the most appropriate Mickey's big mouth cap

The St.Patrick's Day Parade left its green detritus all over Baton Rouge this weekend. We are about as Irish a town as we are Venusian but it still manages to be a great parade. In order: (1) the good beads. I saw a variant of the flag one that had rebel flags instead of generic Irish on a few of the marchers. (2) the #1 catcher of good beads in action stance. (3) best green wig utilization of the day. (4) East St. John high school's marching kit, which looked and sounded like brass knuckles, and (5) the most appropriate Mickey's big mouth cap opened by yours truly at the post-parade crawfish boil.

The thing I like best about this parade is that for some reason, the marching bands get to cut a little loose. Here is Scotlandville Magnet getting their WhoDat on



and another school going from batshit to Phil Collins at the blow of a whistle



In other news I finally finished Chronic City. Goodbye Perkus Tooth, Good night Chase Insteadman. It was a fun ride but I am gonna go read some other books now. My detailed impressions are up on Goodreads.

Don't surprise Joey Meatballs

The view through the sunroof of our new car! Goodbye hoopty love! Hello, sunroof dalliance!

Joey Meatballs, the guy that sold it to us, kept us company through the arcane business of giving some faceless bank a lot of money with ever-spiralling stories of his Italian upbringin' in New Yawk. At one point he glanced out the window at a tan Saturn in the customer lot and rhapsodized about his dear departed mother who drove that exact car. He had to carry her in his arms to that last hospital visit. A few weeks after she passed, Joey Meatballs had a dream:

I was at my parents house in Brooklyn, an I was in the shower, I don't know why I was in the shower, but anyways my mother comes in and she's looking gorgeous with the red hair and everything and I'm was all "Ma! What are you doing here, I'm in the shower!" and she says "Joey, I was scared that day, but I'm alright now."

He also related that he too loves Disney World, and does not like to be surprised. "Man, if I get surprised, I hit. Like I don't want to, but it happens. You surprise me, I hit." Moral of the story: don't surprise Joey Meatballs, unless it's in a dream.

We got satellite radio too. Best car-buying experience ever.

Sequestered In Memphis - The H...

Prepare the boats!

Jack DeJohnette - Sorcery (lala)
Frog Eyes - Ego Scriptor (lala)
Sandy Bull - Still Valentine's Day, 1969: Live at the Matrix, San Fransisco (lala)
Sparklehorse + Fennesz - In the Fishtank 15 (lala)

I love the way Mr. Frog Eyes dangles babbling at the end of his rope. Just as I typed that sentence and admired it, I looked up to see a childhood poem about vikings from the recently opened David Foster Wallace archives coming through the wires (via The Awl).



The human condition is one grisly segue after another it seems. Witness the above massive fire my wife and I spied from River Road on a lunch trip to Roberto's. The road twists back and forth with the river, so it seemed like we were perpetually about to be about on top of it. At one point we could see the flames lapping the tree line. Prepare the boats! We will listen to our Sandy Bull tapes like the people in Chronic City and make our escape from the smoke. And watch out for Vikings!

Though the light is taking its time
Who you questioned in the blue-black dirt?

One in Six Children Will Flee ...

Manha De Carnival - Sandy Bull

Should no catastrophes transpire, Baton Rouge is lousy with shaggy, indie rock opportunity this week. This is your moment to get a touring rock star to sleep on your floor. You can make it happen. Here are some of the highlights laid out on this week's installment of the Record Crate blog for 225 magazine.

thumbs up

Ron Carter - Peg Leg (lala)

The creator of the depicted Play-Doh sculptures requested that they be "put online where the most people can see them" and I believe this is the internet outlet where I can best accommodate that request. I like the way the alligator dips in and out of the surface plane, a playful yet shrewd use of negative space. She also requested that the caption of the thumbs-up eagle be "Respect America!" and despite its shortcomings, I do.


Respect America!

good as hell

Drive By Truckers - The Big To-Do (out March 16) and A Blessing and a Curse (lala)
Neil Young - On the Beach (alternate version) (ROOT BLOG)

The new Drive By-Truckers is good as hell, full to the brim with whores and losers and guitars and everything that always makes me feel that way about their records because they always are. I even love poor old A Blessing and a Curse, the one you aren't supposed to like as much, and not just because I wrote the promo one-sheet for it in a brief fit of commercialism. It's good as hell too. On these three songs alone it's a great record.

Gravity's Gone - Drive-By Truc...

Aftermath USA - Drive-By Truck...

Little Bonnie - Drive-By Truck...

I just listened to it while breaking my first real Louisiana sweat of the year on a mile walk each way to talk to a loan officer, a fitting situation in which to assess the merits of a DBT record, and A Blessing and a Curse totally holds up. More on The Big To-Do coming soon.

I don't know how alternative a bootleg of live version is, but whatever, this alternative On the Beach is good as hell too. "Revolution Blues" has been stuck in my head since I first heard it about a decade ago. This pre-album version from 1974 is included on the collection



The above photo is me at the incrementally more shambolic Union Barber Shop before getting my haircut; it strikes me as a "Neil Young" kinda picture. I walked out of there looking markedly less "shakey."

Darkness, Racket and Twang is now available on Kindle

Darkness, Racket and Twang is now available for the Kindle at the low New Journalism price of $5.99. You know you read your iPhone in the bathroom and my book is nothing if not great bathroom reading. It brings out the hotness in your electronic lifestyle device. Join the revolution! Get it today!

"knuckle sandwich"

Ian McLagan - Here Comes Trouble
Rockpile - "Now & Always"
Orphan Town - Volume 1 (lala)

I love pub rock. Who else but a pub rocker will include searing guitar fuzz, echo effects and the phrase "knuckle sandwich" in the same song and ironically own it? I didn't realize McLagan was the keyboardist for Faces/Small Faces and did session work with the Stones and everybody. Also, I love this video.



To reader Dan, the boogie raconteur ringleading the highly excellent Orphan Town, I haven't forgotten to suss out the chorus is "Now and Always." I have emails into Nick Lowe, hoping he will settle the mystery of what he's saying in the chorus.



Here is Orphan Town evoking the smoky dread of Elia Kazan. The above photo (taken by William G. Osborne III) depicts yours truly in full Mardi Gras mode, posing with a Bloody Mary in the bar of the Hotel Cazan in Mamou, LA, thus executing one of the most tenuous segues yet on this blog (Kazan/Cazan... get it? Hello...?) I think it would make a great book jacket photo.

Elia Kazan - Orphan Town

"Get It Got It Good" is a total pub rock knuckle sandwich of a song.

Get It Got It Good - Orphan To...