Out On The Town:Woodyfest And Caravan Of Thieves

It's been a dry summer.  Four years ago a raging flood damn near tore apart Cedar Rapids but now we haven't much rain to speak of.  But it rained a bit yesterday morning and today got another gentle quarter inch of rain.  Supposed to be hot and muggy once again.

I haven't really put much effort into writing this mouth although the ratings might assure of another 2,000 views per month.  I'm sure the Rock n Roll And The Brains blog will carry the burden.

At my second home at Half Priced Books, I didn't find anything but some dude wanted me to help him sell some books up there since he was underage and offered to split the profits.  Not much you can get for 2.50 so I let him have it all.  Then proceeded to head down to Woodyfest, a new folk festival on the old brownfields of where Iowa Steel used to be.  For 20 bucks to get in, it was a very sparse crowd and hardly any food or drink so I basically walked on by and down to Sinclair Park to walk around the walking trail a few times before heading back across the bridge to the reopening of Czech Museum, which was a causality of the 2008 flood.  So they moved the building about 15 feet uphill and it looks pretty nice.  They had a band Caravan Of Thieves which played a very interesting selection of what they call gypsy jazz.  I do remember they did a medley of Sympathy For The Devil with Devil Inside from INXS and the fiddle player did the solo from Devil Went Down To Georgia.  Folks at Our Vinyl does a write up about them.  http://ourvinyl.com/caravan-of-thieves/   Their main site is here.  http://caravanofthieves.com/

On the vinyl front, not a lot to speak of.  Salvation Army up in Marion had some interesting 78s of note, Chuck Miller's House Of Blues Lights on Mercury and Louis Prima  Oh Marie on Hit Music which dates back to the 40s.  Since I don't have a 78 player, they'd only would take up space but there were others from that era, Perry Como, Ames Brothers, Doris Day, even a Bob Wills 78 was in there.  I'm sure the next time I hit the road it will be Mad City but with temps going back over 90 degrees tomorrow, won't be going.

While some of you out there are giving their thoughts on the best music of 2012, I haven't even thought of one yet.  I may just sit this one out.

Next weekend is the Great Jones County Fair with Lynyrd Skynyrd/Heart on Thursday, Blake Shelton/Josh Thompson on Friday and Toby Keith/Thomas Rhett on Saturday.  Weather should be hot and sticky.

Other things:  I have decided not to post any more songs on the Besides It's A B Side website since I can't seem to get the dates right or the type of days they have. Flop Friday, Album Cut Wed, it's all the same to me.  Somebody took issue of a song that wasn't a hit but should have been posted on flop friday and GIVE ME A BREAK!  I just found the GD song today!  Knowing my age and habits I forget to post it on Flop Friday.  Here's the deal, I post songs that I think the folks will enjoy, there are no rules or regulations, my tastes vary and they are all over the place I know that you know that.  So from here on out, if there's a 45 single or album that I like I just post on my Facebook site or over here.  At least I won't get reprimanded either.

Bob Dorr's Backtracks remains a Saturday Night funfest on KUNI and I was waiting to email him some requests but turned out that he's no longer showing up on my FB friends list,  so guess we'll just delete Backtracks from Crabb Radio.  Business not personal you understand but I thank you very much for including some suggestions to your fine show. All the best.

Stay tuned for the next top ten blog of 10 decades of music.  It might be the last top ten that I ever do way things are going.....