Life ain’t fair, especially when it comes to music. There certainly seems to be no cosmic justice. Duane Allman? Taken from us in a motorcycle wreck at the tender age of 24. Hendrix? Found dead in a bathtub – granted, likely by his own hand – at 27. Yet Michael Jackson used little boys as nighttime playthings, bought their parents’ silence and was allowed to draw breath till the age of 50.
And this week brings yet another reminder. No-talent hacks like Luke Bryan, Kane Brown and…I forget his name, but that dude who held forth in Rolling Stone about the need for stricter gun laws? Who is he? Who cares; he’s a douchebag like everybody else in mainstream country, and millions of morons listen to him and all the rest of them, perpetuating the slow death march of a once-great genre. Those losers and their fans collectively wallow in all that brainless tripe, but we can’t have Charlie Robison anymore?
Charlie’s not dead, but he’s through recording and touring, thanks to “complications from surgery.” Still around, and one hopes still writing. But it sure feels like a funeral.
It’s as unfair as a rich woman wearing “ten years worth of work on her hand.”
Here’s Charlie at Antone’s, doing “Loving County.” I miss him already.
I'm going to do something a little unusual here. I'm going to tell you about one of my favorite days I can ever remember up until this point in my life. On Saturday, September 15th, I made a pretty big life change. I married my best friend and it was amazing. It was in front of a church built in the 1800s with much of its stained glass still intact. The weather was perfect, if a little hot (but, it's September in TN, what can you expect). All that was something I could never forget. But, then we got to the reception and it was the most fun I've had at a wedding (yeah, I know I'm biased) because we did something a little unusual: we got one of our favorite bands to play our wedding. That band is Great Peacock.
One of the first dates my wife and I went on was to see Great Peacock at Hill Country here in DC. It was a hell of time back then, and time has done nothing but made Great Peacock better. One of our concerns with having a band many of our friends had never heard of (not for lack of our trying, I want to add) was whether or not people would be inclined to dance to songs they didn't know. This turned out to be a ridiculous concern as people were out on the small dance floor we had and the surrounding grass almost immediately.
When we were talking to the guys in Great Peacock, we made it clear that we didn't want them to be a wedding band, we wanted them to be exactly who they were. So, if they wanted to play a couple covers, those covers should be songs they wanted to do, not songs we wanted them to do. Although, I will say that we requested for them to play "Wildflowers" by Tom Petty for our first dance and it was perfect.
Needless to say, they ripped through their songs at near perfection. They played songs from their first and second albums, which we love. They played songs such as "Take Me To The Mountain", "Tennessee" (which my dad specifically requested), "Miss You Honey", and "Let's Just Get Drunk Tonight." Oh, and on "Let's Just Get Drunk Tonight" the guys let me come up and play harmonica. Now, I'm not one to usually do something like that because of things like, oh I don't know, over a hundred people looking back at me, but my wife and I talked about it and this was something she really wanted me to do. I'm glad I did, because the joy it brought my family was special.
Photo by Darcy Ferris
They ended their night on "Desert Lark", that is, until the 150+ people at the wedding shouted for them to play one more song. So, they played their always hell-on-wheels version of Whiskeytown's "Hard Luck Story." It was the perfect cap to the perfect day. Maybe it was the moonshine my dad was handing out (don't ever question my country bonafides, son), maybe it was the joy of being at a wedding, or maybe it was the perfect backdrop of an old pre-Civil War era cabin, but this was by far my favorite time seeing Great Peacock perform.
When we had set out to thinking of the reception, we asked ourselves what could possibly make our special day even better. We kicked around a DJ, we kicked around a bluegrass band, but ultimately we thought we'd share with everyone the band that we both believe in and genuinely love. Sometimes it's hard to convince people to go to a show of a band they'd maybe only heard of but with busy schedules just never got around to checking out. So, we wanted to make it easy for them. And, we also knew that the music would be perfect. And it was. We had aunts, uncles, cousins, old friends, new friends, grandmothers, and our parents out there dancing, throwing their hands up, and shouting with reckless abandon. It was a magical moment and it wouldn’t have been close to being possible without Great Peacock. They picked up new fans from Dallas, TX to London, UK.
So, on that note, I'll leave this by saying, go see that band your friends have been raving about. You don't know how much your presence might mean and you might also find your next favorite band. The guys in Great Peacock make some of the best music out there right now. I am confident in saying that. They are tight, they are professional, and they have all the chops you'd want from a band. And, to top it off, they are genuinely some of the nicest dudes I have met. I'm glad we got to share this special day with them. Go see em and go buy their music wherever you buy music.
Photo by Matt DeFina
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Great Peacock's latest album, Gran Pavo Real, is available on Spotify and all the usual locations.
If there was ever a human who’s been written about ad-nauseam, it’s Paul McCartney. His life story has been told over and over, his every note has been picked apart, his lyrics have inspired college courses, and psychologists alike. He will remain immortal while the rest of us fade into the ether.
What do you write about when a guy has been obsessed over so much? I’m not new to the Beatles game (one of my son’s middle names is Lennon). I’ve been a die-hard for as long as I can remember, and while John has some of the best stand-alone Beatles tracks, and the best Beatles song ever, in “Day In The Life,” Paul pound for pound had more songs that were better.
But, once the Beatles broke up, Paul was left to his own devices; he had to make a career in the ashes of his former band. A band that wasn’t just big, but the band that literally changed the world. That’s a heavy burden to bear for any of the now former Beatles. Suddenly, this dude who wanted to write spinning epics, and operas, but also quirky barbershop tunes was out of his dynamic – he’d started playing within what would become the Beatles at 15 with John Lennon.
What Paul McCartney came up with was light years better than any of the garbage John cranked out. Sorry, while John Lennon gets this cultural pass as this too cool for school autre, it was McCartney writing the solid records. Plastic Ono Band has, maybe a handful of solid tracks, while McCartney has cuts that rival any of the Beatles best work.
Listen to those first two McCartney records, they pre-date a lot Jack White and Dan Auerbach's DNA. Those early solo records were created with one vision, a lot of elbow grease and hustle. There's an elemental funk there, a lapse of polish, which makes them all the more appealing today. McCartney showed loud and clear that the soul of the Beatles wasn't just John and his beard.
I wasn’t always high on Paul McCartney’s solo stuff. Honestly, I find a lot of his solo stuff corny. “Silly Love Songs,” “Lovely Linda,” “Wonderful Christmastime” – I hate all of them with the fire of a thousand suns. “That Would Be Something” is pure Beatles. In fact, those two first McCartney records feature a lot of tracks that reach far past his former bandmates, with no disrespect to George Harrison, because All Things Must Pass is a stellar record.
But, it was an unlikely source that turned me onto Paul McCartney’s solo tunes: Howard Stern. Because I’m a regular Stern listener, I get to hear Howard rant and rave about all kinds of things I love, explicitly explaining how much country music, vinyl, and Halloween suck. But one thing Howard did turn me onto is how much Paul McCartney’s solo stuff is vastly underrated.
Once while lecturing joke writer, and continuously homeless Benjy Bronk, Stern played McCartney’s “Too Many People” a song written about John Lennon and applied to Bronk’s tardiness and taking advantage of the system in place, considering the high pay and three day work week.
It was after hearing that track and then digging deeper into RAM and McCartney that I’d realized I’d not given Paul his proper due. While, I’m not a massive Band on The Run fan, “Let Me Roll It” could be used in any lonely bar scene in a Tarantino flick. That’s an all-time banger, rivaling anything on Let It Be.
I appreciate that Howard is relentless in his adoration of McCartney’s music, it was sweet listening to him interview Paul recently because it was from such a genuine place of love and respect, he also tried to do the same with former Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant, but Plant was a condescending asshole the whole time.
McCartney, on the other hand, did his best at navigating those waters of Beatles, and personal life talks that he’s done for so long, and with so much class. Paul McCartney knows his place in the history books, but still maintains an aura of cool. Plus, the dude did kill it with a cigar box guitar playing with the surviving members of Nirvana.
I think as Paul McCartney gets older, it’s crucial for us to reflect upon his post-Beatles career with different eyes. He’s one of the last living legends of that era still kicking, and doing it well. I’ve grown to love a lot of his solo stuff, and for that, I have to thank the guy who played FartMan.
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Paul's latest album is Egypt Station and is available at Amazon and everywhere else.
