So the BoDeans issued a new CD yesterday, March 4, titled "Still." I hadn't thought about those guys for some time. The 2004 disc, "Resolution," didn't feed any fires in me, but this is one band I have been a fan of from the start, which puts me back into the 1980s. A friend turned me on to "Love and Hope and Sex and Dreams" and then I heard the band interviewed by Noah Adams on "All Things Considered." They were among the first of the so-called post-punk retro groups, but I am still annoyed by some Rolling Stone critic's assessment of them as being a group to follow if you wanted to buy new records but you weren't really interested in listening to new music.
OK. So "Resolution" sort of fit that bill. But meanwhile, I ordered "Still" online today.
What brought all this on, you might ask? An e-mail from a Red House Records' publicist informing me that Eliza Gilkyson will be performing in Austin at a SXSW concert that will include none other than the BoDeans. Go Kurt! Go Sammy!
So I went to the Web site (bodeans.com) and lo, there was a new CD released yesterday, produced by T-Bone Burnett, who if I am not wrong, produced "Love and Hope and Sex and Dreams." So he also produced "Raising Sand," a fairly boring CD that has won high accolades because it combines the voices of Robert Plant and Alison Krauss. It just didn't float my boat.
Plus, the band is touring in support of the new CD and they'll be playing the 9:30 Club here in DC April 2. I'm getting tickets. I haven't seen them for years and I was even considering a winter trip out to the boondocks of Wisconsin -- some casino on an Indian reservation, no doubt, where they were playing last year.
It wouldn't be the craziest music trip I've ever taken, but it might rank in the top 10.
The latest, for me: My electric country rock band, Riff Raff, has ridden off into the sunset. After 30 years, I guess, Tom and I have finally come to artistic differences. But Allegheny Uprising is chugging along with regular 2nd and 4th Wednesday gigs at Beans in the Belfry in Brunswick (www.alleghenyuprising.com). This version of the band can't last, but it's exciting. And I was recruited at the monthly Round Hill Bluegrass Jam to play guitar for Bull Run Grass, a five-piece outfit that does traditional and gospel in Manassas. The first practice with them was OK. Hopefully, this will stretch my guitar picking abilities. We will just see how it goes.
That's the way of music -- it's always just tones, vibrating air no less, set to time. It is very temporal, a pretty good metaphor for life. Nothing gold can stay, as the poet said, and the music is something to enjoy while it is there.
Rediscovering the BoDeans today has just made my day.