The Week in Rock - Review

The Tiger Bear Wolf show on Friday was even better than the show a couple of week's ago. I still complained about the sound, but my complaint is that it's too loud. And it's not really that it's too loud, it's that it isn't mixed as well as it should be. I realized that the problem might be me b/c I stand off to one side instead of standing in the center of the noise cone where perhaps all that glorious noise comes together perfectly. I'll have to try that when they play on June 15th at Greene Street (check out their after party for the "Willy Nelson and Bob Dillon" show). This time I managed to keep my cool and not wonder up to ask for a set list. I waited until they were off stage and made Maria go and get it (Light, Body, Silver tongues, Bed, Input, Winner, Guitar). Adding even more gold stars to the TBW ledger, they mentioned their show on the 15th and said if anybody was interested they had free tickets if you just asked them after the show. So not only did I have an excuse to go up and tell them how great they are, they also gave me tickets for the next show. No wonder I like these guys so much.

Although this doesn't exactly have to do w/ the rock weekend, we got home at about 12:30 and proceeded to drink every beer in the house. There were several times Maria mentioned how late it was, but I kept talking her into staying up. I even worked out a set list for my much discussed Skynyrd cover band Saturday Night Special (Saturday Night Special, Gimme 3 Steps, What's your name, Gimme back my bullets, On the hunt, simple man, swamp music, I need you). When we went to bed after 5, I didn't realize how early 7 would come and w/ it the kids getting out of bed. I managed to hang w/ them (or at least pen them in the living room) until Maria got up at noon, and I promptly went back to sleep. This schedule kept Maria from making it to the Black Taj show on Saturday, but I drank enough Pepsi that I had the energy to stand upright for a few hours.

Thankfully, I had already made too many promises to duck out of going b/c Black Taj laid it on thick and heavy. Grant and Dave sound great together (and individually). I've recently realized how good Steve's bass sounds, and through a series of investigative reports I've discovered that Tom is paid in raw meat to play the drums (give him filet mignon). Grant was talking like they were finally going to put something out in the fall and maybe even tour in support of it. Uh, it's about time!!! I have an excellent recording of them from over 2 years ago. No wonder these guys sound so good if that was deemed not good enough. Perfectionists?!?! Maybe they need Kevin Shields to produce it for them. Seriously, I think GT (and maybe everybody else) is ready to put the damn thing out so the waiting should be over soon.

The real reason to be thankful for Black Taj was seeing all the people that I don't see enough of and who make me wish I lived in Carrboro (and who made me wish my wife had come w/ me). I hadn't been to Pete's house in so long that this was the first time I'd seen his deck, so I have to count him and that means I get to count Kevin too. I figured Grant would be there since he was scheduled to play guitar. Matt and Kathleen live a couple miles from us in Greensboro, so it figures I would travel to Chapel Hill to see them for the first time in a few months. I hadn't seen Tim Ross in a while, but his blog and domicile on Lynn Dr made me feel like I was his neighbor. Jon Elliston told me the best description of living in Asheville ever "You wave to the mailman. You wave to your neighbor b/c he sells vitamin supplements on the internet and you get your (unintelligible) from him." (ok, it was plenty intelligible but I don't know anything about supplements and couldn't remember what he said and I was using quotation marks). And finally, I saw Matt Schofield for the first time since 1997. He had been in Morocco and I think it Kazakhstan (some former Soviet "stan"), so it was pretty cool to hear his adventures. I wish the reason I hadn't seen these people in so long was b/c Black Taj only plays every couple of years, but I think if I would go to Pete's Super Bowl party I could make it at least an annual event. Maybe this year he can get Tiger Bear Wolf and Black Taj to play on his deck then I wouldn't have any excuse not showing up (kids, schmids).