Assorted Crankiness

Sheesh, been weeks since I've been here. But, hey, they're reporting that there are some 27.2 million blogs online right now, so I'm sure the 1 or 2 of you who've stopped by here are managing to keep busy. Plus I had the stomach flu, resulting in the longest period of worshipping at the porcelain altar since college, only without the fun part leading up to it. Fortunately, I've managed to continue to blow $$$ on new tunes, so I'll try to get some new reviews going soon enough.


Stomach flu (mostly) behind me, ducked out for the Jeff Tweedy show at the Fillmore in San Francisco last night. Jeff looked like he had been sharing the same toilet bowl with me, with his face all puffy and pale and his eyes red and one ratty-ass looking beard-like thing on his face, but I'm guessing it was just bad lighting and his post-rehab drug-free existence, as once he took the mic he kicked ass all over the place. You know you own the audience when you're willing to play the encore away from the p.a. system, just you & an acoustic guitar, counting on the crowd to keep quiet enough for it to work. And the audience was the quietest I've ever heard. HOWEVER...

In ranting about PEOPLE WHO MUST DIE in this space before, I've talked about the schmucks who talk through the quiet songs at concerts, and the drunken braindead fratboys who jerk spastically into your space, and so on (none of whom appeared to be at the Fillmore last night, thank God), but allow me now to append the following item:

PEOPLE WHO MUST DIE, #11: Idiots who sing along to every song at concerts. Yes, you, the bonehead about 10 people back from the stage, slightly stage left, Fillmore Auditorium, February 8, 2006: Did I pay $40 (after being fiscally violated by Ticketmaster) to hear YOU sing "Shot In The Arm"? No, I most certainly did not. So shut the fuck up. Yes, we are all so impressed that you have successfully memorized all the Wilco lyrics. Go shout them joyously from the hilltops, from the rooftops, from sea to shining sea, just don't sing them when I'm trying to listen to the guy I did pay to hear. You know, if you want to sing along to "Start Me Up" next time you catch the Stones perform before 60,000 of your closest friends at some [insert name of soon-to-be acquired tech company]-owned stadium, great; it's not going to ruin the atmosphere. But at a small or mid-sized stand-up venue, where your lame-ass voice is every bit as audible as the performer's? Just shove another Bud Light between your lips, or silently mouth the lyrics, or whatever, but keep it to your lame-ass self.


Oh, and speaking of another crappy performance of "Start Me Up" -- it's reassuring to know that these dinosaurs on life-support can still get enough of a rise out of network censors that their lyrics have to get bleeped out of the Super Bowl half-time show. (Then again, since the unimaginable horror of Janet's nipple, it's hard to imagine anything that doesn't scare the shit out of the networks... except, of course, for the commercials, which are free to use as much sexist imagery as their little hearts desire because... well, nipples at the end of a Janet Jackson performance are bad, but nipples hyping beer or cars or Internet companies are good. I guess.) Personally, I would be much more comfortable explaining "You make a dead man come" to my kids than trying explain why Keef looks that way.