In the spirit of playful anarchy and magical rock ‘n‘ roll, here are a few bands I would see if space and time (not to mention gobs of cash) were like soft, preternatural putty in the palm of my hand:
1. The Replacements in their rabble-rousing heyday. Anywhere. Mid-eighties. Those were the days when a thankless shove from Paul Westerberg was like being kissed by the Pope. Authentic raw blabber and non-linear bass lines pulsating off sticky floors. This was post-punk brilliance at its finest, and the overrated Wilco should thank their lucky stars Westerberg ever breathed into a microphone, probably with bad breath.
2. The Beatles. The Cavern, 1962. Nothing like seeing a chubby John Lennon sweating like a pig. And the cherubic cheeks of Paul McCartney through the smoke of English fags (i.e. cigarettes) and mindless donnybrooks in this raucous Liverpool pub. This was long before Paul became a poet laureate and John a skeletal waif with the crazy wife.
3. U2 in Ireland, circa 1981. Well before I proposed to Christa in Chicago before the Vertigo tour in 2005 (I had to upstage Bono somehow) U2 was already big, way too big; they're bloated now, on a global scale, and the poor Irish leperchaun thinks he’s Robin Hood or Ghandi or something. Of course, he is, but it would be nice to see the spotlight shine on an earlier incarnation of this singular munchkin—the chubby one with the bleeding heart and Napoleonic streak, full of pluck and megalomania, gabbing up a storm about the mystical and the mundane and how famous U2 would be someday. Those were the days when you could enjoy an earthquake of rock ‘n‘ roll without having to save political prisoners with your cell phone.
4. Bob Dylan. Anywhere in Greenwich Village, New York, circa 1961. This would be the chubby (are you sensing a theme here?) baby-faced, homeless urchin with the corduroy cap and Woody Guthrie husk on his voice, cadging money with a paper cup in Washington Square Park, or the Gaslight, or sleeping on Dave Van Ronk’s couch. These were the pre-genius days, pre-psychotropic drugs, pre-ranconteur days, when Zimmerman was just another wandering pudknocker on the streets of New York, just as likely to sing you a folk song as to pick your pocket. He was also a natural salesman—he could sell a dead cat to your grandmother and you’d thank him for it. Oh, to have one's wallet stolen by Dylan in exchange for a folk song and a dead cat!
(photo: the little urchin in the flesh, probably wondering what kind of goodies are in his photographer's wallet)
5. Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings in some gritty honkeytonk in Austin. While we're at it, we'll go ahead and throw Kris Kristofferson and Johnny Cash in the mix. Must be a Saturday night deep in the heart of Texas. They will not sing "The Highwayman" in this scenario, though.
6. A folk/blues songwriter-in-the-round campfire session with Blind Lemon Jefferson and Muddy Waters in Mississippi. Again, I don’t really care where this would take place. Lucinda Williams can sit in too. It would be an honor if Ella Fitzgerald would also grace us with her presence with "strange fruit hanging from the trees," perhaps through the flames of a dancing campfire. Michelle Shocked can come too. Shawn Colvin, I wouldn't be bummed if you happened to be there with your acoustic Martin D-28 as well.
7. Bob Marley and his funky son, Ziggy in Jamaica. I’ll pass on the grass, though.
8. A gyrating Mick Jagger doing his wild and interpretive dance of St. Augustine’s “our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee” (i.e. “I can’t get no satisfaction”). I love it when rock stars, or philosophers for that matter (please see Sarte and Ecclesiastes), preach the Gospel without even knowing it.
(St. Augustine in deep thought: this would be the moral high point of this particular blog.
(St. Mick in hypnotic snake-dance mode. He looks too zonked-out to be satisfied.)
9. Ryan Adams, any time when he doesn’t walk offstage in one of his bratty, primadonna, Westerberg wannabe, hey-look-at-me, mercurial mood swings; especially after only forty-five minutes of rifling through obscure songs, like he did when Christa, Casey (Christa’s brother) and I saw him in Minneapolis last year at the State Theatre. This was our birthday present for Casey and all we got was musical swill and a swift exit. There’s a reason you’re last on my list, oh bratty one.
So that’s all for now for my musical utopia scenario thingy.
Next on the blog docket….more funky G.R.E. words, my favorite Bible character of the moment (it changes all the time), 2nd Timothy and the prison epistles, and anything else that strikes me as blog-worthy way up here in cold and snowy and always-wintery St. Paul.
Hey! It's not always wintery here in MN; the snow melts long enough to do a little road construction, and to convince people that living here isn't so bad, and then like an unwanted relative it's back :-p
Posted by: Kat | November 17, 2008 at 06:56 PM