Goodbye Brooklyn Dodgers: Buck 65 in Concert

Buck 65 will probably never be a big star. Not even a big star by the standards of underground hip-hop, where guys that the vast majority of Americans will never hear of are considered big stars- Sage Francis or Aesop Rock or Slug from Atmosphere. During his set at the Cat's Cradle on Thursday night, this thought came to me and I haven't been able to mount a rational argument in my head against it. He's too.. too something to make that kind of step, I'm afraid. I hope I'm wrong, because for 90 minutes or so he was the most captivating thing in the world. He didn't have the crowd in his hands in the way that Brother Ali did- the crowd never came close to chanting his name. He didn't win over the unconverted like Mac Lethal did. But while he was on stage, I couldn't take my eyes off of him, even when, during "Rough House Blues" he let the attractive girl that I had seen at the Galactic show, who had earlier asked me to keep an eye on her sweater, dance on stage with her hula hoop. I wonder if anyone else found that they couldn't take their eyes off of our favorite Canadian answer to Tom Waits to watch that alluring sight.

But to begin at the beginning. The first act, added to the bill only a couple of days before the show, was a local rapper who goes by the nom de Rap Crash. And let me tell you something- he might be the most talented local rapper this side of the Justus League. Both his songwriting and his delivery were surprisingly well polished for someone without any merch to sell.

The second act was a spoken word performer called Bernard Dolen, who is signed to Sage Francis' Strange Famous label. And appropriately, both in style and subject matter he reminded me much more of Sage than anyone else (even Buddy Wakefield, the other spoken word performer I've seen at a Buck concert this year). The only part of Dolen's performance that really caused me to pay attention was a "cover" of a poem called "Undertaker" by a poet called Patricia Smith (I think. I should have fucking written it down. I suppose I'll google it later.)

Now, Buck's performance. It was excellent. He played a good mix of songs from his new album, Situation, and older stuff- a couple of songs off of his last album (the aforementioned Rough House Blues and his slight reworking of a Bukowski poem that Buck calls "The Floor"), a handful of songs off of Talkin Honky Blues (a reworking of "Leftfielder", "463", "Roses and Blue Jays" as a request and the mashup of "Wicked and Weird" and the Appalachian folk song "Coo Coo Bird" that appeared on the "Porch" release he sold on his tour with Sage) and even older stuff like "Centaur" and "Bachelor of Science". Bachelor of Science he played after polling the audience. He asked if we would rather hear that or "Heather Nights". I cheered for "Heather Nights", but I was pretty much the only one. He said he would try and play both, and at the end of the show, he kept his promise and did the first verse and chorus of what is one of my two or three favorites of his songs acapella. He looked at me a couple of times while he was playing it, and it was incredibly cool (that sounds way more creepy than I mean it too, I'm afraid). My point is that, this isn't the first interaction I've had with him. Hell, I had an extended conversation wiht him a few months ago. We talked about Arthur Lee, and how great the song "Alone Again Or" is. It's not star-struck, (in part because there are very few definitions of the word "star" that include Buck 65) so much as... something.

Buck 65 will almost certainly never sell out a venue like the Cat's Cradle by himself, not unless he somehow winds up doing something like opening a tour for Tom Waits and rapidly growing his following overnight. (Not that I rule that out completely, but it's unlikely). But for one night, he became the center of my musical universe, overshadowing even the Dylan bootleg I found at the CD Alley (Blood On The Tracks demos recorded during the New York sessions for the album. I could explain the differences between the New York sessions and the Minnesota sessions for the album, but if you cared you would have read up on it by now. And there aren't many good reasons... wait, I'm listening to it right now and the lyrics for Idiot Wind are different. That's so fucking cool. Sorry.)

About Last Night

So, the show last night turned out to be better than I expected. Both Mr. Lif and Boots Riley got several songs (Lif did the "New Man Theme" off of I Phantom, which I had been hoping for, while Boots did "My Favorite Mutiny") and the encore was a jam-band/funk version of Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song" which turned into a version of The Coup's "Everythang" featuring Boots, Mr. Lif and the opening act, Portland-based rap group Lifesavas. I spent most of the show leaning against a wall as hard as I could, and so I was only in limited pain at worst. I also learned that if you wear a black t-shirt and stand in one place long enough, people might mistake you for an authority figure. At one point during one of Galactic's endless jam bits a girl asked me if I was in charge. I told her I was not, but she went on to ask me if it would be all right if she bought the band a round of Budweisers and brought them to the stage. I told her I had no idea if that was all right. In retrospect, I should have gone with my impulse to suggest a decent beer. The band at first seemed happy about the beer, but you could almost see their smiles die in real-time as they realized what they had been subjected to. In other beer news, the Lincoln Theater had Magic Hat #9 on tap, which was very, very cool. You should all be drinking that beer right now, wherever you are and whatever you are doing. All in all, the evening was pretty all right, except for missing out on House. I suppose I'll have to watch it from the iTunes.

Buck 65's show at the Cradle is next week, and hopefully I'll be able to walk around the club completely unfettered.

Last Exit To Hollywood

So, I'm a little torn about this writers' strike. On the one hand, I always support writers getting paid fairly, and even though I assume that the writers' union is as completely controlled by the mafia as every other union in this country, I support them. On the other hand, if 24 gets postponed then I might have to offer my services as a scab. Look forward to way more episodes where Jack Bauer waterboards Amnesty International representatives who are helping the terrorists. I also have an idea to keep Law & Order going my simply re-filming scripts from the Michael Moriarty as Assistant DA era with Sam Waterson. It's been, like, fifteen years and I doubt many people would notice.

One thing about the strike I found interesting is that it doesn't include the people who write for pro wrestling. Despite the fact that it's programming featuring fictional characters, acting out fictional storylines and often memorizing scripts to recite on television, it apparently counts as "sports". Go figure. According to the LA Times, House has enough scripts already finished to keep going for a while, which is good. Unfortunately, I also read that a lot of shows began using non-regular writers in an attempt to stockpile scripts, which is probably bad. Colbert is hit doubly hard- first the South Carolina Democrats won't let him on the ballot, and then he doesn't even get to go on the air tonight to make fun of it. In the meantime, I hope all of you enjoy reality shows and game shows. And reality show/game show crossovers. I, for one, can't wait for the harlots on Flavor of Love show up on the Jeff Foxworthy fifth grader show.

T0morrow night Keith and I are going to see a jam band called Galactic. My semi-hippie friend Tanner tried to explain them to me, but I kind of lost interest halfway through his description and began thinking about how awesome Super Smash Bros. Melee is going to be (it has a level editor! And I can finally have a fight between Sonic, Solid Snake and Link!). Anyway, we're going because Boots Riley from The Coup and Mr. Lif are going to be there. I've soon Boots before, and he just might be the most underrated MC working today, and Mr. Lif's album I Phantom was one of the albums that really got me obsessed with underground hip hop. I'll probably post something about the show in the next couple of days, but I don't feel like I know enough about the main act to write anything like a proper review (as proper as my reviews are anyway). I was a little worried about the show, but my back is pretty much 100%, and my leg, which began hurting a few days after I did whatever the hell I did to my back, is feeling pretty alright at this point.

Sign Of The Crossfade

I woke up this morning and my back seems to be getting better. It's not one hundred percent yet, but it's getting close. Remind me never to take being walk upright granted again. Anyway, I have a quick announcement or two. Or maybe five.

1. Six tracks into my first concentrated listen of the new Buck 65 album, and it already feels like the fifth contender for album of the year (if you're taking notes, the other four are El-P's I'll Sleep When You're Dead, Brother Ali's The Undisputed Truth, Radiohead's In Rainbows and Pharoahe Monch's Desire.) This album does seem much more hip-hop then his last stuff, which had more folk/blues/Tom Waits-ey stuff on it, but his writing is still on a completely different level than almost anyone else in music. Buck's ability to recast cliches and idioms into new meanings at times vaguely reminds of Dylan's stuff in the mid-60s. Which is not to say that I think Buck is as good a lyricist as Dylan (Obviously I'm not going to put anyone on the same plateau as Robert Allen Zimmerman) but I think there is a similarity there. If the world was a fair place, he would be the biggest name in underground/alternative music.

2. Extras is probably better than Curb Your Enthusiasm (and this season of Curb is pretty damn good, especially for a show that seemed to end last season). I just finished the first season through the Netflix, and I'm very disappointed with myself for waiting this long to watch the show. If you haven't heard Patrick Stewart's idea for a movie starring himself, you are missing out.

3. If the Dodgers think that Joe Torre is what that team was missing last year, then I don't know how to help them. This is a team that had no one hit more than 20 home runs last year, as far as I can tell. Their (excellent) closer is 37. Juan Pierre starts for the team. A manager is the least of their worries.

4. I like the Sarah Silverman Program, but last night's episode was something of a chore to get through. Actually, now that I think about it, Silverman is probably the one show that I genuinely like that is fairly consistently a chore. Unfortunately, when it is funny, it's brilliantly funny ("I believe the Holocaust was completely uncalled for", for example). But Sarah is probably not the best judge of her own material, at least as long as she thinks jokes about excrement are the height of comedy.

5. House was fine on Tuesday night. But please, please, please get rid of at least one of the unbearable women doctors/contestants. The new Foreman/House dynamic looks to be a good way to go. After about two more weeks I think I'll be done with the reality show/contest angle.

6. Slate has a good piece up about how bad Sports Illustrated become. I'm a subscriber, but it has become a shell of what it once was. For me, things really began going wrong when high school football got a regular section, and the fantasy football coverage began taking up more pages of space than most real sports.