Rattlesnake Confusion - September 2008

Rattlesnake Confusion
September 2008

There's something happening here

What it is ain't exactly clear

There's a man with a gun over there

Telling me I got to beware
Stephen Stills - “For What It’s Worth”

August 21, 1968 – The dramatic blossoming of democratic, cultural and social reforms in Czechoslovakia are squashed when 200,000 troops from the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Poland and Hungary invade and occupy the country. What became known as the Prague Spring was a testament to what happens when people are given the freedom to think as they wish, associate with like-minded individuals and criticize the government.

And it scared the hell out of those in power.


“The policeman isn’t there to create disorder; the policeman is there to preserve disorder.”
Chicago Mayor Richard Daley

In a land that's known as Freedom

How can such a thing be fair?
Graham Nash - “Chicago”

August 26-29, 1968 – Police clash with protestors at Chicago’s Democratic National Convention. A 17 year old shot dead by the police, nearly 700 arrested and almost 200 officers injured. Earlier that year, the country had suffered the assassinations of the Rev. Martin Luther King and then-presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy. Negative sentiment for the Vietnam War was growing.

And it would have scared the hell out of those in power, but three weeks earlier, Richard Nixon was declared the Republican nominee for President.

Because something is happening here but you don’t know what it is?
Do you, Mister Jones?
Bob Dylan - “Ballad of a Thin Man”

Well, I damn sure didn’t know what was happening. I was 8 and I had spent the summer reading comic books in my father’s upholstery shop. Hell, my first experience with what was “happening” came years later in my sixth grade class when the Savannah Police came in and passed around a small, smoldering mound of dry leaves on a small screen and told us that was the smell of marijuana. That and Three Dog Night’s “Joy to the World” are my main memories of sixth grade.

If I were the king of the world

Tell you what I'd do

I'd throw away the cars and the bars and the war
Hoyt Axton – “Joy To The World”

August 25-28 and September 1-4, 2008 – At both the Democratic and Republican National Conventions, protesters are once again corralled into “free-speech zones,” a grammatical constriction that even Orwell never imagined. They are set aside out of the view of the television cameras, the press and the world.

If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, is it still a constitutionally guaranteed right?

Ain’t that freedom for you, freedom American Style?
Todd Snider – “TV Guide”

And now, nothing scares those in power.

August 2008 CD reviews

Here's the reviews you'll find in the August 2008 issue of Playgrounds Magazine:

-------------------------------------------------------------------

TybeeDawg’s Pick of the Litter
August 2008

Swampadelica
S’ac Passé?
Sidewards Records
http://www.swampadelica.com/

Their name is Swampadelica, and on their new release S’ac Passé? the New Jersey-based roots band unexpectedly whips up a cultural stew that includes the jamband influences of Deep Banana Blackout and Donna The Buffalo, but also ventures farther afield, dropping into ports of call like New Orleans, the Caribbean, San Francisco and Africa.

Lead vocalist Nadine LaFond, guitarist Brian Herkert, founding member Damian Calcagne on keyboards, bassist Paul Kuzik, and Bill Rust on drums unfailingly lock into the groove, whether it’s the sinewy rhythm of “Blueberry Street,” the languid sway of “Cloth of Time” or the bouncy title track. Recorded at Phish’s Trey Anastasio’s Vermont studio, the Barn, S’ac Passé? features twelve tracks that weave through soul, rock, funk and Cajun while maintaining an internal cohesiveness that is more difficult to achieve than you’d think, and it’s a compliment to the band’s talent that they do it so seamlessly.

The CD’s title is a Haitian Kreyol phrase that means “What’s going on?” and the response is “N’ap Boule!,” which means “Our fire is burning,” and in the case of Swampadelica, it couldn’t be more true.

This is a new feature, one designed to highlight the music that touched the Dawg in a special way…finding the spot that makes his hind leg start kicking and scratching behind his ear uncontrollably.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dan Adams Band
The Hard Way
http://www.danadamsband.com/index.html


In 1999, Dan Adams fronted a band called 1401 and in a review of their second release, Bittersweet Voyage, I described their music as “alternative…acoustic pop/rock.” Who knew that nine years later much the same style would be considered modern country music? That’s not to say that Adams has been recycling the same material. With the release of The Hard Way, Adams has only sharpened his skill, painting his character-driven songs with a finely bristled brush, and the tunes bear a more finely-honed edge because of it.

Most of the ten tracks here were written or co-written by Adams, who also produced the last six tunes. Whether it’s the rear-view philosophy of “One Too Many Times” or the outlaw imagery of “That’s How I’m Going Out” or the even the faded Naugahyde of the rockin’ “Green Couch”, Adams rolls through the songs effortlessly, recalling at times Edwin McCain, Shawn Mullins or Reckless Kelly. The single, “Drinkin Out Loud,” is a standout track and deserves a listen (Radio station programmers, are you paying attention?).

The Hard Way is available on iTunes, Rhapsody, Napster, and eMusic.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lauderdale
Lauderdale
http://www.myspace.com/lauderdalemusic


Lauderdale hails from the musically fertile Muscle Shoals, Alabama area, a name that brings its own set of memories and influences, a melting pot that holds rock, R&B and country comfortably. And true to their roots, so do Lauderdale.

The band serves up fourteen muscular but tasty tracks on their self-titled debut, large helpings of well-marbled rock and roll mixed with country, blues and pop influences. The young band, vocalist/guitarist Niles Lee, drummer Patrick McDonald, Corey Hannah on bass and lead guitarist Daniel Stoddard, is flush with heart and talent, and could easily mature into an outstanding rock-n-roll outfit. Favorite tracks are “Take Me Home,” “Falling,” and “Wasted Life.” Fans of the Drive-By Truckers, the Drams and Jason Isbell already know who these guys are and with friends like that, what else do you need to know?

Grab some Lauderdale and dig in.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jason Beckham
Union Park and Magnolia Street
www.myspace.com/jasonbeckham

Sometimes you can’t define what makes a good rock n roll record, but I think we can all agree on some of the ingredients: It needs heart and soul in large quantities, as well as brains and balls, and Athens, Georgia-based singer/songwriter Jason Beckham has them all in just the right proportion on his first release Union Park and Magnolia Street.

Musically, Beckham works off from a blues/roots-rock base, combining insightful, Southern-tinged songwriting and humid vocals along with fine, expressive guitar work to pull it all together on ten tracks recorded at Pigpen Studios in Athens with Five-Eight’s Patrick Ferguson on drums. Think Shawn Mullins with a chip on his shoulder.

Union Park and Magnolia Street may be a fictitious intersection, but to me, it looks like a pretty good neighborhood. This is one of those records that you want to recommend to friends, and after a listen, I’ll bet you’ll feel the same way.

Rattlesnake Confusion - Alternative Energy Version

Kind of like Phoenix radio

We used to listen. Where did it go?

It went off the air so

More Sheryl Crow could be on.

“East Nashville Skyline” – Todd Snider

There’s this one particular sort of people in our world and they have jobs that allow them to sit around and think of ways to screw other people. They gravitate to these jobs like scum finds a pond. These people cut across all socio-economic, racial and cultural lines, they could be thieves, or politicians…and in the case of the latter, very often both. But the people whose jobs are to sit around and think of new ways to screw struggling musicians deserve a special place in hell. I’m thinking front-row VIP seating at an eternal Kenny G show, however, I’m open to suggestions.

The musicians in question aren’t heard on the radio, because of restrictive, inbred formatting and least-common-denominator programming, but they are likely highly respected and wildly creative and influential songwriters.

The musicians in question aren’t on the lucrative corporate-branded shed circuit where they pimp out front row VIP tables at VIP prices where the big business tickets pay for the Eagles to re-re-re-unite or tell Jimmy Buffett to sway his fins to the left.

So if you can’t be heard and you can’t be seen, what can a poor boy to do ‘cept to sing for a rock and roll band? Lots of them loaded up the car or the van and rolled from town to town, playing gigs here and there in a bar or coffeehouse, an occasional house party or benefit and they were doing all right.

Until gas went to four dollars a gallon on every corner.

Now they’ve found a whole new way to screw with the musicians and, by extension, with us and our listening pleasures. Now they can’t afford to get to us and we can’t afford to get to them. Is this possibly the most sinister conspiracy since Chad and Jeremy left us hanging? Can this be a way to corral creativity? To saddle up individuality and reign it in? Or is it all horseshit?

Consider this: What if someone manipulated the global financial structure so that we couldn’t afford to go out to the clubs and hear live music, so that we couldn’t afford to do anything but listen to rotting and festering classic rock in the car on the way home and then settle onto the couch with our significant others to stare at the endless commercials that use those same damn songs to sell us insurance, tires, beer and sleep aids?

Viva Viagra, indeed.

Updating the ol' blog

From October of '06 until late '07, I wrote a series of columns for Playgrounds Magazine gathered under the umbrella "Rattlesnake Confusion." It was intended to be more personal explorations than simply writing CD or performance reviews. I think for the most part, it succeeded, although I had a couple of hiccups along the way.

I just uploaded to this site all the Rattlesnakes that hadn't been posted already.

With any luck, in '08 I'll try to continue confusing those rattlesnakes.

(and I'm thinking about uploading my Y2KT10 columns from waybackwhen...my premise was that at the stroke of midnight 2001, all the world's music would cease to exist. Then I asked for input as to what ten CDs you would save. I had a blast doing it, and hope to post that soon. Yeah, it's derivitive of Desert Island Discs, but what the hell. It was fun.

Rattlesnake Confusion - Dec 2006

I had another dream about the old home place last night. It was one of those typically disjointed sequences where familiar scenes are intercut with impossibly surreal situations. That’s what happens when the subconscious wrestles with Morpheus for the director’s chair. I’d like to say that Frank Capra, John Ford or Orson Welles wins, but inevitably my dreams are directed by either David Lynch or Tex Avery.

In this dream and in all my other dreams, the road that runs in front of the house is still dirt and the woods across the street have not yet been replaced with projects, losing lottery tickets and discarded fast-food wrappers didn’t swirl on the wind and then collect in the corner of the yard, and the kids on bikes weren’t runners for the crack dealer down the lane.

In these dreams, I am grown, yet the world around me is still that of my childhood. Albert Einstein believed that “the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion” and nowhere is this more evident than in dreams, where we slice open the past, insert the present and stir it with a spoon our subconscious picked randomly from the day’s events.

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” George Santayana said it and everyone quotes it, but hardly anyone practices it. Those who willingly wallow in the past by constantly reliving it are just as wrong as those who think that in order to live for the future they need to deny their past. Where we come from is part of what we are, but it is not all we are.

So the next time I dream of the old home place, and I feel the rich black dirt between my toes and I grab a handful of muscadines growing in the woods and I smell the salt marsh two blocks away, I’ll enjoy it. I’ll revel in it. I’ll savor it. I’ll remember it.

But I won’t remain in it.

The past: a great place to visit but I wouldn’t want to live there.

For Yesterday is but a Dream, And Tomorrow is only a Vision; But Today well lived makes Every Yesterday a Dream of Happiness, And every Tomorrow a Vision of Hope.Look well therefore to this Day!Such is the Salutation of the Dawn!
--Kalidasa

Rattlesnake Confusion - November 2006

I was 14 and we were in Macon to visit my mother’s sisters, Aunt Frank and Aunt Cooter. Their real names were Francis and Aileen, but no one called them that, it was always Frank and Cooter and my momma Wynokie. In those days, the trip from Savannah took awhile. I-16 hadn’t been completed all the way between the two cities, so you had to exit and take the two-lane till you could get back on the fancy new interstate. I don’t remember listening to any specific music on that long drive, but I’d be willing to bet it was country.

At home, there were few records. There was a Luke the Drifter record, with “Be Careful of Stones that You Throw,” a compilation that included Buck Owens singing “The Race is On” and an Elvis gospel album next to a Jesus Christ Superstar soundtrack that the neighbors gave me, because they were too religious for it. So what little musical background I had did little to prepare me for a joy ride with one of my older cousins. I don’t remember where we went, what kind of car we were in, or any other detail except the music coming out of this 8-track player.

Friends, I’m talking about Heavy Metal: Superstars of the 70’s: Volume 2, a Warner Brothers product that not only introduced me to Jimi Hendrix, Black Sabbath, Alice Cooper, Led Zeppelin, Yes and the Doors, but also the Allman Brothers Band, Delaney and Bonnie, Dr. John, Van Morrison and the Grateful Dead. If there was a Rosetta stone, a ground zero, an A. afarensis, a gateway drug, this was it.

Spinning off from one record, I found the heavy metal sludge of Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man,” the slamming proto-punk garage rock of MC5’s “Kick Out the Jams,” the fabled power chords of “Smoke on the Water,” the funk of T. Rex’s “Bang a Gong,” “Give it to Me” (J. Geils Band), the swampy night-tripping music of Dr. John and Led Zeppelin’s “D’yer Mak’er.” Not only were there the big stars of the day, but I was also introduced to bands like Blues Image, War and Delaney & Bonnie. In a time before MTV and even widespread FM radio in Georgia, this was like shining a flashlight in a possum’s eyes; the reflection was luminous. This treasure map led me down so many paths, but each one was worth it. I was now condemned to a life of collecting records, reading liner notes to see who wrote a song, attending concerts, filling my brain with musical minutiae, haunting record stores and methodically searching through their bins for that one record I didn’t know I needed till I found it.

So, here’s what I want to know: any chance I can sue Warner Brothers for not putting a warning label on Heavy Metal: Superstars of the 70’s: Volume 2? I mean, it’s been 32 years and I still can’t give it up.

Rattlesnake Confusion - Oct 2006 Riverfest – MIA (Missing In April)

She was dressed in her finest when she courted admirers numbering six figures. She was the hottest thing going and everyone wanted her phone number. Sure she’s 37, and people got used to her, but how can a festival that one year makes hundreds of thousands of dollars as a fundraiser for the Historic Columbus Foundation find herself without a date in 2007?

Dusty Nix, in a September 27 editorial in the Ledger-Enquirer, asked the question “Is Riverfest worth saving?” I agree with Mr. Nix that it is – and that changes need to be made. As Will Rogers said “If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging.”

In the festival biz, you’re playing a game of chance. You roll the dice on weather, location, music, food and the local political climate. Riverfest has been dealt some crappy hands, and still persevered. Till now.

I’m not sure what the HCF board is going to do, but I do know that outdoor street festivals are integral to a city’s health, and if they decide not to continue, then someone else should step up and keep this celebration going. And I don’t know about fundraising, the political wranglings, or any back-room, behind the scenes stuff. But I’ve been to one or two festivals, and I know what I like and don’t like, and what works and what doesn’t.

Food: Not another corndog stand, please. And step away from the cotton candy machines. We have an annual fair if you have to have fair food. Stick to the BBQ competition, encourage local restaurants to vend, and have a variety of portion sizes and prices. Offer regional beer choices instead of plastic cups of warm Budweiser. I wouldn’t mind sipping a cold Red Jacket Ale from the Cannon Brewpub while watching the Chattahoochee roll by on a spring afternoon.

Music: Rather than present the same tired acts that use festivals as a convenient overnight stop and painless paycheck between casino gigs, offer local and regional bands with a following and some press behind them. If you have the cash, bring in a bigger name one night, but not a ringer band whose one remaining original member secured the rights to the name in nasty court skirmish. Build a reputation of bringing in artists that go on to have number one records (all together now: Dixie Chicks). A lot of people are going to come anyway, regardless of the lineup, so why not give them some quality, and they can say “we saw them when.”

The same buzz works for bands, the more respected your lineup, the easier it will be to attract better bands. Athens is full of talented bands that would love the chance to play on a large outdoor stage. Work with someone who has the contacts to bring in these bands and partner with the clubs and coffee shops downtown to book musicians as part of the celebration.

Children: Festivals should be for all ages, so make it exciting and unique for the kids. Forget the inflatable slides and castles. Interactive activities like painting, pottery, making music, and storytelling can be fun and educational. Focus on things they can’t get at the Greater Columbus Fair.

Location, Location, Location: True enough. Between the fine Phenix City Amphitheatre, both Riverwalks and downtown Columbus streets, there’s plenty of room to stretch out. Work with the city governments on both sides of the river to ensure consistency.

Explore alternatives. Are there private-public partnerships that haven’t been taken advantage of? What can Columbus State bring to the table? What makes Riverfest unique, what can differentiate it from other festivals in the state?

It’s a fallacy that you can be all things to all people. That’s an impossible compromise, where you agree to have, as Lyle Lovett says, “an acceptable level of ecstasy.” This is somewhat unavoidable in a street festival because you can’t narrowly focus on one group, but what you can do is present everyone with quality choices on every level.

I hope Riverfest resurfaces and reinvents itself as an event that will not only excite locals but draw in people from the surrounding region. She may be unavailable next year, but I hope she and I can hook up in ’08.


With luck, Rattlesnake Confusion will be a monthly column about various aspects of music, the people who make it and those of us lucky enough to listen. If you have any suggestions, I’d love to hear ‘em. - C