I’m enjoying surfing to the webby radio station I would run if I had an endless supply of cash: Boot Liquor Radio. Now I want a device that can pluck it out of thin air no matter where I am and play it through speakers, like a soundtrack.

An eensy too much California is my only moan, but playing Kevin Fowler, Dave Alvin, and Jack Ingram in a row makes it palatable.

And the sign says beer, bait and ammo
they got everything in between
Yeah, they got anything an old beer-drinkin’ hell-raisin’
bonafide redneck needs.

They got your fishin’ hooks,
They got your dirty books,
They got your rebel flag on the wall.
The sign says beer, bait and ammo
If you ask me, they got it all!

Surround me with hot Brazilian chicas.

And give me a happening short set to wear. Didn’t Michael Irvin wear that same getup to one of his contract signings?

Found it here, where you were all called crackers and I was lightly praised for my hayseed communication skills.

Man…remember the Agonist? Beloved Lefty intellectual, got famous for outright ripping off one of those high-dollar subscription journals, made a big weepy interweb apology? Still going strong…

Maybe even the only feature of TFG. Who knows? To the point. Mr. Joaquin Ochoa has flattered me into posting a Band of the Week. Given my immense talents for organization, you can expect to see the next one of these sometime in August, probably. But for this week, here goes:

My little blog-brother with the Ph.D. talked me into meeting him and his SO at a little joint down in the Deepest of Ellums to see a band called the Dead End Angels, one of his absolute faves. So, on a rainy night in Dallas, even though I currently detest Deep Ellum, I did so, given that Kevin has generally pretty good taste in music. A nice evening of Shiners, conversation, and damn good music proceeded to occur. The DEA were, indeed, everything that Kevin had said they were.

But they’re not what this is about. This is about one of the finest lady singers I’ve ever heard: Libbi Bosworth. She was singing harmony* with the DEA that night, trying to work her way back from vocal surgery. Bowled me right over, she did. Her voice was one of those that just reaches out and grabs you deep in your heart. I can’t remember if I bought her solo CD that night or if I bought it over the interwebs later, but I did. And it’s exactly what I hoped it would be — torchy, twangy, sweet, touching, flirty, slinky. Just an all-around GREAT record.

Now, the unfortunate thing is that Libbi soon had to quit the DEA, and undergo still more (and even more after that) vocal surgery. All of the gory details are on her website if you want to read about it all. To me, it sounds horrifying — cutting on a throat sounds absolutely crazy. But when you’ve got a voice like Libbi’s, and you obviously can use it to the effect that she does, I have to applaud her for undergoing that hell to try to get it back to form. So far, though, the results have been mixed, according to her. So far, nothing new, and nothing on the horizon for her fans.

But…my advice to you is to go ahead and order up her 2001 record, Libbiville, from her web site. #1, you get Libbi really stretching it out all over the style map — there will be something on there you like (I like the whole thing). #2, you get all kinds of big names backing her in the studio…Lloyd Maines, Bruce Robison, Gurf Morlix, Don Walser (I love their duet), that kind of thing. Most importantly to me, though, you put some money in Libbi’s pocket to pay for another one of those surgeries, and that might just be the one that fixes everything and gets Libbi back to recording and touring. And that would be a great thing for music lovers all over Texas.

Now, if yall aren’t gonna go buy the music I’m talking about here, there’s no point in my typing all this up. So limber up the ol’ debit card and get to buying. You wouldn’t hurt yourself to buy the DEA’s stuff, too.

* What’s singing harmony? What’s singing melody? This music vocabulary confuses me (the guy they kicked out of music class in 5th grade at John Hanby Elementary - my voice is that bad). All I know is she hit all the notes just right.

Personally, if I could be convinced the money was going to actually go to pay for the transition to private accounts, I would be all in favor of rolling back many of the tax cuts, as the economy seems to be much better than it was when the cuts were enacted.

No cause (tax cuts), no effect (better economy). Yet this is no lefty — no, that was typed by a Republican. I think it’s safe to say the Reagan Revolution is over.

More segment-burning from , from Patti (by way of Eric):

Just fer grins (no prizes, just count enlightenment as an added bonus):

1. Prior to 9/11, what person(s) led the only enemy mainland invasion of the US and when?
2. Name the man who has been a governor of Tennesee, Govenor of Texas and President of Texas
3. What Texas Band were one-hit wonders with the tune “I Shot The Law”, and extra points for naming their home base.
4. What do all the following have in common: cow’s tongue, red goblet, flapjack, twisted rib, and horse crippler?
5. First mixed up by Charles Alderton, a Waco Pharmacist. Name that concoction.
6. What ranch once covered 3,050, 000 acres when first established?
7. What is the Texas State Motto?
8. What do the colors of the state flag stand for?
9. Who lives at Toad Hall?
10. Who is the Crown Prince of Luckenbach?

Will post answers by Saturday at my place- Texas Trifles.

My answers guesses below the fold:

Read the rest of this entry »

I never do blog memes. Never. Annoying PITA.

But Eric is good people, so I’m going to humour him (and only him, so don’t get any ideas about tagging me for any more):

Jen, the sweetheart in charge of Lintefiniel Musing, has tagged me to participate in a new meme (she’s also threatened me if I don’t participate, although she’ll deny it if you ask her, so don’t even bother…but keep in mind that she works in law enforcement). Here’s how it works:

(The following is a C&P from the Songstress) Ogre here has created a new meme (not that I needed another one) and has been tracking its progress throughout the blogosphere as sort of an unassigned research project… Fascinating stuff, really [ed: fascinating if you're a web hippy].

How this works: Immediately following there is a list of a bunch of different occupations. You must select at least 5 of them (feel free to select more). You may add more if you like to your list before you pass it on (after you select 5 of the items as it was passed to you). Each one begins with “If I could be…” Of the 5 you selected, you are to finish each phrase with what you would do as a member of that profession.

Once you’re done you get to tag three people you think will actually respond - and would have a good answer. Oh, and by all means, don’t forget to trackback to this post… and to Ogre’s original post so he can keep tracking the progress of his little creation.

If I could be a scientist…
If I could be a farmer…
If I could be a musician…
If I could be a doctor…
If I could be a painter…
If I could be a gardener…
If I could be a missionary…
If I could be a chef…
If I could be an architect…
If I could be a linguist…
If I could be a psychologist…
If I could be a librarian…
If I could be an athlete…
If I could be a lawyer…
If I could be an innkeeper…
If I could be a professor…
If I could be a writer…
If I could be a llama-rider…
If I could be a bonnie pirate…
If I could be a servicemember…
If I could be a photographer…
If I could be a philanthropist…
If I could be a rap artist…
If I could be a child actor…
If I could be a secret agent…
If I could be a comedian/comedienne…

So here are my five:

• If I were a musician…I’d be Lloyd Maines protege’ on the pedal steel, since I’d pretty much have to know how to play a regular guitar if I could play the pedal steel. Lloyd is in my top 5 of Texas Musicians, even if he is Natalie’s daddy. The guy is unparalleled as a producer and a player, and he’s a playa in Texas Music.
• If I could be a chef…I’d open a gourmet hamburger joint. Not foofy gourmet, but catering to the expert gourmet. The hamburger is the pinnacle of American cooking, and it’s waning as a staple food item is distressing. On the menu would be the thin-patty burger and the thick-patty burger, two or three different breads, five ten kinds of cheese, and a gajillion toppings and condiments. Fries would be the old-fashioned, thick-as-your-finger kind, every order fried fresh, with jalapenos and onions. Might have onion rings, might not. A Cuban sandwich would be available, as well, provided I could find a good Cuban bread supplier. We’d do open-face, too, for the carb boys.
• If I could be an athlete…pro tennis player, pro golfing dude, or MLB closer. But back in the 70s-80s, though. Too much pressure today, even for all the difference in money. And I would have retired to life of writing books and articles and occasional teevee appearances. A smarter John McEnroe — like that.
• If I could be a philanthropist…I’d fund universal reading classes starting at the age of 3, with a free book every week, till you get out of high-school. I’d hire super-smart people to make recommendations, but they’d do book reports to me, in person, so I could make sure they weren’t just going through the motions.
• If I could be a secret agent…I’d be a bajillionaire privateer type, sort of an international Batman, or Doc Savage. Wreaking havoc amongst evil-doers, making the world safe for democracy, so everyone could grow up in a capitalistic, democratic republic, like me (since they can’t all be Texans, after all.)

Now I understand that I’m supposed to tag somebody. My blogroll is full of independent mavericks (except for a few web hippies), so I don’t know. I’ll spread it around:

• From the Poker Blogger bunch, who else but the man I used to be, dear young Al Can’t Hang (currently living it up (unencumbered by the spousal unit) in Key West.) He’s a bit of a web hippy, so he might do a dumb meme.
• From the music world, who else but my lovely bride, who’s never done a blog meme in her life.
• From the Big Brain dept., my smarter little blog-brother with the Ph.D., Kevin Whited, of the extraordinarily lightly-updated Publius, TX, since he’s sooooooooo dang busy being on radio shows and blogging about every single word printed in the Houston Chronicle and this will annoy him in return.

Check out the WSJ article about the Barnett Shale play taking place in my backyard over at Oil Field Trash, Part 2.

Greatest Music Writer in the Universe — El Platano Blanco:

Minneapolis is a Gourds kind of town…they’ve been here often, but EVERY time, the sneak up on, and completely wash over a convert, leaving them senseless and confused, weeping at the thought that they’ve been focused on ALL THE WRONG THINGS for far too long. You know the feeling Bill; like the first time I had biscuits and gravy, with the scrambled eggs ON the biscuits, then COVERED BY the gravy, down at the Star Seeds Cafe in Austin. It was such a small thing, but it made me feel like my whole life had been a waste to that point. I mean really, why WOULDN’T you put the eggs in there?

Halverson is one of those converts from a past Gourds appearance. Snag somebody to take along this time, Chris, & share the love. Who wouldn’t love a night out at Lee’s Liquor Lounge anyway? Go shake El Platano Blanco’s hand for me, too.

When things seem to be going good, why does Life throw you a Sebastian Janikowski 60-yard-split-the-uprights kick in the gentiles?

Every time. Every single time.

My stupid server, for which I pay gobs of money, thinks that UCT is now located in the Mountain time zone. Idiots.

From Andrea:

Don’t look now, kids! Arianna Huffington is going to wake up that sleepy old blogtown — she’s gonna start a celebrity blog! Jeepers!

Because after all, celebrities have such a tough time getting anyone to pay attention to them.

My plan is to delink anyone who’s stupid enough to have a link to that pile of crap if it ever actually happens. Gosh almighty, the press EXISTS for celebrity lick-fests…I have to plow through that BS even on the sports page these days.

Wild turkeys surrounding a mail jeep in New Jersey, and other dastardly wild turkey doings. If that ain’t made up, I’ll eat my hat. I demand Tabasco, though.

Good God, the birds have taken over!

I finally saw Napoleon Dynamite on pay-per-view. Pretty cute, but only in that awkward way of high-school movies that I can’t possibly connect with any more. I felt like I’d seen every joke about a million times. That’s what it means to get old, I guess. Still, I enjoyed it well enough that I didn’t feel the least bit bad about spending $1.99 on it. I was quite pleased with the Idaho locale, and I thought the dance for Pedro was bloody well brilliant. I suspect that younger people than I were laughing there ironic asses off, but those were some righteous moves, baby.

Don’t forget to feed Tina.

So I really ripped and snorted and threw my horns around about the Spring Rally yesterday. I was completely torqued off, so you can just file it under Angry TFG and forget about it if you want. But I’ve thought about it a little bit, and realize that I might have come off a tad strong about the metal-heads. Let’s get that out of the way first and foremost, shall we? As a man who’s listened to everything under the sun, I have no business bitching about a form of music. While it has been some years since I stood next to the Marshall stacks with my devil horns in the air, there was once a time when I enjoyed that guitared-up sound. I never quite got the growly voice deal, but I grew up with Robert Plant’s little-girl falsetto singing me to sleep through my Radio Shack headphones, OK? Point being this, as long as you’re out paying for live music, you’re my buddy and my pal, and I’ll mostly buy you a beer. I might buy it long-distance with a credit card, because honestly, son, I’ve done been through the metal/punk mixer and I’m not interested in doing it again.

No, what gets my back up the most is that the FW Press, through their advertising and marketing, made it seem like the bands I wanted to hear were co-equals with the thrashers. And they weren’t, not by a long, long shot. They were stuck off on a smaller stage about as far as you could get from the main stage, under an awning. Even that would have been semi-OK, as they did have a hot-dog / beer stand right next to it, with trash cans and everything. The problem was this: from the time I got there, to the time I left, the volume of sound from the main-stage, chock full of metal, absolutely overwhelmed the bands on the second stage. Literally the only time I could ENJOY these bands was between acts on the main stage. The rest of the time, it bled over so badly that it became a joke to the bands trying to perform. The sponsors of that stage couldn’t even get a word in edgewise over the deafening sounds of metal.

So, here’s the deal. FW Press needs to decide what they want to be when they grow up. Blues, rockabilly, metal, Americana, western, fill-in-the-blank. Doesn’t matter. Not even if you want to mix all that up and throw it out there like a big old gumbo and expect people to deal. Because, most of us will, you know. Even the families pushing baby buggies will find a quiet corner during the 45-minute death metal set. But somebody over there needs to learn to respect #1, the musicians doing the job, and #2, the fans coming out that pay the freight. That’s why I was so damn mad I could have chewed nails last night — the lack of respect. I’m not passing judgement on the music or the musicians who play it or the fans who like it and come out to see it, but I’m Guns of Navarone pissed at the planners.

Having said that, of course, yours truly would like to see Panther City embracing the music that made Panther City famous. My hometown of Dallas hasn’t the first clue about what they are or where they came from, and it shows. You, on the other hand, have a built-in advantage, even if you screwed it up royally this weekend. By giving Thrift Store Cowboys and Rose County Fair and 1100 Springs and Scott Copeland short shrift, you missed an unbelievable opportunity to work that advantage. Maybe all that alternative paper baloney went to your head, I don’t know.

And having said that, I hope it was a success. Live music is what it’s all about, and FW Press deserves a small golf-clap, even from me, for at least attempting to put something together for the good people of Panther City. Next time, though, give ol’ TFG a call about scheduling.

Four Big Slicks, not an ounce of love for a single one of them, and that’s what I went out on. Biggest pocket pair I got all night was freakin’ fours. Yet another night of shitty cards that I couldn’t play. I think I shall quit playing poker and find another unfulfilling hobby like handloading or sand volleyball.

And that’s after pissing off Herself, because I raced back to el rancho after spending three hours at the worst damn music event ever in the history of music events, in the history of ever. The Ft. Worth Press’ Spring Rally sucked to high holy hell, attaining heights of suckage that are only dreamed of in the streets of Nashville. Stage #2 featured bands that actually played instruments with some level of talent, like Rose County Fair and Thrift Store Cowboys and Scott Copeland (who has a blog, and is a stRangers fan). Stage #1 featured a slew of tattoed heroin & meth addicts that screamed at everyone and banged their guitars against the mike stands and various other immovable objects like Lancelot Link on crack cocaine. I’ve got a pounding headache from being forced to listen to that BS, and I was 1/4 mile away from it.

I’d really love to know whose dumbass idea it was to have an AC/DC cover band playing at 2PM on Sunday, followed by some crappy thrash metal band that sounds as good as my thirteen year-old practicing Guitar Center riffs in his bedroom. The Little Mermaid’s Purse? What the hell? Mullet Mania? Christalmighty. There’s a time and a place for that kind of metally goodness, but a spring afternoon at the park is NOT IT. After the poor real bands who write their own music and desperately tried to play it for their fans in the face of another cover of War Pig, I felt most sorry for the poor bastards from Red’s BBQ, whose trailer was all of 20 feet away from the Marshall Stacks of Death-Metal Crappiness. IMHO, the guys from Red’s had every right to pull out pistols and shoot somebody, starting with the moron who did the booking and planning.

Ft. Worth, normally my most favorite of towns, has lost humoungous amounts of credibility with me. Shoving mosh-pitters up agains two-steppers is idiotic in the extreme, but putting the headbangers on the main stage is kind of a last straw.

Honestly, I know I’m a sociopathic son-of-a-bitch, but if you weren’t there, you can’t imagine the horror. Watching a six-piece band, who write original good Texas music, twiddle their thumbs waiting for this month’s tatted copy of GWAR finish off their strangling of a truly bad Steppenwolfe tune is lunacy. I’m kicking myself for buying a couple of beers and hot dogs and lending credence through currency to the thing.