Days of future (of rock and roll) past

by Damian | Jul 13, 2018 | Music | 4 comments

Last night I drove up to Oxford, Ohio to see my friend Dave’s son play guitar for the local band This Pine Box. But going to see the band was just a handy excuse, a smoke screen of sorts. Don’t get me wrong – This Pine Box is a great band. They’re getting some national attention and  they deserve it. But the real reason I made the long trek to Oxford was to see some old friends:

These are some of my homies from my days at 97X. Going left to right, it’s: yours truly, Steve Baker, Dave Tellmann, Gentleman Jim Mercer, Kathy Lucas, Billy D. the Fresh MC, Matt Sledge and Chris Adryan.

I could go on and on about each and every one of them (except maybe Kathy, because she spent a decade at 97X but that was after I departed), but suffice it to say the folks you see in the photo above, and dozens more that weren’t in Oxford last night, have fond memories of their time at a small-but-mighty modern rock station (a.k.a. “the future of rock and roll”) in a college town nestled among cornfields. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: it was the least amount of money I ever made in a full-time job, yet it was the most fun I ever had at a workplace.

Seth Godin calls them “tribes”:

“A tribe is a group of people connected to one another, connected to a leader, and connected to an idea. For millions of years, human beings have been part of one tribe or another. A group needs only two things to be a tribe: a shared interest and a way to communicate.” 

For the 97X tribe, the shared interest was the music. And even though our station’s broadcast range barely covered parts of Cincinnati and Dayton, we certainly had a way to communicate. Not just on the air, but at the concerts and the promotional events. Not everyone could get 97X on their radio, and fewer still actually “got” 97X, but those that did made it a fantastic ride.

The low profit Prophet, Chuck

by Damian | Jul 6, 2018 | Music | 0 comments

“The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There’s also a negative side.”

That quote is attributed to Hunter S. Thompson. He never said or wrote it (he did write something similar about the TV industry), but it certainly seems to be appropriate.

If you’re a recording artist with mass appeal — the “1%” of the music industry — you can make some cash. Everyone else scuffles and struggles for table scraps. Chuck Prophet is firmly entrenched in the 99% category.

I saw him last night in concert at the Southgate House Revival in Newport, KY. There were maybe 250 people in the audience. Probably the same 250 people who see Chuck when he rolls through town each year. You can set your watch by his gigs. The swallows return to San Juan Capistrano, the buzzards return to Hinckley, and Chuck comes to Cincy. He — and his fabulous band The Mission Express — are consummate road dogs. They tour constantly. In a van, not a fancy bus. Hoping to sell enough merch to turn a small profit.

Chuck has been releasing albums since 1985, when he joined Green on Red. He’s been putting out solo albums since 1990. He looks — and often sounds — a lot like Tom Petty. If you listen to his releases, you find Americana/indie rock/call-it-whatever-you-want gems on every album. Two of his most recent albums, Temple Beautiful and Bobby Fuller Died For Your Sins, are wall-to-wall stellar.

Chuck could be bitter, but it certainly doesn’t seem that way. He’s up on stage smiling, laughing, joking, having fun with the audience and his band (which includes his wife Stephanie Finch). At one point in the set, he even said “let me tell you a secret: I’m having a blast up here!”

Barring a miracle, Chuck’s never going to make it big in the music industry. But if writing and recording great music and putting on a great show night after night for a small but appreciative audience count (and it my book they do), then Chuck’s a superstar.

Tune in, turn on, drop out (of the mainstream)

by Damian | Jun 21, 2018 | Music | 0 comments

I took an LSD trip last night, and I loved it.

When the tour was originally announced, I figured I’d skip it, because I’ve seen Lucinda, Steve and Dwight a combined total of at least two dozen times. And tickets were expensive – I’ve got to allocate my limited concert funds wisely. But the closer the show loomed on the calendar, the more I realized that I love all three artists and there’s no way I should miss this three-fer gig. I’m so glad I caved… and I got a ticket in the very last row of the pavilion for a paltry $20. (Thanks Arby’s “we have the seats” promotion!)

Holy smokes trinity

Lucinda Williams, Steve Earle and Dwight Yoakam are three birds of a feather, a trio of misfits: not country but certainly twangy; not folk but as lyrically literate as Dylan and Townes; not quite rock but completely rockin’.

They’ve been performing on the fringes for decades, and they’ve still got it. Each one performed a 50-minute set with a crack backing band. Lucinda did one duet in Steve’s set, Steve played on a couple of tunes in Lu’s set, and they all got together on stage for the encore. That song alone was worth the price of admission. Here’s a video clip of the same encore song from another stop on the tour:

Lucinda, Steve and Dwight are three of the brightest gems in the Americana universe. So worth the trip!