Robert and I met RB and Livingdeb to see this concert at the Cactus Cafe on Saturday night. (She writes about it here.) RB camped out at the door to ensure that we got prime seats on the front row.
Some of you may know Michael Hurley from the Have Moicy! album - he wrote "Slurf Song," "Fooey Fooey," "Sweet Lucy," and "Driving Wheel" (according to some website I accidentally lost track of). It was interesting to watch him perform up close. There is an oddness to the lyrics and music - in some way, they don't match, but work together surprisingly well. I don't play guitar, so it is hard for me to judge, but there appeared to me to be an intricacy, and occasionally strange stop-go element, to his playing, which balanced out the roaming quality of the lyrics. My favorites of the songs he performed were his classic "O My Stars" and "Knockando" (which is a scotch whisky that I have never had, but that he pronounces to sing: I have a glass of "no can do"). Youtube has a clip of him performing "Knockando" about a month ago that gives a good feel for this.
The Lizards played two sets, which was one set too many in my opinion. (By the end, I was like, will you goddamn play "Anahuac" already so we can get out of here? "Anahuac" is their signature song. It was nearing midnight by the time they wrapped up. I was quite happy that Robert managed to get a parking spot about 1 block away because I was tired and it was fairly cold.) I did enjoy the first set a lot, though, with its usual silliness and fun. Perhaps the one I liked best was "Hey Little Minivan." The unexpected, um, treat? was the German rap number performed by the young fiddler/mandolin player; I had an amusing progression of recognizing words, grammatical structures, phrases, and finally a few sentences to realize that he was actually rapping in German, and not faking it. I looked him up later and discovered he has a degree in German, lived there for a while, and put together an entire CD of German rap songs.
I thought some of the more recent Lizards songs sounded rather formulaic (I mean, even by their standards) and that someone had used too heavy a hand in adding political content, but apparently, some activist group had commissioned these songs. However, even though I thought the song about immigration was mostly a stupid waste of time, I did like the closing comment about building the wall - that they would have to hire a bunch of Mexicans to build it. Overall, I was pleased with the banjo and fiddle content of the evening, though.
Oh, I also wanted to add: It seemed to me that the number of under-40's in the audience (even including the few children there accompanying adults) was less than the number of over-65's. Of course, Hurley and the Lizards players, with the exception of the one "new" guy who has "only" been with them for four years, all appeared to be older than my parents. I loved this one old woman (75 if she was a day) wearing an Austin Lounge Lizards t-shirt underneath her actually quite nice black blazer.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
Did the Lounge Lizards play "Get a Haircut, Dad!", which is the only song I can remember from 12 years ago when they played at the Chili Festival in Tulsa.
Mom, no, they didn't play that one. They did play "Jesus Loves Me But He Can't Stand You" that they also did at the chili festival, though.
I'd never actually seen them do "Anahuac" live before. I'd seen it requested and refused and assumed they were sick of it.
I think of "Chester Nimitz Oriental Garden" as their signature song, or maybe that's just my favorite.
No, now that I think about it, I think of "Highway Cafe of the Damned" as their signature song.
Some folks I met when I lived in Atlanta had adopted "Old, Fat, and Drunk" for their own signature song. Fortunately, they weren't boring at all as one might expect from such a signature song. In fact, they are the ones from whom I learned that uncomfortably stiff high-ankle hiking boots can actually be a good thing in some situations (sharp, rocky slopes under a foot or two of fallen leaves, in particular).
I've always just assumed "Anahuac" was their signature song. I googled it to see if anybody had other songs vying for this title, but the first hit was my own blog post. Do I get to quote myself as an authority now? Definitely a lesson in how one should take what one reads on the Internet with a grain of salt.
Perhaps they played "Anahuac" because they thought it was the only way to keep from being called back in for yet another encore. "Anahuac" seems to be the song most favored by fans at their concerts. Maybe because it was the popular song from their first album?
But surely we can all agree that "Hillbillies in a Haunted House" is NOT their signature song. I was actually somewhat stunned by its inanity and general lack of amusing qualities. (I had not heard it before.)
I'm certainly in agreement about "Hillbillies in a Haunted House."
I thought their signature song was "Leonard Cohen's day job". Did they do other songs?
Post a Comment