interactive.wxxi.org

This’ll be old news to most people but Bobby Henrie & the Goners are really great! I know. I need to get out more. I’m workin’ on it.

Forget about veal. Real cruelty involves a relatively sedentary life for 361 days of the year and then 4 days of non-stop dancing. My legs are killing me. The 2008 Finger Lakes Grassroots Festival of Music & Dance wrapped up Sunday night. I can still feel the sunburn and the creekwater. I can still smell the potato pancakes and chicken satay. And I can still hear the music.

My trip is all planned out. First, to Appalachia, for some old time fiddle tunes. Then it's on to Plum Branch, South Carolina to enjoy some foot-stomping gospel. Arizona is next, the home of hypnotic Navajo dance music. After that we'll head back east for an extended stay in Louisiana: zydeco in Soileau, dancehall cajun in Breaux Bridge and brass band music in New Orleans. Next up, San Juan, for some bomba and plena, and then to Africa. We'll hear music from the Yoruba culture in Nigeria and the sounds of the Tuaregs and Wodaabe tribes in Mali.

Movies have 'em. Why not books?

I was already sold on Willy Vlautin's "Northline." Something about the black and white cover shot got me. But then I saw a CD in the back. The novel comes with its own soundtrack.

“We’re at the brewery and they’re out of cans?!”

The woman behind me was incredulous. But it was a good problem to have. The first of the High Falls Brewery Jams welcomed an overflow crowd on Friday, as Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks kicked off the new summer concert series.

That's the title of Martha Wainwright's new record. Maybe there's a family gene that inclines her to soul-baring. On that score, she gives her dad a run for his money. She doesn’t have Loudon’s funny bone, but she’s just as honest, and can sing with more emotion. A good example is a song best indicated with the acronym “BMFA.” It’s supposedly addressed to her father. She sings that one and a bunch of the new tunes (plus an epic “Stormy Weather”) in this video.

There are a million songs that dread the darkness – Here Comes the Night, Twilight, Round Midnight – but the morning ain’t always a picnic. Billie Holiday knew it. In one of her songs, she wakes up and finds she is not alone…

Might as well get use to you hanging around
Good morning heartache
Sit down

Can it really be true? Los Lobos is performing tomorrow at the Party in the Park…for free. Thank you, City of Rochester!

As I was writing my last post, I thought about the movie “The Sweet Hereafter.” If you like devastating films, it’s one to see. It’s about life and death and how destructive blame can be, among other things. It was based on a book inspired by an actual event – a fatal school bus accident in a Texas town in 1989.

Some guy on 89.3 was talking about the ever after the other day. I tuned in as he was berating the younger generation. They never think about the sweet bye and bye, he complained. Their only concern is the sensual, what he termed “the nasty now now.”