Live At The Spotted Cat

We can’t get enough of the live music in New Orleans.  Last night we hit multiple venues on Frenchman Street, which has just about the best collection of live music venues within a small geographical area that you’ll find anywhere.  We started at one of our favorites, the Spotted Cat Music Club, where this band deftly covered some classic selections from the Great American Songbook.

As always on Frenchman Street, the music options are diverse — from torch songs at the Spotted Cat to roots blues music at the Apple Barrel to a kick out the jams, move your feet horn band at Cafe Negril.  We enjoyed every one of them, and tonight we’ll be back for more.

Gregg Allman

Gregg Allman died yesterday.  One of the founding members of the Allman Brothers Band, a group that unquestionably is one of the finest rock bands America has ever produced, Allman had been ailing for a while.  He was only 69.

Allman was one of those recording artists whose personal life always seemed to be a mess — he was married to Cher, of all people, for a while, which probably tells you all you need to know — but you felt that his life really was about his music.  Allman played guitar and keyboards in the band, but everyone really knew him as the voice of the band.  His unique, smoky vocals, with their gravelly, gritty undertones, injected life and soul into the bluesy songs that the Allman Brothers Band made their own.  Songs like Whipping Post, One Way Out, Not My Cross To Bear, and Midnight Rider are classics in large part because the vocals are so . . . legitimate.  When Allman sang about being tied to that whipping post, you felt that he really knew what he was singing about.  He could make Happy Birthday into an exploration into the dark recesses of the human experience.

We’re getting to the point where many of the rock icons of the ’60s and ’70s are moving on.  It’s sad, but it’s also a reason to listen, again, to some of the music that made them enduring icons in the first place.  Today, it’s time to go listen anew to the Allman Brothers Band At Fillmore East, one of the very best live albums ever recorded.  This performance of Whipping Post below comes from one of the band’s Fillmore East performances.

Live On Sixth Street

Everybody knows Austin has a thriving bar and live music scene.  Last night we started our pub crawl in the very cool Rainey Street area, which I’d never visited before, stopped to have a beer at the Container Bar, which is largely constructed out of those enormous corrugated containers used by the shipping industry, then legged it up past Stubb’s to a bar called Cheer Up Charlie’s, where a kind of light show projected against a white bluff entertained us.  After noshing at Stubb’s we headed over to Sixth Street, the traditional strip of bars and live music venues that keeps getting bigger — and louder.  

Around Austin you see people with t-shirts that say “Keep Austin Weird,” or something like that.  After our foray through Sixth Street, I’d say that goal is being accomplished.  You see people wearing flags as capes, masks, wigs, glitter, and just about any combination of clothing, or lack of clothing, you can conceive.  On Sixth Street, you can still freely let your freak flag fly.

Woody Pines!

Last night Kish and I joined the Bahamians for another music night at the Refectory — a chance to listen to some live music in an intimate venue, with food provided by one of Columbus’ finest restaurants.  Going out on a Monday night for dinner and a show was an act of unusual spontaneity for us.  After all, Monday night you’re usually curled up on your couch, grateful that the first day of the work week is in the books but otherwise fortifying yourself for the next four days.  It’s not a night when people do much.

But sometimes it pays to break out of the mold.

We happened to be at the Refectory for dinner on Saturday, and the host of the music series came by to tell us that a table for Monday’s show had opened up at the last minute.  A flier advertised the artist as “Woody Pines!”, with an exclamation point.  That’s a good sign, I thought.  Then I noticed that every artist on the schedule featured an exclamation point after their names, so I kidded the host about it.  After all, I pointed out, exclamation points must be earned and cannot simply be doled out willy-nilly to every Tom, Dick and Jazz Artist on a programming list.

Still, Woody Pines looked very promising.  He calls his music “down home swing,” and the photo showed a guy with a steel guitar wearing a harmonica holder and a beat up hat,  which is even more encouraging than the exclamation point.  So, we took a chance, and we’re glad we did.

Woody Pines fronts a three-piece combo that also includes a stand up bass, well-played in the foot-stomping slap style, and a clean-cut virtuoso working a ’50s-vintage Gibson electric guitar who added terrific fills to every song.  These three guys played roots music, some blues, and some songs of uncertain provenance, but whatever they touched had an irresistible move-your-feet beat to it that somehow combined elements of rockabilly, roadhouse blues, early ’50s rock ‘n roll, and the sweep of the American musical soul, all rolled into one.  They absolutely rocked the joint and had me tapping my feet and tapping the table, and if the Refectory performance space had a dance floor, every person in the room would have been on it.  Add in Woody’s strumming and picking and exuberant stage presence, and you’ve got a musical evening that I’ll remember for a while — and I’ll try to recreate, too, because I bought two Woody Pines CDs on the way out.  It was some of the best live music I’ve heard since my last visit to Frenchmen Street in New Orleans.

On the way out of the performance room after Woody had knocked my socks off, I saw the host of the music series, shook his hand, and told him that Woody Pines definitely deserved the exclamation point.  Woody Pines!

Bachelorettesville

Nashville must be the top bachelorette party destination east of the Mississippi.  You see the bachelorette groups everywhere — pedaling together to power the bicycle bars heading down Broadway, slamming down Jell-O shots, singing along with the band at the Honky Tonk Saloon, and whooping it up on the sidewalk — and always smartly attired in matching shirts and hats with clever slogans about love or being drunk, and sometimes both.  As soon as one group leaves, another bachelorette band arrives to take its place.

Why is Nashville such a popular bachelorette destination?  Well, why not? It’s got lots of saloons and live music and drink specials and pedal bars and all of the features of a modern bachelorette fantasy.  And let’s just say that the ladies we saw were taking full advantage of the chance to cut loose, starting bright and early and hitting it hard.  They were having fun in the bride-to-be’s last hurrah.

I’m guessing that what happens in Nashville stays in Nashville.

First Concert At The Commons

Walking home tonight on a fine evening — at least until the rains are supposed to come later on — the music started pumping as I approached Columbus Commons.  It’s the first outdoor concert of the year, at least to my knowledge, and the music was cranked up and the food trucks were out in abundance.

This particular concert was a private event, for OSU students, but it made me resolve that we’re going to go to one of the concerts on the Commons this year, come hell or high water.  There’s nothing like live music to provide a shot of adrenalin heading into the weekend.

Columbus Songwriters Association

Last night Kish and I joined our friends Dr. Science and the Bionic Half-Marathoner for the Columbus Songwriters Association Finale Showcase at Notes.  We were there to see their son, Jack, compete with more than a dozen other local songwriters.

It was also our introduction to the Columbus Songwriters Association, an interesting organization that says a lot about what our city has to offer.  The CSA seeks to nurture and support the creative impulses of lots of homegrown musicians, by doing things like hosting Songwriter Showcase events where the musicians get to perform live at venues like Notes.  The ultimate goal of the CSA is to make Columbus into a music city, like Nashville.  It’s a worthy goal, because any great city needs vibrant music and arts scenes.  In that regard, we thought it was pretty cool that we walked to the CSA Finale Showcase directly after leaving a great performance of La Boheme by Opera Columbus, which meant that we touched very different points on the live music spectrum in the space of just a few downtown blocks.

At last night’s event, 19 different musicians performed their own songs before an overflow crowd that jammed the club.  After each song, audience members completed evaluation cards for each performer.  The cards were eventually collected and counted, along with the reactions of a panel of judges, to decide who made it to round two.  Although we had to hit the road before the second round began, participating in the first round was a lot of fun and showed that Columbus has a lot of budding musical talent.  We particularly liked Jack, of course, but I also want to mention Maya Mougey, a teenager who showed tremendous poise in playing guitar and singing a song she wrote about losing touch with her sister who had moved on to high school.  We sat next to what looked like a table of her friends who cheered like crazy for her when she was finished, and we did, too.

Friday Night At Notes

It was bitterly cold last night, with a teeth-rattling wind blowing, but Kish and I wanted to get out of the house, anyway.  We decided to walk down to High Street to check out Notes, which is something that has been on our to-do list for a while now.

Notes is the music venue below Copious, one of the newer restaurants in the German Village area.  Last night the Tim Cummiskey Duo was playing the 7:30 set, and there was no cover charge.  How could we go wrong?

Well, we didn’t.  I’m happy to report that Notes is a pretty nice place to spend your Friday night.  It’s a big open room, the stage at one end and the long bar at the other, with bench-style seating along the walls, several dozen tables of different sizes around the room, and even a small area in front of the stage for dancing.  The Notes bar is stocked with just about every kind of adult beverage you’d care to drink — an extremely important consideration at any night-time music venue, in my book — and there is also a limited food menu.  Kish and I tried one of the create-your-own flatbread pizzas, and it was quite tasty.

The sound quality and acoustics — the other extremely important consideration in a music venue — were excellent.  That was crucial last night, because the Tim Cummiskey Duo turned out to be a good jazz guitar and bass combo, and for that kind of music you want to be able to hear every note, in every improvisation, clearly.

Our Friday night at Notes turned out to be a fun way to beat the winter cold and the winter blahs.  Good live music will do that for you.  There are lots of fine musicians out there; they just need a place to perform.  Now we know there’s a good spot only a few blocks away.

At The Rhythm Room

Last night we hung out at the Rhythm Room, a legendary Phoenix blues rock club. It is found in a somewhat marginal part of the sprawling Phoenix metroplex, just down the street from a funeral home and a Native American joint where you can get enormous fried bread tacos that position you nicely for the beers of the evening.

Rather than its normal offering of blues, last night the RR was featuring an eclectic mix of acts that ran the gamut from folk to abstract emo to these guys, who did a very credible job covering some power rock classics from Creedence, Hendrix, and Stevie Ray Vaughn.

It’s fun to experience a live music venue in a new city, even if not every act is to your liking.

Shadowbox Live

Part of the concept of Food Truck Summer is to make more of an effort to experience all of the diverse things that Columbus has to offer.  In furtherance of that salutary goal, last night Kish and I joined Mr. and Mrs. JV at Best of Shadowbox Live 2014.

Shadowbox is a local sketch comedy/performance troupe.  Although the group has been performing for 25 years and I’ve lived in Columbus that entire time, I’m ashamed to admit that I’ve never seen them before.  Last night, therefore, I was a “virgin” — and the Shadowboxers tend to shout out the presence of virgins to the entire room of patrons.  It’s a small price to pay for getting your first taste of this talented collection of performers.

A few background points about Shadowbox.  It’s in the Brewery District of Columbus, and its got a good performance space.  Parking is cheap (only $3) and readily available.  There’s a bistro section where you can have a drink or order food before or after the performance, and you can also eat in the performance space itself. The food is a cut above what you would expect for a performance venue.  I had a grilled chicken sandwich that was both tasty and reasonably priced.

If you choose to eat in the performance hall, which is what we did, you’ll be waited on by the same folks who will be performing.  So, we ordered our nachos, pastas, and sandwiches from a friendly woman who, a few moments later, was convincingly portraying a teenage skank up on stage.  The performers even wait on you during intermission, and return after the show is over to cash you out.  Needless to say, they really work hard, so if you go, leave a generous tip — they clearly deserve it.

The show itself runs two hours and alternates between sketch comedy and songs performed by a full rock band.  We sat in the section nearest the performers and were so close to the stage that you could feel the bass vibrations through the floor under our feet.  The band occupies one end of the stage and the sketch comedy occurs at the other end, with lighting changes allowing sets to be changed on the darkened part of the stage.  It’s a very quick-moving show, and the amphitheater design of the performance space ensures that there isn’t a bad seat in the house.

The comedy parts of the show were quite good.  I particularly liked the Cold Feet, about a long-married couple’s odd reaction to renewing their vows, Coming Out and Going Home, about a gay guy who finds a surprising reception when he confesses his sexual orientation and another preference upon returning to his parents’ home from college, and Good Driver Discount, about designing properly PC TV commercials for an insurance company.

As good as the comedy was, I thought the music was even better.  The house band really puts out the sound, the staging and costumes are great, and the music pieces showed that the performers had talent to burn.  My favorites were the creepy I Put a Spell On You, sung by a female performer with a fabulous voice, a sultry, incense-burning rendition of Led Zeppelin’s Kashmir, which is seen in the picture at the top of this post, and Prince’s Gett Off, which absolutely kicked ass and closed the show with a bang.

One other great thing about going to Shadowbox — you can buy tickets for upcoming shows for a significant discount and get some other freebies.  We bought tickets to a future show and got free tickets to two other events.  We’ll be back.

El DeOrazio And Friends

The first act on tonight’s music crawl on Frenchmen Street was El DeOrazio & Friends. Wow, were these guys fantastic! The pumped out terrific blues riffs, and DeOrazio is a spectacular guitarist. What a treat to sit within five feet of a great group and enjoy live music!

They were so good I bought one of the CDs. Support local music!

Un Petit Dejeuner A Jardin Du Luxembourg

Today Richard and I planned to eat every meal outdoors.  However, our plans were complicated by the fact that today is Sunday, as well as May Day.  Many businesses were closed, which threw a bit of a wrench into our plans.

The view from our park bench

After waking up we walked over to the Luxembourg Gardens (Jardin du Luxembourg), which are very close by our apartment.  Across the street we found a fine patisserie and bought the makings of our breakfast.  Richard chose a few apple tarts, and I decided on a croissant.  Then we went in search of coffee, which was a challenge.  The only place with carry-out coffee that we could find was McDonald’s.  We were a bit sheepish about going to a McDonald’s in Paris, but we really wanted coffee and we had no other options.  So, under the golden arches, we ordered two cafe au laits, grande.

Then we walked over to the Jardin du Luxembourg, dodging the many joggers and flower sellers who were circling the periphery of the park.  We found a place to sit that was just perfect, on a shaded bench next to a fine piece of statuary surrounded by flowers, and dug in to our repast.  The cafe au laits from Mickey D’s were surprisingly good, and the croissant was great — rich, flaky, and buttery.  Richard’s apple tarts were equally good, with a spicy apple compote tucked inside a slightly heavier, glazed pastry.  Say what you will about the French, but can we all agree that these guys know their baking?

The band at the Jardin du Luxembourg

After we sat, sighing with satisfaction at enjoying such a fine petit dejeuner in such a beautiful location, we noticed a band setting up at an adjacent bandstand and decided to stay and have a listen.  It was a 12-piece band with an odd assortment of instruments that included a xylophone, a piccolo, and a tuba.  They played an eclectic form of music that sounded like a jazzy version of oom-pah-pah Alsatian favorites, with the Austin Powers theme song thrown in for good measure.  As the band played a crowd gathered.  It made for a very memorable breakfast.

The Jardin du Luxembourg proves the value of urban parks as a place for memorable gatherings and communal activities.  It is a fabulous place.

A Star Is Born

Tonight Kish and I went down to the Ohio State campus, to the Scarlet and Grey Cafe, to watch the debut performance of Jack Doran, son of Dr. Science and the Lovely Anita.  It was like old times as we paid an $8 cover charge and sat on somewhat rickety stools in a dark bar to enjoy some live, local music.

Jack played six songs, accompanied only by his own acoustic guitar, and he did a wonderful job.  All of the songs were his own creations, and he played and sang them with the assurance of a seasoned veteran.  It must have been difficult to play with proud parents (and their friends) crawling all over the establishment taking pictures and video, but he pulled it off.

It was fun to go down to campus and to catch a bit of the music scene.  Before Jack took the stage we watched an all-female band named, I think, Scrimshaw the Mariner.  They were quite entertaining as they deftly played banjos, ukeleles, guitars, washboards, and an instrument that looked like a breathing apparatus and also sang some a cappella pieces.

From our brief exposure tonight, I’d say the local music scene in Columbus is alive and well.  Great job, Jack!

Roger Waters And The Wall In Columbus

During the guitar solo on Comfortably Numb

Last night Richard and I, along with a bunch of other friends and colleagues, watched Roger Waters’ performance of The Wall, in its entirety, at the Schottenstein Center.

During Another Brick in the Wall, Part II

It was an awesome spectacle, and I am trying to use those terms with precision.  Waters, who is whippet-thin, was in good voice and good spirits and was backed by a large and skilled band and backup vocalists.  Together they were able to musically recreate the album — not quite note-for-note, but close.  The songs sounded great on an excellent quadrophonic sound system, and soon much of the audience was singing along.  By the time the show reached The Trial, a massive, crushing wave of sound was washing over the audience.

The music, of course, was married with a lot of showmanship and visual effects.  As the show progressed, workers steadily built The Wall brick by brick.  The Wall then served as the conceptual centerpiece for the show and the backdrop for wide-ranging video projections, many of which had overt political themes, before it finally crashed to the ground at the show’s climax.  The show also featured enormous, extraordinary puppets depicting characters in the same disturbed cartoon style found on the album, a crashing airplane, and a huge floating boar covered with advertising and political slogans and graffiti.

The Wall is a weird, disturbing album, filled with pain and misogyny.  This performance of the album sounded similar themes, and at times during the performance of album one the anti-woman messages became unbearable.  For album two the perspective was a bit less anti-female (but only a bit) and more political and anti-war, including a profoundly moving video montage of soldiers returning home to greet their children.  As we reached side four of the album, fascist concepts prevailed, with giant goosestepping hammers projected against The Wall, red and black flags, and Waters clad in a floor length black leather coat with a Nazi-style armband.  Watching the show beginning to end, you can’t help but conclude that Waters must have had to deal with some disturbing issues in his life.

For me, highlights of the night were Another Brick in the Wall Part II, where Waters was joined on stage by a group of children who sang and danced and then went to protest at the feet of an enormous strutting schoolteacher puppet, Mother, where Waters sang a duet with a 1980 video recording of himself that was projected on The Wall, Hey You, Nobody Home, and finally the stunning, irresistible Comfortably Numb, where a guitarist stood atop The Wall as he played the iconic guitar solos from the album.

This show was an experience, and one well worth having.

Thirty Years, Old Friends, Elvis, And “The Train,” Too

Wayne Hancock and his current trio, live at the Kraus Amphitheater

Kish and I were happy to join in last night’s celebration of the 30th wedding anniversary of our friends Ken and LuAnn. And what a celebration it was!  Friends like Scott, Pat, and Theiser came in from all over.  LuAnn ironed her normally kinky hair to glass-like flatness.  Ken wore his baggy green Vegas jacket.  A good-humored Elvis presided over Ken and LuAnn’s renewal of their vows with Annie and Ben standing as witness.  And, Wayne “The Train” Hancock and his three-man band rocked the house afterward.  Ken and LuAnn are wonderful people and a wonderful couple, and I think it is fair to say that their 30th anniversary was almost as memorable as their original wedding.

A word, though, about my old roomie’s decision to hire Wayne Hancock to entertain us with some excellent rockabilly.  If you like music — and I do — there is nothing like seeing professional musicians perform live.  And when you can stand three feet from them, watch them ply their trade in a suburban rec room, be amazed at the sheer sound a slapped and plucked stand-up bass, a furiously strummed rhythm guitar, an expertly picked electric guitar, and human voices can create, and then talk to them afterward . . . well, it just can’t get any better than that.  Amazingly, Wayne Hancock said that it was only the third gig he was playing with his current band mates.  You would never have guessed.  “The Train” and his fellow band members played some of his excellent compositions like Doghouse Blues, took requests like Route 66, and kicked some serious ass to the delight of all the partygoers.

I’d never heard Wayne Hancock play before, and he and his band members were fantastic.  Fortunately, he can be found on Youtube, so I can share his music with Webnerhouse readers: