Back to the Roo(ts)

Ok, now that we've had a couple interludes in the worlds of comedy and politics, I'll get back to the matter at hand.

That being: Bonnaroo

That meaning: the Roots



Remember when I wrote that not all the acts were transcendent? Well, some of them were. And this was the act that first made possible the change from a fun weekend to something important if not life-changing for the people involved.

Jason and I had a good spot on the grass off to the left of the soundboard and back a bit. And the Roots came though with flying colors: power, passion, incredible musicianship and performance energy. Black Thought proved his mastery as an M.C.; ?uestlove was amazing on drums and percussion, at home in every rhythm; the horns were supertight and on point; guitars and keys rode the waves of hip hop, rock and funk. Everybody is a Star, and it felt that way, with live musicians in the physical universe, not a sampler in sight. The kind of show that reminds you why you love to go to shows - infectious in all the right ways.

What do we want?
Roots Crew!
When do we want it?
Right Now!

At one point Black Thought and the horns left the stage, leaving the rhythm section and Captain Kirk Douglas on guitar as the core for a mini set that took us all by the neck, shook us around, opened our eyes, cleaned the debris from the wrinkles in our brains and when they finally let go of our throats we found we could breathe better than ever.

The centerpiece of this set was a version of Dylan's Masters of War which opened to the tune of the Star Spangled Banner. Sing along now:

Where you'd start 'Oh say, can you see,' instead begin:

Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns
You that build the death planes
You that build the big bombs

'Whose broad stripes...'

You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks

'And the rockets red glare...' now

You that never done nothin'
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it's your little toy

'Oh say, does that Star Spangled Banner yet wave'

You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes

And here we devote all the vocal attention anyone ever gave to the word 'free' to the word 'run'

And you turn and run
When the fast bullets fly

Hendrix had nothing on them. Ok, he did guitar-wise, but in terms of significance of interpretation and activist theatrical performance, not an inch.

Then they finished off the song with Dylan's melody, of course inserting their own musical elements.

Like Judas of old
You lie and deceive
A world war can be won
You want me to believe
But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drain

You fasten the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you set back and watch
When the death count gets higher
You hide in your mansion
As young people's blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud

You've thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world
For threatening my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain't worth the blood
That runs in your veins

How much do I know
To talk out of turn
You might say that I'm young
You might say I'm unlearned
But there's one thing I know
Though I'm younger than you
Even Jesus would never
Forgive what you do

They did spend a little extra time on the final line of that verse. It bore repeating.

Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could?
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul

And I hope that you die
And your death'll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I'll watch while you're lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I'll stand o'er your grave
'Til I'm sure that you're dead

I guess it can be effective once in a while to give vent to rage, can't it? Thanks for bearing with the long quotation.

The full Roots Crew eventually made it back to the stage and they funked up the joint like crazy. I know i'm making it sound like they are a full-out political band, but they're not. They have a political side, natch, but they don't go too far with it, and they never forget about having fun. When they finally wrapped, after the encore, I found Sherin and J.P. and started planning our next moves. J.P. stopped me and said - "Wait a minute. Dude. The Roots. Was that just incredible?!"

Yes dude. It was.

But I'm sure those folks at the Lily Allen show had a really good time too ;)

Living on Tennessee Time

We'd set up camp on Thursday - a tent for Sherin and J.P., and one for Jason and me; loads o' camp food and a badass stove to cook it with; giganto-cooler full of beer and ice; the shade canopy we'd picked up in Nashville - key to our comfort, as it happened. This canopy did not, however, allow us to sleep in remarkably well. The Tennessee heat cranked up pretty early in the day, and S & JP particularly caught the sun's rays in the morning. But we were able to ease into the mornings with coffee filtered mug by mug, port-a-johns that started the day downright cleanly, baby wipe 'baths' followed by ye olde gold bond on the crotch (trust me, it's a good thing) and a few get-things-going beers at camp and on the dusty walk to Centeroo.

Made some 'Children of Men' and 'Grapes of Wrath' jokes on said walk - you could look at those thousands of tents as an artistic collective or a refugee camp, depending on your point of view. Either way, it is a good population to be a part of.
Paid a real quick visit to Bonna Rouge, the cabaret tent, to hear a couple numbers from the Firecracker Jazz Band, who swung us nicely into the day. Didn't stay long though, because we wanted to get a good spot for Richard Thompson, rock hero and guitar god extraordinaire, perennially underrecognized by the masses though a critical darling. Well people, I'd never had the chance to see him, and wasn't going to miss this one, in spite of having to take a pass on the Brazilian Girls and Tortoise. And holy shit, he did not disappoint!


Do you know this guy? A lot of people don't, to America's shame. Brit rocker, one of the founders of Fairport Convention, in my opinion he's one of the very best guitarists out there, with a mastery of an utterly individual mix of rock, blues and traditional music from at least 2 continents. He played new stuff, old stuff, no FC material as far as I could tell, but my knowledge of their catalogue is far from encyclopedic. Thompson's set was one of the highlights of the weekend for sure, with all the things you'd expect: tight band, great songs, RT was in fine voice and his guitar work was off the hook, natch; and the ineffable live factor was well-charged - the crowd was in tune with the music and the musicians returned the favor.

So I needed a mental break after that. We caught parts of the sets from Kings of Leon and Michael Franti & Spearhead. Both were good, especially Franti, but the combination of fatigue and awe kept me from altogether thorough attention. Which may have been for the best, in light of what happened next...

Intermezzo

Have to ask: what's going on with the Mets? I mean we're in serious WTF territory here - they've been downright bad lately. Lost 8 of the last 10, 14 of the last 18, 6 consecutive series, and haven't won 2 consecutive games since May. That's not good, people; that's not even middlin'.

Now, it's not panic time. The Mets are a good team at the core; they've got some injuries to deal with; slumps happen to everybody; the Twins are solid and could take a series against any team in the majors; ditto the Tigers and Cardinals, and a case can be made for the Phillies and even the D-backs.

But...

C'mon -

Let's go Mets!

While we're here, I may as well send a shoutout to the Bosox for beating the Braves and helping to keep the Mets in first.

As it happens, Red Sox Nation was alive and thriving in Bonnaroo. And we'll get around to that team I didn't mention in the next Bonnaroo chapter - the one dealing with The Hold Steady... Tee hee!

Bonnawrap-up

This will be the first of probably several posts on the Bonnaroo festival I went to last week with Sherin, J.P. and my brother-in-law Jason. You've seen some of the advance notice here - 4 days of music, art and camping in southern Tennessee, replete with acts that gave much cause for high hopes. Earlier today, I was asked why it's taken me so long to post about this at all, and while I could respond with the standard 'it takes time to recover, life is hard, blah blah blah,' you'd all see right through that because you know the truth: when you're a rock star of my magnitude, you end up spending a lot of time drizzling chocolate syrup on naked models and other such activities. Also, Sherin beat me to the obvious title and opening line in her 6/19 entry.

So for now, I'll just say that the Roo rocked our socks off. Seriously, you should have seen our feet; they were pretty gross by the end. It was more than worth treading around in sandals, though, and hiking the half-hour from the tent to the venue (including that huge bottleneck at the 'security' checkpoint - which was pretty comical, and seemed to be for show. They really looked for contraband the first day; by the end of which I'm guessing that the security team had confiscated enough chemical refreshment to keep the whole staff going the whole weekend, because by Friday they were pretty halfhearted about it, and by Saturday people were smuggling in whole coolers full of stuff.) There were plenty of moments that fell short of transcendent, and a couple that were really quite lame, but those moments were way outweighed by the awesome rockage of the best acts.

Diving right in, Sherin and J.P stood on line to catch Lewis Black and friends; I'd seen a full set of his before, and the line was long, so Jason and I went to "This Tent" to see The Black Angels instead. They're from Austin, which makes me happy, and took their name from the Velvet Underground's 'Black Angel Death Song.' True to this origin, they give good drone. Dark but not oppressive, their live show casts a long shadow on their (good) recordings. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this was a big theme for the weekend. Bands I already really liked got that much more of my respect when I heard and saw what they're capable of in person.

After the angels, J & I ducked over to "The Other Tent" to hear the end of the New Orleans Klezmer Allstars. They're just what their name sounds like: good fun dixieland meets Eastern European Jewish clarinet Jam. Moved on to "That Tent" (yes, I know, the venue names are like the "Who's on First?" routine. Just dreadfully clever, ain't it? :p ) to catch The National. Not much to say about them: they were fine, but I spent part of the set just chillin in the grass. Which was a-ok, because it allowed me to save my energy for Rodrigo y Gabriela who fucking rocked!!!!

[the usage of 'rock' and its variants as a modifier is already really old, I know, but sometimes it's the only word that will do...]





Mexican guitar duo, plenty flamenco, heavy metal 'tude; he has fieryfast picking skills and she whales on the git box with such percussive fervor that a couple times I caught myself scanning the stage looking for the nonexistent drummer. Maybe a teeny bit too cheerlead-y for my taste, and I don't think we needed both 'Wish You were Here' and 'Stairway.' But complaining about such details would just be perverse.

And on that note, it's back to the chocolate sauce. Another installment will follow shortly...

Art as it happens...

Saturday, among other things, I went to MoMA to see the Richard Serra exhibition. Very impressive - spread throughout three separate spaces in (and out of) the museum, one devoted to his early work, one to "Related Curves" from the '90s and one to new work. The pieces ranged from pretty big to really large-scale, and I found the best ones irresistible. Giant curves, stunning in their balance and proportion, beautiful from within and without... amazing. Lori has me thinking it might be worth getting a membership just so I can return there at will for the season.

Well, ok, probably not.

But when I compare that temptation with all the other reasons, yeah, I might sign up for MoMA. For instance, another exhibition going on was Dan Perjovschi, and it was rad too! Check out this viddy. It does no justice to the piece, but it does make me kind of wish I'd known about the event of him creating it live at the museum.

There are a few other things I'd like to write about, but things are CRAZY BUSY as we're getting ready to head out to Bonnaroo! Very scintillating... ;)

Bonnaroo Magic

Alright, the Bonnaroo Schedule has been posted. Leaving us all breathless. Mostly in the best way, althought there will be some scary moments on Sunday afternoon when we're rushing from stage to stage trying to catch parts of sets (or miss out on some really good stuff entirely.)

So this seemed a good occassion to do a little Magic 8pod on the way in today:

How will Bonnaroo go for our little carload o' folks?

Way Down in the Hole, Blind Boys of Alabama

Ok, this seemed scary at first, but on closer inspection I think it's singularly auspicious. We are going way down to Southern Tennessee, after all. It's a damned good song, with a great groove the way BBoA do it. Plus it goes on about how we have nothing to worry about as long as we walk with Jesus - and we're rolling with a seminarian, after all. :)

What about the drive down?

Bridge over Troubled Water, the Johnny Cash version

Again, this gives pause at first, then turns out to be great. I mean, the title's, you know, troubling. But if Johnny Cash is going to be our Bridge, we're in good shape. Sail on silver girl and all. With help from Fiona Apple and that bowed bass.

How will the camping go?

Softly as in a Morning Sunrise, Sonny Rollins

Well here there's no ambiguity. Sweet, cool, vital. Relaxed and energized at once. Distinct musicians working together to make something greater than the sum of its parts. That's what I'm talking about!

[Interestingly enough, none of these folks have anything to do with Bonnaroo, but they're all in the spirit of the event, right?]

Tacked on a question about the dayjob:

What's the deal with the dayjob?

The Man that Got Away, the Jeff Buckley version.

Hehehe.

I love it when the ipod fucks with me. What is this supposed to mean? That this job is going to slip away from me? That it might be a waste of time to stay there? This is from a live show, with Jeff singing hauntingly (natch) and a cappella. Let's not dwell, but move right along...

How are things going to go with theater/acting work in the immediate future?

On the Run, Pink Floyd

This is interesting and encouraging. Foreshadowing Autobahn, PF gives us a train on the fast track, propelled forward in all due haste and then some. It's an open question whether we're running toward something or away from something (or both) but it's worthwhile to point out that this is track number 2 on Dark Side of the Moon; that is, after the inhalation of the opening number, it launches one of the most successful albums of all time - so I'm calling it a good step forward.


And that's today's installment of Magic 8pod.