Well, here's another reason you always have to stick to seeing your favorites at their regular gigs. Moe Nelson showed up at Visions to play with The Grandsons. Upright, Harmonica, vocals, and Ukelele, that's right-he didn't play the little thing nearly enough, but it's the thought that counts. I wish they sold energy de' Moe in the form of a pill or tonic. You can also see him play with the Hula Monsters if you need a fix.
I got to hear the Spottiswoode song "let's hide away from the sun" twice this week. Cowlick Lucy did it on Wednesday, then The Grandsons on Friday. The song smacks of Spottiswoode, but I think both Cowlick and the Grandsons are going to make something of it. There are some really beautiful vocal runs in it that probably would not be as effective with Spotty's voice.
Cowlick Lucy did really strike me, thank you ladies. Let's see after thinking about it, I'd have to say it struck in 3 ways. 1) Choice of Material-aside from their own writing, doing VU covers and Straub covers and laying down a loungier sound was A-OK. But this issue of materiel is a superficial smak the biggies were 2) Their original songs-twisted girl lyrics, yahoo. They've managed to write lovely analogous narrative lyrics, like "Heading for a Breakdown" and "Sheep in Wool's Clothing", twisted lyrics in the great spirit of "Chewing Gum" by the Carters, you want to laugh and cry at the same time. 3) I love that thay are a 'new' band 'young' band whatever you want to call it-I really relish seeing people on a stage working out performance issues. Those musicians that I know have schooled me in the reality that it's no easy thing to get up there and be coordianted enough to sing, play and instrument and perform. Alot of bands/performers will go through whole careers with only doing the first two. What is the performance aspect. Well its working the audience, making eye contact, being comfortable and relaxed on stage and making the audience believe what you are saying. I'm going to go out on a limb here, but it was the rawness of the voices of the two singers in Cowlick Lucy, an edge of real feeling in the delivery of the lyrics that struck me the most-is it the ellusive Patsy Cline/Billie Holiday factor? While now they are new to the stage and may get off-tempo or off-key-that will go away with practice and performance. If they get comfortable and adept at being on stage and keep delivering songs with emotion in their voices-Cowlick Lucy will be a dangerous and beuatiful band.
I hope my 3rd point makes sense and comes off in the right tone, because I think it's one of the most important things in music, or maybe it's better to say it's the communication of emotion that separates being an artist from simply being a musician.
Saturday, September 28, 2002
Thursday, September 26, 2002
So what did I see in the month of September?
9/5 Measles, Mumps, Rubella at the Black Cat, DC
9/6 Q and not U at the Black Cat, DC
9/7 The Grandsons at the Bop & Bowl in VA
9/25 Cowlick Lucy and Little Pink at Velvet Lounge, DC
What's on-board for October?
10/4 Last Train Home a The State Theater, VA (wonder if there will be an opener?)
10/11 Jen Toomy at the Velvet Lounge, DC (incidentally with Eric Brace opening solo, a little sonwriters circle-esque like the olden days)
10/17 Canyon CD release at Velvet Lounge, DC (this should be a freak show - even on a thursday they are a bitchin band)
10/18 &/or 10/19 Last Train Home at IOTA, VA
10/21 Billy Bragg at the 9:30, DC not local, but yay, I'm going to the show
and last and most exciting
10/26 Spottiswoode and His Enemies opening for a purported Karl Straub Combo at IOTA, VA and not a moment too soon, Go Karl!
I'll sneak on this Novembery one, 'cause I know about it
11/8 Spottiswoode & his Enemies at Velvet Lounge, DC (I will always consider them local, even though now half the members live here and half in NYC )
9/5 Measles, Mumps, Rubella at the Black Cat, DC
9/6 Q and not U at the Black Cat, DC
9/7 The Grandsons at the Bop & Bowl in VA
9/25 Cowlick Lucy and Little Pink at Velvet Lounge, DC
What's on-board for October?
10/4 Last Train Home a The State Theater, VA (wonder if there will be an opener?)
10/11 Jen Toomy at the Velvet Lounge, DC (incidentally with Eric Brace opening solo, a little sonwriters circle-esque like the olden days)
10/17 Canyon CD release at Velvet Lounge, DC (this should be a freak show - even on a thursday they are a bitchin band)
10/18 &/or 10/19 Last Train Home at IOTA, VA
10/21 Billy Bragg at the 9:30, DC not local, but yay, I'm going to the show
and last and most exciting
10/26 Spottiswoode and His Enemies opening for a purported Karl Straub Combo at IOTA, VA and not a moment too soon, Go Karl!
I'll sneak on this Novembery one, 'cause I know about it
11/8 Spottiswoode & his Enemies at Velvet Lounge, DC (I will always consider them local, even though now half the members live here and half in NYC )
I have been having to play catch up a little bit learning about the Punk, Go-Go and Jazz scenes here in DC, being a bit of and alt-country/retro-vintage girl myself. When you start catching onto the history, it blows your mind. No that I am doing this blog thing online, I am incorrigible about looking up information. The Punk scene has been remarkably well documented. Just type Fugazi in a search engine and you will eventually hit a music site (I am thinking of the ALL MUSIC GUIDE the IMDB of music, that I can't seem to link to right now) it completely deconstructs Discord records and the DC scene leading up to and continuing after Fugazi. Now the same is SOOOOOOOO not true with Jazz and Go-Go and even the Country scene. There are sites beginning to form, trying to do this for Go-Go FunkMasterJ's or MikeMcNasty and there are others, but there is still a lot of construction and gathering of information going on. Jeez, and while most of the contemporary DC roots rock bands have their own web sites, as far as I know there is no place that links into the Country/Bluegrass Music history that is so big around here. I havn't had time to look up Jazz web links yet. These are gargantuan areas and props to anyone wo attempts to do the interdisciplanary explaining and recording.
Oi, I ask all you nice people to look at this journal and go to see LIVE MUSIC, then I disappear for a month. Well it just seems like it-I was going to see LIVE MUSIC, I just didn't have any time to write about it.
To finish up where I left off regarding the live show that went with "the pocket" premiere, what was so great about these three bands on stage at one time? Well first of all, when ever anyone puts more than 4 instruments on a stage at once I go nuts. Lots of different sounds, yum. Meeting this prerequisite is a given with Go-Go bands, easily there is a drum set, conga set, multiple keyboards, electric bass, horns, and additional percussion with 2-5 vocalists for any and all of them. This would also be the fisrt full set I'd ever have seen by Q and not U. So I felt like there was a pretty even ground. When I heard Uncalled 4 and their 5 vocailists I was reminded that in '92-'94 I did go to more than a couple of Go-Go shows, probably at Takoma Park Station. If I remember these 'soul-styling' vocals were just starting to slip in to go-go more and more. Wasn't too keen on it then, but hey if you wait long enough you never know what will happen. Uncalled 4 blends the more traditional; go-go lyricists with both female and male vocal harmony parts-that do not have the 'canned-music-boyz-2-men" sound that bugged me back inthe day. The performance given on stage is as polished as the music.
so as Uncalled 4's massive amount of equipment was broken down, watching the 3 members of Q and not U set up could only be called odd. Three little white boys with their drums and guitars setting up to play their antidiestablishmentarianismal 'music'. Or with less facitiousness, a three piece Punk band was going to go on after a twelve member all black funk band. While my mind knew it made sense for Q and not U to be on the stage, it looked weird.
Q made no apologies, opening up the set with the longest, loudest coordinated screaming I HAVE HEARD IN A LONG TIME followed by similar antics on the guitars. So having psychologically filled the stage with ALL THIS SOUND in the first minute and a half-they would subtely in the course of this first song lock into a rhythm, not quite the piston-like rhythm of so many other punk bands, but a rhythm like a wave that crested and troughed, not unlike the Funk Music that inspired Go-Go, get it? You may note too that although there are only 3 people in this band there are often 5-6 instruments being played, as the drummer will strike the drums with a maraca or other percussive piece and one of the guitarists will occasionally play the harmonium while playing guitar, so Q and not U, too, meets my 4 instuments=yummy sound protocol. Right before closing the set, before the last song, one of the vocalists from Uncalled 4 would step out on the stage and ask Q and not U's drummer to lock into a beat. (the Citypaper's promised shared set of Qand not U and Uncalled 4 would be delivered, but it was a song, not a set) He would then say something about there being a first time for everything, he had been asked to sit in with a Punk band that likes Go-Go, and one would know what that would sound like. So he laid down a rap alongside a freeform punk jazz funk offering from Q and not U. The rap was sincere, made up pretty much around the movie and the performances that night, so a little sappy considering the normal repertiore of Punk and Go-Go bands, so it was strage yet sucessful, at least from the perspective of an audience member at a one time outing in a historic theater featuring a documentary film and 3 kick ass bands.
The last band to go on Little Benny and the Go-Go All-Stars was totally old-school, no matching shirts and shoes on all the members, no dance moves or contemporary listening vocal harmonies, but intense call and response lyrical weaving between 2 singers, the congas and the cowbell. This is supremely dancable Go-Go and it is hardly possible to stop dancing once you get up. Benny has been at it since almost the beginning. He's had this band since 1985 and was in Rare Essence before that-I hope he keeps it up.
To finish up where I left off regarding the live show that went with "the pocket" premiere, what was so great about these three bands on stage at one time? Well first of all, when ever anyone puts more than 4 instruments on a stage at once I go nuts. Lots of different sounds, yum. Meeting this prerequisite is a given with Go-Go bands, easily there is a drum set, conga set, multiple keyboards, electric bass, horns, and additional percussion with 2-5 vocalists for any and all of them. This would also be the fisrt full set I'd ever have seen by Q and not U. So I felt like there was a pretty even ground. When I heard Uncalled 4 and their 5 vocailists I was reminded that in '92-'94 I did go to more than a couple of Go-Go shows, probably at Takoma Park Station. If I remember these 'soul-styling' vocals were just starting to slip in to go-go more and more. Wasn't too keen on it then, but hey if you wait long enough you never know what will happen. Uncalled 4 blends the more traditional; go-go lyricists with both female and male vocal harmony parts-that do not have the 'canned-music-boyz-2-men" sound that bugged me back inthe day. The performance given on stage is as polished as the music.
so as Uncalled 4's massive amount of equipment was broken down, watching the 3 members of Q and not U set up could only be called odd. Three little white boys with their drums and guitars setting up to play their antidiestablishmentarianismal 'music'. Or with less facitiousness, a three piece Punk band was going to go on after a twelve member all black funk band. While my mind knew it made sense for Q and not U to be on the stage, it looked weird.
Q made no apologies, opening up the set with the longest, loudest coordinated screaming I HAVE HEARD IN A LONG TIME followed by similar antics on the guitars. So having psychologically filled the stage with ALL THIS SOUND in the first minute and a half-they would subtely in the course of this first song lock into a rhythm, not quite the piston-like rhythm of so many other punk bands, but a rhythm like a wave that crested and troughed, not unlike the Funk Music that inspired Go-Go, get it? You may note too that although there are only 3 people in this band there are often 5-6 instruments being played, as the drummer will strike the drums with a maraca or other percussive piece and one of the guitarists will occasionally play the harmonium while playing guitar, so Q and not U, too, meets my 4 instuments=yummy sound protocol. Right before closing the set, before the last song, one of the vocalists from Uncalled 4 would step out on the stage and ask Q and not U's drummer to lock into a beat. (the Citypaper's promised shared set of Qand not U and Uncalled 4 would be delivered, but it was a song, not a set) He would then say something about there being a first time for everything, he had been asked to sit in with a Punk band that likes Go-Go, and one would know what that would sound like. So he laid down a rap alongside a freeform punk jazz funk offering from Q and not U. The rap was sincere, made up pretty much around the movie and the performances that night, so a little sappy considering the normal repertiore of Punk and Go-Go bands, so it was strage yet sucessful, at least from the perspective of an audience member at a one time outing in a historic theater featuring a documentary film and 3 kick ass bands.
The last band to go on Little Benny and the Go-Go All-Stars was totally old-school, no matching shirts and shoes on all the members, no dance moves or contemporary listening vocal harmonies, but intense call and response lyrical weaving between 2 singers, the congas and the cowbell. This is supremely dancable Go-Go and it is hardly possible to stop dancing once you get up. Benny has been at it since almost the beginning. He's had this band since 1985 and was in Rare Essence before that-I hope he keeps it up.
Thursday, September 05, 2002
OK, here it goes, I think some of you may be waiting for my take on the evening I saw "The Pocket". My interest was piqued when I saw it featured in the "Artifacts" column of the Washington, DC City Paper by Sarah Godfrey, page 54, the August 30, 2002 issue. I was especially amazed when I saw in print that "Q and not U", a DC, a 'Discord' Punk band was going to do a 'set' with Go-Go band "Uncalled 4". This show would have to deliver something LIVE that I had never seen or heard of before, and people, that is the point of LIVE MUSIC. It has the power to deliver the unexpected, but it is rare that the 'unexpected' is promised in advance, such as this.
The evening started with the film and so will I. Let me say that this is film is probably something that should have been done 10 years ago, but hey, there was much less independant, do-it-yourself spirit back then. In fact there's a whole other film to be made out of the fact that the Go-Go and Punk personalities that are featured in The Pocket, were part of the first wave of DIY'ers that were fed up with Reagan's DC. However, I was a child back then, so it will take another expert to make that film. As for the here and now, The Pocket, it's important, but it has problems which makes me fear it will have to be done again in another 10 years. (sigh) I said I would not be critical, but this film has technical problems that make it a real challenge to watch. I am talking about bad lighting to no lighting, wind on the mics to sound drop outs, music video montagesthat go on for tooooooo long next to public television type, talking-head interviews. This film needs to be edited again. Yet, the information presented in the film is good and the whole package does the legwork, documenting all the way from pre-1978 Chuck Brown's "Busting Loose" to Brown's recent induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and having the foresight a (and excuse my french-balls) to pair the film's premiere with the three LIVE BANDS. I just fear that the techinical problems will keep the film from getting through the festival system so it can play to a more general audience that does not know about Go-Go and has the most inspiration to gain from the topic.
Lastly, so I don't seem like a total woose, I will quote Sarah Godfrey, quoting the film's co-directors "[Nicholas] Shumaker says he and [Michael] Cahill 'Concluded the best way to talk about race was to do it silently.'" I concur, The Pocket's got this bit down; it silently SCREAMS out about race in politics and the music industry and Shumaker and Cahill effectively use the film SHOW rather than TELL. They visit Go-Go clubs, old-school and new, include local (and incredibily recent) news footage about club's being shut down, and in one case, brilliantly edit an interview with Fugazi's Ian MacKaye, where he commendably refuses to back down regarding music and violence. Again, the City Paper quotes co-director Shumaker regarding his interview with MacKaye, saying "That's then it really struck me that despite the racial homogeneity of the scene, Go-Go has pretty much afected every musician who's lived in DC."
Well, I certainly agree with that, which is just one of the reasons I went to this show. I was feeling pretty even-handed about the LIVE part of the show. I had heard of all of the bands, yet I don't think I had ever seen any of the band's LIVE.
Personally, anytime I see more than five instruments on a stage, I go nuts. It create's a 'wall of sound' that is an experience in and of it self . It is a 'handshake guarantee' that the band is tight, you can't put that many people on a stage and have everyone messing up or doing different things. To sound good the players have to be good, no matter the type of music. I had been to a mere handful of Go-Go shows at the end of my college days inthe early '90's, and was looking forward to a no miss show and a trip down memory lane. (At the Moment I have run out of time, though. I will be highlighting the music of The Uncalled 4 Band, Q and not U and Little Benny & The GO-GO Allstars soon.)
The evening started with the film and so will I. Let me say that this is film is probably something that should have been done 10 years ago, but hey, there was much less independant, do-it-yourself spirit back then. In fact there's a whole other film to be made out of the fact that the Go-Go and Punk personalities that are featured in The Pocket, were part of the first wave of DIY'ers that were fed up with Reagan's DC. However, I was a child back then, so it will take another expert to make that film. As for the here and now, The Pocket, it's important, but it has problems which makes me fear it will have to be done again in another 10 years. (sigh) I said I would not be critical, but this film has technical problems that make it a real challenge to watch. I am talking about bad lighting to no lighting, wind on the mics to sound drop outs, music video montagesthat go on for tooooooo long next to public television type, talking-head interviews. This film needs to be edited again. Yet, the information presented in the film is good and the whole package does the legwork, documenting all the way from pre-1978 Chuck Brown's "Busting Loose" to Brown's recent induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and having the foresight a (and excuse my french-balls) to pair the film's premiere with the three LIVE BANDS. I just fear that the techinical problems will keep the film from getting through the festival system so it can play to a more general audience that does not know about Go-Go and has the most inspiration to gain from the topic.
Lastly, so I don't seem like a total woose, I will quote Sarah Godfrey, quoting the film's co-directors "[Nicholas] Shumaker says he and [Michael] Cahill 'Concluded the best way to talk about race was to do it silently.'" I concur, The Pocket's got this bit down; it silently SCREAMS out about race in politics and the music industry and Shumaker and Cahill effectively use the film SHOW rather than TELL. They visit Go-Go clubs, old-school and new, include local (and incredibily recent) news footage about club's being shut down, and in one case, brilliantly edit an interview with Fugazi's Ian MacKaye, where he commendably refuses to back down regarding music and violence. Again, the City Paper quotes co-director Shumaker regarding his interview with MacKaye, saying "That's then it really struck me that despite the racial homogeneity of the scene, Go-Go has pretty much afected every musician who's lived in DC."
Well, I certainly agree with that, which is just one of the reasons I went to this show. I was feeling pretty even-handed about the LIVE part of the show. I had heard of all of the bands, yet I don't think I had ever seen any of the band's LIVE.
Personally, anytime I see more than five instruments on a stage, I go nuts. It create's a 'wall of sound' that is an experience in and of it self . It is a 'handshake guarantee' that the band is tight, you can't put that many people on a stage and have everyone messing up or doing different things. To sound good the players have to be good, no matter the type of music. I had been to a mere handful of Go-Go shows at the end of my college days inthe early '90's, and was looking forward to a no miss show and a trip down memory lane. (At the Moment I have run out of time, though. I will be highlighting the music of The Uncalled 4 Band, Q and not U and Little Benny & The GO-GO Allstars soon.)
Sunday, September 01, 2002
Although I have lived here for about 12 years, somehow every long holiday weekend I forget, the non-natives leave. What should be a packed bar or nite club is never so much so on any one of the 4-6 'Monday' holiday weekends. That said, having adopted DC more than a decade ago myself, I reveled in the local this weekend, only to transcend it and realize it still continues to suprise and impress me.
Fist off, the Friday, August 30, 2002. Washington Post REVIEW-ed The Grandsons: Live at the Barns, The Legendary Wolf Trap Recordings, Volume One, The Grandsons latest recording. I did not get to read the review until Saturday, yet to quote the review's author, Mike Joyce, The Grandsons have "a flair for often keeping the crowd guessing and dancing at the same time." This reminds me why it is the LIVE component of local music that keeps me coming back.
So, on the surface the band seemed to start off just relaxing into the Visions set, saving energy for the IOTA show that nght. After a bunch of quieter, woeful, semi-acoustic cowboy songs, played in deference to those patrons in the theater, Alan set down a real vamp on "Long Gone Lonsome Blues." I've often thought that Alan has one of the most versatile voices in the area. He's a cowboy crooner who can also convincingly belt out a gospel-like dirge. The hear him playing around with 'the vamp' only strenghtens my opinion. [Perhaps I should mention, that one of the eccentricities of music at Visions, is that the band or DJ is positioned so they have to watch a film on the large videe screen at the end of the bar. This Friday was an all John Water's offering, it could have been a one time thing of the VAMP, enriching the CAMP.]
At this happy hour, my friend J. pegged what makes The Grandsons repertoire of cover songs more than the "novelties" and "vintage" that Joyce touched on in The Post. She coined it "A Grandson's Trifecta". After her request of "Audubon Zoo, a New Orlean's style march, the band followed it with the 1920's "If Youse A Viper", a reminder of where and what Jazz: America's Music, grew up from. The beautiful thing, is that The Gransdson's rarely use a set list so the "Trifecta", with all the excitement of a horse race, was completd with saxophonist, Chris Watling's original composition "Zulu Queen", found on 1994's It's Hip to Flip with the Grandsons...". Zulu Queen is like being pursued by a Jame's Bond villan at Carnivale it's so strong and suspenseful, that to IOTA, I had to go.
Now, apparently, I go to IOTA alot, because before the show had a chance to start, while I an not a muscian or a techie, I immeadiately noticed IOTA's new sound system. So while I don't know what it is or how it works, I can say, dang, it sounds good, and I am very glad I got to hear the The Grandsons christen it.
About midway through the first set at IOTA a familiar face, who knows I am always at the Vision's Happy Hour asked, "so is it the same set?" which gives me a great lead in to tell you "NO, it wasn't." The first set at IOTA had almost no repeat songs. Alan lost the vamp, and for the paying public carressed a whole different bunch of music with gorgeous tremolo vocals. Steve Sachs, upright player, would stand where John Young, who had played upright and electric bass at Visions had earlier, but what a different sort of pleasure it was to watch Sachs and druumer Matt Sedgley work a smooth bop-lounge rhythm over the course of the evening.
On the break, I was treated to a new fan looking fo rthe CD with Alan's yet unrecorded "Party With The Rich", a testement to local life and the fact that rarely are artist's paid their due and will always be on the outside. While this song is a relative newborn in Alan's 15+ years of songwriting, lines like "I don't care what my friends at Greenpeace say/the rich are just as right as a rainy day" or "the postman brings a hand addressed note/'Repondez Vous' it says to Foxhall Road" capture the trickle-down survival instict it takes to just make do in this town. I did not have to be born in DC to grasp the full meaning and enjoyment of these lyrics.
While a very tired band would close the night appropriately with version of "Rock Around the Clock", the second to last song "Is Anybody Going To San Antone?" was my request from earlier at Visions, fulfilled before the night closed. So sad a song with so much flavor (and an accordian) would make anyone happy, local or not.
As it turns out, I would not go to IOTA to see Canyon on Saturday, August 31, 2002 , They will play there again I am sure, or at least I hope so. Instead, I would do something unusual, lay down $30.00 to see a movie premiere and three bands at the Lincoln Theatre on U Street. The film was "The Pocket: the DC Go-Go Movement" and the bands The Uncalled 4 Band, Q and not U, and Little Benny & the Go-Go All-Stars. This was a complex evening, both theoretically and personally, but isn't it funny that sometimes when you are looking for an opening, it's actually closure that you find. It may take me a while to write something about this six hour oddessy-of-a-show, so stay tuned.
P.S. my apologies, as it may also take me a while to put in links, but you're smart, find them yourself.
Fist off, the Friday, August 30, 2002. Washington Post REVIEW-ed The Grandsons: Live at the Barns, The Legendary Wolf Trap Recordings, Volume One, The Grandsons latest recording. I did not get to read the review until Saturday, yet to quote the review's author, Mike Joyce, The Grandsons have "a flair for often keeping the crowd guessing and dancing at the same time." This reminds me why it is the LIVE component of local music that keeps me coming back.
So, on the surface the band seemed to start off just relaxing into the Visions set, saving energy for the IOTA show that nght. After a bunch of quieter, woeful, semi-acoustic cowboy songs, played in deference to those patrons in the theater, Alan set down a real vamp on "Long Gone Lonsome Blues." I've often thought that Alan has one of the most versatile voices in the area. He's a cowboy crooner who can also convincingly belt out a gospel-like dirge. The hear him playing around with 'the vamp' only strenghtens my opinion. [Perhaps I should mention, that one of the eccentricities of music at Visions, is that the band or DJ is positioned so they have to watch a film on the large videe screen at the end of the bar. This Friday was an all John Water's offering, it could have been a one time thing of the VAMP, enriching the CAMP.]
At this happy hour, my friend J. pegged what makes The Grandsons repertoire of cover songs more than the "novelties" and "vintage" that Joyce touched on in The Post. She coined it "A Grandson's Trifecta". After her request of "Audubon Zoo, a New Orlean's style march, the band followed it with the 1920's "If Youse A Viper", a reminder of where and what Jazz: America's Music, grew up from. The beautiful thing, is that The Gransdson's rarely use a set list so the "Trifecta", with all the excitement of a horse race, was completd with saxophonist, Chris Watling's original composition "Zulu Queen", found on 1994's It's Hip to Flip with the Grandsons...". Zulu Queen is like being pursued by a Jame's Bond villan at Carnivale it's so strong and suspenseful, that to IOTA, I had to go.
Now, apparently, I go to IOTA alot, because before the show had a chance to start, while I an not a muscian or a techie, I immeadiately noticed IOTA's new sound system. So while I don't know what it is or how it works, I can say, dang, it sounds good, and I am very glad I got to hear the The Grandsons christen it.
About midway through the first set at IOTA a familiar face, who knows I am always at the Vision's Happy Hour asked, "so is it the same set?" which gives me a great lead in to tell you "NO, it wasn't." The first set at IOTA had almost no repeat songs. Alan lost the vamp, and for the paying public carressed a whole different bunch of music with gorgeous tremolo vocals. Steve Sachs, upright player, would stand where John Young, who had played upright and electric bass at Visions had earlier, but what a different sort of pleasure it was to watch Sachs and druumer Matt Sedgley work a smooth bop-lounge rhythm over the course of the evening.
On the break, I was treated to a new fan looking fo rthe CD with Alan's yet unrecorded "Party With The Rich", a testement to local life and the fact that rarely are artist's paid their due and will always be on the outside. While this song is a relative newborn in Alan's 15+ years of songwriting, lines like "I don't care what my friends at Greenpeace say/the rich are just as right as a rainy day" or "the postman brings a hand addressed note/'Repondez Vous' it says to Foxhall Road" capture the trickle-down survival instict it takes to just make do in this town. I did not have to be born in DC to grasp the full meaning and enjoyment of these lyrics.
While a very tired band would close the night appropriately with version of "Rock Around the Clock", the second to last song "Is Anybody Going To San Antone?" was my request from earlier at Visions, fulfilled before the night closed. So sad a song with so much flavor (and an accordian) would make anyone happy, local or not.
As it turns out, I would not go to IOTA to see Canyon on Saturday, August 31, 2002 , They will play there again I am sure, or at least I hope so. Instead, I would do something unusual, lay down $30.00 to see a movie premiere and three bands at the Lincoln Theatre on U Street. The film was "The Pocket: the DC Go-Go Movement" and the bands The Uncalled 4 Band, Q and not U, and Little Benny & the Go-Go All-Stars. This was a complex evening, both theoretically and personally, but isn't it funny that sometimes when you are looking for an opening, it's actually closure that you find. It may take me a while to write something about this six hour oddessy-of-a-show, so stay tuned.
P.S. my apologies, as it may also take me a while to put in links, but you're smart, find them yourself.