ya gotta love the AP

given the ideological perversion of most major news media these days, it's always nice to be able to catch up with things from less-partisan sources like the bbc, and, here in the us, the associated press. today the AP outdoes itself in coverage of the unprecendented flooding in southeastern new england, by throwing this little tidbit in at the end:

"demetri skalkos, co-owner of mcnamara's liquor store, said about three feet of water stood in the basement. he said he was worried about losing business over the traditionally busy easter period. 'this is the holy week,' he said. 'if we don't do business now, when are we going to do business?' "

when, indeed, demetri.

(not being up to lisa redmond's example, it's not completely clear if mcnamara's liquors is in peabody, ma, or elsewhere. but, wherever it is, it's ready to get you drunk enough to see jesus this sunday).

you just can't make this stuff up.

go riverhawks!!!

how cool is that, that recent umass lowell star goalie carter hutton has already been called up to the NHL.

the philadelphia flyers are imploding, and their goaltending is not the least of their problems, what with ray emery and now michael leighton both going down and out for the season. (and nobody here in bruins country is shedding any tears). brian boucher is not their answer, (he gave up 16 goals while his team dropped the last five games straight before finally catching a break against the already-playoff-clinched new jersey devils last night), and it stands to reason that SOMEBODY has to sit and be ready for the next time he has to get pulled. (the last time was just a few days ago in pittsburgh). why shouldn't it be carter hutton.

carter hutton was the best goaltender in hockey east this year bar none, and quite possibly the country. his team scored hardly any goals for him at all, yet he still posted 13 wins against the best college teams in the country, while sporting a 2.00 GAA, a .928 save percentage, and four--count 'em--four shutouts.

congrats carter--you've earned it!

gunther wellenstein can kiss my unrecycled ass

once again in my local paper i see the grinning visage of the city's waste recycling czar atop an admonition to recycle something--this time old phone books.

gunther, once again, i'll ask you to consider that:

first of all, i don't have access to city recycling services, even though i pay my property taxes just like the people who do.

second of all, anticipating the usual and extremely tired excuse that people who do enjoy city recycling services as part of city-provided waste disposal services are paying additionally for that privilege, i would add that they aren't paying nearly enough, since that budget line item is a loss each and every year, and me and others like me who do not enjoy these services are, in fact, already subsidizing that difference.

third of all, anticipating the usual and even more tired excuse that since it would reportedly (at least according to the BS spewed by people like gunther wellenstein et al.) cost the city more more money to extend waste disposal services and recycling services to downtown residents, it shouldn't be considered, i would add that collection costs at multi-resident properties are far lower than everywhere else, since you only have to send one truck to one place to pick up as much stuff as is currently subsidized to send many trucks to many places for everybody else, and given the current trash fee structure, it's pretty obvious to anyone with a calculator that there'd be a PROFIT from collecting trash downtown, not a loss, and that profit could be used to offset the losses in other parts of the city.

fourth of all, as is so often repeated, the city isn't able to gain the benefit of economies of recycling scale, since we don't yet currently recycle nearly enough stuff, and it seems pretty amazing to me that nobody can put these two and one-through-three together.

fifth of all, and this one isn't pointed at gunther, but at the horse's asses at the yellow pages companies--my building certainly does not need the literal mountain of useless books currently dumped (literally--dumped) in our mail room every few months, and neither do we need the expense of having to dispose of them

which brings us right back around to the top:

gunther, if you'd like to recycle my phone books, i would invite you to come right over here and get them. i'm quite confident that i can speak for everyone else in my building that we'd be glad to pay you to do it.

when local music goes truly local

one of the best parts of living downtown (shangri-lowell, yo) is being walking distance from all sorts of great stuff. this saturday morning and afternoon, the greatest of the great stuff will be three great bands descending on the LTC studios (right across the little park from me, and easy to reach for everybody else on market street just steps from the leo roy garage) to record some fresh video: diva taunia at 10:30, air traffic controller (well, dave munro and a string quartet) at 12:15, and elizabeth lorrey, who many may remember from her frequent appearances with the rafters.

first of all, diva taunia is an experience that simply HAS to be had. everything from standards ("i've got a crush on you" is right there on her home page just a "play" click away, and it's awesome) to even-better stuff (click on the "promo" link from her home page, and click on the second one: "stuff like that there", which is too cool for school). and she'll be puttin on the ritz just for you if you let her. 10:30!

up next, at 12:15, will be dave munro of air traffic controller. (yes, he's been an actual air traffic controller). this youtube video is just dave, his guitar, and a string quartet on a back stairway somewhere to give you some idea of how amazing this guy is. (with the full monty here, in case you dig). i've been given to understand the strings are coming to the LTC studios--something not to be missed.

and, finally, at 1:30, it's elizabeth lorrey. (a sample of whom can be found here, as well as on her website linked above, and, for those who may have carefully noted from a past review here of the premier episode of "a local anesthetic", doing her "angry l-word" thing singing about "blood on the state house", which is something worth finding if you can). yes, yet another local lowell gem, and a perfect opportunity to see the real deal in a very intimate setting.

maybe none of the club owners here get it, but you can get it just for walking up and sitting down to listen. see you there!

edited to correct misinformation related to elizabeth lorrey and her relationship to the rafters, with whom she often plays--thanks joeg for the corrections!

napster for politicos

party has always seemed to be an essential building block for electoral success in this country, among other things enabling members to tap into necessary funding networks in order to arm themselves for battle. in recent years it's becoming apparent that this particular peculiarity of american political life may be quickly evolving, with grass roots efforts once again propelling many improbable candidates into office--candidates who are tapped into more than just party apparatchiks and the "usual suspect" big corporate donors. (a black president? are you kidding?) yet, up until now, managing a campaign, grass roots or otherwise, was a feudal effort of intense manual labor, and most all handshaking still had to be done the old fashioned way. yep, up until now.

oh, good old fashioned hand shaking isn't going anywhere, nor will it ever likely be completely replaced, but blue swarm is a brand new (just released!) network-savvy campaign platform that is poised to accelerate changes to all this nonetheless. leveraging social media, like facebook, blue swarm lets grass rootsers conveniently share their political urges with all their friends, and it gives everyone the chance to get involved in their favorite campaigns and make easy donations, while allowing the campaigns to nearly-effortlessly track all the necessary details of that support in order to fill out those tricky campaign reports that so often hang up and derail the best-intended amateurs.

they've already been part of raising over $100M in campaign cash, and the part i like best is that this kind of campaign cash is the GOOD kind--the kind that comes in small amounts from individuals, not in large, corruption inducing amounts from PACs and big corporations. it's the kind that comes hand in hand with individuals getting re-involved in democracy.

get it!

oh--and i almost forgot. putting politics aside for a moment, consider that non-profit organizations--charities and colleges and all manner of deserving other deserving outfits--have needed something like this for a long time, and it works great for them, too--almost even better than for the pols.

get it!

medicating yourself yet?

a local anesthetic continues its twice-weekly run (originally on saturdays at midnight, and then repeated the following friday at 11) and the shows just keep getting better. what originated as a mash-up of (apparently) whatever musical or musically-oriented video could be cobbled together from wmbr radio guests and anything else producer joe graham happened to come by on a given week, (which was awesome enough, featuring as it could the likes of some pretty cool local lowell talent), the show is starting to properly feature the up-and-coming and already-here acts that make this city what it is. this past week an extended acoustic set by audrey can't die was wrapped around a very interesting and entertaining conversation with sir bob nash, he of wonka sound and more local bands and recordings than could possibly be named. a tour of wonka had to be inferred from the photographs of it brought to the studio, but perhaps in the future joe and gus and the rest of the ALA crew will be able to go on location and give us the guided tour.

and, speaking of going on location, for those of you lucky enough to have seen trickbag, the carl johnson trio, and jen kearney the other weekend, those video rigs and sound recording apparati you may have noticed about the place are indeed going to yield some tasty clips of the show on an upcoming ALA episode. and this is big. big, because the sound quality at that show was remarkable (they rented a real PA, yo) as were the performances.

i get mine fridays at 11 on comcast 95 (so as to let my tivo try to salvage something watchable from snl on saturdays) but you can get yours either way you like. it's worth the watch--tape it, dvr it, or do whatever you have to do to get it (because we're all out supporting local music on friday and saturday nights, yes?) and enjoy.

where does the time go

just toured asheville, nc with my eldest as part of the quest to find the next chapter of his rapidly accelerating life. putting aside the mental whiplash that this gives to the standard where-did-the-time-go father, it was fascinating to be able to glimpse life through both my own eyes, as well as a fresh pair who have yet to see and do everything that the young man sees and does. for myself, as can be seen in the previous (the following as you take it, blog-style), post, i was immediately and inexorably drawn to the local music culture, and suitably impressed. however, the next installment from the genetic pool in which i swim was less intrigued by such, and more taken with lots of other things that will be left to him to either write about or keep to himself as he so pleases. there'll be plenty more places to go, and things to see, before the decision is made.

for myself, i would have stopped right there and put a deposit down on the apartment. (they hypothetical "i", that is, who would be driven to put distance between himself and his hypothetical parents--you know i am never going to leave lowell). the feeling of which compressed my sense of my life and reconnected me to a much younger self in a way that's rarely enjoyed, though sincerely savored.

my knees are going (gone?) and my middle is thickening. (not the most advantageous combination in a soccer player). my beard is grey, and there's more forehead there than used to be. but my spirit of joie de vivre survives, and i hope, among all the other things a son must inherit from his father and loathe, that this is one that makes more sense and can be appreciated at some point before the circle comes full.

until then, as mojo nixon sings, "when did i become my dad, when did i become my dad?"

musings on local music

asheville north carolina has a population of about 80,000 people, and virtually no significantly populated suburbs. it's a college town with exactly one college in it, (UNCA, with somewhere around 3500 students), though there's a "technical community college", too. now consider:

there's an ongoing community drum circle every friday night in the central city park on top of an active street performance/busking culture, supporting a series of annual music festivals. their annual "christmas jam" benefit for habitat for humanity has featured dave matthews, the allman brothers, and various members of the grateful dead. they've even got their own opera company. roberta flack is from there. robert moog, too. for clubs they have rooms like the "orange peel social aid & pleasure club", a 1000 seat gem that has hosted the likes of bob dylan, flaming lips, ben harper, blondie, sonic youth, etc. (the smashing pumpkins did a NINE show run there in 2007). inside the club is also a 100-seat downstairs room. on their calendar for april are, among others, vampire weekend, (with abe vigoda, and, yes, it's sold out), delbert mcclinton, george clinton and parliament funkadelic, and allen toussaint. there's something most any wednesday, thursday, friday, saturday AND sunday. and, of course, along with the orange peel anchoring the big-name acts, there's no end to the number of seats-less-than-100 rooms featuring local live music virtually every night of the week.

why do i bring this up, do you ask?

think about it. 100,000 people supporting that much local and national music. yes, we here in lowell have the folk festival and the summer concert series, so we have a lot of the big stuff covered, and we have tex-mas eve for an annual christmas fund-raising tradition, too. but we don't have a room like orange peel, and we don't have a 100-seat local live venue that brings the local live music to the people.

and that's just too bad, isn't it.

musings on right and left

edited to preface this piece with the admission of guilt that i am, indeed, a lefty when it comes to social politics; i think tea partiers who lost the thread months ago and have turned their movement into a republican stooge operation ARE tea baggers; i believe in social justice as an objective of representative government; when you read this piece, please read it through the lens of someone who wishes that lefty politics wasn't such a caricature of itself. remember--i'm the guy with both an nra AND an aclu card. so, on to the rant:

there's a fascinating piece on andrew breitbart in this month's wired magazine. it examines in some very illuminating detail his modus operandi in opposition to the "democrat media complex", and, in so doing, is able to list the series of flabbergastingly damning publicity coups he has enabled/propagated/exploited against everything lefty-of-center, from acorn to newsweek to the detroit free press. read it if you're a lefty, a democrat, or an open minded independent, and try to tell me he hasn't been given all the rope anyone could ever need in hoisting these arrogant SOB's upon their own petard in virtually every single stunt. i mean, seriously, how can you beat a guy who is simply holding a mirror up to what is, quite clearly, true?

the terrifying part of all of this, to those he gleefully excoriates, eviscerates and then about whom celebrates, is that he's tapped into a nationwide and seemingly bottomless pool of righty frustration and bitterness, and the extent of his success has become the depth of his opponents' loathing. to wit, linked in today's richardhowe.com, the complete disrespect and dismissal of the whole phenomenon in today's ny times. (simply, in my opinion, the most arrogant piece of journalism penned in quite some time).

is anybody on the left even listening anymore???

the point that breitbart makes, and that resonates most profoundly with me, is contained quite eloquently in this particular series of quotes that i will lift verbatim from the story in wired:

"they’re an elitist pestilence," he says of his celebrity targets. "they tell us we can’t have SUVs. they try to impose a one-child-per-family policy. but they can do whatever the hell they want because they’re gallivanting around in the name of the greater good." he pauses while i [the wired writer] try to figure out the "one-child" comment. [me too, and i can only picture brad and angelina's brood here, but then he finishes with the explanation for it all] "god, i fucking hate them."

of course he does!

because they are exactly the tyrannical, hypocritical and corrupt bunch of sob's that he's painting them to be.

under the general heading that people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, i think andrew breitbart is devine retribution personified for ignoring scripture. al gore's 9,000 foot energy-sucking mansion (191 THOUSAND kwh's in 2006, and that's a fact, and to get an idea of the scale, you should pull out your own electric bill and compare) IS an abomination of privilege and excess, and one that is worthy of all the ridicule of nero and the senators of ancient rome. but this guy has the BALLS to preach penury to the masses, because it's ruining (my emphasis here) HIS planet. apologists will point out that al's installed solar panels since that story broke, but, and reasonable people MUST ask the question, is that for principle, or perversion of politics?

yes, after all, it's OUR planet, and al's ideas really are important, but, see, this is where i tip my hat to breitbart and hope he never quits. the means of our enslavement can never be the point, whenever it's tyranny at work. dress it up in high minded ideals, and it's still exploitation and evil. pull out all your old quotes from jefferson and franklin, cuz you're going to need them. these people truly do think they know better than you do, and they do want to legislate away your right to freely choose. and just like, as franklin says, you can't trade security for liberty, you can't trade energy independence for liberty, either.

so, righty or lefty, you have to tip your hat to breitbart and scratch your head at how editorial bias kills some stories, and shines klieg lights on others. lefties have no trouble playing the game when it's fox news, but how they can possibly be so blind to see how correct the right is these days about what's happening seemingly EVERYWHERE, from the grey lady on down, is growing to be the real problem in our country, and andrew breitbart is in the vanguard on calling it out. yes, the hardest part for reasonable people everywhere will continue to be separating the lure of the attractive politics (al gore's point that energy independence is the key to resolving our economic and security issues too is something in which i personally believe wholeheartedly, and you should too) from the evil of their machinations and greed and the assault upon our liberties that follows, though we'll all have andrew breitbart to thank for helping us out tell the difference.

until then, when you see irate lunatics raging stupidly against nancy pelosi, harry reid and barack obama, realize that they have an extremely eloquent point, it's just that it's poorly made. the solution cannot be forcing them to shut up. the solution has to be to throw the corrupt out of office, no matter how urgently you agree with them, in search of a better class of representative. (and that goes for the righties, too).

the irony i'm sure you'll discover is that honest people can have ethical politics, too. and, the best part? breitbart will immediately be made to look like the horse's ass he is if he ever tries to take them on, because, adapting the sentiment from one of my favorites, "you can't cheat an honest man", you can't win a smear campaign against someone who tells the truth. (it's why nobody can beat breitbart these days, isn't it!)

2 U's, 2 K's, 2 points

tuukka rask is the real deal, and one can only imagine how far he could take a team with some legitimate scoring punch. but, until then, it's a marvel to just watch him "let the pucks hit him", as the old goalie coaches used to say. (who knows, maybe the new ones say that too). another shutout (is that five this year?) and another win for the hopeful bruins. (not a hockey fan? let me recommend it a a way to get through months one and two of the upcoming major league baseball season--your red sox are looking pretty rough).

fair vs possible

in some comments on right side of lowell, (don't forget to click on "show original post" for the full picture), a commenter put forward the argument that his life of long and hard work ought to earn him a retirement unfettered by obligation to pay for future generations' schooling. (i'm guessing he'd say healthcare too).

i'm struck by the fairness of his point. i even agree with it.

but i'm also struck by his bitter refusal to deal with the reality that the shrinking number of productive workers left to pay for the inadequately funded reserves for social security and medicare mean that fairness will likely have nothing to do with the eventual reality. he may not like it, but that's the math when there aren't resources left to do what's fair or right--you can't squeeze blood from a stone, and you can't keep social security and medicare afloat at the current rate. it's not a question of fairness, it's a question of reality.

myself, i don't expect to enjoy a solvent social security system, or medicare coverage for that matter, and i'm discouraged that others cannot see the sad truth of this while they are railing about the unfairness of having been cheated out of a lifetime of taxes to pay for other people's ease. yup, it's unfair. and, the sad fact is that we, this retiring generation, have been alive while the whole thing was cocked up (possibly) beyond repair.

it's too late to complain about it. the big question is how we're going to fix it, and, yes, i fully expect a lot of people who shouldn't have to, will have to. (pay for it, that is).

cuz if we don't, the whole fabric of our country is ripped beyond repair.

i happen to be enough of a patriot to love it too much to stand behind a question of "fair" when something else must be done.

embree??? is theotito f'ing serious???

forget healthcare--wtf is going on over at sox headquarters???

you know i can love an aging arm on the mound. (yo, wake, you DA MAN). but embree at 38 was a train wreck, and embree at 40 is so far beyond reason that i can't even fathom wtf theotito (my new name for the GM/managerial brain trust) is thinking.

to win this year, with their lineup, sox pitching is going to have to be virtually un-hittable. i fear for wake's run support, and beyond a miraculous matsuzaka rebirth and resurgence, i can't see this crew even managing a wildcard spot without a lot of hard work and luck that would otherwise defy reason.

but embree in the bullpen? that's, like david bowie sings, putting out fire with gasoline.

i have no idea what i'm going to do until october after hockey season ends, but i'm going to have to find something.

the hydra

no, i cannot just let it go...

greek myth contains a lot of useful information--for example, resembling nothing so clearly as our current struggle against our own federal government--heracles second labor against the hydra.

you know the story--when you cut off one of its heads, two of the hydra's grow back? well, original versions of the myth ultimately have heracles depending on his nephew, iolaus, to brand each neck every time a head was removed, to take note of, finally, which head was the single immortal one. once possessed of the knowledge of which head was central to slaying the beast, heracles was finally able to cut it off and bury it to save his nation.

well, our beast has one and only one nob of immortality--its ability to tax.

current tea partiers are flailing wildly against the beast, and the latest of its many rearing heads, (our new healthcare regime), and, just like heracles in the early going, it's not going to do any of us any good, observing that justice in the equitable distribution of healthcare is a two-headed political sword if there ever was one. (i, for one, understand why politics and politicians are best never to pick on widows and orphans).

to slay the beast, it must be beheaded at its one vulnerable spot--its ability to tax. unless and until we go after that particular head, and only that head, we will always be losing the war.

the greeks got it. do you?

"never before in history..."

heard/read this one this morning, that "never before in history have americans been forced to buy something before". (yes, i'm still on the healthcare kick).

digressing just a little bit, there was an argument, way back in the day, most dramatically put forward by daniel shays, who is a particular folk hero of mine, that government taxes are intrinsically tyrannical, and should be outlawed, not the people who prefer not to, most likely because they cannot, pay them. (sound familiar, tea partiers?)

i happen to agree with daniel, and the tea partiers, on this one, but alexander hamilton and our impressive american wealth-generating capitalist scheme, which is built on none other than our government's ability to concentrate capital via tapping into the present value of the ongoing tax revenue stream, won that argument years ago, and it's ironic that most tea partiers don't see the price of their principles. which is to say, to dismantle our capital system, and eliminate the tax trick, would be to pull the rug out from under american global economic and cultural hegemony at the same time too, and likely eventually give up superpower status to somebody else. (though that may happen anyway if we continue to damage alexander's system to the degree we're damaging it these days). anyway, from the moment george washington sent the federally-paid soldiers to springfield to put down shays rebellion, we started down a course where we are all forced to buy something (our federal, state and local government) that we really have no choice about then or anymore.

in return for this "purchase", we receive, today, primarily: national military protection and retirement support with medical benefits, along with local police and fire protection, and local public schools.

fair enough.

so now we have the (apparently) crazy notion that folks ought to enjoy medical protection throughout their lives, and not just in retirement, and the tea partiers and the anti-democrats are up in arms that it's socialism and the end of our great nation as we know it.

are you kidding me???

the problem is not equitable distribution of healthcare. anyone who is against government mandates for equitable distribution of healthcare is a miserable SOB in my book, and i'll tell it to your face if you'd like--miserable SOB.

the problem is that we've lost the thread of what government is here to do for us, which is, in order, defend our constitution, and, in so doing, ensure justice. (you know how you memorized it as a kid--"liberty and justice for all").

well, we don't have so much liberty anymore, (thanks, "patriot" act), and we're teetering on the edge here where political animosity has completely lost the thread on justice.

everyone deserves fair access to healthcare. arguing against that is arguing against justice.

but if you'd like something constructive to do today, read up on the gold standard, and shays rebellion, and lets argue about the real problem, which is not healthcare, but the presumption that our national government can expand itself at will and whim by taxing.

arguing against healthcare is not arguing for small government. it's arguing against children who are denied coverage because they are born sick. it's arguing against people who are denied coverage because they contract cancer. it's arguing that insurance companies can use actuarial tables to decide who lives and dies. (so highly ironic to me that people are ranting about "death panels", when they're too blind to see WE ALREADY HAVE THEM, and they work for aetna et al.)

ron paul for president.

and another thing

pursuant to yesterday's rant on the "i've got mine" syndrome, it occurs to me that scott brown, and, thus, arguably his "scott brown independents" for their backing of him, were outspoken during his campaign and his first days in washington about support for massachusetts-style healthcare reform and not the boondoggle version then floating about. reflecting today i can't help but notice the similarity of the ultimately-passed federal plan to our little local one here, (mandated carrying of coverage, etc.), it's highly ironic to observe all the whining against the federal plan by those very same folks these days.

people are funny.

trick

ogden nash had it right, right from the start when he observed that "people who have what they want are fond of telling people who haven't what they want that they don't really want it".

i'm at a loss to understand the vehemence and vitriol of the anti-healthcare rhetoric today, observing, as any objective observer must, that more people will be covered and given access to basic healthcare than ever before, and that can't be a bad thing. of course, many folks are spilling their spittle that it's also somehow bad for the healthcare business to have the government involved, but i can't help but further observe, as any objective observer must, that the segment leading today's stock market rally was none other than healthcare stocks across the board, and i'm guessing it's hardly a coincidence. (all those new customers can't be bad for any business). then, of course, there's the "we can't afford to cover all those people" argument, to which i can only observe, as any objective observer must, that "people who have what they want are fond of telling people who haven't what they want that they don't really want it", or, as i might paraphrase, "i got mine, so you can go suck it".

i've been reading the bill that got passed, and i don't have nearly the problem with it that i'm supposed to have, if i'm listening to tea partiers, republicans, and the so-called majority who reportedly don't like it at all. (understatement). of course, i'm guessing, the first time one of their small children is stricken with an illness that would have otherwise been uncovered later in life as a "pre-existing condition", or priced out via a lifetime cap, or maybe one of their 25 year old unemployed kids for that matter, they'll feel differently. but, of course, 'til then, it'll be "damn the torpedos and screw everyone who doesn't already have their hall pass into the system".

personally, i think that's a pretty mean-spirited way to take out your political frustrations on the donkeys currently in the majority. i mean, really. for everything that they are doing to this country, granting healthcare access to a wider swath of the population is hardly the right bone to start to pick if you ask me. there's plenty more there, if folks just weren't so lazy and prone to repeat back whatever rush and newt and glen and whoever says.

and, either way, from me to you and yours, sincerely--i'm glad to know you're covered, too.

treat

among the host of memorable electrical-related pyrotechnics i've ever seen in my fanboy career, last night's spontaneous combustion while dave champagne was ripping THE SOLO that literally melted his amplifier right down has to be one of the best. i mean, seriously--melted it right down. smokin'. tubes glowing red like they were part of the light show. like randy newman sings it about harps and angels.

and you know how i'm always talking like a drunk about liquor when it comes to carl's custom guitars and those sweet fender tube amps cossetted in their dovetailed wooden cabinets so they literally sing while they're blowing the room away? well, carl just happened to be sitting nearby when the first amp gave its life for rock and roll, and just happened to have a spare upgrade to a fender twin down in the basement resting up for his gig tonight with jen kearney, and it was mere moments before dave was up and running again with the new rig. i can't say if it was or wasn't running the sound dave wanted, but if the spontaneous and right-through-the-encore gyrations of the "treat her right dancers" are any indication, he sure as heck got what he needed. (and here's a peek at the lineup)


yes, treat her right was rockin' toad last night, and it was awesome. (or as one of my seatmates put it later, "awesome awesome awesome"). steve mayone even was able to wrestle the mic away from jim and dave and billy for one of dave's originals that has to be one of the BEST hard times lyrics and melody ever written. (and i mean, up to and including melvern taylor's "working stiff"). you and me need to GET THIS SONG, though i'll have to do some digging to find out where. awesome. did i say awesome? AWESOME. ("tryin' to get laid... ... ... off").

we got yet another rendition of dave's "bad girls moved into my neighborhood" [sic, but, again, until we find it written down or recorded somewhere, we can only guess as to the titles], which jim promptly deemed "best version EVAH", though that may have had something to do with dave's version of the lyrics that included starting the first verse over again a second time, about which absolutely nobody was complaining, cuz it just meant we all got to enjoy the song for longer, and enjoy it we all did.

it all opened with "everglades", (running like a dog), and almost finished blowing the roof off with "sin city", (backsliding), to make room for the encore, natch, and it was all so very, very good.

catch 'em with the orchestra morphine at the middle east on friday night, which should be one of those show of shows that'll be all over youtube by saturday morning. (and don't forget to catch carl over at toad tonight checking to see if there's anything left to his fender twin since dave got through kicking everybody's ass with it last night, but good.

very, very good.

carl johnson is in the house

last night three bands laid it down upstairs at the blue shamrock aka gemstones, and it was very, very good. trickbag opened the night with some great new orleans flavored funk and made such sonic impression that the room was all about sight lines to the stage, and folks happening to be standing in the wrong right spots were asked to move just a little so that everybody could see what they were putting down. great stuff. mike crutcher (guitar), mark longo (hammond), mike "squid" rush (bass) and russ lane (drums) are the real deal. near the end of their set they invited the rockingly inestimable carl johnson to join 'em, and you knew it was going to be a great night when you heard carl twisting those knobs up to where they oughta be, and that new PA they had in there for the gig helped carl to blow the room away.

carl didn't even let the amp cool off before he and justin beaulieu and peter capra (the carl johnson trio) ripped into their set of carl originals (rightbackatcha, she ain't comin back, sofa blues, and, yeah it's a love song, etc. etc. etc.), and classic covers like luther allison's cherry red wine, and the capstone of the evening, neil young's mr. soul. story around the room was that carl's gig at the thirsty ear last friday sent the kids into overdrive looking for a place for the trio to come back and hit 'em again, and let's just say they know what's good for 'em down there in cambridge, for sure.

by that time the old blues jr. was glowing red, and it was time for jen kearney and the lost onion to bring carl back to the stage yet again to give the people what they want. pete maclean had the catbird's seat up back behind his set, and claire finley was looking so hot i'm not even sure i'm allowed to talk about it. (word is it was a that-day barbie kiberstis original do, and i gotta say, barbie rocks). carl was regularly visited throughout the evening by claire and her pedulla penta buzz (i love the way even the name of her bass sounds dirty) and mark money shot mullins had his trumpet on overdrive. and jen... hot. one word. hot.

they were shopping classic circa-2005 "layers" ep's, and i got one, along with trick bag's "hip shot", and if they had a cj trio disc, i'd have bagged one of those too. one of those evenings for the record books, because i'll be able to say i was there when.

and treat her right is playing at toad tonight in cambridge. finestkind!
edited to correct the trickbag lineup per mike's generous correction!

PROGRESS!!!

last night at gemstones aka the blue shamrock upstairs an amazing thing happened. in one of those "silver lining" moments, they decided that the blown PA that sucked so hard that you couldn't hear the music last time (remember?) had to be replaced for the big show (jen kearney and the lost onion headlining sets by the carl johnson trio and trickbag) by a rented setup that, let's be honest here and give credit where credit is due, was AWESOME.

like crystal all the way up to full concert volume awesome. like, when carl's amp was miked through the PA, it was like aural sex. awesome. (yes, that was me with my right ear glued to the right channel speaker while claire finley was laying it down during "living (just enough) for the city"). i mean, if they had sound like this in the room every weekend, i'd go to see just about anybody. i mean, really good sound. like the kind of sound that makes the bartender asking "what's in a CC and water?" an amusing anecdote. and, not for nothing, but the bartenders last night seemed to have actually tended one before, and did a just fine job of it, all night long.

and the waitresses were wearing sensible shoes, too! and, by sensible, i don't mean dowdy--ours was rockin some black pump rubber sole club rockets that carried her around the floor in record time, and i never had to wait for my bud bottles all night long, even at the beginning. (yes, virginia, they had beer available from the moment they opened the room--imagine that). lest you be worried about my beer habits vis a vis the bud bottles, let me add that the tap stuff they were relaying up from downstairs in pitchers, and i just couldn't go that extra mile of faith, and, besides, what's there not to like about bud in a bottle when the music sounds this good?

i'll tell you.

nothing not to like.

i even noticed them cleaning the ladies room at the end of the night (which is to say, not skipping it so that the next crowd gets the sanitation roulette wheel) and sincerely trying to please. what a concept!

i'm gonna go back. (yeah, i know!)

lisa!

this one has to be asterisked for the unfathomable tragedy which it surrounds, but it's got too many journalistic beauties within the copy not to give lisa redmond yet one more shout out for by-lining, hands down, the best story of the week. (again, not linked because of the sun's inexplicable policy to charge for online versions of the printed content).

by way of background and excuse, i was in orlando all week, and if you've never endured saint patrick's day at a theme park resort hotel while sequestered in its basement during an interminable marathon of business meetings and trade show booth conversations, then you just can't appreciate all the ways that human beings are driven to consider killing other human beings, so maybe i'm able to be amused in a way about this one that no one else will be able to be, so, in advance, if that should happen to be the case, then i'll gladly apologize for my unforgiveable lapse in judgment to be making sport of this one.

anyway, if attentive newsmongers will recall, back in november of 2007, a 31 year old woman from tyngsborough was found murdered in her husband's chelmsford apartment after he had tried (unsuccessfully) to commit both filicide and suicide by running himself, his three year old son, who had been witness to the homicide, (which is the unfathomable tragedy embedded within the rest of this campy and almost unbelievable tale of insanity), and his car into the grill of a dump truck while traveling down route 110 in methuen. (no, not any other sort of truck--these are the details of which lisa never lets us down).

the woman, according to the defense attorney's opening remarks, and as lisa so drolly recounts, "allegedly cheated on her husband with godsmack frontman sully erna and well-known local guitarist gary hoey in the days before she was found..." (you absolutely cannot make this stuff up). lisa goes on then to observe that the man "also learned his wife was to be a contestant on the reality show 'rock of love'--claiming she was unmarried without children--vying for the affections of brett michaels of the rock band poison". i swear--i'm not making any of this up, and you know for sure that lisa isn't, either. continuing: "the night she was killed, [she] proposed a sexual encounter with her husband and another man".

the next part i can't continue to relate because it immediately swerves into such pathos for the quotes given by the then-three-year-old child that it'll make you cry even more surely than you hadn't been able, up to that point, to believe the absurdity. i can't read about what others will do to their children without having to swallow both bile and tears. and from lisa's hand, the impact of the story is even all that much more so. *deep breath* but, as lisa always does, i'll go on:

luckily, as we all once learned in high school english class, the difference between comedy and tragedy is whether or not the players proceed to die at the final curtain, and, at least in this courtroom with the defendant on trial and his victim slash wife, pun intended, already long gone, lisa can send us out with our jaws on the ground, and, as george carlin once observed about inappropriate laughter, that which is like when you're kneeling in front of the casket... the prosecutor is quoted as describing our anti-hero as a "wannabe rock star", and citing his history "performing in an 80's cover band". lisa continues: "at one point, [he] quit the band, cut his hair and got a promotion at work that had him working long hours. he was exhausted, but his wife, who had been home all day with a baby, wanted to go out at night". and in just two sentences, lisa has explained everything.

for its part, the jury has to decide murder or manslaughter, but i think, first, they're going to have to find the courage to believe that this is reality and not fiction. (i suppose the difference being that, unlike reality, fiction has to make sense).

if you don't already get the sun, you do NOT know what you're missing.

"live where the food is"

i miss sam kinison...

one of his most memorable bits was expounding on the dynamics of world hunger, and recommending that, to stop it, we should stop sending food. his advice instead? "send u-hauls". because? people should live where the food is.

so it is this morning that i'm reading all the hard luck tales about flooding in riverfront basements, and i can't help but think that sam's advice might work for all sorts of situations. and i can hear him already: "LIVE WHERE THE DRY GROUND IS!!!"

some people can't be told you know...

part i-don't-know-how-many-and-two

a few weeks back i wrote a couple pieces on the bizarre way the ultra-selfish (i.e. private plane owners who fly over other people's private lands) treat others and are treated in the way that they pilot their little pleasure domes aka private planes out and about in the public world. anyway, this past monday on a beach in hilton head, sc, while jogging, a 38-year-old father of two was run down from behind by a (insert derogatory adjective here) pilot whose propeller had flown off, and whose windshield, he says, was so covered with oil that he could not see he was about to presume to end someone else's life in the pursuit of his little private personal hobby.

in order, and i quote, when asked by reporters, edward i. smith listed two of the issues he "has going on right now" that would prompt him to be reticent with the press: "i've got a plane that's all torn up". "and i've got a young man that i killed".

um, edward, i think mrs. robert jones (the deceased) and her bereaved children might be a little bit less concerned about your primary concern, and i, for one, am just about over the edge that this is the way mr. smith still thinks and would be so insensitive as to choose this way to talk about not talking about his situation.

oh, and in case you're interested to try to find some sort of "well, it was a public beach" rationalization for some sort of "accidental" explanation for the tragedy, i should add that the ap has identified the craft which has caused fatality as an "experimental lancair IV-P".

yep, that's right. some asshole was floating around public recreation areas in an experimental aircraft, and is concerned right now about his plane "that's all torn up".

i can tell you that the mind suggests a few other items that ought to be torn up right about now, and they're not an asshole's airplane.

unbelievable.

tell the oed to make room for one more

advances to the language can often come from the most improbable of sources, and i love this one too much not to share:

gilbert arenas is an nba star whose on-back bulls-eye comes well-earned from his self-promotional braggadocio. (he doesn't just refer to himself in the third person--he refers to himself in the third person as "agent zero"). gilbert recently made the news (and a season-long nba suspension) by brandishing not one, not two, not three, but FOUR firearms in the washington wizards (they only used to be called the washington bullets) locker room as part of a gambling debt prank played on a rookie teammate, who, it should be noted, immediately was able to pull out his own piece in response. at first gilbert was unapologetic, but he soon learned that boys-being-boys wasn't going to play in peoria, let alone commissioner stern's office, not to mention with the feds, who slapped a felony firearms charge on him like the cherry on the top of his other professional misery. (it should be noted that, on advice of counsel, mr. arenas promptly pled guilty on all counts, and remains quite publically contrite).

anyway, long story short, in as yet another installment of that public contrition, mr. arenas will be quoted at length in the upcoming issue of equire magazine, including the remarkable phrase for which he is now aces with me. you see, gilbert arenas, no longer "agent zero", but ever the consummate showman, has concluded that he wasn't using "longevity thinking" when he brought those four firearms (out of the 500 he estimates that he used to have in his home before he had children) into the locker room.

"longevity thinking".

hats off, gilbert--that's a keeper.

friday, saturday, monday, thursday and saturday again

last night the carl johnson trio debuted (is that the way it has to be spelled?) at the thirsty ear in cambridge, and it was good. very, very good. biblical good. don't believe me? here's the link to the recording of the first set, broadcast last night on 88.1 wmbr. best part of the show, well, second best to carl's guitar, was enjoying the expressions on the faces of the college kids in the audience who had never sat that close to a bona fide guitar player slash god before. great time! and, not for nothing, but peter capra's bass and justin beaulieu's rhythms were every bit up to the standard, and then some. great players!

tonight it's either carl and red devil lye down at jakes dixie roadhouse in waltham, (don't forget justin beaulieu again on skins, and arte kenyon on bass, steve esposito on keys, and jim leboeuf on the other guitar), or the comedy show down at the old court, with nods to joe graham for working hard to make sure we always have something to do here in lowell.

beyond that, the bella birds are at the lizard lounge on monday, and jen kearney and the lost onion are, as usual, at toad. yep, as usual, lowell music rocks cambridge. (can't wait 'til thursday when it's rockin' lowell, and jen and the gang are back at ole).

speaking of which--jen has put out the offer to anybody who wants to score some goodies--hit the monday night show at toad, and/or the thursday night show at ole, and then show up at gemstones (yeah, i know) on saturday and she'll hook you up with a collector's item cd, (unreleased stuff, including some classic live stuff from toad from "back in the day"), and a t-shirt, too. sounds too good to be true? well, only way to find out is to show up and put your hand out. you never know what somebody might put in it.

rock on, lowell!

top down vs bottom up?

continuing the pointless pontifications on association:

more recent comments have tried to differentiate between associations that are conscripted "top down" vs those that are joined "bottom up". one example given was the catholic church, (top down), and an excuse was being mooted for joinees of the "tea party" movement, suggesting the "bottom up" nature of the group offered reduced responsibility for association since its membership is primarily formed without required adherence to dictated dogma or ideology or politics.

well, you know there's always a web wise guy who sends the rhetoric straight to hitler whenever you're having a discussion on the web, but i figure i'll be lazy and keep it closer to today's headlines, and i'll crassly point out that al quaida has been going to a "bottom up" recruitment and organization strategy these days, ostensibly because it's harder to track and control or to assess or enforce specific responsibility, and that's something to think about. personally, i can't wait until one of 'em stands up in court and says "THOSE guys blew up that building--I didn't blow up that building--we're "bottom up" around here, and i can't be responsible for that".

yeah, inexcusable hyperbole, but it's exactly my point, and that's all the responsibility i'm willing to take on this one, since i've always been a "bottom up" kind of organizational guy.

my opinion? if you take the name, whether for convenience, glory, infamy or ease of club/chapter/cell recruitment, you're taking on a responsibility that is shirked if you don't address both your similarities and differences from others who take that same name. i should hope a judge would see it that way in court, and i should hope local "bottoms uppers" would see it that way too, and take some time to pay back the benefits of their association with the "tea party" designation, by making an effort to clarify whether they're with the fox news sound byters, or distancing themselves from them with substantial expressions of policy and position.

can't have it both ways.

the responsibility of relationship

the member of operation rescue who murdered a physician in his church in front of his family was rightfully denounced by the group's leadership, and we can all agree that this was and is correct. there is an implied responsibility we humans assume and recognize when we are members of a group, and family members who alert authorities to the volatility of their children and their capacity for violence have done a very difficult and very right thing. (to wit recent events growing too numerous to sleep well at night, even if not to mention).

for this reason, there can be no "my xxx right or wrong" when it comes to the personal stands we all must take for the associations we maintain. for example, you, me, and every other citizen of this great nation of ours is responsible for our part in the coincident collateral civilian casualties in afghanistan by the hands of our armed forces, and saying "my country right or wrong" is NOT the right answer to the question "how do you feel about the fact that some innocent women and children have been killed". our service men and women are doing dangerous and important work, and should have (and do as far as i'm concerned) our full and unequivocal support. however! we must also recognize our responsibility to express our national mourning for those innocent lives lost in that process, and not forget that we have made the collective decision to be there and to be at war, and that is not "someone else's" fault, or something about which silence is morally appropriate.

so it is that i'm frustrated by the conspicuous silence of tea partiers everywhere about the perversion of their small government ideals in order for some self-ascribed, albeit likely uninvited members of the movement to pursue partisan political agendae. it's not sufficient to say "i don't belong to the same group as they", when you've chosen the exact same name for your organization, yet see no reason to speak out on any differences.

i'd expect one of two things: A) a clear expression of differences, or B) choice of a different name so that the responsibility of relationship can be denied. absent of either, reasonable people can only conclude association, relationship and responsibility.

the sum of the parts

a recent invitation to attend a "tea party" event has me in high dudgeon about aiding and abetting polemicists via subscription to their symbols. (ironic, huh).

human beings eventually come to a taboo once things are completely over the top, which is itself an unfortunate consequence. (try spray-painting a swastika somewhere if you'd like first-hand experience with that which i mean). but somewhere between hitler and "motherhood and apple pie" you can find today's national "tea party" movement, and i, for one, am not comfortable with where that particular ideology might today be found.

ironically, the first expressed goal of the "tea party" concept was opposition to excess government spending, and the promotion of clear-eyed fiscal conservatism. (here "conservatism" has no political implication--we ALL prefer to conserve our money wherever possible, drunken sailors politely excepted). this, to me, is an important patriotic duty, and the highest ideal of responsibility for other people's money, which the public purse most prominently represents. the same applies to fiduciary agents and estate executors in any capacity. all good things.

yet, somewhere, somehow, the "tea party" concept has been, apparently, co-opted and bastardized by a collection of other dissatisfied constituents who prefer to extend the argument to attack the partisan policies being propagated by one portion of the overall government excess, and not the others. nope, no studied opinions about how to address burgeoning medicare, medicaid and social security spending--just surprisingly vehement "anti-obama", "anti-democrat", and "anti-liberal" rhetoric--at least from the noisiest of the national sound-byters, whom, it's obvious to see how and why, become instant favorites of any similarly-biased news outlet or hype-mongering web site. irony abounding in here today, i'm just as disgusted by these democrat policies as these polemicists--i'm just not naive enough to believe they're the only evil afoot in our halls of government.

yes, i happen to believe that the republican congress of recent history was every bit the equal of the present democratic one for irresponsible spending. perhaps they had an edge in scandal, but folks like rangel et al. are hurrying to close that gap, too. now the present administration simply extends the policies of its predecessor, (war, bailouts, deficit spending), yet is castigated for being of one party and not the other. i find this to be terribly non-productive, as swapping the proverbial titanic deck chairs will not save our ship from sinking. but as soon as i put on that "tea party" button, i'm joining the ranks of those who would excuse one half of the crooks so that they can hang the other. if only, once those hangings were done, we wouldn't be shafted even worse than before, there being nothing and no one to stop the other crooks from running wild. (for an example of the danger, look no further than what almost happened to us via the recent and happily defunct "supermajority" in congress).

ron paul is one of the best-known and best-respected voices of fiscal conservatism in our congress today. his proposals on currency policy are particularly important, yet he has been specifically targeted by "tea party" folks for replacement, and they are fielding a candidate to oppose him in his home district in texas. WTF??? this, to me, is like telling sully sullenberger to step out of the cockpit as you approach the hudson, because you don't like his choice in carry-on luggage or something like that. crazy.

oh well...

all this is to say, if you look for me at a "tea party" meeting somewhere, you will either be pleased or disappointed, but you won't see me either way.

if only people would stand up when the yahoos try to co-opt something good, and reject their participation. i know it's counter-intuitive in politics to shrink your base of support, but, in this case, i think it would have been extremely useful before things got so out of hand.

oh well...

out of hand they are.

more fun in the sun

nice weather these days, eh?

the sunny spot in my morning comes once again courtesy of the lowell sun, and once again from the electronic pen of my journalistic hero, lisa redmond (not linked here because, once again, the paper of record charges for their online content):

"a 37-year-old lowell woman who was angry because her children wanted to stay with her ex-husband, took her anger out on her former husband and her dogs, according to prosecutors" ... "according to court documents, [her] former husband was dropping his three children off at his former wife's house after spending the weekend with them. but the children--ages 15, 17 and 18--refused to get out of the car" ... "after police arrived and [she] allegedly refused to calm down while being handcuffed, she 'screamed in a fit of anger and kicked the coffee table across the living room floor' accoring to court documents. both of the family's dogs were standing behind the table and were struck by it".

pure journalism gold.

you go lisa!

life like summer camp

been scratching my head lately at why so many people are so impressed (scared) about others living their life outside their domiciles. there's an easy rationalization for those, like me, who work from home and spend an inordinate amount of time within the four walls, but i think there's a deeper concept that almost everybody misses when they "grow up"--and that's that life ought to be more like summer camp, even if canoeing has to be replaced with working for da man, or even ones self, in order to keep food on the table and the roof overhead.

i think this thought first struck me driving home from a little new england town meeting where i once lived a long time ago, and all the cars left the hall and scattered to their various destinations while the warm light of the hearth shone out of almost every window along the way. it reminded me of hiking back through the woods with my little flashlight to the tent from an evening campfire, feeling part of something more than myself, and completely myself all at the same time. (there's beauty in that).

campfires are replaced for me with open mic's and friendly little bar shows these days, as well as the toil to make my daily bread, and i marvel at how many people have been habituated to "prefer" being home inside their lonely little tents, with their x-boxes or their wii's (gotta love the wii) or their pay-per-view. which is not to say that, when the day is done and the sleeping bag inside the tent beckons, that it isn't the most lovely feeling of safety and sanctuary that there is in the world. and even on a sunday afternoon when you're just playing your own music, and catching up on your laundry and your household chores. but there's a sense of community lost when we all choose to pursue our solitary pursuits, and when we "cleave" to our "other", and forsake all the rest.

i spent a very rewarding hour with not nearly as many people last night as could have made something truly special out of something that was simply sublime. i know it's the proverbial "their loss" for everyone who lacked the initiative (courage?), but i think, in the end, it's all of our loss, too.

more life like summer camp. more community. and just see how much you appreciate all you have when you have all that.

universal constants

e=mc2 and all that--there are an endless number of physical laws to the universe, and to them i would propose that they add one more: when a turntable lacks an anti-skate adjustment, two pennies are always exactly the right weight to dial in the tracking. well, that's not always exactly right, as i've discovered tracing the grooves in my new treat her right "tied to the tracks" album, but it's the exception that proves the rule, and i think i've pretty much proved this one.

for those of you too young to recall when music came on 12" vinyl platters, there's always been an art to coaxing the perfect sound out of your turntable. vibrations and electric cycle hums and any number of other sonic bogeymen lie in wait to rob your ears of that perfect experience, but hocus pocus, pocket change and dental floss all stand ready to aid you in your holy quest. (there's more, but we'll just start with those). yes, to be an audiophile, unless you have endless resources to throw money at the problem, and likely even if you do, you know you will, sooner or later, find yourself jury-rigging the setup to get the sound JUST RIGHT on that very special record. my special project for today has been to overcome the tricky challenge posed by a long album running time, with its consequent tightly-packed groove pattern that leaves precious little vinyl ridge to keep the needle on its course, when the only turntable i have lacks the tone arm balancing adjustment capabilities that could otherwise compete with the challenge. (such are not only extremely expensive, but also far too fragile to survive all the years since their heyday). my response? a small length of dental floss knotted around the tone arm on one side, with a small metal ring on the other, chosen carefully because one was a bit too heavy, and another not quite enough, and then trestled over a vertical CD case propped against the side of the unit so the whole rig can rise while the tone arm tracks inward on the record. (with two pennies balanced on the flat part of the tone arm directly over the cartridge for just the right weight to keep the whole rig on target). perfect.

digital-age don't-know-no-betters are possibly laughing by now, or at least standing by extremely confused, at how crazy this all sounds, but until the proverbial "they" can find a way to improve the sonic reproducion of tube amps and diamond stylii on vinyl platters, there will be people like me staying up late isolating the steadiest surface in their place, and closing that dust cover ever-so-carefully, so as to track that perfect track and get it as close to perfectly right as is perfectly humanly possible. the irony, of course, is that all this effort of mine is also going straight to sound-strangled mp3, but portability still retains its place in the hierarchy of sound, and a man has to find a way to feed his jones wherever he might be.

the good news is that the UK-mastered eponymous debut album, "treat her right", tracks like german-engineered silk on rails without any fooling around needed at all. (theres a reason those european import records came at an extremely large premium, both then and now). the dust cover is closed, and i'm currently rocking out to "you don't need money" as i return back to the work that i do that pays the bills.

if you've never heard treat her right on original vinyl, then i'd say you have something to which to look forward in your life. (c'mon over, anytime). and if you've never heard music reproduced this way at all, treat her right or otherwise, well, i'm not sure you're ever going to understand unless and until you do. it's really something.

what do you want to be when you grow up?

the classic question is answered in endless ways by individuals everywhere, but it's also a pertinent question to ask of any growing (or shrinking) business. recently here there were some comments responding to my characterization of the staff's ultra-short skirts and spike heels over at a local establishment as somehow uncharitable towards the establishment and its employees, (some nonsense about a person's character being defined by how they treat their "inferiors", which, to my knowledge, was the first time such a value judgment was passed on anybody discussed in the blog or the comments, but lets not digress too far), so i thought i might explain a bit more about what was meant by the jabs:

spike heels are sexy. they define a woman's calves, and raise her up to be taller, both of which seem to provoke positive response from many males in proximity. however, they're also much more precarious and impractical for many tasks related to running a bar, not the least of which would be running up and down stairs with cases of beer.

short skirts are sexy. they reveal almost if not the entirety of a woman's legs, and provoke an even more positive response from many males in proximity. i have to believe the coincidence is not coincidental, and the management or ownership of the establishment being discussed is purposefully requiring such a uniform so as to please a certain demographic, which we can usefully conclude is what they want their business to be when it grows up--a bar patronized by men who like to look at young women in high heels and short skirts. fair enough.

on the other hand, i went to their establishment to enjoy some music, and though i might expect some reasonable bar service and reasonably clean rest rooms to go with it, i'm not ever going to be their target demographic when it comes to preferring a little gratuitous t&a. (i didn't discuss the push-up bras, but, believe me, they were pushing up like you can only imagine, or see in a place like that, but there i go again on the digressions).

so my point is not to disparage, though i guess it was taken that way by some, but to point out the huge discrepancy between saying you'd like to host music and make some money from it, as opposed to just going through the motions so that your usual business model of short skirts and heels and pushup bras sported by bimbos (i swear the uniform is pictured in the dictionary next to the definition) who are unprepared to run a bar, or clean a rest room, or even care that they can't. (seriously--you can ask my companions, i was gone 20 minutes to order a round, and there was no line at the bar, and, no i didn't treat anyone rudely over it, other than to make a point about it writing here a day or two later).

i get it.

they have their way of running a business. it's not better or worse, it's just different.

all i mean to say that THAT is not running a music room, and, speaking as one who would like to patronize a music room, i don't feel guilty about not going back, since they clearly didn't want me there in the first place.

oh well.

tonight it's off to toad in cambridge. friday it'll be the thirsty ear in cambridge. i know i'll drop some coin in both establishments, and i'll be happy to, since they clearly want my business, and are in the business to earn it.

all's well, except for the 45 minute drive for me.

*sigh*

still waiting, but i won't hold my breath about being able to spend more of my entertainment dollar closer to home. and that's a shame.

i can't help myself

it's wrong on so many levels for me to amplify this sort of minor tragedy, but this one hits so many of the buttons that i can't resist. enjoy:

first of all, the story in sunday's sun is bylined by lisa redmond, and it's every bit up to her usual high standards of journalistic excellence. i won't link to it, because the sun is now charging for online content, but, trust me, this one is worth reading in its entirety, if only to enjoy the chops of a top-notch writer.

second of all, what can i say--"a 33-year-old billerica man is facing charges after he allegedly punched his mother in the face and arms, then poured hot coffee on her as she sat in her scooter at a billerica supermarket".

oh, and there's more--so, so, so much more: "[his] 64-year-old mother told police her son began assaulting her during the february 28th incident because she wasn't shopping fast enough"

you CANNOT make this stuff up, and you cannot write it any better than lisa does. (can you have a crush on someone you've never met, just from the way they write in the paper?)

lisa's got all the quotes: per the son, regarding the physical violence, "it wasn't that hard. it was more like little slaps". his response about pouring the hot coffee on her? (recalling monty python and the holy grail and "well, we did do the nose"), he added, and lisa quoted, "just a little".

lisa's best line: "court documents list the incident happening in market basket, but do not identify which of its billerica stores".

she always knows what we want to know, and then just tells us.

beautiful.

the big finish? "[the officer] noted the house was so cluttered he could not go in farther than the entryway".

you're welcome.

the bella birds play tomorrow night at mcgann's in boston

to be filed yet again under "lowell can't support a live music room" (NOT):

the bella birds play at mcgann's in boston on tuesday night.

(you know jen kearney plays at toad every monday night in cambridge, but there's only so often a guy can write that without boring everyone else to tears--you just need to go see for yourself and i'll be able to shut up about it).

road trip

can't make up my mind if this is crazy or inspired, but i grabbed tickets to see southern culture on the skids at maxwell's in beautiful downtown hoboken, nj for may 15th. i'm figuring on brats and beer at zeppelin hall in jersey city for dinner. (yeah, i know, it oughta be fried chicken or bbq to get into the swing of things, but i don't know any good chicken or bbq joints in the tri-state area, so i'm having to improvise, and you can please let me know if you know of any other alternatives). it'll be a challenge to make a 9am soccer kickoff the next morning, but somehow driving all night to make a soccer game and then drink beer with a bunch of scots after partying all night and drinking beer with a bunch of SCOTS (puzzle it out, people, if you don't get it), is too poetic to pass up.

don't worry--extremely moderate consumption so as not to impair the driving or leave anyone vulnerable to unfortunate consequences will be the order of the evening. it's how i (top down) roll.

because, yes, i'm counting on awesome weather for the trip.

life does not get any better than this.

"hard times"

there's a natural human reflex to reach for the excuses/slash/explanations when times get tough. a recent comment thread here on the subject of how (not) to run a music club provides many good points for discussion.

primary among the discussion points about the extent to which clubs might be hurting these days are the many possible ways that they have to or will cut back and otherwise alter their businesses to try to hang onto enough cash flow to make next month's rent. (or this month's, or maybe even last month's depending on how bad things have become). this leads towards rationale that might excuse not being able to stock beer for the bar, or even run a mop and a plunger around the rest rooms as might be required to meet the minimum standards of the health code. (in fact, it did, and you can read it on the comments for yourself). and all while these rationales are being offered, there's the "you don't know the trouble i've seen" admonition that if you aren't the one deciding when to order beer, or pay the wages of someone capable of cleaning a bathroom, then you can't possibly know how tough it is to muster the cash flow to order beer and pay the wages of someone capable of cleaning a bathroom.

know what i think?

if it comes to the point where you can't stock a bar or clean a bathroom, you're already out of business and you ought to just stop throwing good money after bad and just shut it down. and you don't have to run a bar to know that having beer to sell and a presentable place are the minimum requirements of running such a business, and any idiot can do that much if they care to. it's the implication that the idiots running the sorts of businesses that can't stock a bar and can't clean the rest rooms don't care to do that much that has me put out.

i can pay $2 for fresh PBR drafts at the hynes tavern, while watching the friday night band enjoy themselves, (3 sets-worth of "big trouble" yesterday night, with a full house of people all having a great time), and availing myself of clean bathrooms, brandy-new hard wood floors, and a very nice sound system, and never miss the fact that i'm not in a place that does it 7 nights a week, or even 4. i'm beginning to love that room, and to hear the bands talk about it, they are too. now if the guys over there can figure out how to make a profit charging me $2 a beer and still paying the band a decent wage, without a cover or any other hocus pocus, than i gotta figure they're either geniuses, or everybody everywhere else is anything but.

the point i'd like to make is that running a music room that's a music room and not just a bar is something that nobody down here in downtown lowell seems to either A) want to do, or B) be able to do. the barley pub in dover came to mind earlier this evening. there are half a dozen such places in portsmouth. (the blue mermaid is just the one that the lowell folks seem to frequent most often, but there are plenty others). toad in cambridge. nicks in worcester. tiny little rooms seating a few dozen people and surviving on the proceeds from their bar while they pay musicians fairly and treat their patrons to no-cover musical entertainment. (ok, the blue mermaid generally does a $5 cover, but that's the exception, not the rule).

i spent some time earlier tonight in a packed room at brew'd awakenings for a trio of musicians playing a mash of celtic and khmer folk music. that's celtic and khmer folk music. not the world's first definition of "accessible" or "popular" on paper, but my daughter was impressed, which isn't easy to do, and i'll tell you i liked it more than fine, too. in fact, it was awesome. oh, and no cover. brew'd doesn't even have a beer license from which to make money on beer, despite the possibilities inherent in the name. just coffee. and they can do it. (just look below at what the room looked like while it was going on:)so why can't or won't anyone else?

my suspicion is that they just don't want to. they want to print money at their bar till, and fail at that because they simply don't understand how music works. fair enough. maybe i don't, either.

but some folks do, and they do it every day all over the area.

just not every night in downtown lowell in a place where other musicians can come and see what's going on, and what their compatriots are putting down, and become inspired to do a little bit more themselves.

and that sucks.

(to which i'll repeat my offer--if someone has a room they want to devote to this, it'll be like falling off a log to line up the acts and their fans--they would just need to pay the bands, and respect their patrons, and not expect it to make them a pile of money overnight, or even over the course of the months it'd take to build the room).

but the business model works. the photos don't lie. and i'm willing to put money on it. are you?

karma

i'm with the mr mill city boys on this one.

today's sun was a lisa redmond perfecta, with not just one, but TWO front page stories about how easy it is to feel good about yourself in comparison to the profound stupidity of others. ned called it right when he observed that "if you're going to spend your money on bullshit, expect a little bullshit on the backside".

to that i would add, if you make your living selling bullshit to people, i have less than no sympathy when someone turns out to be an even better bullshitter than you are. doesn't excuse the scammer behind the wedding expo hoax for being a shithead, but, lets all be thankful, the only people damaged in this are the ones who A) take advantage of the vulnerable by selling them wedding-related bullshit they absolutely don't need, and, B) are so gullible as to believe that their life needs an expensive wedding in order to be validated, and can't fall all over themselves fast enough to give their money away to the first booth-ful of shysters eager to take it.

the best part of all of this, for me, is lisa's incomparably clear and concise prose. here's one of her quoted lines: "i bust my hump to get 300 girls to one of my bridal expos, yet [the bridal expo contact person] said she had thousands coming from facebook ads". "how do you get thousands?" i can only imagine the restraint lisa needed to refrain from typing "you don't--you just get a basketful of morons to give you thousands of dollars for not reminding themselves that things sounding to good to be true generally aren't".

ok, that's probably unfair of me to characterize lisa's possible thoughts. she might well be a far better person than me. in fact, i'm willing to bet good money she's CLEARLY a far better person than me. all i know is that i'm a fan, and its stories like this one that make reading each morning's sun the best value in comedy entertainment to be had anywhere at any price.

the lunchtime lift

last summer's tragic death of a 49 year old divorcee and mother of three at the "lifestyle lift" surgery center in waltham gets its second 15 minutes of fame while the family files civil suit against the center and the "physicians" for negligence. (the story is an instant lisa redmond classic in today's sun, but i won't link it because they're going to a pay model for their online content, and i'll just refer you to the same paper version that i'm using and let it rest with that). needless to say, besides being annoyed that the sun still doesn't get how "online" works, i'm all over the map about this one.

first of all, i'd observe, in a perfect world, wanting to shake "depression and lingering funk" from a divorce shouldn't drive a person to a cosmetic surgery center when there are all these auto dealerships around selling convertible cars, but, then again, who can say what additional emptiness existed within to drive this poor woman to her lunchtime demise. the story implies that the center is implying that she had a history of unreported seizures and medication allergies, which would only drive the darwin factor even higher. the family, of course, is rightfully indignant that when the woman's body "jerked violently and her oxygen level plunged", the "physicians" didn't call for backup. just confirms for me that, in this sort of a business, everybody's an idiot--both the cosmetologists, and the cosetologees.

i related a few days ago my profound disappointment to see the crush of my life, peggy fleming, reduced to a bad plastic surgery cartoon caricature of herself. just last night i had a conversation about such with a passel of 50-something guys, none of whom expressed disappointment with the un-surgically-altered female aging process, other than to complain that certain females' sex drives seem to dry up in combination with their ovaries, and that happens to suck if you're attracted to one of 'em. doesn't explain why this one went for the surgicial option, but, then again, who can explain the perversities of the (aging) female mind.

lets face it girls of a certain age, us guys of a certain age have failing eyesight and a boundless propensity to appreciate female attention in ways we were never capable only a few short decades ago. if you think a "lunchtime lift" is going to improve your chances of scoring something besides cardiac arrest, i'd say you haven't been paying attention. and if you don't like seeing what you see when you look in a mirror, i'd say the first right thing to lie down upon might be a psychologist's couch, ahead of some hack/quack "surgeon's" day gurney in a strip mall office that's ill-equipped to deal with the consequences of something starting to go south. (there's a reason these procedures are "thousands less than the cost of traditional face lifts", which are, by the way, only marginally less risky for things like random fatality, since they are, after all, surgery). of course, before lying down on something, you might try standing up on something, like, say, your own two feet, or a treadmill or something... your call, but i'm just sayin'... (us 50-something guys in the discussion all play soccer every week, so kiss my ass if you're going to complain about the little tweak).

my son had to have his wisdom teeth extracted recently, and it was a big deal to me as his parent to authorize anesthesia of any kind. as we've seen with the "lunchtime lift" debacle, even a local can snuff you, but the figures on a general are such that a person really ought not to look forward to it except when the consequences of not doing it are statistically worse. (look up impacted wisdom teeth sometime, and you'll see why we went ahead). so why was this woman so blithely eager to go under a non-essential knife?

it all has to go back to warren zevon's plea, that he's looking for a woman with low self-esteem. i think the crowning irony of warren's life was that he never realized just how profoundly surrounded by such he was, and that even the slightest nod could bring the crazees out of the woodwork. or maybe warren was just appalled at the incidence of bad plastic surgery among the "depression and lingering funk" crowd, and preferred his women to be surgically unspoiled.

i know i do.

ass backwards

toyota's blood-stained mitts continue to be caught in cookie jars all over town--this time by their own petard, aka, "EDR's", or "event data recorders", found inside all their vehicles, but allowed to be interrogated only by big brother/son/scion toyoda's minions deep inside the toyota corporate vault. (and, until recently, only one laptop in the entire united states contained software capable of decrypting the contents of toyota's such "black boxes"). one can perhaps understand why they'd be reluctant to let all their guilty cats out of the bag, but, then, see, that's just it--we're gonna assume the guilt, so what's the purpose and value of pulling the enron thing, and trying to deny what's going on? because it's even worse than we imagine? (wow...)

i once read a treatise on privacy that argued that our privacy problems aren't due to the ubiquity of potential surveillance, but, rather, only the issue of who has access to all that potential surveillance that creates a privacy problem. (i.e. we ALL need access, or that access immediately becomes a problem because it can and will be used unfairly and inequitably). let's be honest: we're all better off to have cameras in public places so that criminals can be caught and taken off the streets. (recently, in my building, we used them to catch a wise guy urinating into the fountain in our atrium, and, believe me, nobody in the building was complaining about the catching, nor the means by which the catching was made possible). we're also all better off to be able to know why and how our cars might be crashing if that crashing might be the result of a design or material or construction flaw. yet here we have the perverse fear of the guilty corporation not to be caught via its own surveillance devices, and the withholding of exactly that useful information. and i think that's ass backwards.

here in lowell, we just approved a measure to hire a person to run some analytical software that, to me, is the logical equivalent of a nice little surveillance camera on our big city budget. the beauty of this will only be realized if the output of this surveillance is freely and publically available. the moment a private interest, be it a badly-behaved city councillor, or a badly behaved city administrator, takes subjective portions of that surveillance and uses them unfairly to target their political or personal agendae, then the proverbial shit that happens, happens. but if the full output of this monitoring is available to EVERYBODY, then everybody gets to figure out how to do things better, and everybody is treated fairly while it happens. or, at least, that's the theory. i know the monitoring isn't comprehensive, nor clued into the subtleties of interpersonal dimensions to the data, but at least its a start. let's hope it's managed fairly.

but, back to toyota, and toyoda's guilty minions: the output on these EDR's ought to be available freely and openly to all who drive the cars in which they are installed. we're currently sharing the outrage of that HS student in pennsylvania whose school-issued laptop was used to selectively spy on his private doings. we don't (primarily) care if he was smoking pot--we (primarily) care that the monitoring was clandestine and used by one group of people against another individual. and we all recognize that's wrong.

so, toyoda, i say if your shareholders don't demand it, you ought to resign, anyway, and get someone in charge who gets it. information just doesn't want to be free, as stewart brand first said, but it absolutely HAS to be free if we are to be. no ifs, ands or buts.

along with that, i'll offer kudos to the city of lowell for investing in the collection and study of information, provided the information is freely made available to all. we're all going to benefit from knowing.

the ding ho theory

the old ding ho was nothing until shune lee handed the keys to barry crimmins and more or less let him do whatever he wanted with the room. sure, they still served chinese food, but the history of the place was made because they simply let the entertainers do their stuff without ever giving in to the lure of filthy lucre. steven wright, denis leary, paula poundstone, bobcat goldthwaite, lenny clarke and who knows how many others became what they are because of that room. and what did it cost shune lee?

here in downtown lowell we've got a void that other cities find possible to fill with a room to cultivate local music. commenters here and elsewhere have decried the disconnect with the university, and the apparent impossibility to consistently fill a room besides, but i still say that the true ding ho formula is conspicuously absent among all the failed attempts. a lot of clubs here insist on charging covers (any cover is too much these days) and fail to pay the bands fairly out of the business they've brought into the till. (and further add insult to the injury by not giving the band the full cover, but holding back for "sound" and other BS excuses). so the bands bring that business to cambridge and to ayer and to portsmouth and all sorts of places that aren't here where such crap doesn't fly. so where's the business sense in that? (or restaurants try to run the music without the right stage, sound and light setup for music, and scratch their heads--remember how the ownership at the old mickey's would insist on running the big projection TV right next to the band all night and never turn it off?)

if you haven't been to toad in cambridge, i'd recommend you check it out. live music, two acts a day, seven days a week. no cover. ever. the room barely seats 60 people. and they still pay the bands. (because the bar is full of people out for the free music and paying for refreshments at the bar while doing it, natch). i'm not saying lowell is ready for 14 acts a week--we don't have that many good ones who want to play here. yet. but i'm saying that if you started maybe thursday, friday, saturday and sunday, and just opened for a couple of sets by a single act, you'd have people coming in the door, just like at toad, and patronizing the bar, and making the math work. (heck, if the place served burgers, i'm sure you'd sell a few of those, too). it's not that complicated. it's just HARD.

so does anyone know of a room that could be re-fitted for music without burdening that music with a pile of overhead expenses? somewhere with a liquor license, maybe even only beer and wine, or where such could be gotten for reasonable? (i.e. no political back scratches or other future obligations that'd sink the place). heck, if you yourself already run such a room, and were wondering how you might fill the place more consistently, you can speak up, too. i happen to know a BUNCH of bands that are just fine for the purpose, and a couple of booking agent types who represent a bunch more, too. the premise is simple: a couple hundred bucks for the entertainment to put a few dozen folks in seats spending a few hundred more than that for the privilege. no cover, no BS. just good music at a fair price, which would be, just beer and incidentals.

the ding ho theory has it that you could go a long way. i'm willing to put some money up on the wager. how about you?

awRIGHT!

the lowell summer music series just announced the first five of their shows for the upcoming summer season, and i like the sound of all of them: taj majal trio, cake, indigo girls, suzanne vega and patty larkin, and southside johnny and the asbury jukes.

taj mahal caught my ear years ago when he updated irving taylor's gem of a song, "ain't nobody's business but my own", and made it HIS own, albeit by borrowing yet more from the genius who is ogden nash and elsewhere, but who's counting. ("candy is dandy but liquor is quicker"). it's what genius does. (ella fitzgerald used to refer to taj's dad as "the genius", so the apple didn't fall far). henry saint clair fredericks, as taj was born, had the same dairy farm bug many in my family have indulged, and i respect fully, but he chose to follow music from his dorm room at umass, and i respect that fully, too, because he's that good. so good. taj has always said he prefers to play outdoors, and boardinghouse park is a little slice of heaven with him in it, so that's great for all of us. if you like blues, r&b, country blues, calypso, reggae, a little gospel, african rhythms or any and all of the above mixed together in a beautiful musical salad, you'll love taj. i do. CAN'T WAIT!!!

cake is one of those acts that many adore, many others can't understand, (or can't stand), but i can't listen to "short skirt / long jacket" and not want to BE THERE when a stageful of wise guys let it rip. i missed the show they put on at the auditorium awhile back, but i'm not gonna miss this one. looking forward.

indigo girls, i suppose, aren't much different from cake in terms of can or can't adore/understand/stand, but i balanced my karma last time around by doing the dropkick murphys (and the mighty mighty bosstones, YEAH) outdoors at lalacheur the day before, so maybe that's why i can be so positive about this next opportunity. or maybe it's just the incredibly long list of great songs they've recorded, and the fact that they'll cover hendrix live ("all along the watchtower", or was that dylan?) and a host of other stuff that just makes you sit back and say WOW. it's a good time if you like to look at women in summer sundresses, too, who make up 80% of any indigo girls crowd. what's not to like?

as for suzanne vega, well, if you don't already have a musical crush on suzanne vega, there's just not much more i can do for you. from "marlene on the wall", to "99.9 fahrenheit degrees, and everything between and since, (just close your eyes and try to resist the jazz coolness of "caramel", or try to tell someone that "tom's diner" isn't kick-ass), she embarasses every other little waif/songstress that ever tried to do the female singer/songwriter thing. none better. and patty larkin, midwestern and singer/songwriter as she is, bases herself in boston, which is way cool, and keeps up pretty well, even if she'll never be suzanne. again, what's not to like?

but the outdoor concert cream of this crop has to be southside johnny and his asbury jukes. was just discussing the lameness of "born to run" last night, as a matter of fact, and though we didn't get further into the discussion in order to talk about the real rockers of asbury park, nj, it would have been an easy segue. yeah, they grew out of a mishmash of springsteen's guitar player writing r&b staples with the boss himself, and didn't come first, but if you like stax-sensible party music, then these are your guys. don't know if little stevie will be making this trip, or which or any of the other guys who wound up part of max weinberg's seven on conan, or backed robert cray, graham parker, or willie deville, might show, but you know it's gonna be good. cuz it's GOOD.

CAN'T WAIT!!!

ps, to the show organizers: melvern taylor and his fabulous meltones NEED to be one of your opening acts this year. i'm just sayin'. you've had frank morey, jen kearney, and a whole bunch of the others, who would all also make GREAT returning openers, but, seriously, melvern taylor is someone who is going to make the stage for the right headliner, and you gotta get listenin' so you can see it, too.

can't wait to be out under and in front of the stars again at boardinghouse park.

training camp nuggets

anybody else notice that jose iglesias, 19 year old cuban shortstop phenom, is still on the 40 man roster? (of course, he ought to be, given his multi-million dollar contract without ever playing even a minor league game, let alone a major league game). it's also interesting that i missed the addition of utility wunder old-man bill hall, recently of the milwaukee brewers. (and, seriously, who can't get behind a team name like that?)

i think marco's gonna have a short chain as a red sox, and one mr. jed lowrie is gonna have to figure out if he can actually hit major league pitching with any consistency in a pretty good hurry.

i just wish they'd see about getting some more hitting. hermida, i'm praying, solves the nancy problem, but that's still not quite enough.

and it's good to have you back for another season, mr. wakefield, and to see that 1960's-era birth date still on the roster. play ball!

rock and roll

my formative years were spent arguing beatles vs stones, (all the way down to paul vs john--while those page vs clapton debates didn't come until much, much later, and nobody ever even bothered to mention mick and keith by then, which i've always felt completely proved my side of the B vs S argument, but i digress), and i was there listening by the bedroom door when my brothers brought home their first (properly contraband) led zep record, so i don't feel like i need to bother myself about what anyone else thinks about my age or taste in music whenever the discussions come back around to rock and roll. (and if you like the stones, then that's the point--feed your own head). furthermore, i was also there listening by the bedroom door when my brothers went to war with my parents about being allowed to go "all the way into boston" for the second set of shows zep booked at the boston tea party back in the spring of 1969, so i also grew up understanding what a real rock and roll room was supposed to be, too. (which is to say, all about the music and the crowd and precious little more than that).

so it is that i find it extremely hard to articulate how i feel about this past weekend's shit show at gemstones without resorting to comments interspersed with both profanties as well as geezer terms like "whippersnapper". but, yeah, that sums it up: shit show.

on the surface, the fact that the first two womens room stalls were de facto superfund toxic waste dumps, (no pun intended), and the bar didn't even have beer for its first hour, would normally be just more of those stories you tell when you try to tell someone how great the show was when you where there when. (though, if you're hoping to think either of those things would even rate an asterisk in the storied lore of the rat and other *real* clubs, you're sadly mistaken). but, no, that's not even the first whiff of all that was so very wrong at gemstones this past weekend.

i was only turning 9 years old in '69 when zep played for FOUR AND A HALF HOURS on a single album's worth of material at the boston tea party, and kids were LITERALLY banging their heads against the stage. (read about it--it's where and when the term was born, and i am quite satisfied that there's never been a club show like that ever before or ever since). no, i was never there. but by the time i got to the rat years later, and even though willie alexander was no longer part of andy warhol's velvet underground (the way they were billed at the tea party back in the proverbial day) and was just another guy fronting an outfit quite aptly named "the boom boom band", i did catch the fever live and in person in plenty of time to know from which i speak, and i am quite pleased to say i've had it ever since and know a thing or two from the experience. (that guy up in the rafters at the last rancid show at the house of blues yelling down at the candy-asses on the floor along with elvis (costello, because there is no other) that they sucked because they weren't singing along to "radio radio"? yeah, that was me).

so when i tell you that the sound sucked at gemstones, i'm not some middle-aged geezer who doesn't like to have to turn down his hearing aid. i don't care that my cred isn't served well by it, but the loudest show i ever heard was rick derringer at knight auditorium at babson college back in 1979, but i'll put it out there just so you can think about yours. (rick's marshalls were literally stacked 12 feet high on either side of the stage, and it was not that big an auditorium--maybe 25 rows to the back--and, yes, we did check, and, no, the guy who also brought you "hang on sloopy" wasn't staging any empty cabinets to fake things, and when you stack 4 marshall 4x12's and put a head on top of each stack, the stacks do reach just about 12 feet, and you can look that up if you weren't there and don't believe me). honorable mention goes to rancid at the roseland ballroom circa 1999, as well as rancid at the palladium in worcester in '08, (but not to rancid at the house of blues in boston this time around, cuz i think the punks these days are gettin' soft), and i've only once resorted to earplugs and that was at a shit show at the paradise recently that's only going to prove the rest of my point.

any moron can twist a volume knob. all sorts of morons do it every day. (yes, nigel, they go up to eleven). and when the volume gets to where all you can hear is one range of tone and hardly any of the others, you know the sound sucks, and everyone else associated with the room and the show does too for not knowing any better to do anything about it. (seriously, if you're in the business and you can't hear it when it gets that bad, it really calls into question whether or not you ought to be in the business). and, i'm telling you, this is about as ridiculously low a bar as there is, when you're talking about a rock and roll club, because toxic waste site bathrooms and virtually non-existent bar service are just amusing anecdotes in places like that, and good sound is always an extremely subjective and fleeting goal in any rock and roll room. but it still remains the goal, and it's inexcusable when its missed to this extreme degree.

yes, i'm here to tell you, from first hand experience and an almost fifty-year's lifetime's worth of background to know from whence i speak, the sound at gemstones sucked even worse than the sound at the paradise that drove me to earplugs for the first and only time in my life, and the worst thing i can say about it is that it was able to suck that bad without even being painfully loud to the point of requiring earplugs, which, i swear, takes real trying. (to suck that bad--not being painfully loud to the point of requiring earplugs--since the rigs these days can out-blast almost everything they had at their disposal back when they used to know how to rock and roll and properly require earplugs, and getting loud now is just a matter of cash and any idiot can do it, and, here we are back at the beginning of this endlessly circular and pointless argument).

truly disappointing. but, at least, if you're lucky, you'll read this and save yourself the disappointment next time, and choose to see your favorite band(s) in a room where you can actually hear your favorite band(s), (not to mention go to the bathroom and find refreshment at the bar), and consider yourself lucky not to have wasted your time or your money at that sorry place that i can no longer even mention without feeling violated.

shit show.