Old Friend

Matthew Sweet / The Bridges at The Fox Theatre. I’ve been a Matthew Sweet fan since the early 90’s, and it’s been nine years since I last saw him (NINE YEARS!?!). During that period he’s put out a couple good albums (Kimi Ga Suki, Under the Covers Vol. 1) and some that are best forgotten (Living Things), but his recently released Sunshine Lies seems to be a return to the sound that made his earlier albums so successful. My brother got me tickets for my birthday, so he and I made the trek to Boulder to check out the show.

First up were The Bridges, an Alabama band made up of 3 sisters, their brother, and a cousin. Since Matthew produced their debut album, they were a natural fit for the opening slot. With 4 females contributing vocals, they have a very lush sound (imagine the Dixie Chicks if they played power pop instead of country), and you could definitely hear the Sweet influence in the song structures and harmonies. I was impressed enough that I’ll track down their album. I might have been persuaded to buy it at the merch table on the way out tonight, but I didn’t feel like fighting my way through the line of dorks awaiting their chance to hit on the hottie guitarist (not that she wasn’t worth standing in line for).

Matthew and band came on around 9:15. Without making too many excuses, there were a lot of factors working against the show (cold, rainy, Monday, the Broncos on Monday Night Football, playing in a college town when his audience has gotten quite a bit older than that), and it was reflected in the size of the crowd. I’d be surprised if there were much more than 100 people in the room. I think the band noticed, and it probably took some wind out of their sails and kept the show from being as good as it could have been. I don’t think it helped that they started to lose some of the crowd during the first half of the set, which contained mostly new songs, but they recovered in the second half, which drew pretty heavily from Girlfriend. Actually, I was surprised at the fact that the setlist ignored so many albums. Other than “Sick of Myself” and one song from Living Things, the entire setlist came from Girlfriend, Altered Beast and Sunshine Lies. I was bummed not hear anything from In Reverse or Kimi Ga Suki. Then again, the set was short — only about an hour and then a two-song encore (both Girlfriend tracks) — so there weren’t many opportunities to delve into the back catalog.

I don’t want to say the show was disappointing, because it definitely wasn’t. It was more like when you catch up with an old friend that you haven’t seen in years, and after a few minutes, you realize things have changed so much that you can’t just pick up right where you left off any more. For starters, Matthew’s gained a pretty shocking amount of weight since I last saw him 9 years ago (to the point that I’m actually worried about his health), which did take some getting used to. Plus, I was bummed to see so few people at the show, because I think after 11 albums, he deserves better, but I blame that partly on putting the show in Boulder instead of Denver. I’d be surprised if he has many college-aged fans these days, and I bet he could have easily drawn three times that crowd if the show had been in Denver, closer to an older fan base. Finally, I think he’s at that tipping point in his career where the audience wants his greatest hits, but he still wants to play the new songs, so the energy level just felt a bit off all night — huge drops when he played new stuff, big spikes when he trotted out the oldies.

That said, the band sounded tight once they got going. Yes, I wish the show had been longer, but despite some things not being perfect, getting to hear “Girlfriend,” “I’ve Been Waiting,” “Divine Intervention,” “Ugly Truth Rock,” “Sick of Myself,” and “Someone To Pull the Trigger” played live again made the night worthwhile.

UPDATE: Just for old times’ sake...

Humble Pie

So I can’t remember how I ended up there, but at some point during my browsing tonight, I discovered that the newly-internet-friendly Metallica has a YouTube channel where they’re encouraging their fans to post videos of themselves playing along to Metallica songs. This one was pretty good:



And then, I watched this:



Every time I start to feel good about my guitar playing, something like this comes along to remind me how much I suck. Guess I’ll be practicing this weekend...

The Dark Knight (Pixar remix)

Trailer mashups are the new black.

Ranting and Raving

Not surprisingly, The New Yorker has endorsed Obama. Also not surprisingly, they give an excellent, clear, carefully considered, and factually-based argument in favor of Obama.

Sadly, I’m afraid this kind of endorsement won’t be enough. If this election was going to be decided simply on cold hard facts and rational thinking about who is going to be the best leader for this country in crisis, Obama could schedule his inauguration right now. Unfortunately, we live in Reality TV Nation, where the presidential election has become nothing more than a popularity contest in which the future of our country hinges on who can come up with the best sound bite. Maybe I have too little faith in the American public, but I have a feeling there are a lot of fairly intelligent but lazy people (along with a whole mess of total idiots) in this country who have been sucked in by the Republican misdirection, and are going to base their vote in the most important election in half a century entirely on the image of a pitbull with lipstick. Look over here, public. Watch the pretty lady, don’t think about that stuff that hurts your brain like the economy (which, by the way, we have no solutions for, because we don’t actually want to fix it). Call me a pessimist, but I fear for the next four years.

On the other hand, if McCain wins, maybe California and New England will secede from the U.S., and I can move back near a beach.

P.S. Have our standards really become that low for our leaders that anyone can crow about how well someone did in a debate just because she didn’t screw up? The whole VP show was pretty disappointing anyway. Trading 30-second sound bites doesn’t really qualify as much of a “debate”.

UPDATE: Happily, I was wrong, and the American public exceeded my expectations for once.

Spiralling

Somehow, I missed Keane’s upcoming album in my fall music preview, but based on this, it sounds like the boys heart the 80’s big-time on this effort, and I heart the result.

And I'm All Like, "WTF, Becks?"

Sometimes, things can be awesome even when they make absolutely no sense.

And Australia's All Like, "WTF, Mate?"

I know you’ve all seen this before. But it’s still funny.

Thinking Clearly

I promise to keep the political posts to a minimum this year (unless McCain wins and that flip-flopping nutjob Palin ends up a heartbeat away from the presidency — then I’ll probably be firing off political posts left and right from Barcelona or Berlin), but I finally got a forwarded email that was worth repeating. It does such a great job of showing how ridiculous the Republican hype machine really is when you break their arguments down. Here it is:

I’m a little confused. Let me see if I have this straight....

If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you’re “exotic, different.” Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, a quintessential American story.

If your name is Barack, you’re a radical, unpatriotic Muslim. Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, you're a maverick.

Graduate from Harvard Law School and you are unstable. Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're well grounded.

If you spend 3 years as a community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate’s Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you don't have any real leadership experience. If your total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you’re qualified to become the country’s second highest ranking executive.

If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real Christian. If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you’re a Christian.

If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society. If, while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state’s school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant, you’re very responsible.

If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family’s values don't represent America’s. If your husband is nicknamed “First Dude”, with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn’t register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.

OK, much clearer now.

Sadly, half of America would read this and completely miss the sarcasm. And that’s why the pessimist in me has this sinking feeling that Obama is going to lose.

McCain image by Steve Sedam/XL Industries.

Culinary Delights

And now for something completely different...

By no means would I ever consider myself resembling anything close to a chef. My kitchen is pretty much just a storage area that’s seldom used for anything more difficult than opening a new box of cereal. But every once in a while, I get the urge to eat something that hasn’t been handed to me through the window of my car, and that usually means it’s time to throw down on the grill.

Tonight was one of those nights. I had a good cut of boneless sirloin (Laura’s Lean Beef from Super Target—don’t knock it) that I marinated overnight in a mixture of Worcestershire sauce, cracked black pepper, and Simply Organic Spicy Steak Seasoning. Once I fired up the grill, I started sauteing some chopped onion and baby bella mushrooms in olive oil and a touch of the Worcestershire, just enough to give everything a hint of flavor. I threw the steak on the grill at medium heat, flipped it a couple times, covered it with the onion and mushrooms, added a glass of red wine (I prefer something more flavorful with steak—tonight was a 2004 Tinto da Anfora, a surprisingly well-rounded, full-bodied Portuguese red*, considering the price I paid for it), and voila! I’m stuffed and happy.

Thus ends what will probably be my first and last post about food, at least until the day Taco Bell and Pizza Hut join forces to create the Ultimate Deep Dish Spicy Chicken Supreme Burrizza. What a glorious day that will be...

*OK, full disclosure: I totally cheated and looked up reviews of this wine online. I buy all my wine on an aesthetic basis, meaning my design snobbery will not allow me to buy anything with an ugly label.

Damn, hippies!

CSNY, just hangin’ out by the pool with a few thousand friends. The word “incendiary” comes to mind...



Thanks to Aquarium Drunkard for digging this one up.