Goodbye, Ron

I was saddened to hear of the untimely death of Ron Rooks this morning. For those of you who don't know, Ron was the long-time proprietor of the Music Exchange, one of the country's best used record stores. I spent lots of time in his store both at it's old location and when he moved to larger quarters on Broadway. The last time I spoke to him was at the Blasters concert. He told me that he was working on compiling a box set of material from his most recent band, Three Businessmen. I expressed my regrets that I hadn't had time to visit his new location in the bottoms yet and we agreed to get together soon. He had always wanted me to do a show with him at KKFI and he had bought some dj time last year, but I was still gone from the station at that point and couldn't do it with him. I'm sure there's lots of folks out there that have some great and not so great memories of Ron. I'm getting ready to leave town for two weeks, so will not be able to pay tribute to him until I get back. I'll try and do a show that he would have liked. He was one of KC's colorful gentlemen, and I think , in time, he'll be remembered as fondly as Piney Brown, Milton Morris, Ben Asner, and other larger than life characters that graced this town. My condolences to his wife Nancy, and his two lovely children.

it's progressive ROCK!

Yeah, some folks call it "prog rock" but KC progressive rock musician and composer Fred Potter calls it like it is. It can be progressive, but it has to ROCK! This Sunday's show will feature progressive rock. I don't do this genre too often, so join us, if you will on a rare and special broadcast. There will be bands like Yes, U.K., ELP, and Curved Air, but we will not play "the hits." Fred has selected tracks that aren't often heard by the general public. Even those of you who don't like prog should tune in and give it a listen. I think you may well be surprised. This stuff isn't wimpy. Also, Fred is a computer expert and runs his own business called PC Housecalls KC. You can find a link to his website in the "links" portion of this blog. During the show he will answer any questions you may have about computer glitches or problems off the air. Thanks to the FCC, we can't tell you much about his business on the air, but I can here. He's also webmaster for my site and makes it look pretty spiffy in spite of my tendency to want to make it sloppy and crude. He's also fixed my computers for years. Call him during the show and he'll negoatiate a price with you if you need him to come to your house and work on the messed up motherboard, or faulty modem. He's not only a great musician, but he's a stone genius. Look for the playlist on the home page before Sunday.

tom waits

maybe it was memphis, or maybe it was the ghost of howlin' wolf that tom waits had in mind.
we made the 10 hour journey to memphis on august 4th, principally to see mr. waits in a rare live appearance. only 8 shows on this "tour" to tout his upcoming three cd box set of rare material. of course, in typical tom form, he performed nothing from the box set. the opening was pure theater: the lighting was such that you could see the elongated shadows of the band behind the curtain of the historic orpheum theater as they took the stage. when they were all in place except for tom, his shadow appeared behind the curtain as a loud cheer went up. he immediately bent over and struck a nosferatu pose, with his arms outstretched and his fingers crooked like gnarly tree branches. quite effective. once onstage, he launched right into "singapore." i noticed that duke robillard was playing guitar with the band. the song was played more smoothly than in the past with the jazzy/bluesy elements brought to the fore. this was to set the tone for the evening. tom played electric guitar through half the show and, maybe because the duke was playing with him, the music was less angular, more blues-influenced than usual. after that, another vampire pose and then into an intense version of "make it rain" gesturing and stomping it out . He dipped a bit more into his older material as the concert went on, singing, rather than talking, through "shore leave", strapping on electric guitar for "tango till they're sore," doing a howlin wolf version of "heart attack and vine" which sequed nicely into "spoonful" with duke robillard doing his best hubert sumlin solo. in between songs there was not as much patter as in his past concerts, but he still spoke to the audience as they shouted at him between songs. he did nice verbal riffs on square watermelons you can buy in japan, the gentrification of 9th and hennepin, and the difficulty these days of finding a really bad cup of coffee. at one point, a piano was wheeled out and he did some solo tunes accompanied only by larry taylor on bass. starting with a perfect version of "the house where nobody lives" and then, after fielding requests, too many of which prompted him to threaten a medley, he went into a spoken word version of "the ocean doesn't want me." Then he again strapped on the electric guitar and the band retook the stage for killer versions of "shake it" which had the audience laughing after some of the lyrics and then singing along with "rains on me." finally, after a very lowdown dirty blues of "get behind the mule," "murder in the red barn," and a rockin' version of "goin out west" which had members of the audience leaping up and screaming "i look good without a shirt!", he walked off stage to a standing ovation. The encore was two songs, starting with an acoustic version of "the day after tomorrow" which garnered loud applause for the anti war lines, he ended with "sins of the father." an informal poll of the audience revealed that none of the people i talked to were from memphis, some coming from europe, and other states, to see him. the online chat groups expressed some disappointment that duke robillard and not mark ribot or smokey hormel was playing with him on this tour, but i didn't mind his presence. although some might feel that he "watered down" the music to make it more accessible, i think it was good that memphis brought out the blues behind tom's material. he was clearly energized by the audience and i was struck by how powerful his voice is live. he has lost nothing to the years of singing and touring. he was clearly having a ball and the band, which included his son on percussion, were all totally into the music. the famed bullhorns only came out once or twice, although a huge array of them littered the stage. i noted that there were cameras and recording equipment at the venue, so this was professionally filmed. hopefully a long awaited dvd is on the way. all in all, it was about 20 hours of travel for 2 and a half hours of tom waits. it was a fair trade.