quoperative

I watched Observe and Report the other night and this song comes up when the mall security team comes down the escalator in their “strictly business” pose.  My man Bob pointed out it’s an extremely bad-ass track from Patto called “The Man”.  It’s a long one but hang in there for the absolutely frenetic drumming during the closing climax.  Jesus this kills.

It’s a fuckin’ dark comedy (if you dig Jody Hill’s other stuff like The Foot Fist Way and Eastbound and Down) and the soundtrack is absolutely killer — The Band, Dwarves, Yardbirds and a smokin’ Pixies cover.  I figured they must have gotten Wayne Kramer to handle the music again since he’s done such a great job on EBAD but turns out it wasn’t him after all.  Obviously Jody Hill puts a high priority on locating only the finest tracks to aurally accompany his work.

OK, time to come to grips.

SxSW 2009 is over. I’m back to the usual grind of NOT seeing fifty bands and drinking twelve beers a day. Or was it twelve bands and fifty beers? I wish I could remember. Fortunately I was documenting the experience by updating Facebook about every 5 minutes with a blow-by-blow account of the every mundane detail of my time in Texas.  I’m sure those of you that un-friended me for melting down your friend feed know what I’m talking about.

So here’s a quick recap in nature’s most lazy format… list form!

Bands that I had never heard of but discovered were awesome

• The Fresh & Onlys San Francisco, CA
• Blackholicus Austin, TX (listen to this band… and then think that the girl fronting the band is like 4′6″ tall and just SLAYS on bass)
• Capsula Buenos Aires, Argentina
• Thee oh Sees San Francisco, CA

Bands that I either knew or suspected were awesome and verified them as such

• Steel Panther Hollywood, CA (incidentally the best show by far… PS. here’s a video of Justin from the Darkness joining them on stage… PPS. Satchel is one of the most talented guitarists I’ve ever seen)
• Brimstone Howl Omaha, NB
• King Kahn & the Shrines Germany via Montreal
• Telepathic Butterflies Winnipeg, MB

I totally screwed the pooch and missed seeing these bands (despite 2 of them playing 4+ times during the weekend… how did I manage to do that?)

• Glasvegas Glasgow, Scotland
• Black Lips Atlanta, GA
• Priestess Montreal, QC

Some photos that I didn’t take… but I was there!

The Fresh & Onlys at Beer Land

Capsula at Agave

King Kahn & the Shrines at El Sol y La Luna

Priestess at El Sol y La Luna

Bruce Springsteen once said: “I play Buddy Holly every night before going onstage. It keeps me honest.”

Who knows if the Boss actually said it or not but I’ll be damned if it ain’t true that Buddy made some real honest rock’n'roll.

It was almost 50 years ago today (I’m a couple days late because I was busy turning my legs into linguine at Revelstoke) that Charles “Buddy” Holly, Richie Valenzuela (aka Ritchie Valens) and JP Richardson (aka the Big Bopper) died in a plane crash in Northern Iowa just after a show at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake. A devastating day for rock’n'roll, but as luck would have it Buddy’s bass player — a young fellow by the name of Waylon Jennings — managed to survive.

The plane was chartered for Buddy and his band but Waylon gave his seat up to the Big Bopper, who was running a fever and had trouble fitting into the bus seats.  When Buddy found out that Waylon wasn’t going to fly he said, “Well, I hope your old bus freezes up.” Waylon responded, “Well, I hope your plane crashes.” This friendly joking would haunt Waylon for years.

Buddy’s drummer, Tommy Allsup, gave his seat to Valens after losing a coin toss. Valens got the seat and Allsup got the rest of his life.

Buddy Holly was 22.  Rock on.

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