Johnette Napolitano was born this day in 1957, but it wasn’t until 1986 I found out about her, through her band Concrete Blonde. Since then, she’s left an indelible mark on my musical soul.
Concrete Blonde, circa ’86. Nothing like these guys, truly original!
I was lucky enough to see Concrete Blonde live on 3 different occasions, and Johnette was simply amazing. There is an honesty, a vulnerability that comes from her songwriting that is just mesmerizing. (NOT to slight the rest of the band, they are AWESOME!)
A couple interesting notes regarding Johnette and her influence on me…
First, she is the first (and only, until recently) musician that made me cry with a song. Yeah, I always thought people that said “that song made me cry” were full of crap, but I’ll be damned, Johnette did it to me with “Little Sister” from their debut album.
Second, Johnette is the ONLY artist, EVER, that compelled me to write a ‘fan’ letter. This was before email, and Facebook and all that nonsense… I was going through a real tough time; my wife was pregnant with our daughter, my band had broken up, I was actively suing a production company that had ripped me off, (not paying me for “services rendered” at a bunch of gigs I played for their acts) and I was pretty sure at that point that I was DONE with music. So I wrote a letter to Johnette telling her how much she inspired my song writing, and that maybe that inspiration would bring me back to music someday. And while I can’t say she’s ‘responsible’ exactly, I’m still here, making music, almost 30 years after that letter!
It’s one of the crazy things in life, that Johnette isn’t a ‘household name’. She certainly should be. She’s got more talent in a single finger than most pop stars express their entire careers. She’s an artist’s artist, a one-of-a-kind talent, and an absolute gem.
I’m so incredibly grateful for having Johnette being a huge part of my life’s soundtrack, I can’t imagine life without her voice in it!
Happy Birthday Johnette! I wish you nothing but happiness and continued artistic expression. My life is better because of you, even though we’ve never met. Thank you for everything!!
Sunday night we were back in San Francisco for what turned out to be one of the funniest nights we’ve had in ages.
It also marked the long awaited return to the Warfield Theater, which I’ve been anxious for as it’s been decades since my last show there. Considering the last time I was in the place, the year started with “19..”, it hasn’t changed much. Updated bars, a better lighting and sound system…that’s pretty much it.
The grandeur remains!
Julian McCullough opened the show, and he did a fantastic set, really funny. We’d never heard of him before the show, but we’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for him in the future. His bits on Philly alone were worth making the trip for!
Julian, one funny guy!
Next up was Graham Kay, another comedian unknown to us. Another very funny man! He was real low key, but he kept us laughing all through his set.
Canadians can be funny? Who knew?
And finally the headliner Nate Bargatze, our man from Tennessee, took the stage. Man, what a set! If you’ve never seen his show, you are missing out. This comedian is a national treasure! One of the things I love about his comedy is that he keeps it ‘clean’, he doesn’t swear and he doesn’t rely on crass, vulgar stuff for laughs, like roughly 89% of comedians out there these days. And he doesn’t need to! He was just spectacular, I walked out of the place with my face hurting from laughing and smiling so much! I really can’t say enough good things about this guy, it was top notch comedy and a great experience.
Nate Bargatze, too funny to properly describe!
Thanks for a great night gentlemen! Last week was ROUGH, and a night of laughter was just what the doctor ordered!
I found this in a comments section beneath some news story – I don’t recall which one as it’s nearly impossible to keep track of the bad news nowadays and frankly isn’t really relevant one way or another to what this lady had to say…and I took the liberty of editing for brevity.
“I keep saying the same thing, if you do not want to live in this country, leave, I am so tired of being told I have to adjust to their ways, I will not. I grew up in a society that had dress codes, codes for grooming, codes to live up to to get a decent job, codes to conduct myself like a lady and expect others to treat me like a lady, I will not stop using the codes I grew up with, life was better then, life had meaning then, we as a society treated each other better then, so I will refuse to accept the life that people are pushing on me now. I will not stop expectinga man to open a door, I will not stop teaching my grandchildren and great grandchildren to say yes ma’am and no sir, and if this society expects me to change then they have another thing to think about. This is not the way we are supposed to live withchildren killing old people, this country is better than that, and we as a people need to demand that this does not go away…<snip> I grew up in the country not in the city, so that might have been the difference, but I don’t believe that, it is up to theparent to teach the child no matter where they live. If you teach a child to disrespect by disrespecting that is what they will learn no matter if you live in the country or thecity.”
She’s not wrong. Although I’m not a grand or great-grand parent and thus quite likely a couple generations behind this commenter, I too remember the “good old days” of manners, decorum and general decency.
I miss those days.
Sure, we’ve got all kinds of whiz-bang, newfangled ideas and services these days, but I would happily lose “streaming”, endless options of home delivery, social media and cell phones (just for a start!) to go back to when the vast majority of people were decent and the minority with their peculiar proclivities weren’t trying to shove their lifestyle down the throats of everyone else.
And while I am all for, and encourage “free expression” in one’s appearance, I think people need to understand, and ACCEPT that there are consequences for letting their freak flag fly.
If you are one of those folks inclined to get, say a face tattoo, more power to you. But if you come into my place of business looking for a job with a face tattoo? You won’t make it past the reception desk. We have a very particular clientele, that we deal with face-to-face, day in and day out, and they pay a boatload of money for the privilege. These people don’t care for face tattoos, (or long, unkempt beards, torn clothes, huge fake fingernails, ear gauges, etc.) and if we want to keep their business, we hire people our clients are comfortable with and confident in. End of story.
Some people will hear that and exclaim “that’s not fair!”, but I’d submit that it would be equally unfair to put employees in place that make our clients uncomfortable, especially when they are paying for a service.
For my 5+ decades on Earth, the saying ‘life isn’t fair’ has been widely acknowledged and accepted as truth, but over the last few years the very idea of what is or isn’t fair has been turned upside down.
Look, I get it. I am about as ‘anti-authority’ as they come, and I firmly believe in one’s right to choose THEIR own path, whatever that looks like (short of harming others, of course) however, just like with anything in life, choices have consequences. Just because I support your freedom to dress/talk/behave in the manner of your choosing, it doesn’t mean I have to like it, much less support poor behavior. At best, you’ll receive tolerance. At worst, I may openly laugh at your ridiculousness. That’s the cost you pay for freedom of expression. Some people will think you express the absurd.
I was a punk rock kid back in the early 1980’s, long before Hot Topic stores in every mall, and just walking around looking like my friends and I did back then was enough to get us harassed by the cops, ridiculed and mocked by the adults, refused service and/or entry to establishments and beaten up by the jocks. But did we go crying about it, looking for sympathy? Did we demand acceptance and special treatment because we were under represented? Hell no, it was the fire that forged us into the adults we became. It taught us to pick our battles, it taught us to make the difficult choices that had to be made, it taught us how to stand up for ourselves and for each other. It taught us that not everything and every place is for everyone, and that’s just the way the cookie crumbles.
What I see today is one adult after another, throwing tantrums and making demands. That’s not the way it works in real life, and anyone over the age of two should already know that.
If the 1970’s already has claim to the “Me Decade”, I’d have to say to 2020’s are shaping up to be the “Only Me, Scew You Decade”.
You see it everywhere, every day. Rudeness, inconsiderate behavior, a complete lack of awareness of the others around you. I’ve seen so many people lately being rude to wait staff and check-out clerks, it’s unreal. It’s a contagion.
We can, and should, be better than that. Holding open a door for someone is a simple kindness, it has nothing to do with “the patriarchy”. A smile or a friendly hello can go a long way. That is just common courtesy. If you see someone struggling for the top shelf in the market and you have the reach, offer to lend a hand! After all, if you were on the receiving end of any of those things, wouldn’t it give you a little glimmer of hope that our humanity for one another is still there?
Negativity begets negativity, perhaps courtesy and kindness can be contagious too. We ‘commoners’ have the cards stacked against us as it is, I think it’s in our best interest to make things a little less hostile, a little less vulgar.
You can be an outsider, an underrepresented-whatever-who-cares-what-your-kink-is and I say do your thing, but you have no place to demand I or others don’t think you’re a weirdo. And throwing fits because people don’t celebrate your “specialness” is no way to get them on your side. And it certainly doesn’t give you a pass to be a prick.
Accept others as you would be accepted. If they don’t like you because of your lifestyle/creed/tribe/insert. infintylist.here, give them something TO like you for. Kill ’em with kindness, as the Mrs. likes to tell me. As the old saying goes, you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. Manners, good hygiene and courtesy will get you a lot further in life than a hissy fit will. Nothing will turn a person off more than badgering them with your unsolicited dogma. Like it or not, we’re all in this together, might as well make the best of it. Just something to think about.
This week I was called upon to report to the Superior Court in San Jose to “perform my civic duty”. What a clown show!
I got lucky in that my week happened to be the Labor Day holiday – and you KNOW city/county/state employees DON’T work on holidays, so the week on-call was shortened to 4 days. Usually, in my county at least, they make you call in twice a day for the entire week to see IF you have to report, and this time I did.
Wednesday, I reported in and it was hours of standing in line, waiting, moving to different locations, waiting some more, then an “overview” by the judge, then he addressed the ‘hardship’ cases trying to get excused. End of day one.
Day two, actual jury selection. Waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting. Lunch break. Waiting, waiting, waiting. Another break. Waiting, waiting, waiting. Finally about 4:15pm they had the jury installed and sworn in, and the rest of us were let go.
The entire thing left a bad taste in my mouth. But, it also encouraged me to keep staying “out of the system”… no way I want that place as part of my life!
I could go on and on about the dummies, the blowhards, the idiotic public defender, the scum and villains over running the place…
Not my pic, but a pretty good representation of the “people” coming to appear in court…
…the lack of manners, the lack of maturity, the lack of concern for how the citizen’s time and resources are being utilized. But, I’m trying to reduce negativity in my heart and soul, so I’ll just say again, what a clown show. A gross, monotonous clown show. Hope it’s a good long time before I have to do that again!
Have a great weekend everyone. Thanks for stopping by!
I realized yesterday that time has flown by since my last post and once again I’d dropped the ball.
Nothing all that noteworthy has happened in the last couple weeks, just life rushing at us at 100 mph.
We got back from our trip to Pismo, and I was feeling on top of the world. Rested, recharged and ready to get back to the real world, with many “to-do’s” to do, plans to make and goals to achieve.
It was all well and good ’til that Thursday night when a call came in from the fire alarm monitoring company- a water flow alarm went off just before 9pm…which means *something caused water to move in the fire sprinkler system. Never, and I mean NEVER a good call to get.
So basically, from Thursday August 25th, through last Thursday, September 1st things were a bit over the top tense. And I’ll leave it at that.
Cast iron + direct contact with the earth = trouble.
While this was going on, the Mrs. and our girl were both getting started for “back to school”, with their classrooms being occupied by the varmints as of last Monday, August 29th.
So, I’ve been a little preoccupied lately, and the blog took a back seat…
Despite the drag of life, I did manage to do a few fun things.
I finished another book – “A Great Reckoning” by Louise Penny. This was a random recommendation from Amazon actually. I’d never heard of the writer, who turns out is quite prolific, but the book was good. It was your typical ‘whodunnit’ detective novel, with a lot of unexpected twists and turns, and some very memorable characters. Not earth shattering or life changing in any way, though certainly a fun read nonetheless that didn’t take any real commitment to finish. She kept it compelling enough that I found myself WANTING to read it, to discover how it all went down. Perfect lite fare for a vacation/beach/lazy Sunday escape.
I also went on a treasure hunt and dug out a bunch of old cassettes containing a bunch of my earliest music we recorded back in the day. My old music partner moved back to the area some time ago, and we thought it would be fun to “digitize” these so we could listen to our oldies but goodies from days of yore. Hopefully more to come on this in the not too distant future.
Lost gems from the 1980’s and 90’s!
And last but not least, my daughter and I hit the Caravan Lounge in downtown San Jose last Saturday night.
The Caravan has been a dive bar since at least the mid 80’s, and I hadn’t step foot in the place since maybe ’92 at the latest but they didn’t have bands playing there back then. Some time later it became a somewhat legendary spot in the South Bay for punk bands and the more underground scene, which I’d kind of outgrown by then, so I never had gone there strictly for music until the last weekend.
Things didn’t pan out as planned unfortunately… the band we went (and I really WANTED) to see – the Wet Bandits, we didn’t see. The flyer for the show listed the Wet Bandits and nobody else, with a start time of 9pm. We got there at 9pm and found there was in fact an opening band, whose name I forget. Anyhow, the opening act didn’t START their set until 10:15, which was a drag. Then on top of that they were just boring, frankly. We figured they’d do a 30 minute set since they started so late, but at the 32 minute mark,the guitarist sat out and we were “treated” to a drum and bass duo jamming God knows what… At that point I called it a night. Don’t get me wrong, I love trios, and I can absolutely get down with some drum and bass jams, but these guys needed more time in the garage before they put themselves in front of a crowd. Bush League stuff, at best.
The bright side was getting to hang with my kid, just the two of us. It doesn’t happen all that often, so I really appreciate it when it does!
Yesterday was just a boring day of laundry and chores and super fun stuff like that. The Mrs. is a bit under the weather (back to school = cooties galore) so she’s lying low trying to recuperate before going back to classes this week. Me? No rest for the wicked…Working on the “holiday” per usual, massive deadline looming in a week. And I’m on-call for Jury Duty this week. Yay.
Oh, and did I mention we’re in the midst of a heat wave? It’s been in the high 90’s for the last 3 days. Supposed to be 103 today. Hotter tomorrow. Good times.
Born Declan Patrick MacManus on this day, back in 1954, but rose to prominence as “Elvis Costello” in the late 1970’s.
I can still vividly recall the first time I heard Elvis Costello and the Attractions. As a kid, we didn’t have “cable TV”, so MTV wasn’t part of my life, but there was a show on broadcast TV called “MV3”, that was what you might call a mashup of American Bandstand and MTV… Anyhow, I used to hear a lot of new music on that show as it primarily played what was known then as New Wave music – the Romantics, Bow Wow Wow, the Three O’clock, stuff like that… This would have been late ’82/early ’83.
Anyhow, it was on this show that I first heard “Pump it Up” by EC&tA and I was an instant fan. I have remained a fan for the last 40 years. It wasn’t until later I learned that song was already 5 years old, but I snatched up his ‘This Year’s Model’ album and it went into heavy rotation for a long while. And when I could find them, I picked up all his earliest records.
The song that made me a fan!
He and his band somehow managed to take Motown-like music and fuse it with the energy and brashness of punk rock and it was magic. That he looked like a goofy nerd while blasting out this awesome music made him even more endearing.
But unlike the vast majority of punk and new wave bands, he was clever, and his band could really play. The music was raw, but deliberate unlike a lot of the music at the time.
Right around the time I first discovered him, he hit paydirt with the hit single ‘Veronica’, which frankly at the time I didn’t really care for. It was such a departure from his earlier albums, it didn’t even seem like the same artist.
Keep in mind though, I was very young and VERY arrogant about music back then… I was far too immature to understand musical growth in an artist, it felt like a betrayal, or in the popular parlance of the time that he “sold out” for commercial success. What can I say, I was a dumb kid…
Anyhow, luckily for me I grew out of that short-sighted stupidity and learned to embrace musical change.
After years of missing out on his live show, we finally got to see him a few years back out at the Concord Pavillion. He put on a great show (especially considering he was about 60 years old at the time!) and it was frankly shocking how many great songs he pulled out. When an artist is as prolific as he is (something like 25 albums released to date!), it’s easy to forget just how many great songs he’s put out over numerous decades. It’s remarkable that his music has changed drastically over the years, but it all remains relevant decades later.
The Legend
Well done Sir! Best wishes to you on this day, and thank you for all the great tunes!
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!
The Boring Old Man 