March 15, 2019 – Nationals 11, Mets 3 – Port St. Lucie FL

https://www.mlb.com/gameday/nationals-vs-mets/2019/03/15/565985#game_state=final,game_tab=box,game=565985

 

Attendance: 6,599

Game Time: 2:40

Weather: 81 degrees, cloudy (had some rain driving up, but it was dry and comfortable for the game)

Wind: 13 mph, R To L.

 

Section 205, Row U, Seat 1 – just to the right of home plate, 3 rows from the top of the stadium

 

Washington’s offense started out in high gear and continued slugging through the 4^th, with 7 home runs in their first 23 plate appearances. Adam Eaton led off the game with the first dinger, and the Nats added 4 more tallies in the frame, climaxed by a 3-run shot by Yan Gomes. They piled on with 3 more runs in the 2^nd off Steven Matz, with Rendon and Zimmerman going back-to-back. The explosion continued even after Matz’s departure, as Gomes hit his second of the day in the 3^rd, while Rendon (again) and Matt Adams went deep in the 4^th off New York closer Edwin Diaz to finish the Nats’ scoring for the afternoon.

 

Meanwhile, Jeremy Hellickson pitched his usual efficient 5 innings, allowing just 2 runs. (An error by Victor Robles, who also looked shaky on an earlier fly ball, made one of the two unearned.) Matt Grace, Jimmy Cordero, Henderson Alvarez, and Justin Miller went an inning each to close things out.

 

It was a little sad to see Danny Espinosa, who played with the Nats from 2010-2016, lead off the bottom of the 9^th for the New Yorkers. (He grounded out to second.) Now 32 years old, Espinosa is in the Mets minor league camp and has just 2 hits in 29 at-bats this spring.

 

Best points about First Data Field – lots of covered seats (so you’re unlikely to be sitting out in the bright sun or rain), good pizza, friendly staff

 

Worst points about First Data Field – narrow concourse, long concession lines (so get your lunch early), hard-to-read scoreboard (dim red lights for most of the critical items)

 

Traffic exiting the field winds up in two lines, which are forced to turn either left (the way most people come in, with lots of slow traffic) or right. I wound up in the “turn right” line, which did feature periodic directional signs for I-95. I finally realized that these were sending me to a different interchange, north of the usual one (and thus farther away from West Palm Beach). Naturally I wound up getting behind a school bus, stopping for a train at a grade crossing, and enduring a mile or two of slow traffic when a lane was closed for road work (on the section of I-95 that I normally wouldn’t have even been on). Other than that, traffic was smooth until I got to West Palm Beach, where it crawled for the last 4-5 miles (normal Friday rush hour?).

Rosanne Cash – Strathmore, 3/1/2019

Orchestra center, Row H, Seats 101-103

 

Among other things, Rosanne Cash is one of the most convincing performers I’ve ever seen. She means every word she sings.

 

Her intermission-less show at Strathmore ran close to two hours, featuring 19 songs. She began with three cuts from The River And The Thread, perhaps her finest album, and added two more near the end of the show, while the middle was dominated by 8 of the 10 cuts from last year’s She Remembers Everything. She closed the main set with her classic “Seven Year Ache”, returning to encore with a moving rendition of “500 Miles” from The List. That album’s “Long Black Veil” popped up midway, just before covers of “Ode To Billie Joe” and “Things We Said Today” (one of my favorite Beatles songs). This was a somewhat different approach from the show I saw four years ago, where she played The River And The Thread in its entirety as the first of two sets.

 

I was also impressed by her five bandmates, including former Mary Chapin Carpenter sideman Kevin Barry and hubby John Leventhal, whose work on electric and acoustic guitar complemented the material perfectly.

 

She also reached back for “Blue Moon With Heartache”, a #1 hit on the country charts from 1982. It occurred to me that, while it could easily have fit on last year’s album, it would unfortunately have virtually no chance of getting played on country radio today.

 

Setlist

The Milk Carton Kids w/ Vera Sola – Rams Head On Stage, 2/25/2019

Table 101, Seat 4 (first row of tables in front of the stage)

 

I had seen the duo of Kenneth Pattengale and Joey Ryan open for Mary Chapin Carpenter a few years ago, but this was the first time I saw them do a full show, which ran about 80 minutes. Being just several feet from the stage in such an intimate environment was quite a treat, and they certainly didn’t disappoint. As usual, Pattengale dazzled with his guitar virtuosity, while Ryan supplied most of the lead vocals and stage patter. (His deadpan humor, with occasional timely interjections from Pattengale, provided more laughs than I’ve had at some “comedy” shows.)

 

The setlist began with two of my favorites, “Hope Of A Lifetime” and “The Ash & Clay”, and featured material from last year’s All the Things That I Did and All the Things That I Didn't Do (no, this is not the longest album title ever), as well as a generous helping of older material. Strangely enough, I didn’t notice anything from their excellent 2014 effort Monterey. While there was a considerable amount of more pensive material (“Snake Eyes” and “Memphis” being other highlights), they also made sure to include uptempo numbers such as “New York”, “Honey, Honey”, and “Girls, Gather Round”.

 

Vera Sola opened with a 35-minute opening set, accompanying herself on acoustic guitar with some elaborate finger-picking. Her songs tended to be somewhat edgier than those of the headliners, both musically and lyrically. Highpoints of the set included “Virgil’s Flowers” (her self-proclaimed “happy song”) and a cover of Bob Dylan’s “Ballad of a Thin Man”.

Favorite Musical Artists: The Impressions

Bruce Springsteen wrote in his must-read autobiography Born To Run (near the end of Chapter 25), “In the 1960s the first version of my country that struck me as truthful and unfiltered was the one I heard in songs by artists like Bob Dylan, the Kingsmen, James Brown and Curtis Mayfield.” The Impressions’ classic “People Get Ready” would later serve as one of the inspirations for Springsteen’s “Land Of Hope And Dreams”. Yet Mayfield certainly wasn’t limited to writing songs of social consciousness; like James Hunter, he was unbelievably prolific in producing classic songs about the ups and downs of more intimate human relationships, seemingly without breaking a sweat. It wasn’t just the songs, of course, as the vocal harmonies (usually led by Mayfield’s unmistakable falsetto) and arrangements are top-notch as well.

 

From my earlier notes on “I Loved And I Lost”:

 

I’ve always felt that Chicago soul music never got the credit it deserves. … Curtis Mayfield, of course, was the driving force behind much of this success. In addition to writing nearly all of the Impressions’ material, he wrote hits for fellow Chicagoans Jerry Butler, Gene Chandler, and Major Lance, as well as for Aretha Franklin and the Staple Singers. He also was a producer, started his own successful record label (Curtom), and had a notable solo career in the 1970s. … Most of the album cuts that Mayfield wrote for the Impressions are just as strong as the tracks that got released as singles, in sharp contrast to the filler that mars so many 1960 albums.

 

And I did get to see them live a couple years ago, with Jeremy Purifory doing an amazingly good job of taking Mayfield’s vocal parts.

 

Favorite songs:

I Loved And I Lost

People Get Ready

Gypsy Woman

It's All Right

I've Been Trying
 

Grow Closer Together

It's Hard To Believe

I'm So Proud

Talking About My Baby

Just Another Dance
 

Amen

We're A Winner

Sad Sad Girl And Boy

Minstrel & Queen

You've Been Cheatin'
 

Keep On Pushing

Long, Long Winter

See The Real Me

Never Let Me Go

Can't Satisfy

 

And I should also mention “For Your Precious Love”, the initial hit from the early version of the group featuring Jerry Butler. 

Shuffle #114 (February 17, 2019)

For some reason, Shuffle started out in an extremely mellow mood this afternoon.

 

It’s All In The Game – Tommy Edwards

Greenfields – The Brothers Four

Going Back To Harlan – Emmylou Harris

Morning Morgantown – Joni Mitchell

(They Long To Be) Close To You – The Carpenters

Searching For A Heart – Warren Zevon

The Twelfth Of Never – Johnny Mathis

Oye Como Va – Santana

Time Is On My Side – The Rolling Stones

Paris (Ooh La La) – Grace Potter & The Nocturnals

Baseball’s free-agent situation

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/nationals/we-still-dont-know-where-bryce-harper-will-play-and-thats-bad-for-the-nationals/2019/02/12/3be578fc-2eff-11e9-813a-0ab2f17e305b_story.html?utm_term=.78f5f7566fa9

 

Finally – a balanced column by someone who hasn’t drunk the Scott Boras Kool-Aid (trademark pending).

Serendipity #76

You’re An Ocean – Fastball

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faMFWIlZPc0

Heard 2/12/2019 around 11:15 at Westfield Montgomery Mall

(great song – never heard it before!)

Empty slogans vs. thoughtful policy

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/democrats-in-2020-are-at-risk-of-turning-into-republicans-in-2016/2019/02/11/172cbf56-2e42-11e9-86ab-5d02109aeb01_story.html?utm_term=.f1b311e83396

 

The title says it all.

The Nighthawks (acoustic) – St. Mark Presbyterian Church, 2/4/2019

The shows presented by the Institute of Musical Traditions generally lean in more of a folk direction, but the mix of “blues, R&B, honky-tonk country, doo-wop, gospel and rockabilly” that the Nighthawks embody certainly has plenty of tradition to it as well. Most of my previous experience with the band has been at outdoor summer shows (Rockville Town Square, BlackRock in Germantown, etc.), so it was a nice change of pace to see them in an acoustic setting (and a fully-electric show would have probably overwhelmed the church’s fellowship hall setting).

 

In addition to the stellar musicianship from all four members of the band, I was particularly struck by the gritty, blue-eyed soul vocals of drummer Mark Stutsko; his rendition of “When I Go Away” from the band’s 2017 studio album All You Gotta Do was the highlight of the evening for me. They did a few other numbers from that CD as well, in addition to four (by my count) from their earlier acoustic album Back Porch Party. Each set lasted close to an hour. Things were a little more free-flowing after intermission, as the band covered Chuck Berry’s “Sweet Little Sixteen” and Mark Wenner unleashed his inner Elvis on “Got A Lot Of Livin’ To Do”. They ended that set with a rousing version of “Red Hot Mama” and encored with T-Bone Walker’s “I Know Your Wig Is Gone”.

 

The Nighthawks have been a major part of the DC music scene for over 40 years now. Although they never quite managed to break through nationally, their live performances are still top-notch – be sure to catch them somewhere if you can.

Serendipity #75

Bad Bad News – Leon Bridges

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

Heard 2/3/2019 around 12:15 at Pei Wei (Columbia)