The 4-1-1 on 3-1-1 - by Nick Jezierny

There are times when I’m more excited about the opening act(s) than the headliner, and this was definitely one of those times. The bill: 311 with special guests Soul Asylum and Local H at the Revolution Concert House in Garden City, Idaho.

I own most of the Soul Asylum catalog and saw their short, blistering set on the Summerland Tour a few years back. It was fantastic and the version of “April Fool” was memorable. I was excited to see them again. I might be the only person to have three Local H CDs. I had seen them back in 1996 open for Stone Temple Pilots in Dayton, and that set was pretty cool.

I knew exactly two 311 songs, but the lure of the two opening bands and a $25 Groupon offer made me pull the trigger. I prepped by asking Alexa to shuffle songs from 311 for a few days. I was pleasantly surprised with what I heard and thought I would enjoy all three bands.

I had no idea what I was getting into until I arrived at the show.

The merch line was wrapped around most of the venue when I arrived. I had never seen so many people rushing to buy t-shirts and who knows what else. I later learned 311 did a special Idaho shirt that people apparently had to have. Most in the crowd already were donning 311 gear.

I described the vibe overall as a little sketchy and part MMA. A friend described the audience as “douchy” and I did check my back pocket on a few occasions to make sure I wasn’t pickpocketed. I’d have taken the over on three fights breaking out if given the choice.

Once 311 took the stage, the crowd sang along to every word for most of the songs. I found this odd that songs I never heard of were memorized by so many people carrying beers or White Claws in one hand and shots of Fireball in the other. The 311 party was on. (For the record, I had four $8 IPAs).

Meanwhile, I was dumbfounded at the boy-bandish moves I was seeing on stage. I just didn’t get what was so awesome that was making the crowd insane. People had been packed up against the stage before Local H took the stage at 7:30 p.m. I had no idea that 311 had such a strong following, and after witnessing an hour or so of the show, I still have no idea why.

The odd part came nine songs In when the band played its cover of The Cure’s “Lovesong.” The crowd went eerily silent for the first time – just strange. Did they not know the song or just not like it? I think it’s a decent version.

Then came the bass solo. After a minute or so of that rubbish, I decided to call it a night. I checked the setlist the next morning and they played 10 more songs, which is commendable. I’m just glad I didn’t have to witness it. - Nick Jezierny

Ricki C. Saw Bob Dylan & The Hawks Live 50 Years Ago Today. Seriously.

Again, furtherly apropos of the new Band documentary - Once Were Brothers - this story originally ran in 2015.

I saw Bob Dylan live exactly 50 years ago today, November 19th, 1965 (the first time, there have been subsequent viewings/concerts/shows).  That’s kind of mind-boggling to me, partly because in 1965 America was in the middle of Nuclear Apocalypse Fever, and I didn’t think MANKIND would exist in 50 years, let alone me.  (On quite the other hand, the science-fiction stories I read and loved by Ray Bradbury & Harlan Ellison promised me a future of personal jet-packs, bubble cities and human colonies on the moon & Mars in 50 years’ time.  Instead, in 2015 I find myself surrounded by children held in thrall by iPads, asshole hipsters and terrorists in Paris.  This was NOT The Future I was promised.)

But I digress…….

November was a pretty big month for me and rock & roll shows at the now sadly-demolished Veteran’s Memorial Auditorium.  I saw Dylan there on November 19th, 1965, The Doors there on November 2nd, 1968, and The Who (touring Tommy for the first time, and for those of you scoring at home, THE BEST rock & roll show I ever had the privilege to witness) on November 1st, 1969.  There are links about The Doors and The Who shows from my old blog – Growing Old With Rock & Roll – posted  below, but you might wanna check out the Dylan link before I amplify some points.    

Bob Dylan & the Hawks Live, November 19th, 1965 / Growing Old With Rock & Roll

Anyone who doesn’t own (or download or whatever kids do nowadays) the double-CD Bob Dylan Live 1966 (Dylan Bootleg Series vol. 4) should seek it out IMMEDIATELY if you count yourself as ANY kind of fan of rock & roll music.  The electric disc of the set is as riveting a set of music as I’ve ever heard.  This was not a polite back & forth push & shove between audience and performer, this was an all-out 47-minute musical/cultural WAR.  That show – taped in Manchester, England May 17th, 1966, (6 months after I saw virtually the same show) – is the one containing the (in)famous “Judas!” / “I don’t believe you. You’re a liar.  PLAY FUCKING LOUD!” exchange between an irate audience member and Dylan.  Just as I detailed in my blog, the folkie fans of Dylan apparently sat smug & satisfied throughout the acoustic opening half of the show and then revved up the venom for the electric set with The Hawks.  (Or The Crackers,  in Levon Helm’s terminology, later to become the rather neutered entity reverently, politely referred to by adoring hippies as The Band.  My, how the times changed between 1966 and 1968 when Music From Big Pink became a touchstone/talisman for many of the the same people who slow-clapped, booed and otherwise vilified Robbie, Rick, Richard, Garth & various drummers throughout 1965 & 1966.)

Anyway, I allotted myself 500 words for this blog, and I’m getting close, so let me just say this: listen to the audience throwing Dylan & the guys off their game between the end of “I Don’t Believe You” and the beginning of “Baby Let Me Follow You Down” on the aforementioned Bob Dylan Live in 1966.  And then listen to the way Dylan & The Hawks ROAR/BLAST/PUMMEL their way into “Baby Let Me Follow You Down” and tell me that’s not where punk-rock got invented.  (p.s. Listen to that exchange at brain-numbing volume on headphones or don’t bother listening at all.)  - Ricki C.     

(bonus Growing Old With Rock & Roll, November Veteran's Memorial links:)

The Doors Live @ Vet's Memorial / November 2nd, 1968

The Who Live @ Vet's Memorial / November 1st, 1969

Levon Helm documentary "Ain't In It For My Health" - commentary by Ricki C.

Apropos of that new Robbie Roberston-centric documentary about The Band that’s currently making the rounds…….

This story originally ran in 2015. Don’t show up for the movie.

January’s presentation for the Reelin’ & Rockin’ at the Gateway series   – hosted by Brian Phillips & Colin Gawel – will be the Levon Helm documentary “Ain’t In It For My Health.”  Showtime is Wednesday, Jan. 21 at 8 pm, preceded by a 7 pm happy hour at the Gateway Film Center, 1550 N. High Street.  Admission is $5, proceeds benefitting 102.5 For The Kids.

There are only a limited number of ways to grow old in rock & roll.

There are lots of ways to die young in rock & roll: drug overdoses, airplane crashes, jealous husbands/wives, drug overdoses, accidental drowning, suicide, drug overdoses.  Did I mention drug overdoses?  From Buddy Holly to Jimi Hendrix to Kurt Cobain to Jeff Buckley, the adage “Die young and leave a pretty corpse” pretty much sums up the rock & roll ideal.

But growing old in rock & roll, that’s a different story: maybe you’re lucky and you’re Bruce Springsteen and you hold onto not only your hair AND your money, but your artistic integrity, too.  Or maybe you’re lucky like Pete Townshend of The Who and you get to spend your later years selling your ass to the highest bidder on endless “farewell” tours and CSI franchise theme songs.  Or maybe you’re not so lucky and you wind up as two-fifths or three-fifths of some mid-level 70’s band – say, Blue Oyster Cult, Foreigner or Kansas – dragging your ass around America playing the Hollywood Casino, Wing Zings, county fairs or Picnic With The Pops.

The subject of this week’s film – Levon Helm – falls somewhere in the middle of that growing old in rock & roll equation.   

“Ain’t In It For My Health” was filmed between 2007 and 2010, but not widely released until 2013, owing to various legal hassles.  (Parenthetically, I choose to believe these legal hassles probably pertained to Band member – and main songwriter – Robbie Robertson refusing permission for filmmaker Jacob Hatley to use The Band’s music in the movie.  I suppose I could have googled the reasons – or whatever you kids do nowadays – but I didn’t, so look it up yourself.)

Levon Helm died in the interim – of a recurrence of the cancer he battles in the film – on April 19th, 2012.  He was a road musician to the end.  One of his last shows was just north of us – in Ann Arbor, Michigan, March 19th, 2012 – exactly one month before he died.

There are only a limited number of ways to grow old in rock & roll.

Richard Manuel – piano player and one of three lead singers in The Band, alongside Helm and Rick Danko – died in 1986, at age 42, hanging himself from a motel shower rod after a gig in Florida.  Bass player and vocalist extraordinaire Rick Danko died in 1999, at 56, of heart failure: heart failure brought on by, in my humble opinion, decades of drugs, alcohol and road food.  Levon Helm soldiered on, making two of his best records – Dirt Farmer and Electric Dirt – decades after Robbie Robertson unilaterally ended The Band’s career with 1976’s “The Last Waltz.”  (At the moment I am typing this sentence Robertson is probably sunning himself at his Southern California manse, rubbing shoulders with Martin Scorsese and living off his songwriting royalties, royalties from the tunes Manuel, Danko and Helm gave voice to.)    

I’ve seen a lot of rock & roll movies since “A Hard Day’s Night” in 1964.  Some have been great, most are thoroughly mediocre.  This film – chronicling the final two of Levon Helm’s 71 years on the planet, roughly 55 of those years as a road musician and rock & roller – is absolutely one of my top five of the last 10 years.

And the opening shot – of a tour bus idling in pre-dawn darkness outside a Holiday Inn, ready to take Levon Helm and his band down another road to another gig – is worth the price of admission all by itself.  – Ricki C. / January 15th, 2015

By the way, I saw The Band when they were still called the Hawks, backing Bob Dylan on his first electric tour, at Vet's Memorial, November 19th, 1965, when I was in the eighth grade.  For a full accounting of that show, check out Bob Dylan & The Hawks on my old blog, Growing Old With Rock & Roll.  As stated in that piece, I either saw Levon Helm or Bobby Gregg playing drums that night - different Dylanologist books tell me different stories.  Myself, I have no idea, I was an eighth-grader that night, for Chrissakes.  All I know is, all of The Hawks - except for Robbie Robertson - had hair that was much too short by the prevailing rock & roll standards of the day.

And, all I know is, those six guys were BLAZING.  

NBA Look-In - by Ben Galli

One More All Star Saturday Night

For perhaps the first time since Magic Johnson’s farewell All Star game, the actual game on Sunday was more entertaining than the festivities leading up to it.  The popular vote was throttled again in the Slam Dunk contest but the NBA’s seemingly last minute changes to the format of the actual game, a bold move, Cotton, made for an optimal situation.  This year each quarter was its own mini-game with each team competing for children’s charities. Note to NBA: It is not a good look to have hundreds of thousands of dollars for freakin’ little kids’ futures teeter in the  balance over a usually lackluster basketball game. I see a change in that format next year. But that 4th quarter? Man, oh man.  

We watched the greatest basketball players in the world actually competing hard against each other and playing defense (Defense!?) in a game that really seemed to matter.  It was riveting stuff and reminded you how incredible basketball can be. This improvement in the game can be attributed to pride and the Elam Ending where the clock is taken out at a certain point of the 4th quarter and replaced with a target score.  My only gripe is how GM Giannis let GM LeBron pick so many of the best players. Almost vice-versa of when they’re playing GM for their own teams, at least in LBJ’s case.

The Road to Zion

Zion Williamson is dominating the NBA more than college.  I don’t know if that’s because he has better talent supporting him, that it’s just that much better (and faster) a brand of basketball, or his college coach was just really bad at his job.  Dude is 19 years old, averaging 29 ppg his last 5 games, and if he scores at least 20 his next game, will surpass Carmelo Anthony for having the most 20 point games in a row for a teenager. Pelicans are 8-6 in those games with 5 of those losses coming against the top 8 teams record-wise in the NBA.  They’re 3.5 games out of the 8th playoff spot currently held by the Grizzlies and the supposed shoe-in for Rookie of the Year, Ja Morant. The road to Zion was well worth the wait.

Cleveland Crocks

Well that was short-lived.  Newly hired coach John Beilein made a beeline for the exits, resigning his position over the all star break after just 9 months on the job and tied for the 3rd worst record in the league (hello Knicks!). That’s half the average life expectancy of slugs!  He’ll be replaced by former head coach candidate J.B. Bickerstaff. Old heads might remember his dad Bernie, the Seattle SuperSonics coach back in the day (‘85-’90). Maybe that was Beilein’s play all along. Pulling strings to get that cushy “special assistant to the president” gig.  The Cavs have some young talent like the blossoming Kevin Porter Jr. but they’re going to have to find someone or something to fix a culture that ails without LeBron.  

The Lakers and Clippers and Bucks, Oh My!

These teams have emerged as the strongest contenders for the chip.  The Clippers still have the most depth but.. the least amount of opportunities to build a team with their two superstars.  The Lakers have the best duo in the league and have surrounded them with an annoyingly lovable rag tag bunch of Mad TV characters that genuinely look like they love each other and never give up.  However, the best record in the league belongs to a team on pace to win 70 games with the frontrunner for MVP having another ridiculously, incredibly, fantastical, very good season.  

Still the question for the Milwaukee Bucks remains: Can one superstar beat two? Enter Khris Middleton. Middleton might “just” be averaging 21 points per game but he’s got 50-40-90 shooting splits (50% from the field, 40% from three, and 90% from the foul line or better).  He’d be the 9th player in NBA history (shoutout Mark Price!) to hit those marks for a season and if he can play even better in the playoffs, Milwaukee might be too much for anyone to behold. But winning in June will depend on Giannis taking the steps that have eluded him and defeating two of the other best players in the world who’ve all won it before multiple times.  We can only wait and see and I for one, can’t wait.

follow on twitter @bengalli33

Another Thursday Night in Rock n Roll Paradise: Carissa Johnson - by JCE

I am big fan of the band Damone. If you don’t know about them, they are from Boston and they made a few great records between 2003 and 2008. They recently played a reunion show and the opening slot went to Boston locals Carissa Johnson & the Cure-All’s. I looked up Carissa Johnson on YouTube figuring that anyone who gets to open for Damone must have some redeeming qualities. Well, that was a very good decision on my part. Carissa and her band made killer records in 2015, 2016 & 2018 and released a couple of really good singles in 2019.

At the end of 2019 Carissa released an acoustic record called A Hundred Restless Thoughts. It is a thing of beauty. While I generally want to hear driving electric guitars in just about everything, Carissa managed to create a brilliant record in the acoustic realm. I have been listening to it non-stop. Early this year, she announced a small tour to support the record. I was hopeful that she might get close enough to Virginia for me to go to see her. There ended up only being something like ten dates, but I lucked out. She included Richmond, VA, two hours from my house. The show was on a Thursday night at a little spot called the Garden Grove Brewing Company & Urban Winery.

My beautiful wife and I figured we would make an evening of it, so we booked a hotel and made a dinner reservation. The venue doesn’t even sell advance tickets, and I wasn’t sure how many people would really know Carissa Johnson. I didn’t know what to expect. We got to the Garden Grove a little early and there were quite a few people there, but we were able to get a space really close to the stage. Carissa came out, set up her merch table, got herself a stool, set up a mic and grabbed her guitar. This was a one-woman tour for sure, although she had a lady with her that we later learned was her Mom.

By the time the set was ready to start there were a number of mostly uninterested people in back and at the bar, and three guys from a band that was slated to play later in the evening that were paying attention. Other than that it was pretty much just the two of us. I guess happy hour was ending, as the place got more empty as the night went on. My wife and I remained right up front. Carissa played two sets, twelve songs each. She was fantastic. Between sets I bought a vinyl 45 and after signing it, Carissa introduced us to her Mom and we hung out and talked about how we came to be there, how the tour was going and where she was headed next, and most fun of all, we talked a little about the Boston music scene. Carissa was super gracious and really nice to talk to. At one point she texted Noelle, vocalist and guitarist for Damone, and told her about how her two fans in Virginia had come to exist thanks to Damone.

If you have read this far, then you owe it to yourself to check out Carissa Johnson. Buy her records, go see her play if you ever get the opportunity. Look up her Facebook page and Paypal her a few bucks to help with the tour. It astounds me how someone who writes such good songs and plays & sings so well can remain so relatively unknown. I completely understand that there are thousands of amazing artists that no one has ever heard of, but when I see one as good as Carissa, I just want to find a way to share it with the world. Good luck Carissa Johnson. I hope you make it back to Virginia again, maybe with a full band next time. Keep on rockin’. - JCE

A beautifully packaged vinyl 45, and the set-list.

Carissa Johnson, acoustic in Richmond, VA.

Carissa Johnson, left, with JCE and his wife.

Good photo - from the internet, not mine.

TV Party Tonight! Salutes Chuck Klosterman and Fargo Rock City - by Colin Gawel

If I took the top 10% from each of my ten smartest friends and then combined them all into one person, that person would resemble Chuck Klosterman. I read all his books and listen to him on any podcast he appears on. (Music Exists debuted on Spotify February 17th!) Hell, I even read The Ethicist every week in The New York Times when that was his gig. Though I appreciate many authors, Chuck and myself happen to share a hard drinking/rocking Midwest background often putting us on the “same page” as it were. Or put another way, when Klosterman describes a girlfriend as more Vinnie Vincent than Bruce Kulick, that makes total sense to me. 

ANYWAY, I recently finished Chuck’s latest collection of fictional nonfiction, the excellent Raised in Captivity, when I decided to dig back into the first book of his I’d ever read: Fargo Rock City - A Heavy Metal Odyssey In Rural North Dakota. This very book banged around the Watershed van for hundreds of shows shortly after it was released in 2001.  As luck would have it, nineteen years later drummer Herb Schupp and myself were heading up to Michigan to finish some new Watershed tracks with Tim Patalan and I brought Fargo along with us to kill some of the hours hanging around The Loft. 

We passed the book back & forth laughing at our favorite passages. Now, please join me down the rabbit-hole as TV Party Tonight! salutes Chuck Klosterman and Fargo Rock City. 

Pg. 170 “Like a Tasmanian devil whirling toward vaginas and self-destruction, the Guitarmageddon unleashed by ex-KISS wackmobile Vincent on this solo debut is so schlockily stunning that I still have to play album six times every year..… Right from track number one, you know what you are getting: “Boys Are Gonna Rock” has two and a half guitar solos.”

Pg. 161 “I tend to like the first three songs on side two of Girls Girls Girls, (especially Five Years Dead, mostly because it sounds like they are saying Bach is dead, which actually makes more sense). And I’ve always enjoyed the sentimental throwaway Nona, a tribute to Sixx’s dead grandma, which is especially touching when followed by Sumthin’ for Nuthin’, a song about having sex with grandma’s who are still alive.”

Pg. 134 “If you believe Hammer of the Gods, Satan’s favorite band of all time was Led Zeppelin.….

Legend was that three of four members made a deal with the devil in exchange for superstardom...Only John Paul Jones didn’t sign the pact….the other three were struck by Satan’s evil power. John Bonham choked on his own vomit, Robert Plant tragically lost his son, and Page would go on to collaborate with David Coverdale.” 

Pg. 141 “After fronting two musically inept devil bands that sang about killing babies and raping children, Glenn Danzig put together a legitimate group and had Rick Rubin produce. From what I can tell, every song is about committing suicide and partying with Satan. Punkers who liked his early work swear he is being sly but I’ve never seen anything to support that claim.”

Okay, this is me, Colin, talking now. That Danzig song sucks sooo bad. Along with “Kryptonite” by Three Doors Down, they are the two WORST tracks kicking around recurrent rotation on Brew and Blitz type formats. I’m so glad that one dude punched Danzig in the face when he started running his mouth backstage.

Pg. 153 “ As a general rule I hate all non-KISS, non-Cheap Trick live albums but this one deserves inclusion...Considering how much the people of Canada love Rush, one has to assume that the Germans literally worship the Scorpions. I mean, what else is there? Kraftwerk? Warlock?”

Pg. 200 “September 10, 1990, Warrant releases Cherry Pie. In a CD review for my college newspaper, I call this record “Stellar.” It is three years before I’m allowed to review another record.” 

Pg. 218 “In theory, here is what the Use Your Illusion video trilogy was supposed to mean --- or at least what I could deduce from watching it a few dozen times. Don’t Cry was the first video, but is actually the second act of a three act play. November Rain was the second video but it’s actually the story’s first act (even though it opens with the beginning of the third act and ends with the conclusion of Act II). Estranged is the third act and supposedly the conclusion, but it has clips from both Act I and Act II and really doesn’t explain anything at all. On paper, this obviously makes no sense. On screen, it’s only slightly more clear.

Don’t Cry opens with a baby who has extremely (in fact, unrealistically) blue eyes, immediately followed by an image of a crow. The next shot is Axl walking through a blizzard, holding a bottle of booze and a gun. The significance of these clips is alluded to later in the production, but never explained.”

“When November Rain premiered on Headbanger’s Ball in the summer of 1992, it was immediately hyped by MTV as the greatest video ever made. Immediately after its virgin broadcast, VJ Riki Rachtman looked directly into the camera and earnestly said, ‘That……was amazing.’”

“In perhaps the most blatant abuse of stardom ever attempted in a rock video, the turning point of Estranged takes place on a rented ocean liner. Axl Rose leaps off the mammoth ship and thrashes in the rough sea. Gilby Clarke tries to rescue him in a rowboat (apparently, Clarke was only added to the GNR lineup to rescue Rose from sea-faring disasters). Clarke fails. Axl is going to die...until he is saved by dolphins.

Estranged concludes with Axl’s Converse shoe coming to rest on the ocean floor and Rose sitting with a dolphin…It basically reminded me that Axl Rose only seemed brilliant as long as we didn’t know what we were trying to do. As soon as we got the idea, it was just another stupid video.”

Pg. 21 “Listening to Clapton is like getting a sensual massage from a woman you’ve loved for the past ten years; listening to Van Halen is like having the best sex of your life with three foxy nursing students you met at the Tastee Freez……..A lot of credit must go to David Lee Roth…..Roth demanded that Van Halen had to be about a lifestyle, specifically his lifestyle… In tangible terms it made Eddie better. Instead of being an artist trying to make art, Eddie was forced to become an artist trying to make noise - and the end result was stunning. Within the stark simplicity of Janie’s Cryin’ you can hear the shackled simplicity of a genius.”

Pg. 107 “Heavy metal is clearly not a conduit for actual intercourse. Though no studies were conducted at the time, it’s safe to say most guys listening to Iron Maiden in the 1980’s were not getting laid all that often. It’s not like metal was the soundtrack of rampant teenage sex. It was actually the soundtrack from rampant teenage abstinence.”

Well that was fun. I encourage all you folks read or listen to some Chuck Klosterman the next chance you get. It’s really great stuff. - Colin

Colin Gawel plays solo and in the band Watershed. He founded Pencilstorm.com and wrote this at Colin’s Coffee. He thinks KISS Monster is actually a pretty good record. Chuck Klosterman does not agree.

Click here for a recap of TV Party Tonight season one.