Hot Tuna @ The Calvin Theater, November 28th, 2009

Hot Tuna returned to town this past Saturday night for an acoustic show. This is the 5th time I've seen them and, as usual, I was delighted. All the more so because I was sitting in the 5th row, slightly off to stage left, so that I was staring straight ahead at Barry Mitterhoff, the multi-instrumentalist that Jorma and Jack having been playing with for the past 5 or 6 years. Boy is he good.

There was no opening act. The band hit the stage at about 8:10 and they left after their encore at about 11:10. In between, they played about two dozen songs, separated by a 30 minute intermission. So, the band was onstage for about 2.5 hours. It was clearly a bit chilly backstage, and maybe onstage too. Jack walked on rubbing his hands together and, in a clearly exaggerated way, rubbed the neck of his bass guitar with a cloth to warm it up. Jorma smiled at him as he did this. Jack has always been the showman of the band, hamming it up with winks and nods and occasional commentary.

I could hardly have been more satisfied by the performance. It opened with "Search My Heart," the same song they opened their Calvin show with last year. Here's the entire set, double-checked from Jorma's own website:
Set One:
1. "Search My Heart": This was recorded for their 1970 debut album, still my favorite album of theirs, and they opened their last Calvin show with this song as well. Sounded very good, slow and deliberate.
2. "There’s A Bright Side Somewhere": A Reverend Gary Davis song from Jorma's 2009 album, River of Time. Not one of my favorite of the Gary Davis songs the band does, but it sounded just fine.
3. "I’ll Let You Know Before I Leave": a nifty instrumental from Jorma's 1974 solo album, Quah. Featured some tasty playing from the two guitarists.
4. "More Than My Old Guitar": a Merle Haggard song that Jorma sang with Barry harmonizing. I like this one a lot.
5. "I See The Light": the highlight of the concert, just like it was at their Calvin show last year. The interplay between all three musicians is delicate one moment, sharp and aggressive the next, and the climax over the course of the last minute or so is incredible every time I hear it. A classic.
6. "Come Back Baby": a song that dates back to Jefferson Airplane days, although the version from this past weekend was slow and bluesy. Great solos from Jorma and Barry on this one.
7. "River Of Time": title track to the recent Jorma album. Very nice Jorma original.
8. "Breadline Blues": a song about the 1932 presidential election. Some great jamming here, and a false ending, prompting the audience to applaud, before the band starts up again with the final verse. Barry shone on this one.
9. "Hesitation Blues": there was some "hesitation" before playing the song, as Barry and Jorma appeared to disagree about what should come next. When Jorma announced this one, the audience exploded. This is also from the first Hot Tuna album, and it's one of the great ones. The instrumental section always smokes, and it sure did Saturday night.
10. "99 Year Blues": from 1972's Burgers. Jack's first bass solo of the night, and it was a dandy.
11. "I Know You Rider": from the first Tuna album. Better than the Grateful Dead's version. Or anyone else's.

I confess to having been pretty tired during the second set. Partly that had to do with not getting enough sleep the previous night. The intermission was about half an hour long. Too long, in my humble opinion. At any rate, I don't remember as many specifics as I probably should have noticed....

Set Two:
1. "Trouble In Mind": Hot Tuna recorded this for Live at Sweetwater (1993), and it's also on the new Jorma album. An excellent one.
2. "Things That Might Have Been": brand new Jorma song. I liked it.
3. "Cracks In The Finish": a Jorma original from River of Time. One of his better originals from recent albums.
4. "Full Go Round": a Roy Book Binder song from River of Time. A great one.
5. "How Long Blues": another from the first Hot Tuna album. There isn't a bad track on the first album, and I'm always excited to hear anything from it performed live.
6. "Serpent Of Dreams": another highlight of the concert. I love hearing the acoustic version of this song, and I'm thrilled that it's one of the songs from Hot Tuna's "Metal Years" (say, 1974-1978) that they continue to perform today. A touch of the psychedelic mixed in to the blues.
7. "The Terrible Operation"
8. "Sea Child": one of my favorite songs from Burgers. Beautiful picking from Jorma and Barry.
9. "Good Shepherd": longest jam of the night, although I didn't time it. All three musicians had ample time to solo.
10. "3rd Week In The Chelsea": originally recorded on Jefferson Airplane's Bark (1971).
11. "Just Because"

12. Encore: "Embryonic Journey"

By the time the band finished up with the old Jefferson Airplane instrumental, I was ready for bed. A very satisfying show, just like their Calvin show of last year was. And there's still the electric show coming up at the Beacon next weekend!

Ani Difranco @ The Calvin Theater, November 15th, 2009

About half a dozen songs into Ani Difranco's recent Calvin Theater show, I had as emotional an experience as I've had at an Ani show for many years. The singer-songwriter-bandleader had already knocked my socks off by opening with "Anticipate" and following it up with "Swan Dive." And she made me want to revisit To The Teeth (1999) by following that with "Providence." And then there was one of her new ones, "Promiscuity." But the truest, realest, awesomest moment came next. After thanking her friend Animal for the inspiration, and with Todd Sickafoose playing a keyboard part, she began singing "She Says."

My reaction had less to do with the greatness of the song and more with my own personal history. I cannot really identify with what goes on in the song. But from the opening line, I was transported back to my lonely college dorm in the fall of 1995. The previous summer, my friends and I had seen Ani play the Newport Folk Festival, and it seemed that everyone I knew had to buy a copy of Not a Pretty Girl after that. Me, I was pretty uptight about saving my pennies at the time. But, a couple of months into college life, I shelled out the big bucks to buy the only Ani album I could find at the local CD store: Like I Said (1993). I listened to it constantly for the rest of the academic year. Hearing the opening to that tune, "She said forget what you have to do / pretend there is nothing outside this room" actually made my chest clench up a bit and brought tears to my eyes. When I was a college freshman, I didn't think nearly enough about the world outside my room, outside my own head, and I was a scared little pup.

So, this isn't about Ani's greatness. It's about the fact that I came of age with her, as I've written in previous entries.

The greatness was on display elsewhere, namely in the the depth of her catalog (which is, by now, astonishing, prompting her to say, early on, that she's had to learn new old songs, "to the keep the old new, as it were") and in her freakishly intense guitar playing and singing. But let's dwell for a moment on her back catalog, shall we? That's where "Swan Dive" and "Providence" and "She Said" came from, and it's also where "Garden of Simple" came from. Other old ones were "old" old ones: "Fuel" and, for the first encore, "Both Hands." She whipped the crowd into a frenzy toward the end with "Alla This" from Red Letter Year (2008), and she also did "Present/Infant," one of the best from that album. She played new songs, like "Promiscuity," "Albacore," a cute ode to anarchism, played on the ukulele, and, for the second encore, "If You're Not." She closed the regular set with her take on the old union song, "Which Side Are Your On." I winced a bit when she talked about, when she changed some of the words, she did so in the folk music tradition of "fucking with the past." That's not exactly what they do, Ani, although I know what you mean. Made me think about Patti Smith's declaration: "I don't fuck much with the past / but I fuck plenty with the future" or something like that.

Ani was charming, as usual. After the opening song, she said something that I've often thought: "Northhampton, Massachusetts--well, well, well!" with emphasis on the last "well." After "Albacore," she stared incredulously out into the crowd and repeated what a fan had just screamed: "You just got your swine flu vaccination?! Good for you! You clearly understood the subtext of that last song." And, after taking up the ukulele for a new song, said something like, "Well, "Dilate" would sound kinda funny on the uke, so...." She laughed, she stuttered, she semi-sermonized, she joked. That is, she was herself.

Oh, and she led a reformed band. Todd Sickafoose remains on bass, but Mike Dillon is gone, and the new drummer is a guy named Andy something-or-other. He's good. At first, I thought he was a real rock drummer, kinda like Allison Miller, but as the show wore on, I realized that he bears a stronger resemblance to Andy Stochansky, a drummer who *can* rock out, but is every bit as interested in swinging and adding quiet, subtle touches to the songs that require it. I had grown to really like the Dillon-Miller-Sickafoose band, but I sense that I'll grow to like this one even faster. His playing on the opener, "Anticipate," was especially great, starting off by slapping a wooden box positioned in front of the drum kit for a couple of verses before moving to the kit to hammer out the rest of the song. He made "Alla This" sound like the raging storm that it is. Verdict: this guy is good.

Kudos to Gabby Moreno for opening the concert with 30 minutes worth of music. She has a big strong voice, and the high point was a medley of Spanish-language songs. She is from Guatemala and speaks English with a slight but very charming accent. Her embarrassed stage patter was comparably charming, not cloying in the way that a lot of Difranco openers have been over the years. Thank goodness.

Chris Smither @ The Iron Horse, November 7th, 2009

As promised, I attended the Chris Smither show this past weekend. He was performing with the band that he recorded his latest album with: the guitarist "Goody" Goodrich and the drummer, Zak Trojano. I'm still not 100% sold on his non-solo performances. Something about the foot-tapping gets lost with a drummer accenting the beat. Nevertheless, I could hardly have been disappointed, and I wasn't.

I arrived at the Iron Horse at around 6:20, accompanied by the beautiful and talented Dani Carriveau, and we had a dinner of burgers and fries. The Iron Horse does fries pretty well, but I'll pass on the burgers from now on.

The opening act was a woman named Caroline Herring, who records for Signature Sounds. She performed a series of covers, including "Long Black Veil," "C C Rider," and Cyndi Lauper's "True Colors," along with an original song that, Dani and I agreed at the time, was the best thing she played. An enjoyable performance, if nothing special.

After a 20 minute break, the man himself came onstage. For the first time in all the Iron Horse shows I've seen, there was someone on stage to do the introduction: Jim Olsen, from Signature Sounds. He announced that this was now a hometown gig for Chris; he's moved to the Valley. What great news!

The show began the same way that his shows have been beginning for years now: "Open Up," from Leave the Light On. It's a song that hits the spot, every time I hear it. From there, he moved back in time a bit for "Link of Chain" and then to a more recent one, "Lola," which is a favorite. And from there, he took us through more than half of his new album, along with older tunes like "Drive You Home Again" and "Help Me Now" and stuff from his most recent couple of albums, including "Train Home," "Never Needed It More," "Origin of Species," and, to close his set, "Leave the Light On." He didn't do any of the Bob Dylan material that he's been fond of lately, but he did do Dave Carter's "Crocodile Man." I hope that, one day, he'll tap his back catalog of songs from the early 1970s. Every once in a while, he'll play the song that kept food on his table for years, "Love You Like a Man," but I crave "Homunculus," "Don't It Drag On," and "Every Mother's Son." Maybe next time.

The audience was consistently appreciative. Certain lines in songs yielded applause: "I'm not evil / I'm just bad," "If I drive you to distraction / I will drive you home again," and about half the verses of "Origin of Species" and of "Surprise, Surprise" from the new album, a song that looks like it'll be an audience favorite before long. Goody Goodrich's guitar accompaniment was simple and tasteful, and the audience let him know it. And Smither was a gracious host, telling variations on stories I'd heard him tell before--about how his mother disliked "Lola," about his wanting to write songs for and about his father, about his adopted daughter--and some new stories--about his wife wanting him to write a "bad boy" song for her, about the inspiration for a song from the new album ("Call Yourself" was a reaction to watching Sunday morning religiously themed self-help programs), and about the dilemmas of writing and performing topical material, like "Surprise, Surprise." Smither's speaking voice is warm and comforting, and I don't think he gets the credit he deserves for being able to match a warm, deep baritone with lyrics that are cold-eyed and shot through with experience. I've always loved hearing him perform "Drive You Home Again," a song that is, in a sense, about warmth without actually being warm. The same goes for one of his greatest covers, which he did not perform the other night: Rolly Salley's "Killing the Blues." Listen to a recording of either of them, and tell me if you know what I mean.

Much to my surprise, one of the high points was the encore. He did a song which I haven't heard him perform live in years, "Statesboro Blues," and he really used his voice on that one, roaring the words like he'd been made to do so. Beyond that, some of the new material sounded great, especially "Surprise, Surprise" and "Don't Call Me Stranger" and "I Don't Know." There really weren't any dull moments for me. Every time I see this guy, I am amazed anew, and I've seen him perform live maybe 10 times or so. He is one of the grandmasters, and I'm sure I'll return for more.

Dar Williams @ The Iron Horse, October 16th, 2009

After a brief, but rather disconcerting episode of "lost my keys," Annie and I left for the Iron Horse at around 6:00 last night, arriving to a packed house. As she and I discussed on the way there, we hadn't been listening to Dar much over the past few years. Me, I hadn't seen her since Falcon Ridge '08 and, the more I think about it, the more I realize that I associate Dar with outdoor performances. I'm not sure when the last time was that I saw Dar play indoors; maybe never. But she pops up at most of the folk festivals I've attended. It was a bit odd seeing her at the Iron Horse, cozy and warm though the environment is. I kept wanting to hear her make remarks about the mountains and how beautiful we all looked on our blankets.

Anyhow, Dar hit the stage at around quarter past 7:00, maybe a bit later, wandering through the room and up to the stage with her musical sidekick (whose name I forget), as the lights dimmed and a smattering of applause turned into a warm ovation. The memories that I just described overwhelmed me at that point and, I have to admit, I was only half paying attention during the first song. But then, after talking about her emotionally disturbed past, which coincided with her stay in Northampton, she played "Spring Street," and I found myself getting into things.

A Dar Williams performance feels like kicking back in someone's living room, listening to stories that, in a strange way, blend into the songs themselves. I associated her stage presence with her musical sound in a way that I don't with a lot of other performers. That is all for the best, since I don't know her songs all that well. That said, I recognized more of what I heard than I thought I would. I remembered hearing "The Buzzer" the last time I saw her; she described this song as an effort to write a commercial love song that took a left turn when she got distracted by thinking about the Milgram obedience experiments. She also played "The Easy Way" from her newest album, and she closed her set with "Midnight Radio," written by her old friend Stephen Trask (who co-wrote Hedwig and the Angry Inch). I actually loved that song: a simple, quiet, passionate expression of love for the women rockers of the radio who make you feel less alone. One of the more touching moments of the evening for me.

Dar told lots of stories, about life in NYC, about self-grown food, about her time in NoHo, about her newly adopted daughter, and about children in general (before playing "The One Who Knows," a lovely song about raising children and letting them go out into the world). In between stories, she played songs from every period of her career. No songs from Cry Cry Cry, which was too bad, but her performance of "If I Wrote You" hit the spot. And her accompanyist shone on "As Cool as I Am," playing the opening instrumental passage on the piano, leading into the opening verse, with Dar strumming gently at first before really leaning into the refrain; another great moment.

We were distracted a bit midway through the show, when I realized Annie was in a bit of pain. Turns out she'd leaned back a bit in her seat and touched an exposed pipe, burning herself. During "Calling the Moon," she had to get a glass of ice to apply to her burn. The waitress was horrified; so was the manager, who gave us a free dinner and offered a pair of free tickets for a subsequent show to Annie. I can't believe that the staff at the Iron Horse hadn't known or done anything about a dangerously exposed pipe, but that was their story.

For her encore, she played "The Babysitter's Here," a song that always seems to work when she performs it in concert. When I hear the recording of it, it's just a good song on a good album. Last night, when the narrator tries to understand, I teared up.

Erin McKeown plays the Iron Horse tonight, but I'm skipping out. Next weekend, I'll try to catch The Nields with Lucy Wainwright Roche. And, not long after that, Tracy Grammer is playing with Brooks Williams up in Shutesbury, a pairing that fills me with happiness at the thought of it. Speaking of filling up with happiness, that's what Chris Smither's newest album does. I can't believe I wrote an entire blog entry about Richard Shindell's and Jack Hardy's newest albums when the Smither album was sitting on my desk, unplayed. Like most of Smither's albums, it blows most everything else out of the water. I'm in the midst of writing about it, and it's been a pleasure to do so.

Smitherology as musical preference and life option

How do I love the new Chris Smither album? Let me count the ways. I love it for its songwriting, which has never been sharper, its vocals, which get blurrier and more textured as Smither gets older, its guitar playing, which means Smither plus David Goodrich on electric guitar, its Bob Dylan cover, "It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry," and, never forget, the foot stomping. The sound of that foot stomping evokes...stolid fortitude, compassion, spiritual uplift, courage in the face of the void. And it fills out the man's overall sound in a miraculous way. Think about how Johnny Cash sounded with the Tennessee Two (and Three) backing him; that's what I think about when I think about what the foot-tapping does for Smither's sound. It is unutterably simple and, like the simplest of things, profound. Every shade of meaning of each song is somehow, miraculously, deepened by the sound engineer's simple act of putting a separate microphone at the man's feet. The man stomps on a piece of plywood that he carries with him on tour for just this purpose, not just keeping the beat but creating a groove. I once heard him say in an interview that he has had his shoes resoled multiple times to ensure that the tapping is completely toneless. The worst thing, he said, is when you can hear his feet play notes. And the best thing I've heard him say in concert is an instruction to the sound man: "could I have some more feet in the monitors, please?"

Chris Smither, in case you didn't know, is one of my absolute favorites. I get as much pleasure out of listening to his music as I do Neil Young, Mississippi John Hurt, Sue Foley, Marshall Crenshaw, Hot Tuna, and Jefferson Airplane. Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell and Ani Difranco. Not to mention Chopin's nocturnes and etudes, and the second movement of Beethoven's seventh symphony. Gershwin's Concerto in F. Smither will never have the popularity or fame of any of the aforementioned, but I rank him in the same league. Apart from his songs, which I am partial to, he has a distinctive sound, a sound that has changed as he has aged and, if anything, has improved over time. His voice is rich and full and, as he has grown older, it has gained resonance and beauty. He has what the greatest blues singers have had, what Dylan and Mitchell have grown into in their own ways: an undefinable, undeniable presence. You hear these musicians and it is very difficult not to listen.

At least, that's what I think.

His newest album is called Time Stands Still. As usual with him, there are a bunch of news songs and a few songs written by others; in this case, Bob Dylan, Mark Knopfler, and Frank Hutchison. The eight originals deal with his usual lyrical concerns--selfhood, freedom, love, life and death, the process of thought--but puts new twists on them--questions from his new adopted daughter, grief over his father's death, gratified realization of love's persistence. There's even a topical song, "Surprise, Surprise," about the financial crisis which, as you listen, you realize isn't really about the financial crisis at all. The arrangements are typically austere: a drummer who knows how to stay out of the way, and his producer, David "Goody" Goodrich, throwing in some distorted guitar to add menace and gloom. But when those two guys back off during Dylan's "It Takes a Lot to Laugh..." leaving the featured performer to lay in to the song, I get chills. I've listened to this album 3 times so far, and I'll be damned if it isn't this track that stops me short every time I've heard it. It has the feel of his performance of "Killing the Blues," somehow cold and warm at the same time, mysterious and grand. It feels nothing like Dylan's original.

There are careful, subtle musical flourishes throughout the album. Check out the unusally hot groove to "I Told You So," or Goodrich's guitar work on the opening track, "Don't Call Me Stranger."

I contemplated throwing out sample lyrics, but narrowing down favorites is difficult. Let's just say that no song on the album is "ordinary," though some are perhaps ordinary by Smither's standards; that is, the standards of greatness. And many of the songs echo others. "Don't Call Me Stranger," for example, reminds me of "Drive You Home Again," which opens the album of the same name. Similar lyrical idea, similar overall feel. The language is spare. Nothing feels forced. Smither's best songs always have the feeling of being fully formed on delivery, as if the songs had been waiting to be plucked from the air. It's an illusion, of course, but some songs sustain the illusion beyond my point of (dis)belief. Listen to "Slow Surprise" from Small Revelations or "Tell Me Why You Love Me" from Drive You Home Again or "Time Stands Still" from the new album, and maybe you'll see what I mean.

In the Smither cannon, the two greatest are from the late '90s: Small Revelations and Drive You Home Again. After those two, and the two live albums, Another Way to Find You and Live as I'll Ever Be, I'd say that this newest one ranks next. But you'd wouldn't be sorry if you shelled out the money for Leave the Light On or Train Home.

He's playing the Iron Horse next week, and I do believe I'll stop by. You should too.

Loudon Wainwright and Richard Thompson @ The Calvin Theater, Northhampton, MA, October 6th, 2009

I bought tickets for the "Loud and Rich" concert, as it was billed, at the good old Calvin Theater, not long after I heard about the show's existence. I have been a Loudon Wainwright III fan for an awfully long time now and, while I don't know Richard Thompson's music as well, I'm routinely impressed when I hear him. And they've played on each other's albums quite a bit over the years.

The initial plan was to go with my man Anthony. He couldn't make it. Matt Winters' man Sandro didn't return my e-mail. So, I invited a former student to accompany me.

Although their musical styles are a bit different--Thompson is more of a rock and roller and more of a guitar stylist, while LWiii cares more about mood and song form--I sense definite spiritual similarities. They both have a strong sense of fun and a love of life that comes out most clearly in their songs about death. I said "fun," not humor. The latter would be Loudon's area of expertise. The performance of one of his death songs, "Donations," elicited laughter from the audience Tuesday night, while Richard Thompson's "1952 Vincent Black Lighting" was one of the highlights of his set: fun without being at all funny. And the great thing about both of those songs is that they really aren't about death at all; they're about living well and being ready to meet one's maker.

Both of them also have woman problems. Not relationship problems; woman problems. I have heard people accuse both of these guys of being misogynistic, which I think is an overstatement. Their efforts at exploring their dysfunctional romantic lives are more engaging, thoughtful, and courageous than those of most of the younger singer-songwriters who fill their professional careers with such efforts. The liveliness of their songs, and the performances of those songs, doesn't suggest woman-hate to me, so much as confusion and desperation. I sense that their fans understand, at least subliminally, the tension between the skillfulness of these guys' arrangements (even on solo guitar), the cunning but emotive singing, and the songs themselves, whose lyrics are an often uncomfortable fit with the style of the playing. Sometimes, they don't get it at all: during Loudon's "Motel Blues," an audience member shouted "Roman Polanski!" audibly enough to be shushed by folks clear on the other side of the Calvin. On one new song, about how a poor housing market might yet save a marriage, there were titters of nervous amusement from the crowd. Loudon, whose inner life as revealed through song and performance seems a lot more interesting than Richard's, was conjuring up the tension that his best songs always do, between idealism and cold reality. And his performance, with all those facial ticks and leg lifts and tongue wagging, generates lots of different emotional effects: desperation, confusion, humor, sometimes all three simultaneously. Richard, meanwhile, appears to find his salvation through guitar solos. That's fine, too, especially when he goes through his lover's bureau drawers in "Cold Kisses."

I'll recap the show for the sake of readers interested in specifics. Loudon walked onto the stage at a few minutes past 8:00 and began with "Donations," from his fabulous 2001 album, Last Man On Earth, asking a friend if he or she would mind being the one to deal with his remains upon his death. Makes a generous offer too: "as for my corneas / I don't care who gets 'em / but all other organs and parts are for you." From there, he focused on newer material, both from his collection of Charlie Poole songs, High Wide and Handsome (2009), his rediscovery of his early catalogue, Recovery (2008), one song that he wrote for the play Lucky You, and some as yet unrecorded songs which he is calling "Songs for the New Depression." One of those new ones yielded one of the funniest moments of the night, "Paul Krugman Blues," while another yielded a particularly poignant moment, the aforementioned song about a couple possibly selling their house. And, much to my delight, he played two other songs from Last Man on Earth, "Surviving Twin" and "White Winos," both of which yielded great applause. From Recovery, there was "Motel Blues" and "Muse Blues" and "New Paint." And, in the middle of the set, Thompson came out to play on a couple of songs, including "Animal Song," which they recorded together for I'm Alright (1985).

Richard Thompson began with "Cooksferry Queen" and "Cold Kisses." I don't really know his songs as well as Loudon, so there were a few he played after that that I'd didn't recognize. In fact, my mind was actually starting to wander a bit, particularly during a modern sea shanty that he tried to get everyone to sing along with. But then, after explaining the idea of an LP to an audience old enough to enough, he infused the show with a jolt of energy that carried over to the end of the show. He nailed "I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight," which led into the quiet, lovely "Sunset Song" from Sweet Warrior (2007), and then into "1952 Vincent Black Lightning." He may have better songs, but the audience's cheer of recognition when Richard got that one going was priceless, the highlight of the night. And the man's roar when the angels in leather and chrome "come down from heaven to carry me home" I won't soon forget. As if that weren't enough, he followed up with one of best quieter songs, "Persuasion." Then came a song about some departed friends that I didn't know. Somewhere in there was a song about the worst tour he'd ever had, a song that I sense he hasn't recorded. He finished up with "Dad's Gonna Kill Me."

For the encore, Loud and Rich did one song each from each other's catalogue: "Down Where the Drunkard's Roll" and "Smokey Joe's Cafe."

Odds and ends

October looks to be a good month for concert attendance. First off, there's the "Loud n' Rich" shows at the Calvin on the 6th. Then, there's back to back shows on the 16th and 17th: first, Dar Williams; second, Erin McKeown. Finally, there's the Nields with Lucy Wainwright Roche on the 23rd. And there will be plenty more in November: Ani Difranco, Hot Tuna, Robert Cray, Chris Smither, and more.

I bought the new Chris Smither smither album as soon as it became available, a couple of weeks ago, but I've been holding off on listening to it. Trying to savor its existence a bit before plunging it. Robert Christgau gave it an "honorable mention" in his October Consumer Guide column...but I'm sure I'll rave about its awesomeness some other time.

I have, however, been listening to the new live Crooked Still album. It's great, the one that, from now on, I'll instinctively grab when I decide I want to hear some 'Still.