July 20, 2008
Well, I am and I don't care who knows it. Our neck of the woods is so
gloriously beautiful I can hardly bear it. Last night, the ocean at
twilight and this morning I was up early and decided a ride out Route
2 way would be the cat's ass. I was right, the foothills of the
Berkshires swathed in a hazy blue mist, listening to the Stones doing
Sway, I Got the Blues and so on...Heaven. The wildflowers this summer have been breathtaking and the road crews have done a really great job strategically mowing around large swathes of the blooming flowers. Especially in Maine. Last month, the hillocks of clover were in bloom
and it made me delirious to look at them, three tones of lavender just
tumbling down the hillsides beside each overpass. I wish more
landscapers would use indigenous plants, the colors and texture are so
perfect here. I guess the beauty is just too subtle for most people to
appreciate, but I'm crazy about the native plants daddy.
Then, there is the beauty of the Orange line in Malden. That is the
appointed meeting ground for my long lost twin brother and me. Said
twin would be Rico Petroleum, we don't really look alike and aren't
nearly the same age, but the dissimilarity ends there. We have twenty
years worth of catching up to do and we had just barely started
when I found out that Willie Loco was getting The Persistence of
Memory Orchestra together for a show in Gloucester. I knew we had to
go. Especially when I found out that Rico had never seen Willie
perform before. It was sweltering hot and by the time we got to Cape
Ann the temperature had dropped by ten degrees. How great is that? We
were early so we hung out by the Fisherman Memorial statue at the water. In the oldest seaport in America. With a statue of Joan of Arc in the center
of the city, the ass of her horse staring you in the face as you first
drive into the center square of the city. Love that.
The rain held off until just before the show started and Willie and
his Orchestra were fantastic. The church was full, and on the historic
register, by the time we got there so we sat in a pew up front, all
the better to watch the performance. There was a tremendous thunder
storm during the set and the long rows of stained glass windows would
suddenly be lit from outside with bright strobes of lightning as
cameras flashed intermittently at the band. Thunder booming, drums
crashing, Willie wailing, it was so cool. Willie was as relaxed and in
as a good a voice as I've ever heard, hitting the high notes as
effortlessly as a boy soprano. He was just sparkling and playing the
hell out of a new piano already decorated with myriad Goya labels, G's
removed so they read as multiple oya's all over the case. He was
having such fun it was infectious.
I think maybe Russ hadn't had as much time as he would have liked to
rehearse with the rest of the guys and for his benefit Willie called
out the key before each song and as each song wound down, he'd give
the horns a look and shortly afterward he'd give a hand signal to shut
it down. They also got a different look for mistakes and we were
really laughing over it. When WA sang Me & Stravinsky Now, he screwed
up a part of the vocal so the rest of the band, Rico and I gave him
our version of the look and I know he screwed it up three more times
on purpose, just because he thought it was funny to see our stares.
His capacity for joy just bursts out of him and is so refreshing. Even
when he does songs on the most somber of subjects, like Shopping Cart
Louie and Trash, it's beautiful and ends up being uplifting.
I was fairly sure that Rico would like the band, but you just never
know, so when he started digging them I was totally loving it and that
made the night even better. I love it when someone gets turned on to a
band I love that they've never seen before and it's even better to be
there when it happens. When he started losing it over Jim's drumming
and kept elbowing me to ask "Did you see THAT?" and "Are you watching
him?" it was all I could do to sit still and stop myself from yelling
"I told you so!!! I told you so!!!" In everyday life, Jim Doherty just
has this sort of slightly detached quality about him, as if he's
trying to constantly avoid information overload and then he sits
behind the drums and it's like every detail of what's been going on
around him is funneled into beating the hell out his kit. It's fucking
awesome. He's so in the moment. You have to treat yourself and go see
this guy sometime. I haven't seen Jim play in far too long and I must
say, he did not disappoint. Even Willie was constantly sneaking
sidelong peeks to watch Jim annihilate his drums.
When I was talking to Jim after the show he told me how happy he is to
be back in New England and living in Portland. He's in the process of
opening up a recording studio there and I just can't wait to see what
he's going to do with that. I only had a chance to say a quick hi to
Russ and Mark. Henri Ferrini was there and video taping. Can't wait to
see that. Henri's work never disappoints. Willie's brother Bob was
there and I hadn't seen him in ages and had a chance to catch up and
learned that there's a fast ferry from P-towne now. Gotta try that. I
wish I had words to describe how fresh and clean the air smelled as it
hit us in the face when we left the church. The tide had come in and
the atmosphere had been scrubbed by the storm, it was just
unbelievable. Talk about a breath of fresh air.
Great night, great show, and I'm back together with my twin brother
and laughing so hard it hurts. Mostly because we are like two
curmudgeonly peas in a miserable shriveled pod and agree on most
things. It's been so good, and helpful, to compare notes on the
similarities of child rearing and elder care, it's really scary how
the problems are all the same. Three jars of applesauce open and no
one eating out of any of them, not wanting to get out of bed and all
the 'stop touching me' bickering. On the way back to the Orange line,
Rico was raving about how great Willie was and then ranting about how
he saw Jonathan Richman not too long ago and even though Richman is
from Natick, he still sucks, his talent puny when compared to Willie.
He continued to testify about the injustice of it all, rivaling even
his blistering screed about a Capella being played on the radio. I was
just really happy he liked the band.
In a couple of weeks the Boom Booms are playing in Gloucester at a
park called Harbor Loop, next to Fitz Hugh Lane's house, right by the
ocean. Reddy Teddy is opening and the show should be fantastic. Willie
said he'd been seduced by guitars again and that's why he got the band
back together. Rico is already insisting that POMO are the better band
even though he has never heard the Boom Booms play live. We'll see if
the guitars can work their magic on him too.
