Banjo's Part I
Saturday, February 28, 2009

(I fear I look kinda' greasy & serious, like a bona-fide solo-acoustic dude)

First nite of my residency at Banjo Jim's went pretty good! Remembered to turn my low frequencies up and played a baker's dozen original songs, plus a Zevon cover and a Stones song with my friend Gitano, who joined me for a couple. Also Charlene McPherson deserves a Purple Star for battling a killer headache to add her gorgeous vocals on a couple duets. The tip bucket covered the nights' bar tab. I went away happy!

Please come out March 13, 20 & 27. 7 p.m. Free.

Had a five-hour rehearsal with my old band the Goods this afternoon. Now off to sing a couple songs with Jesse Bates at the Lakeside Lounge.

This Facebook thing is zany!

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Under Stones' Thumbs, Jason Isbell
Friday, February 27, 2009

Friends, remember to please come out for a happy hour drink at Banjo Jim's tonight. I'll be providing the entertainment.
Had the pleasure of meeting Bill German last night. Bill just wrote a book that I can't wait to tear into called, "Under Their Thumb: How A Nice Boy From Brooklyn Got Mixed Up With the Rolling Stones (and Lived to Tell About It)." When he was 17 he started printing a Stones fanletter from his high school's newspaper office. Soon the Stones made Bill's newsletter their official fan club bulletin. For 17 years Bill hung with and chronicled the Rolling Stones. This is his memoir about those days.

Then zipped to the Bowery Ballroom for another brilliant show by one of my favorite rocker/songwriters, Jason Isbell, formerly of the Drive-By Truckers.

Isbell played "The Assasin" by his old bandmate Patterson Hood and dedicated the song to Patterson, who is battling pneumonia and has been in the hospital. I thought it was a nice gesture often unseen among ex-bandmates.
I also respect how fresh from getting booted from what I consider to be perhaps the best band going right now, the Drive-By Truckers (remember, he was also married to the Trucker's bassist), Isbell put a new band together, hit the road and never looked back. His band, the 400 Unit, has really congealed and the dude is an absolute road warrior. He plays NYC every few months.
And man those songs of his. The guy's songwriting is just dazzling. In a league with anybody.

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Banjo's Happy Hour, Facebook, Buffalo Woes
Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Friends, please come out and spend a happy hour with me one of these upcoming Fridays. I'll be playing Banjo Jim's at 7 p.m. on Friday 2/27, 3/13, 3/20 and 3/27. I'll play most of the New Heathens upcoming second record, plus at least one new song and one Warren Zevon song per week.

Also, I finally joined Facebook Look me up.

I just heard the rough cut of one of two songs I cut in Roscoe's apartment a couple weeks ago. Sounds really, really excellent. Can't wait to share it with you all.

Bad bison news out of Montana, the senate passed a bill that would ban relocating bison anywhere in the state save the National Bison Range. This bill was written by a rancher who does not even have an e-mail address and is based on the assumption that bison that have been quarantined outside Yellowstone for three years and declared brucellosis free after careful monitoring and numerous tests might still carry the disease. Read my previous bison posts here and here. If you feel crazy, contact Montana Governor Brian Schwitzer and/or legislators and tell 'em to oppose SB 337.

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So One Of These Guys Thinks He's Freddie Mercury...
Monday, February 23, 2009

And the other has a pretty sweet mustache.

Friends, you can mutter whatever you want underneath your breath, I'll always love Freddie Mercury.

This tribute-payer (I blanch at calling someone channeling Freddie a "impersonator,") really studied Mr. Mercury's moves. Kinda' like me, except he had the better mustache.

The above pix, the closest I'll come to hanging out with Freddie Mercury in this lifetime, were taken at the Imperial Palace in Las Vegas ("Freddie" was one of several "Dealertainers," including "Michael Jackson," "Stevie Wonder," "Shania Twain," "Garth Brooks" and "Toby Keith"). I was lucky enough to be with three people who I think are even cooler than Freddie, Kevn Kinney, my foxy Kristen, and Shayni Rae.

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Viva
Thursday, February 19, 2009

Greetings from Las Vegas where I'm living this week, working at my girlfriend's fashion show.

Made my Las Vegas onstage debut playing harmonica last night with none other than NYC's own Spanking Charlene, who jetted in to play the show's private party. By the way, they totally rocked, and blew the little fashionistas' minds with their cover of "I Kissed A Girl (And I Liked It)."

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Two Jazzmen, Remembered
Monday, February 16, 2009

It was a sad honor to write about saxophonist Gerry Niewood and guitarist Coleman Mellett who both died in the plane crash near Buffalo last week.

Here's the story:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/16/nyregion/16musician.html

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Oh No Keith Di-in't! Who Let The Dogs Out?
Sunday, February 15, 2009

Digging the Dancing Keith

One of my favorite individuals on earth is Keith Christopher, the most FONKY bass player around and a legendary crack-up. Had the pleasure of doing a bar gig with him in Jersey City last night and both in The Frankenraisin and then during the afterparty, Keith spun a CD of rough cuts from his forthcoming debut solo record. The songs are INSANE, great, funny, funky, rockin'! The first song, "Oh No You Di'in't," had us doubled over laughing but grooving like mad to it's Keith-and-the-Winos riff (somethin' 'bout the name "Keith"). Then Mistah Christopher laid on us this wild-ass jam called "Crazy Lips," that sounds like a runaway train in a shook-up soda bottle. And THEN came his song about the CAT FUNERAL! (Keith provided visual entertainment too, flapping his arms and pirouetting around the living room while singing along to his own songs, see pic at top.)

There were also some mighty entertaining dogs at the afterparty, graciously hosted by our friends Michael and Corey. Gitano brought Oso (Spanish for "bear") his excitable 110 pound rottweiler who loves to leap on people.
Mano y mano

A girl also brought over a black pomeranian who got along famously with Michael and Corey's little puffball dog Shafer. It WAS Valentine's Day...wonder if there are some little, gray puppies on the way.
Kiss, kiss.

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Hello Disaster, Goodbye Domenick!
Friday, February 13, 2009

Had a good day recording at Roscoe's home studio yesterday. Laid down the groundwork for a couple songs that I hope will round out the New Heathens record, which Domenick says we should call, "Hello Disaster."
Lord of the manor, Roscoe
Don't wanna' give TOO much away, but the songs we worked on sound cool and vibe-y. I sang into this really clear sounding Cad microphone.

Also played on this real fun Blueridge guitar that belongs to Roscoe's wife, Mary Lee Kortes. It's also, he told me, all over Chip Robinson's great new record.


Domenick Tiziano, a New Heathen from day one, is moving to Warsaw, Poland this weekend. He and his new bride both have jobs over there. Had dinner with him last night at the Rodeo Bar, a place where we've had plenty of fun
Dom would think this picture is funny.

He swears he'll fly across the ocean for special New Heathens gigs. We'll take him up on the offer.

Bone-rattling news about another New York region plane crash this morning, this one tragic. Mercy.

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Back Into The Studio
Thursday, February 12, 2009

Pray for me, friends. In about three hours I'm going into Roscoe's home studio to hopefully record one or two solo acoustic tracks to round out the New Heathens' record. This could potentially FINISH the recording part of the process (we'll still have to mix and master). This baby is wwwwwwaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyy overdue, and it's been a m@*$%#$&!%#r every step of the way.

But we're getting closer...

Meanwhile, this is how my cat will spend her day (as she does every day)

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Honestly, I Had No Idea. Honestly.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009

As if we didn't have enough reasons to hate Alex Rodriguez now he comes out and admits, sort of, that he took steroids.

A-Roid says that back around 2001 he took something his trainer gave him. He's not sure exactly what it was, but he's pretty sure it was a steroid. This admission comes after Sports Illustrated disclosed that he flunked a steroid test in 2003.

Do you really think Rodriguez picked up that copy of SI, smacked his palm to his forehead and said, "So THAT must've been the stuff my trainer gave me!"

Rodriguez' admission sounds disturbingly similar to those of Bonds' and Clemens; that their trainers told them to take some stuff, they did, and if it WAS steroids they had no idea.

MAYBE baseball doesn't have a problem with ballplayers taking steroids, MAYBE baseball has a problem with trainers who SECRETLY GIVE THEIR PLAYERS STEROIDS.

These waterheads' bodies are worth tens of millions. Do you really think they're going to hire somebody to inject unknown substances inside them? Do you really think a trainer would go rogue and just start firing muscle-building, nut-shrinking stuff into his dudes? These guys walk around their clubhouses nekkid, SOMEBODY would notice if a slugger's jockstrap dropped a size, right?

"Hey Jose, uh, there seems to be an inverse relationship between the size of youz pectoral muscles and 'da size of youz, uh, baseballs."

"Wat's 'dis inverse a-whaddyacallit?"

Come on. I think these guys are stupid, but I don't think they're morons. Even I know most everything that's gone into my body in the past few months, and I'm probably worth 1/1,000,000,000th what those guys are. Zicam? Yep. Echinacea? Uh-huh. Alcohol. Guilty. Bison burger. Yes. Slippery Elm tea? Yessir. Could a world class athlete not do the same?

Way to take the "class" out of "world-class athletes" guys.

Let me reiterate my call to put steroid-free Andre Dawson in the Hall of Fame.

(Also heard a sneak version of a great new song called "Willie Mays" by Terry Anderson and the Olympic Ass Kicking Team off their upcoming record. He says it perfectly, "You ain't as great as Willie Mays!" Yep.)

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Fire & Ice
Monday, February 9, 2009

My cabin fever finally hit critical mass and I went flyfishing for the first time this year over the weekend. The fact that I have no fish pictures to post speaks to my catch rate. Still, it was awful pretty...
Went to a really cool, really great restaurant in Chinatown on Saturday Night called Grand Sichuan. Here the servers put a boiling pot of regular broth and a pot of boiling broth filled with Sichuan peppers in the middle of the table. Then you order raw food and cook it in the pot of your choice.
This is the non-hot hot pot:

And this is the hot pot that will MELT YOUR FACE OFF.

Don't believe me? Larry, on the left in this picture, boasted of traveling to China to eat the spicy food there. Notice the color of his face, the sweat, the napkin raised to wipe away tears and the laughter of his friend Justin after eating from the insanity pot.
Sweat & tears
The restaurant is located right here, on Canal Street between Bowery and the Manhattan Bridge.
Happy to see Alison Krauss and Robert Plant clean up at the Grammys last nite. Really happy to see John Mayer, Buddy Guy, BB King and Keith Urban pay homage to Bo Diddley.

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Brooklyn Burger, Bad for Bison, Eau D'Jersey
Friday, February 6, 2009

Rock and roll: Checked out Roscoe's new Cowboy Technical recording studio in Williamsburg. (New Heathens were the last band to track in the old one). The new place, on the 6th floor of a building at the base of the Williamsburg Bridge, looks really cool! Got to eavesdrop on the mixing some of Kasey Anderson's new record, which sounds sweet.
Kasey Anderson at the mixing boardRoscoe overdubbing
From there we went to Peter Luger's for lunch and I missed the great pic: both Roscoe and Kasey photographing their hamburgers with their phones. Watch for burger pix on Roscoe's blog.

Bad News for Buffalo: Montana House Bill 253, which I blogged about last week, died in committee. Very disappointing for those of us who want a solution that would allow Yellowstone bison to cross the park's border without being shot by the Department of Livestock.

Pancakes anyone? The New York Times (note the byline) reports today that a mystery maple syrup smell in Manhattan was traced to a factory in the New Jersey town where I used to live, North Bergen.

My issue is this, with all the nasty, awful smells wafting over Jersey (the scent of raw sewage around the turnpike near Newark Airport springs to mind) why were New Yorkers upset about the aroma of maple syrup? Memo to Manhattan: it could have been a lot worse!

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Music for Men Who Don't Get Out Much
Thursday, February 5, 2009

Played a nice little acoustic gig at Bar Nine in Hell's Kitchen last night with Gitano. There were just a handfull of people in the room, but they were appreciative.

One dude especially. He came up to us a bunch of times and said how much he loved what we were playing, particularly the original songs.

"I don't get out much, but to me you guys sound fantastic," he said. "This is one of the best things I've ever heard, but really, I don't get out much. I just don't."

Uh, thanks. I think?

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Into the LAIR of the BLOOD-DRAWING BEAST!
Tuesday, February 3, 2009

New York City is abuzz with talk of Chuck the groundhog biting Mayor Michael Bloomberg's finger at a Groundhog Day celebration at the Staten Island Zoo yesterday.

Today I, and two other brave journalists, went into the groundhog's lair to go eye to beady little eye with this biter of billionaires.

Behold the Face of Terror!

With the visage of he who was bit.

The celebrification of a blood-drawer (That's NY Post photog Chad Bachman who also brought Mayor Mike's framed portrait.)

And finally...a kiss of apology from the varmint?

Does this mean groundhogs don't support term limits?

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What's In A Name? Springsteen Close-Up
Monday, February 2, 2009

Raised a few eyebrows in Heathenland last week when I sent out an e-mail saying I was gonna' play New Heathens songs with a different cast of characters at a gig down in Baltimore. I didn't book the gig as the "New Heathens," but still wanted to make sure that people who enjoy New Heathens songs knew they were gonna' hear 'em. Walked into the bar and the bartenders said, "Hey, we had no idea who this weird band from New York City was gonna' be but as soon as you walked in we knew it was the New Heathens!"

Sigh. What's in a name?

Ol' Bruce Springsteen is making me post video of him for the second time in two weeks. The first time it was for his chill-inducing performance of The Rising on the Lincoln Monument for Obama. This time it was for his ham-and-cheesefest at the Super Bowl halftime show. Watch him at around 3:40 on this video slide on his knees and nail the camera with his crotch. Extreme close-up! Love the sheepish look he gives right after.

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