Shuffle #62 (August 1, 2015)

Tunnel Of Love – Dire Straits

American Tune – Eva Cassidy

For Better Or Worse – Keb’ Mo’

Songs In The Wind – The Association

Thieves In The Temple – Prince

Blitzkrieg Bop – The Ramones

One Fine Morning – Lighthouse

Brian Wilson – Barenaked Ladies

The Indigo Girls w/ Michelle Malone, Wolf Trap, 7/28/2015

Row F, Seats 31-32

Seeing the Indigo Girls twice in three days wasn’t planned – the Wolf Trap schedule came out long before they were added to the XPNFest roster – but it certainly wasn’t a burden, especially since they switch their set lists up quite a bit from show to show, and their performance at Wolf Trap was about 45 minutes longer than their one-hour slot in Jersey. They opened with “Share The Moon” and “Fill It Up Again” (a particular favorite of mine), and got to half a dozen of the 13 tracks on their recent CD. Other highlights that they didn’t perform Sunday included “Wood Song” and “Hammer And A Nail”, along with a powerful extended version of “Touch Me Fall.” The crowd (not a sellout) seemed a little more sedate than usual for the first several songs, but the enthusiasm level increased once they got to “Get Out The Map” and “Joking”.

 

Fellow Atlanta area native Michelle Malone opened with a 40-minute blues-rock set, with Amy coming out to join her on one song. Michelle also helped out the Girls on a couple of their songs, and they brought her entire band out to join them near the end. (The bass player didn’t have far to go, as he did both sets.)

 

Setlist

2015 XPoNential Music Festival, July 24-26, Wiggins Park (Camden NJ)

A few highlights of this year’s three-day extravaganza are noted below. Note that the WXPN folks do a fine job of covering and archiving the festival – the artist links below contain more information, including photos and set lists, and complete audio archives for the Indigo Girls and JD McPherson.

 

Dawes (closing act Friday night) – On the festival schedule for the fourth straight year (almost certainly a record), the guys finally got to do a full set uninterrupted by rain, and they didn’t disappoint. Although a little shorter than their Warner Theatre show in June, the energy level was even higher. (Standing in a throng of other rabid fans right in front of the stage probably didn’t hurt.) “Somewhere Along The Way” was again an early standout, as were their three big hits from Nothing Is Wrong (“Time Spent In Los Angeles”, “If I Wanted Someone”, and “A Little Bit Of Everything”), and of course the iconic “When My Time Comes.” The festival organizers seemed to be discouraging encores this year in order to stay on schedule, but as the last band of the day Dawes was able to come back, giving the fans a special treat with Griffin doing the vocal honors on Billy Joel’s “Big Shot”, prior to closing with “From A Windowseat.”

 

Indigo Girls (final act on the River Stage, Sunday afternoon) – The Indigo Girls were a late but welcome addition to the festival schedule; they wound up playing a set from 5:30-6:30, starting at the same time as Rayland Baxter was going on at Susquehanna Bank Center, and ending just as the Wailers were scheduled to start over there. (Perhaps to make amends for the competition, WXPN invited Baxter onto the morning show to perform a couple songs on Monday.) Backed by a 4-piece band (drums, keyboards, bass, violin), their short but memorable set started out with crowd favorites “Shame On You” and “Get Out The Map”, and ended with the usual “Galileo”. Since they had allowed for encores, they then returned to do “Land Of Canaan” and of course “Closer To Fine”. “Least Complicated” and “Go” were also standouts, as well as “Happy In The Sorrow Key”, one of 4 tracks from their recently-released One Lost Day album.

 

JD McPherson (Friday evening) – I found it interesting that Delta Rae, an XPN-type act that’s not exactly a household word, headlined Rockville’s annual Hometown Holidays this May, and also played at XPNFest this summer. The Rockville folks might do well to consider McPherson for next year’s Memorial Day weekend festivities, as his high-energy neo-rockabilly should play well even with audiences who are unfamiliar with his work. McPherson’s 45-minute set kept the crowd rocking, despite leaving out a couple of his best-known songs (“Let The Good Times Roll” and “North Side Gal”). Highlights included “Head Over Heels” (his current single), “Rome Wasn’t Built In A Day” (a great Nick Lowe cover), and “You Must Have Met Little Caroline”.

 

The Lone Bellow (Sunday afternoon) – Great vocal work and harmonies from this Brooklyn trio, especially on “You Never Need Nobody” (which had previously found its way into my iTunes library), “Watch Over Us”, and the title track from their latest CD, “Then Came The Morning”.

 

First Aid Kit (Saturday afternoon) – While the roster of acts at Wiggins Park on Saturday wasn’t quite as strong as on the other two days of the festival, this pair of sisters from Sweden (along with their two bandmates from Scotland and England) provided a nice highlight for the afternoon, as the pedal-steel work throughout and their choice of a closing song (“Emmylou”, in honor of Emmylou Harris, Gram Parsons, Johnny Cash, and June Carter) proudly showed off their country music influences. Their singles “My Silver Lining” and “Stay Gold” were both warmly received, but the most notable reaction was to their cover version of Simon and Garfunkel’s “America”, which hushed the normally-talkative crowd on the lawn for one of the few times during the weekend.

 

It was hard to complain about the weather – warm, as could be expected, but with relatively low humidity on Friday and Saturday, and the extra humidity on Sunday was somewhat offset by stronger breezes, with rain holding off until early Monday morning. Traffic on Friday both coming and going (especially exiting the parking garage) was much worse than usual, due to a sold-out Florida Georgia Line show at the Susquehanna Bank Center next door. Saturday and Sunday was not a problem, although parts of Federal Street were closed both days, requiring some improvisation (and GPS help on Sunday) to get out of Camden. I did notice that people seem to be arriving earlier than in past years; I got there an hour before the gates opened on both Saturday and Sunday, and the line already extended well beyond the Children’s Garden entrance.

 

Serendipity #43

Am I The Same Girl – Barbara Acklin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZzIl25d6_0

Heard 7/28/2015 around 6:15, at Panera (Pike 7 Plaza near Tyson’s Corner)

July 19, 2015 – Dodgers 5, Nationals 0 – Nationals Park

http://m.nationals.mlb.com/news/article/137408936/zack-greinke-extends-scoreless-streak-in-win

 

Attendance: 40,293

Game Time: 3:14

Weather: 93 degrees, cloudy

Wind: 0 mph

Umpires: Home Plate - Bill Miller, First Base - Doug Eddings, Second Base - Jim Wolf, Third Base - Adrian Johnson

Seventh-inning stretch song: Cantina Theme (Star Wars)

 

Highlights – Scherzer had to work out of trouble a few times, but held the Dodgers to one run in 6 innings … the bullpen kept the game close until the 9^th inning … Thomas Jefferson looked fetching in his Princess Leia outfit … there will still R2-D2 Can Coolers left when we got to the game (around 12:25)

 

Other – the Nats allowed Zach Greinke to extend his remarkable scoreless-inning streak to 43⅔ innings, nicking him for only 3 singles and a walk during his 8 innings of work while fanning 11 times (after striking out 14 times against Kershaw on Saturday) … the since-demoted Blake Treinen allowed 5 hits and 4 runs in the top of the ninth while retiring only one batter … the dark side won the Presidents’ Race as well as the ball game … Metro worked well on the trip home, but on the way down we had to wait 15 minutes at Gallery Place before a Green Line train arrived … it was a bit on the warm side, despite the shade and occasional breeze in our seats

LP #7 Marshall Crenshaw (1982)

While Marshall Crenshaw went on to write and record plenty of other great songs during his career – the 2000 compilation The Best of Marshall Crenshaw: This Is Easy is well worth checking out – he never released a better or more consistent set of power-pop nuggets than on his 1982 debut album. Although he did creep into the Top 40 for the first and only time with “Someday, Someway” (which peaked at a modest #36), Crenshaw may be better known for playing Buddy Holly in the 1987 Richie Valens biopic La Bamba. The casting would have been apt even without the physical resemblance; Crenshaw’s tunes do sound something like Holly’s work, but they sound even more like tracks Holly probably would have recorded had he come of age in the 1980s rather than the 1950s. It also doesn’t seem like an accident that Crenshaw co-wrote “Til I Hear It From You”, which was one of the biggest hits for the Gin Blossoms.

 

“Someday, Someway” is my favorite song from the album, but they’re really all pretty great (and if you like that one, you’ll almost certainly like the rest). I was tempted to just write the names of the other songs on slips of paper and draw them out of a hat, which would have produced a list about as good as the one below.

 

Favorite tracks:

Someday, Someway

Rockin’ Around In N.Y.C.

Soldier Of Love

Mary Anne

There She Goes Again

She Can’t Dance

Guster w/ Kishi Bashi, Wolf Trap, 7/16/2015

Row B, Seats 26-27 (dead center, second row in back of the pit)

 

Proposition: Guster is the world’s greatest rock band that almost no one has ever heard (of).

 

Last night at Wolf Trap provided evidence for both ends of this, as the guys put on a fantastic show in front of a smallish but enthusiastic audience. (“Smallish” here meaning that if the Filene Center were a glass, it would have been closer to half-empty than half-full.)

 

All 5 “members” of the band (Ryan, Adam, Brian, Luke, and ???) displayed their musical versatility – despite the apparent looseness of the show and the repartee, it obviously required a huge amount of organization to keep track of who was playing what instrument as they moved between songs. Front man and resident goof Ryan Miller, for instance, played 3 or 4 different keyboards (xylophone, organ, …) at various points, in addition to guitar and bass. The biggest cheers, however, seemed to be reserved for Adam Gardner whenever he picked up his trumpet, while percussionist Brian Rosenworcel moved seamlessly back and forth between two drum kits while in one song also showing both standard and distinctly non-standard uses for a trombone. (Trivia note – Brian’s sister Jessica is one of the five members of the Federal Communications Commission.)

 

From the beginning of the show, the band demonstrated the depth of their catalog, starting with “Long Night” (the first of several tracks from their recent Evermotion CD), following that with “Careful” (from 2003’s Keep It Together), and going back to last century for tunes such as “Barrel Of A Gun”, “Happier”, and “Either Way”). They also resisted the temptation to only play their hits (OK, they really didn’t have any actual “hits”), eschewing more familiar tracks such as “One Man Wrecking Machine” in favor of less-played tunes such as “Lightning Rod” (a personal favorite of mine).

 

The band ended the pre-encore portion of their show with a rousing crowd singalong on “This Could All Be Yours”, followed (after perhaps a 15-second break) by “Kid Dreams”. They then brought back opening act Kishi Bashi to add violin on the classic “Satellite” and a rousing version of “Come On Eileen”, after which they strolled back to the lawn for a short acoustic conclusion to the show. By this time it was 10:55, which is the closest any show I’ve been to in the past few years has come to the Wolf Trap curfew. (Guster started just after 9:00.)

 

Ah, what to say about opening act Kishi Bashi (the “nom de la musique” for 39-year-old violinist and singer Kaoru Ishibashi)? The Wolf Trap program notes that he “blends elements of pop, classical, electronica, and beatboxing to create an experimental sound that transcends cultures and pop music eras.” Lots of looping on both violin and vocals. Very personable guy – not exactly my cup of tea style-wise, but certainly one of the more unusual openers I’ve seen recently.

Serendipity #42

I Just Can’t Stop Dancing – Archie Bell & The Drells

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47_so3zoAaU

Heard 7/17/2015 around 6:30, at Panera (Tyson’s Corner)

LP #8 Gin Blossoms – New Miserable Experience (1992)

I’ve posted a longer discussion about the Gin Blossoms elsewhere, so I won’t repeat it here. New Miserable Experience didn’t catch on immediately, but it was all over the radio from the summer of ’93 through fall ’94, with 5 of its 12 tracks getting significant radio airplay. The other tracks are well worth a listen as well, especially the poignant “Pieces Of The Night”, which was among the 6 songs on the album written or co-written by the late Doug Hopkins.

 

Favorite tracks:

Pieces Of The Night

Hey Jealousy

Until I Fall Away

Allison Road

Found Out About You

Mrs. Rita

Shuffle #61 (July 7, 2015)

(large economy size)

 

Nick Of Time – Bonnie Raitt

Things We Do – Indigenous

Walking Down Madison – Kirsty MacColl

Island Girl – Elton John

Weekend In New England – Barry Manilow

The “In” Crowd – Ramsey Lewis

Drown In My Own Tears – Eva Cassidy & Chuck Brown

Omaha – Counting Crows

You Send Me – Sam Cooke

Everything Your Heart Desires – Hall & Oates

You Never Need Nobody – The Lone Bellow

Go Ahead And Cry – The Righteous Brothers

Sight Unseen – Richard Thompson

Till The End Of The Day – The Kinks

Psycho Killer – Talking Heads

Things Have Changed – Bob Dylan

Talk To Me, Talk To Me --- Little Willie John

Ain’t No Mountain High Enough – Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell

Great Goodbye – Kwesi K

King Of Anything – Sara Bareilles

How Far We’ve Come – Dawes

The Heart Of Rock & Roll – Huey Lewis & The News

Kiss Away – Ronnie Dove

Fields Of Gold – Eva Cassidy

Step Right Up – Tom Waits

Inner City Blues – Brian Auger’s Oblivion Express

The Light – Brewer & Shipley

Talk It Over In The Morning – Anne Murray

Holiday – Green Day

Pretty As You Feel – Jefferson Airplane

I Can’t Understand – Los Lobos

Wooden Ships – Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young