Sunday Music: Black Lips

It's been a good week for music. On Monday, I finally got to see Bill Callahan live. Like a big dork, I lurked near the stage door after the concert. I never do that kind of thing. A friendly-looking senior couple waited next to me. His parents? A roadie came out and escorted them backstage. I resigned myself to the fact that he was probably not going to come out, and started to leave. The bass player, who had stepped out for a smoke, was walking toward me. "Excuse me," I said, startling him. "I had a ticket to see you guys in October...um...I...uh...was getting chemo and got too sick to go." I was getting more embarrassed by the moment. "I just wanted to say...uh...that this was nice." God, then I started choking up. He smiled and thanked me.

On Friday, I saw Atlanta's Black Lips at the Empty Bottle. The band, which has been around for about eight years, plays driving punk/country/blues anthems guaranteed to get the audience both moshing and singing along. It was a great show. "O Katrina!," a bluesy tune from the 2007 album GOOD BAD NOT EVIL, is one of the best songs about the destruction of New Orleans that I've heard. Who needs lofty poetry to describe the disaster? It was a betrayal, plain and simple.

Black Lips (Wikipedia) [Link]

Sunday Music: Smog

At about my sixth chemo, I discovered that Bill Callahan, the artist also known by the name Smog,was coming to Chicago. I purchased a ticket without a second thought. The night of the concert, realizing that I was in no shape to make it through a show, I stayed home. As I lay down in my bed at eight or nine in the evening, I felt pretty blue, like I missed senior prom, Oberammergau and Halley's comet all at once.

Tonight's selection is from Smog's 2003 album Supper. You can ignore the visuals, because the story is all in Callahan's lyrics.