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.

It has been two weeks since I went back to Chestertown for one evening to play music at the open mic at Andy's, and to visit old friends Wayne, Ford, Chris, Michael and Clark. While there, I met up with a high school chum, Jeff, who, surprisingly, now lives within two miles of my house in Sterling.

One thing I realized being at Andy's was that I left a lot of friends behind. I do not have those kinds of friends here. The city is different.

Once upon a time, I would have attended such an event and thought -- good Lord! These people were playing this open mic five years ago when I left this town. Look how far I've gone beyond this; look how stuck they are, how miserable.

How wrong that thinking is.

Yet despite anything I have ever believed, I realize I like small towns best for
this quality. For while we here have much, life in Chestertown offers more.

I finally got to know human beings in Chestertown. Here, people are like shadows. You know there is more to them, but they are so elusive and there are so many of them.

Everything takes more effort here because so many people are competing for space. Yes I have friends here and I feel I am accomplishing much. Yet I miss the intimacy that small town life offers, the chance to know fewer people, but to know them by name and to have them remember you, and you remember them, even years from seeing them.

In a small town you get to know people and their stories. Returning is like remembering
the notes of a song we haven't played together for years. We fall into its comfort, the pattern, the knowledge of what comes next effortlessly.

Life here is literally being surrounded by chaos -- people do not even speak the same language. We go about our business. We expect the unexpected. I hardly know any of my neighbors. And, to bring it full circle, people I used to know now live in my neighborhood but we only meet by accident. How tragic.

Jeff is the second old friend I have run across in five years who lives in Sterling. The other, Marsha, worked with me at the paper in Annapolis and moved on, about the same time I did. She went to USA Today while I took the job in Chestertown. A mutual friend reconnected us and I have run into Marsha at the grocery store.

I understand this is one of life's lessons. Like Harry Chapin said, all my life's a circle, sunrise and sundown. Running into old friends is one way to reconnect your circle. Making new friends makes your circle bigger.

My circle is in pretty good shape at the moment. Big. Round.

'Til next time.

Happy birthday to my wife, Nancy.

Driving along Georgetown Pike, I've noticed the daffodils opening on the western banks of the roadside, where the sun hits them. In January, we had a warm spell and some trees even started blooming. I walk in the National Arboretum on occasion and noticed blossoming cherry trees there. Some early varieties bloom early. I hope the late chill of Feburary didn't get to them.

I sent Nancy a bouquet of daffodils for her birthday today. We have some on the side of the house, and I need to check if they are up. They do bloom early, as they get sun and warmth -- early as crocuses some years, and the crocuses are up. We had snow not two weeks ago. That's spring in Washington. They're calling for temps in the 70s by Saturday.

When I was in college, a classmate of mine wrote what I think is the most memorable line of poetry I've read: "Forsythia screams yellow." The rest of the poem was vaguely about getting drunk and throwing up, and is utterly forgettable. But that image always comes to my mind this time of year. The forsythia will be screaming in our back yard before too long.

Speaking of school and the past: I met up again with Jeff, the old high school chum I ran into in Chestertown, on Saturday. He is still angling for for places to play music, so we stopped at a new Irish pub that's in a shopping center in our neighborhood. The place was closed so we went to Glory Days and caught up on old friends. He still has connections with Winchester and is married to a woman from my graduating class, Cheryl, who has some connections to the Washington area from her childhood.

After snacking at Glory Days, we went to the Irish pub. It's OK, but they seem to be catering to a younger crowd. They have DJs and they're not a live music place.

Jeff and I promised to stay in touch, but who knows? He has my number; I know where he works. He suggested I consider teaching guitar and mandolin lessons at $30 an hour. I feel insecure about it, and will always feel insecure about teaching, especially music. I just don't feel I have that much to offer, although people tell me otherwise.

'Til next time.

I can't take credit for this bio of likes and dislikes. I stole it from the Web site of one of my favorite bands, Tom Landa and the Paperboys.

But lacking any urgent subject matter, here goes the questionnaire.

Thai or Indian? Thai
Sushi or Schezuan? Schezuan (unless it's Eastern Shore sushi -- raw oysters)
Mexican or Italian? Mexican!
TV or Book? TV
Fiction or Non Fiction? Fiction
I-Pod or Magazine? Magazine
Movie or Websurfing? Surfing
Exercise or Couch Potato? Couch potato
Britney or Christina? Who?
Beatles or Stones? Beatles
Booze or Narcotics? Neither for going on 10 years
Cat or Dog? Neither
Newspaper or CNN? Newspaper, naturally
Coffee or Tea? Coffee
Picasso or Renoir? Picasso
PC or Mac? Mac at work, PC at home
Car or public transit? Truck
Chocolate or Vanilla? Chocolate
Beer or wine? I cook with 'em
Candlelight dinner or hockey game? Dinner
London or Los Angeles? West Ossipee, NH
Ocean or swimming pool? Pool
Simpsons or Southpark? YES!
Blondes or Brunettes? Brunettes
Boxers or Briefs? Boxers
Sinatra or Dean Martin? Dino
Download or buy? Buy
Desperate Housewives or Sopranos? My Name is Earl
Letterman or Leno? Letterman
Urban or Rural? Rural
Eminem or 50 cent? Bob Dylan
Fish or chicken? Chicken
Meat or vegetables? vegetables
Hank or Johnny? Johnny
Elvis or Jerry Lee? Elvis
Halloween or Christmas? Christmas

Happy 46th birthday to my brother James in Miami!

I am so disappointed in my generation. Born in 1956, I was too young to be a hippie protester, but my heart was with the anti-war demonstrators on the Mall, the civil rights marchers. I grew my hair long. I played the music and lived the lifestyle.

When I became an adult, I followed through with the lessons we had learned from the Summer of Love, flawed as they were. I chose to accept the best of them -- harmony and peace, compassion and brotherly love, tolerance and generosity. I rejected the worst of them -- violence, chiefly. I went to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial the day it opened.

I remember Johnny Cash's deep voice singing: "The lonely voice of youth cries, what is truth."

What is truth? I thought we knew. Back in the 1960s, we knew the truth -- our involvement in Vietnam was wrong and we said "never again." Racial and gender bias were wrong and we took strides against them. We answered questions about how to care for our our retired people and the health of our elderly population with social programs. None of this was perfect, but it was progress.

Truth today? Is there any? Who do we believe?

I ask because the term "manufactured truth" was in a lyric on a CD I just got from The Ocean Blue, one of my favorite bands from the 1990s. I heard the term and waves of disappointment and anger washed over me. I don't have to dwell on the reasons. I wonder, though, why we are seemingly doomed to relearn all of our lessons. Why do we keep repeating the same mistakes. Why can't we accept things as they are and move on to better them?

How could our generation, those baby-boomers who went before and after me -- how could we repeat the mistakes we fought and sought to correct 40 years ago? Didn't we learn anything?

'Til next time.

Last week I ran into an old school chum, Jeff, who left the area after college like I did and returned to Virginia to live. We are now neighbors again -- have been for years -- and didn't know it until a week ago yesterday. Funny thing -- we got acquainted in school through music, as are both guitar players, and music reacquainted us after about 33 years. We both showed up to perform at an open mic in Chestertown, Md., where I lived before moving back to Virginia, about 100 miles from our current neighborhood. It was like something from the Twilight Zone, seeing each other again. We're trying to get together closer to home over the weekend. Stay tuned. The Beltway today was closed by a lumber truck accident that left wooden sections of fence in the highway at the intersection of I-270 and I-495. One person was killed and several were injured. Accidents like this are becoming more common. It might have been at this same intersection where a gasoline tanker caught fire and exploded not so long ago, causing major traffic disruptions -- and killing the driver, if I recall correctly. As I was getting on the GW Parkway in the late morning hours, traffic was backing up from the Legion Bridge. Rare is the day when there's not some tie-up on my 30-mile commute. My goal is to start blogging here on a regular basis. Let's see how it goes. I opened this account in order to view someone else's Myspace blog and decided it was pointless to keep it unless I used it. So here goes. Rather than tell you all about me all at once in some kind of Vulcan mind-meld (if you remember that, you might be a geek or just a fan of Star Trek, as I have been over the years), I'll just fill you in as we go along. Suffice it now to say that I am approaching 50 with trepidation. My old-time trio is expanding into a quartet and possibly morphing into a bluegrass/folk band along the lines of the Dillards, Manassas, Flying Burrito Bros., and other bands that have passed into the anonymity of time. Why should we be any different? Let's at least have fun while we can, I say. My folk-rock duo -- yes, I am a glutton for punishment in two bands -- has changed into a country-rock trio. Nothing stays the same. And I am contemplating future solo musical endeavors, as usual. None of this is getting any of us anywhere, in terms of attention, gigs, money or any other aspect of performance, except the satisfaction we get from sounding good in practice. For example, the old-time trip was booked for a benefit on St. patrick's Day that was cancelled last week. So much for practicing for that. We do have a job planned April 17 in Brunswick, Md., but we've been warned that few people attend this place. Such is the life of regional folk musicians. 'Til next time.