IPOD vs MUSIC SNOBS

Found this on a link from the Rock and Roll Report:

WASHINGTON DIARIST Remastered
by Michael Crowley

ince the dawn of rock, there have been individuals, usually young men, of argumentative tendencies who have lorded their encyclopedic musical knowledge over others." So states the introduction of the recent Rock Snob's Dictionary, compiled by David Kamp and Steven Daly. I like to believe I'm not the insufferable dweeb suggested by this definition. Certainly, much of the dictionary's obscure trivia (former Television bassist Richard Hell is now a novelist; Norwegian death metal stars actually murder one another) is news to me. But I do place an unusual, perhaps irrational, value on rock music. I take considerable pride in my huge collection and carefully refined taste. And I consider bad rock taste--or, worse, no rock taste at all--clear evidence of a fallow soul. I am, in other words, a certified Rock Snob. But I fear that Rock Snobs are in grave danger. We are being ruined by the iPod.

While the term "Rock Snob" has a pejorative ring, the label also implies real social advantages. The Rock Snob presides as a musical wise man to whom friends and relatives turn for opinions and recommendations; he can judiciously distribute access to various rare and exotic prizes in his collection. "Oh my God, where did you find this?" are a Rock Snob's favorite words to hear. His highest calling is the creation of lovingly compiled mix CDs designed to dazzle their recipients with a blend of erudition, obscurity, and pure melodic dolomite. Recently, I unearthed a little-known cover of the gentle Gram Parsons country classic "Hickory Wind," bellowed out by Bob Mould and Vic Chestnutt, which moved two different friends to tears. It was Rock Snob bliss.

In some ways, then, the iPod revolution is a Rock Snob's dream. Now, nearly all rock music is easily and almost instantly attainable, either via our friends' computers or through online file-sharing networks. "Music swapping" on a mass scale allows my music collection to grow larger and faster than I'd ever imagined. And I can now summon any rare track from the online ether.

But there's a dark side to the iPod era. Snobbery subsists on exclusivity. And the ownership of a huge and eclectic music collection has become ordinary. Thanks to the iPod, and digital music generally, anyone can milk various friends, acquaintances, and the Internet to quickly build a glorious 10,000-song collection. Adding insult to injury, this process often comes directly at the Rock Snob's expense. We are suddenly plagued by musical parasites. For instance, a friend of middling taste recently leeched 700 songs from my computer. He offered his own library in return, but it wasn't much. Never mind my vague sense that he should pay me some money. In Rock Snob terms, I was a Boston Brahmin and he was a Beverly Hillbilly--one who certainly hadn't earned that highly obscure album of AC/DC songs performed as tender acoustic ballads but was sure to go bragging to all his friends about it. Even worse was the girlfriend to whom I gave an iPod. She promptly plugged it into my computer and was soon holding in her hand a duplicate version of my 5,000-song library--a library that had taken some 20 years, thousands of dollars, and about as many hours to accumulate. She'd downloaded it all within five minutes. And, a few months later, she was gone, taking my intimate musical DNA with her.

I'm not alone in these frustrations. "Even for a recovering Rock Snob, such as myself," Steven Daly told me, "it's a little disturbing to hear a civilian music fan boast that he has the complete set of Trojan reggae box-sets on his iPod sitting alongside 9,000 other tracks that he probably neither needs nor deserves." It's true: Even if music leeches don't fully appreciate, or even listen to, some of the gems they so effortlessly acquire, we resent them anyway. One friend even confessed to me in an e-mail that "I have been known to strip the iTunes song information off mix CDs just to keep the Knowledge secret."

But resistance is futile. Even the Rock Snob's habitat, the record shop, is under siege. Say farewell to places like Championship Vinyl, the archetypal record store featured in Nick Hornby's High Fidelity. "The shop smells of stale smoke, damp, and plastic dust-covers, and it's narrow and dingy and overcrowded, partly because that's what I wanted--this is what record shops should look like," explains Hornby's proprietor, Rob. Like great used bookstores, the Championship Vinyls of the world are destinations where the browsing and people-watching is half the fun. (A certain kind of young man will forever cling to the fantasy of meeting his soul mate as they simultaneously reach for the same early-era Superchunk disc.) Equally gratifying is the hunt for elusive albums in a store's musty bins, a quest that demands time, persistence, and cunning, and whose serendipitous payoffs are nearly as rewarding as the music itself. Speaking of book-collecting, the philosopher Walter Benjamin spoke of "the thrill of acquisition." But, when everything's instantly available online, the thrill is gone.

Benjamin also savored the physical element of building a collection--gazing at his trophies, reminiscing about where he acquired them, unfurling memories from his ownership. "The most profound enchantment for the collector is the locking of individual items within a magic circle in which they are fixed," he said. But there's nothing magic about a formless digital file. I even find myself nostalgic for the tape-trading culture of Grateful Dead fans--generally scorned in the Rock Snob world--who used to drive for hours in their VW vans to swap bootleg concert tapes. My older brother still has a set of bootleg tapes he copied from a friend some 20 years ago during a California bike trip. Having survived global travels from Thailand to Mexico, the tapes have acquired an almost totemic quality in his mind. I feel the same way about certain old CDs, whose cases have become pleasantly scuffed and weathered during travels through multiple dorm rooms and city apartments but still smile out at me from their shelves like old friends. Soon our collections will be all ones and zeroes stored deep in hard drives, instantly transferable and completely unsatisfying as possessions. And we Rock Snobs will have become as obsolete as CDs themselves.

Let me just say this about all this IPOD nonsense: yeah, you can have a 'great music collection' instantanly, but if you don't know what it is, you don't appreciate it and love it, you're still nobody. You're just nobody with a lot of tunes but you listen to the same 300 over and over and you might as well be listening to the radio. You're the person who puts Sgt Pepper and Pet Sounds and the 1st Velvet Underground album as your faves because they're supposed to be great. I talk about Michael Leone and roll my eyes when I hear he's collecting the re-mastered Monkees, but he knows what he likes and tells me why I should like it too. [Though I still think he's throwing away money getting all those collection CDs of the Beatles and Stones when he HAS all the originals: burn your own for the road, dude!]

Taste isn't MADE by what you own, but in how you can define yourself by what you own. I had a lot of 80's hair bands at one time, but I sold them because I didn't listen to them... throwing them on once every five years didn't justify me having it in the pile any longer. I hope someone else went into Half Price and went 'Man, that's JUST WHAT I was looking for!' I wish everyone had a Rory Gallagher or Johnny Winter or some Peter Green era Fleetwood Mac, but some people are contented being spoon fed trend following cows and buying the top 40 and accepting music is only what got played on the radio and 'classic rock' is Elton John, Styx, Journey, and Eric Clapton and that all blues is Stevie Ray Vaughn. They're not impressed by, oh the Warren Zevon collection Genius [except that 'Werewolfs' song] and would not understand what I would find appealing in an old black man playing slide guitar on an acoustic 12 string like Mississippi Fred McDowell's Long Way From Home, which are my pickups from this weekend.

So you can have your IPOD and you can have your 10,000 songs; like anything else, it's just a possession to you. "I have ALL these albums and songs." Give me my whittled down 900 albums or so, [what is that about 9000 songs?] because about 99% of them really MEAN SOMETHING to me.

today's moral: This is ME the music snob, like it or lump it. I type better when I am not drinking though.

Once Again: VH1 is STOO-PID

If you happen to be flipping by VH1 CLASSIC this weekend, no you're not having a flashback... yes they are showing the Woodstock movie [ As James Earl Jones said in Field of Dreams: "Oh my God, you're from the 60's! Peace Love Dope!"].

BUT the idiots at VH1 didn't get the WIDE SCREEN version so you can see the whole shot, they have the EDITED FOR TV version where you see the middle of the screen and a sliver of the left and right side action. Now I am no fan of the movie, but for crying out loud, you have to have the widescreen because Marty Scorcese [yes, that Martin Scorcese] had it cut with a central shot and the peripheral shots... That's like a burger with no fries and a coke or a steak with no potato... I hope someone at VH1 is getting fired for this.

And why is it EVERY TIME I come across Woodstock I see Alvin Lee and Ten Years After doing I'm Going Home [by Helicopter]?

So I changed the channel, my God given right as an American Cable Subsciber and I come across Kieth Urban, the pretty boy of country music these days. And I watched all these girls singing along with his songs and Keith playing his twanger and I wondered who he reminds me of. That mane of blonde hair makes me think of Tom Petty, but his songs ain't THAT good. Then I though Bryan Adams, but there's not enough dudes in blue jean jackets...

WORSE TELEVISION [If you can believe it] ON MONDAY

Two part Oprah with Lisa Marie Presley [and with 'Miss Priscilla' tomorrow] and 15 minutes into this, it's all about growing up in Graceland and being a child of celebrity and those fools in the audience are eating this up. All because she has a new album coming out.

This is going to be the 'softball toss up ' interview of all time. This isn't about a person, what they think, who they are, their 'art'; it's about our fascination with celebrity to the max.

Post Lockout Wrap Up

What a week it has been for the National Hockey League. One week into free agency after the Collective Bargaining Agreement Debacle of 2004/05 [a/k/a The Lock Out, The Contract Squabble and/or the Lost Season] and we've seen more turnover than the previous ten years. Teams trying to get under the $ 39 million cap have been buying people out and allowing free agents to get away, quite a few of them big name players.

Yeah, I think the New NHL will probably have a lot more parity than ever before, but it will allow your small market teams to get or keep some people of the 'star/superstar' status. All ready we have seen Edmonton bring in big Chris Pronger [in a trade from St Louis for Eric Brewer and a couple prospects, but still] and trade for Michael Peca, a 'heart and guts' guy from the New York Islanders.Calgary re-signed superstar Jerome Iginla, whose salary is now capped under the cap. It probably doesn't hurt that Jerome like Calgary and what that team appears capable of. Nashville has made their second ever big name grab by signing Paul Kariya to a two year deal. Injury plagued last term, he will add skill and continue to be a power play threat. Conversely, the big ticket Colorado Avalanche tried to lowball two key guys and lost them, Peter Forsberg to the Philadelphia Flyers [more in a sec] and the under-rated Adam Foote to the Columbus Blue Jackets. Detroit, to clear cap room, bought out Derian Hatcher, Darren McCarty and Ray Whitney. The Flyers also cleared some space to add players by buying out Tony Amonte and John LeClair and subsequently sent Jeremy Roenick to LA for a song and Danny Markov to Nashville for a draft pick. The New York Hockey Rangers surprised no one by buying out Bobby Holik, who never played like he had for the Devils in NY's ever changing systems. If Jaromir Jagr turns out to be very serious about playing in Europe or Russia again this season, the Rangers may find they have LOTS of cap room. No one was really surprised by Dallas buying out Pierre Turgeon, but they did raise a few eyebrows by keeping Bill Guerin, but he is a goal scorer and that's what Dallas needs. Montreal dumped Patrice Brisbois, much to the delight of their fans. I am puzzled though by Toronto buying out Owen Nolan and then trading for Jeff O'Neil, but I am sure they know what they're doing... well, no I am not.

So far, several teams have made issued of keeping big ticket free agent, the story all week in Dallas being whether the Stars owner would let the man who IS the face of the Dallas Stars get away. Mike Modano, though offered more money [21 mil/4 yrs vs 17.5/5yrs] by Boston, agreed to stay in Dallas, probably against his agent's advice. The Stars also re-signed super offensive defenseman Sergei Zubov, probably allowing him to retire as a Star. Detroit tied up aging defenseman Chris Chelios and Mathieu Schnieder and return Steve Yzerman.Calgary, as mentioned, signed their future in Jerome Iginla, Colorado was able to tie up Milan Hejduk to a five year deal and Columbus inked their scoring machine, Rick Nash, to a five year plan also. Boston ties up scoring winger Glen Murray for four years and adding defenseman Brian Leetch, winger Shawn McEchern and centers Dave Scatchard and Alexei Zhamnov while losing high scoring defenseman Sergei Gonchar to the Pittsburgh Penguins.Vancouver re-upped their high scoring first liners Markus Naslund and Bredan Morrison.But some free agents have been left to walk: Miro Satan and Alexei Zhitnik were left hanging by Buffalo and now join the NY Islanders.High coring center Pavol Demitra jumps from St Louis to the LA Kings. Ziggy Palfy decided against returning to the LA Kings, even with the addition of Roenick and Demitra to play with Mario Lemieux and Sidney Crosby in Pittsburgh. The Florida Panthers add veterans leadership in Joe Nieuwendyk and Gary Roberts and Martin Gelinais to teach their young core basics like face offs and going to the net [and the importance of off-ice training]. Goalie Nikolai Khabibulin leaves the defending Stanley Cup champ Tampa Bay Lightning for the Chicago Blackhawks, who now, with Nik and Jocelyn Thibault, have a goaltending tandem unseen since Osgood and Vernon in Detroit or Barasso and Wreggett in Pittsburgh's Cup years.The underachieving Hawks also welcome Jaroslav Spacek back the their blue line after losing Stephane Robidas [back] to Dallas and Brian Berrard to Columbus, and bring in Montreal journeyman center Jim Dowd and big winger Marty Lapointe from Boston. Previously mentioned buyout victims Tony Amonte and Darren McCarty join the Calgary Flames, holes goes to Atlanta and Brisbois and Turgeon go to the Colorado Avalanche. And the New Jersey Devils lost their # 1 defenseman in Scott Neidermeyer, who joins brother Rob in Anaheim. And there's lots more roles players and minor leaguers, this is just a sample of the big shake up going on. And remember, THIS IS ALL IN ONE WEEK AND IT'S ONLY THE FIRST WEEK OF FREE AGENCY!!!

While it's too early to call and remembering almost every team looks good on paper, we can call a few things:

1. The Philadelphia Flyers have made themselves the team to beat. Adding Forsberg [though oft injured] and hulking 6'5" defensemen Derian Hatcher, Mike Rathje [ex-San Jose Shark] and Chris Therrien [back from Dallas] and making room for their young guys who just won the AHL Calder Cup, Bobby Clarke has declared that the Flyers MUST win the Cup in the next 2 years before re-tooling and has given Ken Hitchcock the players to do it with.

2. Colorado and Detroit and St Louis are no longer the teams to beat in the West. Dallas, by maintaining the Status Quo is probably best positioned of the 'Old Guard' in the West. St Louis is in turmoil with the team up for sale and the Red Wings continue signing aging vets. Colorado tries to replace two irreplacables with cast off veterans. Sure, they have a killer line in Sakic, Tanguay and Hejduk, but Pierre Turgeon, unless a miracle happens, is not going to replace Forberg's hard hitting style, though he can replace those pretty passes. The West is now wide open for the younger teams like Calgary, Nashville, Vancouver and retooling Phoenix and Chicago teams.

3. Teams who anticipated the Cap or last round expansion teams operating under self imposed caps are in great shape to add and work the system. Pittsburgh, Chicago and Boston all had low low payrolls going into the 2005/06 window, now they are in a position to add good talented players at reduced rates and make themselves very competitive very fast. Minnesota, Nashville, Pittsburgh and, to an extent, Columbus who had been working within their own limits now have a few extra dollars to add a reasonably priced 'star' player to their very well built franchises.

4. Some teams remain very quiet and off the radar, but expect them to start making some noise. Ottawa Senators, San Jose Sharks, Tampa Bay Lightning, Montreal Canadians, NY Rangers, Washington Capitals, I mean YOU. The Phoenix Coyotes had all ready anticipated all of this and signed a great core to 2 year deals in 2004... This opens them up for picking up people next year.

Finally, it is being reported again that Wayne Gretzky will be named coach of the Phoenix Coyotes. I say again, DON'T do it, Wayne! You have 0 minutes coaching experience. Don't spoil your legacy by trying to be a coach, remain an owner and behind the scenes player. Take the commissioners job in another decade. Say NO to coaching.

That's what I've got as far as the NHL... my fiend Marty and his son Spencer are off to Chi-town for the State Wars roller hockey tournament. The two older boys teams got blown out this weekend, but it is Tennessee's first trip to this kind of thing. Go get 'em, boys! Check out the standings, root for your home state HERE.

REVIEW: Rich Robinson - Paper [2004 - Keyhole Records]

So you were disappointed by Chris Robinson's solo albums? They seemed interesting, but not ... complete? Like Chris needed a band that understood him? Well friends I have the antidote and the cure and the acorn did not fall far from the tree...

From the first stuttering riffs of Yesterday I Saw You on Rich Robinson's Paper, it's as clear who is the soul of the Black Crowes. As clear as the difference in the Mick Jagger and Keith Richards solo records.

Don't misunderstand, I love Chris Robinson's lyrics, but Rich is a capable singer, and the music carries this record far. I don't mean that as a swipe; Chris was probably trying to move beyond or away from the Black Crowes sound, where as Rich embraces and expands it a little, and that familiarity draws you right into this record. Rich has none of Chris' yelp or strut in his singing voice, but that's okay.

What can you expect? Well the first three cuts are walls of swirling guitars; Yesterday I Saw You, Enemy and Leave It Alone picking up where the Crowes Lions left off. Know Me and it's slide and lower production value harken back earlier days sounding like a lost late era Zeppelin track, something cut at the same time as Wearing and Tearing and Ozone Baby that came out on Coda. Forgiven Song and it's slow funeral speed, pedal steel and fiddles play like Jerry Jeff Walker's Lost Gonzo Band doing the Stones Moonlight Mile. Veil and When You Will are cousins of the Crowes' Evil Eye and Non Fiction.

But with Places Rich explores an evil feedback drenched overdriven riff unlike anything ever heard on his other band's records. Not Black Sabbath heavy, not CCR swampy, it's just a plodding and insistant groove that just drags you under with it. The mood is lightened by Begin and it's pre-Joker Steve Miller sound with nice keyboards by Crowes mainstay Eddie Hawrsch. Falling Away is a great slow acoustic ballad over which Rich lays some of his signature blues bending. The keyboard driven Baby and Oh No allow Rich some open tuning slide time. Answers with a string quartet in the background and It's Over are rhythym driven tracks, Answers being a bouncing rhythym and It's Over following a turnaround waltz !?!.

I say again, Rich is no singer, but his voice is as passable as anything. I want to use Steve Miller as an example, but he's even more deadpan than that. But that's not the point. This is a GREAT album that you may have missed.

Game On !!!! [Finally]

I know y'all have been waiting for this one, my take on the return of the NHL.

Well it's about time.

I know a lot is going to be made about who 'won' and who 'lost' in all this. I'm not worried about that. I believe that player salaries were escalating out of control and needed to be in check. I think owners spent unwisely and needed to be slapped for it. But ultimately, I think the players and owners needed to be tied together in the same boat, hence, a partnership with salaries tied to revenues. Now the players have incentive [continue] to be some of the most available and down to Earth athletes in professional sports, to be ambassadors of the game of hockey and help the sport grow south of the Mason-Dixon line. Grow the game, increase revenues, increase salary caps. Ownership gets a chance to stand on level ground, knowing labor costs and not having to worry AS MUCH about Detroit, Colorado, Dallas, NY Rangers buying up all the prized free agents. Smaller markets can compete, if the numbers fall right, for a superstar like Peter Forsberg, Jaromir Jagr, Keith Tzchuk, Tony Amonte, Joe Thornton and build their market. In Edmonton, Carolina, Calgary and Nashville, they are doing cartwheels. Bill Wirz, the penny pinching owner of the Chicago Blackhawks and Jeremy Jacobs in Boston are smiling at a salary minimum and are doing everything in their power to exceed it by only $ 1.00. The players gain younger free agency and a higher minimum salary. Arbitration is revamped, but not a way I'd like to see it.

So now it's game on with and emphasis on 'offensive flow,' meaning [stop me if we've heard this before] a real emphasis on 'cutting down on obstruction especially in the neutral zone,' removing the red line for passing to allow 'the bomb,' and the shootout. I like the shootout. One thinks it favors the offensive player, but the goal wins more than he loses.

Also, for the first time, there's going to be a real shake-up in rosters. With almost 400 players available as free agents, plus an unprecedented buy-out period [Tony Amonte and John LeClair are just the first; expect Pierre Turgeon to be axed by the Stars and possibly Bobby Holik and/or Jaromir Jagr by the NY Hockey Rangers] which will free up some more folks. Will teams pass on borderline/aging veterans to bring up youngsters who will play for the new minimum? Have we seen the last faceoffs for Mark Messier, Chris Chelios, Steve Yzerman, Al McIness, Ron Francis, Marc Bergevin? Where will players like LeClair, Amonte, Turgeon, et al wind up? All of us who played fantasy hockey with salary caps may be in better position to be GMs than the guys there now. Will there be more movement in restricted free agents like Martin St. Louis and Jerome Iginla to teams that have room under the cap?

But the important thing is, it's game on again. It's time to get back out on the ice and play the game. We can get a meaningful TV contract, especially with the shootout providing 'instant highlights' for local news and Sportscenter. Let's put the bitter pills behind us and prove how great this game is again.

Can Sidney Crosby Save Hockey in Pittsburgh?

The Pittsburgh Pengiuns won the NHL's draft lottery today, guaranteeing them first pick in the upcoming NHL draft and 17 year old phoneme Sidney Crosby. [Nashville drafts 18th, Marty. Colorado 27th the rest of you.] This is akin to Pittsburgh drafting Mario Lemieux again. This kid is supposed to be the second coming. Even Wayne Gretzky has said something like 'this kid could give my records a chase.'

But the question remains: does anybody in Pittsburgh CARE?

The Pens have been begging for a new arena since about 1996. They haven't gotten one. The Pirates [13 straight losing seasons] have a great new park. Heinz Field is shared by Pitt [University of Pittsburgh] and the Steelers. One might think that an arena that was 29 years old and had just hosted 2 Stanley Cup championships [and an Eastern conference final - anyone ELSE remember the Pens took the Florida Panthers to 7 games before they fell in 4 to the Avs? How exciting would a Mario /Jagr /Francis /Nedved Pens vs Sakic /Forsberg /Roy Avs been?] would qualify for rebuilding before the destruction of Three Rivers stadium built three years later. But no...

So now Mario takes his deferred salary by taking over ownership of the team who desperately needed rebuilding and revenue sharing. The Pens traded Jaromir Jagr because he was locker room poison and made too much money. The Pens traded Alexei Kovalev because he made too much money. They had a 30 million dollar budget BEFORE the cap and revenue sharing. Of course now they are set up for a cap. They have a franchise goalie in Marc-Andre Fleury and should be able to get last year's #2 overall pick Evengi Malkin to come over from Russia with the addition of Crosby and Mario committed to playing this year and youngsters Ric Jackman and Brooks Orpik on the blueline, plenty of young veterans like Rico Fata, Milan Kraft, Konstantine Koltsov and Ryan Malone... this team should be GREAT in two-three years.

But again, will anyone in Pittsburgh care?

Mario is selling the majority of the team to a group of west coast investors. The team has 'cost certainty,' now they need to figure out a way to get people interested again. No one is kidding themselves saying the Pens will knock the Steelers off as favorite sons, but they only play football one day a week and the Pirates [unless Dallas Mavs owner Mark Cuban DOES buy them, a rumor I have heard] aren't going to be playing in October. The rules changes, especially removing the red line for passing will allow an offensively aggressive group to play firewagon hockey again. The Pens weakness, since Kjell Samuelsson retired anyway, had been defense and goaltending. [And OH BOY, Duane Sutter could cure those defensive lapses, but Mario's buddy Ed Olczyk is in as coach. Maybe new ownership will bring in a discipline guy again!] There were no changes in the size of the net and no significant changes in goalie equipment, so the athletic goaltenders still have rule of the roost. The shootout may help TV ratings, but a young goaltender is going to have trouble... or maybe the older ones who didn't play in the AHL or ECHL and have to face that. And the thought of facing Mario in a shootout probably isn't exciting any goalies... Anyway, this is a team that will need to win games 7-5. That may be exciting, but any team with a disciplined defense [NJ Devils] can shut that down.

Will anyone in Pittsburgh be watching? Or will we be looking at the Portland or Seattle Penguins be hoisting the Stanley Cup in 2008?

Eye Candy

I have been seeing Sara Evans on CMT again lately... lordy, if anyone meets her twin, send her my way. That woman is stacked like the proverbial brick 'outhouse'.' Can't listen to her sing much ... she goes for long drawn out 'MEEEEEE' that sounds like 'MEAAAAAAYYYYYY,' but I can watch that video for Perfect all day long.

I've been saying that today's country is just slightly watered down 80s pop with fiddles instead of Yngwie/Biff guitar solos, but it appears the women of country have discovered the push up bra and the spiked heel. Nuthin' wrong with that.

Crowes of Black are Back

The Black Crowes are coming to town - Nokia in Grand Prairie, of the $ 12.00 parking out in the middle of nowhere [thought to be fair, they are getting 8.00-10.00 in Deep Ellum and at the stadiums]. I am torn. It's still Chris and Rich and Marc Ford [Southern Harmony-Three Snakes] is clean and back in the fold, Sven Pipen is sufficient on bass, 'old weird Ed' on keys [hopefullt higher in the mix this tour] but I don't know who is drumming. And I always thought Steve Gorman's inventive drumming was a key to that band. It might be like seeing the Stones with somone other than Charlie Watts behind the tubs.

Of course I can't afford a ticket right now, but when my raise kicks in I might consider one.

UPDATE: Billboard reported May 6th that "Original Black Crowes drummer Steve Gorman has rejoined the band, after opting out of the initial dates on the band's reunion tour." I guess this ensures I will be travelling to Grand Prarie to relive some of my youth. Last time I saw the Crowes was Sept 2001, about 1 week after the 9/11 trgedy. They played a good set of rock and roll even though guitarist Audley Freed was WAY too loud in the mix and Ed was way way buried. That was also my last show at Bronco Bowl. The BEST Crowes show I saw was at the old Bomb Factory, 1st of two nights that they just rip-raored through a HOT HOT set. Worst was the Sportatorium about three weeks after the Stones in 96. Marc Ford was WAY WAY out of it that night.

Roller Derby Report

Hunter Thompson once wrote that the Circus Circus was what the world would be like if the Nazi's had won the war. And while I think part of that analogy is true, I think it misses a key part of what we would all be doing: Roller Derby.

First, I was surprised by the large turnout yesterday. I thought we were talking about a fringe of a fringe sport here, but they sold out the roller rink this all happened in. Lots of tattoos and coolers and beer in cans, but a surprising number of young kids and older folks... maybe they were all family of the roller girls, but I doubt it. Lesson one was :Next time buy tickets in advance.

Second: I had no doubt seen roller derby before, but I didn't understand it. Now I get it. Of course this isn't 70's TV roller derby with the banked track with the rails, it was just on the regular roller skating floor... and they used old style 4 wheel skates, not in lines. I don't know if that's keeping the 'Classic look and feel' or [as Amanda pointed out] possibly keeping injuries down. But anyway, I understand scoring now. And the girls were mean and rough. Amanda's friend was # 666 Marco the Beast and she is really mean at blocking out, clean but rough. Unfortunately her team Truth and the American Way lost to Lies and Conspiracy, but Lies had the better jammers... boy they were fast.

Overall it was good clean family fun and I hope the good turnout allows them to keep having matches.