RIP Beatle Bob

I've now lived nearly half my life in the Washington D.C. area, but the first half of it happened in the St. Louis area. And it feels like just yesterday that I was dancing and singing along next to Beatle Bob (or at least standing there while he danced and sang). We never had any substantial conversations. The rock was enough for both of us. And he seemed to be at most shows that I attended, at least the club shows at the likes of Mississippi Nights, Cicero's, and Kennedy's. Beatle Bob announced in January on Facebook that his streak of 9,439 days in a row seeing concerts (minus 85 days during COVID when the city's ordinance shut down musical performances) was coming to an end, as he had been weakened by ALS Lou Gehrig's Disease.

Page-Turner Recommendation: Romantic Comedy is a great read, especially for fans of SNL

It seems like just yesterday I was excited to read Curtis Sittenfeld's 2020 novel Rodham. I haven't gotten to that one yet, but I have finished her new release Romantic Comedy, and it's a gem.

The author is one of our top comtemporary novelists. Her vibe and style are like the masterful Taylor Jenkins Reid, but Sittenfeld leans a little more witty, similar to Woody Allen. She usually aims for dialogue about the issues that often go unspoken in romantic relationships. It helps the story feel real and makes readers remember those early days of falling in love, when couples are learning about each other and fascinated with utmost curiosity about all the new things one learns from and about another person when getting to know that other person on a deep level. 

Sittenfeld has done her homework on the topic as well. She's read many of the same books, listened to the same podcasts, and watched the same TV and movies as I have about and by the stars and players of Saturday Night Live. Sally Milz writes for an SNL-like show and happens into a relationship with the featured and musical guest of one episode, Noah Brewster, who is a major pop star. She is a complex and exceptionally witty character who is the driving force behind making this an ultimate page-turner.

Romantic Comedy is every bit as good as her debut Prep, which I reviewed in 2014, and wrote that it's "a true coming-of-age story, reminiscent of Catcher in the Rye or Ethan Canin's novels, but with an even sharper microscope."

4.5 out of 5 stars

Bonus fun fact for fans of St. Louis: Sittenfeld moved to the city in 2018 because her husband got a job teaching at Washington University. She has said she likes St. Louis because of its "sense of history, its Midwestern sensibility, its vibrant arts scene, its friendly people, and its rich literary history."

Riverfront Times relives my 21st birthday ... with Nirvana

St. Louis alt-weekly Riverfront Times recently published an oral history of one of the best concerts I ever attended (yes, I was really there). My main memories of Nirvana and Urge Overkill playing Mississippi Nights on October 16, 1991 are that it was my 21st birthday, I had one beer because that was all I could afford and my friends couldn't afford to buy me any more, the entire UO band walked right past us as we entered the venue, and much of the crowd famously got on stage at Kurt Cobain's invitation.

Here's how some of the others in attendance remembered it in the RFT article:

• It had been less than a month since Nevermind was released and this may have been the last small, 1,000-person-size venue the band would ever play.
• 
  Jim Utz, who I remember from his days recommending great music to me at the Granite City Vintage Vinyl shop, saw UO the night before in Columbia, Missouri, recommended St. Louis vintage clothes to UO, and got comp tickets at Mississippi Night from the band because of it.
• Nirvana beautifully opened its set with “Jesus Doesn’t Want Me for a Sunbeam.” The place went "batshit" when the second song, ”Aneurysm,” kicked in. "It was one of those times where I was being lifted off my feet merely from the fact that I was crammed between hundreds of people pogo-ing at the same time." Me, I was leaning on a high stool in the back slowly sipping my one birthday beer, but even from there, it looked like the whole building itself was bouncing.
• When security tried to remove one of the first kids from the stage, Cobain called for everyone to come on up. The six or so members of the security staff then hid outside, claiming the crowd was "possessed."
• Before the show, Cobain had mentioned to his bandmates that Guns N' Roses had recently started a riot while playing in St. Louis, and he would like to do that too.

In the end, Nirvana was able to finish up the show for us, going late into the night. Mississippi Nights, which I've occasionally gone back to in hopes of standing on hallowed ground, doesn't even exist anymore. It's apparantly a parking lot, and it's been tough to even locate its actual old location, which I've tried to do at least a couple of times.

Yo La Tengo Digs Deep into Songlist for 30th Anniversary Show

I hadn't seen Hoboken, New Jersey's finest, Yo La Tengo since the mid-90s, when they played in St. Louis on the Painful tour (still their best album) and also in an intimate setting in the basement of Washington University's student center, where leader Ira Kaplan proceeded to pound his keyboard with precision and play guitar solos like Jimi Hendrix.

I loved the band's early albums like May I Sing With Me and New Wave Hot Dogs. But I haven't been all that into their less poppy, more spacey releases of the past decade-and-a-half.

That's why this special "Yo La Tengo at 30" tour in only New York, Philadelphia, and D.C. appeared to be the perfect show. A career-spanning set rather than a show that would focus on the new stuff. And the band didn't disappoint, especially at the start of the night.

"Ohm," the one great song from their newest album, began the show churning at just the right pace. Then "Double Dare" from Painful soared with its diving guitar parts. Their loud-soft dynamic was displayed with a few numbers, including "Beanbag Chair" from Electropura.

The full house was then treated to oldies like "Lewis" from New Wave Hot Dogs, "The Pain of Pain" from debut Ride the Tiger, and "Satellite" from May I Sing With Me.

Late in the show, when Kaplan wasn't doing his patented freak outs, highlights included covers of "Little Honda" by the Beach Boys and "Take Care" by Big Star, along with original "Autumn Sweater."

This was by no means a best-of setlist, but it also displayed just how deep and enjoyable Yo La Tengo's catalog is over its 30-year life thus far.

Lambchop opened and convincingly played its brand of slow, mostly-quiet folk.

**** out of ***** stars

Photo by Peter Hutchins.

• 1. Ohm 
  2. Double Dare 
  3. The Point of It 
  4. Pablo and Andrea 
  5. Beanbag Chair 
  6. Lewis 
     (with Tony Crow)
  7. The Pain of Pain 
     (with Tony Crow)
  8. Satellite 
  9. Black Flowers 
  10. I'll Be Around 
  11. False Alarm 
  12. Before We Run 
  13. Little Honda 
      (The Beach Boys cover)
  14. Deeper Into Movies 
  15. Decora 
  16. Pass the Hatchet, I Think I'm Goodkind 
  17. Encore:
  17. Autumn Sweater 
  18. I Dream of Jeannie 
      (Hypnolovewheel cover) (with David Ramirez)
  19. Take Care 
      (Big Star cover) (with Lambchop)

Best Magazine Reads: William S. Burroughs is the King of "Gentleman-Junkie Cool"

Today is the anniversary of William S. Burroughs’ 100^th birthday.

Here are seven interesting things to know about the beatnik rebel, from an excellent essay by Peter Schjeldahl in last week’s issue of The New Yorker. 

Schjeldahl reviews the new biography Call Me Burroughs, by one of my favorite writers, Barry Miles, who has written books on The Beatles, Pink Floyd, The Jam, Jack Kerouac, and Frank Zappa.

• Burroughs and I both grew up in St. Louis, so that’s an automatic point for awesomeness. He played alongside the “polluted River des Peres.”
• His most famous book, Naked Lunch, was mostly written in Tangiers with the help of Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg and was released in 1959 in Paris was banned in the prudish U.S. until 1962 – and not allowed to be sold in Boston until 1965.
• Ginsberg came up with the title, having misread the phrase “naked lust” in one of Burroughs’ manuscripts.
• Kerouac’s Old Bull Lee character in On the Road was based on Burroughs.
• Burroughs’ anxiety about his homosexuality traces back to when he was four years old and “his nanny forced him to perform oral sex on her boyfriend.”
• Hw was always high on something while writing, and his “hollow voice” greatly influenced J.G. Ballard, William Gibson, and Kathy Acker.
• Burroughs died in 1997 of a heart attack at the age of 83, living his last 16 years in – oddly – Lawrence, Kansas.

Gone Girl is a Page-Turning Mystery Thriller for Anyone Who Doesn't Have Much Time to Read

Gillian Flynn took her straight-forward style as a former writer for the non-intellectual (but great) Entertainment Weekly to compose New York Times Bestseller Gone Girl. 

It's excellent fiction, and the kind of T.C. Boyle-like breezy, quick-read storytelling (as opposed to that of more difficult scribes like David Foster Wallace or Don DeLillo) that I increasingly find myself drawn to at the point in my life when I'm raising one kid and have another on the way and have less time to read.

I suppose to truly conserve time, I could have waited for the movie, which is set to be produced by Reese Witherspoon's film company. But this was well worth reading ahead of time.

Nick and Amy Dunne are writers in New York City who lose their jobs and have to move back to Nick's hometown not far from Hannibal and St. Louis, Missouri. Their marriage begins to show major cracks until Amy suddenly disappears and Nick becomes the focal point of a homicide investigation.

The trick of making the story alternately narrated by Nick and Amy provides the suspense, as the reader doesn't know whose conflicting story to trust. But both are tremendously well fleshed-out characters. Gone Girl is an innovative who-done-it crime mystery.

***** out of ***** stars

U City's Walk of Fame is a Must-See St. Louis Highlight

It's always good to be back in St. Louis for the holidays. And we took a break from my mom and dad's festivities in Edwardsville, Illinois to head across the Mississippi River yesterday and visit Rachel's college friend Rachel Korenblatt.

After eating lunch with her family (eating has of course been a theme for the past few days), we strolled along my favorite St. Louis neighborhood, the University City Loop.

This used to be home of Cicero's, where my old band Birmingham Squadron once got kicked out for Dewey screaming at the soundman and my punctuation of jumping into Matt Beatty's drumset. I think our behavior led to us being one of the few bands not to get Cicero's complimentary pizza for performers.

Cicero's is no more, but Vintage Vinyl, one of the country's finest remaining record stores, remains. So does a book store, the Tivoli independent movie theater, and several clothes stores and coffee shops. Not to mention Blueberry Hill and Fitz's.

One of the most impressive elements of U City is the walk of fame. The amount of homegrown St. Louis talent is amazing and includes Vincent Price, Stan Musial, Harry Caray, Bob Costas, Robert Duvall, Miles Davis, Rogers Hornsby, T.S. Eliot, Tennessee Williams, and many more.

And a new feature since the last time I was in U City is the Chuck Berry statue (pictured). Jackson and I did a little duck walkin'.

'90s Flashback: Afghan Whigs Reform, Still Rock

Greg Dulli and the Afghan Whigs, one of my favorite rock bands of the 1990s, has reformed and they look great. They were in slim, fightin' form on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon Show this week.

Their excellent version of "I'm Her Slave" really took me back to when I saw the (formerly Cincinnati-based) band at Mississippi Nights in St. Louis with My Bloody Valentine and Teenage Fanclub, which was a show of monumentally loud proportions. The Whigs so rattled my hearing that the pop beauty of the Fanclub to follow was somehow muddled.

An even better Whigs show was at the old Cicero's Basement in University City, St. Louis. I actually had to hold the Whigs' guitarist, Rick McCollum, up on stage for a little while because he didn't have enough room to stand on it.

Sushi is the Best Food, Now Eat it Right

I was really a deprived child. Growing up in St. Louis, there were not really any options to eat sushi. So I didn't really ever get to eat it until I moved to Washington DC 13 years ago. But since I've been here, I've probably had it more than 1,000 times, all over the world.

It's also my 4-year-old son's favorite food by far. He calls the eel rolls "candy sushi."

I think I've done a good job of building strong manners for eating sushi. But it's funny to see this chart of sushi dos and don'ts, posted by the excellent blog Smart People I Know, which notifies me that I should stop blending my wasabi in the soy sauce. Hmm.

And my son usually bites the nigiri in half, but otherwise his manners are in tact as well.

Top 5 Favorite Sushi:
1. Eel
2. Fatty tuna
3. Salmon
4. Tuna
5. Tie between octopus and yellow tail

Lemonheads Return With a Glimpse into a 1992 Classic Album

Coming up on 20 years since the release of The Lemonheads' indie-pop 1992 classic, It's a Shame About Ray, it was moving to relive that year the other night at the Black Cat in D.C., with leader Evan Dando and his gang rollicking through a lengthy set with the full album serving as the first part of the evening.

Other than some sound problems for the first three or so songs, with Evan's guitar being too low in the mix, the music sounded great and Evan, who has had his ups and downs over the years, seemed to be in pretty good shape and form. (Apparently this wasn't the case two nights later in New York.)

Some people disagree that he was in fine form. And maybe I'm just too much of a sucker for the dozens of classic songs he and his three-piece band played. (Incidentally, the drummer and bassist were very strong and looked quite a bit like Ray-era bandmates David Ryan and Nic Dalton.) Still, I will admit that this band is by no means anywhere near the prime it was in throughout the early 90s. (I mean, check out this performance on Letterman. They could really throw down, and I even remember talking to Evan one time after a Soul Asylum/Lemonheads show at Mississippi Nights in St. Louis while he was wearing that ridiculous red jacket.)

I spoke with Evan briefly after Friday night's show and he was personable, in good spirits, remembered hanging out with me last year at Iota and letting me play his guitar, and spent some time seriously making out with one of his merch girls (while a line waited to buy shirts, open-mouthed and gawking). He also was very open to taking photos with his fans, as pictured here with some guy (and his favorite merch girl).

**** out of ***** stars

Is Jonathan Franzen Truly the Great American Novelist?

I always wanted to like famed author Jonathan Franzen, but something about his upturned-nose style of writing has bugged me. He, like I, is from St. Louis, so I kind of enjoyed his first novel, 1988's The Twenty-Seventh City. It's about people from India in that city, the corrupt police force, and St. Louis' fall from having been the country's "fourth city" in the 1870s.

But I progressively liked his writings for The New Yorker less and less over the years, so much so that I refused to even read his much-acclaimed novel, The Corrections. Franzen drew me back in when I heard his latest, Freedom, featured a protagonist employed by The Nature Conservancy, where I've now worked for the past 11 months.

Walter Berglund is that character. Walter loves birds so much that it eventually drives him significantly cuckoo. It doesn't necessarily paint TNC in the greatest of lights, in that Walter seems to truly love animals more than people, not something the Conservancy seeks as its image. Luckily, there is enough love of people (mainly his wife Patty and his eventual mistress Lalitha) in Walter's life, that the animal part arguably doesn't win out. But it's close, and much of the novel's suspense teeters upon that line in the sand between bliss and madness. The Economist even calls the book a modern-day Paradise Lost.

Walter and Patty have two kids. Joey is a handsome wealthy young Republican, which drives Walter batty. Jessica is a good kid who tries to help her parents from killing each other. The wildcard in the novel is Richard Katz, a rock star who learned quite a bit of what he knows from Walter when the two were college roommates. Patty learns a lot from Richard too, and it drives a wedge into their marriage.

The scope of the novel is epic, and Franzen really nails it. His ability to build character and compelling dialogue nearly matches one of my favorite (yet less heralded) writers, Ethan Canin. It's a true page-turner, understandably an Oprah-endorsed modern classic, and there isn't a boring part within the tome (although the section in which Patty tries to help divide her father's estate between her spoiled siblings seems to get in the way a bit at the end).

I don't know if Franzen quite lives up to Time Magazine's claim as "the great American novelist," but he's close enough and I'm going to try to like him more after reading Freedom. His tone is still a little condescending and cloyingly intellectual, but he has definitely worked hard to improve himself in that category over the years.

****1/2 out of ***** stars