music

Concert Review, Club Sized

A.B. Kelly · January 31, 2026 · Musings · concert review, concerts, Lake Street Dive, live music, music, Pop Culture, The 502s · No Comments

Last time I wrote about some of the big name artists I saw last year. Maybe Mumford & Sons and Nathaniel Rateliff don’t count as top line artists, but trust me, they’re a step above the other bands I saw. Today, we’re going from arena level to club level. But they all at least have one song that have been played on the radio.

Three of the four actually have that designation this side of 1983, too.

The first concert I saw was in a brand new facility in Sacramento. So new, in fact, that the bands were continuously listing it as “Sacramento TBD.” I started worrying that maybe they weren’t actually coming to Sacramento, and that they were just using it as a placeholder in case they wanted to add an extra stop in between the Bay Area and Portland.

Turns out this new venue just wanted to announce their entire run of shows all at once. Super fancy announcement. Even the mayor was there. They talked about how great this new venue would be. Because it’s “mid-sized” instead of “small” like Ace of Spades or Harlow’s, which have been a staple of the downtown scene for decades and have this fancy thing called “parking.”

This new venue, instead of being near restaurants and bars, is in a residential district with no parking. Allegedly it’s right by the Light Rail line, but the Sacramento Light Rail is terrible, goes nowhere, and doesn’t have any riders except the homeless. Your best option if you wanted to ride it to the show would be to park somewhere else in downtown, then ride the Light Rail the rest of the way. Of course, if everyone were to do that, they’d have to wait an hour or two after the show to ride that mile, because it didn’t appear they were running any more cars than usual and there ain’t a ton of Light Rail running at 11:00 pm.

Good ol’ Sacramento. We also scheduled our freeway closure by the ballpark during the two years that we have a major league team playing there

I ended up parking the requisite mile away, then I just left Wife and Daughter at the venue, fast-walked the mile, then came back to pick them up.

The venue itself was fine. Not enough seats. It’s mostly standing room, which would usually be my complaint about those “smaller” venues they think they’re so much better than. Daughter was only about 5 feet tall at that point, so standing in a crowd wasn’t going to do her much good. Unfortunately, the seats were all on the balcony way in the back.

Oh, and the drinks were overpriced.

Other than that… yay, Sacramento!

The 502s

We saw two bands at the new venue. Technically The 502s was the opening band, but considering we had already seen the headliner before, this band was more than half the draw. Certainly wasn’t the venue.

If you’ve never heard the 502s, do yourself a favor and go look up some videos. Unless you’re in a bad mood and want to stay that way. Every song is upbeat and can neither be sung nor listened to without grinning from ear to ear.

They’re energetic and fun. They’ve got a ukulele and a bunch of wind instruments. Maybe a kazoo in there somewhere? Many of their videos are filmed in a laundry room or on the porch or some other random small spot where they can’t fit half the members of the band. And as far as I can tell, they’re actually playing in all these videos, not just lip synching, primarily because the audio quality isn’t mixed and is kinda raw. Laundry rooms aren’t great when you’ve got ten people playing instruments.

I don’t even know how many people are in the band. And that includes after seeing them live. Each video has a different batch of people. It seems like, on the day of recording a new song or video, they just invite all their friends over. Being Gen Z, half of them don’t show up, and then they base the new song off of whatever instrumentation they have present.

The concert setup seemed the same. There were about ten of them on stage. Some I recognized from videos, some not. They had a female guitar player who sang some verses that I’m almost positive aren’t sung by a female on the official recording. But I didn’t recognize her from any of the videos. And they put saxophone in a lot more of the songs live, presumably because the saxophone player was on the stage. Maybe if we’d seen them the following night, there would’ve been oboe.

As such, the live performance was more or less what you see in the videos. The good and the bad. The singer seemed to be shouting to sing above the instruments which made it harder for him to hit some of the notes. But you forgive him because he’s jumping around and playing his banjo with such energy and vigor. I’d be winded, too.

The saxophone guy totally stole the show. Maybe just because I played sax in high school, but he clearly stood out. I can’t be the only one who thought this, because they actually let him come center stage for a few solos. Those solos became more impressive and distinguished as the concert went on. Given how fly by night the band feels, maybe they decide on the fly who’s gonna get that treatment each concert. And for ours, it was him.

The complete opposite of a certain wind instrument dude I’d see later in the year.

Lake Street Dive

This was our second time seeing Lake Street Dive. The first time was back in ’22, our first trip after Covid, when we flew to Boston to see them on their home turf. They were one of the first bands to open a new venue there, too. Guess it’s kinda their thang.

And by “we,” I mean not only me and Wife, but also Daughter. She’s eleven years old and is already seeing repeat performances. On both coasts. Plus front row at a Billy Joel concert and Taylor Swift in another country (sort of – Vancouver) and next year she’ll see Ed Sheeran. Damn. At her age I had been dragged along to a Thompson Twins concert and that was it.

The Boston venue we saw them in had many similarities with this new Sacramento one. Mostly standing room, only a few seat and they’re all around the fringes on the second floor. But the Boston ones weren’t reserved seats, and Daughter was maybe eight inches shorter then, so even though we tried our best to give her a spot to see from, each spot seemed worse than the previous one.

Reason number two why we made sure to purchase seats this time.

The people who sat next to us paid for their seats, too. Not sure why. They missed the entirety of The 502s. To be expected for an opening band. Our neighbors weren’t the only ones to hang out by the overpriced bar instead of witnessing a fun band. But, you know, the longer the seats next to you go empty, the more you hope that you’re going to have some elbow room for the next few hours. Then, wham, the a-holes show up and no more man-spreading for me.

So yeah, as soon as Lake Street Dive took the stage, a man and a woman take the spots and I’m grumpy. Fortunately they only stayed through the third song. Then left.

I’ve noticed a trend in the last few years that bands aren’t always holding their biggest hits back for the encore. In fact, they tend to ambush us with one of their top hits as the second or third song of the night. Mumford and Sons almost always has either “Little Lion Man” or “I Will Wait” as their second song. The other one goes to the encore, and they’ll usually swap them night to night.

For Lake Street Dive, “Hypotheticals” is, if not their biggest hit, at least their biggest crossover success. It’s the song that I discovered them with. And sure enough, they played it third.

After the song, the couple next to me, who again, hadn’t sat down until the first song was already starting, got up and left. I assumed they were grabbing another drink, but I joked that maybe they only knew that one song and were done.

Turns out that wasn’t a joke. They never came back. I guess that’s why you usually put your most popular song at the end. Not that I’m complaining. I watched two bands I liked and only had to sit with my legs together for three songs. But man, does it occur to these people that a band might have more than one song they like?

As for the songs and the concert, I’ll refer you back to the first time I saw them, because it was more of the same. They’re very good. You go back and forth between what’s more impressive: Rachael’s voice or Bridget’s bass playing. Or the only thing that’s more impressive, which is Akie’s belief that he’s the star everyone’s there to see.

Both Bridget and Rachael are phenomenal. So good, in fact, that you tend to forget about them. It’s an easy trap to fall in – “meh, that’s what they sound like” – but occasionally it helps to be reminded: holy crap, that’s what they sound like.

This time, I think Bridget impressed me more. Something about her playing an upright bass with the finesse and cadence of an electric. Unfortunately, I didn’t film any of her solos. The best I got is the two of them vibing off each other.

One of the songs on their recent album was called “Twenty-Five.” It’s a melancholic song about those loves we had in our early adulthood. The ones that everybody knows wouldn’t and couldn’t last, because at 25, we’re still becoming who we’ll become. But those transitionary years are important. After verses about how totally impossible the relationship would have been going forward, the refrain is “But I will always be in love with how you loved me when we were twenty-five.”

When I first heard the song, I found it interesting because they also have a song called “Seventeen.” That one keeps saying “I wish I’d met you when we were seventeen.” Before we became jaded, before we put our defenses up. You know, when all the lead was still in the pencil. “I bet we could’ve had a good time.”

I love these two songs as bookends. They were released a decade apart from each other. As with life, right? Guessing they were thirty when they wrote Seventeen, when you’re harkening back to the good old days. Hell, the lover from your mid-twenties was too recent. But by the time you get to forty, you realize those twentysomething relationships were foundational.

Can’t wait for another decade when they release “Thirty-One.” That’s about the time we finally know what we’re looking for, but are having trouble finding it in the right people. It’s like they’re turning every verse of Frank Sinatra’s “Very Good Year” into its own song. And I’m here for it.

The odd thing I found, when Rachael introduced the song, was that Bridgett wrote it. I don’t know why that surprised me. Maybe because it feels so personal when Rachael sings it. I guess I just assumed Bridgett was all bad-ass bass playing and Rachael was the emotional crooner. But it turns out their musical talents don’t predict their emotions and/or relationship history.

I just looked it up: Bridgett wrote “Seventeen,” too.

State Fair Concerts (OAR, Air Supply)

The State Fair is always quite the crap bag of bands. Sorry, did I say grab bag? I meant crap bag.

You always know how far you’ve fallen, or how far you have yet to rise, by playing at the state fair. True, it’s a step up from the county fair, but is it really? You’re still playing for an audience who didn’t have to buy a ticket and is in between watching pigs give birth.

And tomorrow, this same stage will be occupied by a Poison tribute band.

This year, I saw one of each type: Air Supply, decades removed from their height, and OAR, a one-hit wonder if you’re very kind with the definition of “Hit.”

Air Supply

This wasn’t my first time seeing Air Supply. If I were to guess, it would be four or five. It’s at least the second, possibly third, time I’ve seen them at that exact same State Farm venue. The other times were at Indian Casinos, the third part of the Fair triumvirate. County Fairs are one extreme, only catering to up-and-comers (or never-will-be’s), while Indian casinos only take the retreads, because their fans are old enough to gamble.

The first time I saw Air Supply, I invited my future wife. She said no. I took an old friend, then proceeded to get drunk and make out with her. Not bad for a backup.

So when we started dating a few months later, we had to rectify the mistake. I think that was one of the Indian casino shows.

The first time, I was blown away. Kinda figured it as a lark, a bunch of crooner songs my parents listened to when I was five years old. You know the songs: Making All out of Lost in Love. They were the Ed Sheeran of 1981 playing a State Fair.

They fucking rocked. Seriously, go listen to those songs again. They actually have a bit of drive to them. Some guitar riffs, too. And in concert, they cranked the volume, maybe sped them up a bit, and when they they sang “And I can make all the stadiums rock,” it didn’t sound like a complete fever dream.

Except that instead of making stadiums rock, it was just the cow stalls.

That was 2008. In 2025, the venue and artists might have been the same, but the result was decidedly not. Seventeen years might be a blink for a young whippersnapper like myself, but considering they started that seventeen years already a decade older than I ended it… yikes.

There’s two guys in Air Supply. The belting singer doesn’t play any instrument. He could still hit most of the belting notes, but when he wasn’t in a certain range, he couldn’t get any volume or force. And the emotion was gone. When I saw them in 2008, I was amazed how much they still punched the lyrics and made songs I’d heard for decades land differently. From docile to passionate. This time the verses were lackluster.

Then there’s the harmony guy. Don’t want to call him a back-up singer, because he’s one of the two leads and he sings a fair amount of the verses. However, he sings substantially less than 50% and he never sings any of the choruses, except as back-up. More importantly, though, he plays guitar. Most of the time. So yeah, Air Supply is a duo of the belter and the other guy.

Well, Other Guy’s voice is struggling. Raspy throughout with a range substantially less than he had in the Bush Administration. It was a little painful to listen to.

Not as bad as Eddie Money, who I also saw at the fair, and who struggled through a couple songs, gasping for air between with his hand on his knee between each phrase – “Baby hold on to me” (huff, huff) “Whatever will be will be” (gasp, wheeze) – then left the stage to let his daughter, who was trying to break into the music industry, sing a bunch of songs she’d written. Good thing I didn’t pay for a ticket, or else I’d demand my money back.

And don’t even get me started on the time I saw Eric Clapton and he let some dipshit play the majority of the guitar solos.

So yeah, my best advice for seeing Air Supply would be to check their upcoming tour dates. With a time machine.

OAR

A few days after Air Supply, I did my friend a favor by going to see a band he liked. I don’t think I had ever heard of them, except when he talked about them.

He said they were good live, so sure. Why not? It’s not like I had to pay for a ticket and it had been a full forty-eight hours since I’d last eaten a funnel cake.

In case you, like me, know nothing of the band and thought it was named after a paddling instrument, that is not the case. You pronounce every letter of the band name. Oh-Ay-Are. It might be an acronym, for all I know.

Turns out I did actually know one of their songs. The refrain on it is “Turn this car around,” although I doubt that’s the actual title. I think it was big somewhere around 2010.

Although to the fans, that must not be their big hit, because they buried it somewhere in the middle of the concert, The song that everyone went apeshit for came last. I think it referenced gambling at the beginning, or maybe a card game, and then all the fans took out playing cards and started flinging them everywhere. Up in the air, at the stage, at each other. If a card fell at your feet, you picked it up and flung it along like it’s a giant beach ball at a Dodgers game.

I was having a real “virgin at Rocky Horror” vibe. Like seriously, the crowd was all polite and calm one second, and really for the entire hour up to that second, and then wham! cards everywhere! But unlike Rocky Horror, this wasn’t one of many schticks. This was just everybody bringing a pack of playing cards to a concert and leaving them in their pockets or purses until one specific lyric, then descending into chaos like a middle school 6-7 rally.

Good thing they didn’t sing that song first or I would’ve come away with a drastically different perception of both the band and its fans.

Oh, and my friend is totally fired for not telling me this was going to happen. Nor bringing any cards. And he calls himself a fan. Pfft. He probably calls them Oar.

The other thing that jumped out was the trumpet player. This dude thought he was the main draw. He always knew when the camera was on him. Sure, he was standing behind the lead singer, so it was on him a lot, but if, say, the cross-shot went up, all of a sudden trumpet was sliding over to the singer’s side. And if lead guitar had a solo, well then, guess what, he’s gonna have a trumpet player staring at his strings.

Dude mouthed the lyrics. Dude made hand gestures. Dude stuck his tongue out and shook his head. For instance, when the lead singer sang “Turn this car around,” there was Trumpet Dude right behind him twirling his finger around in a “run the clock” motion. You know, just in case we didn’t understand the complex phrasing of turning something around.

I filmed this video for my daughter, since it’s a Taylor Swift cover, and although Trumpet Dude is relatively docile in it, you can tell he’s just champing at the bit:

Hey, does this count as seeing three bands at the State Fair? Because I’m pretty sure there was a Taylor Swift cover band on the docket.

Meh, I’ll wait a few decades and she’ll be playing the Fair herself.

Concert Reviews, Arena Sized

A.B. Kelly · December 30, 2025 · Blog Entries · 2025, concert review, concerts, Mumford and Sons, music, Nathaniel Rateliff, year in review · No Comments

Holy shit. We’re already at the last day of 2025 and I haven’t done any of my usual year-end posts. As per usual, my concerts stretched well beyond a single post, so we’re going with the big-ish bands and venues today and take the indie shit later this week. Then Camptathalon will crop up some time in mid-January.

Nathaniel Rateliff

My first concert of the year was all the way back in February. Hardly seems to count as part of 2025 proper. Concerts are for summer, people!

Fortunately, I jotted down some of my thoughts at the time, so this might be marginally representative of what actually happened.

Nathaniel Rateliff has been on my short list of acts to see for some time now. Wife got us tickets for Christmas and she was kind enough to accompany me despite not knowing many of his songs.

We went through a similar situation a few years ago at Ed Sheeran. I knew maybe three or four of the songs he performed. For Nathaniel Rateliff, we set the over/under on songs Wife would recognize at 3.5. She claimed to hit the under.

I don’t know how that’s possible. I mean, when one of us listens to music, the other is often right beside us in the car or the house or whatever. Yet somehow she knew pretty much every Ed Sheeran song, including one that was a Justin Bieber song, and I made it through a Nathaniel Rateliff concert knowing all but a couple songs, despite not owning any of his albums, but each of our other halves were utterly clueless.

The only difference was the “And One” for Sheeran was a bit pricier than Rateliff.

Nathaniel Rateliff is kind of a fascinating story. If we played the “How many times in the multiverse” game with Nathaniel Rateliff having a music career, this reality might have Dr. Strange holding up the “one” finger.

While attractiveness isn’t necessary for recording contracts, it certainly helps. A level of fitness, too, which he doesn’t seem to have. Yet everything about Nathaniel Rateliff makes him more suited to be a bookie standing on the docks in the background of a mafia movie than a multi-gold and -platinum selling musician.

Adding to his unlikeliness is that he was almost 40 years old by the time he had a legitimate recording deal. In sports terms, we’d say that’s far beyond the stage when someone goes from “prospect” to “suspect.” He was 37 when “S.O.B.” hit. Taylor Swift is two years younger than that now and already had to divide her career into “eras” to differentiate which ex-boyfriend each song is about. Nathaniel Rateliff’s like the Kurt Warner of the recording industry. How close was he to bagging groceries before “S.O.B” signed him to back up Trent Green?

I do believe there are other portions of the multiverse where he at least gets “S.O.B.” recorded and then becomes a one-hit wonder.

Or maybe he is a one-hit wonder in this universe? My wife probably thinks so.

He kinda reminds me, both in voice and mannerism, or Joe Cocker. Maybe a little bit of Meatloaf, too. So I might not have been as surprised if he became a musician in 1978. Just not in this century.

This time warp also worked for the venue we saw him in, the San Francisco Civic Auditorium. Man, this place must’ve been spectacular in the 1970s, or more likely the 1950s. Unfortunately, my ass ain’t the same size as a 1950s ass. It looks and feels like a multi-purpose room at any high school. Most of the seats were in a U-shape around what probably works as a dance floor sometimes, although today it had seats (can’t remember if they were folding chairs), some on the floor but others on risers leading up to the permanent seats, which started maybe twenty feet off the ground, accessed from the second floor.

The auditorium has been renamed after Bill Graham. I assume it’s Bill Graham, the concert promotor, not Billy Graham the televangelist. I always thought it was odd that the two had the same name. Grateful Dead, brought to you by Billy Graham? What the hell? Buy shrooms from the guy who believes you’ll go to hell for using shrooms. At least he’s cutting out the middle man.

At the front of the dance floor, there was a cordoned-off section that was literally designated as “Pit.” Like, there were signs and stuff. I’ve been in a few pits in my life and most of them aren’t officially designated thus. If you gotta ask if you’re moshin’, ya ain’t moshin’. Then again, with the average age of this particular crowd, myself included, there wasn’t likely to be much moshing. And they probably needed signs because if the directions were in an app, half of us would complain about downloading it and the other half would get lost trying to authenticate it. Then we’d all complain about the price of beer.

Speaking of beer, I had one at the concert. It was in the $13 range. Then they gave me one of those “The machine is going to ask you a question” about tip statements. As per usual, the lowest tip option available was 20%. I could’ve also gone up to 25% or even 30%. But the lowest option, when put into dollars and cents, was about $2.50. Look, I’m all for tipping for good service, but what the hell did she do? She pulled a can out of a tub of ice and then she pulled the tab on it. Is that worth $2.50?

Not to get all old and crochety, but back in my day, there were legitimate debates about whether or not opening a beer was worthy of a tip at all. Seems you should have to actually make a drink to get tipped. Stirring the tonic into the gin is the service for which I am tipping. Pulling something out of the refrigerator and then handing it to me is labor, not a service. And that’s when I was only giving you the change from my $5 bill, not some bullshit $2.50!

Hold on, a one dollar tip on a $4 beer is… let’s see, carry the seventeen, round up to…

Regardless, handing me a can ain’t worth $2.50. And given the average age of the crowd in attendance, I couldn’t have been the only person who took the extra time to write in a custom tip of a dollar. Except those older than me might not know how to do that.

Let’s see, I talked about the venue, I talked about the beer. Anything I missed? Oh right, how was the concert?

It was really good! Even if my wife only knew two songs.

I derisively compared him to Joe Cocker and Meatloaf earlier. But you know what? Joe Cocker was a damn good singer. And Meatloaf wrote some great songs. Nathaniel Rateliff can sing like Cocker and write songs like Meatloaf. With the folky guitar picking of an early 1960s Timothee Chalomet. Oops, sorry, I meant Bob Dylan.

Trust me, that joke woulda slayed back in February when I thought of it.

He’s also got some of the relentless raspy energy of 1980s-era Bruce Springsteen. And I thought that up before he ended his main set with a cover of “Dancing in the Dark.” Unfortunately, without Courtney Cox.

You know that last song energy? Sometimes it’s the last two songs of a concert. Many groups keep it going throughout the entirety of the encore, while some slow down the middle of the encore only to reach the height again.

Nathaniel Rateliff hit that height maybe four or five times throughout the concert. A lot of his songs started out slow then grew to big endings. Unfortunately, one dingbat in front of me decided to stand up for every goddamn one, including a couple that didn’t build toward anything but stayed balladic the whole time and then she just looked like the only fucking moron in the section that didn’t know that song stays like that.

Mumford and Sons

I remember thinking, either during or shortly after that Nathaniel Rateliff concert, that that whole “end of the concert” energy, which Rateliff hit about 30% of the time, accounts for about 90% of a Mumford and Sons concert.

When I initially made the connection, I didn’t even know Mumford was going to tour this year. Whereas most tours are not only planned, but already on sale, over a year in advance, this showed up out of nowhere. After five years of nothing, they announced a new album in March along with an, oh by the way, we’re touring starting like, I don’t know, tomorrow. I just double checked my email and, sure enough, the tickets for their Berkeley show went on sale April 3. The concert was June 10.

In contrast, I bought Ed Sheeran tickets this past September for a show next July. And when we bought Taylor Swift tickets, we bought them twelve months in advance, and those had already been on the secondary market for three months. And in a foreign country, to boot.

And yes, I know, Mumford & Sons doesn’t have the appeal of Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift. But it’s not like they’re some obscure indie outfit. Furthermore, they cater to a fan set of middle-aged men, who have a ton more disposable income than the other two.

This is the fourth time I’ve seen Mumford & Sons. Somewhere around the second or third time, I remarked that I’d see them any time they were touring, and figured that it was only a matter of time before they passed Blues Traveler as the band I’ve seen most often. Then they stopped touring for a half-decade and kicked one of the guys out of the band. It’s a good thing they didn’t tour much in the past five years, because for a large portion of that time, I would’ve given them a hard “meh” and looked up if Blues Traveler was coming to town.

Part of that is because, as talented of a musician as Marcus Mumford is, I’m kinda tired of how full of himself he is. In fact, the album that came out this past year was mostly drivel. I know it’s trope for musicians to become more boring as they age. One might easily forget that Sting was part of a cutting edge punk rock trio. I won’t reference the name, because I don’t want him to look them up and decide he has to cancel such misogynistic lyrics as “Every woman I date becomes my mother in the end.”

Speaking of cancellations, which of course “never” happened around 2020, Mumford has one less Son these days. Their banjo player was following a conservative on social media, so of course he couldn’t be associated with the band anymore. Nowadays many of us realize that maybe we went too far with the whole cancel culture. But magically, none of those affected have gotten their jobs back or anything. Including the only banjo player anybody’s ever heard of.

Interestingly, the last time I saw them, which was in March of 2019, I remember remarking that the banjo player didn’t seem as into it as the other three. A noob suggested maybe that’s just his schtick, being the aloof one. But I responded that no, I’d never noticed any of them going through the motions the other times I’d seen them. So maybe he was just as ready to be canceled as they were ready to cancel him.

Of course, they’ve hired another banjo player. Even if they didn’t put any banjo in their new album, they’d still be expected to play it at concerts. And the new banjo player is… fine, I guess? As a banjo player. The biggest drop isn’t in the banjo department, but in the harmonization. Most of their songs contain four-part harmony, and… now they only have three. I know we’re on Winter Break right now, but to my recollection, three is less than four.

I encourage you to check out Mumford & Sons at the SNL 50th Anniversary. They sound thinner than used to. Then again, everybody sounded terrible on that broadcast.

Regardless, I was skeptical I’d ever rush out to see them again. Then I got the notice for an artist presale and, well, next thing I knew I was heading to the Greek Theater in Berkeley, which is a beautiful outdoor arena that dates back decades. It’s a stone bowl, one of the few bowls in all of Berkeley that doesn’t contain weed. The acoustics were probably perfected two millennia ago and you’re sitting on stone benching like a goddamned Roman!

(Edit: Probably Greek, not Roman, huh? Just like Hercules)

So blame it on Nathaniel Rateliff, but yeah, the concert was, well, what can I say? These guys fucking rock. Marcus Mumford may be a sanctimonious prig who wrote a song about people’s obsession with their online persona (“Blind Leading the Blind”) then fired his banjo player eighteen months later over an ephemeral social media thing, but damnit if he can’t work a crowd.

And sure enough, that “end of concert” energy that most bands hit maybe twice over a two-hour set is pretty much the norm for a Mumford concert. They might not start every song at that level, but by the first chorus they’re at 90% and by the bridge, they’ve gone to eleven.

And they don’t even need to change costumes to get there.

Sorry, couldn’t help a little dig at the Eras Tour there. In fact, when Marcus Mumford did his usual run into the crowd (something I forgot he did – one benefit of going five years without seeing them in concert), I pulled out my phone to record, muttering to my friend that it was to show my daughter because “Taylor Swift doesn’t do that shit.”

Not that Taylor Swift could or should do that. Her fans are a tad more rabid and she might not make it back to the stage.

But still, those videos show the energy level of a Mumford concert. I worry and wonder what they’ll be like when he slows down a bit. I’ve always heard that the first time guitar players start getting lazy is doing up and down strokes instead of just down. Glad to report that Marcus is still primarily doing downstrokes. I’ll check again when he gets past forty.

Maybe he won’t slow down. Does Elton John still do his schtick? I haven’t seen him since the 1990s. As long as Marcus keeps that bass drum at his foot. Because, you know, the singer/guitar player should also be the metronome. At the front of the stage.

The crowd at a Mumford concert knows all the words and sings along to everything. I know it’s cliche for bands to stop singing and let the crowd take over during the chorus of their most popular songs. Marcus drops out of pretty much any song at any point. I think he cut out for almost an entire verse of “Believe,” which probably wasn’t even one of their top ten singles, and the crowd kept the lyrics and rhythm the entire verse.

The one song we didn’t sing along to was off their next album. They told us last June that, after five years off, they were going to have back-to-back albums. I think I saw them before “Wilder Mind” came out and they similarly played an upcoming song. The difference was this time they actually put the lyrics up on the screen. So I know the song was called “Icarus” this time. Couldn’t tell you what the song they played back in 2014 was.

The one down part of the show is intentional, when the four… oops, three of them come back out into the crowd to do an acoustic set surrounding a single microphone. You can practically hear a pin drop when it happens. And they’ve gotten better at informing us. Last time I saw them, when they only did one song, Marcus went into how he really, really needed us to be quiet during this portion of the show, which lead to many karens shushing others for simple applause or a quick hoot, not realizing their shushing is equally, if not more, disruptive to enjoying the song.

This time he said the great thing about their fans is that we can be the loudest, most energetic crowd anywhere. “And then you can also all shut the fuck up.”

The funniest part was when they were deciding which song to do for their third acoustic song. Someone shouted out Timshel. To which Marcus replied, “We just played Timshell, love.” Then he might’ve called her a twat.

Oddly enough, despite having toured in the United States for fifteen years, they still haven’t figured out that cunt isn’t as accepted of a word in this country than in theirs.

Two other addendums from this concert: Considering we were in the Bay Area, I was really hoping to hear their cover of “Friend of the Devil.” It’s frigging awesome. Unfortunately, it’s not on any of their albums. Also unfortunately, they didn’t feel Jerry Garcia’s hometown was a great place to do a Grateful Dead cover. Instead, we got Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Boxer.” Which is already on one of their albums.

And it always begs the question: why does Paul Simon say “Come-ons from the whores on 7th Avenue” like it’s a bad thing?

The other addendum was the opening band, which was called Divorce. I commented to my friend that I hoped they weren’t good, because I didn’t want my search history to show my wife that I had been looking up Divorce recently. Unfortunately, they were pretty fucking good. Fortunately, I haven’t gone looking for them again.

Seriously guys, you might want to think about a name change. Even if people aren’t intentionally avoiding searching for your name, you realize you’re not going to show up in, like, the top thousand search results, right?

I’ll be back later with my takes on: OAR, Air Supply, Lake Street Dive, and the 502s

Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame Ballot

A.B. Kelly · April 9, 2025 · Musings · Billy Idol, music, musician, rock, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, White Stripes · No Comments

Looks like the list of Rock n’ Roll Hall o’ Fame nominees is out for this year.

Seeing as the first qualification to get on the list is to have released your first album 25 years earlier, the list usually works as a wake-up call to just how old I’m getting. A few years ago, Eminem made the list and my first thought was, “How is that possible? He’s still one of those newfangled rappers. Defining what rap will be like in the upcoming century. Holy shit, is the century not new anymore?”

This year, none of the nominees provided quite the AARP-sponsored wake-up call that some of the previous lists did.

As far as I can tell, there aren’t any who actually released their first album in 2000, but the two that more or less jibe with the “Hit the Scene in 2000” are OutKast and White Stripes.

If you were to ask me when either band was big, I’d probably guess around 2000. When you add in the fact that neither band lasted long after their initial stardom, it’s safe to assume that if you hear an OutKast song or a White Stripes song, your memories are firmly planted in W’s first term as president.

Although, if you had asked me how many years came between Eminem and OutKast, I would’ve guessed five to ten years instead of the, in reality, two. This obviously doesn’t fit my earlier belief that Eminem’s career couldn’t have been so “recent.” The thing is: I always knew Eminem hit the scene in 1998. My fuzziness was on how far back in the rearview the year 1998, not Eminem himself, was.

As for the White Stripeswould anyone question they’ve been around for at least 25 years? Hasn’t “Seven Nation Army” been on constant loop at every sporting event since at least then? Be honest, if I told you that the 1992 Chicago Bulls came on the court to that song, nobody would question it. I literally thought to myself that it was Trevor Hoffman’s entrance music, but turns out that was “Enter Sandman,” by Metallica. Some songs just equal impending doom to one’s sporting adversaries.

At my daughter’s volleyball tournaments, the vast majority of the teams have taken to singing the famous “Seven Nations Army” riff while coming to their timeout huddle. When their coach has called the timeout, meaning they’re not playing well, it’s subdued. Some teams don’t do it at all. But, boy howdy, when the other team calls one because your team just went on a 7-2 run or something, they’re jumping up and spinning around as they’re singing it.

I don’t know if she or they even know which song it comes from. They just know that “Woh, woh-wuh-oh, wuh-whooooa Oooooohhhhh” is a bad-ass bass riff that was meant for sports.

Like “Smoke on the Water” was in my day. Or when Beavis and Butthead sang the riff from “Iron Man.” The riff is bigger than the song.

Yes kids, at one point, Iron Man brought to mind Black Sabbath, not Robert Downey, Jr.

So sorry, neither of the “new” bands vying for Hall of Fame induction this year strike me as too new. Both feel like they’ve earned their oldness. Whether or not either are truly HOF-worthy isn’t for me to decide. I could make an argument that both are legendary and could make an argument that both are one-hit wonders. Does Roger Maris belong in the baseball Hall of Fame? Probably not. Would it bother me if he was? Not in the slightest.

Harold Baines being in the Baseball Hall does bother me some.

Where this year’s Rock HOF grew interesting this year wasn’t the 25 year olds new kids on the block, but some of the others on the list.

Honestly, I wasn’t entirely sure there was an addendum list. Most years there’s enough noobs that they’re the only ones who get the headlines. But did you know there are bands that, much like in the baseball Hall of Fame, stay on the ballot if they don’t get enough votes? I sure didn’t.

To be honest, I don’t know if they stay on the ballot in the exact same way as baseball. In baseball, if you get above 5%, but less than 75%, of the vote, your name will appear on the next ballot. Up to a maximum of ten years. If you can’t get 75% after ten years, you’re done.

Rock n’ Roll doesn’t seem quite so structured, in that a number of artists will appear on one ballot, not get enough votes, then skip a year or two.

Regardless, let’s take a look at some of the returning faces. Oasis, Mariah Carey, and Soundgarden make perfect sense. They were big in the 1990s, so it would make sense that they linger around. Mariah Carey’s career starts earlier than the other two, and in all honesty, I’m surprised she didn’t make the cut on her Christmas song, alone. Or maybe the Christmas song is the only reason she’s still being considered. “Fantasy” doesn’t have quite the legs of “Seven Nation Army.” The main source of legs for Mariah Carey is the Santa outfit she wore in the video.

The other two returnees are New Order and Cyndi Lauper. Again, I won’t opine on either of their merits, or lack thereof, but I kinda think that nobody will have changed their mind on either of those in the past year, right? I mean, if somebody’s going to say, “OMG, did you realize that the woman who sang ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun?” ALSO sang “Time After Time? What range!” probably shouldn’t be given the power to vote for the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame.

However, my true confusion in this regard is the other “First Timers” on the ballot. I thought once your career hit 25, you were put on the ballot. That’s how it’s done in baseball, although they use five years retired after a ten-year career as the minimum requirement. However, there are seven first timers on this year’s Rock n Roll ballot whose careers are substantially older than OutKast.

The first one that caught my eye was Phish. When I first saw them, I nodded along. Much like Eminem, Phish seems to have been around about 25 years. After all, I remember seeing them at a festival my freshman year of college and that couldn’t have been more than… wait a minute!

That was back in 1993, which by my math, is more than 25 years ago. Not that most Phish fans can stay sober enough to count that much. I was going to say “count that high,” but Phish fans are great at doing thing super high. In fact, they probably meant to add Phish to the Hall of Fame ten years ago, just as soon as they were done with this bong hit. Then all of a sudden it was 2025.

I shouldn’t trash them. Joe Cocker’s also a first-timer. His cover of a Beatles song was the theme song of a 1980s tv show about the 1960s.

When I first saw Joe Cocker, I thought, “Oh right, because he just died recently.” Then I looked it up. He died in 2014. Why the hell does time keep moving?

Black Crowes are also on the first timers list. I think their careers started around the same time as Phish. Both artists also bring up the key question of what makes a Hall of Famer. How long do you have to be famous before you’re truly famous? And is it more important to be super important to a small group of fans or have one or two universally known songs? I would assume quite a few people have no idea who Phish is. Everyone knows “Macarena.”

In baseball, they favor longevity over flash. That’s why Maris, who broke the single-season HR record, wasn’t ever really considered. He wasn’t exactly a flash in the pan – for a three-year span, he was as solid as it gets. But his entire career was only eleven years, and most of those years were forgettable.

Mark McGwire also was never going to be a Hall of Famer, even if they weren’t punishing steroid users. He was a stud as a rookie and might have single-handedly (or double-handedly with Sammy Sosa) saved baseball after the 1994 strike. The only person more “famous” than Mark McGwire in 1998 was probably Monica Lewinski.

But the middle of McGwire’s career was injury-ridled. And if it weren’t for the ‘roids, he would’ve been out of baseball by the time those magical seasons captivated the nation.

Still more of a HOFer than Baines, in my opinion, who only got in because he played forever. As a mediocre designated hitter. Yet Jim Edmonds, who hit more home runs in 3,000 fewer at-bats while playing stellar defense, doesn’t even get enough votes to make it to a second ballot.

Sorry, we were talking about music, right?

After Phish and Black Crowes, the first-timers get even crazier. Billy Idol? Bad Company?

Baseball fans often joke about someone all of a sudden getting better ten years after they retired. Andruw Jones, another centerfielder with stats not as good as Jim Edmonds, got 7% of the vote his first year on the ballot. By his fourth year of eligibility, he was up to 33% and in this year’s voting, he’s up to 66. He’s got two years of eligibility left and many think he’ll get there. But again, he’s done absolutely nothing to add to his resume in the past eight years. His career stats are the same as the always were, but fifty-nine percent of voters have changed their mind on whether or not those stats are worthy.

Musicians are a little different because they can still make music after their initial eligibility period. Billy Idol, for instance, released a single a few years ago. It was good. But it was no “Rebel Yell” or “Eyes Without a Face” or “Dancing with Myself.” If those first three didn’t convince someone he’s a Hall of Famer, then “Bitter Taste” ain’t gonna win them over.

And now that I looked it up, “Bitter Taste” came out in 2021, so it’s even less likely it affected his credentials in the past 365 days. The only thing I can put a finger on is that he’s touring with Joan Jett this year. So maybe it was just a matter of being reminded he existed.

Bad Company makes even less sense. They’ve been around a decade longer than Billy Idol. Shit, I was playing “Feel Like Making Love” on my acoustic guitar to woo girls in the dorm rooms back before I even saw Phish in concert. It’s a simple song to learn. Basic three-chord progression. Probably not indicative of the Hall of Fame. Unless they’re going to put them in a special wing with Wang Chung as bands who shamelessly write songs featuring the name of the band.

I did see that they officially broke up/stopped touring in 2023 due to health concerns. I guess that was enough to get them in the rotation. Although according to Wikipedia, they’ve gone their separate ways a couple times before. Guess this was the one that actually got the attention.

Their last album, by the way, was released in 1996.

There’s one more crazy nomination I’ve intentionally saved for last. If someone whose heyday was the 1980s and a band from the 1970s doesn’t give you enough of a HOF WTF, how about someone from the 1950s? Because the last “new” nominee is none other than Chubby Checker.

Yes, Chubby Checker of “The Twist.” And…um… “Let’s Twist Again.” And “Limbo rock,” going off the grid for the final installment of the trilogy like Back to the Future.

Those last two songs hit in 1962. Since then, Chubby Checker’s done pretty much nothing new or noteworthy.

In his defense, he might be the last of the true Rock n’ Rollers. When the Beatles hit, Rock dropped the n’ Roll suffix. So Bad Company and Billy Idol shouldn’t even be eligible.

Unlike the two aforemtioneds, I can’t find jack shit Chubby Checker has done in the past year to trigger his all of a sudden nomination. Looks like he once protested outside the Hall of Fame because he felt he was being overlooked. That was back in 2002, so obviously it was a hugely influential protest. They got right on that shit! After only a couple decades. If they had waited two more years, his protest would’ve been eligible for its own inclusion in the Hall of Fame.

Alongside other new 2002 bands like Beyonce, Maroon 5, and Avril Lavigne.

And, I don’t know, Katrina & the Waves?

Jimmy Buffett’s Heirs

A.B. Kelly · January 20, 2025 · Musings · Jimmy Buffett, kenny-chesney, margaritaville, music, Parrotheads, Zac Brown Band · No Comments

I never really got around to posting about Jimmy Buffett dying.

Suzanne Sommers’s death merited a full analysis of seven seasons of farcical entertainment within a matter of weeks.

But the musician who’s been on my radio the most over the past fifteen years got little more than a snide comment on my year-end concert review about maybe I shouldn’t have waited for his next tour to take Daughter to see him.

The morning he died, we were getting ready for Daughter’s first softball tournament. We had to be up and out of the house by 6:30 am, which is no easy feat. As we’re fumbling out the door, bleary eyed, I checked my phone and let out an “Oh, shit.”

Not an angry “Oh Shit” or, more likely for me, an I-forgot-something or a That-field-is-half-an-hour-away-and-we’re-supposed-to-be-there-in-ten-minutes “Oh Shit.” More like a bad-news-that-isn’t-too-shocking-but-still-a-gut-punch “Oh Shit.” You know the kind.

I alerted Wife and Daughter and we were on our way to softball. Didn’t really have a chance to process it.

Radio Margaritaville was, naturally, already on in my car. They were playing some Jimmy ballad , and when in ended, the somber DJ was barely holding it together. Not sure how many times they had to preface each music break with the “If you haven’t heard” announcement, but I assume it didn’t get any easier. Hell, they probably had it worse than any of us. I just lost a guy I’ve seen in concert a few times. For all they knew, the radio station they DJ’d for might be on the verge of belly up.

Now, over a year later, Radio Margaritaville seems to be doing fine. I think they went a whole month before playing any non-Jimmy Buffett songs, but by now they’ve found their stride. They’ve expanded the number of “Buffett Buffets,” where they play a full hour of Jimmy songs, from two to three a day. And it’s not like the concerts they played when he was alive were live, anyway.

Looking back, it’s amazing to realize how bad he was there at the end, but how he never let any of his fans knew. Gotta keep up those appearances as the guy who’s never bogged down by life. Even though we all knew he gave up drinking years ago, changes in attitude means he ain’t got no time for cancer.

Those close to him knew. At a concert the night after Jimmy died, Mac McAnaly said “Last weekend, I said goodbye to my friend.”

So yeah, kinda get the feeling that Equal Strains on all Parts was always intended to be released posthumously. “Bubbles Up” sure sounds like something he wrote for the purpose of getting his fans through the bad news. I thought it was the perfect Jimmy Buffett send-off.

Until I heard another one.

Some aspects of being a parrothead are the same as they were before. Boat drinks, Aloha shirts, and the like. The restaurants and resorts and cruise line aren’t going anywhere. Jimmy was as much lifestyle as he was music. And as for that music, it’s all still there.

Cover bands feel a little weird now. It’s odd that a tribute band feels more authentic when the artist is still alive. Like, if I can see the actual act, why should there be covers? But for some reason, a Neil Diamond tribute feels more natural than a Frank Sinatra one. A guy who dresses up like Elton John is an homage. A guy who dresses up like Freddy Mercury or Jimi Hendrix is trying too hard.

However, while cover bands might become more and more verboten, there seem to be two musical acts vying for the parrot-sized hole in the industry. And maybe I don’t speak for the entirety of Fruitcake Nation, but one of them is light years ahead of the other.

The two artists are Kenny Chesney and Zac Brown. Toby Keith might’ve been an interesting third option except that he died before Jimmy.

One humungous caveat to the entire diatribe I’m about to go on is that I’m not much of a country music fan. Both of these artists originated from that realm, as did Jimmy at the start, and maybe I just “don’t get” one of them because he’s still more country than… than… whatever the hell Jimmy was.

It’s not beach music, because that’s a certain sound from the 1960s. It’s not party music or island music because, again, they already kinda bring up other existing genres.

I’ll just call it Parrot music.

Okay, so what’s Kenny Chesney’s claim to the Parrothead Crown? Plenty of his songs are on similar wavelengths as Jimmy’s. “No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problem” is kinda on the level of “Changes in Latitude, Changes in Attitude” and the instinct behind “Don’t Blink” seems to echo the sentiment of “He Went to Paris.” That song came from an album called “Poets and Pirates,” so you can’t tell me he wasn’t aiming full-bore for that Jimmy Buffett island in the musical ocean. After a solid decade of more or less straight Country.

Unless he was chasing that oh-so-lucrative Bertie Higgins space in the zeitgeist.

The Zac Brown band pivoted from Country to Parrot much earlier in their career. Their first hit, “Chicken Fried,” was 100% Country, but by the time they actually released their first album, they were solidly in parrot territory. Both “Toes” and “Knee Deep” are about vacationing, capturing the “Changes in Attitude” that Jimmy didn’t really discover until he was seven albums in.

Initially, I wondered if Zac Brown might have gone too party too soon. I figured he’d make a bunch of songs about bangin’ hotties and hangovers, but wouldn’t be able to reflect on the daily grind. For full effect, those latitudes and attitudes must change.

But it didn’t take long for him to add wistful songs. One that jumps out to me is “You and Islands,” which sounds suspiciously like it should be about rum, but is more about the early days of quarantine and wanting to get back to the good old days of hanging out with each other. The most impressive part was that it was released in July, 2020, only a few months into quarantine. By comparison, I started writing this post back around the anniversary of Jimmy Buffett’s death. Zac Brown wrote, recorded, and released a song in less time than it took me to write 2,000 words about Zac Brown.

For what it’s worth, if Toby Keith were still alive, we’d probably be looking at something like “I Love this Bar” in the ballad realm, although maybe missing some of that “meaning of life” sentiment. “As Good As I Once Was” is a hilarious take on the theme of “A Pirate Looks at Forty,” one that I’m sure Jimmy enjoyed. And if there’s any party anthem that rivals “Margaritaville,” it’s “Red Solo Cup.”

But it’s hard to pass the ultimate “Laid Back” crown on to someone who made his career with “Angry American”.

Obviously I’ve tipped my hand, so I’m not going to drag out the various pros and cons of Zac Brown and Kenny Chesney. Instead I’ll focus on why I gravitate toward Zac Brown. And away from Kenny Chesney.

One major caveat before I delve too deeply. Despite knowing most of Toby Keith’s catalog, I’m not really a country music fan. Some of my friends who are more into country music tell me I’m misreading Kenny Chesney. That he was a bona fide star before he started to pivot. Maybe. But then why did he pivot?

I’m not going to blame my dislike of him entirely on his marriage to Renee Zellweger, but I’d be lying if I said that didn’t play a part. It seemed more a publicity stunt than anything else, rather suspiciously aligned with his move from country into mainstream. Sure, Renee Zellweger might be a wee bit mainstream, but you know what she isn’t? Laid back.

There’s rumors that she was his beard. I don’t know if I buy that, because a beard relationship needs to last longer than a few months to be worthwhile. If they had some agreement to enter a loveless marriage so he could either stay in country or move into pop, it would’ve lasted longer.

Maybe they’re just two people incapable of real emotion since one acts in romance movies and the other sings songs and neither of them realized that the acting is supposed to stop at some point.

To me, most of Chesney’s Parrot music sounds, at best, insincere. Hollow. Dare I say pandering? It sounds like what an uptight guy thinks a laid-back person would say. His “No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problem,” in addition to being a phrase that’s been in popular usage since at least the 1980s, might as well be Matthew McConaughey calling out “Alright, Alright, Alright.” The only difference being that McConaughey owns it.

And “Key Lime Pie” is about as subtle a double entendre as AC/DC’s “Big Balls.” Maybe Renee Zellweger helped him write it. Neither of them enjoy cunnilingus, or maybe they’d never even tried it, but they’d heard of people who had and assumed they could make up what it’s like and the rubes would never notice. Like when the 40-Year-Old Virgin described breasts like a bag of sand.

I’m surprised he didn’t follow it up with a song titled, “No Really, I Like Intercourse!”

Oh, and Kenny likes drinking, too! Tequila, usually, because that’s probably what some marketing exec determined was seen a manly booze. In reality, he’s probably a wine spritzer kinda guy.

Here’s a Zac Brown lyric for comparison: “My bartender, she’s from the island, her body’s been kissed by the sun. Coconut replaces the smell of the room and I don’t know if it’s her or the rum.”

I mean, every male barfly I’ve ever known has fallen for a barkeep. Now maybe I don’t hang out at beach bars and maybe I’m more likely to be drinking beer than rum, but I’m sure I’ve questioned whether the sweetness that’s encompassing my visit is biological or barley. Until it goes sideways and I know it’s the bitterness of the hops.

You know what I’ve never thought while going down on a woman? “Not too tart, not too sweet.”

Jimmy Buffett did a cover of “Toes,” the Zac Brown song quoted above. I love the subtle difference in their delivery. Zac Brown, still with lead in his pencil, stresses the bartender. “My bartender… she’s from the island…” and in the final quandary, he drawls out the “herrrrrr” with “or the rum” almost an afterthought.

Jimmy, however, sings the first part all together, punctuating “Island” before finishing wondering if it’s “her… or the RUM.”

I’m also not 100% sure, but I think Jimmy sings her body “is kissed by the sun,” a matter-of- face descriptor, instead of the original “has been kissed by the sun” which implies divine provenance. How Jimmy feels about the rum.

(Yes, i know he didn’t drink for the last twenty years of his life.)

I mentioned that when I heard “Bubbles Up,” I thought it was the most perfect sendoff for a guy who knew it would be released posthumously. In theory, it’s a scuba diving adage when you get disoriented in the weightless darkness. Follow the bubbles, because they always go toward the surface. “They will lead you to home, no matter how deep or how far you roam.”

He knew a lot of his fans would feel disoriented and rudderless by the time they heard those lyrics. A near prefect send-off.

Then Zac Brown did one better.

As soon as i saw the title, Pirates & Parrots, I knew exactly what it was, and had every inkling it was done well.

The song is about Jimmy Buffett heading off to the great beach in the sky. It’s littered with references to Jimmy Buffett songs, some as obvious as “where it’s always 5 o-clock” (despite that technically being an Alan Jackson song) others more obscure (salty rock, anchor down) only for those with the Aloha Shirt Secret Decoder Rings.

The best part about “Pirates & Parrots” is how unabashed it is. It could’ve gone for generic sad song, it could’ve pussyfooted around with references so only a select few would get them and the rest would think it’s about something else entirely, like those who assume “Eyes Wide Open” is about a son being born, not a Born Again Christian anthem. After Kurt Cobain died, Eddy Vedder wrote a song that was clearly a goodbye, but whenever he was asked about it, he got defensive and avoided the topic.

In contrast, “Pirates & Parrots” is literally a letter, a eulogy, to Jimmy Buffett. It says we’re missing him, that we’re trying our best to keep the world moving on, but that we’re looking forward to hearing more of his stories when we get wherever he is. Hell, the chorus starts with “So adios, my friend.” Can’t get much more on the nose than that.

And the lyric “We’ll pick up where you left off” seems like a sincere mission statement. Zac Brown feels like it’s his job to carry the torch forward, to fill the void that’s been left. Somehow, I feel like if Kenny Chesney were to sing that exact same lyric, it would come across as, “Sweet, there’s a whole bunch of fans, and their money, newly available on the market.” Like a guy who’s willing to drive your drunk girlfriend home.

Again, it’s probably more of a me thing.

I had a chance to see them last summer. Both of them. And that’s why I passed.

I was checking Zac Brown’s website and saw they’d be playing the ginormous spaceship that is SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles. It’s a venue that’s on my list, and what better time to go than to see a band I like but have never seen live.

Something in the back of my mind was noting a slight incongruence, though. SoFi is huge. Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran play SoFi. Niche acts don’t. Hell, even Jimmy Buffett was more of an Arena guy than a Stadium guy, especially the biggest of stadiums.

Then I heard Kenny Chesney was playing SoFi. And dammit, Zac Brown was opening for him. Not even a joint tour like Billy Joel and Elton John or Sting and Paul Simon. This was being billed as Kenny Chesney, with “special guest” Zac Brown.

Screw that! Sure, it would’ve meant that I could leave the concert early, maybe enjoy the evening in Los Angeles. But I didn’t want to contribute to Kenny Chesney’s ego, nor encourage him to smarm and swarm further into Parrothead turf. If I had faith everyone else in the stadium would’ve left when I did, I might’ve gone. Woulda been hilarious. But knowing the Parrotheads, too many of them would’ve been too drunk or stoned to coordinate it.

Bummer. Guess I’m gonna have to wait until Zac Brown publishes tour dates for this year.

In the meantime, I’ll be heading off to see Nathaniel Rateliff in San Francisco next month. A guy who sings about drinking hard and making the most our of life.

Seeing a trend?

As Hip as Vinyl

A.B. Kelly · June 11, 2024 · Musings · economics, histoy, music, news, obsolete technology, Pop Culture, records, supply and demand, technology, vinyl · No Comments

One of my favorite things about teaching economics is how approachable it is.

Never understood why most states wait until senior year to broach a system that most five-year-olds can figure out. You have a finite amount of money (or resources) and, as a result, you gotta choose what to use it for. How hard is that?

We’ve all experienced economics our whole life. For instance, most people are willing to pay more for things with utility, or usefulness, and convenience. Products that are less useful or convenient must be sold at a lower price or else consumers will substitute in the better…

I’m sorry, how much does that record player cost?

That’s, like, just a regular record player, right? The kind we were all too eager to move on from in the 1980s when snazzy new cassette technology came out?

It must be able to skip songs like CDs. Or flip the record over by itself? Oh, I’m sure it’s one of those faux items, made to look like it plays vinyl while in reality, you plug in a flash drive with MP3s.

No? it just plays vinyl records?

Sorry, where was I? Oh right, how intuitive economics is.

When most people hear “social science,” they think history, but when you actually think about the wording, it’s the study (“science”) of human interaction (“social”). And there is no more basic human interaction than “You make a product I want. This is how much I’m willing to pay for it.”

Like, for instance, you produce a record player. If this were 1970.

You see, the law of demand says that people want to pay as little as possible for a product. Unless it’s got the hipster badge of honor, evidently. And the law of supply says… well, I guess the law of supply is in full force here, because if dumbasses are willing to pay more for decades-old technology that’s been replaced by at least three generations of improved products, then sure, I’ll make as many of those damn things as you want.

Actually, there is one economic concept that helps explain the price of record players, which is a decrease in supply. As most companies move on to produce newer, better technology, there are only a few record players being produced. The small number of customers remaining are willing to pay more for the few remaining relics of the past. Maybe there are some warmed over hippies who want to play the vinyl collecting dust on the shelf for the entirety of this millennium.

I can commiserate. I’ve got a crap-ton of VHS tapes that I’ll never get to watch again. Sure, I’ve repurchased the movies, but dammit, Daughter needs to understand that it wasn’t Hayden fucking Christensen under Darth Vader’s fucking helmet. In fact, when I showed her Star Wars the few scenes she tuned out to were the digital scenes added in the 1990s re-releases, which look so phony now.

Star Wars aside, most of my VHS tapes are recordings of community theater shows and a couple high school projects I made with Rian Johnson that I could probably sell for a premium. Actually, scratch that, they’re terrible. The only person willing to pay me for them would be hush money from Rian himself.

Pretty sure I own “WarGames” in at least three formats. Even though I swap most of the movies I show in class in and out of the rotation every few years when I get tired of watching them, “WarGames” has never fallen by the wayside. It’s still, in my mind, the definitive Cold War movie that is still approachable to students today. If anything, it’s become even more relevantthe last couple years with the debates over AI. As such, I know I at least have it on VHS and DVD, and probably BluRay (which I always seem to forget is different than DVD). I’ve also purchased it digitally on Amazon one year when my DVD player wasn’t working, because now that DVD players only cost $20, the planned obsolescence on them is about two weeks.

Yes, I understand the irony of discussing planned obsolescence in the same post as $300 record players.

A decade or so ago, I hoped the, with digital, we could get beyond repurchasing the same title multiple times, but now we’re getting into the “must purchase on different platforms.” I thought I was being proactive when I burned all the good songs off my CDs back in the mid 2000s. Except I burned them via iTunes and now have an android. And now my laptop doesn’t have a CD drive to reburn them.

To say nothing of streaming companies pulling content they already own off their own platforms. At first, I was annoyed I’d bought all those early MCU titles on DVD when they were all now available on Disney+. But at some point, they’ll pull a Mysterious Benedict Society on the MCU and I’ll be happy I have those DVDs.

Assuming I can find a DVD player when that happens.

So yeah, I get the idea of producing a few bits of obsolete technology for those still stuck in yesteryear.

But vinyl records are still being produced. By new bands. And they cost TWICE AS MUCH as a goddamn CD.

I discovered all this after Daughter discovered Taylor Swift. She’s ten years old, which is the proper age for a Swifite. Unfortunately, there seem to be a handful of people over the age of twelve who are ruining the situation for the rest of us, meaning Taylor Swift concert tickets are a wee bit more expensive than Kidz Bop.

Following Taylor Swift is the ultimate form of purchasing the same item in multiple formats. In addition to the CDs and, yes, the vinyl, you have to buy the Taylor’s version of all the albums she’s redone, even if you bought the original album before she re-recorded them. And you’re expected to buy the albums she hasn’t re-recorded yet, preferably in multiple formats, with the knowledge that you will be buying them again when she re-records her own versions in another year or two. But only if she stays with Travis Kelce, because if they break up, she’ll write new music and not need to release another “Taylor’s version.”

Oh, and send some Spotify fees her way, too.

So Daughter saved up her allowance for a few months to purchase a record player. Then she wanted to buy some vinyl.

I was sorta game, because, call me old, but sometimes I miss listening to albums as they were intended. I get tired of telling Alexa or Pandora to play some Beatles only to find they don’t know that the second half of Abbey Road is supposed to be played continuously. Nothing’s more jarring than “She Came in Through the Bathroom Window” being in between “Please, Please Me” and “Here, There, and Everywhere.”

Daughter started with three Taylor Swift albums and I threw a couple Lake Street Dive albums because the whole family likes them, even though we mostly listen to them on Alexa. Haven’t been able to find Abbey Road yet, which is probably a good thing. It’s one thing to buy an album you already have on newer, better technology. It’s quite another to intentionally retrograde your version.

The pricing of these records was where my belief in supply and demand totally shit the fan. There is no earthly reason they should cost twice, even three times, as much as CDs. At Barnes & Noble, the CD version of Taylor Swift’s Red was $18 or $19 and the vinyl was $45! And that’s Taylor’s version, where she’s getting 100% of the proceeds.

Back in the early 1990s, when they were brand new, CDs cost $15-20, while cassettes ran about $10 and vinyl was maybe a little less, because nobody was buying them.

I remember being at a concert where the artist said CDs and cassettes cost the same amount to produce. The audience gasped. That artist, and others, were hoping to bring the price of CDs down. Instead, the industry responded by increasing the price of cassettes. That pretty much killed off cassettes, because, back before social media, people weren’t willing to pay more for worse technology.

They should’ve quadrupled the price. Then called cassettes “niche.”

Or waited a decade and used the term “vintage.”

Somehow CDs still cost about $15. Evidently they’ve never heard of inflation. Neither have video games. When I was buying piece-of-shit 8-bit games for my Intellivision or original NES, they set me back about $50. With a few exceptions, video games for a PS4 or PS5 stay mostly in that $40-50 range. The difference is that I only made $3.35 an hour back in the NES days, so I’d have to pretty much work a whole week to afford a video game. Now it’ll take me an hour. The same hour I just spent writing this blog while my students watched WarGames.

By that rationale, I could get four or five CDs an hour. But I don’t. I think I’ve purchased maybe ten CDs in the last ten years. Because even when I buy them, I just listen to their contents online, which doesn’t necessitate having the physical CD in my possession, not to mention finding something to play it on. My new car doesn’t even have a CD player anymore.

As a result there are fewer CD shops. And fewer CD player shops. Seriously, how the hell is Best Buy still in business?

That’s called a decrease in demand. Fewer people purchase a product, fewer of the product are produced, and the price drops. Or, in this case, the price stays the same despite thirty years of inflation.

That memo that hasn’t hit vinyl. Oh, the quantity available has certainly dropped, which makes it annoying to look for anything other than Taylor Swift, a couple of country stars, and maybe Led Zeppelin. Seriously, the Barnes and Noble had about ten copies of various Zeppelin records. Of all the questions I have about today’s vinyl customers, I really, really, really want to know who is just now, in 2024, desiring to purchase Zeppelin IV on vinyl.

For $30.

I know, I know. I sound like a broken record here.

But hey, at least Millennials and Gen Zs will finally know what it means to sound like a broken record. My students always thought it was a good thing, referring to broken records in sports. But it’s a Michael Jackson reference, not a Michael Jordan reference. Not that they know who either of those people are. Sorry, I sound like a Taylor Swift broken record, not a Travis Kelce broken record.

Since we purchased the record player and records, wanna know Daughter’s preferred way to listen to Taylor Swift? On Alexa. Or YouTube. They’re so much more convenient.

And what is the record player doing? Sitting there on the shelf gathering dust, just like it was 1986 up in this bitch.

So sure, people, convince yourself that those cracks and hisses are “essential to the music” and pay a premium for it.

Then go listen to it digitally.

Because you know what I’ve never heard anybody say when leaving a concert?

Damn! Why no crackles?

New York with Family, the Personal Stuff

A.B. Kelly · July 12, 2022 · Musings · Billy Joel, concerts, family vacation, music, New York, travel, travelblog · One Comment

A few weeks ago, we took my eight-year-old daughter to New York for a trip originally planned before the pandemic. In my last post, I wrote about the touristy stuff we did, like Statue of Liberty and Coney Island. This post will delve more into the personal things, the people and oddities we encountered that you won’t exactly be able to book through a travel agent.

Concert Upgrade

While in New York and Boston, we did two concerts and a Broadway show. The show was Aladdin, which was neither great nor terrible. There isn’t much chance for surprise from a show that follows a 30-year-old movie beat by beat. Unlike the Frozen musical, which adds a song, “Hygge,” that might be better than any in the original movie, the only songs worth knowing in Aladdin are all from the movie. The magic carpet ride, however, was pretty fucking cool. Daughter was mostly “meh” throughout the first act, but when everything went dark and the carpet took off, she couldn’t lean forward enough.

The second concert we went to was Lake Street Dive in Boston. I’ll review it in my normal year-end post. Normal as in “every year up until 2019.” Pretty sure that’s the dictionary definition now. Normal (adj): occurring regularly prior to 2020.” We also spent a few days at the Great Wolf Lodge, an experience which will get its own addendum after I post these two New York writings, because I’ve got a LOT to say about that juvenile bacchanal.

But the first concert we saw was Billy Joel, performing his 80th “straight” show in his Madison Square Garde “residency.” I don’t know how it qualifies as a residency if it’s only one show a month. I also question the designation of “80 straight,” for which they raised a banner to the rafters next to those of the Knicks and Rangers. After all, we originally had tickets for a Billy Joel concert at the Garden in June, 2020 that didn’t happen. Perhaps “residency with 80 straight concerts” is just a fancy way for Billy Joel to say, “I ain’t coming to your town, you’ve got to come to mine.”Not that I’m knocking it. If I could just roll out of bed once a month for my job, sign me up. On second thought, Billy Joel is over 70. I sure as shit hope I’m not still teaching then, even if it’s only once a month.

Billy Joel is known for giving away his front row seats. He got tired of looking into the audience and only seeing super richies who didn’t give a shit about the concert. Next time you watch a baseball game, check out how many people behind home plate aren’t watching the game. So Billy Joel sends his band members and/or security out into the crowds before the concert starts and hands out front row upgrades. That way, not only does he get a “real fan” who was willing to see him from a half-mile away, but he also gets a real fan who is super excited to no longer be seeing him from a half-mile away.

Evidently, now that it’s a well known practice, many fans go to the shows looking for the undercover ticket people. Then they loudly talk about how excited they are to have these Row ZZZ tickets to see their FAVORITE artist of ALL TIME. With signs to boot.

I was not one of those people. I was just a dumbass tourist trying to figure out how to get up to the nosebleeds of an arena I’d never been in before. We were supposed to be on the fourth floor (which, oddly, is beneath the third floor) behind the stage. The fourth floor, or I suppose I should call it the 400s section, only exists in one area of the arena, only accessible by one set of stairs. It isn’t by any arena entrance and isn’t referenced on many of the signs showing people where to go to find their more plentiful sections.

“I think we’re up here,” I said to my family when we found a random staircase in the general section of the arena where I thought our seats were. I’m still not entirely sure the staircase was marked with the sections it led to.

I’m not entirely sure what the guy in the suit first said as Daughter barreled past him. It was something along the lines of “Why are you going up there?” Although it might’ve been more directed, like “You don’t wanna go up there” or “That’s the wrong direction.”

Still completely obtuse, I responded something like, “We’re in section 413,” showing him my phone.

“No, you don’t want those seats. Do you want to sit somewhere closer? “

At this point, I’m thinking the guy is trying to swindle us. Been to far too many ballgames where the “I need tickets” guy is 50 yards away from the “I’ve got tickets” guy. But somewhere in the back of my mind, I slowly realized that, wait a second, we’re already inside the arena. Not the smartest place to engage in ticket scalping when all your customers already have tickets. Like the T-Rex at the Natural History Museum waking up from a nap in the tar pits, I remember we are at a Billy Joel concert, and Billy Joel is famous for…

Fortunately, Wife was much quicker in the uptake. “We’d love better seats. We came all the way from California and it’s her-,” puts hands on Daughter’s head, “first concert. She loves Billy Joel.”

(Never mind that Daughter’s way more excited about Lake Street Dive in a couple of days and, while she does know most of his songs, is mainly just tagging along for this leg of the journey.)

“Are you okay with her being in the floor?” the guy asks.

Are you fucking kidding me? Of fucking course she’s fine sitting on the fucking floor and if she isn’t, then she best be shutting the fuck up about it right the fuck now. We paid $100 for these tickets and were about to be sitting in $1000 seats.

Remember that whole thing about wanting excited fans in the front row? I think my last comment is what he’s going for.

Of course, once we had the tickets, we had no fucking clue where to go. We returned to the spot at the bottom of the stairs to ask the guy, but he was gone. They’ve got to keep moving. As soon as attendees see other random attendees being handed tickets, the swarm is on. After our exchange, we heard other people muttering, “No, it’s usually a lady, but this time it’s a guy in a suit. Look for a guy in a black suit.”

Eventually, three elevators and four or five confused ushers (“Those are floor seats. What are you doing up here in the nose bleeds?”), we finally made our way to the floor. The last usher knew the score. “Hey, you’ve been upgraded!”

So anyway, on the left is a picture of where our original seats were. Third row, right above the Bud Light sign. The picture on the right is the view from our actual seats. Not bad for $110 on the secondary market, huh?

In the past, Billy Joel was criticized for having hot women in the front row. He explained that he gave the tickets to his band members and roadies to hand out to whoever they thought would be good for the front row and, well, guess who they want looking back at them? Not a couple approaching their fifties with an eight-year-old who kinda sorta knows some of the songs.

I assume Billy Joel has adjusted who gets to hand out tickets, and presumably now that he’s playing the same spot every month, he’s switching up who hands out the goods. That’s why the other fans expected a woman. And clearly the guy who gave us the tickets wasn’t going to be staring into our bosoms for the whole concert. Billy Joel now has a daughter close to my daughter’s age, so maybe there are general instructions to find families with kids. Or maybe it’s just to look for the numbnuts who clearly have no idea what they’re doing. That fit us to a T.

Either way, Daughter’s has a lifetime of concert disappointment in front of her after getting front row at Madison Square Garden for her first.

Hotel Bathroom

I’ve got to save a few column inches to discuss the bathroom at our hotel. Not that I have any clue what the fuck was going on in said bathroom. I assume it had something to do with New York being visited by many Europeans, so maybe it’s what happens when you translate bathroom into metric? I know it fucked up the Hubble Telescope. And I might’ve been able to see alien galaxies with the contraptions in there, if only I could figure out how to use them.

First up was Toilet 2.0. What’s that? You didn’t think toilets could grow sentient?

Of course, it had a bidet. That’s to be expected if you cater to foreigners. I’ve dealt with them before, and by “dealt with them,” I mean I’ve largely ignored them because, thankfully I’ve never used a toilet that was bidet only, like many bathrooms give you no paper towel option, only air dryers. How did Covid not do away with those germ spreaders? Every person leaving a dryer-only bathroom is still shaking water from their hands.

While I didn’t use this bidet, I did at least take note of it. It’s got your normal settings for back wash and front wash. The person requesting the front wash looks suspiciously female, which would seem to be a no-no these days. There’s also an option for soft or hard, which makes sense on the back end. Some visits require more aftermath, if you know what I mean. Although I don’t know how a bidet user knows which visit is which. I usually need to check the damage on the TP to know how the rest of the visit will go.

What strikes me most about this bidet is that you can program in two user profiles. What is there to do beyond front or back, hard or soft? I’m trying to think of the person who has a specific bidet method that requires a complex procession and progression through the four options, such that they must save the profile. Add to that the fact that this is a hotel, so you’re really only using this bidet for a few days. And he’s probably still wiping when he’s out and about. Oh, and he’s got someone else in this very hotel room that needs their own super secret, super special progression of H₂O up the Wazoo.

More unusual than the programmable bidet, however, was that it appeared to be a self-cleaning toilet. Not in the manner of a self-cleaning oven or coffee maker, where you can set it to a cycle. More like a Hal-9000, Terminator gaining sentience style of self-cleaning. Every time one of us walked in the room, we would hear the water running. Not like a full flush or anything, but a trickle of water, a sprinkling, like a pre-lubrication of the bowl.

At first we worried that it would run all night, but it seemed tied to movement. It ran even if we kept the light off. So now my toilet is taking notes of how often I’m visiting. Should I expect an introductory email from my friendly neighborhood proctologist by the time I return home?

Oh yeah, and the seat was warm. At first I thought I was imaging it, but Wife and Daughter confirmed. It was like the car seat warmers, except that those can be turned on and off. The toilet seat was on ALL the time. Sometimes when I’m back from walking Central Park on a muggy June day in New York, I might want to deposit funds in the porcelain bank without scalding my sack.

Considering the damn thing had AI and enough energy to power a nuclear power plant, it isn’t surprising that this toilet came with an extensive list of rules and regulations, a standard list of dos and don’ts to avoid liability when it leaves the hotel room to kill Sarah Connor.

The list took up the entire inside of the lid, and while I didn’t read all the terms and conditions before accepting (I had to pee, after all), I noted the first warning, which was “Don’t get water inside.” Um… it’s s toilet. Do… do they not know how toilets work? It takes some water to help alleviate the skid marks. Because even after an overnight of self cleaning, they were still noticeable.

Next to the toilet was a shower that had not two, nor three, but FOUR shower heads. None of which were a standard shower head. First up was a hand held wand, like an old game show microphone with the water coming out the sides. Then you had the overhead waterfall spigot. We’ve got one in our house and I don’t fucking get it. Who the hell wants the water to be dumping down on them from above? Such that, if any of your skin gets merely a splash of water, your entire body is also drenched. How does one lather up or apply shampoo?

The final two shower heads were in the wall, one about chest height and the other at my thigh. They were adjustable to a point, but their sprays were still only able to make it up to my chin and waist, respectively. The spray also maxed out maybe two feet from the wall, with a force equivalent to a water fountain. Not enough to rinse off my armpits or undercarriage, two spots I also couldn’t hit from the overhead. And the microphone came out with too much force for the giblets.

There was only one handle to control all four spigots. Turn it a little bit and you’ll have both microphone and wall. Go too far and you’ll cycle back around to the waterfall. Another handle controlled the temperature, but it didn’t matter, because all four started out frigid.

By day three I figured out how to conduct a masterpiece like I was a few blocks over at Carnegie Hall. Use the wall to get wet, use the microphone to rinse off. Try not to teabag the wall. Turn the microphone on to wet the hair, then off while I shampoo, then back on to rinse. Avoid the third rail of the waterfall faucet at all costs.

Do I get a doctorate at Columbia for figuring all that out?

Random Thoughts

1. Daughter doesn’t know what cigarettes are. Not sure if this is a sign that we’ve parented well or poorly. Maybe it says more about the times. She thinks she knows what cigarettes are, but what she’s actually smelling is marijuana. She doesn’t like the smell, and she doesn’t encounter it often, but now that I think of it, she probably encounters it a hell of a lot more often than cigarettes. I mean, who smokes tobacco anymore? Anyway, whenever she smelled weed (and trust me, it’s all over the place in New York, and that’s coming from a California guy), she’d plug her nose and whine, “Ugh, really? Why do people have to smoke cigarettes here, too?” I’ll be curious to see what she calls it if she ever smells a legitimate cigarette.

2. On our first day in New York, after checking into the 44th floor of our hotel, Daughter looked out the window at the 57th Street abomination. Not sure if you’ve seen it, but it looks like a damn pole. It only takes up maybe 100 feet by 100 feet of real estate, but then shoots up 90-odd floors. The top floors aren’t finished yet and are currently on the market for $180 million. What a bargain. Anyway, when she saw it, she asked, “Is that a skyscraper? I’ve heard of them, but I’ve never seen one.” Bear in mind she’s visited her aunt in San Francisco no fewer than twenty times. And did I mention we were on the 44th floor of our own hotel? Not sure what them kids are calling skyscrapers these days.

3. She ended up being fine with the subway, but her only complaint was that it should be more like Disneyland. Shouldn’t everything? But what she was specifically looking for was the part of the Disneyland train where you go through the dinosaurs and Native American lands. I mean, what good is an underground train system that transports you miles closer to where you need to go for three dollars if it doesn’t also have some racist animatronics?

4. In my whole trip, three people jumped out at me that I needed to note. First was the lady wearing her Miller High Life t-shirt to see Aladdin. Look, I know it’s a show for kids and all, but it is a Broadway theater. She couldn’t upgraded to her nice MGD shirt? Second was the dude wearing a “Don’t California My Texas” t-shirt. At the Statue of Liberty. In New York, which is neither Texas nor California and probably doesn’t want us apply either of the latter two locations to their former.

Third was the guitar dude at the Imagine mosaic in Central Park near the Dakota building where Lennon lived and was shot. Seems it used to be a quiet, contemplative spot, but the last two times I’ve been, it’s a spot for selfies and self-important douchebags who bust out their accoustics for poor renditions of Beatles songs that nobody requested, as if two of them being dead wasn’t bad enough. Anyway, when we walked by this time, Dude was playing “Get Back,” which… um… is a Paul McCartney song? Under normal circumstances I might not critique a guy for not knowing that John had nothing to do with the writing or performance of that song, but Peter Jackson just made a nine-hour documentary, that anybody with the audacity to think they deserve to play their own instrument at a John Lennon memorial ought to have seen, which showed “Get Back” being created from scratch while John was still sleeping off a heroin hangover.

5. Last time I was in New York, I made sure to have pizza from Lombardi’s, the first pizzeria in America. This time I added a few more iconic food items: cheesecake from Junior’s and a hot dog from Nathan’s. I mistakenly thought Junior’s was the cheesecake referenced in Guys and Dolls, but apparently that’s Lindy’s, which has closed. Good thing, too, because the cheesecake was just kinda meh. It wasn’t bad, per se, but it didn’t have much flavor to it. It was sweeter than I expected, more cream than cheese. I’ve had plenty of better cheesecakes in my life.

The Nathan’s, on the other hand, was solid. I’ve had a ton of Nathan’s dogs at various establishments, but the ones at the original location are different. They grill the buns, which the ones in the mall don’t. They also seem longer and thinner than the ones you find in the store, and the griddling (not boiling or grilling) is uniform and thorough. My only regret was standing in the long line with the people who wanted burgers or who knew they served clams, before I realized there was a hot dog express lane where I could’ve got my dog and fries twenty minutes earlier.

6. I don’t mean to criticize these photo op guys in Times Square, but…
*Hulk needs to work out a bit. You wouldn’t like me when I get a beer belly.
*Spiderman, a secret identity does no good if you stand around with your mask off the whole time.
*Grodd is a DC property, not a Marvel property. Shouldn’t be hanging out with Avengers. Oh wait, is that supposed to be King Kong? Dude, he doesn’t even HAVE a comic book title.

7. I only found one sign to add to my collection. If you’ve followed my other travelbolg posts, you know I love signs that are a little too cutesy or on-the-nose. The sign on this particular trip that amused me was neither of those. In fact, the only thing I enjoyed about it was a missing letter.

Sure, I know it’s really just a room. But am I alone in thinking a luggage storage ‘roo would be much better? I mean, it already has a pouch. And then when I’m finally able to get in my room, it can just hop them up there for me instead of making me do the schlepping my own shit after hours of walking around Central Park after minimal sleep on a red-eye. Imagine my disappointment when it was only a closet manned by a human being. I guess I’ll swap the tip for a smaller bill.

I probably need to visit Sydney to find an actual Luggage Storage ‘Roo.

First Concert of the 2020s

A.B. Kelly · May 14, 2022 · Musings · concert review, concerts, COVID restrictions, live music, Mondo Cosmo, music · One Comment

After more than two years away, I ventured into a super-spreader event.

Sorry, I meant a concert. Damn you, autocorrect!

Trust me, I’ve been to plenty of super-spreaders. Most of them included forty-five hormonal teenagers thinking their masks are supposed to go on their chin, not live music.

Oddly enough, the hormonal teenagers are STILL wearing masks around their chins, even after the mask mandate expired. I guess it’s the new version of wearing conservative clothes when you leave the house then going full goth. Their parents think they’re wearing the masks. But if that’s the case, why not put it in your pocket when you get to school?

Sorry. Concert. Right. A friend of mine texted me on a Monday night, asking if I wanted to go to a concert two days later. Seeing as the ticket said 7:00 show, I thought that sounded like a capital idea. I should be home by, what, 9:30? 10:00 at the latest.

Midnight?!?

Turns out the doors opened at 7:00. And they had this thing called a, what was it, opening band? I guess I’m out of practice.

In addition to getting my sea legs back, this was a band I didn’t know many songs from. I had heard of them, and when I checked YouTube, I recognized a few of the songs, so it’s not like I was totally flying blind. But it turns out there’s a difference between being marginally aware of a band’s songs and knowing (and singing along to) every fucking lyric, which described roughly every other human being in the place. It felt really awkward when the lead singer pointed at us to finish the chorus and all I could do was mouth some bullshit. Reminded me of the Apostle’s Creed back in my Catholic days. Did I miss the week when Catechism covered the Airborne Toxic Event?

That was the name of the band we saw, by the way. The Airborne Toxic Event. With special guest Mondo Cozmo. In case you’ve forgotten, as I clearly had, “special guest” means opening act. That band goes on at 8:00, not the 7:00 printed on the ticket, and the band you’re there to see, or that your friend is dragging you to see, won’t be on for another ninety minutes.

My friend invited me because his son, who was the original owner of the extra ticket, had dutifully cleared a night in June of 2020, not April of 2022. He might have been able to make the makeup date March of 2021, but hat didn’t happen, either. In the intervening two years, he’d dropped out of college, had a kid, and started working construction. He (perhaps wisely) didn’t want to attend a late concert then wake up for work the next day. Instead, his twenty-year-old ass makes the two pushing-fifty guys do the late night thing. What am I missing here? Isn’t that what being twenty is all about? I remember overnight trips to Reno (without a hotel) that ended with me getting home just long enough to shower and head into work with no sleep.

Then again, I didn’t have a toddler till I was forty.

The concert was almost pushed off again. The week prior to our show, they had to cancel another thrice-rescheduled show in Southern California because somebody on their bus tested positive. Fortunately, he got the negative test before the Sacramento show.

Are the 2020s maybe not the best time for a band named “The Airborne Toxic Event?” If any new Covid cases are traced back to their concert, the headlines might become confusing.

The venue they were playing was one I’d always been curious to attend, which helped counteract my reluctance to miss sleep. It caters to bands that don’t cater to people my age. Bands with names like Goth After Dark or Dub Stars or Guadalupe Hidalgo. Or Gwar.

Holy shit, Gwar is playing there Memorial Day Weekend! I’m super curious about the clientele at a Gwar show. They were already an obscure joke back in 1990. So it’s got to be a slew of fifty-somethings that never really got the joke. I’m tempted to buy a ticket for crowd watching, but the bastards would probably expect me to sing along with their choruses.

The venue is tiny. And crowded. Hopefully Whitesnake never plays there, because any errant pyrotechnics and we weren’t getting out. As it stood, I couldn’t even leave my spot to grab another beer. I might not make it back. Not that I wanted any more beer, because it would be four hours before I left the confines, and who the hell goes to the bathroom during a concert? I might miss the lyrics.

Wait, are they saying, “Like gasoline”? That’s what it sounded like on maybe the fifth iteration. I guess that’s a cool lyric. I think the line referenced making out when they were seventeen. It rhymes. And, you know, gasoline is explosive. Fire equals passion. Just ask creepy elder statesman Bruce Springsteen and his “Hey little girl, is your daddy home?” Or Whitesnake.

Maybe this band isn’t too bad.

Two people in my close vicinity passed out. We’re all out of practice.

Oddly enough, the pass outs happened not during the concert while people were jumping around, but in between the opening band and the main event. The first lady to pass out was one of the only ones wearing a mask.

Did I mention super-spreader event?

Not too surprising. It was stuffy as hell and people were jockeying for position, despite the fact that nobody in the entire venue was more than twenty feet from the stage. And I know we’re only supposed to mock people who claim that it’s harder to breathe while wearing a mask, but I imagine that when five hundred people are jostling around you, the mask can’t be doing wonders. It was hard enough for me to catch a full breath, and my nose and mouth were wide open. Each inhalation contained about 85% body odor. Plus 15% Covid.

Her mask fluxed in and out heavily a couple times, then her eyes fluttered and she did the standard pirouette before being caught by her companion, also wearing a mask. The crowd was nice enough to part to let him pull her out. As long as you’re going away from the stage, you’re golden. Five people moved into the spot she vacated.

I suppose I should thank this particular canary for reminding me I was in a coalmine. After she went down, I remembered to bend my knees more often. Flex those calf muscles! But after four hours of standing in more or less the same spot, my feet still felt like they’d gone 25,000 steps. You know what’s nice about seeing Classic Rockers in arenas and stadiums? Assigned seating!

The second fainter fell a couple minutes before the band came on. His pass-out was the more pedestrian, self-inflicted style. No mask near his mouth, but he did have a beer, and it clearly wasn’t his first. And “near his mouth” was the closest he came. He couldn’t quite find it. When he faceplanted toward the back of the woman’s head, somebody else grabbed him and stood him back up. At first I thought they were together, but second dude might’ve just been a good Samaritan. Drunkie then sways backward, toward said Samaritan.

When security came around, Samaritan held his hand up, signalling toward the drunkard like a plane’s flying over his deserted island for the first time in a decade. Security was already looking for the drunkard, which was impressive because as far as I knew, the guy had just shown up. Maybe they’ve got us all under strict surveillance. We didn’t have to show our vaccination card because they’re already monitoring our biorhythms from the 5g DNA sequencing that Bill Gates put into our bodies!

Sir Sways-a-Lot didn’t put up a fight. I don’t even think he knew they were ushering him away, nor whether he was at a concert in the first place. Security used the “hey buddy” approach instead of “Respect my Authori-TAY!” and dude was easily led toward the back. For good measure, he took one more sip from the IPA while following along. Not so much rebellion as inertia.

Good Samaritan immediately took two steps forward to take the vacated spot.

How was the band? Not sure. You might want to check with someone who knew what they were seeing. They had a viola player. Or maybe it was a violin. Perhaps even a fiddle. When she wasn’t on the strings, she played the keyboard. But then when she was playing violin, other members of the band stopped playing guitar and went over to play the lonely keyboards. By the end of the concert, that thing had more people tickling its ivory than your mom.

The opening act was also impressive. Much like Jethro Tull, I don’t know if Mondo Cosmo was a person or the whole band. Unlike Jethro Tull, nobody named Mondo Cosmo invented a seed drill. The guitar player was great. Drummer, too. But in looking at this guy’s/band’s videos online, it’s clear that, Mondo Cosmo or not, Mondo Cosmo is the only guy who gets camera time.

He’s pretty hard core. Every bit the Mondo. Seemed way more comfortable on the songs he was jumping around the stage than on the songs he had to sit still and play rhythm guitar. I feel like he’s either going to make it big or flame out very, very hard. I’m rooting for the former.

The drawback of the band was that they had way too much pre-recorded backing tracks. It took me a number of songs to figure out where the hell the bass was coming from. Was he behind the curtain? Was the lead guitar busting out low notes on the thick strings when he wasn’t in solo mode. Once I realized the bass was still going while he was soloing, I realized it was all a ruse.

Then they did a cover of “Bittersweet Symphony.” I knew for a FACT there was no string section in the three-man band.

Did you know you could jump around the stage and headbang to “Bittersweet Symphony”? Although, as a general rule, you shouldn’t get more into another band’s songs than your own.

I don’t want to give away too much, because for the first time sine 2019, I can have a year-end concert review. I’ve got tickets bought for at least one more, with potential plans for as many as three more. When it rains, it pours.

I just had to make sure I got that “your mom” joke in before I forgot it.

On the Cutting Edge of Music

A.B. Kelly · October 6, 2021 · Musings · Eurovision, good music, Little Big, music, new bands, Song, Wet Leg · 3 Comments

I’ve been going down some obscure musical rabbit holes of late, and, contrary to my norm, I’ve found something newer than “Go Ask Alice.” So I figured I’d let y’all know about a couple of bands that I might be on the cutting edge of. At least in America.

The first is a couple of lasses from England. Or maybe one of the other UK countries? Hell, they could be Irish for all I know.

Yes, despite being American, I’m aware that Ireland’s been independent for a century or so. My last name’s Kelly, after all. I even know that Jameson’s a Catholic Whiskey and Bushmill’s belongs to the heathens. (Although I kinda like Bushmill’s a little more – don’t tell my dead aunt).

Anyway, I first came across Wet Leg when somebody posted their video on Twitter. As far as I can tell, they only have one or maybe two songs. Like I said, cutting edge stuff. Not like the last time I found “new” bands (Vampire Weekend and Nathaniel Rateliff) that turned out to have a decade of back catalogs.

But, boy howdy, Wet Leg’s one song is pretty kick ass.

Check out the video.

Tongue in cheek lyrics, driving bass line, kick-ass guitar riffs. Count me in.

Most will note the lyric from the first refrain, “I went to school and I got the Big D.” Despite her taking the time to explain otherwise, I don’t think she’s referencing her degree. But I’ll take the third verse: “Is your mother worried? Would you like us to assign someone to worry your mother.” That’s some Grade A mirth right there. Or maybe Grade Big D, as the case may be.

Not to be overlooked is the refrain of “Excuse me… what?” In the recorded version, the “what?” is restrained. But if you check out a live version (go ahead, I’ll wait), there’s more emotion to the second one each time. As in, “What the fuck? I already responded the first time.” Because how else does someone respond when someone interrupts you twice with the same “Excuse me” without getting on to whatever the hell they’re excusing? Come to my classroom sometime and see. The name I respond to most often is Mr. Um, Um, Mr. Um.

I’m so enamored with the smirkiness that I’m overlooking the obvious faux pas of mispronouncing the song’s title. I mean, come on, it’s clearly a chaise LOUNGE, not a chaise longue. We lounge upon it, do we not? Is this some European versus American thing? Are those limey bastards siding with the French? A faux pas indeed!

Please pronounce that phonetically, not that “foe pa” bullshit. A fox pass whilst waiting for our whore’s deo weevers.

I looked up chaise longue and chaise lounge. Both are accepted. Whereas the definition for chaise longue, which first appeared in 1800, is a “long, reclining chair.” The definition for chaise lounge, from 1804, is “a chaise longue.” Meaning as soon as that word started being used, we fixed its pronunciation. Yay, ‘Murica!

You can learn so much from a neo-punk song! Now where’s my Big D?

Lyrics aren’t enough to warrant more than one or two re-listens, though. You gotta have great music.

I didn’t come by that “neo-punk” designation randomly. The first time I heard the song, my mind immediately went to early Police. Back when they were shit-kicking pseudo-anarchists. Not Sting’s easy-listening “phase,” which has lasted longer than three decades. I’m talking about “I Can’t Stand Losing You” and “So Lonely.” “I guess you’d call it suicide, but I’m too full to swallow my pride.” If that doesn’t sound like assigning someone to butter your muffin, I don’t know what does.

Not to mention, those bass and guitar riffs could give late-1970s Sting and Andy Summers a run for their money.

When I first played the song for Wife, she went a different route. Not The Police, but The Go-Go’s. At first I thought she was being a little sexist, until she narrowed down her comparison. “The bassline is from “Our Lips are Sealed.” And holy shit if she isn’t right. Go ahead, listen again. I’ll wait. Give that bad boy more YouTube views. Do you hear it now? It could be “We Got the Beat,” too. Maybe an amalgamation of both. Drums and beat from one, progression from the other? Certainly not a straight rip-off, but in the same vein.

While the Go-Go’s seem like quaint bubble gum 1980’s pop to a modern listener, an all-female band was cutting edge at the time. Similarly, if your first thought when you hear Sting is the tantric singer of a homoerotic trio with Rod Stewart and Bryan Adams, it might be hard to conceive of him as front and center in the avant garde, but that’s where they were.

Unlike the Go-Go’s, Wet Leg has dudes in their band. Or maybe they just do backup when they’re playing live. Not sure. Another band I’ve recently found, Lake Street Dive, also seem to be fronted by two women (only one sings, the other plays a kick-ass stand-up bass) with dudes playing percussions and keyboards and whatnot. It’s a trend I’m enjoying.

Uh oh, should I talk about Lake Street Dive? Three new bands? Nah, they’ve already got at least one bona fide hit. They don’t need my help. (But, if you’re curious, here ya go.)

Regardless of which punk Wet Leg is reminiscent of, Wife and I both agreed that “Chaise Longue” belongs firmly in 1982. And that’s a great thing.

Can there perhaps be another Bertie Higgins on the horizon?

After all, over in Russia, they’re fusing together 1990s dance music with 1970s fashion and, uh… Spanglish?

Let me tell you about the band called Little Big.

First of all, these guys aren’t new. They’ve been around for close to a decade, and if YouTube and Wikipedia are to be believed, their videos have millions of views. But at least on this side of the Atlantic, they’re still what we’d call “niche.”

They have so many entertaining videos that it’s hard to know where to start. But let’s go with the big one, which by all rights could have and should have won Eurovision 2020.

A decade ago, I might need to delve into a doctoral thesis on Eurovision, but it feels like it’s mainstream enough that most Americans are at least aware of it. Nothing like a Will Farrell movie to get some increased exposure.

For those unaware, each European country sends one new song to a continent-wide competition. In May, all those bands “perform” their songs, then the entire continent calls in votes a la American Idol (except you can’t vote for your own country). The country that wins Eurovision gets to host the competition the following year. Not very socialist, but whatever.

Have you ever noticed that the European sports leagues are cut-throat capitalistic while the American ones do shit like revenue sharing and salary caps? Kinda odd. Maybe that’s a post for another time.

Speaking of differences twixt two sides of the Atlantic, I don’t understand why we can’t do something similar to Eurovision here. Sure, West Virginia and Wyoming might have trouble putting together a bona fide song played by talented musicians, but if you’ve seen the average Moldova entry, I think Wyoming would be fine.

(JK. I love the Moldova entries. Come for Epic Sax Guy, stay for a lady riding around stage on a unicycle in a dunce hat. I’ll take twenty Moldova entries over one overly warbled French ballad.)

In 2020, the preliminary rounds, where the individual countries vote for who will represent them, had already occurred before the world ended. So we can see all the videos and performances we might have expected if May, 2020 had existed in a standard timeline. In the running was a quirky Icelandic band who all wear aqua sweaters with 8-bit-animation versions of themselves. Evidently Geek Culture loves them. Britain was planning its usual phone-it-in performance of a boring pop song. It’s better than their nudge-nudge, wink-wink song featuring flight attendants asking if we wanted something to suck on for landing. The country that gave us the Beatles, Stones, and Zeppelin (to say nothing of Coldplay, Radiohead, and Mumford) only shows up to Eurovision for the participation trophy.

Then there was Little Big’s “Uno.”

Sadly, when Eurovision came back around in 2021, the songs that were supposed to be in the 2020 competition were not allowed. The rules state that songs must be released in the calendar year of the competition and somehow, those assholes didn’t amend the rules for a global pandemic. The European Soccer Championship and the Olympics both saw fit to keep the 2020 designation while in 2021, but a competition that sometimes features stripper poles and glowing ass cheeks making smiley faces needs to maintain some standards, amiright?

So unfortunately, Little Big’s “Uno” never made it to the voting stage. I think it’s fair to say that, despite five million deaths, a year spent without seeing loved ones, a generation of children unable to engage in social interactions (or math), the untold suicides and mental breakdowns, not to mention the still-unknown long COVID effects, the generation of children unable to learn social interactions (or math), that THIS tragedy, the cancellation of Little Big’s performance upon the Eurovision stage, is the worst thing COVID took from us

Before I do the link for the video, I must warn you. They’re a Russian band that sings in English. Except for when they’re counting, which is n Spanish. Minus the number three.

Oh, and evidently in Russia it’s still 1978.

Don’t worry about Putin getting pee tapes of you for watching the video. It’s been viewed 216 million times. Only about a million came from me. And if Putin’s seen me pee that many times, he should be blind by now.

Ready? Here you go

Did I forget to mention you’ll never be able to unsee it? Oops. My bad.

In case you’re wondering, the fat guy does those moves when they perform it live, too. Because if you’re like me, you thought, “Yeah, I could do that move. Once.”

Beyond that, I really don’t know what jumps out the most in that video. The first time I saw it (hell, the first ten times I saw it), I could only stare, agape. Somewhere around viewing number twenty, I began formulating questions. Is that a tattoo of a bear peeking through his very translucent shirt? And what’s the deal with the dude’s black lips? It’s like reverse blackface. Is that still offensive? And how the hell do they do that thing with their legs? All while keeping a straight face.

But similar to Wet Leg, once you get past the gimmicks of the video, the music’s pretty good. It helps to have a proclivity toward 1990s dance music in the vein of La Bouche and Real McCoy. There were a few musical movements in that decade that I feel didn’t overstay their welcome. Those brief flirtations with swing and ska and dance were fun. I might not want to listen to them all the time, but I’ll take that over fifty bands chasing the same sound all day, every day.

Shit, remember when Tony Bennett was “hip” for, like, a minute? Did that really happen? Maybe I was just taking better drugs back then.

A good further introduction to what Little Big are all about is the song “Hypnodancer.” In the video, they rob various underground casinos by hypnotizing all the other players with his dance moves. Except they’re playing Uno instead of poker. And they’re smoking and/or snorting those mini pencils you normally find at bowling alleys or mini golf. At the end, they encounter another hypnodancer and have to decide if they will compete or combine forces (which includes lots of two dudes pelvic thrusting each other).

Not all their music is as catchy as “Uno,” and some of their videos miss the mark, but dammit if they aren’t trying.

I might or might not have introduced some of my classes to Little Big. Sure, when the lead singer sashays around in “Uno,” he’s holding the microphone at a very phallic angle, but it’s far more appropriate than some pseudo-sexual limey winking at us while asking if we’d like some salty nuts. Little Big has a song called “Sex Machine” that’s actually about as tame as “Love Machine,” which has been in the zeitgeist for close to fifty years.

I now have students coming in to tell me when a new Little Big video is being released. Of the recent additions, our favorite was “Mustache,” a beach mystery wherein all the women have mustaches, but two of them, jealous of another woman’s award-winning facial hair, shave it off and steal it. Then it’s up to the usual Bear Tattoo and Black Lips guy, clad in 1920s era lifeguard uniforms, to “solve the crime” by finding a bevvy of razors.

Quality. And the music’s fun, too.

We all were a little disappointed by their latest entry, “Turn It Up.” It’s really just people jumping up and down a lot. Maybe the next one will be better, since Little Big seems fit to keep entertaining.

There are a few of their songs I won’t show my students. Even if it’s being performed sarcastically, songs about drinking and/or body parts are still a no-no. Tongue in cheek is fine. Stick that tongue anywhere else and I might get in trouble. But I’ll show “Uno” and “Hypnodancer” all day, every day.

That being said, their tribute to last year deserves a special mention. It’s called “Suck My Dick 2020.” At first I thought this was on par with “Don’t Stand So Close to Me ’86.” You know, a remake of their previous song, named “Suck My Dick,” using their current sound. But as soon as you turn on the video, you see them all wearing Christmas sweaters (with testicles), opening “presents” from the year 2020, showing fires and riots and viruses. And the lyrics bring it home.

We have many anthems in this world. National anthems, Rock anthems, Generational anthems. We ought to have an anthem for the shitshow of the last eighteen months.

If anyone has reason to take special umbrage with the previous year, it’s Little Big. And me, because it took me a whole extra year to find them.

Suck my dick, 2020. 2020, suck my dick.

Eine Kleine Music Thoughts

A.B. Kelly · June 2, 2021 · Musings · air supply, music, Neil Diamond, soft rock, yacht rock · No Comments

I’ve had a few random music thoughts of late. None really deserving of a post in its own right. Maybe worth a tweet, but who wants to read tweets spread over multiple days with even less continuity than usual? So maybe I’ll just throw the whole damned hodgepodge into a post.

To wit:

Neil Diamond.

Did you know Neil Diamond is fun to listen to? I seemed to have forgotten.

I rarely seek him out. I never wake up in a Neil Diamond kinda mood. If I’m asking Alexa, my robot overlord, to shuffle songs by a certain artist, it ain’t gonna be the Diam-ster.

Does he go by the Diam-ster? He totally should. I’m trademarking that bad boy right now. Neil, have your lawyers call my lawyers. Not that I have lawyers. Maybe that’s why I don’t understand how trademarks work.

The reason I don’t go out of my way to hear me some Neil is because his songs are mostly similar to each other. If you’ve heard one, you’ve sated that Diamond Itch (ooh, Trademark!). As I’ve mentioned before, my family loves Billy Joel Radio. With Billy Joel, you’ve got song variety and some great stories about what’s going on, both lyrically and musically, like why he decided to change into a C-minor for the second verse of that one song. There’s a reason Billy Joel Radio comes back every year.

By comparison, Neil Diamond Radio lasted a few weeks once and never came back. Because every Neil Diamond song is September Morn, give or take five percent, eternally toeing that same line between soulful ballad and Album-Oriented Rock. Or maybe it’s Adult-Oriented Rock? I can’t tell the difference, but if you wanna sound like a snooty 1970s-era music aficionado, say AOR. It’s the musical equivalent of “I was using it as an adverb,” a rejoinder to which nobody can quibble.

Whereas Billy Joel introduces his songs with stories about threesomes with Christie Brinkley and Elle MacPherson, Neil Diamond’s stories tend more toward, “Well, it was a September morning so I decided to write a song called ‘September Morn.’ It’s in the key of… the same key as all my other songs. Same five notes, too.”

But dammit if I can stop myself from singing along.

The other day, I read a reference to Cracklin’ Rosie, and the song got stuck in my head. Seriously, if you could read that last sentence without singing “Get on board” in your head, then you’re stronger than I. It’s an impossibility. To be fair, I’m not pulling an Eric Cartman needing to sing the rest of the song, but I must finish the lyric. One doesn’t “Cracklin’ Rosie” without a “Get on board.”

Speaking of Eric Cartman, it’s hard to not sing along with Eric Carmen’s All by Myself, too. Can’t believe South Park didn’t go with that option instead of Come Sail Away. Too obvious? Probably a good thing I don’t write for South Park.

Shortly after the Cracklin’ Rosie (get on board) incident, I asked Alexa to play some Neil Diamond, then proceeded to belt out every song she played.

I read recently that Paul Simon would not be remembered as much as Bob Dylan. My first thought was, “Well, duh, stupid clickbait.” I doubt Paul Simon would place himself in Bob Dylan’s category. Simon is, first and foremost, an entertainer, while Dylan is an icon, bigger than himself. But on the flip side, people don’t still whine to Paul Simon that he switched from acoustic to electric fifty years ago. And Bob Dylan never had Chevy Chase in any of his videos.

Neil Diamond is in the Paul Simon category. Not definitive of a genre, not an icon of a generation. Not music I’ll go out of my way to to. But if it’s on, I’m singing along and you better not touch that dial.

Air Supply.

Most of what I wrote about Neil Diamond goes double for Air Supply. The only thing rarer than me seeking them out is me NOT singing along at the top of my goddamn lungs. And woe to whoever is within the same zip code.

I’ve seen Air Supply in concert three or four times and, let me tell you, they rock. It’s not a a word one normally associates with their sappy love songs, but if you listen in the background of their songs, there’s some solid guitar riffs. In concert, they bring those forward and emphasize the first word in power ballad.

And unlike some of the older acts I’ve seen (cough, cough, Eric Clapton, cough, cough), they still seem to enjoy touring. Even if they have to amend that lyric from Making Love Out of Nothing at All to “And I can make all the [state fairs] rock!”

Unlike Neil Diamond, I’m not surprised at my closet appreciation for Air Supply. When they come on the radio, I’m like, “Heck yeah, Air Supply!” instead of, “Oh hey, Neil Diamond?” Part of that dichotomy stems from the necessity to stand by your fandom. One doesn’t run into too many people arguing that Neil Diamond isn’t a legitimate musician. But say you’re an Air Supply fan and you’re encountering some raised eyebrows. Don’t let them cow you!

Ironically, I encounter Air Supply songs more often than Neil Diamond songs. Perhaps it’s my choice of radio station. While I’m only likely to encounter the latter if I tune in for the seventh-inning stretch of a Red Sox game, the former get heavy rotation on the SiriusXM Yacht Rock station.

I’ve blogged before about the amorphous blob that the “Yacht Rock” moniker is growing into. It’s supposed to reflect a certain carefree attitude, foolish pursuits of whimsical love, and perhaps a wee bit of drinking oneself into oblivion. Michael McDonald croons, “I keep forgetting we’re not in love anymore,” while the lead singer of the Doobie Brothers opines, “What a fool believes he sees, the wise man has the power to reason away.” Not sure who that guy is. Turns out his name is Michael McDonald. Wonder if they’re related.

Another big time Yacht Rocker is Kenny Loggins of This Is It and Danny’s Song fame, not to be confused with the King of the 1980s soundtracks, confusingly named Kenny Loggins. No way those two cats are the same.

Or Kenny Rodgers, who was also known for both soft rock ballads and soundtracks, but definitely isn’t Yacht Rock. Unless you look at Lady a certain way. Islands in the Stream, too, which sounds sacrilegious because how can Dolly Parton be Yacht Rock until you realize that Barbara fucking Streisand gets the nod for her duet with Andy Gibb.

If the first rule of Fight Club is “never talk about Fight Club,” then the first rule of Yacht Rock is “is it Yacht Rock?”

And Air Supply isn’t Yacht Rock. Let me get that out of the way up front. They are straight-up, unabashed love songs. There is virtually no planet on which they should be considered otherwise.

Unless that planet is SiriusXM’s Yacht Rock station, cause let me tell you, they play Air Supply all the fucking time.

Every single time, I say, “This isn’t Yacht Rock.” Then I sing along at the top of my lungs like it’s September Morn.

Yacht Rock Radio has quite a bit of this “Yacht Rock adjacent” music. What started as a distinct style and theme has morphed into “any soft rock from the late 1970s and early 1980s.” Or, in the case of Loggins and Messina, as early as 1971.

As with the Yacht Rock cover band I watched, at least when they’re playing non-Yacht Rock, they do a good job of playing stuff that anyone who tuned in for Yacht Rock won’t mind hearing. Like Al Stewart’s Year of the Cat. Seriously, what the fuck is that song? It’s like a genre unto itself. But it’s kinda fun to listen to. Quirky.

So keep playing Air Supply, SiriusXM. I’ll judge you, but then I’ll be anxiously listening for the next one.

WKRP in Cincinnati.

While I’m on the topic of Yacht Rock, here’s another song that gets heavy rotation on the SiriusXM station.

It feels weird that a TV theme song gets the Yacht Rock designation, but if any one deserves it, this one might be it.

I take that back. Believe It or Not, the theme song from “The Greatest American Hero” is yachtier, but unfortunately the powers that be refuse to admit that. I’ve never once heard it on the rotation and, in case it isn’t obvious by now, I’ve got a lot of “Time Spent Listening.” What’s even more annoying is that one of their bumpers references it. The smooth, deep-voiced guy makes some asinine comment, says “Believe it or not,” and they cue up the refrain from a song they don’t fucking play on the station! What the hell?

But if they’re not playing the quintessential Yacht Rock TV Theme, they’ve got a decent second-place replacement.

Here’s the weird thing about WKRP in Cincinnati. Were you aware there’s more than one verse?

It’s not uncommon for some TV Themes to have extended cuts that become hits on their own. In the 1990s, the theme songs from both “Friends” and “Party of Five” made their way up various charts. Those songs, however, didn’t really make reference to the show, so it makes sense that I’ll Be There For You and Closer to Free might have extra verses. The verse that played during the opening credits sounded like a verse, or perhaps a chorus, not a song in its entirety. Similar things could be said about 1980s stalwarts like the aforementioned Believe It or Not, as well as Thank You for Being a Friend from that show about the four Miami sexpot lesbians. If the theme song started, “Whoa, those golden girls with their silver curls and their golden showers,” I wouldn’t expect to hear it on 80s on 8.

WKRP in Cincinnati, on the other hand, fits more in line with the 1970s trends of catering a theme song to the specific story of the TV Show. Nobody was running out to buy Brady Bunch or Love Boat on 45. The refrain “I’m on WKRP in Cincinnati” isn’t quite so ubiquitous as “Thank you for being a friend.” But props to the guy who was tasked with writing a TV theme song for not letting it stop there. He let the Yacht Rock flow and wrote a second damn verse.

The thing that sticks out when I hear the song is neither its relative yachtiness nor its success at incorporating the letters WKRP into a rhyming scheme. It’s the fact that the best line, a slice of lyrical that ties together the whole song, DOESN’T appear in the first verse, and therefore, on the very opening credits that necessitated the song in the first place.

From the “public” verse (“Baby, if you’ve ever wondered…”), you probably know that the song is a letter to a former love by someone settling down from a transient lifestyle. Somehow he decided a podunk radio station in southern Ohio was a good place to plant roots. Clearly he didn’t know that terrestrial radio was in its waning days of independence where wacky DJs like Dr. Johnny Fever could get away with shenanigans before going on to substitute teach a class of nerds.

The second verse continues in the same vein. “Heading up that highway, leaving you behind, hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. Broke my heart in two, but Baby, pay no mind…” Thne comes the beautiful coda: “The price of finding me was losing you.”

Damn dude. Doesn’t really fit with a turkey drop, but hauntingly profound, nonetheless.

Maybe don’t bury that on the B Side of all B Sides?

Barry Manilow and Phil Collins.

I didn’t start out this post intending to bring these two in, but in so many ways, they mirror my earlier topics.

Barry Manilow? Like Air Supply, ya gotta be unabashed in your appreciation. As with those two Aussies who seem to be singing their love toward each other, Barry’s lyrics are mushy as shit. Hence many a fan closeting their appreciation.

But musically, he’s solid. Predictable, but solid. It didn’t get called a “Barry Manilow key change” for nothing. The chord-progression equivalent of Spinal Tap’s “going to 11.”

One cannot merely hum along with Barry. One must belt!

On a desert island with a gun to my head? I’d probably take Barry over Air Supply, based solely on the breadth of his catalog. Air Supply’s got, like, ten songs that I know all the words to. With Manilow, it’s closer to thirty. And Air Supply ain’t got nothin’ on par with Copacabana.

Which brings us full circle back to Phil Collins. I’ve got four of his albums, six if you count Genesis. Using the same metric, I’ve seen him twice or three times in concert. There’ve been a few times I’ve heard an unknown song and said, “That’s Phil Collins on drums,” and each time I was proven correct. Like Neil Diamond, you simply cannot argue with the quality of his work. Whether it’s his haunting early stuff from “Face Value,” the happy-go-lucky mid-eighties hits from “No Jacket Required,” or his supercilious wagging-of-finger songs from “But Seriously,” he’s consistently solid.

But like Neil Diamond, it’s easy to forget. His holier-than-thou attitude might be what sours me toward him. He kinds seems like a jerk. A tool. Both of them do. I feel like if SiriusXM tried a Phil Collins radio, his song introductions would be along the line of, “I wrote this song because I’m a good musician. I don’t care if you like it or not.”

But then there’s his remake of You Can’t Hurry Love.

And what about those duets? Philip Bailey is usually painted as the talented one in Easy Lover, but if it was only Philip Bailey, it wouldn’t have been a hit. And don’t let amateurs butchering it at karaoke sour you on Separate Lives. If Endless Love hasn’t been banned from karaoke bars, then the ballad from “White Nights” has to be allowed, as well.

To be honest, Phil Collins is one of the few singers I can’t karaoke. He’s a skosh to high for me, but not high enough to falsetto or belt. It’s painful. Bon Jovi’s in the same range. Every single other singer I’ve karaoked to, I’ve completely nailed. You’ll just have to trust me on that.

The easiest guy to karaoke is Neil Diamond and his five-note range.

But as different as they are at the karaoke bar, Neil and Phil are birds of a feather in terms of listenability. Rarely top of mind. If I want to listen to them, you’ll get an eyeroll and a begrudging “I guess.”

But if you turn one of their songs on, you better keep it there. Maybe even repeat it more than once. Because dammit if they’re not good.

I just can’t seem to remember that.

Seriously, go listen to Sussudio. Just TRY turn it off mid-song. You can’t, can you?

If you can, you’re a monster! Leave your name and I’ll report you to the authorities.

Your penance will be Forever in Blue Jeans.

2020 Virtual Concert Review

A.B. Kelly · January 5, 2021 · Blog Entries, Musings · 2020, concert review, concerts, live music, music, Nathaniel Rateliff, New Orleans, Red Rocks, technology · One Comment

Last week I wrote about the two aborted concerts that I hoped to attend in 2020. One was from Billy Joel, a tried-and-true entertainer I saw once before when I was in college. The other was Vampire Weekend, a band I wasn’t even aware of a year ago. For obvious reasons, neither concert happened.

But 2020 wasn’t completely devoid of live music. As long as you were willing to watch it on a screen.

So although I didn’t see the two concerts I intended to see, I did manage to watch two concerts in their entirety. Again, one featured old performers that I’ve already been throwing money at for decades, while the other came from a newish band that I’ve always been curious about seeing live.

Preservation Hall.

I couldn’t make it to New Orleans to watch Vampire Weekend, but at least I could watch a streamed version of a concert for the New Orleans Jazz Preservation Hall. Or maybe it was on PBS. I can’t remember.

Seeing as New Orleans is one of my favorite cities to visit, I’ve watched a few concerts at Preservation Hall. It’s fun to stop in on an afternoon jaunt down Bourbon Street to hear jazz combos similar to my high school jazz band That’s not knock. My high school jazz band was pretty kick-ass. I love me some saxophone, trumpet, and trombone combos. Play me a simplified arrangement of a Count Basie tune, and I’ll happily put off my next hand grenade for twenty minutes or so.

At least I thought it was Preservation Hall I’d frequented on those trips down Bourbon. But now that I looked it up on Google Maps, it might actually be Maison Bourbon, a half-block away from the actual Preservation Hall. Oops.

Regardless, I was happy when they had a benefit concert online, with some really big names. I’m talking Dave Matthews, Elvis Costello, Paul McCartney. Unfortunately, it was in typical telethon fashion, where they wasted twenty minutes in between each song with interviews and “call in now” and shit. At least I could pause and skip ahead, something my grandparents could’ve only dreamed of back in the Jerry Lewis Labor Day snoozefests.

Those big-name benefit songs had a very, very pre-recorded feel to them. There were a few, like Dave Grohl and Nathaniel Rateliff, who seemed to take it more seriously, picking their jazzier numbers and talking about the importance of either live music or of preserving olde tyme music. Others seemed to send in whatever promo song they had recorded for charity write-offs. I was looking forward to Elvis Costello and was disappointed when he just played some “songs off his newest album,” aka the part of the concert containing the Great Restroom Exodus.

Everybody on the comment box was pining away for McCartney. Where’s Paul? When will Paul be here? Clearly they haven’t sat through proper telethons. It was obvious he was going to be last, and it was obvious to be as non-specifically for Preservation Hall as it gets. He might’ve done “Hey, Jude.” I don’t remember. And he might or might not have looked two decades younger. At least Elvis had the decency to half-ass a newer song so we knew it was recorded this decade.

I ended up liking the actual jazz band, who played an occasional song in between the big acts, better than the names that brought me there in the first place. Even so, I didn’t donate.

I’ll drop some money at Maison Bourbon next time I’m in NOLA and we’ll call it good.

Nathaniel Rateliff.

Later in the pandemic, Red Rocks in Colorado did an online fundraising concert, as well. Again, a place I’ve been to and enjoyed. And a band I like, as well. Tune me in.

And this was legitimately live. They were literally playing on the stage in front of an empty Red Rocks Amphitheater. You could switch cameras to watch the rocks instead, something I found myself doing when I went there, too. Although I didn’t have to switch cams then, I only had to pivot my neck.

Nathaniel Rateliff has been on my short list for some time. He wasn’t some unknown to top ten skyrocket like those Vampire Weekend upstarts.

Of course, my first introduction to him was “S.O.B.,” the best drinking song this side of “Tubthumping.” Although neither of those songs should be considered happy drinking song. Maybe thinking enough about booze to want to write a song about it predicates a certain bipolar dependency. But then just when you’re about to commiserate with the artist, right there on the precipice of singing the blues, they bang the door down with a grandiose “fuck it, let’s get blotto.”

With a first song like that, one could understand my hesitation against full-throated bandwagon-jumping. If your initial hit is reminiscent of “Tubthumping,” you’ve gotta worry about being the next Chumbawumba. And how many other Chumbawumba songs have you ever heard? Unfortunately, I’ve heard others, and they need a drink. Holy crap, that’s a bad album.

At least Rateliff seemed to have some musical talent going for him, which was always missing from even the acceptable Chumbawumba song. Something similar could be said about Fun., which you must properly pronounce as “Fun period,” another band with a song that, at first, sounds like a fun (period) song about hanging out with your friends at the bar, something I did the majority of my twenties (and thirties). But on closer listen, it’s closer to a creepy “Every Breath You Take,” with the dude hoping to swoop in on an ex (whom he beat) when she’s drunk at the end of the night. At least Fun. had some good musical talent, but it was all based on something approaching ten-part harmony. Rateliff gets there by himself. With apologies to the Night Sweats.

But still, if you take one look at him, you don’t think rockstar. Or at least not young, eager, carpe-diem rock star. In his first music video, he looked like someone who’s been touring for forty years. Tore up from the floor up. Rode hard and put away wet. Whatever phrase you wanna use, he was no Justin Timberlake.

So somewhat gimmicky song about drinking and looking like he might be dead by the end of the week. I spent most of the last decade on the fringes of fandom. Perhaps appreciation would be the best descriptor. I heard some of his other songs and they all showed promise. What I was waiting for was the staying power. It’s so much easier when the band already has four full albums before I discover them.

Similar to Vampire Weekend, Nathaniel Rateliff’s most recent album (actually his third album, not his second as I originally believed) came out shortly before the pandemic, so I was able to hear the songs as they received copious amounts of radio play. I enjoyed “Baby It’s Alright.” Very bluesy. A ballad. Some vibrato in the voice. Polar opposite of “SOB,” although not really, because you’ve still got the mournful voice, the hurt. There’s a lot lying there underneath the surface. This was no Chumbawumba. This wasn’t even a repeat of Fun. (Am I supposed to put another period if Fun. is at the end of a sentence?).

The final hurdle I needed to pass (aside from buying his albums because that’s what YouTube is for) was to see him live. He definitely seemed to have the vibe of a good live act. I tend to like the acts whose songs are equal parts emotion and talent. Those tend to make the best shows as opposed to, say, a band that’s more concerned with choreography or pyrotechnics. In all honesty, I’m a little worried my current fascination with Vampire Weekend might wane after seeing them live. They seem a wee bit aloof, a sconce “we wrote good songs, so we don’t need to put any emphasis into it. Sing along if you must.”

So the last thing I needed to become a proper Nathaniel Rateliff fan, to finally determine if he’s talent or hack, was to see him live. And if I can see him for free, all the better.

Oops, was I supposed to donate to Red Rocks while watching the free concert?

And yeah, the dude is solid. He feels every song. He emotes. And he’s no slouch on the guitar, either. I could see him being the kind of guy who would play for three or four hours if the crowd and venue allowed it. With “S.O.B.” it’s clear he’s got some inner demons. It feels like the stage is where he exorcizes them, and he’s all too aware of it.

One oddity was that he appeared to be playing through his entire new album, track by track. I tuned in late, so I don’t know if this was explained or if the first half of the concert was some old stuff. So he never played “S.O.B.”

I bet a lot of artists wish they could do that. After all, the new songs are the ones that mean the most to them. It’s our fault that they keep having to bust out “Freebird.” If we aren’t in the crowd then we can go fuck ourselves if we’re only tuning in for his one hit six years ago.

The weirdest part of the whole concert was that he DIDN’T come out for an encore. What the fuck? Were we not cheering loudly enough at our homes thousands of miles away? What do you want us to do? Pay to get you to…

Oh…

Oh, I think I get it now.

My bad.