Today was a monumental day- my first time back on a surfboard since December of last year! (That’s right, us crazies out here on the west coast still surf at Christmas!)
2022 has been a rough year for me health-wise. Not only did my 5-day a week gym routine go out the window, but my surfing came to a screeching halt. Over the past couple months I’ve been making strides at the gym, but still haven’t felt I had the strength for surfing.
The conditions weren’t great, but then again I’m not a great surfer, despite my passion for it. But it felt incredible just to be back in the Pacific, paddling out under squadrons of pelicans. And in the end, I did catch a nice wave and managed to get upright for a short but sweet little ride.
Today marks the birthday of one of the most unique and entertaining musicians of my lifetime, Mr. August Darnell. He rose to prominence as Kid Creole, of Kid Creole and the Coconuts fame back in the early 80’s.
This Kid Creole
(NOT to be confused with the wannabe gangsta Kidd Creole that was just sent to prison!)
Not this Kidd…
My first introduction to Kid Creole and the Coconuts was the track “Lifeboat Party” which I saw the video for on a weird music show back in 1983 I believe. It was the height of the “New Wave” era, where all the rules were thrown out the window and new “mashup” sounds were all over (college) radio and the newly launched MTV. Kid Creole took it to another level, mixing R&B, calypso, reggae, big band and good old rock and roll into a sound never heard before (or since, for that matter!) On top of his insanely different music, his sense of style was off the charts and there was simply nobody like him. Needless to say, their “Doppelganger” album ended up in heavy rotation in my life, and stayed there for quite a long time.
I was lucky enough to catch their live show at Bimbo’s in San Francisco back around ’90/’91 and to this day it stands out as one of the best shows I’ve ever seen. Pure entertainment, with everybody on stage giving it 100%. The band was so tight and fluid, and the Kid… there are no words that can do him justice. He’s simply a born showman.
For reasons l could never fathom, Kid Creole and the Coconuts never really became a household name, despite a fair amount of radio play, and even a performance in the film “Against All Odds”, which was a HUGE movie at the time. Unfortunately, Phil Collins’ contributions to the soundtrack eclipsed Kid Creole and after that the band kinda drifted into obscurity, at least in the US. From what I understand, his European following is much stronger than the US side… in fact, one of my prized possessions is an “unavailable in the USA” Kid Creole and the Coconuts CD “Tropical Gangsters” that my brother-in-law found while traveling through the UK. Yeah, before the internet was “a thing”, European imports were hard to come by and heavily cherished!
Kid Creole and the Coconuts have been part of my life’s soundtrack for 40+ years now and if I had to pick my Top 10 Desert Island Discs, The Kid would DEFINITELY be there. After all, if you were stranded on a desert isle, who wouldn’t want to hang out with some Tropical Gangsters?!?
Happy Birthday Kid! Thanks for all the great times, the great tunes and the great memories!! You are A Wonderful Thing and one of a kind!
Here we had another show where I knew almost nothing about the artist we were going to see, ASHE. She came through town some time ago and the Mrs. wanted to go see her, but when we learned of the show, it was sold out.
Turns out she was doing doing a gig after her “Outside Lands Festival” performance the day before, and as luck would have it, she was playing at Bimbo’s, a club I’ve been dying to go back to for ages!
Bimbo’s 365 on Columbus Street in San Francisco is an iconic spot. To give you some context, the last time I was at the club, the Mrs. was pregnant with our now 28-year-old daughter! And the club was old back then! It’s a great old school, vintage night club. They used to even have “cigarette girls” walking the club selling smokes and gum and whatnot, like out if a film from the 1940’s. Even today they still have bathroom attendants to trun on the faucets, hand you towels and such. It’s a throwback, for sure, but kinda nice at the same time. Reminds you of a simpler era, and the vibe elicits a little more manners and social grace than you find at most night clubs.
The opening act was Adam Melchor, also unknown to me. He came out, just him a guitar and I was proud of myself for keeping an open mind, since I’ve been very pleasantly surprised at the last couple solo singer/songwriter performances I’ve seen. Well, Adam broke the spell of pleasant surprises. While he’s a fine guitarist and his voice is not bad at all, his music left me completely flat. No surprises, nothing out of the ordinary, nothing exciting. And what made matters worse was the talking between songs. Good grief! He played roughly 40 minutes and I’d say 15 of that was him blathering on.
Clearly he had some fans in the place, and they were singing along with him and all, but for me and the Mrs., it was boring and entirely forgettable. Again, not to say he was “bad”, it just wasn’t our cup of tea.
Ashe came out strong and her band was really holding their own. It was a unique lineup – drummer, a violin/keyboard player and a guitarist/bassist that switched back and forth, depending on the needs of the song.
Ashe!
As I mentioned earlier, I wasn’t really familiar with her material, but what I do know of it, is very “modern” production – think synthesizers and computers – so to hear the songs with real musicians and actual (not virtual) instruments gave it a whole new sound and feel for me. And yes, as a musician I will say (with utter bias) it was better live than recorded.
Ashe herself was a great performer. Her voice was strong, her energy level was high and she was clearly there to put on a show. My only gripe was there was a little too much “downtempo” music. Her fans were thrilled with the set list though, and singing along to nearly every song, so that is just a personal preference of mine. I like my live shows to keep me energized, not stifling a yawn and the night wears on!
All in all, I give her performance a thumbs up. Not the best thing I’ve ever seen, but far from the worst. And she’s mighty young, so if she sticks with it, I’m sure she’ll just keep getting better and better. I’d certainly go see her show again, I’d just hope for a more well suited opening act!
Sunday I got to hang out with my brother-in-law and his work/fishing buddy Bill, and do some fishing out of Half Moon Bay.
B-I-L has a great boat – the Miss Jessica – and he’s an awesome waterman, so getting out on the ocean with him is a real treat, despite the 3:30am “boarding call”.
We launched at the HMB marina at 5am and headed south toward Pescadero. We didn’t have much luck for the first couple hours, then I was finally able to land a salmon, only to have it 3″ too short, so back into the sea it went…
About half an hour later, I pulled in this beauty:
Literally THE “catch of the day”.
I am not by any means a “fisherman”. As a kid I used to fish lakes and rivers with a couple of cousins, but by my teen years I had too many other interests and fishing fell off my to do list for decades. But I gotta say, this open water ocean fishing is a whole different level!
We first ran down to south towards Pescadero, but when things were not happening we headed north up through Pacifica, nearly to the Golden Gate Bridge. But evidently the fish had other plans for their Sunday…
Yep…
Anyhow, as luck would have it, my keeper was the ONLY fish brought in that day. The irony that 3 fisherman (two with decades of experience!) could stay out on the water for 11 hours and the only fish brought in was by the noob with literally. 001% the experience of the other guys, was hilarious to me. Nonetheless, despite their arguments that I should take the whole Salmon, as it was my first ever caught, I insisted the we split it 3 ways – keeping with a long standing tradition of my BIL – so we all walked away with a nice couple Salmon steaks after a great day on the water.
These trips are a great learning experience for me, it’s almost information overload to be honest, but its awesome to have guys that know a LOT about a subject try to pass on as much information as they can, to make your experience all the better. And being on the water is always a joy for me, no matter the time of year or the conditions. To be honest, the fish is just a nice parting gift, the least important part of the day.
I think the old adage is true: the worst day of fishing beats the best day of working!
Thanks for a great day Captains Karel and Bill – it’s one I won’t soon forget!
FINALLY!! I have been a fan of RHCP since the first time I heard “True Men Don’t…” on KSJS (San Jose State College radio) back in the early-1980’s.
Fast forward 40 years, and I’m still a fan but for whatever reason I’ve never had the opportunity to catch their live show. (I did get to see their drummer Chad Smith at a drum clinic a number of years ago and he was amazing!)
When I got a notice for a pre-sale on tickets back in October of LAST YEAR, I jumped at it. You never know when their last go-round might be… So yeah, been sitting on these tickets for nearly 10 months and could barely contain my excitement!
In all honesty, I’m not a fan of stadium shows. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been to several dozen of them, but my expectations are pretty low nowadays for them. Nevertheless, I’ll take what I can get when it comes to the Chili Peppers!
The venue, Levi’s Stadium, is realitively new and this was my first event there. It’s generally home to the 49ers, and I loathe football so they were never a draw for me to check out the stadium even though it’s practically in our “backyard”. And truthfully, I have yet to hear anything good about the place so I was a little disappointed when I learned that is where the show was being held.
The opening act was Thundercat, whom I first learned of several years ago but wasn’t terribly familiar with. I did know he’s a phenomenal bassist, so I was excited to see him live. Sadly, the traffic situation surrounding the venue was so bad we missed his set completely. Strike One for the venue.
Next up was Beck. We’ve seen Beck twice before and he was actually better than expected. We never went to see him specifically, and I wouldn’t say we’re big fans of his, but he was on a couple other bills in the past and we were pleasantly surprised by how good his show was. This time however, he really knocked it out of the park! Really great energy, the band was tight and you could tell they were having a really great time with it. Another pleasant surprise!
Finally after months of anticipation the Chili Peppers hit the stage, opening with a kinda wild improv of guitar, bass and drums before launching into their set with “Can’t Stop”. The guys were on fire!
Anthony – who will be 60 this year! – looked fit as ever, full of energy and his singing voice has improved quite a lot over the years. Clearly the hard work has paid off.
Guitarist John Frusciante (who I was thrilled to learn was back with the band) was great, though live it’s impossible to play his parts like the recordings – they’d need another 2 or 3 guitarists backing him up to recreate his studio wizardry.
Chad Smith was solid as a rock and just straight up bombastic. A joy to watch.
Flea as you might expect, was the life of the party and put it all out there, every minute of the set. He’s in a class by himself as a bassist and his performance was top notch. Unfortunately the sound in the venue was less than stellar and a few times when he really went off the sound turned to mush, but overall he put on a great show.
Overall, I’d say the night was a mixed bag. On the venue itself, a solid thumbs down. I won’t go into my gripes, but it would take a MASSIVE draw (like Stevie Ray Vaughn or Prince coming back from the dead!) to get me back to that place. The band played great, and they played a couple of my favorites, but their set list was a bit of a disappointment if I’m being honest. And they only played for an hour… which for a band with a 40 year history and a deep catalog of material, seemed a bit of let down.
Nevertheless, it was fun to see them finally and I’m not sorry I went. I wish I’d had a chance to see them in a smaller venue back before megastardom put them in arenas, but I am grateful I got to see them at all, especially with this lineup, which in my opinion is the magic RHCP combination.
The MAGIC combination!
And when all is said and done, I got to spend a lovely summer night outside with my family, listening to some great music. Those are the kind of things that make life worth living!
Saturday night the Mrs. and I, along with our daughter and her BF hit the road up to San Francisco to catch some laughs at the Punch Line.
Chris Porter is a comic we just recently learned of, literally a couple weeks ago. It just so happened he was going to be “in town” right after we found out about him so we jumped at the chance to see him in person.
Boy, am I glad we did! His set was hilarious and every bit as good as his recorded specials.
His opener, Pat House, we’d never heard of either, but he was pretty good as well. He did a bit in Wendy’s (the fast food joint) thst had me in stitches!
All in all it was a great night out, and a LOT of laughs!
This past Monday afternoon, I underwent a pretty significant oral surgery. As of this morning, it still feels like I was hit in the face with a baseball bat… Good times.
This mouth rebuild was supposed to take place prior to the Plague, but as with everything it was pushed out by a couple years…
So consider this a Public Service Announcement…in light of how terribly sideways things seem to be going these days, if you have medical/dental/wellness needs, take care of them now. While you can. I was lazy and more than a little fearful facing what I needed to do, so I kept putting it off. Then the Plague hit and I couldn’t do what I needed to do, even if I wanted to.
Now, I’m two years older, healing more slowly than I would have two years ago and it cost me a lot more financially than it would’ve two years ago. Luckily, things didn’t get (much) worse before I was finally able to get treatment. Live and learn!
Take care of yourselves. I should be back shortly, with something a little more fun to read.
Another trip to one of our favorite venues, the Independent in San Francisco.
Tickets for this show were a birthday gift from my daughter, so that made this show just that much more special!
This was our 4th time seeing Des Rocs live and it certainly won’t be the last!
The first time we saw Des (Daniel Rocco, by birth), he was the opening act, and we were floored. He’s an incredibly talented vocalist AND guitarist, but what really seals the deal is his charisma. He’s one of the most engaging front men I’ve ever witnessed, and he’s been better every subsequent time we’ve seen him.
Needless to say, both our excitement and anticipation levels were very high for this show.
The opening act was First in Flight, whom we’d never heard. Talk about an unexpected surprise! The band was fired up from the start, and the whole set was a high energy affair. Their music is a little tough to describe…the best I can do is “modern/alternative rock, with a very slight nod to hair metal”. And I mean that in a good way…strip away all the hairspray, eye liner and spandex from “hair metal”, and you will often find talented musicians and catchy tunes. Overall, they put on a great show and are now on my watch list for future gigs. Well done gentlemen!!
First in Flight from SF
Next up was The Blue Stones, also new to us. This is yet another 2-piece guitar/vocals and drummer/vocals group, and they weren’t messing around! Their set was powerful, and both these guys obviously knew their way around their instruments.
Not to be confused with the Black Keys!
My only “gripe” with their set (if you can call it that) was that the guitar got a little lost in the mix. He had a really tasty, overdriven, fuzzed out tone, which I love, but it got a bit swamped in a live setting. I suspect – though have no proof yet – that their recorded material is stellar. Some really fine musicianship was on display and I look forward to digging deeper into their catalog.
A LOT of sound from just two guys!
When Des hit the stage it was electric, right outta the gate.
The band (drummer and bassist) are the same two guys that have been backing him since the first time we saw Des, and they were both on their game and obviously still having a lot of fun with it, which is infectious!
Des himself…what can I even say? If you’ve never seen him, you are missing out. A musician like this comes along so very rarely, it’s difficult to describe what he does to a crowd. Aside from his singing and guitar work (which are exceptional, without question) he just comes across as so genuine and personable, he just draws you in immediately and you get totally enveloped in what’s happening on stage.
Des Rocs,a legend in the making!
I’ve been going to rock shows for 40 years now, and have seen literally hundreds of bands. From the biggest bands the world has ever heard to the flash-in-the-pan, never heard of ’em groups and I can tell you with 100% conviction that Des Rocs is SPECIAL.
If you ever get the opportunity, go check him out, you will not be disappointed!
Thanks to all the musicians (and crew that makes all the magic on stage possible!) for a hell of a night. This was a fantastic night of music, with unexpected treats, and I couldn’t be happier about it!
The Boring Old Man 