They’re better now that their song is in that commercial…

Last Wednesday I received an email freebie, so I went down to the Bluebird to catch the Caesars and the Sights. The Sights were better than the last time I saw them, but still nothing incredible. They had a new drummer this time around, and the singer/guitarist seemed a bit ticked that they were a warm up act. Well, that’s the impression I got – I also decided that he reminds me of Chaka from Land of the Lost. They jammed a great deal this time, which led me to the conclusion that they’d like to be Humble Pie. Apparently, their set was a real revelatory experience for me.

I had seen the Caesars once before, warming up for fellow Swedes TSOOL a few years ago, and liked them pretty well. They put on a decent show this time as well, if nothing amazing. If you haven’t heard them before, they more or less play organ fueled garage rock with a pop sheen. You may have heard them before on television – their song Jerk It Out was recently featured in an iPod commercial, and one of their songs was used on a beverage commercial a few years ago. I can’t remember what beverage was being advertised, but it involved some wacky guys filling a laundry mat with soap suds. Wow, I never used to have that much fun going to the laundry mat. Apparently, if I had brought along some (insert name of beverage I can’t remember here) I would have had a great time and met lots of cute girls. All I ever came home with was clean clothes and fewer quarters than I left with…

Speaking of commercial endorsements – sitting between acts, I heard a young man comment to his friend "Dude, I can’t believe there aren’t more people here! I mean, c’mon, these guys have a song on an iPod commercial!" It sounded as if this guy felt that having a song in an advertisement gave the Caesars more appeal (and possibly credibility). Mind you, I’m a pretty old guy (I’ll be 89 in October), but I remember a time when such a move would have led most hipsters to cry "sellout!" Apparently, some kids today have a different take on things – as Bob Denver once sang, "the times they are a changin’, Skipper." It’s hard enough for someone to make a living in the music business, so I guess you really can’t begrudge a young artist for trying to make ends meet and get a little more exposure. So, the point I am trying to make is….uh….ummmm…..I think I need an iPod. That’s what I’m trying to say. I also want a cell phone (or maybe I could just borrow my wife’s), so that I can call my iPod and tell it how much I love it and appreciate it for playing so many nice songs for me. Thousands of songs by all of my faves like the Caesars, Sights, Humble Pie, Archies, Captain Beyond, Lenny & the Squigtones, 1910 Fruitgum Company, Amon Duul II, Electric Toilet, Lothar & the Hand People, Grand Funk Railroad, Dust, Thor, etc, etc, etc… My iPod will only play the best music ever.

The curse of D-town hit again Saturday night – after a lovely dinner with friends, I headed over to the Larimer Lounge to see Holly Golightly. I was informed by the doorman that she had missed her plane and had to cancel. The other bands were still playing, and admission was free, so I wandered in and caught locals Le Boom. Not too bad pop music, they’ll likely develop a large male following due to the foxy lead singer. I had seen them once before, warming up for a band called the Sights. Have I told you about them before? They do the boogie kind of like Humble Pie, but with a dude who looks like Chaka on guitar and vocals. I left after Le Boom, and made it an early night.

Home Improvement Department: The li’l woman bought us a new bed, and we moved the old one to the basement. The room that used to be known as “the room full of boxes” can now be called “the cute guest room.” Movin’ on up!

That’s When I Reach for…Another Cold Brew

It was, as a coworker of mine says, one hot roscoe this past weekend. Luckily, the evenings cooled down enough to be enjoyable. Which is a good thing, as the boogie was mighty hot…

On Friday, my buddy JT and I caught local pop cats the Breezy Porticos. They put on their usual fun show, which always puts me in a great mood. It was a fun night, and Breezy Andy (frontrunner for the title of "Nicest Guy in Denver") even gave us a “shout out” before their cover of Wire’s Outdoor Miner.

Oh, and somehow we ended up on this stupid website:

http://www.denverdrinks.com/venue.aspx?view=photo&venueId=62&shootDate=07-15-05&marker=10

We’re the second photo from the bottom – don’t we look thrilled to be having our picture taken? As if we were both thinking I sure hope this doesn’t end up on a really lame website.

After the show on Friday, we lucked into some comps for a real doozie of a concert on Saturday – Mission of Burma! I had already been planning on attending, so the freebie was a real treat. The performance was, much like the time I saw them three or so years ago in Seattle, pretty damn terrific (and pretty damn loud as well). Unlike the last time, however, it wasn’t all oldies as they’ve put out some new material since then (the pretty decent On Off On). They played quite a few tunes off of that one, and didn’t skip over any of the old classics – Academy Fight Song, Fame and Fortune, This Is Not a Photograph, That’s How I Escaped My Certain Fate, That's When I Reach For My Revolver… They closed with an absolutely electrifying cover of the Wipers classic Youth of America. Guitarist/vocalist Roger Miller (who originally left MOB in ’83 due to his tinnitus, splitting the band) is still wearing huge headphones to block out the noise (they look like the kind that the guys who wave in airplanes wear). After the set he took the headphones off, revealing that he also had a pair of earplugs in – he wasn’t taking any chances! The opening act was Matson Jones, the buzz band in Denvoid as of late. The two women who lead both play cello and sing, accompanied by stand up bass and drums. Their tunes reminded me at times of PJ Harvey, but their formula got pretty predictable after a while – start out slow, then speed up to loud finale with huge crashing drums. If they vary their approach a bit, they could really get interesting. That said, it was my first my time seeing them, and I enjoyed them pretty well.

More Cowbell!

I mentioned in my last post that I had been listening to the radio in my car. To those of you who have caught a ride with me somewhere in the last couple of years, you’re likely thinking What the fawk??!!?? This guy never listens to the radio, what’s up with that? Long story short, the crappy factory issue CD player in my car is jammed, so I’ve been kicking it old school and listening to the radio (as opposed to the kids who consider CD’s old fashioned, and are listening to their mp3’s or Ipods or whatever those thingamabobs they like to plug into their ears are called). For the most part radio in this town positively blows, so I’m just thankful that I don’t have a long commute. There are currently 6 compact discs stranded in my car, I’ll be ticked if I don’t get that Sloan disc back soon…

The CD player died right before we went on our vacation, on a drive back from Boulder. Strangely, as the player had been acting up, I threw a couple of old cassettes in the car before the drive up. Sure enough, when it was time to drive home the CD player wouldn’t cooperate – wow, maybe I’m a psychic, or have a telekinetic connection to crappy CD players with ridiculous trunk loaders. Without pondering those possibilities too long, I threw an old Naked Raygun tape in the player and drove home. The CD player has been dead ever since.

The next question would be What in the heck was ol’ Nelvis doing in Boulder on a weeknight? I made the drive up to my old college town to catch Jonathan Richman at the Fox Theater. Despite the fact the Visqueen were playing that night in Denver, I made the trek up to granolaville as I haven’t seen Jo-Jo since leaving Seattle and was feeling the call. I was glad I showed up early – music was scheduled to start at 8:30, and the venue was insistent that there would be an opening act. At 8:40 Jonathan and his percussionist Tommy Larkins strolled onstage and started playing to a nearly empty house. I’ve seen Jonathan many times, and he’s ranged from great to just okay. That said he’s always a lot of fun and worth the time and money invested. This evening, his performance was closer to the “just okay” end of things, but still a lot of fun and he treated the audience to two sets (probably due to his early start and the fact that it took a while for people to start showing up). Jonathan sang a few too many songs in Italian and Spanish this time in my opinion, but that coming from a guy who can’t speak either of those languages. Tommy actually played on a small sit down drum kit this time, the first time I’ve seen him do this. Even funnier, Jonathan now has a fascination with playing the cowbell. Yes, you read that right, the cowbell. Tommy would go off on a drum break, and Jonathan would put down his guitar and join in on cowbell. This didn’t just happen once, but repeatedly. Oh, did I mention that Jonathan likes to play the sleigh bells now as well? Well, he does - almost as much as he likes playing the cowbell.

In the WTF Department: I did the vault closedown at work today, and had the “classic rock” station on the radio. For the most part, this particular station has really gone downhill since I originally left Cowtown. That’s Clear Channel for you, folks. Anyway, they were playing CD sides, and I was unlucky enough to experience some live Bad Company that was recorded a few years ago (yes, I realize I should have changed the station, but I was really busy and didn’t realize until it was too late that they were playing a full CD of this crap). After suffering through several of the old Bad Company “classics,” I was assaulted by them doing a Beatles medley. I can’t relate to you how painful this was – at first it was easy to ignore, but as they massacred one Beatles tune after another it became downright painful. It’s awful hearing a band known for its mediocrity reaching so far beyond what it’s capable of. If any of you ever run into Bad Company vocalist Paul Rogers, please kick him in the nuts on my behalf.

Hot Hot Heat

On the drive home from work today, the deejay mentioned that last summer there were 20 days that broke 90 degrees. She then provided an update on this summer – today was day 19 of breaking 90, and there is no end in sight soon to our current heat wave. Yuck! I feel like I’m going to melt.

We just got back from another Pacific Northwest visit a few days ago, so this heat has been a shock after the cool temperatures there. (It reminds me of one of the main reasons I left D-town in the first place – yep, it was the awful summers.) They still haven’t fully come out of their winter yet. There were overcast and drizzly days during our visit, but some nice days as well. A good mix, overall. We had our typical good time. Got to see some old friends, spend some time on San Juan Island with the li’l woman’s family, and even did a night in Portland (a first for us). Thanks to all who put us up, came out to see us, or treated us to food and/or drinks.

Surprisingly enough, my favorite story from our visit occurred while we were at Seatac to catch our flight back. We had plenty of time to kill, and noticed that they now have an Ivar’s in the airport, so decided to grab some lunch (for those of you not familiar with it, Ivar’s is a Seattle institution with great fish and chips and clam chowder). I grabbed a table, and Em got in line to get food. I had noticed that they had some funny bobbleheads of founder Ivar Haglund in his sea captain’s outfit, so I asked her to get me one if they weren’t too outrageously expensive. When she came back with the food, I asked Em how much the bobbleheads cost, as she had not brought one back for me. I expected her to tell me that I didn’t give her enough cash for both that and lunch, so her answer surprised me. She was informed by the Ivar’s employee that airport security wouldn’t allow them to sell the bobbleheads because they could be used as weapons. Yep, these dorky little toys were deemed to be a security threat! The reasoning being that someone could be hit over the head with one. But couldn’t that apply to almost any small, hard object? Can you imagine trying to hijack a flight by threatening the crew with a bobblehead??!!?? Turn this plane around to Cuba – I’ve got a bobblehead, and I’m not afraid to use it! We live in paranoid times, indeed…

(Didja notice I used the name of a really hip, trendy band for the title of this post? Damn, I’m cool.)