Nancy Davis Kho's Blog, page 50

We Need More Bagpipes

St. Patrick’s is one of my favorite musical holidays, because it’s the only day of the year that you have a great than 50% chance of hearing bagpipes on rock music. Forget cowbell; we need more bagpipes.

My grandparents came from Yorkshire and brought with them to America a deep appreciation for Scottish and Irish bagpipe music, and this love was handed down through their children to their grandchildren. My cousin Jordan made a career of bagpiping, for a while. He was the official piper on Malcom Forbes’ yacht and played for the luminaries as they boarded the boat, like Princess Di back when she and Prince Charles were still a thing. My brother and his friend Michael played drums in the Rochester Scottish Pipes and Drums band; even I can play a decent version of the drum line for “Scotland the Brave” using my hands and the edge of a desk.

During the summer months, my brother, Michael, and Michael’s older brother Geoff, who played pipes in the band, would climb into the family station wagon wearing their kilts, and head off in search of whatever small town parade in Western New York the band was marching in. There was not one iota of a sense of direction between the three boys, and GPS didn’t exist yet. So usually, a half hour before they were scheduled to march, my dad would take a phone call on the banana yellow kitchen phone, trying to help the bandmates navigate. “You’re in Livonia? What the hell are you doing in Livonia? That’s the opposite direction of where you’re going!” I imagine a lot of extremely amused motorists in the ‘80s spotting three teenage boys in kilts and spats, as they used payphones up and down the New York State Thruway.

I’m drawn to bagpipe music. If I hear it coming in a parade I’m rooted to the spot, waiting to see the pomp and precision of grown men kicking their kilt pleats as they walk, and the sound of  a sharp melody that coasts along top and contrasts to the drone underneath. When it peeks out of a new song, even if it’s just a guitar masquerading as a bagpipe like “When You Were Young” by the Killers, I approve on principle. Why, when the ukulele has made such inroads into modern music, has the bagpipe been left behind?

Scottish Highland pipes, Irish uilleann pipes, whatever your fancy: as St. Paddy’s day approaches, settle in and enjoy a few of my favorite bagpipe and bagpipe-esque songs – and add your own tunes in the comments. If we do this right, we can build a playlist long enough to get even my brother and his bandmates to wherever they were headed.

Extra points to a lead singer who can also squeeze the bag – AC/DC with “Long Way to the Top”

Big Country, “In a Big Country.” I could have SWORN those were bagpipes.

Pretty much anything by the Dropkick Murphys includes punk bagpipes. Here’s “I’m Shipping Up to Boston.”This song makes my mother cry -see, the pipe love is a family thing. “Fields of Gold” by Sting.I think Ed Sheeran used a time machine to travel back and appear in the bagpipe band on this one.This one goes out to my brother, who has always loved the name of this band. Enter the Haggis with “One Last Drink”And finally, one extremely badass piper:***Something new over at NickMom this week: The 7 Types of Annoying People You’ll Meet at Concerts. Burrito girl was definitely somewhere close during the Pixies last month.

                   
CommentsThere is never a lack of a piper near where we live!! Town of ... by Cousin DebbieWe had a bagpiper? Next thing you're going to tell me is that ... by Nancy Davis KhoDid you say to your college counselor, “which university has ... by JillConfession: I only like bagpipes if they are played by ... by Tinne from Tantrums and TomatoesGreeting it, by scaring the bejesus out of it. I like his ... by Nancy Davis KhoPlus 5 more...Related StoriesStill in Rotation: The Big Easy SoundtrackMidlife Mixtape Concert Review: Lord HuronMidlife Mixtape Concert Review: The Pixies 

Hats Off to You, Winter Warriors

I remember, back before I moved to the Bay Area, that I asked a friend who was a San Francisco native if she felt lucky she lived elsewhere during the Loma Prieta quake of ’89. “Not at all,” she answered. “I felt like I missed out, to be honest. Everyone helped each other through this terrible thing together, had their war stories to share. And I was kind of on the outside.”

That’s kind of how I feel about your winter.

I know, I know, that’s easy for someone who lives in the Bay Area to say when our trees are in bloom and the temperatures are in the 70s, and you’re still getting flurries. You think it’s ridiculous to long for slushy streets and runny noses and oh-are-you-SERIOUS-another-snow-day? But remember, that stuff is in my Rochester blood.

And not just the beautiful parts of winter, the crystalline light and the frost on the window panes and the lazy afternoons spent skating on the flooded backyard rink of our next door neighbors. I mean, there are actually things I miss about the brown slush in March. The pallor that comes after four months where the only sustained sun you see is if you watch Hawaii 5-0 reruns. The sinking feeling when you realize that your April birthday party in the backyard may have to be moved inside because the lawn is still spongy from melting snow (I know that feeling PARTICULARLY well. Shout out to my fellow Taurus people.)

Why do I miss them? Because they taught me that I, and my people, were tough. We were not weather wimps. It took a whole lot more than eighteen inches of snow to shut the door to MY school, thank you very much, even if the Catholic schools down the road were closed. It’s not a fun lesson, but it’s not nothing either. I see people walking around here in sixty degree weather wearing down parkas and inside, I’ll be honest, I’m thinking “you should go someplace with REAL weather and see how you do.” I feel certain that even now I would kick the butt of any Bay Area native if we were on Survivor and it took place in say, central Michigan.

Then there is communal shoveling. When I was growing up, there were old people who lived alone on my street, and a few single moms. And the dads and brothers would shovel their own walk, but then go across the street and shovel someone else’s. (The womyn were inside baking cookies for the men, at least at my house. Which was ok by me.) That shoveling was a little piece of everyday kindness, and without the snow I’d have missed seeing it demonstrated. The closest I come to that here in California is when I drag the garbage cans up and down the driveway of the house across the street from us. Any fool could do that; it takes character and determination to shovel someone else’s driveway after you’ve burned up your arms taking care of your own.

Also: aside from the six days a year that it really buckets rain, there is very little excuse for lethargy where I live. I mean lethargy like, wake up on a Saturday, glance out the window and decide it’s a pajama day, a defrost something from the freezer day, an I’ll-get-my-exercise-moving-between-the-couch-and-the-TV day. I think humans are designed to have a few days a year of truly sloth like behavior, but when you do it in NorCal, you tend to feel  so guilty about being inside on a nice day that it ruins the effect. Sometimes you just want to lie on a couch and eat junk food and not get your heart rate up, you know what I mean?

I also remember that by March, if someone in a warm climate had told me to be grateful for our hard winters, I would have taken the time to peel off my crusty mitten first before slapping them in the face, for maximum sting potential. That’s why I’m writing this from the safety of my keyboard.

But my hat’s off to you. Even if it’s still cold and snowy where you are, Daylight Savings Time is upon us. Spring is coming. You’re reading this and you survived this winter. And that’s not nothing.

                   
CommentsHave to admit, I'm feeling a little guilty that I'm in Vegas ... by Amy SteinI did survive. But just barely. xo by dusty earth motherTotally get that guilt thing. Too much good weather – that's ... by CarolynBetween Atlanta's insanity and working in New York's brutality, ... by LanceOne of my San Francisco sisters has talked about that guilt, ... by EllenRelated StoriesGenX Nostalgia: Reality BitCalifornia Drought: Excuse Level RedMortification with a K 

Sturdy

Last weekend, I spent twenty-four hours at an Episcopal retreat center in the heart of Sonoma County, along with other women from my church. It’s an annual retreat, and every year I hold a vague intention to attend, until ballet driving, dinner invitations, concert schedules etc. fill up the calendar and I stay home. Sixteen years running.

But this year, one of the organizers asked me to make a thirty minute music mix for the Saturday night, which works on me like raw steak works on a lion, and that invitation was enough to rouse me from my torpor to register. Even then I couldn’t commit to the whole weekend. Driving north from Oakland under threatening grey skies, I arrived just in time for Saturday lunch, and the four hours of unstructured time on the agenda that followed.

Here’s how I spent mine: sat in my spare, comfortable room and read The Goldfinch, uninterrupted, for two hours. Took a nap for an hour. Then I pulled on my rain jacket to find one of the many hiking trails that criss-cross the property. It sits on a ridge in Healdsburg, overlooking the vineyards of Dry Creek Valley, next to an organic dairy.

It is a sign of either the duration of our drought, or the fact that I’ve been in California for a long time, that the rainy, foggy, drippy weather was perfectly fine by me. When I moved here from the East Coast I missed that muffled sound of Yankee winter, the low blue light and the crack of cold air. If I were to move back now, I’d miss neon green moss dripping with moisture, gnarled Sleepy Hollow trees, and soft, persistent fog. It wasn’t raining, but within five minutes my glasses were coated with mist.

And with each step I took down a path that cut its way through a field covered with exuberant green shoots of grass, I felt lighter, less closed in on myself. I may get out and hike with the dog in a city park full of redwoods most days, but even there I can still hear the planes overhead, the sirens on the highway, trucks grinding their gears as they climb uphill to reach Skyline Drive. I think it’s quiet on my weekday trail, but only in comparison to a busy street corner.

Usually the city noise that filters through suits me fine. I find it reassuring. I’m not very good at being silent and reflective (my childhood nickname: Aunt Blabby.) You’d be surprised how much I find to talk to Achilles about during our walks. It is so much easier to yakkety yak, than to sit quietly with the shy thoughts that skitter away at the slightest interruption.

But up in Sonoma, out on the trail, the loudest sound I heard was the rain when the wind shook it from the pines. Between the quiet, the rest, the reading, and the walking, I had an unusual sense that my chest had expanded and my head was lighter, like I could think more clearly. And suddenly one of those shy thoughts was right inside my head, saying: You pray for the wrong things, kid.

Because I pray all the time. Not in a down-on-your-knees, renting-of-garments kind of way, but more like a thread in my internal monologue, prayers for help and prayers of gratitude, trying to keep them in equal measure. What was the right thing to pray for? Who knew? It was time to eat in the big retreat Dining Room again so I couldn’t stick around to ask. And maybe I didn’t want to.

On Sunday morning, toward the end of the retreat, we paired off with a prayer buddy and were invited to share our thoughts, whatever they were, after the weekend of reflection. In 0.003 seconds I was surprised to find myself sobbing into the arms of one of our church’s grandmotherly matriarchs, confessing that most of my prayers were pleas to God that my children be more this way or more that way, to protect them from this and from that. The weight of guilt, that I don’t spend more time just being grateful for who they are right now, thankful for their well-being instead of worried it will be taken away from us, kept pressing the tears out of me.

The grandmother looked at the quivering wreck in her arms and said, “Nancy. What you need to pray for is sturdiness. You need it, to withstand what parenting asks of you,” like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Not to pray for things to be the way I wish they would be, but for the strength to withstand it when they aren’t. She went on to say that her prayers now are all of gratitude. “Because I’m old, and I never could have imagined what a wonderful life I’d lead.”

So as the Lenten season gets underway, I’m trying hard to remember three things. To take a few moments every single day to be still, really silent, and listen. To pray for sturdiness in myself, not change in everyone else. And to remember that some day, this imperfect life with all its dings and dents and problems will be the same one that I look back at in wonder and gratitude.

Also: I have finally found the Kryptonite to my music mix skills: a church women’s retreat. I had quite an eclectic selection queued up, only to realize that my joke song in the third spot, “Singin’ In the Rain,” was the one that got everyone to their feet, singing and dancing. “More show tunes!” they yelled to me. Show tunes? Aside from and the cast of Wocked, the Show Tune cupboard on my iPhone is bare. Thankfully the retreat leader was fully prepared and took over, and I slunk off in shame.

That is, until one of the older ladies took me aside and said, “What was that first song you played? I just loved it.” Vindication, by way of Ben Lee and “Whatever It Is.” (And a h/t to my friend Maitreya who told me about it in the first place.)

                   
CommentsAunt Sturdy, I too loved the Ben Lee, which is almost — ... by Barbara Falconer Newhall“…shy thoughts that skitter away at the slightest ... by AlisonI thought of it, truly I did! In fact I'm trying to rustle up a ... by Nancy Davis KhoDamn it, Girl, you were in my hood and you didn't look me up?! ... by Mary A BrownThis is so beautiful, Nancy. Thank you. My stepdaughter ... by KatrinaPlus 5 more...Related StoriesHold On To SixteenLife Lessons from the NutcrackerPremature Obsolescence 

Still in Rotation: The Big Easy Soundtrack

Still in Rotation is a feature that lets talented writers tell Midlife Mixtape readers about an album they discovered years ago that’s still in heavy rotation, and why it has such staying power.

Ron Thibodeaux has been one of Midlife Mixtape’s most steady and dependable readers, and at some point in our back and forth in the comments field, we uncovered a shared appreciation of New Orleans music. Bit of an understatement on his part; turns out Ron is actually the associate editor of Louisiana Cultural Vistas magazine and a former newspaper journalist who has profiled musical greats. I was thrilled when he accepted my request to write us a special Mardi Gras edition of Still in Rotation, and even more thrilled to see what he picked. Because it gave me an excuse to rewatch 1986-era Dennis Quaid in The Big Easy.

The Big Easy Soundtrack (1986)

Happy Mardi Gras, everybody! Today is the biggest holiday of the year here in New Orleans, and you know what that means: Drunken excess! Debauchery! Cajuns gone wild!

Well, not exactly. As it turns out, most of what you think you know about New Orleans is wrong. Consider:

For starters, the city is pronounced New ORlins. Not N’AWlins. Not N’ORlins. And never, never New OrLEENS – unless you’re singing along with Louis Armstrong or Harry Connick Jr. to “Do You Know What It Means (To Miss New Orleans)?”

Mardi Gras gives New Orleans much of its cachet as one of the most exotic, interesting and fun-loving cities in America, and decadence has always attached as part of that mystique. Nonetheless, Mardi Gras is an overwhelmingly family-oriented event, with the Carnival season lasting for weeks. That whole flash-for-beads thing? It’s largely a function of drunken young tourists getting crazy along a few blocks of Bourbon Street, not the hundreds of thousands of locals who crowd the six-mile-long parade routes night after night. We don’t do that. We don’t have to. We trundle home from each parade with bags full of beads without having done anything more than wave our hands and yell, “Throw me somethin’, mister.”

We love a good party, but New Orleans also has a substantial religious influence, owing to its Catholic roots. Exhibit A: our football team is named the Saints. The revelry of Fat Tuesday ends abruptly at midnight, with the arrival of Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. While the city has become a Halloween destination for younger visitors in recent years, the next day, All Saints Day, has always been observed as a holiday hereabouts. And the most recognizable image of the city, like the Gateway Arch in St. Louis or the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, is not the Superdome but St. Louis Cathedral in the heart of the French Quarter.

New Orleans is not Cajun; Louisiana’s let-the-good-times-roll Cajun country is a predominantly rural region of bayous and swamps, farmland and small towns west of New Orleans, extending across much of south Louisiana to the Texas border. New Orleans isn’t even Southern, in the traditional sense. Fronting the Mississippi River near the Gulf of Mexico, New Orleans grew up as a port city, absorbing French, Spanish, German, Italian, Caribbean and Latin American influences and reflecting little of the Anglo-Protestant pedigree rooted elsewhere across the Bible Belt South. Consequently, the local dialect isn’t the stereotypical Southern drawl but something akin to a Brooklyn accent. The traditional greeting among New Orleanians is not “How ya doing?” but “Where y’at?” Ergo, natives are sometimes referred to as Yats.

Which brings us to The Big Easy. The steamy crime drama, released in 1987, was a box office hit and a critical success. It elevated Dennis Quaid and Ellen Barkin to major stardom. All these years later, Quaid’s rascal of a cop Remy McSwain can still get the ladies swooning. (Am I right, Nancy?) [Ed. note: So very right, Ron.] Here in New Orleans, though, the movie is a joke. It’s rife with stereotypes. It’s marred by laughable errors in history and geography. Quaid’s butchering of the Cajun accent (which is out of place in New Orleans anyway, remember) will never be forgotten, or forgiven.

The movie does have a saving grace, though.

New Orleans and Louisiana are blessed with – in some ways, defined by – magnificent musical traditions. It’s the birthplace of jazz, and incubator of rhythm and blues. Only Memphis made more meaningful contributions than New Orleans to the development of rock ‘n’ roll. Cajun music derived from the fiddle-based folk tunes of French-speaking Acadian exiles, whose descendants adapted the diatonic button accordion of their German neighbors on the southwestern Louisiana prairie. The region’s black Creoles gave that music another quarter-turn of syncopation and funk and created zydeco. All that, and more, turn up in The Big Easy, seamlessly stitching together street scenes, crime scenes, and love scenes in this strange and wonderful place, twenty years before the producers of the HBO series Treme would take that formula to the bank. The Big Easy soundtrack is a masterwork.

For the uninitiated, there are two familiar touchstones from the mid-1960s: the Dixie Cups’ “Iko Iko” and Aaron Neville’s stunning “Tell It Like It Is,” heard here in a live performance with his siblings Art, Charles and Cyril, known collectively as the Neville Brothers. The Nevilles also turn up on “Hey Hey (Indians Comin’),” a track taken from “The Wild Tchoupitoulas,” one of the most influential albums of Mardi Gras music ever to emerge from New Orleans. Recorded in 1976 with their uncle and fellow members of his “tribe” of Mardi Gras Indians, as well as Art’s funk band the Meters, the Nevilles were prodded to perform together as a group by their experience of making that recording, leading to international acclaim and decades of success as musical ambassadors of New Orleans. “Tipitina” by piano master Professor Longhair is the other quintessentially New Orleans tune on the soundtrack. Don’t bother trying to make sense of the lyrics, and don’t even try to sit still. The groove is utterly infectious; just go with it.

What carries the album, though, are the French-infused songs of the zydeco and Cajun musicians it chooses to showcase. Their appearance in the movie was a brilliant stroke at a critical moment, coming on the heels of the nationwide Cajun cooking craze instigated by Chef Paul Prudhomme’s successful foray into the New York restaurant scene in 1985. Cajun was suddenly cool, and the exposure afforded Cajun and zydeco musicians by the success of The Big Easy provided an enormous boost to the national and international profiles of both genres.

You might have seen Buckwheat Zydeco rocking out with Jimmy Fallon on late-night TV a few weeks ago. In The Big Easy, Buckwheat (real name: Stanley Dural Jr.) helped introduce the rest of America to genuine Louisiana party music. When it comes to zydeco, “Ma ‘Tit Fille” (“My Little Girl”) is as good as it gets. Upbeat, with his powerful piano-key accordion seconded by a metal rub-board (known in Louisiana as a frottoir), this is what zydeco is all about.

Buckwheat Zydeco doing “Ma ‘Tit Fille” (My Little Girl), vintage “Late Show With David Letterman,” when vinyl was still cool (the first time).

Fiddler Dewey Balfa appears in a pivotal dance scene in the movie, and the soundtrack includes a snippet of his rendition of “Pine Grove Blues.” After a bravura performance before 17,000 people at the 1964 Newport Folk Festival, Balfa helped lead a revival of traditional Cajun music and became a tireless champion of Louisiana’s Cajun culture at a time when it was being subsumed by mainstream America. More than 20 years after his death, Balfa remains fondly remembered in Louisiana not only for his musicianship but also for his role as a cultural leader.

Beausoleil, the first Cajun band to win a Grammy (1997, Best Traditional Folk Album), makes a jaunty appearance with “Zydeco Gris Gris.” Zachary Richard, who actually has been more popular as a pop star in France and Quebec than at home in Louisiana, adds an unexpected reggae vibe to the Cajun standard “Colinda.” It totally works. What’s more, the unconventional approach to one of the most familiar songs in the Cajun repertoire bears out what Dewey Balfa once said about tradition and innovation after Cajun and zydeco music became internationally famous, thanks in part to the success of The Big Easy: “A culture is like a whole tree. You have to water the roots to keep the tree alive, but at the same time, you can’t go cutting off the branches every time it tries to grow.”

“Colinda” by Zachary Richard (with alligator cameo)

Sorry you can’t be down here today to join us for Mardi Gras, but The Big Easy soundtrack can transport you here in spirit if you give it a listen. Allons danser!

BONUS VIDEO:  Siskel and Ebert (!) (R.I.P./R.I.P.) review The Big Easy

♪♪♪

Ron Thibodeaux is an associate editor of Louisiana Cultural Vistas magazine and the KnowLA encyclopedia of Louisiana history and culture (www.KnowLA.org) at the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities. His book,Hell or High Water: How Cajun Fortitude Withstood Hurricanes Rita and Ike, won the Indie Book Awards 2013 national grand prize for regional nonfiction and the Independent Publishers 2013 silver award for Southern regional nonfiction. In his former life as an editor and writer for the daily newspaper in New Orleans, he interviewed James Taylor, Linda Ronstadt, Smokey Robinson, Kris Kristofferson, Billy Joel, Kenny Loggins & Jim Messina, and the Spinners, who tried to teach him one of their signature dance moves backstage between sets and wouldn’t give up until he got it right. It took awhile.

                   
CommentsRon. Wonderful piece. Among other things, I'm glad you saw this ... by Jack DavisBoy, did this make me homesick for New Orleans! As a devotee of ... by BeccaLOVE this movie. Saw Rockin Dopsie and Buckwheat Zydeco ... by SuniverseHaving never seen “The Big Easy” (can you forgive me?), I ... by TarjaDitto, ditto, ditto. I was so glad Ron took me up on my plea! by Nancy Davis KhoOh yes! Thank you, thank you, thank you for this! Love the ... by RisaRelated StoriesMidlife Mixtape Concert Review: Lord HuronMidlife Mixtape Concert Review: The PixiesMidlife Mixtape Concert Review: The Alternate Routes 

Midlife Mixtape Concert Review: Lord Huron

The Band: Lord Huron, February 25 2014. Founded by lead singer Ben Schneider in 2010, this LA-based indie rock band comprises three guitars, a bassist, and a drummer who create a lush wall of sound that somehow manages to balance country sensibilities with hints of world music, and wraps it up in the most romantic, skilled song craft.  It sounds crazy, but it works.

The Venue: The Fillmore SF. If I had to pick one venue to represent San Francisco, this would be it. The Summer of Love is alive and well inside the dark red ballroom lit by massive chandeliers that sits across the street of Japantown, walls bedecked with posters from past shows by Jimi Hendrix, The Who, The Grateful Dead, The Doors, etc.  Not coincidentally, it’s also the venue where I seriously worry whether my contact high will register, if a cop pulls me over on the drive back to Oakland. The entire room is a hotbox.

The Company: LitCamp Lisa comes through in the clutch, as always. My friend Dave bought these tix and invited me, along only to realize on Monday that he had to work late and couldn’t make the show. Ring ring, Lisa, who is so far 3 for 3 when it comes to saying “Hell yeah!” to whatever concert I suggest, on however short notice. She’s a queen among women.

The Crowd: It was HNL hipster (that’s Hole Nutha Level Hipster.) You could have made shish kebobs on half of the mustaches in the room, waxed as they were to weapon-like points, and it appeared to be a “No Buddy Holly Glasses, No Entry” kind of night. But what told me I’d reached the epicenter of hipster fashion was when a 20-something girl walked by me wearing the same Woolrich coat I wore in 8th grade. Coats made of blankets – brilliant then, brilliant now.

Age Humiliation Factor: Not on my part

Yes, I was fifteen years older than the median concert goer, and I only saw two people in the sold-out show who looked older than me. But I didn’t feel the least bit self-conscious. I’m thinking of dropping this rating from the reviews: who cares if we’re older, as long as we’re having fun?

Opening Band: Superhumanoids

As soon as they started playing, the reverberation from the Superhumanoids’ sound rumbled not just in our feet, but from our sternums up to our lower jaws. LitCamp Lisa turned and said, “I forgot how big the sound is in here” and proceeded to tell me the story of a concert she once saw at the Fillmore that was so mind-blowing, well, let’s just say it’ll be worth the whole price of her book when she writes it. Superhumanoids, a trio from LA, has a deceptively delicate vibe thanks to singer Sarah Chernoff’s lovely voice – think Cocteau Twins – but at a live show they rock hard. Pack your earplugs, or, like the girl in front of us, just ball up your drink napkin and cram it in your ear holes as appropriate.

Cool Factor: High

When I left the Fillmore to walk to my car, two couples standing outside a nearby restaurant said, “Excuse me – who’s playing tonight?”  I said, “Lord Huron.” One of the guys, trying to impress his date, said, “Oh man, I love that guy.” And I said, “All five of them?”

Now you know. Lord Huron is a singular name for a plural band. Blow someone’s mind.

Worth Hiring the Sitter? It’s Time to Run to this show

Honestly, I hadn’t planned to write this review – I’ve already hit you guys with the Alternate Routes and the Pixies this month, figured by now you’d prefer to me going back to my Andy Rooney meets Erma Bombeck meets MTVJ ways. Grrr! I hate newfangled technology! Keeping a clean house is silly! Here’s a video!

But Lord Huron is why I still go to shows. Not them, specifically, but the idea of them – a fabulous band whose members were probably born when most of the Midlife Mixtape readers already had a mortgage and their first tiny wrinkles. Lord Huron is a poster child why you can’t just keep listening to what you’ve always listened to: there’s a reward for keeping up.

When Dave invited me to this show last December I went straight home and downloaded their only LP, Lonesome Dreams, and it’s been playing on in the kitchen speaker ever since. I love it, the husband loves it, the teens love it. Kind of country, but really lush and rhythmic and a little orchestral, and then every once in a while there is a shake of an instrument that sounds like Balinese gamelan.

Now imagine you find an album like that, that you really love, and suddenly you’re experiencing it in surround sound, and the band is as good if not better live than on the album you love. Schneider had a white almost-cowboy hat and every time he took it off and put it on again, the whole performance seemed to jump to a new plateau of excellence. From “Ends of the Earth” to “Time to Run” and the encore, the whole crowd was buzzing, and not just from the Fillmore incense.

It’s nights like this that make it worthwhile to go to shows, and it’s why I hope you’ll keep checking out new bands too. Because everybody can stand to have their mind blown now and then.

Next show on the calendar: Lorde, March 26, Fox Theater Oakland

                   
CommentsKeep them coming! and don't take anything out of the mix – ... by Tiffany K.It's Nature's way of preventing older women from reproducing ... by Nancy Davis KhoCan't wait to hear what you think about them. Lord Huron, not ... by Nancy Davis KhoHNL hipster. Brilliant. by WendiDownloading this album as I type. Sounds right up my alley! ... by Liz @ ewmcguireI'll never tire of the concert reviews so don't skip them just ... by EllenRelated StoriesMidlife Mixtape Concert Review: The PixiesMidlife Mixtape Concert Review: The Alternate RoutesHold On To Sixteen 

Midlife Mixtape Concert Review: The Pixies

The Band: The Pixies, February 21 2014. A seminal alternative rock band formed in 1986, the Pixies broke up in ’93. That means that their reunion tour, which kicked off in 2003, has actually run three years longer than their original inception. Black Francis, Joey Santiago, and David Lovering remain from the original lineup; since bassist Kim Deal left, her spot has been anchored first by Kim Shattuck and now by Paz Lenchantin, who looks just like the bassist of fictional band Crucifictorious from Friday Night Lights. We always knew that Devin was going places.

The Venue: The Fox Theater, Oakland. My hometown joint. I would even go see Miley Cyrus or Blink-182 or Train at the Fox, because the Fox makes everything better. Moorish wall decorations, glowing gold elephants, and waitresses who whack you on the back when they deliver your drink order. It’s dreamy.

The Company: Andrea, who brings her encyclopedic knowledge of ‘80s music and accompanying dance moves to every show, along with a foreign accent. On Friday night, she dabbled in British.

The Crowd: Gen-Xcellent. Knowledge of the Pixies is a shibboleth for my generation, and adherence was signaled by the wearing of Ramones and Descendants t-shirts. Forty and up, fancy eyeglass frames, hoodies. I went two for three.

Age Humiliation Factor: None, but pride in our ability to take turns.

At any given time, when I gazed down at the General Admission crowd above which I was elevated by two feet, there were two, and only two, people taking pictures. Not the same two. It rotated. But as soon as a third smartphone was held aloft to record, one of the first two went down. Look at the pictures below and you’ll see what I mean. Somehow, the two screen ratio was maintained all evening so that the rest of us could always see the stage fine. It was magical.

Opening Band: Best Coast

LOVE these guys, an alt rock band from LA. Lead singer Bethany Cosentino and her crew supposedly play surf-rock and ‘60s pop. But we picked up a strong ‘80s vibe and in fact, during their too short set, Andrea and I tried to detect which band they reminded of us the most, and came up with: Siouxsie and also Jesus and Mary Chain and also the Cure and also Pat Benatar. We especially loved Boyfriend. To the guy who gave gorgeous, fierce Bethany a bouquet of wilted red carnations: wow. I think you just squandered all boyfriend potential right there.

Cool Factor: High

Friday night in Oakland in the Uptown neighborhood: bars are overflowing, restaurants are hopping, and when you leave the theater at the end of the night, there’s a guy grilling hotdogs with bacon and onions on the sidewalk. Why would you ever pay a toll to get into San Francisco?

Worth Hiring the Sitter? Here comes your rationale.

I was excited to see the Pixies – one of the few ‘80s alternative bands I never saw play live back in the day, and who doesn’t love “Here Comes Your Man”? The Pixies, yeah, I love the Pixies, right? Heck, I even have a pixie haircut!

And then as the band took the stage and played song after song that I didn’t know, I was forced admit: I am pretty sure that the years the Pixies were at their biggest exactly when I lived in Germany, the country that voted David Hasselhoff to the top of the music charts during my residency, the time I was most starved for music.

As a proud Gen Xer I like the theory of the Pixies, and as a First Wave Alternative Music fan, the band’s punk, grungy hallmarks felt familiar. But it turns out I know virtually none of the Pixies’ music. I was that audience member I disdain: the one who is silent and confused looking through most of the show but then for the two big Top 40 hits, screams, “Yeeeeeahh! Yeah!” I wish I’d been honest with myself and done some more advance listening before I’d left. If only to sing along with something obscure.

Still, great show, Andrea noting that they veered occasionally into hardcore metal territory. Black Francis sounded as good as ever, Paz blended right in, the crowd was stoked, and the hot dog guy was still slinging bacon and onion dogs when we got outside. The Pixies have not one but two new EPs out; maybe it’s not too late for me to climb aboard the caboose. (One of their new songs is Blue Eyed Hexe; Hexe is German for “witch,” so maybe they’re finally getting some traction over Hasselhoff there.) If you want to ride, check out their tour dates.

Next show on the calendar: Lord Huron, tonight at The Fillmore

                   
CommentsYou must continue with a FNL reference in each post. Makes my ... by JillI've never seen the Pixies but always loved them and I must ... by Linda Roy - elleroy was hereOuch. by EllenYeah, that and “Here Comes Your Man.” I was actually ... by Nancy Davis KhoGen-Xcellent is my new favorite word. Monkey Gone to Heaven ... by EllenRelated StoriesMidlife Mixtape Concert Review: The Alternate RoutesHold On To SixteenMidlife Mixtape Concert Review: Martha Davis and the Motels 

An Open Letter to the Handybook App

Dear Handybook App:

Hi, how are you? See, that first sentence is what we humans like to call, “being friendly.” Sure, it’s got a tinge of insincerity – I mean, if you’re buggy, if you’re running slow, if you have any of the other minor problems that I’m sure plague smartphone apps – I don’t really  want all the details, unless there’s something I can do to help you. I say, “how are you?” You say, “Fine.” It’s a little ritual of civility that  makes the day less impersonal.

But you’d know all about impersonal, wouldn’t you? I read about you in an article in the San Francisco Chronicle called “App lets users hire house cleaners, handymen without talking.” It described how your twenty-something inventors came up with you, an app that lets people hire other people without all the awkwardness that comes from talking to them.

As the young founder of your company says, and I quote: “If you want someone to go through the process of scrubbing the mold off the top left corner of the shower because you’re too busy or lazy to do it yourself, it’s really hard to ask that person, particularly if you’re 22, you’ve never had the responsibility of employing someone your whole life, you’ve interned two places and now you’re asking someone to do this for you.”

Wow. And people wonder why the working class residents of San Francisco resent the arrival of their new techie overlords.

I’m going to say right from the get-go that I applaud the idea behind you. Anything that removes friction between supply of services and demand for them is useful for all parties. What I take issue with is what, in modern marketing lingo, is called the Pain Point that you purport to solve: having to talk to people you hire face to face. And since I’m trying to honor my “What Would Tami Taylor Do?” mantra, I wanted to talk to y’all directly about the type of bad behavior you facilitate.

First of all, if one of your users has mold on the top left corner of his shower, (I’ll use the masculine pronoun because we all understand that you are designed to appeal to young men,) and he is so awkward or self-important that he doesn’t want to take a moment to explain to his housecleaner that it needs addressing, there are products sold in stores – helpfully labelled “Cleaning Products”- that HE can use to clean the shower. It’ll take him five minutes, tops, and then he can get back to his Very Important Life.

But if he does decide to pay someone else to scrub his mold, then I’d suggest that twenty-two years old is the perfect age to start practicing talking to people who are on different rungs of the socioeconomic ladder than him – and that ladder doesn’t just go upward.

If your typical customer has only interned two places in his whole life and yet still has enough money to hire a housecleaner, I’m going to surmise that he has just been sprung from a nice college or university where he probably didn’t have many opportunities to talk to people with life circumstances vastly different from his own. And I’ll surmise further that any awkward conversations during the eighteen years prior to that with cleaners, plumbers, electricians, and other scary people were handled by Mom and Dad.

But Baby Bird has to fly sometime. He has to have a couple of blushy, stumbling conversations with people he has hired to do work for him. Some will understand what he wants, and will do more than he knows to ask. Those are the service providers whose cards he’ll keep. Others will know he’s confused and will take advantage of him. That’s ok; learning comes from both good and bad experiences.

Handybook app, I don’t want to be dramatic. But by making it possible to avoid conversations with the people who do things your customers can’t, or choose not to do themselves denies them a moment of connection, of learning, of simple human empathy. Sometimes those interactions remind you how much you have in common with people who are different from you.

Other times they teach you something entirely new. For instance, when I was at the Grammys last month and  Juanes took the stage, I knew who he was thanks to my once-a-month cleaning ladies, Jacky and Mari, who blast his music while they work. We have conversations about their music that are confused by our respective lack of fluency in each other’s respective languages, but we laugh and gesticulate and agree about Juanes, and that’s exactly the little spark of humanity you, Handybook, make it dangerously easy to miss. (By the way, I hired Jacky and Mari through Natural Home Cleaning, a company with a mission to provide healthy, dignified work to low-income immigrant women, in partnership with WAGES. Do your developers ever mention that kind of thing?)

We live in an age where it’s gotten so easy to hide behind technology, to use it to separate rather than unite, that old folks like me wonder where simple civility is headed. Your very existence tells me that I’m not overreacting.

Don’t take this too personally, I know you didn’t ask to be invented. You probably would have been just as happy, maybe happier, had your 1s and 0s been used to solve real social problems and create meaningful connections, in the way of some of the best technology implementations out there. Maybe you yearn to be the next DonorsChoose or CitizenshipWorks.

If that’s the case, may I suggest a small act of disbedience? Next time someone tries to book a service over you, so that they don’t have to experience the pain of human interaction:

Switch to FaceTime mode.

Best regards,

Nancy

                   
CommentsThank you. I love this! So well put. How many more apps, etc.. ... by CarolynBecause what this world needs is more apps and less eye-to-eye ... by AnnGreat post, you hit the nail on the head. Also, glad to see ... by JillYou are a nice lady. When my mother was ill and couldn't take ... by tomwisk“We live in an age where it’s gotten so easy to hide behind ... by KatrinaPlus 2 more...Related StoriesHold On To SixteenCalifornia Drought: Excuse Level RedGong Hei Fat Choy! From a potentially lethal Horse 

Midlife Mixtape Concert Review: The Alternate Routes

photo credit Jonathan Klein

The Band: Alternate Routes, a rock duo from Bridgefield, CT. Tim Warren and Eric Donnelly formed the band in 2002 and have been plugging away ever since with their guitar-forward rock, performing as an acoustic duo (to which we were treated) or throwing in a few more players for the traditional, bigger rock sound evident on their albums. Tim’s got the gorgeous voice, and Eric’s got the crazy guitar skills. And they’re both about the nicest fellows you could hope to meet.

The Venue: Rosecrest Supper Club. Yay, it’s time for our semiannual neighborhood house concert! Nothing more convenient or convivial than heading up the street to Jonathan and Tiffany’s house for a show. Tiffany has finally admitted to me that she includes cryptic dress codes in the concert invitation just to see what people do with the challenge: this time it was “Italian Café Attire.” So I dressed like this.

The house, as usual, looked gorgeous, and the flowers by Floribunda were perfect. A little too close to the candles for my comfort, but they made it through the whole night unsinged.

(Remember, Rosecrest Special Events can help you plan your very own house concert – check out their website for more details and gorgeous pics.)

The Company: My husband, who luckily did not choose to bring his Italian bike, La Signorina Pinarello, as an accessory.

The Crowd: It was the regular Rosecrest crew, a mixture of Jonathan’s work friends, neighbors, and other people who like acoustic guitar and close-up concerts. Ever since our oldest kids have started high school and operate much more independently of their parents, there’s a cadre of us former-elementary-school-parents who deeply miss each other because this “kids growing up” nonsense means we never get to see each other anymore. And there is a LOT to catch up on. But J&T learned their Martini Bar lesson at the last party and served only Italian wine this time (cases and cases of it.) Crowd noise thus maintained at a dull roar.

Age Humiliation Factor: Eye opening.

Before the show started I chatted with Tim and had the chance to ask a question that, if you’ve read this blog for any length of time, you know vexes me no end. “Does it bother you when you’re performing for a younger audience and they are all filming you the whole time? You’re just looking out at a sea of screens!”

Tim’s answer reminded me that it ain’t always my way or the highway. He said he doesn’t love it, but on the other hand people share those videos, and get to know Alternate Routes through them, so if they didn’t film, they might have a tougher time gaining new fans. He added that his bigger problem is parents who film every minute instead of their children’s lives instead of participating in those moments.

To which I thought, has he seen how many pictures I have of my kids on my iPhone? Awkward.

Cool Factor: High

When’s the last time you saw a musician use a toolbox as a percussion instrument? What’s that? NEVER?

I have.

photo credit Jonathan Klein

Worth Hiring the Sitter? Nothing More logical.

What a combination – Tim’s voice is just lovely, and Eric’s a guitar virtuoso, and their harmonies are top notch. Then Tim picked up a bright yellow toolbox and used it like a tambourine. Then Eric wiggled through the packed crowd to squeeze in at the piano for a number. The Alternate Routes’ rootsy rock and pristine songcraft had no problem taking a shortcut into our hearts.

Listening to Tim’s stories of the situations that inspired some of the most beautiful songs they performed – Tim’s protracted stint as a lawn care professional during the band’s earliest years, songs that were written as they criss-crossed the country in their janky old van – it’s obvious that these guys are passionate about their music, and have paid their dues through perseverance and hard work.

They’re also good hearted, contributing a gorgeous song called “Nothing More” to Newtown Kindness, an organization founded by a couple who lost their daughter in that tragedy, which aims to facilitate acts of kindness within communities as well as raise awareness of kindness through education, sharing and recognition. If you buy “Nothing More” on iTunes, 50% of the proceeds go to Newtown Kindness. (Come back to finish reading the review after you download the song, I’ll wait.)

So to call it “luck” that NBC chose “Nothing More” to accompany its Sochi Olympics broadcast during the Opening Ceremonies is a little disingenuous, because it implies that the Alternate Routes just woke up and won the lottery. Let’s call it hard work meets karma instead.

Speaking of karma, I still loathe the filming-the-band-on-your-smartphone-through-the-whole-show ritual, but now that I’ve been schooled on how it can help in spreading the word, I’ll do my part. I bought two CDs after the show and I’m going to give one of them – the Alternate Routes Etcetera Collection - to a lucky Midlife Mixtape reader. Just leave a comment below and answer the question: if you were going to re purpose an unlikely household item into a percussion instrument, what would it be? I’ll choose a winner on Friday February 21 at 5 pm PST.

The good news is that even if you aren’t lucky enough to be on the super exclusive Rosecrest Supper Club invite list, you can still check out the Alternate Routes in Oakland. They’re opening for Ingrid Michaelson on May 5th at the Fox Theater. Dates for other locations listed here.

More of a nautical type? Alternate Routes is setting sail on the SS Rock Boat (aka “The World’s Greatest Floating Music Festival) at the end of this week. Sounds like a perfect escape if you’re in the snowy East…so pack your sextant and your Dramamine and stick to the Alternate Routes.

Next show on the calendar: The Pixies/Best Coast, February 21 2014

***

Teens and texting: there’s what you think those acronyms mean, and what you WISH they meant. I’m over on NickMom today with my thoughts on the latter…

                   
CommentsLoved your blog review, nice to relive the night! Was one of ... by CherylI love it when drummers use found objects. We worked with a ... by Linda Roy - elleroy was hereMan, that “Nothing More” song gets me every time. Every. ... by EllenThank you for yet another FABULOUS post. You perfectly captured ... by Tiffany K.Related StoriesHold On To Sixteen56th Grammy Awards Part 3: After Party56th Grammy Awards Part 2: The Big Event 

A Trio of Terrible Dates

Valentine’s Day is one of those holidays where it’s very easy to believe that you are the only person not celebrating the day with Belgian chocolates, wispy lingerie, and adoring pronouncements by those you love. The relentless media onslaught creates a perfect storm for romantic disappointment. Everyone else is having great dates tonight! Why amn’t I?

Never fear, you’ve come to the right place – today, along with some friends, I’m here to remind you about the dark underbelly of romance, by recounting our Worst Dates Ever.

When it comes to bad dates, I don’t have one standout horror but rather a trio of tragedy, a taster plate of truly pathetic. Starting with the famous Quadrophenia date.

I was a senior in high school and a younger man asked me out, a junior who was a friend of a friend. He wanted to take me to see The Who’s Quadrophenia at a theater on the University of Rochester campus, but didn’t have his night license yet, so that was a smooth start. Still, he was a charmer. I felt very Mrs. Robinson, driving my sister’s car and allowing this young man to pay my way into the movie, as we joined a huge contingent of very boozed-up U of R students. Unfortunately, half an hour into the film it was not so much Love Reign O’er Me as Vomit Land Ne’r Me. I didn’t stick around long enough to see if it was a Mod or a Rocker losing his Nick Tahou’s Garbage Plate from the row behind me. The youngster and I hightailed it out of there and never spoke again, dually and duly traumatized.

Still, I don’t really hold a grudge against the U of R kid, because the second bad date story was when I was in college and ever so slightly overserved myself.  A nice guy wanted to take me to a fancy restaurant in Philly’s Center City for our first date. However, all my best friends were going to the same dinner party that night, the one that stipulated that each guest should bring two bottles of wine. Never wanting to deny anyone my effervescent company, I came up with a brilliant solution and said yes to both. And when my poor date picked me up at 9:30 pm for our fashionably late dinner reservation, I was two and a half sheets to the wind and had to lie down in the booth at the fancy restaurant to sleep it off for a couple of minutes before the amuse bouche came. Sorry, Nice Guy Whose Name I Can’t Remember, not even while I was on the date with you.

But really, my Worst Date Ever was The One I Didn’t Know I Was On. I was a college freshman visiting my brother, a college senior, at his small college in the coldest part of New York State, for their annual Winter Carnival. The highlight of this Winter Carnival is the hockey game, and there was a Winter Ball afterward. I planned to tag along with my brother and his then-girlfriend to all the frigid, festive events.

On the Saturday of my visit, we bundled up and headed down to the rink. My brother steered me through the crowd by the shoulders until what ho! We were standing next to the rink, and a guy I’d never seen before. “I have to go somewhere,” said my brother suddenly, disappearing back into the crowd, and the guy took one long, appraising look at me and said, “So. You go to Penn. You must think you’re pretty smart.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, peeved at my brother for deserting me with Passive Aggressive Rink Guy, who would continue to make snide comments throughout the first period while my nostrils slowly froze together. When my brother finally returned to reclaim me, I was furious and couldn’t get out of there fast enough. “Why’d you ditch me?”

Why did my brother ditch me? Because that was Part One of a date! Part Two was when my brother, his girlfriend, and I entered the town’s only fancy restaurant for our pre-Winter Ball dinner that evening … and guess who was waiting at our four-top table with a corsage! I was so very happy to see Passive Aggressive Rink Guy again, and get to spend more time defending myself! It is so fun when someone sets you up on a blind date without telling you! Even better when the date dislikes you on principle before you’ve had a chance to open your mouth!

Full Disclosure: In fact checking my memory of this date with my brother this week, he says this is actually A Date That Never Happened. His words: “You are fine to remember this however you want.  But no way I ever set you up with anyone.” I countered that I couldn’t make a story like that up, and if I did, I’d have definitely set it at a basketball game.

So if you’re still feeling blue about your lack of storybook romantic plans for today, remember that it could be worse. You could be spending it like me: arguing via email with my brother about whose memory is failing faster.

One day, one topic, seven bloggers: see what some of my favorite writers on the Internets have to say about the topic of Worst Dates Ever. 

Ann’s Rants

Wendi Aarons

Good Day, Regular People

Smacksy

Earth Mother just means I’m dusty

The Mama Bird Diaries

 

 

 

                   
Comments“But really, my Worst Date Ever was The One I Didn’t Know I ... by alexandraThat picture is perfect. Here's to you, now wife of passive ... by AnnI hated blind dates!! Especially the secret ones. by The mama bird diariesBy: the worst dates ever | the mama bird diaries by the worst dates ever | the mama bird diariesI've been waiting ever since you gave me the teaser about this ... by ChiMomWriterRelated StoriesGenX Nostalgia: Reality BitMortification with a KStill in Rotation: Purple Rain (Prince) 

Hold On To Sixteen

There was weird numerical symmetry in the air when I was a teenager.

When I was sixteen, “Jack and Diane” was released, with its lyric “Hold on to sixteen, as long as you can…”

When I was seventeen? The Stray Cats with “Sexy and 17.” I was un-sexy and 17, but SHE was sexy and 17, so I lived vicariously.

Eighteen: The Footloose soundtrack. Humor me: it was movie about a bunch of seniors, like me, fighting the Man for their right to throw a dance. I emerged from that movie, walked across the parking lot to Eastview Mall, and bought a replica of Lori Singer’s pink dress, then waited patiently for seven months for Senior Ball and a date to arrive. (Settle in, you’re going to want to watch all 6:42 of this.)

At sixteen and seventeen and eighteen, I had that proprietary teenage mix of confidence and naiveté that led me to think, of COURSE they’re writing songs about the age I am right this second, because this is the best age you could ever be! Everyone wants to be my age because it is fully awesome!

Then I turned nineteen – one year beyond the veil of adulthood. And Paul Hardcastle released “19.”

Welcome to adulthood: now your age-specific songs will be about death and war. If I were going to string those songs together onto a mixtape, I’d title it Changes Come Around Real Soon Make Us Women and Men.

My oldest daughter turns sixteen today, and this is what I most want to say to her: don’t rush through these next few years. Sixteen is the age when childhood and child start pulling apart in earnest, when you look up the road a piece and see Adulthood sending alluring, come-hither glances. You don’t want anyone to think you’re a kid anymore, and you’re mostly not. As a parent, it’s delightful, as in, full of moments overflowing with delight, to see the clearer contours emerge of the woman you’ll be. Your dry sense of humor, your quick intelligence, your analytical mind are all things that I know I will treasure and rely on when we are both in the “grownup” category.

But I can wait a little longer for that. And I hope you’ll realize Adulthood isn’t all driver’s licenses and no curfews. That what looks like an enticing look from Adulthood may be, in fact, Adulthood trying to unstick a wedgie or do a mental calculation of how much property tax is due. Don’t be too quick to lose your goofiness, your focused and passionate attempts to win a spot in the Guiness Book for daytime pajama wearing, your ability to relate so well to the little kids you babysit.

It’s fine to be an Adult, once you get used to it. But you’re going to be an Adult, God willing, for a long, long time. Don’t dance away from being sixteen, or seventeen, or eighteen too fast.

No matter how good the music is.

                   
CommentsCongratulations to you and your daughter! That last song. ... by EllenHappy Birthday, Sweet 16! I cried for you when I saw that baby ... by WendiRelated StoriesThings That Make You Different From MorrisseyLife Lessons from the NutcrackerPremature Obsolescence