6 String Drag "Guilty"

I was looking at Jess’ blog last week, as she ran down some names of artists she was featuring on The Local Music Café during a fill-in stint.

Ken Roby’s name popped out, and a fun little memory popped in.

One of the best places I’ve ever been, to listen to music, is at The Down Home in Johnson City, Tennessee.

It's been well over a decade since I've been there, and maybe it's changed.  Or maybe it's exactly the same.

The little, dark, smoky, dusty bar was in the middle of a economically-depressed, run-down downtown district in a town that wasn’t a Metropolis even in its heyday.  But going there at night often felt like you’d wandered onto the set of one of those 1980s post-apocalyptic films where all the people on Earth have eerily disappeared.

The inside of The Down Home was kinda odd, in that it was a long, narrowish space, but instead of the stage being at one far end or the other, it was against one of the long walls. This meant that if you were in the back of the room, you might actually be closer to the stage than the folks seated on the sides, who watched the performer in profile.

But the folks who ran the place were music lovers.  They weren’t trying to sell a lot of beer or a lot of food to make ends meet.

I know it’s hard to remember life before restaurants banned smoking, but in the heart of tobacco country, any show you went to see was usually viewed through a haze of cigarettes.  You didn’t even complain about it.  It just was.

But at The Down Home, they had a note on the table.

The simple fold asked you to respect the performers---you could smoke between sets but not during the show.

Respect the performers.

I had gone to see Scott Miller play at The Down Home.  He'd been part of the much-loved, from-just-down-the-road-in-Knoxville-Tennessee band, The V-Roys.  And this would be his first show since the breakup of that band.

Folks were filing into the venue, grabbing seats, finishing meals, waiting for the headliner.  There was a buzz of conversation, not loud but a consistent din, that rumbled below the sound of the opening act.

Kenny Roby was playing solo.  He was part of the band 6 String Drag, which had a following, but, based on the crowd's current reaction, that following wasn't necessarily in this room.  Some folks were listening, but some folks clearly thought of him as a placeholder, keeping the room alive until the man they came to see took the stage.

Roby, for his part, didn't appear phased by this.  I'm sure this scene has played over and over again in his career, whether being the opening act, or the headliner.  Sometimes the crowd just isn't paying attention.

Then something unfortunate happened.  Followed by something kinda amazing.

Roby had tried to adjust his mic stand a couple of times during his set.  It just wasn't quite staying where he wanted it to be.  He'd fiddle with it quickly between songs, get it in the right place, only to have the mic shift slightly during the next song.

Then, right in the middle of one of his songs, about 3/4ths of the way through his show, the mic stand collapsed.  So instead of the microphone being 5 or 6 feet high near his mouth, it had dropped to Roby's waist.

He kept strumming.  A look of frustration came and went from his face.  Then a quick calculation of his next move.  He decided.

He simply stepped to the front of the stage, past the microphone stand, and started singing, louder.

No amplification.

He just sang like he was a street performer.

And here's the amazing thing.

The room fell silent.

Roby's got a fine voice, but the crowd reaction wasn't "Oh my, this voice has stopped me in my tracks."  No, the crowd just realized, "Hey, if I talk, other people won't be able to hear this guy sing."

The crowd stayed quiet all through the last few songs, as Roby finished up his set and thanked the crowd for its patience.

I've seen a lot of shows, a lot of bands, a lot of opening acts in my day.  I've never seen an audience, en mass, decide it would be polite to shut the fuck up out of respect to the performer.

Like I said, I haven't been to The Down Home in over a decade.  Maybe it's completely different now.  Maybe it's completely the same.

I looked at their calendar of upcoming acts.  Scott Miller plays there in a few weeks.

If you go, listen.  You might hear something you didn't know you could hear at a show.  Respect.


Hear the song on Youtube.

Vampire Weekend "Diane Young"

I was going to write a post about how its almost become not worth it to post new music on the blog, because by the time you do, 10,000 folks have already done the same.

This Vampire Weekend track was digitally released on Monday afternoon, and my initial thought was that I'd write about it for my Tuesday entry.

But with barely more than 12 hours on the web, it's already all over the place, on music sites and blogs and your Facebook feed and such.  It's not even worth trying to be first, as it gets lost in a sea of sharing.

As I was dismissing the idea of just posting this because it's new and exciting, deciding instead to hold it back until I had a specific idea to write about . . . a specific idea to write about made itself evident.

Please, "Let Me Ruin This Song For You."

While bumping into this tune on radio and your social media feeds and television and your friend's playlists, try not to think of "Footloose."

That is all . . .


Hear Vampire Weekend on Youtube.


Hear "Footloose" on Youtube.

Ben Folds & Rufus Wainwright "Careless Whisper"

Scenes from Saturday's mvyradio Thank You Party:

Saturday night at the Ag Hall was just about the perfect, uniquely-Vineyard kind of get together, with lots of friends and familiar faces coming together to enjoy some music, as the station celebrated, well, just being alive.

We reached our goal of raising $600,000 to keep the station afloat and online, and we were very thankful for the community effort and relished the opportunity to thank folks in person.

Jess had the great idea of setting up a "Tech Table" where we could show listeners different ways they can listen and connect to the station, if they've never listened online.

I spent a good chunk of the night there, showing folks how to load the App on their phones, and demonstrating some of the simple devices you can buy to make car-listening easier.

One of the very-Vineyard things about this event, was that many people brought their kids---an event at the Ag Hall automatically implies a warm, friendly environment that you'd feel perfectly comfortable letting your children run free in.

Somewhere later in the evening, when the music, no doubt, had lost interest for a few of the kids, I found myself surrounded at the Tech Table by a group of youngsters who didn't need the technology explained to them---they wanted to use it.

"Can we listen to hip-hop on this?"  "Can you turn this on?"  "Do you have 'Gangham Style"'?"

So that's what Laurel came upon when she snapped this picture.  Me, trying to locate Katy Perry's "Firework" on my phone, so I could play it for the kids:

While it was most certainly a family event, there were also folks who did brown-bag it.  And when one fairly tipsy gentleman careened through the front door later in the evening, I was happy that we'd hired a cop.

It's always good practice, if you've going to have a large crowd, to have a police officer on-hand.  And the strapping young Tisbury police officer (who was covering for a West Tisbury officer/friend), was dispatched immediately to ensure that the large man bumping his way through the crowd and the walls was going to sit and listen to the music, peacefully.  (He did)

A few minutes later, I took a Tech Table break and headed into the bathroom.  Right behind came the officer, shutting himself in the stall next to me.

I heard the faint sound of music.

Now, I'd been in the bathroom earlier that night and hadn't noticed any music or P.A.  It wasn't Muzak.  It was definitely coming from in the room.

I recognized the melody too.

"Careless Whisper."  The Wham! song.

The officer didn't look like a Wham! fan.  But who am I to judge?

Listening more closely, I realized it wasn't the Wham! version.  I could hear Rufus Wainwright.

Oh yeah, Rufus Wainwright did "Careless Whisper" with Ben Folds.

Well now I had a very new perspective on this officer.  He was doing his detail, and rocking out to a Wham! cover on his headphones.  But it was this hip version that I remembered can only be found on the Ben Folds boxed set---so only a real music junkie would know about it or have it on their . . .

Wait a minute.

I took my own iPhone out of my pocket.

And the music got louder.

Yeah, the music wasn't muffled because it was coming from the officer's headphones in the stall next door.  It was muffled because I had "pocket-dialed" my own iTunes library and was inadvertently playing songs from my pants.

I'm sure the officer has great taste in music.  But I think we can all rest easier knowing the local police force is probably not the one rocking out to Wham!


Hear the song on Youtube.

Shane MacGowan & The Popes "Donegal Express"

Here's another Weekend Post:

Here's a NSFW song . . . good thing it comes to you on a weekend, when you are hopefully not working.

Happy St. Patrick's Day.  Here's a foul-mouthed and hilarious drinkin' and ruttin' song by the one and only Shane MacGowan, which has the added benefit of allowing me to make another round-a-bout reference to The Pope.


Hear the song on Youtube, where you can also find the lyrics!!!

Weekend posts are a chance to revisit songs that have happy memories, not of anything in particular, other than just hearing the tunes.

Many of these songs were tracks that I played during my 90s stint as an Alternative/Modern Rock radio show.  They're tunes that I hardly hear these days, but are wonderful to revisit.

Click on the "Weekend Posts" label below, to see other posts like this.

Smoking Popes "Rubella"

Here's another Weekend Post:

What with all this talk about Popes and White Smoke and such, it seemed like the right time for a weekend post featuring The Smoking Popes.


Hear the song on Youtube.

Weekend posts are a chance to revisit songs that have happy memories, not of anything in particular, other than just hearing the tunes.

Many of these songs were tracks that I played during my 90s stint as an Alternative/Modern Rock radio show.  They're tunes that I hardly hear these days, but are wonderful to revisit.

Click on the "Weekend Posts" label below, to see other posts like this.
 

Glee "One Of Us"

I've written about this song before, but it popped into my head a bunch of times yesterday as the White Smoke from Vatican had cleared and news stories about the new Pope circulated.

One of the tidbits that seemed to provoke a bit of hand-scratching/bemusement of the media, was that archbishop Jorge Bergoglio was known in Buenos Aires to fore-go a driver or special car, but rather take the bus from his downtown apartment (foregoing the mansion), to his office.

And when he was elected Pope, the new Pope Francis declined to take a limousine back to the place he was staying, opting instead to ride the transport bus he'd arrived in, along with the other Cardinals.

Will this continue?  Could you get on a bus in Rome with plans to climb the Spanish Steps, only to find yourself seated next to the Pope?  Since every news report of the last 48 hours has included the words "humility" and "modesty" can we expect to see the Catholic Church's hierarchy reject the trappings of a Monarch-like existence?


There are a lot of reasons I stopped going to church and stopped participating in organized religion.  I did so long before the clergy abuse scandals came to light, and long before I traveled to Rome.  But that trip in 2003 did as much as anything to steel my feelings that the Catholic Church was not the place for me.

We spent a day in Vatican City, touring the Sistine Chapel, and the many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many halls filled with priceless artwork, statues, sculptures, pottery and gold-covered everything.  I remember lying in bed that night, trying to close my eyes and fall asleep, my brain on overload processing and organizing the completely overwhelming rush of images flickering through my memory.

There was so much money, so much wealth, so much accumulation, that it was hard to square that with the vows of poverty, the life of service, the administering to the poor, that are supposed to be the crux of the church's mission.

If you had a choice between a Pope mobile or a bus, which would you take?  Or a helicopter flown by the Italian Air Force, or the rail-train with local stops, which would you take?   Or having a butler prepare your clothing, or going to the laundromat to wash your vestments, which would you take?

Speaking realistically, even if Pope Francis wants to buy a bus pass, security concerns are unlikely to make that feasible.  He's going to have to ride in the armor-plated vehicle.  And doesn't that eventually corrupt and separate you?

So I'm not as optimistic as the folks who hear "The Pope Takes A Bus" stories and believe it's a new day for the Catholic Church.

Nor am I as cynical as the folks who, hours after Francis was elected Pope, started posting about how his positions on Marriage Equality and other social issues are no change whatsoever from the Church's previous, conservative positions.  Being surprised the Cardinals elected a Pope who holds most of the same positions as his predecessor, is like being surprised the Patriots drafted a football player, instead of, you know, an Olympic Swimmer.

As I toss and turn the "what does this all mean" in my head, and think about the future of the Catholic Church, I eventually circle back to where I have been for sometime.

I stopped practicing organized religion because I don't need anything but my own awareness, to know that I need to recognize both the humanity, and the Godliness, of that person riding next to me on the bus, be he The Pope, or just a "slob like one of us."

The rest of religion, to me, is just a lot of white smoke.


Hear the song on Youtube.

Scatman Crothers "Yuck Mouth"

TV will rot your brain.

Not brushing will rot your teeth.

These are two things I heard quite a bit, growing up.

Now, I'm the parent, and I try to keep tabs on my kids' television viewing.

And every night, I am herding them toward the bathroom so they will brush their teeth.

Last night, to inspire them, I sang the "Yuck Mouth" song.

According to Wikipedia, this ABC-TV PSA ran from the 1970s, until the early 90s which means, (holy schnikes!) the last time it was on TV was over 20 years ago.  And truthfully, my Saturday morning cartoon watching days were a solid decade before that.

So when was the last time I heard the "Yuck Mouth" song?

And yet, I remembered it last night, word for word, and performed it with vigor, much to the bemusement of my children.

They say TV will rot your brain, but man, it seems my brain has retained some insane and random details, like the lyrics to "Yuck Mouth."


Hear the song on Youtube.

Brandi Carlile "Keep Your Heart Young"

When I hear Brandi Carlile mention, at the beginning of this song, her plans to build a rocket, I laugh and think of this childhood memory . . .

I was visiting my Aunt Janet.  Or, in retrospect, I'm guessing Mom and Dad had plans, and Aunt Janet was drafted to babysit me.

But in the ego-centric mind of a 5 year old, I was visiting Aunt Janet.

She'd taken me to a playground, and at this moment we were sitting, stock still, watching a scene unfold across the way.

A group of teenage boys had come running into the sandy playground area, and they were all huddled around something . . . They were excited, nervous and looking around, and they were making a plan.

Auntie and I watched them discuss, negotiate, and then decide.

They buried a car's license plate right near the slide.  "We'll come back and get it later," one of them said to the group, as they ran off as quickly as they came.

Auntie was a teenager herself.  And I was 5.  We were both smart enough to realized that the license plate was stolen.  Probably just moments before.  Probably right off a car.

And we both knew what we had to do.

We dug that license plate up and ran home as fast as we could!

I don't know why stealing it from the stealers seemed like the right thing to do, but we did it.  And now I had my very own license plate.

When Mom and Dad came to pick me up, we told them of our adventure, and I unveiled my new plan:

I would build a boat!

I already had a license plate.  Building the boat, forward from that point couldn't be that hard.

Through the long car ride home I imagined my boat.  How I would craft it in our side yard.  How Dad would have to get some rope so we could tow it down to the river.  How I could make it Ark-sized, and maximize the height factor, since I was only a small boy.

There were a lot of details to consider.  I slept on it.

The next morning was a bright sunny day, and I had awakened with an epiphany:

Why build a boat, when you could have a helicopter?

Yes, I would build a helicopter, and fly around the neighborhood.  Those big kids with their go-carts and skateboards would look up and see me soaring over their heads.  I would be the envy of Jefferson Street.

"Mom, I'm going out to build a helicopter."

Mom was pretty relaxed about the whole thing.  I thought she'd be more concerned about a 5 year old piloting an aircraft, but she just said, "Okay."

Honestly, parents in the 1970s didn't even flinch at the idea of a 5 year old grabbing a hammer and a box of nails and some scrap wood.  Today, I feel like I'll go to jail for child abuse if I don't cut my kids' grapes in half.

I worked away for a while, but started to become frustrated with the complicated engineering of it all.

I'd nailed two long, large boards into a cross to make the propellers.  And I'd nailed a 6 inch piece of wood with a single nail, to the side of another board, so I could pull it back and forth like a lever.

But how was this thing going to be powered?  How was I going to measure my speed or know how high I was flying?

I went inside for a glass of milk and talked to my Mom about these problems.

Mom was resourceful and creative, so it was always good to take these kinds of questions to her.

She went into the cupboard and found some Tupperware/butter-tub tops.  And she showed me how I could put a nail through the center of the plastic top and into a board and it would work like a steering wheel.  You could even draw on it with a marker, and it would work like a gauge.

She gathered up her creative solutions and handed the pieces back to me, sending me into the yard to complete my project.

I remember sitting in the driveway, watching her watch me from the porch with a smile on her face.  And as she did, I distinctly remember thinking:

"This woman is an idiot.  You can't make a real helicopter out of butter-tubs.  I need electronics!"

But, realizing that we probably didn't have a spare helicopter's electronics panel in our garage, I should just hammer these Tupperware parts into a piece of wood, and humor the sweet, naive woman.


Hear the song on Youtube.

Ryan Adams "Nuclear"

Welcome to another segment of "Let Me Ruin This Song For You."

(If you missed the first entry, you should probably read this)

Every time I hear the very beginning of this Ryan Adams song, I half-wish that a Looney Tunes episode was about to start . . .


Hear Ryan Adams on Youtube.


Hear the intro on Youtube.

Wilson Pickett "Hey Jude"

We tend to define famous folks by their most famous achievements (or escapades).  But in doing so, the Legend can eclipse important, vital parts of the story.

If I say "Duane Allman," you say "Layla," "Live At Fillmore East" and "motorcycle accident."

The two sentence story is about his ground-breaking and influential work in his two years with the Allman Brothers, his tenure with Derek And The Dominos and his untimely death.

But the two sentence story misses so much great work.

Thankfully, there is a new, comprehensive boxed set, coming out via Concord Records, which tells the story much better, and much more thoroughly than two sentences ever could.

While a 7 disc boxed set undoubtedly has tracks that are more curios that anything else, "Skydog" also has some amazing, mind-blowing tracks that should come out of the museum. 

I can't tell you the last time I heard the Wilson Pickett version of "Hey Jude" and I don't know if I knew that Duane Allman was the sessions guitarist on it.  But hell, let's bring this one back.

Ditto to his work with Aretha Franklin, Boz Scaggs and John Hammond.

It's a much better story when you tell the whole thing.


mvyradio is giving away copies of a "Skydog" sampler today, and one lucky winner will get an upgrade, to the full "Skydog" set.

Below, hear the Wilson Pickett version of "Hey Jude," see a trailer for the boxed set that flashes through all the track names, and see a totally random video.  When Dave Einstein from Concord Records asked if we wanted to do this give-away, he meant to send a link to the trailer, but accidentally sent this link on how to open a wine bottle with a shoe.  Random, but helpful!


Hear the song on Youtube.


See the trailer for the "Skydog" set on Youtube.


Learn how to open a bottle of wine with a shoe, on Youtube.