Mr. Doughty and his crew get on stage half an hour early, disguised as a noise jam band. They wear beards and funny hats, but the crowd is not fooled.

The Panderers pander and we accept.

Mr. Doughty returns. His voice is indeed golden and delicious. New tracks and Soul Coughing throwbacks. The crowd enjoys.

Mr. Doughty denounces the use of pot. It being 4/20, the audience misunderstands, screaming with joy.

Circles!

Mr. Doughty explains that he is going to throw the bridge out and replace it with “half-mumbled half-words”. The crowd accepts this proposition.

Mr. Doughty plays the best cover of Kenny Rogers’ The Gambler ever performed.

Mr. Doughty plays a fake last song, asks us to pretend he has left the stage when he in fact is just turning to face the back of the stage, turns back around to play the real last song.

Crowd spills out of Antone’s.

Of course I couldn’t just leave that rich mine of musical data alone.

After much research I have determined what I can say are, in purely scientific terms, the greatest songs ever recorded.

Follow the link for a ridiculously long list: Continue reading →

A few weeks ago, a conversation came up about our favorite bands. As usual, I didn’t have a list of favorite musicians floating within easy grasp. I like lots of music. In fact, I’m not sure there is a kind of music I dislike.

So, my obsessiveness kicked in and I decided to figure out who my favorite bands and singers were by sifting through my music collection and counting up the number of songs I really enjoyed by each artist. I briefly considered working out some kind of signal to noise ratio, taking into consideration the volume of work, but that sounded too complicated. So I went for the sheer number of awesome songs.

Here’s what I came up with:

1. U2
2. Weird Al Yankovic
3. Steve Taylor
4. Toad the Wet Sprocket
5. Pink Floyd
6. INXS
7. They Might Be Giants
8. The Beatles
9. The Police
10. Indigo Girls
11. Billy Joel
12. R.E.M.
13. Sting
14. Nine Inch Nails
15. Moxy Fruvous
16. Syd’s Misconception
17. Pearl Jam
18. Soul Coughing
19. Bon Jovi
20. Jars of Clay

So there it is. I think this list comprises types of music that resonate with every aspect of my personality. I see passion, social change, sarcasm, unconventional spirituality, introspection, melancholy, regret, vast inner landscapes, fun, sex, nostalgia, innocence, poetry, feminine energy, anger, depression, friendship, longing, eclecticism, attitude, and humility.

Behold the second coming of Freddie Mercury.

Lollipop.

A friend of mine shared this song with me today and it just destroyed me. It resonates on so many levels. It seems impossible that someone wrote it without knowing me. I know the people in the song. I’ve been looking for her.

The Girl That’s Never Been
– Escape Key

It was sixteen years ago, outside an aging movie show
I was found not knowing where I was that night
Not a thing did I possess but an old blue gingham dress
And a faded photograph in black and white
Now my memories are quite clear, even if I still can hear
All the shrinks who said some trauma was to blame
Light another cigarette, breathe in deep, try to forget
That it’s a photograph of Dinah and that Alice is my name

Chorus:
Save me, save me, I’ve lost my memory
I’m outside the world looking in
Save me, save me, I’m lost in the memory
And I’d swear I’m a girl that’s never been

Now it’s all the life I knew, except I know it can’t be true
I’m not her– there’s no such thing as Wonderland
Hold a steady job somehow, three months clean and sober now
Oh, the ways I tried to get back there again
“Try to move on, don’t be sad–” so I placed a personal ad
I asked, why is a raven like a writing desk?
And on the phone, out of the past, so glad he’s found me now at last–
And I’m afraid to go and meet him but I know my answer’s yes

[chorus]

Just another city loner wearing sunglasses at night
Leather jacket, purple turtleneck and blue jeans worn too tight
Just a rummie by the jukebox in a casual curious pose
But I don’t know how he knows the things he knows

Well he sits down with a grin, “Why little Alice, where’ve you been?
Not so little, not so Alice, now, are you?”
As he sips my untouched drink, I say “I can’t be who I think”
He says “You are, and you’re not, and I am too.
Are we figments of our gin? Are we long-lost orphaned kin?
Or the mad descendants of a writer’s pen?
No one’s sane behind their mask. Ask what you really want to ask.”
And I close my eyes and whisper, “Can you take me back again?”

[chorus]

“Darling Alice, so bereft, there’s no back– you never left.
All the rhymes are still there waiting to be sung.”
And he holds up in the air a little picture paper square
Slips between my lips and underneath my tongue.
“Shall I tell you now, Miss Little, what’s the answer to the riddle
Of the raven that you used to send your call?”
He takes the glasses off to see, yellow cat’s eyes turn on me, and says,
“It’s nothing like a writing desk at all.”

Chorus:
Save me, save me, I’ve lost my memory
I’m outside the world looking in
Save me, save me, I’m lost in the memory
And I’d swear I’m a girl that’s never been
And he faded, leaving nothing but a grin.

The woman next to me at the concert said that JD completely blows Michael Hutchence away. She explained that Michael was already in decline so it made sense for him to kill himself and now he’s in hell looking up at JD wishing he were still alive. Somehow I avoided decapitating this woman and said, “We’ll see.” She bought me a beer, so that helped. I hadn’t watched Rockstar INXS because I thought it was obscene and I had only heard the new album once. But I wanted to see INXS in concert and, until Rhythm ‘n Hues can bring back a virtual Michael, this was as good as it was going to get.

And she was wrong. JD is a fantastic performer, but is devoid of passion, sensuality and authenticity. He looked like he was having a great time pretending to be the lead singer of INXS. The band sounded great, but the disparity between JD and Michael cast them in an INXS tribute band light. Where the Beck concert was authentic and fun, this one seemed manufactured and cold. Needless to say, I didn’t get stuck in traffic trying to leave the ampitheater.

Just got back from the Beck concert downtown. Amaaaaaazing! The Kiva is such a great venue; there aren’t any bad seats. Don was there and we talked a bit. I remember when he was up on that stage last year for nationals.

When Beck hit the stage, the first thing I noticed was that the people projected on the screen behind the band weren’t people. They were marionettes. Marionettes dressed exactly like the band that were perfectly synchronized to them. At first I thought this was prerecorded and masterfully choreographed, but then I noticed that the puppeteers were actually at the back of the stage and there was a small puppet stage back there that was lit and set up just like the main stage. They were doing this live. They did it for the *entire* show. Whatever the band did, the marionettes did. It was so cool!

Beck played more songs tonight than several bands combined. It was like a Beck mix tape, the way he segued between songs without stopping, like a live crossfade, sometimes no more than a stanza. And when I thought he was done and he left the stage, he came back on not for an encore, but a whole other set. This happened twice. They had this schtick where the band takes a break to eat dinner, but they eat on stage, off to the side, while Beck does some mellow solo stuff. The puppets ate dinner too.

I would say the high point was when they showed a short film about the Beck puppets in Albuquerque. They must have shot and edited it that day. They had little skits from all around town. When Puppet Beck went into the Frontier the crowd lost it. We went nuts! A lot of bands will throw out little bones to the crowd, but this really made it feel like the concert was just for us.

And of course the encore was perfect: Loser followed by E-Pro. No other way to end it.

I’ve got one day to rest and then I go see INXS. And then Counting Crows on the 3rd!