Category Archives: live

Night Music: Annie Lennox, David Bowie and Queen, “Under Pressure”

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This clip is from the rehearsals for a Queen tribute show. That’s all I know.

What impresses is the intensity and the craft and intensity that Lenox and Bowie bring to singing the song. Which unfortunately mostly reminds me of Vanilla Ice, who as arrested last week in Florida while filming a reality TV show, which is another story entirely.

Being a star/artist/whatever means not dialing it in, is what I think that means.

That’s the main thing that interests me about this clip. These are not everyday people. They’re aware of how hard they worked to get to where they are, and how hard they have to keep working to hang onto even a fraction of it.

Show business is brutal. And I bet, in the best of times, awesome fun.

Night Music: Esteban Jordan and Valerio Longorio, “La Hilacha”

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Two accordions in one song. I fear what might happen tonight in Eastern Pennsylvania.

Anyone who has watched Breaking Bad knows the form of the borderlands ballad, a nortena song style that’s usually about criminals plying their trade and escaping the long brazos of the law.

One of the main characteristics of these songs is a metonymical tempo and a steady passionless delivery. This is Mexican music, but one that evolved out of the polka of the German settlers of South Texas. It is a dance music of the wooden soldiers.

Esteban Jordan, known unofficially as the king of the diatonic accordion when he was alive, subverted the rules. His is a music of swing, varying tempos, intemperate ejaculations (like Bob Wills), and a drive to rock the tempo out of it’s implacable groove, into one with just a little bit of surprise. You can see from Velerio Longorio’s reactions in the video, that Jordan’s mild improvs and filigrees are outrageous.

And the eye patch doesn’t hurt.

Lunch Break” Replacements, “Bastards of Young”

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I got an email yesterday that tickets for the Mats were going on sale today, well, a pre-sale actually, and because I subscribe to LiveNation, I got a chance at them.

How exciting! So, I logged in this morning at 10 a.m. when the tix went on sale, got put in a queue for ten minutes, and by the time I was atop the queue, the pre-sale tickets were gone.

They go on regular sale tomorrow, so I will try again, but, well, I would be bummed to miss them, as would my friend Michele Friedman, with whom I usually go to concerts with these days. That is because Michele’s husband Jeremy Steinkoler, who is a fabulous professional drummer, just isn’t that into grunge, and my partner, Diane, only goes to concerts when my band is playing.

But, Michele’s friends Michael and Tracey wanted to come as well, as the three of them saw the Mats around 1980, so they wanna re-live their youth.

Keep your fingers crossed that we can get tix tomorrow.

In the interim, here is Paul and the guys at their loudest and bestest (no disrespect Tommy Stinson fans).

LINK: More Tubeworks, rock on TV before cable

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In that John Lee Hooker story from Dangerous Minds, there was a link to another story about Tubeworks, from a site/magazine called Perfect Sound Forever.

The Perfect Sound Forever story is a first-person piece about growing up outside of St. Louis and being able to tap into the Tubeworks show, which seems to have broadcast over the phone lines (and through a converter box) on a regularly irregular basis. Read the story for the impressive list of performers and note that John Sinclair was a regular in studio guest. This was rock TV before cable.

Also note this excellent clip from the show.