4.22.2005
Strange days, indeed
Last night brought one of the strangest shows in recent memory courtesy of Mark Olson and the Creekdippers in Iowa City. After establishing that Victoria Williams would not be lending her Edith to Mark's Archie, we headed down to catch the show. There were only about 20 people in the club when the show began. As the opening act left the stage, the five strangest looking people from the crowd climbed onto the stage to assemble as the Creekdippers. I've seen Olson enough to know that this would be no Jayhawks revue; he's doing his own thing now and good for him, right? Well, this made his past shows positively normal by comparison.
He opened with a song that made reference to "G.W.," Houston and Texas. I quickly realized he was singing about George Bush. Then came other political songs, with lyrics such as "I want to punch George Bush..." and "your parents killed my parents" (with petrochemicals, if memory serves). As he moved from bass to guitar to dulcimer to keyboard, Olson led this rag-tag group through several pointed songs about the Bush presidency. They were funny in a slightly uncomfortable way. It lacked punch, however, because his side lost. Heard last fall, maybe these would seem powerful, like Steve Earle's "The Revolution Starts... Now." But like Earle's disc, Olson's music just seemed stale. I'd be as likely to cue up Earle's disc now as a Yankee fan would be to pop in a tape of last fall's ALCS against the Red Sox -- why relive the miserable defeat?
Still, as my friend Jim said, Olson has "that voice," and last night there certainly were flashes of what made his music so special. The performance, however, was akin to hearing a friend's band practice in the garage -- you'd tell them they sounded pretty good while knowing they'd never make it anywhere.
It seemed strange that Olson would do so much of this new material without talking about it. Did he have a new disc? In fact, he does. And, when it came out, these songs were much more timely. Though there's no mention of it on the Creekdippers website, his latest disc is Political Manifest, which includes songs like "Portrait of a Sick America" and "The End of the Highway, Rumsfeld." It's a strange little project, taking the time to record a record that is almost instantly out of date. Stranger yet is selling it through an obscure website that all but guarantees that you'll still have a dusty box of them shoved in the back of your closet long after Jenna Bush leaves office.
He opened with a song that made reference to "G.W.," Houston and Texas. I quickly realized he was singing about George Bush. Then came other political songs, with lyrics such as "I want to punch George Bush..." and "your parents killed my parents" (with petrochemicals, if memory serves). As he moved from bass to guitar to dulcimer to keyboard, Olson led this rag-tag group through several pointed songs about the Bush presidency. They were funny in a slightly uncomfortable way. It lacked punch, however, because his side lost. Heard last fall, maybe these would seem powerful, like Steve Earle's "The Revolution Starts... Now." But like Earle's disc, Olson's music just seemed stale. I'd be as likely to cue up Earle's disc now as a Yankee fan would be to pop in a tape of last fall's ALCS against the Red Sox -- why relive the miserable defeat?
Still, as my friend Jim said, Olson has "that voice," and last night there certainly were flashes of what made his music so special. The performance, however, was akin to hearing a friend's band practice in the garage -- you'd tell them they sounded pretty good while knowing they'd never make it anywhere.
It seemed strange that Olson would do so much of this new material without talking about it. Did he have a new disc? In fact, he does. And, when it came out, these songs were much more timely. Though there's no mention of it on the Creekdippers website, his latest disc is Political Manifest, which includes songs like "Portrait of a Sick America" and "The End of the Highway, Rumsfeld." It's a strange little project, taking the time to record a record that is almost instantly out of date. Stranger yet is selling it through an obscure website that all but guarantees that you'll still have a dusty box of them shoved in the back of your closet long after Jenna Bush leaves office.
More archival digging
Getting something into (onto?) McSweeney's seems to be quite the badge of honor, and so I'd be remiss if I didn't share my own modest successes there. The one "real" piece I've had posted on the site was a bit of humor about how AC/DC really does business. A second piece was my contribution to their ever-growing log of lists, this one of suggested band names found on the Associated Press wire.
The more savvy among you may have seen either or both of these in the pages of Chunkletmagazine #17. I'm sure that's the reason these weren't included in last year's paperback best-of from the McSweeney's "humor category."
The more savvy among you may have seen either or both of these in the pages of Chunkletmagazine #17. I'm sure that's the reason these weren't included in last year's paperback best-of from the McSweeney's "humor category."
4.20.2005
Scouring the archives
Part of the reason to start blogging is to create a way to mention new stuff that I have written beyond my day job, but because of a lack of that lately, here are a few things rescued from the dustbin of history. Anyone remember Ironminds.com? A good little site that was among the many that rose and fell in about a years time as the bubble inflated and then burst. I had a few things published there, my first forays into online freelance work.
The things I wrote included an analysis of the use of music on "The Sopranos," a first-person account of my short stint as a bar DJ, and my proudest moment, a piece about the soundtrack for Wim Wenders' "Until the End of the World," a disc for which Wenders asked the artists to predict musically what the year 1999 would be like (and for which, with the benefit of hindsight, I critique the results).
A few other pieces exist out there, but these are the cream of the crop. Check 'em out now, because who knows how long the kind folks behind the site will keep this stuff alive.
The things I wrote included an analysis of the use of music on "The Sopranos," a first-person account of my short stint as a bar DJ, and my proudest moment, a piece about the soundtrack for Wim Wenders' "Until the End of the World," a disc for which Wenders asked the artists to predict musically what the year 1999 would be like (and for which, with the benefit of hindsight, I critique the results).
A few other pieces exist out there, but these are the cream of the crop. Check 'em out now, because who knows how long the kind folks behind the site will keep this stuff alive.
