Tonite, Grandson's show just added at The State. Get out and enjoy the new beautiful Spring evenings!


On another note, in chatting with another 'regular' at the Straub Combo's show at Iota on Friday I was fed this little tidbit. Mongrel Music is the booking agent for Last Train Home, Alejandro Escovedo, and Saffire-Uppity Woman Blues, groups that I know are locals off the top of my head. You see thay also 'carry' others you may know, like The Iguanas, Tarbox Ramblers, Dave Alvin and Los Straightjackets. Mongrel is nice enough to list all these bands advance tour dates for us audience groupies. Other booking agents tend to be more helpful to the clubs, organizers and promoters by having sites like this one, Samhill Bands page on The Grandsons in this case a great resource if you go to the songlist page where you can see the crazy amount of fantastic roadhouse covers that the G-sons have made their own, something they don't flaunt it on their own website.

Anyway, enjoy the resource and when you request Buddy Knox "Party Doll" or show up for a LTH show on June 13th at the Bubba Mac Shack in Somers Point, New Jersey tell 'em groupiegirl sent you.

On another note, by seeing where your faves are being booked, you may be able to start auditioning new places to live, ones that are less conspicous than WDC area with as good a music scene, good luck. If you're tuning in from out of town, ya know in DC we all come to work and take the metro and do are part to not be scared by 'terrorists', well that's bull shit. I love my city but it sucks, I trust MY government at large about as far as I could throw it, DC or Federal. Luckily if you haven't figured me out already, I do have faith in 'individuals, like The Arlington Music Scene list serve. It provides this gem from the NY times about a Dixie Chicks bashing event in Louisiana. Excerpt from Paul Krugman: "a crowd gathered in Louisiana to watch a 33,000-pound tractor smash a collection of Dixie Chicks CD's, tapes and other paraphernalia. To those familiar with 20th-century European history it seemed eerily reminiscent of. . . . But as Sinclair Lewis said, it can't happen here." So the dot dot dot thing is kinda weak-dude it's op-ed - say it Fascist Nazis!!!!! But wait a second, whomever owns the Times probably has some kind of gag on language that means the journalist can't put "Fascist Nazi" in print and that's the point of this op-ed. Media companies engaging in rally's, why? I tell you something, the next few years should be interesting if majority of the population of the US ever wakes up to the fact that we live in a corporate oligarchy, sigh.

Sorry, these are stronger opinions than even I thought I had, I did not expect to write a screed, but again more to the point, thank you some person in Arlington that hooked me up to this opinion column, booking agents and record contracts aside we all need to be looking out for more than just suspicious people and packages.

Hello, shoot, I am busy and I'm sorry I don't have more time to record my thoughts. I'm making it out to a few shows here and there, but doing the writing and webbing is kinda not happening as much as I would like. GG posts should be better in April.

I did get to sneak out and catch Karl at Velvet. I did not get to hang and schmooze after the show, as I am preoccupied at the moment with ROBOTS which you will hear more about later. I hope the KSC went away appreciating the show as much as I. The intimate atmosphere of this club showed me a new level of emotion in Straub's "Little Johnny Spotlight" and was also the perfect setting to hear "Autumn Leaves"-yum.

On an administrative note, and something I look for to write about, this show was interesting because for once the club system really seemed to work. I was perched in a group of 'scrappy' fans left in the audience from the previously performing bands, and for all their hootin' & hollerin' I saw the fans that stayed on undergo a conversion, get quiet for the most part and listen, then quietly at the break between songs whisper "this guy is really good" to each other (any situation where men whisper to each other must be like the freakin' annunciation right?). I give this audience credit for being able to recognize what someone REALLY playing a trumpet sounds like (ie. the fabulous Kevin Cordt), considering their exposure to the band that went on right before Karl.

And speaking of the multi-talented Mr. Cordt, be on the lookout for Spottiswoode & his Enemies 'en concert' where ever you can find them. My sources tell me they have a 'rehearsed' production now with theatrical mood lighting extraordinaire, let's hope DC can take on this cabaret style performance that is already a hot commodity in NYC and LA. It's not for everyband, but Spottiswoode is far from everyother band. I can't wait to see this.

oi, the Karl Straub Combo at the Velvet Lounge in my 'hood today!!!!!! and I didn't put it on the sides, sorry! They're at IOTA on March 21st if my negligence is going to cause you to miss tonite.