Straight Heat Encore: August 12th, 2011

Bill Withers…Use Me…BBC in Concert 1973…Mowgli in Heat 2011…I would kill a homeless person to be this awesome…It would have to be a gun though…knives are too personal…plus I wouldn’t want to get my hands dirty…that would be gross…

Straight Heat of the Day: August 12th, 2011

Little Feat…Spanish Moon Live…Rainbow Theater…London, 1977…Whiskey, Women, & Bad Cocaine…recipe for a night to be remembered…If you like Phish, you clearly never heard of Little Feat…good luck with all that.

Robert Palmer…Spanish Moon…hide your girlfriends…

Straight Heat of the Day: April 4th, 2011

Justin Townes Earle…Live on Letterman…bow tie’s generally not hip, but today, it is…

Straight Heat of the Day: October 27th, 2010

John Lee Hooker…Hobo Blues…Live in 1965…American Folk Blues Festival…this song makes me wish I was sitting by a camp fire, spinning yarns, drinking moonshine, and smoking a pipe…builds steam like  a train…

Straight Heat of the Day: October 22nd, 2010

Keller Williams…Thirsty in the Rain…Live at The Oregon Country Fair…7/9/99…cover of a Peter Rowan classic…an unbelievable amount of sound coming from one guitar…beastly twist on a bluegrass masterpiece…

Note to all the performers out there:  Children dancing as your backdrop = instant & overwhelming positive vibes…free cool breeze.

Straight Heat of the Day: October 20th, 2010

Lyrics Born…Live Session…there is actually good hip hop…you don’t ever see it, but it does exist…consider this a case in point…

Straight Heat of the Day: October 19th, 2010

Mixmaster Mike…Random Jam…What do you get when you cross Robert Johnson’s, Ramblin’ on my Mind with Dead Prez’s, Hip Hop? 

Nothing but heat…featured in the documentary, Scratch.

Straight Heat of the Day: October 18th, 2010

Joe Cocker….Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood…grimy…just grimy…conservatives argue that heat is a choice…I firmly believe that heat is biological…you’re born with it…Exhibit A:  Joe Cocker

Exhibit B:  The Animals…Please Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood…if Eric Burdon ever hits on your girl, just walk away…you don’t stand a chance…

Exhibit C:  Nina Simone…yeah…that’s right…girls can have heat too…

Straight Heat of the Day: October 8th, 2010

Furry Lewis…Lay My Burden Down…I need to add some old-timing blues singers to my posse…increase my street cred…

Madding Come Monday

In my next life I’ll be hitting the stage as the best backup whistler the world has yet seen and you can come to my show unless you persist in acting like a pernicious cunt and a twaddler. Until then, tide yourself over with The New Pornographers performing “Crash Years” on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. (85% of my delight in this song comes from Neko Case singing the lyric, “Above the madding crowd they’re ruined….” I just like the sound of it and won’t bother trying to explain it or myself.)

The Woods Will Never Tell

My brother and I went hiking in the backwoods of Maryland recently. It was brilliantly sunny, nothing in the sky but some circling turkey vultures as we stepped through the forest. We sheared through a thicket and found ourselves presently in a clearing, or, what was once a clearing….the forest had evidently taken notice of a lengthy lack of human presence and begun to silently encroach on what was once its domain. In the center of the now-overgrown clearing was a red barn and a modest shuttered house, both abandoned and both in the beginning stages of dilapidation, no doubt aided by the gathering army of vines and tendrils of ivy snaking up the sides. My brother was bent on investigating further but both were curiously locked: a rusty ferrous lock on the barn-door, unyielding entrances on the abode. We didn’t loiter long after; there was something just so sinister about the abandoned barn. The whimsical Charlie Chaplin-esque face it was sporting turned blank, eldritch and aged, when you caught it out of the farthest corner of your eye.

We left, strains of Tom Waits’ Murder in the Red Barn lingering on the meager breeze…

Straight Heat of the Day: September 22nd, 2010

The Specials…Gangsters…Live on Saturday Night Live…1980…this week is dragging…every person I run into seems to have the same feeling…desperate for Friday…time for a midweek break…rocksteady ska style…

Straight Heat of the Day: September 21st, 2010

The White Stripes…Ball and Biscuit…Live at VH1…New school shred with deep, old school roots…Jack White may just be the last living musical legend…from here on out, we’re stuck listening to synthesizers and drum kits sprinkled with a liberal seasoning of angst…

Straight Heat of the Day: September 20th, 2010

Freddie King…Live at the Travis County Jail…1976…the blues have the power to touch even  the most jaded of men…the boys on the block still say to this day, “That was the first AND last time we saw Leon cut rug”…

Straight Heat of the Day: September 16th, 2010

Rage Against the Machine…Know Your Enemy…Live in Hultsfred, Sweden…2000…unbelievable, game-changing group…I’ll never forget the sheer intensity when I saw them live in Philadelphia…the stadium was lined with riot cops and the venue refused to serve beer…you know things are going to get wild when them’s the rules…

Straight Heat of the Day: September 15th, 2010

Van Morrison and The Band…Caravan Live…from The Last Waltz…straight heat of the day was invented for stage-burning performances like this…it takes serious moxie to end your song with a series of high leg kicks, drop the mic, the walk off the stage…Van the Man indeed…

Straight Heat of the Day: September 13th, 2010

Calexico & Jim James…”Goin’ to Acapulco”…Superb Bob Dylan cover from the film, “I’m Not There”…soulful, direct, flawless…the song stands alone…

Straight Heat of the Day: September 10th, 2010

David Gilmour…Echoes…Live in Gdansk, Poland…8/26/2006…this song goes out to all those stupid people who say that it’s a good thing that Jimi Hendrix died young so he we didn’t have to watch him get old, boring, and tired…please allow me to retort with evidence to the contrary…Exhibit A.

Straight Heat of the Day: September 9th, 2010

The Police…So Lonely…Live at the beatclub…1978…”Sting would be another person who’s a hero. The music he’s created over the years, I don’t really listen to it, but the fact that he’s making it, I respect that.”

Straight Heat of the Day: September 8th, 2010

Oysterhead…Les Claypool, Trey Anastasio, Stewart Copeland…Oz is Ever Floating…Live on Conan O’Brien…power trio…simple, plain, and weird…enjoy the Trey Shred Showcase…

Straight Heat of the Day: September 7th, 2010

The Black Crowes…Oh Sweet Nuthin’ Live…figured it would be appropriate to feature a little Velvet Underground to ease all the party-weary souls back into the grind…have no fear, Friday is almost here…

Straight Heat of the Day: September 2nd, 2010

Salt  N Pepa…Shake Your Thang…classic…because Thursday is almost Friday…

Straight Heat of the Day: September 1st, 2010

Mississippi Fred McDowell…John Henry Live…his quiet confidence is incredible…he shreds the guitar like he was born with one in hand…makes you proud to be an American…

Straight Heat of the Day: August 31st, 2010

The Raconteurs…Carolina Drama…Live from The Culture Show on BBC2…Jack White is King Midas…everything he touches turns to gold…