All of the fun at the fair.
I don't usually go to fairs. Out here the heat is on and when you get in the shade you get to have about 50,000 flies all over you. This fair was no different but my GF bought tickets to see John Anderson and I got dragged into going. I know Anderson has been around for thirty plus years and had big hits with Seminole Wind and Swingin' and a few others but he really interest me enought to buy any albums. My brother hated that song Swingin.
But first I had to go to Dennis Pusateri's visitation in town. I figured I owed my good friend at least a visit before he was committed to the ages. Got there before five and it was beginning to get packed. Dennis had many many friends and biker friends from The Chosen Few, since he was part of that motorcycle group. I never did find out what he died from. He may have been in a bike accident or perhaps he did have a stroke or heart attack since I recently seen him three weeks ago. He was cremated and his remains was in a nice stylish wood urn with a Harley Davidson parked in front of it. They said it wasn't his, that it was borrowed but still Dennis had a love of Harley Davidson bikes. In the background, the funeral home played some rock songs rather than the somber mellow music that you'd expect from funeral homes. I think Dennis wanted it that way, to remember him by The Cars You Are All I Got Tonight or Chicago's 25 or 6 to 4 or Lou Reed's Walk On The Wild Side which basically fits Dennis down to a t. I still think The Ballad Of Easy Rider will be the song that I remember him most by and good thing that they didn't play it, otherwise I'd would have broken down again. But there was a wide assortment of pictures of Dennis as a Marine in Training, Dennis the hippie, Dennis the prankster and amazingly nothing of Dennis when he was at NCS. But perhaps the best picture of him sums it up was him in a late 80s photo of him hamming it up behind some jail bars in a funny photo. I'm sure that's the way he wants to be remembered. And the way that it will be.
So I managed to get back on the road to rejoin Nicole and her folks up at the Linn County Fair to see John Anderson. The opening act was local boys Lonesome Road Band. I guess they are one of the top country acts around here but their song selection all sounded the same to me. They did a radical Fishing In The Dark and Brad Paisley's latest was okay but I didn't care much for the faux paus country twang of the lead singer and the lead guitar player hit a few sour lead notes. To which I took five and went and got a Pizza Burger which wasn't that bad but had to eat it out there just to avoid the flies at the grand stand. After about an hour and fifteen minutes of LRB boring me to death, John Anderson hit the stage with guitars ablazing, showing the folk and maybe Lomesome Road how to good country. Due to my short memory, I didn't catch the steel guitar player, nor the the fiddle/mandonlin/guitar/backing singer but lead guitar Colin Murphy was excellent. For the most part Anderson played the familiar and did a better version of Shuttin Down Detroit than John Rich's version. Could have done without the fiddle player showboating on Orange Blossom Special but that's a minor quibble. Nicole parents left after Swingin but they did miss out on a rocking Seminole Wind to close the show. The fireworks show after John Anderson disappointed.
Dawes-Nothing Is Wrong (ATO)
This year I haven't been very impressed with the new bands and new music that is out there and basically it's getting to the point that maybe Bob Lefsetz is right and that people should just do single digital downloads and the hell with the album format. The album format is dead. But when I hear bands like Dawes and their second album Nothing Is Wrong, it makes me want to tell Lefsetz that even though I like reading his columns that he should just piss off. Albums to me are like a book and every song is like a chapter. Nowadays if that was the case then most of the albums out there would be half assed, or half blank.
Dawes is actually a throwback to the old southern California rock popularized by Crosby, Stills & Nash or even Jackson Browne since Taylor Goldsmith is just about a dead ringer in sounding like Browne. Dawes also owes a lot to Crazy Horse or The Band. Little Bit Of Everything could fit on a Jackson Browne album, My Way Back Home, a Crazy Horse album and perhaps Coming back To A Man like The Band. Time Spent In Los Angeles could be this generation's version of CSN or Poco or Eagles but the sound is a bit more updated. It also helps being signed to Dave Matthews' ATO Records to give Dawes that steady buildup for fandom that is sorely lacking in the major labels. This is not a band for the flavor of the day, this a band that needs that album by album buildup to become the next big thing. This might just be my favorite album of the year. That's saying something. BTW, Jackson Browne does appear on Fire Away.
Grade A-
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