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5/25/2003

EAR PLUGS
Bubbapalooza, Day 1:
I walked into an all but empty Star Bar on Thursday as Slim Chance
started up. I got a drink and chatted with a couple of degenerates in
the new green room backstage, shook hands with Gregory Dean's mamma,
and generally lounged. Slim's set turned out to be just an extended
sound check so I hadn't missed anything by socializing backstage.
Slim did the usual set, mixed with stories of Gregory and his music,
to a small group of folks dedicated enough, or unemployed enough, to
get out on a Thursday night.
I had to make a quick social call at the Clermont Lounge for a
degenerate birthday gathering. Nothing new at the Clermont, though
the looks on the faces of the Clermont virgin visitors was more than
worth the trip.
Back at the Star Bar, I just missed Slick 57, who, by very reliable
reports, were a fine rockabilly band who did some fun and interesting
covers, like The Pixies, to mix things up. Several regulars said
they'd like to see them return and headline.
The Kevin Kinney Band did several numbers before I realized who Kevin
Kinney was, but soon I recognized that high, strange voice as the
lead in Dryvin' and Cryin' (or however the hell it's spelled.) This
particular lineup is more of a blues jam thing, with long, dull,
white boy guitar boogie. Degenerate CR said, "He's written some
fantastic music. Too bad he's not playing any of it."
"Yeah, he's boring the crap out of me," I answered.
Next up, Stateside, who took a little too long to set up, but start
up strong with a Stones-flavored groove. They look almost too young
to even get in the door, much less have such a mature sound. Good
stuff from Birmingham, AL, though some of the hardcore Star Bar crowd
was unimpressed.
The Woggles stepped up around 1:15 AM with a tribute to their fallen
lead guitarist, Montegue, in the form of a long set of their usual
pre-punk go-go-garage rock, with Jeff Walls, formerly of Hillbilly
Frankenstein and Guadalcanal Diary, to replace the fallen Montegue,
and Jim Stacy taking Montegue's place as a hoist for Manfred as they
did the song "Do the Montegue", while passing out his favorite food,
fried chicken. A hell of a set that brought tears to the eyes of
Monegue's friends. Unfortunately, there weren't enough of them, or
anyone else, to fill the room so the set lacked the usual
wall-to-wall shaking crowd The Woggles usually inspire. Extending
Bubba to four days was probably a little ambitious, but I admire the
effort.
We had to skip Friday's Bubba fest due to financial and sleep
deprivation, but we arrived early enough Saturday to catch Billy Joe
Winghead doing their usual unusual music, packed full of pop
references and punky southern flavor, wrapping up with a cover of
Stardust on the theremin. I like some of their songs a lot, but the
need to bring some new material 'cause most of the Star Bar regulars
like myself have seen them several times. I did get a chuckle when I
saw the drummer had the word "Truckadelic" drawn across his belly,
tattoo-style.
The Flat Duo Jets were once well known in the local roots rockabilly
scene, but I never managed to catch them before Dexter called it
quits for a couple of years. Now they're back with "Dexter's New Flat
Duo Jets," doing stripped DOWN but crunk UP rockabilly, Dexter's
passionate everyman vocals in front of his marvelous guitar work,
jangly and fuzzy, backed up by simple drums and nothing else.
Nutrajet was scheduled to appear but had cancelled, so The Blacktop
Rockets made a return appearance, "Twice in one weekend, a new
Bubbapalooza record, and three shows in 24 hours!" they noted. But
only Stuart's occasional grimace of pain as he thumped away on the
standup bass gave away their overworked fingers. The sound was, as
always, flawless, and an unexpected treat for those of us that had
missed Friday's show.
A couple of girls next to me were asking what the scoop was with
Immortal Lee County Killers.
"You've never seen them before? Oh, they kick ass," I said.
A few minutes into the set I looked over and saw them grinning ear to
ear and shaking their heads to the beat. Goddamn, what music! I sent
degenerate RVI a copy of their CD a while back and he was raving
about it.
"Yeah, it's a lot of sound for a two-piece," I said.
"Two? Shit, it sounds like 8 guys!" he said.
But the problem with 8 guys is it all mushes together and comes out
white noise. With only Chet's guitar it comes out all black noise,
the entire history of the blues boiled down to a reduction sauce and
injected into the body of younger man, making him faster, stronger...
 And "J.R.R. Token" hammering away, and hamming it up, on drums,
throwing in strange fills and beats that more than cover up for the
lack of bass guitar.
The sound alone makes my heart pound and adrenalin flow, but add Chet
throwing himself around, clearly possessed by this music, and Token
pointing out into the crowd, as if threatening each and every person
in the crowd with the same demon, and there's no possible way I could
remain still.
After several technical glitches, Drive By Truckers brought the other
end of the spectrum with a three guitar attack. But everyone I spoke
to agreed that the sound just wasn't mixed quite right, a rare
occurrence at the Star Bar. The three guitars drove over Patterson's
vocals, which didn't matter on their more familiar numbers as the
crowd sang long, but on the newer material (due out this summer on a
new CD) I strained, and failed, to catch the lyrics. But by that
point the crowd, a good sized one at that, was probably too drunk to
care and everyone swayed and bobbed along all the way up to their
grand finale, "Steve McQueen", wrapping up at the stroke of 3 AM, the
last moment of live southern rock allowed by law.
So now it's Sunday and we're skipping day 4 of Bubba, saving our
money and livers and opting for the Mondo Movie at the drive in
instead. It occurred to me today that Tortilla's was due to close
yesterday and I neglected to get by there and get one last burrito
this week. Goddamn, what a fucking month.


NO QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT
The situation has escalated since we last wrote. Sunday I thought the
roosters were making a little more racket than usual. The weather has
(finally) warmed up and I knew it would be time to leave the windows
open at night, so I peeked around back to see what was up.
Dale and Pennie now have THREE roosters.
So armed with a copy of an article about the new Atlanta city noise
ordinance, courtesy of degenerate ES, I dialed 911. I wasn't sure if
I'd have better or worse luck on a sleepy holiday weekend Sunday, but
I was pleasantly surprised at the operator's willingness to send out
a patrol.
An officer arrived, the same who'd come out on previous complaints
against the neighbors. He said there was nothing he could do until
after 11, but then I countered with the new noise ordinance. He
hadn't been told about it yet so I filled him in on the details. He
gave me the number of a lieutenant in our zone to call on Tuesday,
after the holiday, "Tell him the whole situation, about the fence and
the dogs and everything. If this keeps up we can issue a citation and
if nothing is done we can even put them in jail."
About that time, Dale came ambling out the front door, shirtless, as
usual, with a mean expression on his face. The officer called him
over.
"Hey, buddy, I've been called out here several times about your dogs
and now it's roosters," said the officer.
"Uh..." said Dale.
"There's a new noise ordinance and if I can hear those things within
200 feet you're gonna get a citation."
"What about the dogs?"
I had to butt in, "The dogs are ok, they usually quiet down. I'm not
trying to be an ass here, but the roosters are driving us nuts."
"What are you going to do about this?" asked the officer.
Dale shrugged.
"If I come out here with noise measuring equipment you're gonna get fined."
With his usual brilliance, Dale said "We'll see."
Even the officer was impressed with Dale's attitude. "Yeah, we'll
see, alright, buddy."
The officer headed back to his cruiser. I followed and thanked him
for coming out.
"Do yourself a favor," he said, "stay away from that man."
"Oh, I will."
The officer drove off and I headed around the corner to tell SW the
details. I looked back through our apartment windows and saw Pennie,
the deaf neighbor, giving our apartment the finger.
Nice.
So I called our non-farming neighbors and told them the details just
in case the situation escalates even farther, and I'm planning on
making the call to the zone 1 HQ Tuesday.
 

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