Monday, July 5, 2010

The Old Get Old, & Older

Can we stop w/ the patriotism, or must we keep up appearances because today is Independence Day (Observed)?

'Way back up in the woods....'

(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times/July 3, 2010)
Chuck Berry plays his classic "Johnny B Goode" while displaying some of his signature moves -- this at the age of 83.
Rock’s first poet and original guitar hero confessed during his hour-long set to tiring easily these days. So he alternated such rollicking anthems of youthful liberation as “Roll Over Beethoven,” “School Days” and “Sweet Little Sixteen” with slower numbers, including “Every Day I Have the Blues” and “Wee Wee Hours,” in which he let his big Gibson electric guitar do most of the singing.

The man who invented much of the musical lexicon for his instrument reeled and rocked with a perplexing string of chord progressions and melodic runs during his solos, the logic of which might have been perceptible only to certain breeds of guitar-loving dogs. Yet just when you thought he’d completely abandoned musical cohesion comprehensible to anyone this side of Thelonious Monk, those long, limber fingers would slip back into the exhilarating dimension he largely defined more than half a century ago.
That might have been fun. This too.

Heels on wheels

(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times/July 3, 2010)
Model "Rotten Kitty" of Los Angeles draws attention to a 1928 Essex at Hootenanny, where car culture intersects with roots music and a punk attitude.
If one likes that sort of thing.

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