Concert Review Number 4: Southern Culture On The Skids

Sooooooo...what do you say about Southern Culture on the Skids (SCOTS)? Kukla and I went out for a mad evening of some live music and a few beers at the Duck Room. Kukla is a sometimes willing accomplice to go see music with but I only drag him out when I know he will like the show. We last saw SCOTS at The Pageant when they opened up for BR-549 and frankly stole the show. That having been said they seemed like a safe bet for the intimate Duck Room on a week night. With the closing of Mississippi Nights if you want an intimate venue to see a show there is now really only The Duck Room and Off Broadway and sometimes The Lucas School House. If you get their early enough and stand in line for a little you can always stand right in front of the stage. The beer is always cold, the bar is always undermanned but it is also ALWAYS a good time.

The show opener was Brian Henneman and he showed up at 9:00 with his guitar and was on stage by 9:05 with very little tuning or bullshit. The Bottlerockets, his band trace their roots all the way back to Chicken truck which predated Uncle Tupelo. Henneman cut his teeth in those days as guitar tech (roadie) for Tupelo and then picked up some of the guitar work on their later albums. He has stayed around and frankly...after losing wight and sobering up has become a local treasure. He always wears hats to cover his bald head and he could use a little dental work but he looked good and he played...great. From the start he called out for what people wnated him to play and the crowd called out for the mellower and older stuff and we heard a ton of great music. Welfare Music, Gravity Fails, Kerosene, Smoking 100s, 1000 Dollar Car (both requested by Kukla), a brief Waylon Jennings set and then back for some more of his stuff. he can flat out play and his voice has held up well. He got done with a pleased group, packed up quietly...and disappeared.

Beatle Bob showed up later (perhaps he does not like Henneman?) By the time of the SCOTS show the place was packed but Kukla and I were right up front directly in front of the stage. Studio monitors at me knees. The bands drummer came out and set beers and water by everyone’s spot...Rick Miller and Mary Huff were no where to be seen. Miller showed up eventually in plaid shorts, green Converse and a Hillbilly Surf T-Shirt on and then at about 9:20 the fabulous Mary Hiff showed up. I say fabulous because with a red full wig, blue eye shadow and red metal flake lip gloss she is a site. I have no idea how old Huff is but she has been with the band since 1987 so...well lets say she is in her 40s but she looks pretty good and between her and Rick Miller and even their drummer who wears a straw pork pie and stands while he drums...it is as much performance art as a rock and roll show.

They finally all came out together and immediately broke into one of their first hits...”Too Much Pork For Just One Fork.” They then broke into Huff’s best vocal performance, the awesome “Nitty Gritty”. Huff plays a beautiful sea foam green bass which she immediately after the first soing stock her wad of gum on the head of the guitar. Miller plays a beat up old plastic Danelectro guitar. Off tot he side of the stage there were several beautiful Gibson and Fender hollow body electrics but Miller does not need any of that. With his cheap guitar and an effects box that looks like an HVAC system he simply tears it up. I have never been able to see Dick Dale but I have seen Junior Brown and The Flat Duo Jets and quite simply Rick Miller is my favorite surf guitar player. His work is precise and economical but never seems to bore or repeat and it is very accesable. Dave Hartman just stands behind the two of them sometimes beating the skins and cymbals with a maracha in one hand but always keeping...perfect time.

The band started in 85 out of North Carolina about the same time the B-52s were hitting the scene. I do not know who sported the big hair wigs and dramatic eye make up first but these guys certainly have held onto that retro look....with a passion. It was a great show with a lot of high spots including “Mexcian Radio”, Liquored Up and Lacquered Down” and a whole lot more. I managed to get a decent pic of the set list. This is a band that everyone should see...cars, bar-b-que, fried chicken and sexual pecadilloes all provide grist for entertaining guitar, twangy vocals and a damn good time.

Record Review 11 Fountains of Wayne: Traffic and Weather

Soooo... what do we say about Fountains of Wayne? A couple of clever kids who named their band after a sign they saw of the Jersey Tunrpike advertising a fountainse store in Wayne New Jersey. There are more then two of them in the band but Chris Colingwood and Adam Schlessinger have provided all the songwriting preffering the “Lennon and Mc Cartney” way of giving credit for it rather then breaking it out. they are competently backed by Jody Porter of Guitar and Brian Young on Drums.

Fountains of Wayne has been a favorite of mine for a long time. They almost ruined it all with the tragic but hooky “Stacy’s Mom” a few years ago on their brilliant pop masterpiece “Welcome Interstate Managers.” That song and it’s hype and overplaying drove their audience down into the 6th grade which for any indie band has to be a little...creepy. Irony is at the heart of so much of their music along with social and relationship commentary that, well... you have to have had some angst in your life to get it. Fortunately you do not have to have had angst in your life to sing along and enjoy the melodies.
These guys know a hook and if you have not done so, go back and buy their previous releases, “Wlcome Interstate Managers,” “Utopia Parkway” and the epynomous “Fountains of Wayne.” Are all beuatiful and to quote the hidious band Better The Ezra the “Got more hooks then Madonna got looks.” Seriously, they have not made a bad album and this one flows right along. Do not look for a lot os apparent substance on this CD or any of the catalogue but the music... and their vocals and harmonies are just so damn good. “Someone to Love” kicks off with a little angst filled tale of a boy and girl working in the city and you just about think they are going to hook up and... Melissa Auf Der Maur (who is not a porn star but is indeed bassist for Smashing Pumpkins) add backing vocals and we are off to a rollicking start. “92 Subaru” and “Yolanda Hayes” are throw aways that any other band would kill for. Traffic and Weather”....crunchy guitars...chorus...”We belong together like traffic and weather....” Say no more. it is a radio song. “Fire in the Canyon” is too pretty like “Hackensack” and “Valley Winter Song” from “Interstate Managers” but there is nothing wrong with pretty. This better be good starts with the singer telling us that “He saw you holing hands with a guy wearing light blue docker pants...” Constant references like this in all there songs...allow visualization of what they are talking about and this song offers Brian Wilson, Beach Boys, dreamy background vocals...good stuff. “Revolving Dora” and “Michael And Heather at the Baggage Claim”mare more pleasant...brilliant fill. “Strapped for Cash” adds a few trumpets and has a different feel but different in a very same way as you get ELO type harmonies which makes it...weird...if you really listen to it. “I-95”...more songs about highways and food...and truck stops. A truckers lament. “Hotel Majestic” could be a Squeeze song from back when we though Squeeze was cool. “The Planet of Weed”? Where well would we be without an ode to getting high and wasting your life. Though the Planet of Weed does sound worth a visit. “New Routine” is another nice throw away set in a Diner...so we like it. “Seatbacks and Traytables”..an ode to flying starts with a nice Bob Dylanesque harmonica whine and the whole thing has another Pumpkin, James Iha on Guitar and is a suitable finisher for this fine, fine, pop CD.

The CD is a MUST buy if you like pop music. It is only pretentious if you really force yourself to listen to it because frankly it is so fucking brilliant. But on it’s surface where most of the listening gets done...you nod your head...you smile (you can undertsand the words) and the more you listen you find layers of meaning and depth int he music that keeps improving on every listen. BUY IT! 9 Slingers out of 10.
On a more disturbing note when I went to get track listings for another Fountains of Wyane CD on Amazon I came upon the dreaded:
Customers who bought items like this also bought
• Out-of-State Plates ~ Fountains Of Wayne
• Wincing the Night Away ~ The Shins
• Utopia Parkway ~ Fountains Of Wayne
• Welcome Interstate Managers ~ Fountains Of Wayne
• Fountains of Wayne ~ Fountains Of Wayne
• Because of the Times ~ Kings of Leon
• We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank ~ Modest Mouse
• The Crane Wife ~ The Decemberists

Since I have already reviewed three of these CD’s this year and am looking forward to buying the King’s of Leone CD I suddenly feel VERY pedestrian and predictable in my “eclectic” tastes. Perhaps O need to find some Bulgarian rock to review. Indeed.

Diner Review II: Big Ed's Chile Mac Diner on Pine

OK...so it has been brought to my attention rather forcefully...by "readers" if they can indeed read, from as far away as California...that...well...there just have not been many Diner reviews. Mea Culpa. I have taken a LOT of great Diner pics and started strong with discourses regarding definitions of a DINER and the imprtance of shredded hashbrowns but a hark and alas...I have strayed...lacking purpose and focus and as such I must return, as it were, to the fold. (tortured sentence structure?)

Big Ed's Chile Mac Diner is indeed a lion among the St. Louis Diner elite. It is one of the former O.T. Hodges Chile Parlous which suffered a rather disasterous family break up causing the chain to disappear...forever under the St. Louis landscape...never to return....at least to the city of St. Louis. One hollow shell of the old place exists. If you hit the O.T. Hodge web site where they use to have 6 or 7 St. Louis locations they now tell you:

"O.T. Hodge Chile Parlors®, founded at the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904, is enjoying its 103rd continuous year of operation in 2007. Our acclaimed Chile formula, our unique menu, and our affordable pricing have made O.T. Hodge one of the favorite restaurant operations in St. Louis. We are continually rated number one for Chile in St. Louis, and just as consistently rate among the top local restaurant chains for take-out and fast-food popularity.

Our customers represent a wide range. Executives, secretaries, service people, public servants, production workers, judges and families meet at Hodges for breakfast, lunch or dinner. Our wide, affordable menu, prompt table service and clean looks have made us a leader in our field for a century. Come visit us at our new Ferguson, MO location, 250 South Florissant Road. This is 1.25 miles north of Interstate 70 on Florissant Road. It is near the St. Louis Airport."

This Diner reviewer says..."whatever."

Big Ed's keep the tradition with the location on Pine right across the street from Metropolitan Square. There is another one with the same name on North Broadway but this reviewer has not been there and they are...on information and belief...owned by different people. At the end of the day you judge a diner by it's "regulars." Along with my "Artist In Residence" status at the afor reviewed Courtesy on Hampton I am a regular at Big Ed's because it is...after all...right across the street from work. And they have a lot regulars that they take good care of and know by name.

Big Ed's on Pine open at 5:30 every day. For breakfast Charlotte mans the grill and Donna serves customers. A lot of customers. They pack them in and know the orders of their regulars. tehre are several business men and woman, several service companies (elevators and electricians) seem to have work group meetings there. There are always two huge black men sitting at the counter at 7:30 every morning. I mean huge. At that time of morning along with Charlotte and Donna is Lamont who...as near as I can figre does...nothing. But he is a really nice guy as he putters around and smokes.

Big Ed's has classic Diner configuration with a counter running the length of it and 5 groupsings of tables each of which seat 6. If you are a table person (and I am) staking out your position and discouraging other people from disturbing your newspaper reading is a sport similar to blocking out under the boards and playing for position ion the paint. On most mornings it is not a problem but things become dicey when a really big convention hits town. Especially if it is one that comes back every year because people look forward to coming back to good diners and then...sometimes...you throw up your hands as the line extends out the door.

They have great and perfect breakfasts... Charlotte does an awesome job on the grill with the eggs and they have a certain sausage I have not found anywhere else that is simply an excellent breakfast country sausage. They of course have the slinger and serve Edmunds Chile with or without beans. They serve chile, chile mac, chile three ways, they have tamales for the top one... and on information and belief they have an awesome slinger. The Bacon report is...average to poor. It is a weak spot on the menu and my theory is that because their sausage is so good there is not the volume of bacon needed on the grill to make a good consistent product. Additionally...and sadly their hashborwns are not hash browns but the dreaded "breakfast potatoes." I have had the discussion with them many times regarding this egregious shortcoming but for one reason or another (they say these potatoes stand up better to chile) they are not going to change. Of more import to me they have a really thick cream gravy (though a little light on sausage chunks) which i can get with some patties and their breakfast potatoes and make an excellent heavy breakfast. They also do a very nice sausage sandwich...with or without onions...always with American cheese...like God intended.

There are some serious questions regarding their Diner "bonafides" primarily because of their hours. They open early and are closed by 2...or 2:30 though I have been known to get an iced tea there as late as 3. Additionally and showing how beholden they are to the 9-5 crowd and how St. louis rolls up it's streets downtown on the weekend...they are CLOSED. So the hours suck..but the food is good and the service is GREAT. If you don't get the slinger get the biscuits and gravy with a side of sausage. 8 Slingers out of 10 for the rating.

Loose Strings

Picking up the pieces. It was commented upon by some alert readers that there was no comment in this space on the recent Imus debacle. There was no comment because this was a non event. A blow hard idiot who is supported by advertising dollars made some totally unacceptable comments about some young women with vicious racial overtones. Everyone is raising the issue of rappers. Rappers? Please. Rappers and their record companies sell directly to consumer. Guys like Imus require advertising dollars on their cable show and you cannot offend broad segments of the population...advertisers get scared.

You cant scare the advertisers. We can forget about whether you ever should do that in any position but in his position you cant. He will go to sattelite, deal directly with consumers and the same close minded people who liked him before will find him again. The whole incident was not nearly as newsworthy as they made it. Hearing that Russel (Def Jam) Simmons convened a hip-hop convention to discuss the issue did nothing to make me feel better. Surprisingly these great minds did not reach a possible solution.

A question. Is the guy (Imus) dehydrated or freeze dried or what? Who looked more like Skeletor? Don Imus or Skeletor? For those of you who do not remember Skeletor...my apologies.
***
This week a crazy man went on a rampage and tragically killed 32 people and injured another 20. The largest mass execution in US history. Shocking, appalling and grotesque but 24 hour media turns a national tragedy into a farce. Instead of respect and distance and recounting the facts we are treated to a parade of time filling blame makers asking questions about “what the University did wrong,” “why they couldn’t keep the kids safe.” They ought to be ashamed and we as a society should be ashamed that we will watch TV and listen to News with people and organizations who feed us crap like this. It cannot be long till Nancy Grace crucifies the kids parents and the University Administration and once we have a head then we have a bunch of new laws and rules further restricing the freedom we claim to hold so dear.

It is not the government or the colleges job to protect people from madmen. I think we are obsessed with being “safe” and “keeping our kids safe.” In fact all these things are used just to scare us into listening and watching. No one is safe from crazy people. Other people cannot keep us and our loved ones safe from crazy people. We cannot do it and the costs we incurr in trying to do so is taking time and resources away from other matters.

Of equal concern is the outpouring of “cheap grief” from people all over the country on the internet and in programs. Our nation seems to have a tremendous need to personalize and own selective tragedies. We share the victims pain, we share the pain belonging to the families and the immediate communit and we make it our own... in a very selective way and I would argue we cheapen it. When it is a tragedy involving children and easy to love people our society led by the media and even my precious NPR glom onto it like vampires.75 Iraquis (that we know about) died that same day. In The Sudan...the same thing. But this strikes a nerve but i wish, I wish we could apply the same angst on a more equal basis. We would all be better people for it.

Perhaps I am way too old. The Facebook thing has created a whole new dimension to college grief with literally hundred of Facebook sites dedicated to those who died, survivors, their families, the school...it went on and on... and our friends in the media have already started mining it for new angles on a tragedy. Today they were airing this guys last rantings and ravings for all the world to see. Likely just what the kid wanted. Wonder how I would feel if I lost a kid there and then got the opportunity to see this. Apalling.

***
Yesterday the Supreme Court made its first major shift towards significantly different and more conservative jurisprudence by upholding a statute banning partial birth abortion. I have become strongly anti abortion over the years but firmly believe that it is my responsability to impart those values on my family and that the government should continue to do their best to balance the harm. In this case they banned this form of abortion after taking testimony that there are some limited cases where the health of the mother is served by this type of procedure. It is the first time ever for the court to veer away from a doctrine which ultimately has always held the health of the mother to be the primary interest weighed. I am not passing judgment but...it is different. Pay attention...the times they are a changing.

***
Kurt Vonnegut passed this week. I hope he went without much pain. No one had more influence on my late adolescence then his writing. Once i found him I read everything and my mother wrung her hands and worried that it would make me jaded and harden me and... it certainly did not help. This was a man who naturally and through his experiences in the war and post war had a natural mistrust of authority and the people who make the rules...and sometimes the rules themselves. Brilliant stuff. He asked the right stuff, the right questions and his observations of people, how fragile they were and how dehumanizing insitutions can be were perfect pitch. A whole new generation will hopefully find his work and read it and use it to... find a way to like people more.

His last book a man without a country was anti war diatribe that spoke to me in ways that made me tear up at time. He had not released a book in 6 years and was tired, sick and old... but he had to rant one more time against the hypocrac and God Bless him for it. Released in the middle of 2005 Vonnegut once again and finally ahead of his time. He will be missed and like all really great writers will not be replaced, only remembered and hopefully appreciated.

***

It has been noted that to date I have strayed from Diner reviews. I promise to get...back to basics.

Concert Review Number 3: The Decembrists

Concert Review
The Decembrists
April 14, 2007
The Pageant



So if you are an indie rock snob you need to hear, taste and see The Decembrists. Like so much of the genre it occasionally sounds like recycled Cure, Colin Meloy is odd enough and self involved enough and....well read enough to keep it interesting. The Pageant has over the years worked out it’s sound issues but we were lucky enough to be sitting at the center right in front of the sound board in seats saved for us by someone with even less of a life then me.

The crowd was older and well...a little too respectful. The show was opened by “My Brightest Diamond” who frankly...I walked out on to go sit out in the Halo Bar. It just seemed too contrived and self involved. After a brief break Meloy and his band came out, 5 of them including keyboardist Jenny Conlee, Drummer John Moen, Bassist Nate Query and Guitar multi instrumentalist Chris Funk. They came out while we were all treated to listening to the Russian National Anthem. The only reason I knew that was because i was in the company of a Russian studies major.

The show was...great. the sound...impeccable. the crowd, with the exception of the people I was with was quiet and tuned in...kind of like in church. If the music wasn’t so good it would have been kind of creepy. But it was not creepy. It was just great. One of my friends not so familiar with the band asked apropos of nothing “all his songs seem to be about death and murder.” What can one do but look, smile politely and shrug. Murder, mayhem and madness, all set to lovely melodies.
All the songs sounded great and were very true, perhaps too true to the albums they came off of. He played songs from all over the catalogue including the current hit “Oh Valencia,” “July July, (The Perfect Crime #2) and “Sons and daughters.” On the down side there was one forced sing a long in which Meloy directed the crowds into groups and well...if i never saw another indie rock sing along directed from the stage... my life would be no poorer. My only other complaint about the show was it’s lack of length clocking in at about and hour and fifteen minutes though the short encore did include the fake whale which is featured in the cheerful “The Mariners Revenge Song.”

The show was one of the best I have seen in a long time. His musical styles are so interesting and the melodies so good that seeing them put on livemade for a rollicking good time...and that is what we are all about. Isn’t it? 9 Slingers out of 10.

Book Review Number 5: You Don't Love Me Yet

Jonathan Lethem:You Don’t Love Me Yet
224 Pages (2007)

Lethem is on of our best, hippest and funnest writers. Along with guys like Jonathan Franzen and TC Boyle they provide cultural references and social commentary that makes for a read that is enjoyable and hard to find. Lethem bust on to the scene with his classif “Fortress of Solitude” about growing up in Brooklyn, a white kid, mother gone, basically pretending he is a super hero. The music references are excellent throughout that one and the literature is just as good. If your a boomer...it just resonates. Lethem has made his bones since then with some good follow ups and a lot of good reviews and interviews including a brilliant Dylan interview last year in Rolling Stone.

This book is not of that classic category but...what a good read. Set in L.A. following a girl Lucinda and her love life and her band. I am always hesitant about boys writing out of a girls voice but Lethem carries it off (at least from this boys point of view) very well. Lucinda has two ex boyfriends and a current beau who do not complicate her life but seem to add texture and angst and some occasional good sex to it. She is single minded and the current beau is “the complainer” who she meant while manning a performance art piece/complaint line. The performance artist is one of her exes and the lead singer in her band is her current ex...if that makes any sense, and somewhat exhaustingly the bands “genius” also eventually succumbs to her whiles.

The book makes a lot of cultural comment regarding the vacuous beauty of southern California... with people having jobs but not working or sometimes working when they they do not have jobs. The scene and appearance are always valued over content and substance and everyone gets totally caught up in their own little crusades whether it is for art or for the better socialization of kangaroos in the zoo. Sometimes it seems pointless... but more often it is brilliant and funny. It is similar but better then Steve Martin’s recently somewhat brilliant novella “Shop Girl” which was made into a bad movie with the interesting but alway spooky Clare Danes. If you liked “Shop Girl” you will love this. It is just plain and simple better written.
He writes as well as anyone walking around. He turns a phrase with such alacricity as to be alarming. Which makes it perfect that the new boyfirend turns phrases for a living. Lucinda puts his phraseology together with Bedwin, their bands songwriting genius and magic starts to happen. What always seperates a book look like this which is so embedded inpop culture is how “lovingly” the author embraces all the nuances and references that are near and dear to the psychotic obsessive complusive about the topic. Hear is where Lethem has perfect pitch. He discusses and references ultra obscure and perhaps non existent local (LA) indy bands and then pays homage to Alex Chilton and the Band “Big Star” who although hitless in their two existing studio albums are whispered about with reverie in indy rock snob circles.

The book is about wandering through young adulthood, playing in a band, tetherless relationships...and everyone’s emptiness. Lucinda wanders through the lives of her bandmates innocently (?) creating carnage and doing damage she never imagines till the end when she is sleeping unoticed in another bed as two lovers discuss her... and throw her clothes in the garbage. Even the introduction of a kangaroo from the L.A. zoo does not make me suspend my disbelief or pull me away from this very enjoyable read. Buy it. It is a cultural slice of life that will stand up pretty well to the test of time. If it were later in the year this one would show up on everyone’s “Bestof 07” lists or at least the cool peoples. 8 slingers out of 10.

Book Review Number 4 The Godfather's Revenge

"The Godfather's Revenge"Mark Weingardner 496 (unnecessary) Pages


“Leave the gun, take the canolis.” Clemenza

Worst book ever? Possibly. I mean... this book, they are selling the shit out of it and as far as I can tell that is due solely to the beautiful and perfect franchise that they are...bastardizing. I mean Mario Puzo has to be rolling over in his grave. Not that the Godfather books were great literature but...they were good books with real characters and real stories. Granted they were eclipsed by the movies. One of the important things I have tried to teach my children is that ALL of life’s important lessons can be gleaned from the Godfather Movies (1 and 2...although 3 has the young, hot if slightly chunky Sophia Coppola). Those two movies are likely 2 of the best 7 movies of all time and that is high praise indeed.

But this book. This book is putrid drivel. It could not be worse. They develop this whole sad stupid plot with some of the same characters and other then that just stupid sad cousins and other made up characters. 496 pages of nothing. There is a tie in between the Corleone family and the Kennedy assassination? There are convoluted plots but more importantly this Weingardner guy just steps all over and rewrites the history established in the first books. He tells us that all the people that Michael had killed in Godfather II was a mistake contrived by some guy named Nick Geraci. Even worse...they try and base the whole book around Michael’s dream that Fredo keeps coming back.... dressed in a tux. Explaining he doesn’t blame Michael.... ooooh it is just the most contrived, stupid stuff...ever.

Cut and paste this into your browser. It expresses my feelings for my own children.
jahozafat.com/0028375953/MP3S/Movies/Godfather/spoil.mp3

Even worse...every character he introduces he gives us a long, convoluted history which he eventually, tortuously and irritatingly ties it into characters in the original book. He tells you all about a some gumba and then tells us it is Barzinis nephew. He does it with each character....and it could not be more annoying. I have a great deal of love and patience for books. Even poorly written books. But to take a franchise and so abuse it is an abomination. Inexcusable...the worse kind of putrid stuff.

Hyman Roth: "This is the business we chose."

This from From Publishers Weekly

In Winegardner's mediocre second sequel to Mario Puzo's classic (after 2004's bestselling The Godfather Returns), La Cosa Nostra gets involved in a plot in the early 1960s to assassinate a JFK-like U.S. president, Jimmy Shea. Instead of building on the fascinating characters Puzo created, such as Michael Corleone, the reluctant successor to his father's Mafia empire, Winegardner dwells on the machinations of Michael's main rival, Nick Geraci. When Geraci mysteriously disappears and eludes capture by the authorities, the reader learns in a jarring nod to Osama bin Laden that "the most powerful nation on earth had deployed skilled intelligence and law enforcement personnel to conduct a gigantic manhunt for a powerful and resourceful leader of a secret criminal society—a tall, imposing, bearded man with a chronic, withering disease—and somehow failed to find the cave where he was hiding." Godfather fans might prefer getting reacquainted with the original novel and the two better of the three films it inspired. (Nov.)

If the book had exercised that type of brevity I might have enjoyed it. Don’t buy this book. Don’t pay homage or dollars to this continuing debacle. 1 Slinger on the 10 scale.

Record Review 10 Modest Mouse: We Were Dead Before The Ship Ever Sank

THE DINER REVIEW IS BACK!









Sooooo, the diner review was captured for March by the evil folks at KUBE and their illegal gambling consortium... very sad and a little bit...no a lot annoying. Those people. Anyway...except for some specific announcements related to KUBE happy hour these pages will go back to regular rants and reviews.

Modest Mouse
This Issac Brock guy. He seems to have some kind of ear but i still do not know what to do with him. There is some brilliance in him for sure as was seen by all the copies and buzz that surrounded the break through “Good News For People....” which I guess is like three years old now. “Float On”, “Bukowski” and my favorite “The Good Times Are Killing Me” provided some of the better anthems available for a while.


It is a big full sound he uses which often makes my old ears feel like it is just noise but...I don’t know. There is something about him. He has supposedly cut back his partying a great deal and he got himself a new guitarist but although there was all kinds of critical buzz... you cannot tell. He laughs over the opening waltz called “A March to the sea. He screams over several songs and generally floats his angst along with former Smith’s guitarist Johnnie Marr and he rips and rants in his own loveable way. This is not background music but is much more headphone music. The beat is relentless and intentional and that is what seperates it from so much other music of this genre. Every screach and squelch seems to have been placed intentionally. There is a LOT going on and the album is dense and sometimes even pretty in the way a cacophony can be pretty...occasionally.


The style becomes numbing sometimes but it is always interesting. When he gives the stoners a new anthem in “Fire It Up” you always suspect he might be talking about something else but he is too comfortable with whatever you inturpretation is. He combines with James mercer of the Shins for a warbling “Missed the Boat” and a few other songs but “Missed The Boat” is a high point. Marr’s solos throughout are nice and add a texture that was missing even on the last album.


What is nice about the album for me is that it belies the myth that when a band reaches the main stream and has a major label that they “sell out” and homogonize their sound and are just looking for hit. Brock’s sound is changing but, dare I say it, like Neil Young he continues to be true to himself, rallying around his voice and around all those dark unhappy images that seem to swim in his head forever but never drowned.

Gator Pride/Happy Easter

MY MOMMIES BUNNY!

Soooooo the best team in the country beat the second best team in the country. In a drama-less tournament with great basketball we got to see the gators beat the hapless but ever arrogant Buckeyes... in a replay of the Football Championship. How bad does that feel? Who cares? they are Buckeyes.... they are not even people.


The KUBE is in the can and it has been a GREAT tournament with outstanding participation and players from as far away as mainland China (Dave Martens). Lyn and Gerry Ebest...who would have thunk it? Hector hessel is number 2 and Mr. Budd "Rocky Top" Walker finishes 3rd. I am hoping that is someone's pet because if your name is Budd you are not entitled to have any nickname much less a nickname like "Rockytop."


We still have a lot of people who did not pay. We have severalpeople who were stupid enough to violate KUBE rules and give Becker money....some were stupid enough and evil enough to give Becker money.... in a bar! These peoples names will be released. they will be hunted down.... their children will be hunted down...people will PAY!


KUBE would like to thank you all for paying.... I mean playing. I need you to all email Kukla with suggestions for where and when to have the happy hour. Lets be creative...lets be bold and lets see if we can get Ebest to pay for 1/2 of it. I am suggesting the Ritz Carlton but we will let the people speak.