Never on a Sunday?

Two Sundays of great music have left me as giddy as a schoolgirl. Last Sunday I hit the jackpot at the Saxon Pub in Austin, slipping into a Resentments show on a Sunday when Scrappy Jud Newcomb was in Austin and Malford Milligan was sitting in with the band. Scrappy played my favorite song, “Damaged Goods,” first song, and the show only got better as the band (Bruce Hughes, Jeff Plankenhorn and Jon Greene) drove us down a “misty avenue” of bluesy rock enchantment.

Yesterday in an Amish furniture store, not a record store, I saw a posting for Kelly Willis and Bruce Robison’s Sunday night show. Tonight, in Long's Park in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Kelly and Bruce took me back to my Mucky Duck days with songs like “Wrapped” and “Heaven's Just a Sin Away.” The best part of the show: The feeling that I had to buy new music after hearing new songs. (That’s a feeling that I don’t have too often anymore.) Their songs also brought back a few acoustic memories.

-Bruce once told my daughter, Ella, in Cactus Records, that she was the prettiest little girl in Houston.

-Ella thought Kelly was singing about some kind of cinnamon pastry in “Heaven’s Just a Sin Away.” ("Mom, what's a cinnaway?")

-When Kelly played her song about an old boyfriend tonight, I recalled she once sympathized with me during the early show at the Duck and played a song for my old boyfriend during her second show that same night when he was there and I had vacated the premises for the nuclear winter of a relationship gone sour.

Now I have Bruce's new CD, You and Me, that I'll be listening to for a long time, along with the acoustic memories of two consecutive Sunday nights of musical bliss.

What’s it going to take to get you off my mind?/

Summer, summer’s almost over/

Taking you right back to the world you left behind/

I’m still hanging on hoping you might show/

I don’t wanna stop and I can’t let go.

-Bruce Robison and Miles Zuniga, “Dreamin”

It's a Cinderella Story

Around the time the tales of the brothers Grimm came into my life, a song by Steve Marriott and Ronnie Lane began to enchant me.

Over Bridge of Sighs/To rest my eyes in shades of green/
Under Dreaming Spires/
To Itchycoo Park that’s where I’ve been

The only spires in my world were near the horses at Churchill Downs, and I didn’t get the reference to Oxford. Each day in ’68 I set foot in Mercy Kindergarten, and even first grade loomed far away in the distance. Before my mother drove me to school, she would hold me on her lap and scratch my back. We called those five minutes our “Itchycoo Park” in honor of the Small Faces song we often heard in the car.

Years ago when I met Ian McLagan (Mac) in Austin, I felt like a dream came true. And then several years later when he chose to record “Itchycoo Park” for Spiritual Boy, I was so pleased.

Two Sundays ago I made my neighbor's day when I took her to Raleigh to meet Mac. She’d been to his shows in England in the 60s. Julie was a teenager when I was sitting on Mother’s lap when Mac was first cast into stardom.

And for our night together in the Pour House, he told us the story of walking away from a band with a faulty van and sitting down in the talent office where he was selected to play the organ for Small Faces for thirty pounds a week.

If that’s not Cinderella story enough for you, here’s the new chapter. Those of us who are Mac’s Facebook friends know he wears the silver bracelet a fan gave him years ago. He’s looking for the lady who gave him the gift. My friend Julie told Mac she was the one. He told her she has to know how it’s inscribed. She said, “I know what it says. It says, ‘Will you marry me, Ian?’” Evidently, the shoe didn’t fit.

Mac shared more about his life and gave us an intimate accounting of the stories behind songs like “Glad and Sorry” and “Debris.” He rocked my world with “I Will Follow.” When he talked of missing Austin before singing “Been a Long Time,” I felt a pang to be back in the Texas capital myself. The recent show at the Pour House in the capital of North Carolina was the first time I saw Mac without all his Bumps backing him like I’m used to seeing at the Lucky Lounge in Austin. I did enjoy meeting the newest Bump bass player, Jon Notarthomas.

Now I’m ready to order Mac’s book, All the Rage. Until then, I count myself lucky to know such a charming, genuinely nice (and need I say talented) man.

Got nothing in common with this crowd/
I feel like a spaceman on solid ground/
I’ll have another drink and then I’ll blow/
I left my heart here long ago.

“Been a Long Time”
-Ian McLagan

Two Dollar Rapture

The rapture never came but the Two Dollar Pistols were reincarnated last night. The alt-country group, who disbanded in ’08, played to a packed crowd at the Farmer’s Market in Saxapahaw, North Carolina. At the edge of the baptismal waters of the Haw River, I heard them for the first time.

I thought I had gone to sleep and awakened in the mid-90’s in Houston, Texas, where a band by the name of the Hollisters provided countless hours of listening pleasure, playing songs from their album Land of Rhythm and Pleasure. You may already be familiar with the bass stylings of Denny “Cletus” Blakely from the Hollisters if you have the Webb Wilder CD It Came from Nashville in your collection.

Despite their name, last night the Pistols provided a subdued form of showmanship, discharging a steady stream of rockabilly tunes while John Howie and Scott McCall shared the spotlight with vocals and electric guitar, respectively.

Their original tunes catalog scenes from lost loves, a theme which carried over into a Chuck Berry cover of “Nadine.”

As I listened to John Howie's vocals, I kept thinking how pretty he'd sound in a duet with the likes of Kelly Willis. After doing a little research this morning, I learned he's already teamed up with Tift Merritt.



Here’s hoping there’s a future for the resurrected Two Dollar Pistols in our post-apocalyptic world.

I saw her from the corner when she turned and doubled back/
And started walkin’ toward a coffee colored Cadillac /
I was pushin’ through the crowd tryna get to where she’s at/
And I was campaign shouting like a southern diplomat
Chuck Berry, “Nadine”

On the Last Day

Spent a dreamy Heather morning in the North Carolina Botanical Garden, just in case it is judgment day. I strolled among the southern lady ferns, where

I found my lost acoustic dreams

I found a reminder that it could be worse

I found inspiration in the Paul Green cabin

I found somebody to love

Finally, I came to rest on a wooden bench and listened to a song about one who flies to heaven only to choose to come back to Earth for a loved one.

“Drifting I turned on upstream/
Bound for my forgiver/
In the giving of my eyes to see your face/
Sound did silence me/
Leaving no trace/
I beg to leave to hear your wonderous stories/
Beg to hear your wonderous stories."

Jon Anderson, “Wonderous Stories”

Yes, I'll Take Mine with Cilantro

The band Yes seems to be just as polarizing among music lovers as cilantro is among foodies.

Of all the things my daughter learned to like her freshman year of college, I am happiest that she reports deepening feelings toward guacamole. Upon my arrival in Austin, I like to whip up a big bowl of guac. And now that bowl will need to be bigger.

But how do I turn her on to Yes? Is Yes a band you either like or don’t like, or is it a band you might grow to love due to circumstantial associations? Probably the former.

I fell in love with the band in the seventies because having an older sister meant easy access to all things Close to the Edge. The appeal for me was the steel guitar, the voice, and the magical lyrics, in that order. (I’ve always been a lyrics girl.)

In the evenings I’d sit on my canopy bed in my second story room in Highview, hooked up to the turntable by headphones, and watch the sun set and the lights come on in downtown Louisville while listening to heady music like Pink Floyd and Yes.

Yes in the round in 1978 was my first concert. I was dating a football player, and he merely tolerated the band for my sake.

For reasons I can’t explain, years and decades went by that I didn’t listen to Yes anymore.

Yesterday, a friend posted a Yes video to his Facebook page for Rick Wakeman’s birthday. I started thinking about Yes again, and I had to find another video.

Watching a 2004 video of “Going for the One” from Lugano definitely got to me. The steel guitar intro still makes my heart race. As I heard the words again, I recalled that even my father liked the song because of the “thoroughbred racing chaser.”

In the 2004 video, Jon Anderson delivers the message so passionately, and Steve Howe is transported by the Fender steel. The appeal for me is still the steel guitar, the voice, and the magical lyrics.

And as I look at my novel manuscript to prepare it for an agent, I see the steel guitar, the voice, and the magical lyrics. Yes, I see it’s all still there.


Now the verses I’ve sang don’t add much weight/
To the story in my head so I’m thinking I should go write a punch line/
But they’re so hard to find in my cosmic mind so I think I’ll take a look outside the window/ When I think about you, I don’t feel low.
-Jon Anderson, “Going for the One”

Super Sunday at Shakori with Sarah Lee Guthrie and Tift Merritt

What a great day at Shakori Hills in Pittsboro, NC!

Sarah Lee Guthrie and Johnny Irion performed several times this weekend, and I caught up with them at 3:00 p.m. on the Meadow Stage where they played new material from their CD, Bright Examples.

My favorite song from that CD, “Butterflies,” reminds me of a day my daughter and I drove from Austin to San Antonio, when the butterflies had flown up from Mexico. "Butterflies in the road/I think we should go real slow" sounds like Victoria Williams in her Musings of a Creek Dipper days.

I noticed Zeke Hutchins was drumming for Sarah Lee and Johnny, and figured that was because Tift Merritt was playing at 5:00, but it turns out Zeke has toured with Johnnie and Sarah Lee, according to his bio on his wife's website.

Tift’s show featured Dave Wilson from Chatham County Line on guitar and a guest appearance by local Django Haskins for a cover of "Thirteen." I preferred her old reliables "Stray Paper" and "Good Hearted Man," along with the new song "Mixtape" I've played on my guitar all weekend.

So much rock and roll love in a plastic case/
Play it loud then see my face
Tift Merritt, "Mixtape"

Oops!

Oops. A word I expect from Britney Spears. A word that harks back to a song like nails on a chalkboard when it’s stuck in your head. A word I do not expect to come from the bullhorn of a major airline.

Earlier this week I received word from US Airways that they had gifted my account with 1,000 frequent flyer miles. Okay. Nice gesture.

This morning I awoke to find the following e-mail in my box with the subject line, you guessed it,

OOPS!

“Earlier this week, we inadvertently delivered an email message to many of our Dividend Miles members' email accounts. Unfortunately, one of those accounts was yours. Worse, this email incorrectly stated that we posted 1,000 Dividend Miles into your account. This was not accurate and the email message was sent in error. 

We apologize for any inconvenience this might have caused you and appreciate your understanding.”

My action was to immediately unsubscribe from their mail. Next it was to write this blog. Now it is to make a mental note not to book my next trip to Austin through Charlotte on US Airways.

Bad, US Air! Very, very bad! I am not sure who deserves to be terminated more, the employee that accidentally gifted the miles or the PR person who must have consulted a teenybopper when crafting the unprofessional Grinch Who Stole Christmas e.

Maybe the company plans to streamline operations lingo so that whenever we think of US Airways, we think of the word oops:

“Oops! We lost your bag.”
“Oops! Your flight has been canceled.”
“This is your captain speaking--oops!”


Oops!
…You think I’m in love
That I’m sent from above…
I’m not that innocent.

“Oops, I Did It Again”
--Max Martin