September 18, 2008: Squeeze, Kyle Maclachlan, and Much, Much More

Squeeze, 9-15-2008. The Wonder Ballroom, Portland, OR.
We went to the Squeeze concert last Monday night (9/15) and had an absolute blast. They played the Wonder Ballroom up on NE Russell, next door to the delightful Toro Bravo (where we ate tapas for dinner prior). The band was in great form: they ripped into timeless pop hit after timeless pop hit with high energy, clear enthusiasm, and, above all, excellent musicianship. I was amazed by how crisp and tight they were. The audience was enormously appreciative too, which was nice to see. Almost everyone appeared to be over 40, not surprisingly, but I couldn't help but notice a young girl--probably just 21--singing every syllable. Warms the cockles of an old codger's heart.

The Vintner Has Awakened!
I love it when things that I love intersect in fun and unusual ways. In this case it's Washington Wines, Kyle Maclachlan, and my favorite Shakespearean stage direction. Read all about it here:

http://nymag.com/daily/food/2008/09/actor_kyle_maclachlan_makes_hi.html, and here:

http://www.winespectator.com/Wine/Features/0,1197,4597,00.html.



Cheers,
JBF

September 14: Early Girl

Just thought I'd drop in a little anecdote about why I love New Seasons grocery stores so damn much. I was in the produce department in the New Seasons on 13th in Sellwood the other day and I asked a woman there if they had any fresh oregano, since there wasn't any in the bins. She went into the back room to see if there was any. After several minutes went by, I assumed she forgot my request, but I waited anyway. Finally she came out and when she saw me she apologized for making me wait--there had been a small accident in back requiring clean-up. She went into the back room again to look for oregano, but within a minute she came back and told me they were out. I went about my shopping then and thought nothing more of it. Just after I'd paid and was gathering my bags in the check-out, she returned with a small bag full of Early Girl tomatoes. She asked if I liked them, and of course I like any fresh, ripe, delicious vegetables. She apologized again for making me wait and for not having any fresh oregano around. I thanked her and left the store thinking, "I love New Seasons. I think I'll blog about what just happened and let the world know what a great place they are." So I did. Yes, you may pay a little more for some things, and at times their selection lacks depth and breadth, but I keep coming back for these five reasons: (1) Meat department. (2) Produce department. (3) Ratio of organic to non is excellent. (4) Customer service. (5) Customer service.

Ciao,
JBF

September 12, 2008: Marion Street Ramblers LIVE!! at PEAC Dinner

Yes, the Ramblers struck again! This time for about 50 folks at an annual dinner for PEAC (Lewis & Clark Law School's Pacific Environmental Advocacy Center). We played our usual set list, but with a few curve balls--most notably a version of "Red Wing" cross-pollinated with "Turkey in the Straw." Good fun. Find out more about PEAC here: http://www.lclark.edu/org/peac/.

Q: What's the difference between Sarah Palin and a bulldog?
A: A bulldog believes in evolution.

Ciao,
JBF

September 9, 2008: Marion Street Ramblers LIVE!! at Leach Botanical Garden

Three of us Marion Street Ramblers (that would make us The Marion Street Trio, eh?) played for the volunteers luncheon at the Leach Botanical Garden in east Portland yesterday. It was a low-key gig: George Taylor played mandolin and fiddle, Allison Handler played banjo, and Jim Finley played guitar. We started at 12:30 and played to about 2:00 for somewhere close to 50 people. The set list included (not in order): Kiss Me Mother, Drunken Sailor, Swing Low Sweet Chariot, Pig in a Pen, Turkey in the Straw, Worried Man Blues, Roll in My Sweet Baby's Arms, Hold What You Got, The Cuckoo, and others. We played well and the audience was very appreciative. But best of all was the venue--the manor house, patios, and surrounding garden were all incredibly beautiful. Take a look-see here: http://www.leachgarden.org/pages/giftshop.php

Peace,

JBF

September 9, 2008: Pierrot le Fou & Tickets

Recently Viewed:



Pierrot le Fou. Jean-Luc Godard (1965). Let's sing it together now (and to the tune of "Alouette"): "I love French films, pretensious boring French films, I love French films..." and this is a fine example. Godard is, of course, the prototypical pretensious French film maker, but not boring...at least not when Jean-Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina are lighting up the screen. This is the new Criterion release--wonderful print, lively colors (so nice to see after years of poor quality art house showings), great extras (although I wouldn't really know since I didn't get disc two from Netflix yet--but they sound great!) Ultimately, the film is a bit of a lark. It's a pop-art criminals on the run picture, full of primary colors, fourth wall breaching, jabbing commentaries on American and European politics and culture, and send-ups of narrative film conventions. The breezy skullduggery plot seems like a cross between Breathless and Le Petit Soldat, but without the former's charm or the latter's seriousness. And tonally and moodwise, the film is like Godard's other early color films--Le Mepris and Une Femme est Une Femme--but without their narrative unity. In the end, it tries to do too much, in my opinion, but then again, all that stuff it does do is also why I like Godard. How about this then: It's just good fun. ***





Tickets. Abbas Kiarostami, Ken Loach, Ermanno Olmi (2005). A remarkable film: a triptych of loosely interlocking stories set on a passenger train travelling across Italy towards Rome, with each director listed above taking the reins for his respective segment. A wonderful collaboration. The stand-out, for me, was Ken Loach's part--the story of three foul-mouthed Scottish lads who, on their way to see a soccer match in Rome, get one of their train tickets lifted by a family of Albanian refugees. The resolution of the conflict is both inspiring and funny, and, of course, lacking none of Loach's usual political punch. ***
~


And speaking of trains, when K and I dropped off our friend Nicole at the train station here in Stumptown on Sunday, we let Ian walk all over the place and get his first experience of a train station. It was great--a wide open terminal to cruise around in, good visibility for the parent, and lots of interesting new things to look at. I hate to admit it, but I love train travel so much sometimes it's just comforting to go to the station and hang out--imagine that you're off to some exciting place. It's always a rich sensory experience. So here's five great train movies (or movies with great train sequences in them) to get you in the mood to travel: (1) Murder on the Orient Express. Sidney Lumet, 1974. (2) North by Northwest. Alfred Hitchcock, 1959 . (3) From Russia with Love. Terence Young, 1963. (4) Closely Watched Trains. Jiri Menzel, 1966. (5) The Train. John Frankenheimer, 1964.

Bonus: And five great train songs! (1) "Orange Blossom Special," Johnny Cash. (2) "Rock Island Line," The Knitters. (3) "Midnight Special," Creedence Clearwater Revival. (4) "Driver 8," R.E.M. (5) "(I Heard that) Lonesome Whistle," Hank Williams...Okay...(6) "Train in Vain," The Clash.

Bon Voyage,
JBF

September 8, 2008: RAWK!

Now Spinning: Ted Nugent. Rawk is my label for most of the hard rock music I listened to before The Who came along and served me notice. Strange, now that I think about it, but really what happened was I wallowed around in a lot of lame rock music before I heard something that was musically similar but consistently unlame. To be specific, while I was listening to Aerosmith, Blue Oyster Cult, Black Sabbath, Foghat, Journey, Styx, Foreigner, Ted Nugent, Montrose, Van Halen, Head East, Kansas, and Rush--and enjoying it all, for the most part--I gradually began to realize these guys were mostly just aping the bluesy-metal-prog-rock stylings of bands like Led Zeppelin, Cream, Jimi Hendrix Experience, and, yes, The Who. The latter crystalized it for me. See, growing up in Spokane, it was easy to think that Rawk was the only kind of hard rock out there--Rawk bands were about the only kinds of groups that played the Spokane Coliseum (unaffectionately known as the "Boone Street Barn") and it was the stuff the FM stations played in support of the upcoming shows. (Could there be a more perfect example of how media and big business work together to structure and contain a market?) I knew about these other bands, vaguely, and knew, of course, the music of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, but guided as I was by the radio and what I heard at parties and on my older brother's stereo, I just assumed Rawk was the shit. If I can credit anyone for moving my taste away from Rawk, I guess it has to be, cringe, Led Zeppelin. Today, when I listen to them, I find a lot that is overblown (I saw the phrase "sugarlined bombast" once in a Time article, which sums up my current feelings about them quite well), but I have to say, they were so obvious the major influence on the Rawk bands, and they Rawked so much better than any of their descendants, that I soon figured, "Why go for the cheap knock-offs?" Then I realized that a near-contemporary of Led Zeppelin was also a major inspiration for Rawk: The Who. Physically, they reminded me of LZ and Rawk bands--stand alone singer with long curly blond hair, wild-ass lead guitarist, sentinel bassist, drummer from another planet; and sonically they were in the same Shea Stadium--roaring lead vocals, massive amounts of guitar distortion, and loud as can be--but something was quite different about them. As I began to explore their music, I discovered real artistry: lyrics that were well-crafted and interesting; melodies, arrangements, progressions, and instrumentation that were very often subtle and complex; and, above all, an approach to music that bespoke deep intelligence. All that and they RAWKED! My new appreciation of The Who coincided with the tragedy in Cincinnatti--where 11 fans were killed in a stampeding rush for good seats--and with that, The Who was thrust into the spotlight in many ways that they wouldn't have been otherwise. They made the cover of Time, and they were talked about in news broadcasts and in the papers for weeks after the tragedy. I couldn't get away from them even if I'd wanted to. Before long I was hooked, and album after album confirmed for me that they were the greatest rock 'n' roll band on the planet. From then on, I rarely looked back at Rawk. All the Reo-Journeywagon albums got traded for The Who and other kindred bands, and off I went into a world of British blues-rock, American hippie music, and even Chicago and Delta blues music (but that's a whole other story...). Little did I know that even then it was a late hour for the classic rockers--punk and new wave (currents I was only dimly aware of) were already forcing those dinsoaur cars onto the side of the road.

So here I am in 2008, some 30 years after I first saw him in concert, buying a cheap, $5 collection of songs by a man who is the absolute embodiment of Rawk. Why? Well, he's not the first. I've also picked up, here and there, albums by Van Halen, Aerosmith, LZ, Montrose, and others. Again, why? Nostalgia, I guess. I also have loaded into the I-Pod ABBA, the Bee Gees, Neil Diamond, and more 70's disco than you can shake your booty at. Lame? I suppose. But sometimes I just want to hear that stuff. It takes me back to a dimmer day and reminds me of a former long-haired, bell-bottomed, polyester-shirted self--and that's, somehow, enjoyable and comforting. So when the opening riff of "Cat Scratch Fever" comes on, it's fall of 1978 again, and I'm in the back of my brother's car, drinking a Schlitz, and on my way to a kegger at Valley Chapel Road...

So, in the spirit of Rawk, and with Rawk in my mind, on my lips, and in my heart, here are my five greatest Rawk songs that not only Rawketh Mightily but exemplify the genre with the most Rawkadocious Perfectitude: (1) "Stranglehold," Ted Nugent. (2) "Toys in the Attic," Aerosmith. (3) "Running with the Devil," Van Halen. (4) "Bad Motor Scooter," Montrose. (5) "Paranoid," Black Sabbath.

RAWWWKKK ON!
JBF