Displaying Digest #20090726.

 
http://tinyurl.com/y9zc92m 

 
Hey IDDiots!
Lots of IDDiotic news lately....still my favorite read...the IDD.
Where else can I post this....

So The Who and an idol of mine of mine, Pete Townsend take the super bowl s=
tage for twelve minutes tonight.
Think about Pete Townsend for a second. He came out of the Brit Invasion, s=
tood toe to toe with all the artistic heroes=20
of the British Invasion, most notably, Ray Davies. And in the end...The Who=
 still endure.
Think a little deeper. Pre-Tommy, The Who were a ferocious R&B based R&R ba=
nd who's theatrics and over-the-top drummer propelled
them into the "arena" of Brit Invasion superstars. In fact, The Who were kn=
own as the greatest lived act in the early sixties. Mick and his boys=20
took the moniker on later in life and in many to this day believe the great=
est live R&R act is The Rolling Stones.
WRONG!!!!!!! Today, the greatest R&R live band is undoubtedly, indisputably=
,  100%, Bruce and E Street.=20
(let's not debate it now, later maybe, let's get to the point)

The Who at the Super Bowl.
Why?
So many nerdy pundits and Talking Heads are pontificating on the why are th=
ey playing, such as (from today's "score" column in the NY Daily News"....
"why would The Who - one of the greatest rock bands in history - want to pl=
ay at America's most bloated and overhyped annual event? Did The Who sell o=
ut?

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/football/2010/02/06/2010-02-06=
_now_go_do_that_voodoo.html?page=3D2#ixzz0erpTIcub     ,

Pete Townsed has taken twelve minutes to allow a power chord it's full thro=
ttle extension.....Roger Daltrey's ultimate R&R scream in Won't Get Fooled =
Again has timed
out at twelve minutes in concerts.....The greatest Bassist in the history o=
f LOUD R&R is had 4 coke infused super modelesque groupires screaming in ec=
stasy for twelve minutes each in unison
while he perfected his Bass Solo on THe Magic Bus multiple times, and, Keit=
h Moon has  a super shot record of downing a half gallon of Courvousier in =
12 minutes while composing the
fiddle outro in Baba............so it's a relevant question....why are Dalt=
rey and Townshend subjecting themselves to this 12 minutes pf rock purgator=
y......

.....and the answer is Bruce. somehow, as he has been doing his entire Bruc=
e career, Bruce took 12 minutes, stretched it to 14, and somehow summed up =
his career to that point.
He expressed the energy, the enthusiasm, the craftsmanship, the ownership o=
f pure R&R in that short sweet performance. Even the falling crossing guard=
 played his part to the hilt.

Pete Townsend is the ultimate, creative genius. At least he was. You want p=
roof, it's called Quadrophenia. Quad makes Tommy seem like a silly Brill Bl=
dg follow up hit. All the members of his band
joined in the espirit d'corps as opposed to the Tommy sessions. What will P=
ete come up with tonight? I bet it's genesis is Springsteen's performance. =
I bet the Who rise again. I bet a tour and album come out it.
I bet I Won't Get Fooled Again. YOU? You better you better you bet...... 

 
Loudon Wainwright's wife went to Westfield Senior High School?  Who knew?  I
did know that Maggie Roche lived in Westfield for awhile - or at least her
son Felix McTeigue did.

susan in alameda

On Sat, Feb 6, 2010 at 2:00 PM, ruthsings10 wrote:

>
>
> Thanks, Scott. Glad to see he acknowledged Kate McGarrigle, who taught him
> how to frail a banjo. His current wife, Rita, went to my high school and =
was
> in my sister's class.
>
> And for fans of the Wainwrights and McGarrigles who get Sundance, I
> recommend the documentary "Rufus Wainwright: Prima Donna." Several scenes
> with each of his parents, including some nice ones of Rufus and Kate
> together. It airs next on the 22nd.
>
> http://www.sundancechannel.com/films/500543352
>
>
> --- In iddiots@yahoogroups.com , Scott Perschke
>  wrote:
> >
> > Ruth,
> >
> > Here's the link to the full Grammy 'Pre-Show' . . . broadcast online but
> not on TV.
> >
> >
> >
> > Loudon and Dick Conette appear 1 hour and 33 minutes in.
> >
> >
> >
> > http://www.grammy.com/live
> >
> > --- On Fri, 2/5/10, ruthsingleton09  wrote:
> > Scott: I was also very happy that Loudo won a Grammy. Wish I could've
> seen it rather than read about it.
> >
>
>=20=20
> 

 
I adored The Who Sell Out, A Quick One While He's Away from the Happy Jack
LP, & Substitute.  I liked Who's Next a lot.  I liked some of Quadrophenia a
lot.  I thought Tommy had its moments, but it was the beginning of the end
of the Who as one of the most exciting groups in history.

I look forward to today's game, though can you imagine how exciting it would
have been had both teams been 18 -0 (the Saints had been 13 -0; the Colts 14
- 0)?  I also look forward to the halftime show--Who's on first!  Hey,
Abbott!!!!!!!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dennis Dubrow wrote:
Good stuff 

 All,

Sorry for the re-print here of more stuff to read, but this one is worth 
the time I think. It parallels some of the same sentiments that the 
closing of the Bottom Line brought and I think you all will relate and 
commiserate with us down here in Austin. This one is touching nerve folks!

-Austin Bob

*********************************************

Cactus Cafe is about connection
Music lovers and musicians go to feel intertwined with the music and 
each other at intimate club now at center of debate.

By Brad Buchholz
Austin-Statesman Staff

I've come to understand that saying farewell to beauty is essential to 
loving Austin, living in Austin. So when last week's big news hit — the 
Cactus Cafe, slated for closure in August — I was not devastated. Hey, 
I've been saying goodbye for years now. Goodbye to Armadillo World 
Headquarters and Liberty Lunch. Goodbye to Clifford Antone and Bud 
Shrake. Goodbye to Las Manitas. Goodbye to those grand Shady Grove 
pecans on Barton Springs Road.

As much as I love the Cactus, I've been steeling myself for this moment 
for a long time. I was downright philosophical, in fact, as I shared the 
breaking news with Austin musicians who think of it as home. Then, on 
Monday, I drove down to the Cactus, caught a rousing night of jazz and 
folk and bluegrass by the Houston band Wheatfield, and came face-to-face 
with the intensity of my own denial.

Truth be told: The Cactus feels like home to me, too and it's not simply 
a matter of music. The Cactus, at its heart, is about closeness, about 
intimacy, about sitting so close to the musical campfire that you feel 
the fire-glow in your bones. The only thing prickly about the place is 
its name. You go to listen, to feel, to connect.

"When I'm onstage at the Cactus, I'm not a singer-songwriter showing off 
my craft. I feel like it's a relationship," says Austin's Sara Hickman, 
who has played the room for decades. "That audience is there to have a 
relationship with me, and I want to rise to the occasion and to be in 
relationship with them."

The Cactus devoutly has supported music grounded in lyric and language 
and story for more than 30 years. Its legacy is formidable. The 
legendary songwriter Townes Van Zandt considered it his home club. Young 
unknowns named Lyle Lovett and Robert Earl Keen launched their careers 
here. Yet the allure of the place is bigger than history and legacy, 
bigger than the physical space. It's about intimacy and community and 
closeness.

"The Cactus is definitely about family," says acclaimed Austin 
singer-songwriter Slaid Cleaves, who worked sound at the Cactus for a 
time. "When I'm home, off the road, the first thing I do is look at 
who's playing there. It's like going over to a friend's house to hear 
music."

When you walk into the Cactus, you don't merely see a familiar face at 
the door, you shake hands with a heart-commitment that spans decades. 
Griff Luneburg, who books and manages the Cactus, began working there as 
a bartender in 1981. The core staff, Luneberg, Chris Lueck and Susan 
Svedeman, have invested a combined 73 years in the Cactus.

Between sets on Monday, I couldn't resist reminding Lueck that he has 
worked more years at the Cactus (27) than the legendary Darrell Royal 
spent coaching the University of Texas football team (20). Suddenly 
reflective, Lueck talked passionately about the Cactus family. He 
recalled how Van Zandt, wild as the wind, gave him "responsibility" pep 
talks — successfully insisting that Lueck return to college and complete 
the few remaining hours toward his degree.

Lueck, a man distinguished by thick forearms and a soft heart, recalled 
people who have met and married at the Cactus. He expressed gentle 
gratitude for the members of the Cactus family, doctors, who counseled 
him a few years ago upon learning he had a heart condition. And he 
remembered Hickman's first show in the room, how she passed out colored 
construction paper and invited the audience to create their own art.

"She totally won me over," Lueck says. "Me! A metalhead!"

----------

I knew the Cactus Cafe before it was a music venue. I visited the first 
time, as a UT student, with my friend Richard Zainfeld, in 1976 or 1977 
-- to play, believe it or not, in a UT bridge tournament! (I'm sorry, 
Townes.) There was little magic in the air that night; the Cactus was 
just another room in the Union. I can testify, from experience, that 30 
years of music have brought magic to those walls.

Hickman now refers to that space as the Carnegie Hall of Austin — mainly 
for the way the staff nurtures a house ethic that honors music and craft 
and listening. At the bar, transactions are conducted in hushed tones, 
or sometimes with only eye contact. The bartenders know how to muffle 
the jingle of a cash drawer, how to shake a margarita with minimum 
intrusion. Everything is secondary to song.

The Cactus is not contrived. It's not about the hottest trend. It's 
simply a place that fosters intimate connection to song -- whether the 
artist is Guy Clark or Chris Smither or the Cowboy Junkies or Alejandro 
Escovedo. You're actually paying for smallness at the Cactus. There are 
only 150 chairs in the place. The sound is sublime. And if you want: You 
can sit close enough to the stage to feel a visceral heart-connection to 
the artist on stage.

James McMurtry likes to tease Cactus aficionados for their 
respectfulness. "It's OK to breathe between songs, you know," he said on 
stage not long ago, daring someone in the Cactus audience to break a 
bottle or misbehave. Yet a few minutes later, McMurtry broke into 
"Angeline" — "a song I played for the very first time in this room 20 
years ago." When McMurtry's son, Curtis, joined him on stage, we could 
see and feel in this very small room the tenderness between father and 
son, with Curtis quoting T.S. Eliot and joking about his dad's grouchiness.

The Cactus is Eliza Gilkyson leading the house outside after a fire 
alarm and playing an unplugged rendition of her father's tune "Bear 
Necessities," on the West Mall. It is Tom Russell riffing on Orson 
Welles and Charles Bukowsky. It's Gatemouth Brown taking a cell phone 
call on stage — and asking the house to help him give directions to a 
friend.

The Cactus is the pretty woman at the table in front of me who has made 
it very clear her life won't be complete until Loudon Wainwright III 
plays her favorite tune. "The Swimming Song!" she cries out throughout 
the night. "The Swimming Song!" Wainwright eventually plays it, of 
course. And when he's done, his fan rises from her seat, saunters onto 
the stage, and gives him a big kiss.

"Well, I can see the security is out in force tonight, Griff," 
Wainwright says from the stage. Everyone in the house cracks up — 
vitally aware of the connection between "Cactus" and "closeness."

Ray Wylie Hubbard recalls his experience on "The Dating Game" — really — 
in the 1960s and makes us howl with laughter. Then he talks about Rainer 
Maria Rilke and brings us to the deepest place of introspection. He 
demonstrates that Cactus connection is personal, musical, social, 
intellectual, physical. And in many ways: They mirror the kind of 
connection associated with "university."

"For a half hour after I heard the news, I kept asking myself, 'Why 
would the University of Texas close the Cactus?'" Cleaves says. "And 
then I thought: Isn't it part of their responsibility to integrate 
college with community, to have an interface with the community? What a 
perfect way to get nonstudents and nonuniversity people onto the campus. 
I think they're giving up a very valuable asset of their own, not just 
an asset to the larger music community."

Gilkyson, who probably has headlined more shows than any woman in Cactus 
history, agrees that the room is "one of the few places where the 
university meets the town." Her first thoughts about the closing were 
very specific: "First and foremost, I'm upset for Griff. He's put his 
whole life into this." But she saw the big picture as well.

"Griff is important because he helps us understand who we are as a 
group. Like Jody Denberg (longtime music director for radio station KGSR 
who left last year), he helps us find out who like-minded people are, 
and help us have a group identity," Gilkyson says. "The question before 
us is what can we do as a body to ensure that things we care about 
continue to have a booth in the marketplace. That's the question. As 
well as, 'Who are "we"?' anymore.

"Community is going out the window across the board, in all walks of 
life. I'm sure this is a wake-up call for all of us to attempt to make 
community wherever else we can. It's something we're going to have to be 
active about if we want to see the benefits of community continue to 
manifest in our part of the world."

----------

When I was young — and intermittently broke as a freelance writer — a 
few of my friends gently challenged my affection for the Cactus. "It's a 
lot of money, going to those shows," someone told me, in the interest of 
responsibility. Why not save the cash, and invest in the material things 
I'd need to support a writing life?

Then and now, I've had a hard time explaining that a night at the Cactus 
is like a going to the world's coolest library, like going to 
soul-school. The Cactus is so much about conveying story, attaining 
intimacy in a quick and compact way, all the while connecting to 
philosophy, literature, spirituality, whimsy. What more could a budding 
writer want? So many years ago, I marveled how artists like Gilkyson cut 
through convention and touched the bone of truth. It changed my life.

The Cactus family remains hopeful. Thirty years ago, a younger 
generation bemoaned the loss of a funky listening room known as the 
Alamo Lounge and a few years later found a new home called Cactus. The 
latest news — that the UT Alumni Center might adopt it in 2011 — 
demonstrates that those who treasure the place are thinking about 
compassionate solutions. Still, I worry. As it's hard to imagine Babe 
Ruth in a "new" Yankee Stadium, would we feel Townes Van Zandt's spirit 
so vividly in a "new" Cactus Cafe.

After watching Chris and his staff shut down the room Monday night after 
the Wheatfield show, I took the familiar walk down the Texas Union 
corridor — passing kiosks marked "Starbucks" and "Quiznos" and "Wendy's" 
— and wondered about the future of the Cactus. You could see it coming. 
Really.

Outside, the university was quiet, blanketed in a gentle winter fog. The 
Barbara Jordan statue gleamed in the cool night air. Dew glistened on 
the leaves of centuries-old live oaks near Hogg Auditorium. I paused a 
minute, thought of timeless things, and imagined how nice it would be if 
we didn't have to say goodbye, at least not yet, to the Cactus Cafe.


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It wasn't easy, what with all the alternate takes and "commercials," but I
think I've compiled the entire, original "The Who Sell Out," which is my
favorite Who album.  It's the days before arena rock, when Keith Moon ruled
supreme.

http://listen.grooveshark.com/#/playlist/The+Who+Sell+Out/24764652

When you get there, click "Play All." 

 
Bob , the article kinda echos my=A0 feeling about the Bottom Line,I hope th=
at=20

You and your fellow residents of Austin don't have to go through the=20

longing that we still do here and you get to keep the Cactus Cafe.

=A0Just the other night my wife turned to me and said I still miss the=20

Bottom line,we had just seen Guy Davis at a beautiful room=A0 at the=20

Tribeca center and we put on this old IDD show and Vin was talking=20

about the show at the Bottom line and one of the groups was the Magnetic

Fields and we looked at each other and said gee I wish we had gone to that

one . We will never get the chance again and it really sucks.

Peace
David

np: Book of Love - Magnetic Fields

The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, reli=
gion, economic status or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we A=
LL believe that we are above average drivers."



Dave Barry 

 
Today's Times reports karaoke singers better not choose My Way:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/07/world/asia/07karaoke.html?em


Karen


Eating well, however simply, is part of a life fully lived" -Jim Harrison 

 
Great Article Lew, thanks for the memories. 

 
I woke up this morning with a need to find Paul Williams music. I think the=
 one song that I have by him is "Someday Man."

Odd urge?
COUSIN STEVE 

 

--- In iddiots@yahoogroups.com, Rob  wrote:
>
> I lost my job due to a layoff on Monday night. While I was expecting
it,
> I still was bummed pretty bad.

Rob, sorry to hear about your job loss. Remember what they say..."When
one door closes, another one opens."

Of course, "they" forgot to tell us that the hallway in between doors
can be Hell.  But, hey, you're a Jersey boy -- we come equipped with
asbestos suits.

You're a talented guy and I'm sure you'll bounce back soon.

don 

 
I am overwhelmed and touched by all the folks that wrote me about my 
stupid job situation. May this serve as a collective thank you to all.

I will not lie... I needed every freaking one!

Thank you guys and gals. You are the best... really... This community is 
some of the best friends I have.

Gotta get my company laptop cleared of the small music collection and 
Rhpasody SW tomorrow morning. Of course they won't release my (very 
generous) 1 month severance until I get it back to them.

Sincerely

-Austin Bob

NP: Warren Zevon - Excitable Boy - {"yes I'm down on my luck..."} 

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