Richard Thompson – The Birchmere, 1/22/2020

Table 319 – the leftmost of the tables that are parallel to the stage and just in front of the divider. Only drawback was that it was extremely difficult to stand for ovations.

 

I’ve said plenty about Richard Thompson on other occasions, so I won’t go into great detail here. There were 22 songs over about 105 minutes. While there was no opening act, Zara Phillips joined him to sing harmony on the final five songs of the main set (“Wall Of Death”, followed by four tunes from his more recent albums) and the last two encores. Hit-wise, the show was very much front-loaded; 6 of his first 7 selections appear on my list of 20 RT favorites.

 

Personal highlights: I Misunderstood (which opened the show), the relatively seldom-performed Walking The Long Miles Home (with a great story about what he’d have to do as a boy in order to stay until the end of shows by The Who), Crocodile Tears, Who Knows Where The Time Goes, plus two great (and apparently new) songs: If I Could Live My Life Again, and When The Saints Rise Out Of Their Graves (the final encore)

 

Setlist

The Hot Sardines – Rams Head On Stage, Annapolis, 1/17/2020

Table 101, Seat 2  

 

A couple friends of mine had recommended this hot-jazz-revival band, and I certainly wasn’t disappointed by their show Friday evening in Annapolis, in front of a large, appreciative crowd. They opened their two-hour set with a lively “I Love Paris” (effectively an homage to frontwoman-singer Elizabeth Bougerol’s native country), closed with “Caravan” (featuring a percussion duet between drummer David Berger and tapper extraordinaire A.C. Lincoln), and encored with “Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen”. Other highlights included Sophie Tucker’s signature song “Some Of These Days”, the Fats Waller classic “Your Feet’s Too Big” (a critical factor in the formation of the band), “Lulu's Back in Town” (with trombonist Todd Londagin showing a few tap moves of his own), and “Here You Are Again” (a charming C&W-flavored tune penned by Bougerol).

 

The band did have a few recent obstacles to overcome, most notably a skiing accident by pianist and co-leader Evan Palazzo. (Bougerol described the incident as Palazzo going “ass over teakettle”.) She also thanked the Rams Head staff for a last-minute trip to Home Depot to purchase a large-enough sheet of plywood for Lincoln to display all of his moves; their initial request for something for someone doing “seated percussion” had yielded a platform that she compared to the size of the venue’s menus.

Shuffle #127 (January 12, 2020)

Bustin’ Loose – Chuck Brown

(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman – Carole King

Hung On You – The Righteous Brothers

Those Will Be The Good Old Days – The Dreamlovers

Just A Little Bit Better – Herman’s Hermits

Your Song – Elton John

I’d Rather Drink Muddy Water – Lou Rawls

She’s Always A Woman – Owen Danoff

Time To Be Planting Again – Leslie Eliel

Shuffle #126 (January 4, 2020)

Omaha – Counting Crows

House Of The Rising Sun – The Animals

16 Candles – The Crests

Gypsy Woman – Brian Hyland

King Of The World – Steely Dan

It’s Hard To Believe – The Impressions

I’m Still Standing – Elton John

I’m Gonna Be Strong – Gene Pitney

Pushover – Etta James

Plastic Flowers – Don McMinn

Violet Hill -- Coldplay

Favorite Musical Artists: Steely Dan

I pretty much summarized my feelings about Steely Dan a couple years back in my tribute to Walter Becker. I’ve never seen them live – after all, during their prime they abandoned the road for the studio – but if they ever migrated from Jiffy Lube Live back to Wolf Trap, I’d give it a shot, despite Becker’s absence.

 

Favorite Songs:

 

My Old School  

Reeling In The Years

Deacon Blues

FM

Do It Again

 

King Of The World

Don’t Take Me Alive

Dirty Work

Hey Nineteen

Bad Sneakers

 

Show Biz Kids

Here At The Western World

Only A Fool Would Say That

Kid Charlemagne

Josie

 

Bodhisattva

Peg

Midnite Cruiser

Razor Boy

Turn That Heartbeat Over Again

Favorite Music of 2019

Another good year for WXPN-type music (although my favorite radio station for some reason decided not to do a listener poll this year). Other songs, not so much. And most of my favorite folks released albums last year, rather than in 2019.

 

Songs (AAA division) 

1. Outside Of This Town – Christone “Kingfish” Ingram (#82, WTMD Top 89)
2. Harmony Hall – Vampire Weekend (#5)
3. Keep Your Head Up – Preservation Hall Jazz Band
4. Juice – Lizzo (#73)
5. You Got It Wrong – Jeb Loy Nichols
6. Falling Down The Stairs Of Your Smile – New Pornographers (#20)
7. Saw Lightning – Beck (#29)
8. Armor – Sara Bareilles (#80)
9. When Am I Gonna Lose You – Local Natives (#23)
10. Trouble In Paradise – Rufus Wainwright
11. Hello Sunshine – Bruce Springsteen
12. Goin’ Back To Philly – Tommy Conwell & The Young Rumblers
13. Overexcited – Guster (#26)
14. This Life – Vampire Weekend
15. All Your’n – Tyler Childers (#51)

 Songs (other) 

1. Circles – Post Malone
2. Better – Khalid
3. Old Town Road – Lil Nas X
4. thank u, next – Ariana Grande
5. Good As Hell – Lizzo

 Albums 

1. Blinded By The Light – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
2. Kingfish – Christone “Kingfish” Ingram (#20, mvyradio Top 25)
3. Daylight – Grace Potter (#8)
4. Western Stars – Bruce Springsteen (#21)
5. 40 – The Stray Cats

Defining the 2010s

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/12/26/s-were-decade-what-exactly-six-columnists-tell-us/?arc404=true

 

The Washington Post asked six of their columnists to characterize the past decade. Two particular quotations stood out for me.

 

From Dana Milbank:

The rise of social media — Facebook and Twitter — aggravated and amplified the fissures [within America]. Though it gave voice to millions, it proved ruinous to traditional media and, with it, any sense of a shared, objective truth. It gave rise to demagoguery, gave an edge to authoritarianism and its primary weapon, disinformation, and gave legitimacy and power to the most extreme, hate-filled and paranoid elements of society.

 

From Molly Roberts:

[W]e soon found we weren’t only giving each other access to our photos and thoughts, our likes and our loves. We were allowing the [social media] platforms access to a whole mess more, and those platforms were letting third parties see it, too. To maximize our engagement, those platforms played on the preferences all our sharing revealed — which meant shoving inflammatory content in our faces and shoving us into silos. All that connection ended up dividing us.

Big Brother on campus

A truly scary Christmas morning article:

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/12/24/colleges-are-turning-students-phones-into-surveillance-machines-tracking-locations-hundreds-thousands/

Serendipity #78

Fresh Air – Quicksilver Messenger Service

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ejj81Y2ZlM

Heard 12/15/2019 around 12:00 at honeygrow (Rockville)

Shuffle #125 (November 30, 2019)

In Liverpool – Suzanne Vega

When It Began – The Replacements

Running On Empty – Jackson Browne

The Rockafeller Skank – Fatboy Slim

Truckin’ – Grateful Dead

Since You’ve Been Gone – Aretha Franklin

Glory Bound – The Grass Roots

Time Is Tight – Booker T. & The MG’s

Little Ghetto Boy – John Legend & The Roots