Sunday Morning Serenity

This morning I was enjoying my Sunday morning on my front porch.  I had my coffee, the sun was shining into my face and into the spindles of our porch.  It was a great morning and it's mornings like this that I think that I really have a good life.  When I have a view like this of Lords Park it really makes me think why would I want to be anywhere else.  As this blog subtitle suggests, I don't have to chase the dangling carrot anymore.  I'm home and I'm home in more ways than I can articulate.

I was up before the family and I was spinnin' Centro-matic's "Dual Hawks" as these pictures were taken.  I got some speakers wired for out on the porch.  It's great to listen to music or even the ballgame on.

Jay Bennett, R.I.P.

I went to Indy500 yesterday, had a great day, Helio won, (not to be confused with The Helio Sequence) played over 100 songs on my iPod on the way there and back in my car on the 3+ hour drive to the track.  Before I went to bed I plugged in my iPod to sync it to scrobble-de-bobble all these songs to last.fm when I read several posts on the Postcard listserv that former Wilco member Jay Bennett had died.  While I hoped it was just internet rumor because, as I've scribed in this very place before, everything you read on the internet is true, I was hoping it wasn't.

Then the more I read, the more official looking website links began filling my gmail inbox.  Sad.  This incarnation of Wilco with Jay Bennett was one of my favorites.  While Jeff Tweedy and John Stirratt remain the constants of the group if I was to make a "Wilco Supergroup" comprised of current and former members of the band, this said band would most certainly include Jay Bennett.

Here is a obit posted by Jim DeRogatis late last night.  Nice long url, huh?  I didn't trim my url.

http://blogs.suntimes.com/derogatis/2009/05/jay_bennett_dead_at_age_45.html

The Replacements last show

I don't get to as many rock shows as some rock show go-ers get to in this world but there is one rock show feather I can stick in my cap.  The Replacements last ever show.  It was July 4th, 1991 in Chicago in Grant Park along Lake Michigan.  Being this the pre-internets age I wasn't aware of the rumors that this indeed could possibly be their last show ever.  I was just going to see one of my favorite bands of all time.

Like with many other bands that I have come to love, er, um or obsess over, I came late the The Replacements (swinging) party.  I had heard of them as early as '85 through a friend but at that time I had the car floored with all things Springsteen.  I didn't see The Replacements until the "Don't Tell A Soul" tour of 1989 at the Aragon Ballroom.  I ended up seeing them, all told, a modest 4 times and one of them being at the vanilla confines of Poplar Creek Music Theater opening for Tom Petty.

Let's get back to the 4th of July in 1991, shall we?  Nothing like blogging about things from almost 20 years ago, huh?  I went with this dude that I worked with.  He was a muscle man.  We get to Grant Park and the line is wrapped all the way around the block.  I think my friend pretty much said, "F--- dis" and proceeds to walk towards the front of the line, walk, walk, walk, I'm following behind him but I didn't want to get greedy about where we were gonna, um, cut in line.  No wait, we just blended into the line since it was a mass of humanity as it was at Taste of Chicago.  As we got closer to the front of the line I'm saying to my friend, "Ron, cut in here, Ron, cut in here, cut in here".  He keeps walking towards the front.  I play along, he slides in right near the front of the line with me close behind.  I figured either no one really noticed that we cut or since he is bulging at his pecs, lats, and biceps and all things muscles I figured even if anyone did notice they didn't want to mess with him.  Once we got in and found seats (yes, seats, not the lawn) I asked Ron if he heard me saying "cut in here" and he said he did but he figured as long as we are cutting why not go for broke?

This was one of the WXRT sponsored shows so needless to say, they probably plugged it ad infinitum.  The other bands on the bill were NRBQ and Material Issue with the late Jim Ellison on vocals.  The show itself was about an hour with the set list heavy on songs from their last record, "All Shook Down".  It was almost Replacements-by-numbers but I wouldn't go so far to say they just phoned it in either.  Looking back at a review from Bill Wyman from the Chicago Reader, I see that they did play nuggets as "Within Your Reach", "Unsatisfied", and "Can't Hardly Wait".  The one thing that did happen that was very Replacements-esque was that they switched instruments during the last song, "Hootenanny" and then handed them off to roadies as they left the stage for the last time. One regret from XRT dj Frank E. Lee that I read in one of their old XRT newsletters was that one of the Replacements handed his guitar to Frank for him to go out and play during the encore.  For whatever reason, Lee declined.

Throughout the years there have been rumors and Internet buzz about Replacements reunions or even Paul Westerberg and Tommy Stinson getting together in some aspect and calling it The Replacements and those rumors remain just that, rumors.  Personally, I think breaking up as they did and staying broken up only adds to their scruffy legacy.

Stuck my toe in the record sellin' bidna

I was in Elgin Antiques and Uniques a few weeks ago.  He has a fragile little bull in a china shop kinda place that I admire.  I told him how it's been a bit of a pipe dream to have a little shop in downtown Elgin, Il but with records, CD's, and music.  You know, something with maybe a word like "Emporium" in the title.  Ray says to me that people are asking him if he has any records all the time.

So then Ray says to me, "Why don't you bring a box full of records down, we can work something out, and you can sell them on consignment?"  

I almost jump out of my Red Wings at the thought!  I scoured through my 78's and some of my LP's that I didn't really listen to that much or records that I thought might do well in an antique store.  I brought down about 50 - 78 speed records to sell at a buck a piece.  Nothing special just the dime-a-dozen waltzes and fox trots you can pretty much pick up anywhere.  Even those, though, have a nice old antique feel that put you in another place as you listen to them.  I also brought down about 40 records that I have priced anywhere from a couple bucks to $10-15.  I mostly just priced them by my heart, what some were going for on ebay, or the Jerry Osborne Rockin Records  guide.

Apparently I sold 5 records at Elgin Uniques Grand Opening!  If I remember correctly, I sold Led Zeppelin "Coda", a Chuck Berry 2 record set, Blues Brothers "Made In America", and perhaps an old Duke Ellington live set.  I'll be switching out some records and adding others that I get.  We'll see how it goes, ya know, vinyl is making a comeback. . .

How does "Comeback Records and Music Emporium" sound for a record store name?