Hometown

I was delighted the other day to get a call from bassist Chris Boeger, one of Madison's hardest-working musicians. He, drummer Scott Beardsley and front man Nathan Palan have for some time been the Hometown Sweethearts, party band extraordinaire and winner last year in Isthmus' reader favorites poll, category: cover band. But Nate, if you hadn't heard, is decamping to the East Coast in the fall with the rest of the Kissers, and this summer he and that Irish rock outfit are touring, so he'll be in town only selected Tuesdays to play the Hometown Sweethearts' fabulously successful Tuesday engagement at the Crystal Corner.

Which brings me to why Chris called: I'm sitting in. I'll be joining Chris and Scott at the Crystal two Tuesdays in June, two in July and three in August. After that, who knows?

The three of us got together and rehearsed last night, and I'm very excited. They're enormously gifted and resourceful musicians, and we ran through material like we'd been performing together all our lives.

I must confess I'm a little apprehensive. I checked out the Sweethearts' show this weekend, and good Christ. It was as a big a crowd of dancers and carousers as I've seen at the Crystal, and on a Tuesday. They tell me it's like this week after week, and now that I've experienced the gig, I can see why. The Hometown Sweethearts have perfected a potent shtick: oddball covers ("Bennie and the Jets"), sincerely rendered. People eat that shit up.

It's a tough act to follow, but I'll do my best. And I'm thrilled to have the opportunity to push myself and my repertoire a bit. One reason the Hometown Sweethearts are so strong an act is that Nate has fashioned their bizarre, surprising, delightful set list by digging deep into his twisted memories. I have learned well from this. I'm not going to try to duplicate the Hometown Sweethearts experience--I can't--but suffice it to say, I have a twisted memory or two myself.

Ah, music. It makes the bourgeoisie and the rebel, you know.