to compose anything that made sense/brought joy to me of late, so I thought I’d try and break my slump here. To be sure, this isn’t the type of “slump-buster” you may be familiar with, I have no plans for anything nefarious, merely trying to switch things up a little. I don’t have a theme for today per se, rather I’ll try and do a “hit to all fields” post for the occasion.

After looking at that last paragraph, I’ve apparently got baseball on my brain, what with all the references. Ok, let’s start there. If you’ve followed the lack of action on that front for the last several months, you may be aware that Major League Baseball (MLB) and the Players Association (MLBPA) recently agreed on a new collective bargaining agreement after a lockout that lasted 99 days. If you have ever read any of my stuff before, or if you know me IRL, I think you’ll know that; A.) I love baseball, B.) I support union workers period, and C.) I’m a lifelong Cubs fan. Let me add to that by saying; D.) I’m what you might call somewhat political. While I’m not argumentative by nature (there are some that just need to hold their thoughts right about now, just sayin’) I have felt the need to stand my ground from time-to-time on various topics. Here’s one that has been building for a long time and the recent lockout proved to be the straw that broke the camel’s back- I’m done with the Cubs.

I’m done giving my support to an ownership group that has, at almost every turn, stood for things I vehemently oppose. Every inside piece I’ve ever seen about the family that owns the Cubs has been filled with disdain for the common fan. Almost every move they have made since taking over the team has been done to deepen their own personal pockets. Now don’t misunderstand me, I understand that it’s a business, and the point of a business is, to my simple mind, to turn a profit. I get that. But when you turn a healthy profit and cry poor, well that gets old. Through readily available public sources, the family that owns the Cubs paid $845 million for them in 2009 and as of March 2021, according to Forbes magazine, the ball club was valued at $3.36 billion dollars. So don’t tell me you can’t afford to pay your employees. And it’s not just them, I’m sure a similar search through any number of ownership groups would produce similar results. And yet, MLB chose to lockout the MLBPA last December and sit idly for 43 days before restarting negotiations. And fought them every. single. step. of the way.

So thanks for the 2016 season and the World Series, but I’m out.

I’m not going to go any deeper into this particular topic, I just submitted my article for the Illinois retired fire person magazine and I feel like they should have a little exclusivity as far as my views on the topic go. So. Moving right along.

I’m often fond of weather bragging when it’s beautiful down here. So I feel the need to weather shame a little today. It’s. Frickin’. Cold. Like, I had to get my old Carhartt winter jacket back out of the closet this morning. Granted, those of you back in the Greater Burlington Metropolitan Area (aka northern Illinois) might cast a wayward glance at me for whining about rain and 40º but I’ll not change my position that this is just not right. The fact that the coming week should be pretty seasonal if not a little better is small consolation to me today. I’m cold. And a little crabby too. But a lovely latte and firing my thoughts off on my laptop are helping to abate that misery.

Music, of course, helps. How’s that for a segue? For my listening pleasure today I’ve got Joe Pug pumping through the headphones. Today is the first time I’ve ever listened to him, possibly even the first time I had heard of him although the name does strike me as kind of familiar. I was scrolling through the Twitterz this morning and I saw a post from Jason Isbell that linked to a Joe Pug song, so I gave it a listen. The song was Bury Me Far (from My Uniform) and it blew me away. I apologize for the ads on the link, if I knew how to put one up without them, I certainly would, but I guess that’s the way YT does business… Anyway, back to the music, yeah, if you’re unfamiliar with Joe Pug, give him a listen. He’s actually playing in Chicago next month on the 15th at Tonic Room and if anyone goes, I’d love to hear your thoughts. I can’t wait for him to get down to the southeast, we’ll definitely go check him out.

Imma wrap this one up briefly by continuing the musical vibe, we’re off to see Graham Nash on Tuesday over in Durham. I’m really looking forward to it too. I saw CSN many years ago, Diane and I went with the Great Vincenzo and Terri to the United Center. The band was at the opposite end of the stadium from us, but it was a great show nonetheless. There have been countless protest songs written throughout the history of recorded music, but I wonder if anyone, anywhere has ever written one as beautiful musically as To The Last Whale: I. Critical Mass, II. Wind On The Water because I don’t know if it’s possible. Again, sorry if you get the ads, but enjoy the music. I know I do.

Peace.

Posted on

And Now, For Something Completely Different

Ok, sometimes I can’t help myself, so apologies to Monty Python, but it felt like a natural title since most of my recent posts, infrequent though they may be, have been of a serious nature. Today, not so much. I want to kind of blow the carbon out of this thing and get back to a more light-hearted nature today. I don’t know about you, but I need it.

So, I recently spent an evening in Durham, NC at a concert, namely – The Last Waltz. If you’re a music person you may be asking (Go ahead, I’ll wait…)

“Hey, wait a minute, didn’t that concert take place back in the 70’s?”

To which I would reply “You are correct. But this was a re-creation of the original concert put together by Warren Haynes and produced by Robbie Robertson.”

Now then, one of the joys of attending a concert, in addition to the obvious #livemusicisbetterlive thing, is interacting with random strangers. Occasionally this is wonderful, but, by and large, it leaves me silently muttering to myself and shaking my damn head.

As in… casual, pre-show conversation with a fellow a couple seats down revealed he had seen (or was planning on seeing, frankly it all gets a bit blurry) The Doobie Brothers with Michael McDonald. And that’s where the blurry started. If you know me IRL, there’s a real good chance you know my feelings (looking at you O-town) about the band Journey. If you don’t know, my personal feelings about that group of “musicians” can be summed up like this… If modern music were a cat, Journey would be the hairball that said cat was attempting to hack up. How’s that for a visual? So, with that frame of reference as a starter, where does Michael McDonald fit in? I’ll get back to this later.

This year has been probably my favorite concert-going calendar year. Twenty or so concerts/music festivals since the start of 2019 kept my soul in a good place. Without going back through my calendar to confirm (well, maybe a peek or two) my memory, in 2019 I saw among others; Patty Griffin, Drive By Truckers, Gary Clark Jr., Greensky Bluegrass, Yonder Mountain String Band, Manchester Orchestra, Big Thief, New Pornographers, Strand Of Oaks, American Aquarium, Bottle Rockets, and a few that I’m blanking on. I also made it to a wonderful music festival in Lexington, KY; Railbird Festival, in what was its inaugural event. 2020 promises to be pretty good for me musically too, with tickets already secured for Beale Street Music Festival in May and High Water Festival in April. As a bonus, four of my fav people are coming to join me in Charleston, SC for High Water, so in addition to a really killer (and it is) lineup, the company should make for a pretty spectacular weekend.

So, let’s backtrack to my metaphor. I’ve been thinking about how best to describe my feelings about Mr. McDonald as he relates to my taste in music. I feel like I should put out a bit of a disclaimer here. Obviously not everyone has the same taste in music. And I fully recognize it takes some amount of skill to sell the number of records a major label artist, in any genre, sells over the course of their career. But see, that’s the good thing about music. You can have strong opinions about what you do or don’t like. There’s enough variety that if you don’t like a particular artist, you need not listen to it. Tangentially, no one forces you to listen to that which you don’t enjoy. Turn the station, you know? I’m not opposed to trying out artists I’ve not heard before. Seven of the acts I listed above are bands I’d either never heard of or had never listened to until I contemplated buying tickets to their shows. And I thoroughly enjoyed each of the shows. By the same token, I won’t be purchasing a ticket to go see Micheal McDonald in this lifetime. Something about his voice maybe, or his look maybe, or the fact that I feel he is singularly responsible for turning the aforementioned Doobie Brothers from the kind of band that you sing along at the top of your lungs to their numerous hits as you drive down the road with your car windows wide open into the smarmy, self-aggrandizing treacle that was produced from the time he joined the band until the world at large tired of his musical diabetes and stopped buying their records for fear of slipping into a coma.

Too much? Yeah, maybe. But imho Michael McDonald is the hairball the cat coughed up after eating the initial (Journey-based) hairball.

I feel so much better having gotten that off my chest btw. Even though I feel like there’s a really good chance my respective timelines will become loaded down with links to MM songs. I can think of at least a few of you that have that loveably antagonistic approach. It’s a risk I’m willing to take.

I do, after all, have an intimate relationship with my “delete” button.

In a perfect world, I’d crank out some type of year-end or decade-end post. So, it’s a definite maybe. But if it doesn’t happen I’d just like to say thanks to everyone that has continued reading my random tomfoolery here on the interwebz. I hope you all had the best holiday season ever and I wish you all a safe, and happy new year!

Peace!