Running on Empty

The Cowtown concert curse struck again last night. I was planning on going to see Echo and the Bunnymen at the Gothic in Engleweed, but the show was cancelled. My guess is that it was due to the big snowstorm we had – two of the major interstates into town were closed. Needless to say, we haven’t seen one flake yet in D-town. Bummer – I even skipped out on two shows last week to save my money for the Bunnymen. I watched an episode from the new MST3K box and had a few drinks last night in an attempt to forget my disappointment – it almost worked!

The latest inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame were announced yesterday. I don’t really have much use for this particular institution, although I’m not totally adverse to the idea of honoring performers who have made real contributions to rock music. (I almost said “as an art form,” but then I’d need to decide whether I consider rock and roll to be high or low art – I think its a bit of each, quite honestly.) That said, this was one of those rare years in which almost every inductee is an act I consider to be pretty cool – the Sex Pistols, Black Sabbath, Blondie (yea! when I heard they were on the ballot I didn’t think they stood a chance), and Miles Davis. Keeping them from batting 1000 with this year’s inductees is the inclusion of (shudder) Lynyrd Skynyrd – yuck. Now all they need to do is get their heads out of the asses and induct the Stooges (on the ballot for umpteen years) and retroactively kick out previous inductees Billy Joel, the Eagles, James Taylor, the Righteous Brothers, U2, and Bob Seger. Then, and only then, I may actually consider going to Cleveland to check out the museum.

Oh yeah, they also need to get rid of Crosby, Stills, and Nash. Those guys are dull as dirt, and David Crosby is a jerk – a stupid, creepy, pompous, burnout, walrus-beast jerk. They should get rid of Eric Clapton as well – Cream and the Yardbirds are in there, and all of his stuff after those bands has been pretty boring. But we’ll let Jackson Browne stay – he used to play guitar for Nico, and that should count for something…