Where is love?
The World's Greatest Lovers' debut at the Crystal Corner last night went well. We played rather more Hank Williams and rather less Abba than we'd like to in the long run, but overall I'm pleased, especially given how little we rehearsed. In the absence of much in the way of exciting new material, I repeatedly put myself on autopilot for such hoary Ken Burns favorites as "Family Tradition." Lots of Hometown Sweethearts regulars were there, and a number of Junkers and #1 Dad fans also made their way out, including some people I hadn't seen in ages.
I was pleased to sing the old country stuff, but I was more excited about the new-wave covers we performed, songs like Elvis Costello's "Radio Radio" and Talking Heads' "Stay Up Late." People seemed surprised to hear David Byrne's lyrics coming out of my mouth. What can I say? I'm a fan from way back.
And we did get an Abba request. Abba is definitely on the docket.
My favorite moment came during a set break, when a man squeezed my exposed bicep (I was wearing a W.B. shirt) and told me I should work out and get cut, like when I was 18. Eh?
Wednesday, June 09, 2004
Monday, June 07, 2004
F-f-f-fashion
I felt like I was in high school again. This weekend Ronald Reagan was all over the tube, and the imagery took me straight back to adolescence--I was ten when Reagan was elected president, 18 when he left office.
The pictures looked very fresh, I think because by the time Reagan became president, in 1981, the major news organizations had switched from film to videotape. I can't quite explain why, but old news film and old news tape provoke subtly different reactions in me.
A number of Gipper* images linger strongly from my television watching Saturday and Sunday, but for some reason the most vivid is from about 1984: President Reagan wearing a brown suit. People still wore brown suits in 1984?
* Not surprisingly, footage from Knute Rockne, All American was inescapable this weekend. If you haven't seen it, I must tell you that whatever your feelings about football or Ronald Reagan, that is one terrific movie.
I felt like I was in high school again. This weekend Ronald Reagan was all over the tube, and the imagery took me straight back to adolescence--I was ten when Reagan was elected president, 18 when he left office.
The pictures looked very fresh, I think because by the time Reagan became president, in 1981, the major news organizations had switched from film to videotape. I can't quite explain why, but old news film and old news tape provoke subtly different reactions in me.
A number of Gipper* images linger strongly from my television watching Saturday and Sunday, but for some reason the most vivid is from about 1984: President Reagan wearing a brown suit. People still wore brown suits in 1984?
* Not surprisingly, footage from Knute Rockne, All American was inescapable this weekend. If you haven't seen it, I must tell you that whatever your feelings about football or Ronald Reagan, that is one terrific movie.
Sunday, June 06, 2004
Dropping of bricks
I've been reading Dick Cavett's 1983 book Eye on Cavett (New York: Arbor House), which he wrote with Christopher Porterfield. It's a sequel of sorts to the quirky memoir Cavett (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1974), by the same team, and I must confess the latter is one of my very favorite books.
Eye on Cavett has a chapter called "On the Dropping of Bricks," and in it the famously garrulous talk-show host argues that there's no such thing as coincidence. He offers as evidence several occasions on which he and others have unintentionally said precisely the wrong thing to precisely the wrong person--have dropped a brick, as it were. In one example, Cavett meets a stranger on the beach. Making conversation, Cavett says something scathing about a "currently popular volume of humor that was being made into a Broadway musical" (105). The stranger then reveals himself to be the author of said volume.
Okay, it's funnier in the book. At any rate, I can say from my own experience that he's right: this happens to me way too often, and I suspect the gods are punishing me. I'll tell you about a couple of times.
In the first, I was sitting in on the first meeting of a college course in psychiatry. As it happened, also sitting in was Liz, an acquaintance I was, in my painfully shy way, considering asking out. After the lecture, the psychiatrist professor told us the class was full and we would not be able to enroll, so we left disappointed. In a fit of sour grapes--it was, I admit, mostly show--I tried to make a joke about the prof, something I thought my friend would find irresistibly witty, something along the lines of, "Psychiatrists are a mental illness."
She replied, "My father is a psychiatrist."
In retrospect, I wish I had then made an Electra joke.
The second anecdote is timely, and it takes place at a dinner party (dinner parties are, no pun intended, like Petri dishes for this sort of thing). At one point, apropos of what I'm not sure, I regaled the group with this feeble bon mot: "Ronald Reagan was as great a president as he was an actor."
A woman I had just met replied incredulously, "I didn't come here to be insulted." It turned out her father had been a high-ranking official in the Reagan administration.
Let these be a lesson to me: stop trying to be funny, at least about people's dads.
I've been reading Dick Cavett's 1983 book Eye on Cavett (New York: Arbor House), which he wrote with Christopher Porterfield. It's a sequel of sorts to the quirky memoir Cavett (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1974), by the same team, and I must confess the latter is one of my very favorite books.
Eye on Cavett has a chapter called "On the Dropping of Bricks," and in it the famously garrulous talk-show host argues that there's no such thing as coincidence. He offers as evidence several occasions on which he and others have unintentionally said precisely the wrong thing to precisely the wrong person--have dropped a brick, as it were. In one example, Cavett meets a stranger on the beach. Making conversation, Cavett says something scathing about a "currently popular volume of humor that was being made into a Broadway musical" (105). The stranger then reveals himself to be the author of said volume.
Okay, it's funnier in the book. At any rate, I can say from my own experience that he's right: this happens to me way too often, and I suspect the gods are punishing me. I'll tell you about a couple of times.
In the first, I was sitting in on the first meeting of a college course in psychiatry. As it happened, also sitting in was Liz, an acquaintance I was, in my painfully shy way, considering asking out. After the lecture, the psychiatrist professor told us the class was full and we would not be able to enroll, so we left disappointed. In a fit of sour grapes--it was, I admit, mostly show--I tried to make a joke about the prof, something I thought my friend would find irresistibly witty, something along the lines of, "Psychiatrists are a mental illness."
She replied, "My father is a psychiatrist."
In retrospect, I wish I had then made an Electra joke.
The second anecdote is timely, and it takes place at a dinner party (dinner parties are, no pun intended, like Petri dishes for this sort of thing). At one point, apropos of what I'm not sure, I regaled the group with this feeble bon mot: "Ronald Reagan was as great a president as he was an actor."
A woman I had just met replied incredulously, "I didn't come here to be insulted." It turned out her father had been a high-ranking official in the Reagan administration.
Let these be a lesson to me: stop trying to be funny, at least about people's dads.
Saturday, June 05, 2004
Thursday, June 03, 2004
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.
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.
Monday, May 31, 2004
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