Soooooo…. it would appear that I have been absent for some period of time.  I have many apologies… travel...work… what not.  They are lame but indeed, that is what we have come to expect from these halting pages.  But I have not been idle.  Half way through, despite all the issues and some mist steps it has been… quite year.  

I have seen a lot of music this year.  Much of it has been at Off Broadway and I am happy to report again, and again that this is becoming a treasured venue in town.  I have lived through the venue being the worst and stupidest of shit holes.  Back in the day… when i was a pup it competed rather unsuccessfully with Mississippi Nights and the old Cicero's.  But these venues eventually went on to not become a Jacques Cousteau museum or to become a lame incarnation of itself up the street from it’s former location.  But Off Broadway ambled on… trudged on...slowly… awkwardly and sometimes horribly.  Great bands but a really stupid room.  You would arrive at the front door and come in behind the stage into a “lobby”.  Then walk around and there was a cool long bar that extended down the side.  A “stage” was there, poorly lit.  The “room” had a beautiful wagon wheel chandelier which didn’t belong.  There was an upstairs which could have been funky but was instead awkward and vision was blocked by the over hang as well as… the chandelier.  Doors were at 8.  Bands started to play at 9 ish and there were often 3 of them.  On a school night you were always out till 1.  Too late for people with jobs and too random an experience for a “grown up”

But a few years ago new owners came on the scene.  Things started to happen.  Good things.  Happy things.  They started to experiment with:

Earlier shows

Afternoon shows

Shows that started on time

Tall boy beers

Professional employees

Redecorating

Losing the iconic chandelier

Peeling years of...shit of the walls

Painting

Shortening the bar

Bringing in seats for old people shows or partial old people shows.  What I am saying is that if you ever have an inclination to see some live music.  Hit their website and go out.  They bring in some of the most talented acts that are both breaking and established and when local bands play there it is because they are awesome.  Their website is:

http://www.offbroadwaystl.com/calendar/

So some of the shows I have seen recently.

Rhett Miller.  Rhett is lead singer and other than one song per album by their bassist sole lyricist for The Old 97s.  Rhett is… well… their is really no one else like Rhett.  I would assume he is about 40 (I am too bored to WIKI him).  He went to Sarah Lawrence (girls school) on a poetry scholarship.  Now remember he is from Texas.  He dropped out and moved back and started a band and they have turned out 8-10 CD’s and he has dated and married super models and he has long hair and my best friend’s wife loves to go to shows just to see him whip his hair.  And he does.  But when he comes to town for a show he normally just shows up with a guitar.  I think he has 5 solo albums out and he writes great songs.  He writes lines like:

“I was going through a hell of a time

When suddenly you showed up

You gave me hope but I lost mine

But hope is not enough

I loved you so hard

It broke my heart

And you weren’t like the rest

Until you left”

Seriously… that is “Dylanesque” which is the nicest thing I can say about a songwriter.

Frankly this show was the most fun.  Buy his newest album and buy the new Old 97’s album as well.  It is not poetry but is an album full of songs about getting drunk on bourbon and having sex.  What could possibly go wrong.

Steve Earle hit the Pageant and reminded us all what a grumpy, great, tuneful, deep, flawed, wonderful nightmare that he is.  He had a pretty set with a tight band featuring the husband and wife team “The Mastersons” who opened up the show with a tight swinging sound.  She has a sweet voice and he has good chops.  Together they ably backed Earle.  Steve Earle has had a checkered personal life but has always been a brilliant artist.  Sidelined by heroin and drugs it appeared he had straightened himself out after several marriages and had settled with the talented Allison Moorer in NYC.  This tour seemed to be about him working through that latest break up.  The bottom line with Steve Earle is that he is likely the most soul filled white man out there.  He bleeds through his songs and is constantly working out his thoughts in his songs whether it is personally or politically and… you should go see him.  The Pageant is not intimate enough for what he was doing on this tour but still… as I said...get off your dead ass and go see a show.

Twang Fest 38 returned this year with it’s normal panoply of touring and local acts.  I was only able to hit two nights of the four nights but each one was filled with great music.  KDHX does such a great job for my kind of tunes and the Fest gets better and more professional each year and the partnership with Off Broadway seems here to stay which… is good.

More  recently I hit Off Broadway to see the late great Robbie Fulks (not yet deceased).  Fulks, from Georgia via 20 years or so in Chicago does not come to town enough.  he was playing an early show opening for Chatham County Line who is the latest “thing” in Americana/Alt Country...whatever you want to call it.  But Fulks… I have seen 4-5 times.  I was able to reminisce with him briefly about his first show in the St. Louis at the old High Point...100 or so years ago.

Fulks has been keeping himself in Chicago at the Old Town Folk School up there and has helped them create a beautiful community that teaches a lot of people and promotes even more.  Fulks is a gem and no one knows about him who does not pay attention to great music.  He has a truly unique voice and I don't mean “unique” like Dylan or Niel Young.  I mean unique like...fucking beautiful.  There is something in the way he resonates that literally can make me tear up and there is both a joy and a mournfulness that he conjures which becomes stunning in a small venue like Off Broadway.

The voice coupled with 30 years of songwriting proved too much for the normal 45 minute opener and he played for over an hour and left everyone wanting for more.

Georgia Hard

She said she was leaving

So I went to follow

Blind love and I-55 got me here

Dirty old salt truck

in the smog before me

And dear old Dixie, back in the rearview mirror

Got a third-story walk-up

With a view of the alley

A mailroom job that isn't all glamour and fun

The woman I came for

Is gone to another

Now my feet are just too planted to run

Chorus:

But there's no Carolina Moon over Chicago

No bluegrass growin' out in my backyard

No fields of sugarcane, no soft Virginia rain

But damn, if this livin' ain't Georgia Hard

Down on Halsted

The women walk by me

Like they can tell

I haven't got a dollar to spare

So it's into a side street

For a beer and a sad song

I guess some things

Are the same most everywhere

So please, Mr. Conwell

Could you except the charges?

When I told you "A cold day in Maacon", I lied

And if your pecan trees still need a-shakin'

I'll be back a-beggin' fast as the grey dog flies”

Chatham County seemed like they were going to be awesome after some awful sound problems.  They do 4 musicians, no drummer, and one microphone.  It is almost too cute but these guys are clearly killing it and a braver man would have stayed for more but… I am old.

Robbie Fulks/Chatham County Line

Most recently I went to Off Broadway to see the Felice Brothers.  The Felice Brothers became like gods to me with the release of their eponymous CD from 2008.  Songs like “Whiskey In My Whiskey”, “Scarecrow” and more made a CD that was so solid song to song, so lyrical and so filled with sad energy that it was far and away my best CD released that year.  But so what?  They came to town to the Firebird once since then and I missed them (out of town) which was clearly my bad but mistakes get made.  But I did not miss them this time and they were everything I had hoped and more.  They were brilliant.  Sad.  Emotional.  Funny.  Talented and… shit… they were beautiful.   Ian and James Felice even without their brother Simone play the kind of music that can only be played from playing together for life and loving and hating each other as only brothers can do.  The concert ambled, rambled, soared and swooped.  It was meticulous and it was a train wreck and it was everything rock and roll is supposed to be.  It is clearly for me the best show of 2014!                    

Songs of addiction and madness that when you read the lyrics they just make you ache… and cringe.

Scarecrow

Would you love me

If I told you I was born upstream

If I told you I come from money

White money

Would you love me

Would you love me

Well, I was born down

By a bad little river in a poor town

Where an indian-giver put a board out

It said "Boarding House"

Call him Scarecrow

He kept whores around

And I'd go there

I'd wait my turn on the broke stairs

And get me the girl with the gold hair

Aw yeah, leave your clothes there

On the folding chair

In that cold room

Your breath would twist just like ghosts do

You said, "Call me Dorothy in red shoes"

And the bed moved

The bed moved

The bed moved

Tracy, don't you wake that scarecrow tonight

Well, the man would come in

It's hard living right giving head when

The sad days of winter have set in

And the medicine for an addict is heroin

I'd find you there in the bath

We'd cook up your shit in a tin can

And you started calling me Tin Man

And we started making plans to begin again

Begin again

You saved a C note

Told me you felt like a seagull

Told me to meet at the depot

With the needle, then maybe we'd go

To Reno

Where you'd be my desert dove

And we'd find a way to make better love

Said, "Baby, that's how the West was won"

And the blood-red sun

Yeah, the blood-red sun

And the blood-red sun

Tracy, don't you wake that scarecrow tonight

Well, the man cries,

"Who gives a damn when a tramp dies?"

But I loved you there in the lamp light

With your bare thighs

And the halo of your hair alive

And all my lifelong

I'll never shake off your siren song

And all of your talk about dying young

With an iron lung and that crazy way

Would you love me

If I told you I was born upstream

If I told you I come from money

White money

Would you love me

Would you love me

And all my lifelong

I'll never shake off your siren song

And all of your talk about dying young

With an iron lung and that crazy way

You said, "Simon,

I think I might stay here with Scarecrow tonight

Simon, I think I'm gonna stay here with Scarecrow tonight."

                                  s

“I put some whiskey into my whiskey

I put some heartbreak into my heart

I put my boots on that ole dance floor

I put three rounds Lord, in my 44”

The Felice Brothers.

Quite a year indeed.

Go see some music.

Save your soul.

Concert Review: Robbie Fulks @ Off Broadway

Soooo the house concerts have been great but there is still something righteous about going to a club, standing at the bar, paying for a beer and then seeing a band. Seriously righteous. But daddy is old. Daddy is tired and some venues have become off limits. Particularly Off Broadway.

I have vivid memories of going down there time and time again. I would show around 8 because things were winding down at home, kids are in bed are going to bed, the wife is working on a project so rather then watch some more crap TV I go to the club. I pay. “When does the band go on?” I ask and am told the opener is at 9. You look and you see two drum kits stacked on the stage and and you know that you are not going to luck out and have “an evening with” where one artist plays the whole show. So you wait, have a beer, have two beers, then the opener. Often they do not suck. They always go one late, say around 9:15 and get done slightly after ten. Then you see a second band setting up and they are not the band you came to see. GREAT NEWS! Three bands for the price of one! Shit. That mean that if you wanted to stay till the bloody you were there till 12:30 or 1:00. I am too old. I have to work tomorrow! But I stayed. And I loved it. And I hated it. I was ecstatic and I was miserable. I love dichotomies.

The place has changed hands at least three times since I started going to shows but no matter who it was it was always a late place. Even the much missed and lamented Mississippi Nights ran a tighter ship.

http://www.offbroadwaystl.com/

Anyway.... I digress. I read in the RFT or the Post or something that Robbie Fulks was coming to town and playing an EARLY SHOW at Off Broadway. 7:30! How great is that. Even better a good alt-country true believer called and reminded me of the show and even better I was free of other obligations that night so... down we went. Off Broadway is just off of Broadway down south of the brewery and as I said it has been there for years. It was interesting upon going in that there was again new management which is I guess the reason for trying some new stuff. I complimented them on the concept and away we went. The place was all cleaned up with all the trash and memorabilia which had been gathered (read plastered and strewn) all over the place for 20 years or more. The only thing I was sad to see gone was the huge wagon wheel chandelier which used to hang in the middle of the room, awkwardly hanging over nothing but part of the floor. It had always somewhat obscured the view from the awkward little balcony.

They have always had a large beer selection there and I was grateful to see that they had not felt the need to get rid of the Busch and Stag long necks. In fact they had a special on the Busch 20 ouncers but... I prefer glass bottles for my Busch beer. I am classy that way. We had a beer, and had a seat. It appears they had also lost the crappy little tables they formerly had and instead set up seating in about 10 rows of chairs. We got a seat in back and had another beer and I was pleased to see local luminaries like Brian Henneman and Beatle Bob at the show.

Fulks came on at 7:30 promptly with his acoustic and more of slightly more interest or annoyance he was appearing with another guy with an acoustic, Robbie Gjersoe. If anybody cares he plays for a band called Screen Door Music which you can find on My Space... or not. Fulks has a new CD coming out and so he was shilling for that and the new tunes were tuneful and nice and his voice rang clear and true with that sharp, well pronounced twang. It was awesome just to hear him live again. The first time I had scene Fulks was at the old High Pointe. He knocked me out fronting a band and paying loud, funny twang with Nashville and Big Hat hating country songs like "Fuck This Town".

If you want to get a taste of Fulks I would sample the first two CD's "Country Love Songs" and "Southmouth". These Buckcentric CD's are awesome and funny and his voice is so young and pure that when i listen to them now they often seem even more heartbreaking. After that he has a good songwriter catalogue but as i said, I recommend "Georgia Hard" as his best. Fulks cut his teeth doing Bakersfield country and channeling Buck Owens like no one's business but since that time and most specifically with his album Georgia Hard he really came into his own with some beautiful, catchy and dark songs. So the new ones sound good. I will have to get the new Cd and he played a nice sampling of his past 9 albums. One of the great things about Fulks is that most of the songs are 2-3 minute blasts of beauty and angst and it was awesome. Gjersoe played a nice accompaniment and sang high harmony when needed and occasionally pulled out the craftsment 9/16 long neck socket for a little slide guitar as well.

After he put in an hour he started to take requests but other then a couple of suggestions he pretty much ignored them and played what he wanted. Although disappointed not to hear "The Buck Starts Here", there are no bad songs in his catalogue and he was playing before about 50 hard core fans. The show was done by nine and I was able to have another beer on the way home and be in bed shortly after 10. That night, life was good indeed. Here is to the early show.