Down and Out With the Walkmen

We survived our one night of the rock 'n' roll lifestyle ... which is to say daytrippers from Connecticut must bring tougher stuff when trying to live like New Yorkers for an evening.

In the wee hours of Tuesday morning, after three bands, many drinks and sightings of the famous Fung Wah Bus (twice!), we were safe in declaring the night a success, and Liz even left the Bowery Ballroom pledging a newfound devotion to my favorite band, the Walkmen, even though she had lightly mocked them for their "preppy" clothes (they did, in fact, attend prep school in the D.C. area).

The show was the first on their new tour, to support the album "You & Me," which was released Tuesday. As mentioned in a previous post, I took advantage of an early download version a few weeks ago, and many of the songs the band played Monday night were from the new album, beginning with the song "New Country," if I recall correctly.

"In the New Year" is a natural crowd-pleaser. And "Canadian Girl," which has got some wood-block percussion going on that made Liz think of her beloved cowbell. (More cowbell!)

They also played "We've Been Had," one of my favorites from their first album. You might know it from an old Saturn Ion commercial. Liz enjoyed that. And forget the cowbell, she nearly went out of her mind during the song "Louisiana" when the horns poked in on the right side of the stage for their fanfare.

From the upper bar area, we could look through the window out onto the Bowery, once home to all variety of bottom feeders and social refuse but now slowly moving upscale like virtually every other formerly blighted corner of Manhattan. The Bowery Ballroom is an intimate venue with general admission that still feels worn in rather than spruced up. Just the place for an indie rock experience.

We probably should have tried harder to catch the 12:22 a.m. train but stuck around for the end of the show instead and hopped the 1:12. Home around 3:30 (ouch!) but we'll be back to normal in another day or too. Just in time for the weekend. Which we'll probably spend at home in Connecticut. Back to our New England lifestyle.

The Walkmen Return

One of my favorite bands is coming out with a new CD on Aug. 19, but through the wonders of technology I just snagged it more than two weeks in advance.

No, I'm not a black-market buyer. In an arrangement similar to Radiohead's recent album "In Rainbows" download, the Walkmen put their new album online here and asked fans to pay $5 for the privilege. When Radiohead asked fans to name their price, I volunteered to pay 3 British pounds (about $8), so $5 for the Walkmen's "You & Me" sounded like a bargain, and proceeds benefit cancer research.

The download didn't take on my train ride into work, so I tried again on the way home. This time, success! I'm now in indie-rock heaven listening to the tracks as my train approaches New Haven.

Since this is my first listen, it's too early for full appraisal, but I can safely say that the Walkmen haven't let me down yet. Excellent!

If you're interested, the band's home page has some of its songs in rotation. As for me, it'd be a crime to miss the boys kick off their tour Aug. 18, when they play New York's Bowery Ballroom. Please, Liz, can I go? Please? Please?

Goodbye, Old Friend

Liz and I must bid a tearful goodbye to the red Honda Civic, which has given us so many great memories, from the road trip to Yellowstone to the time I side-swiped our garage on Second Avenue in Wausau. It carried me and much of my stuff to Poughkeepsie in October 2005. It carried our canoe everywhere we went canoeing. For a few weeks it carried me 45 minutes to the train station each day, back when we lived in Glastonbury and I had to commute to work from there to Manhattan. And it carried us to Bayfield many times, including, if I'm not mistaken, the weekend I proposed to Liz.

Purchased in October 2003 for about $5,000 from Sixth Street Motors in Wausau with just under 130,000 miles on it, we sold the car this morning at 195,000 miles for $1,800 to a nice older guy named Lee, who was buying it for his sister. He's picking it up this afternoon while we're gone, better for us lest we embarrass ourselves with an uncomfortable outpouring of emotion.

Is it odd to get misty over something as ordinary as a car? But we are Americans, dammit, and sentimental attachment to our vehicles is in our blood. I feel like a cowboy without a horse now that I am without my own car for the first time since college, though we still have Liz's car for the time being.

Completely unrelated final note: After our Cabin Weekend 2008, spent among the vast countryside of northern Minnesota and its lakes and farms, I found myself humming one of my favorite Talking Heads songs, "(Nothing But) Flowers," a kind of ironic fantasy of progress played in reverse, with urban real estate sacrificed for farmland and parkland. The song doesn't promote a "return to Eden" message so much as a contrary perspective on the "evolution" of modern society, that one day we might find ourselves nostalgic for skyscrapers and interstate highways and Honda Civics.

"There was a factory, now there are mountains and rivers.
We caught a rattlesnake, now we got something for dinner.
There was a shopping mall, now it's all covered with flowers.
If this is paradise, I wish I had a lawnmower. ...

"Once there were parking lots, now it's a peaceful oasis.
This was a Pizza Hut, now it's all covered with daisies.
I miss the honky tonks, Diary Queens and 7-Elevens.
And as things fell apart nobody paid much attention."

Long Live Diddley

If you don't know Diddley, you should.

A legend of early rock 'n' roll, Bo Diddley's contributions to the musical form's creation were on a par with -- and perhaps greater than -- those of Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry and Little Richard. So why wasn't his celebrity as great? Listening to his early songs, I get the sense that his guitar style and tone was so new, so raw that popular radio in 1955 didn't have a place for it. It took others to bring rock 'n' roll to a broader audience, but rock guitarists for the past 50 years have owed a debt to Diddley, from Buddy Holly to Bruce Springsteen.

I'll admit that I came late to the music, becoming a fan only after paying my dues into the jukebox at Wiggly Field in Weston, Wis. Amid the crappy 80s hair metal and crappier 90s country music, there were a few songs I knew I could rely on to keep me going on long nights of pitcher after pitcher of Leinie's Honey Weiss. Among those songs were three choice Diddley tunes: "Ooh Baby," "You Can't Judge a Book by the Cover," and, of course, "Roadrunner."

My equally drunken coworkers, and future bride, seemed to find me amusing enough as I goofed off by strutting my stuff and singing along to "Roadrunner" with its beep-beeps and rollicking guitar pattern.

Later, when my future bride became my bride, we played "Roadrunner" as our newlywed entrance song at the reception. A fine Grand March song, if ever there was one.

Sadly, the news came yesterday that Mr. Bo Diddley was dead at 79. But it's hardly possible to stay sad for long with such a legacy Diddley has left in his music. Play through any part of the terrific Chess Box collection's four dozen Diddley gems and feel that smile burn into your face, your foot start to tap, your head start to sway, your groove blooming, doo-wah-Diddleyfied.