Mary Chapin Carpenter w/ Rose Cousins – The Birchmere, 12/7/2016

Table 125 – dead center, second row of tables in the raised rear section. (We had the number I82 and they started at I57, so were the 26^th group to get in.)

 

As was the case at Wolf Trap this summer, it’s good to see Mary Chapin Carpenter playing with a full band again. Longtime bandmate Don Dixon prowled the stage with his electric bass, while Jon Carroll and Johnny Duke impressed with their solo work (piano and guitar, respectively), especially on “I Feel Lucky” and “The Bug” near the end of the main set. (Drummer Nate Barnes was great throughout.) I was also delighted that they included “I Know You Know”, which is my favorite track from her latest album. She did change a few lyrics in light of recent events: “We doctor the receipt” (from my all-time favorite “Stones in the Road”) is now “We posted a tweet”, and a different “celebrity” (no longer a musician) has his hand on her thigh in “I Feel Lucky”.

 

Setlist

 

Rose Cousins started with a 45-minute opening set accompanying herself on guitar and piano, with mostly self-written material somewhat reminiscent of Mary Chapin in her more contemplative moments. (She joked with the audience at one point that doing happy, upbeat material was “not her job”.) I wasn’t terribly surprised when she mentioned that she was from Prince Edward Island, since her voice reminded me of fellow Canadian Kathleen Edwards. The north-of-the-border connection was further strengthened by her one cover, Gordon Lightfoot’s “If You Could Read My Mind”.

Two views of the Adam Eaton trade

Boswell’s take is classic:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/nationals/new-stats-hard-facts-nats-play-the-numbers-game-in-deal-for-adam-eaton/2016/12/07/840406cc-bccd-11e6-94ac-3d324840106c_story.html?utm_term=.e2f3a3802f36

 

And one from Eddie Matz of ESPN:

http://www.espn.com/blog/washington-nationals/post/_/id/2090/inside-bryce-harpers-wow-heard-round-the-world

Carrier

Most of “The Establishment” has reacted to PEOTUS Trump’s recent Carrier intervention with some combination of horror and disdain. However, two of the Post’s economic columnists whom I respect have a different take:

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/12/02/give-him-credit-trump-carrier-deal-puts-shareholder-obsessed-ceos-on-notice/?utm_term=.635b8d7e1f6c

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/when-bodyslamming-big-companies-is-good-for-america/2016/12/02/97800202-b735-11e6-b8df-600bd9d38a02_story.html?utm_term=.c7201a05a57e

Why I’m not sorry to see Harry Reid go

Headline from today’s Post: “Clinton and Biden get in on Reid’s Senate send-off: Festivities this week to mark Nevada Democrat’s decades of service”

 

Please forgive me if I don’t join in the hosannas. It’s hard to complain with a straight face about the recent election of a “post-truth” President while also celebrating one of the most bald-faced liars in the history of the U.S. Senate.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/09/15/harry-reid-lied-about-mitt-romneys-taxes-hes-still-not-sorry/?utm_term=.33d97ee8b5dc  

#133 I’m Still Standing – Elton John (1983)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHwVBirqD2s

 

Great song for these times.

Sharon Jones

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/sharon-jones-powerful-soul-singer-with-throwback-style-dies-at-60/2016/11/19/641b523a-ae71-11e6-8b45-f8e493f06fcd_story.html

 

By the time I got to the theater Saturday afternoon, I was pretty sure there was going to be bad news.

 

I was driving up to Germantown to meet some friends for a showing of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, listening to The Gamut on the radio. (Wonderful station – check it out on the Internet, or on 820 AM Frederick, 98.3 FM Reston, or 103.5 HD3 Washington if you’re lucky enough to be within listening range.) I was initially delighted to hear “100 Days, 100 Nights” by Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings. The next song (which I didn’t recognize) also sounded like them, but I decided it was probably someone else, as even such eclectic stations as The Gamut rarely play two or more songs in a row by the same performer. That was followed, however, by Jones’s unmistakable cover version of “This Land Is Your Land”.

 

Bad sign – when stations that actually care about music do something like that (The Gamut actually played 6 Jones songs in a row), it generally means “tribute”, and I did know that she’d had a recurrence of the pancreatic cancer that had previously been in remission. Sure enough, after I arrived at the theater and finished typing her name into the Google search box on my phone, the dreaded “Trending” label appeared.

 

Although Jones left a legacy of several fine albums, her dynamic retro-soul persona was most compelling when experienced live. I was lucky enough to have seen her at the Lincoln Theater in February of 2014, one of the first shows I saw after my retirement the previous month. She joins an almost unbelievably long list of famous figures, musical and otherwise, that we’ve lost in the past week and a half – Leonard Cohen, Leon Russell, Robert Vaughan, Gwen Ifill, Mose Allison. (Apologies to any I missed.)

 

Favorite songs:

100 Days, 100 Nights

I Learned The Hard Way

This Land Is Your Land

Without A Heart

Stranger To My Happiness

Fearing Trump’s wall, Central Americans rush to cross the U.S. border

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/central-americans-surge-across-the-us-border-before-trump-takes-office/2016/11/18/1714789c-ab59-11e6-8f19-21a1c65d2043_story.html

 

Great article, in terms of describing the nitty-gritty of exactly what happens on the border, and afterwards. (If you read it, you’ll understand more than about 90% of American voters.) Far more complex and heartbreaking problem than you might think from all the political posturing.

Straight No Chaser – Weinberg Center for the Arts (Frederick MD), 11/9/2016

Row O, seats 6 and 8 (right side)

 

It was almost exactly seven months since we last saw Straight No Chaser at the Weinberg in “Fredrick” (their spelling, not mine); this show was equally great, with a similarly enthusiastic crowd that mixed first-timers and veterans. This time they used their medley of “Thriller” and “Uptown Funk” to start the show with a bang, rather than saving it until the end of the second set as they did in April. The encore was also similar, beginning with their now-more-seasonal take on “The 12 Days of Christmas” and ending with “Make You Feel My Love”. They also used their opening set to repeat a number of other highlights from the previous show, such as “All About That Bass”, closing with “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay” morphing into “Proud Mary”. They did add some great material that they didn’t use in April, most notably a three-song Prince medley near the beginning and a hilarious medley of sitcom themes a little later.

 

The second set was almost entirely Christmas songs, most of which were from their just-released I’ll Have Another …Christmas Album, with “Feels Like Christmas” and “To Christmas! (The Drinking Song)” among the highlights. They got out of the holiday mold and ended the set with their must-see take on the Beyoncé hits “Crazy in Love” and “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)”. The whole show lasted just under two hours, with a 25-minute intermission.

 

Setlist

Owen Danoff – The Mansion at Strathmore, 11/2/2016

Along with two bandmates – drummer Nate Read is a dead ringer for a former work colleague of mine – Danoff did a relatively short (about an hour) but still sweet set in a much more intimate setting that his show at the Hamilton earlier in the year. His solo acoustic mini-set in the middle of the show produced some of the best moments, including a medley of “Fire and Rain” and his own “No Such Thing”, as well as his cover of “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right”. The material with the band was strong as well, especially on “See This Through” (which closed the main set), although on a couple of occasions the full-band arrangements were a bit much for our front-row seats in the tiny (100-seat) venue.

 

Highlights – Hometown Headstone, Fire and Rain / No Such Thing, (If I Had A) Starship, Don’t Think Twice, See This Through, Alone Life

 

Setlist

Serendipity #64

Learning The Hard Way – The Gin Blossoms

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtUekBjlYW4

Heard 11/4/2016 around 10:00am, at Wegman’s (Germantown)