Friday Playlist: Competent Drumwork

There's a certain something about people who broke big out of Michigan. Think of Iggy & the Stooges, Barry Gordy, Madonna, Ted Nugent, Thomas Edison, Funkadelic, Michael Moore, Jack Kevorkian, the White Panthers and the MC5. Few states can compete with that.

Add Flint's Grand Funk Railroad to that list. Given this is a Youtube clip, the bass won't be rattling any bongs, but it's remarkable nonetheless. Given this is 10 minutes long it's a playlist of one. If you make it through the whole thing, you'll agree that's more than enough. It starts paying off about halfway through.

[ When this post gets translated into a Facebook note, what will happen to the Flash embed? You might need to click over to Junk Nexus to see it. ]

Shallow thoughts re: Decemberists show Oct 8, 2009

The sound was great. This was my first indoor rock show without earplugs in probably 17 years. No (tobacco) smoke, no tinnitus, and back home by 11 PM. Pleasant!

The 50+ crowd was out in force, as were kids with glasses. Chicago Police were on hand and there were no arrests.

I did not expect them to play the whole new album "Dark Side of the Moon"-style.
I am dense.

You may remember all the Neutral Milk Hotel comparisons this band used to get. I've seen NMH (twice!) and the Decemberists put on a much, much better show than NMH.

You may remember all the Jethro Tull comparisons this band still gets. I haven't seen Tull (ever!) and I didn't think about Tull at all during this show. I still hear some Tull in "The Crane Wife" though.

This is only my 4th visit to the Riviera, and it's always an Event: Sonic Youth/Royal Trux 1992, Kraftwerk 1998 (first Chicago show since the early 80s), Wilco 2008 (final night of their play-everything 5 night stand). Kraftwerk still may be my favorite of the 4, but it's close now.