Friday, June 29, 2007

Last Friday Cheers, Toad's Place, Summer of Love

Yes, we've gone blog. I'm adding my mundane thoughts to the incessant prattle that characterizes the blogosphere. Even that word (blogosphere) is dumb. Why blog? Well, the Internet newsletter was going out to more & more people and I didn't want it coming from my state email address. Not that I write any vitriolic political dialogue, but you never know what someone might take offense to. I'll still send out an email reminder, but it will link to here.

Tonight is the last Friday Cheers of the year. If you didn't get out to one this year, you stink. Really, its free and they had good bands and serve beer, what more do you want, people? Tonight will be The Slip with Bobby Bare Jr. The Slip have been getting some strong press. They started out classified under "jam rock" but have since moved into more avant-rock or indie rock, whatever you want to call it. Either way, their latest album has been getting raves, they've been picked as "an artist to watch" by Rolling Stone, Filter, WXPN, etc. I checked out a concert on WXPN at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6555209 and they sounded like they'll be worth a listen at Cheers. And again, its FREE and its the last Cheers until next year. Its at Brown's Island as usual.

Opener Bobby Bare Jr., son of a famous country singer, may be good too. As he put it in the Richmond Times-Dispatch article yesterday:
"Everybody tells me I'm alt country," Bare said. "Honestly, everything I do is country music amplified. To do the country that's popular nowadays is not very appealing to me."
"I say it's Southern and it rocks but it's not Southern rock," Bare said.

Toad's Place got a great review in Style: http://www.styleweekly.com/article.asp?idarticle=14619. I have been a bit underwhelmed by the acts so far, but this article put my fears to rest. They got a late start on booking for the summer, so missed a lot of the acts they want to get. Things are already looking up as one of my faves, Robert Earl Keen, will be playing there on 11/13.

Speaking of Toad's, they have a Summer of Love 40th Anniversary show coming up on Thursday, July 5 with Jefferson Starship & Big Brother & The Holding Company. I saw Jefferson Starship about 13 years ago and they were actually quite good. Paul Kantner, Marty Balin and Prairie Prince are still with the band and they play none of that crap from the 80s when these guys had all left and the band turned into Starship. Big Brother, well, really without Janis Joplin, er, what's the point?

That's all for this week. Have a safe and happy 4th of July!