This Buck's Passed

Just wanted to leave a note in memory of Buck Owens, who's passed on to that fishin' hole in the sky. His music always makes me happy.

Hellaboring

So, we hit the Bowery Ballroom last night for a little Swedish r 'n' r courtesy of the Hellacopters. We caught the last few tunes from one of the openers, The Datsuns (basically The Cult on steroids played by a buncha ugly skinny long hairs in tight jeans through Orange amps).

The 'copters were tight, played a good mix with lots of older stuff (which is really the only stuff I know by them), and seemed to be havin' a good time. That's one of the major bennies of seein' shows in NYC: the bands are always, unless they're from there, so psyched to be playin' there they usually give it their all (especially if they're from overseas). NYC holds a lot of mystique for them foreigners, particularly the rock 'n' rollers.

OK -- back to the show, though. I wanted to be so much more into it than I was. But I gotta admit, I just didn't give a shit. Both The Datsuns and The Hellacopters play such by-the-numbers, formulaic rock that I guess I was just bored. At first I figured I wasn't drunk enough, but that's bullshit, 'cause I can be perfectly sober and see The Live Ones play for the umpteenth time and be grinnin' ear to ear. (Hey, so what if I'm never 'perfectly sober' when I see them!) And that's just sad if I have to be wasted to dig a rock show -- I don't.

As for the crowd, it's funny. The full-on rawk shows draw such a different crowd from the more indie type stuff. The people are more fun and more drunk. I like that. There's always lots of black leather jackets, tattoos, dyed black hair, and B.O. The crowd's also way cheesier (well, the indie kids are pretty cheesy in their own rights, I guess). Like the dude in front of me towards the front of the crowd. He kept whipping his long brown locks around, and that shit can sting when the culprit's in full white man's overbite mode. (Ya know, I've got long hair, too, and I have the courtesy not to do that stupid shit.)

Goddam Rikki Rachman wannabee.



There's a surprising dearth of Rikki Rachman pics online...

Hmmm...I never thought of this before, but Rikki kinda looks like Marco from Degrassi. I always thought Rikki was a bit fey...

My Bro the Marathon Man

My brother Matt ran his second marathon today and beat his first marathon time by 20-some minutes! He did today's Sarasota marathon in 3 hours, 8 minutes. That means he qualifies for the Bean town marathon -- pretty damn prestigious!




Matt and Dad Post-race

Robbie Pollard: He's My Man

Steve bought me the new Robert Pollard solo album a few weeks ago, and from the first listen I've been hooked. He's been one of my fave songwriters for years now, and I've always especially dug his solo stuff (Not in My Airforce, Waved Out, Kid Marine). This new record is so damn good, especially because there's little of the extraneous stuff that's found on a lot of his solo recordings - the stuff that should have been left on the cutting room floor. This is solid almost all the way through (a couple tunes in the middle I can do without). You can stream the record here.

Can't wait to seem him April 20 at Irving Plaza!

Da Bomb

I've been listenin' to the latest record from The Bomb, featuring former Naked Raygun frontman Jeff Pezzati. I just wanted to leave a quick note about it. I LOVE Naked Raygun, and this newest album, Indecision, is definitely Naked Raygunny. I'm not enthralled by it, that's for sure, but there's something about it that makes me thing it'll grow on me. It's pretty hooky, and filled with the whoa-ooh-ooh, anthemic feel that dominated NR tunes.

Still, though the songs are stickin' with me, I'm pretty disappointed with the lyrics. They're waaaay repetitive, to the point of laziness. Pezzati always wrote cool lyrics, that's why I'm kinda bummed about the ones on this album. It seems as though he didn't put as much effort into them as he could have. And there's something about the presence of his voice in the tunes that makes the lacking lyrics a little grating, at least for a word-person like I tend to be. It's worth listenin' to though....