Sure, the stage show was okay, but….

I wonder now if maybe I should have gone to “Movin’ Out” at Sangamon State last night. I’ve always been a big fan of Billy Joel’s music, but as a rule, I’m just not much for musicals, rock ballets, whatever you want to call them. Not saying anything bad about those that do like them; they’re just not usually my cup of tea. Mrs. Johann and her mom went, and the wife said it rocked! In telling me about the show, she said something about G-strings and pasties with tassels on them at one point. DAMN! And to think that if Mrs. Johann didn’t want to go, her mother would have offered the ticket to me. Drat da luck. Anyway, I heard the show was really, really good and I envy everyone that got to see it.

However, I definitely made up for missing the almost-naked titties great show and awesome music, because I went to see some awesome music myself when I went to Pizza Machine at Vinegar Hill Mall to see Springfield’s #1 Billy Joel Cover Band- Silly Joel!!!! For those unfamiliar, let me ’splain.

First, allow me to introduce the players: Captain Jack on vocals, Mr. Alan Towne on guitar, Downeaster Alexa on cello, Virginia on keyboards, and the effervescent Mr. Cacciatore on drums. They started promptly at… shortly after 11:00, taking the stage as different versions of our other Springfield icon, Abraham Lincoln. There was Abra-Ham Sandwich, Flav-R-Flav-raham Lincoln, Babe-raham Lincoln (nice rack, by the way, Virginia… don’t think I didn’t notice that two-handed “salute” you gave when you were introduced!), etc. The real reason for all the hoopla was that it was Mr. William Joel’s 59th birthday yesterday. Strangely enough, Billy never showed. Probably just had trouble getting a limo from Capital Airport or something. Anyhooze, they started the show by leading a chorus of “Happy Birthday” in Billy’s honor.

I wasn’t sure what to expect. This was my first live SJ performance. I’d seen the YouTube videos but have never actually been able to catch a live show. I gotta be completely honest here: I was a tad unsure how a guitar, a keyboard, a cello, and a drum kit would pull it off. I mean, some of Billy Joel’s songs are pretty hefty arrangements. But when they started, I have to say, I was very impressed.

First of all, let me say that I couldn’t believe how many kids were there. And I don’t just mean young’uns- KIDS. I mean, Pizza Machine is a family-friendly place and all, but holy crap- to quote the great philosopher Judge Smails, “don’t you have homes?!” I love my kids dearly, but I don’t think I’m going to keep them out at 11:00pm, especially in a place that has Vinegar Hill Mall’s… shall we say, reputation. But that’s another story. But there were lots and lots of kids (adults way younger than I, post-pubescents, etc.) there, and quite frankly, had I been an officer, I likely would have had an astronomical amount of underage-drinking busts. But yet again, I digress. The only reason I mentioned it at all was that it was freakin’ hilarious- and yet, sad at the same time- to see all these pups turn and look at each other and say, “Omigod, I, like, TOTALLY don’t know this song!” Ahhhh, da yutes of America.

ANYWAY, the band began, and they were incredible. They were rocking it from the very start. The whole set was great- from “Captain Jack” to “Allentown” to “You May Be Right”, “Still Rock and Roll to Me” to “The Stranger” to “We Didn’t Start the Fire”, “New York State of Mind” to “Just the Way You Are” to “My Life”, each song kept the integrity of Billy Joel firmly intact yet placed SJ’s own special stamp on it.

Special guest vocalist Mama Leone absolutely tore it up on “Only the Good Die Young”, and of course, the night wouldn’t have been complete without the other special guest vocalist dropping by for “Movin’ Out (Kermit’s Song)”. That little green dude is simply amazing. It was nice also getting to see Indiana Phones and Sgt. O’Leary in person.

They closed out with “Pressure”, with Virginia and Alexa working that rhythm section with style and finesse, and then “Big Shot”, one of my all-time favorite Billy songs. They played it faster than regular speed, but I think that is what made it all the more enjoyable, at least for me.

Finally, the chants of “Encore!!” and “One More Song!!” from the throngs and throngs of people crammed in the Pizza Machine were too much for the elusive quintet, and the hoards of adoring fans managed to entice the band to come out for a curtain call, upon which they broke into their reggae-country-opera-punk-Billy Joel fusion version of “Piano Man”.

One question, though… who was that imposter dressed as the Stranger?!! The way I heard it, the real Stranger didn’t make it.

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TRANSLATION: I probably sound like I’m their publicist or something, but I’m not. All truth be told, it was an extremely enjoyable show, one without all the same old crap songs that everyone else plays (that mostly aren’t worth hearing, and are usually so loud and garbled, you can’t hear them anyway). I will say that if I were Virginia, I would have probably been a little apprehensive playing keyboards in a tribute band for… well, the Piano Man. But she did an absolutely outstanding job, as they all did. Folks, if you just want to see some talented and charismatic musicians just simply playing good music, having fun doing so, and giving the crowd a good time as well, do yourselves a favor and check out Silly Joel. It’s a great time, you know all the songs, and there’s really no excuse for not supporting ANY local band, but especially one that’s just a little different from all the rest.

I also picked up a bitchin’ Silly Joel t-shirt last night. How friggin’ cool is THAT?!

Come one, come all!!!

I hope I’m not overstepping any bounds, stepping on any toes, or violating any copyrights, but I wanted to put this notice out to anyone in the Springpatch area who isn’t already aware.

Courtesy of Unpainted Huffhines, the inside source for all things Silly Joel and, quite frankly, all things cool:

A Public Notice to the Fine Blog Folks of Springfield,

I hereby issue an invitation to each of you to join in the celebration of Billy Joel’s 59th birthday with:

THE SILLY BILLY BIRTHDAY BASH with SILLY JOEL, Springfield’s No. 1 Billy Joel Cover Band
A free-admission event at 10:30 p.m. Friday, the Pizza Machine, 107 W. Cook St., inside the Vinegar Hill Mall.

Some of you know what Silly Joel is. For the uninitiated, know that it is, as billed, Springfield’s No. 1 Billy Joel Cover Band. Competitors are invited to come one and come all, but everyone knows we just may be the lunatics you’re looking for.

To honor Billy Joel’s birthday, this band will perform a selection of his greatest hits. (Let’s put it this way. Whether in person or just electronically, you know the drummer.) Both Silly Joel and Billy Joel would be honored if you’d all put on your birthday suits and join Captain Jack, Virginia, Downeaster Alexa, Mr. Alan Towne, Mr. Cacciatore and some very, very special guests for this special event.

Admission is FREE, as is a certain amount of pizza and soda provided by Sprint, the concert’s sponsor. Cash bar will be available, along with Silly Joel T-shirts - certain to be the summer’s hottest fashion.

Feel free to invite anyone else you think might enjoy the show. The more the merrier.

And, because I know you’re all Web-curious, learn more about, hear and/or see us at the following:

http://www.sillyjoel.com
http://www.myspace.com/sillyjoelrocks
http://www.youtube.com/user/sillyjoelrocks

Again with the basic details
Silly Billy Birthday Bash, 10:30 p.m. Friday, the Pizza Machine, 107 W. Cook St., inside the Vinegar Hill Mall
Did I mention in boldface that this whole thing is FREE?

I hope to see you all there, and for those of you I’ve not met in person, join me for a cocktail after the show. In the words of Billy Joel, it’s better than drinkin’ alone.

Mr. Cacciatore

I cut-and-pasted the above notice, which I received by having the great fortune of being at least on the fringe of Mr. Cacciatore’s Inner {email} Circle, simply because I wanted to make sure I got all the details correct.

So come out this Friday night, May 9, and check out the awesomest Billy Joel tribute band in this community or any other. See you there!

The best singer nobody has heard of

Okay, so in a recent post (see below), I was ripping on Amy Crackhouse Winehouse specifically, but in general, on the fact that about 98.792% of music nowadays really sucks, IMHO.

Well, I decided I’d sing the praises (pardon the pun) of a young woman who has an exquisite voice.

Her name is Hayley Westenra.  She is only 20 years old but she has already been performing professionally for more than 8 years.

Her first few albums were huge hits in her native New Zealand, but the Decca Records release of Pure in 2003 made her an international star.

She was featured on the “Mulan II” soundtrack, she performed for the Queen of England, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, and President Bush, and she won a Japanese Grammy in 2004 for her rendition of “Amazing Grace” and for her album Pure.

Okay, okay, enough of the lovefest.  Truth be told, I don’t particularly care for her style of music.  It’s kind of opera-meets-Celtic-meets-New-Agey-crap, and that’s just not my thing–especially the New Agey crap part.  At first listen, I thought, who is this, Enya’s little sister?!!  Honestly, I probably never would have known anything about this girl had I not received the Wii video game Endless Ocean from my sister for my birthday.  Young Miss Westenra’s vocal talents are featured throughout this game.  Between the relaxed feel of the game itself and the mesmerizing effect her voice has, I absolutely love playing the game.  I could go on and on about the game, but I’m still talking about Miss Westenra’s voice. Her single “Prayer” is the opening-credits song (some of it can be heard if you click the link above and do the “Launch the Site” tour… it’s worth the listen, I assure you.) and can also be played throughout the game, as can her fantastic version of “Amazing Grace” and 6 or 7 other songs by her.  Simply beautiful.

I’ve gone so far as to download all of the music that is featured in the video game from iTunes.  I’m not turning over a new musical leaf by ANY stretch of the imagination- I am NOT going to become one of those New Age fr people… I still like my Rush, my Van Halen, my cheesy 80’s music, my lame 70’s music, and my “oldies” way, WAY too much to give it all up for twinky stuff like this.  But I can also appreciate talented musicians, no matter what their musical genre, and this little girl is a VERY talented musician.

Amy Crackhouse Winehouse, on the other hand, is not.

They’ll give Grammys to anyone nowadays

Apparently the Grammy awards were handed out last night. Did anyone know? Did anyone care?

From what I read in the SJ-R this morning, this Amy Winehouse chick, pictured at left, won 5 out of the 6 Grammys (or is it “Grammies”?!) she was up for.

I’m extremely happy for her- she can sell the awards on the streets of London and buy more smack. Look at this broad! Has anyone this side of Courtney Love screamed “I’m a crack whore and I’m proud!” louder than this scary… um… “woman”?! And people think she’s hot? Eeeeewww. And that song of hers, that “Rehab” song?! Good gawd, what an obnoxious freakin’ 3 and a half minutes that is. I’d rather listen to cats fuck.

“They tried ta’ make me go ta’ rehab, and I said no, no, no”

Classy lyrics, babe. Back away from the microphone and smoke another rock. That’s pretty much all you are good for. I mean, a judge refused to allow her a visa to come to America for the awards show- what’s THAT tell you? But getting back to the “song”, the beat sounds like a song by some 60’s girl group (this innocent enough little boom-clap-clap-boom-clap, boom-clap-clap-boom-clap), á la the Shirelles or the Ronettes or someone like that, but then the most irritating voice I’ve heard since… well, since Courtney Love… overtakes the rhythm and your eardrums instantly start to bleed. Hmmmm… notice that you’ve never seen Amy Winehouse and Courtney Love in the same room at the same time…

Seriously, though- the way I heard it, the people who decide who wins awards actually had a hard time deciding on Best New Artist, Best New Album, and Best New Song, simply because there haven’t been any good new artists or music for years.

Hey, that’s just how I heard it.

Anyway, congratulations to any real artists that may have won awards or were at least nominated. I’m sure some had to have been deserving. At least more so than this broad. Someone like… Herbie Hancock, for example- who, as I understand it, apparently won the award that turned out to be the only one Amy Winehouse was up for and didn’t win. Herbie Hancock is a superbly talented musician and is a classy guy and has been for years. And I don’t really even care for his music all that much. Glad to see the Grammy people came to their senses at least once last night.

Guilty anti-pleasures

It’s well established that I typically steal others’ ideas when coming up with posts for my blog. Among my favorite authors from whom to pilfer would be AnonCom and UnHuff (just came up with that; hope that’s acceptable… ). For today’s stolen topic idea, I give credit (and my apologies) to Dan over at Blog Free Springfield.

He had a post the other day in which he talks about bands about which he feels “guilty” for not liking. Guilty annoyances, he called them. My first thought is that one shouldn’t feel guilty in the least for their opinions (”how can you NOT like [insert artist name here]?!”), but I understand what he means. In this case, he essentially refers to feeling guilty for not liking bands that the grand majority of people you would encounter would like. His main “guilty annoyance” was the Beatles. I read some of the reader comments and their favorite bands they love to hate. Some I agreed with, some I didn’t. Rush? THAT hurts, Henny Penny.

Anyway, that got me thinking about bands I can’t stand that, for reasons inexplicable to me, are others’ favorites, but there again, everyone’s entitled to their opinions. So, without further ado, here are my top musical annoyances. Let me preface by saying that I give credit where it is due, with regard to a particular band’s (or genre’s) impact on music, but that still doesn’t mean I have to “like” them.

• The Rolling Stones. Typically, people are either Beatles or Stones. It’s like Coke vs. Pepsi; most people love one and hate the other. Myself, I am a Beatles guy. That’s not to say I submit in holy reverence to the Beatles, but I never got into the Stones.
• “Druggie” music. These are bands I have so dubbed in that, in my opinion, people can really only enjoy (or understand, in some cases) whacked out of their minds on assorted hallucinogenics, since a grand majority of it likely was written in the same condition. These include bands such as Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan, the Doors, the Dead, and the solo and combined works of Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young (sounds like a stoner law firm), among others. This also includes the Beatles once they ceased being a pop band and discovered drugs. Full-time, anyway…
• Led Zeppelin. They had a huge impact on rock music at the time, but I don’t like Led Zeppelin. (Is it one L or two? I can never remember.) “Stairway to Heaven” is considered by many to be one of the greatest, if not the greatest, songs in music history, depending on who you ask, but other than the middle where it rocks out a bit, it’s little more than background music for bubbling bong water.
• Nirvana. It cannot be argued what a profound impact Nirvana had on music in the early 1990s, as documented here, among countless other places. But with the exception of “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, I just never bought in to Nirvana. My brother purt’near worships Kurt Cobain and crew, but I just never got into them THAT much. Other than a smattering of songs here and there, I never really got into the entire genre (grunge, alternative, flannel rock, “the Seattle Scene”, angst rock, whatever you choose to call it): Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden… and though they were a few years later (I think) and not really the same genre per se, I’m also putting Smashing Pumpkins in this category. Basically, “rock” in the 90’s sucked, for the most part. As with the previous two categories, I guess I just don’t do enough drugs.
• Dave Matthews and John Mayer. Both sound like they’re singing with a clothespin on their nose; John Mayer sounds like a more acoustic clone of Dave Matthews. I’ve always been far more into the actual music than lyrics, but here’s a tip: when you sing lyrics, sing them in such a way they can be understood.
• Bruce Springsteen and Bob Seger. Both may well be fine singers. You’d never know, because both sound like they perform all their music while very seriously constipated. Good Lord, guys, take a laxative, pinch it off, and THEN sing.
• U2. War is a terrific album. All their other work is pretty much crap. I think what really gets me about U2 is more that Bono takes it upon himself to preach social lessons non-stop about everything that is wrong with America. There are enough Americans doing that as it is; I don’t need him cramming it down my throat as well.
• “College” music. Bands that people tend to get “into” when they go to college, but can’t quite come to their senses about once they graduate. The poster child here is R.E.M., although I feel Dave Matthews and John Mayer fall in this category as well. R.E.M. front man Michael Stipe can be a societal preacher as well. If other people want to be lectured through music, or by musicians, that’s their binniss. I don’t. Music, for me, is a means of escape from how shitty the country and the world has become, not a melodious reminder.
• Lynyrd Skynyrd. Maybe I’m just too uptight (no comments from you, little brother, thank you very much!) or whatever, but I just don’t get the mass appeal of Skynyrd. Maybe it’s just because I’m not from the South (or at least the sticks), or maybe I’m just not into 100 different versions of the same song.

Anyway, that’s a sampling of my musical annoyances. Others will be added as they come to mind; I gotta go rescue the house from the destructive force that is the L’il-est Johann. Your thoughts are welcome, as always.

The old-timer weighs in

Apparently, the current topic du jour among a few of my brother’s co-bloggers is to list their Top 20 Most Played songs, presumably on their iPods. My brother pointed out that nothing on his list came out later than 1993, so that must make him “curmudgeonly”.

Ouch.

I don’t want to know what he’s going to say about my list. For the most part, music pretty much peaked for me in the mid ’80s. I mean, there has obviously been some music since then that I have liked and/or have in my collection, but if I have to be labeled- and I HATE being labeled- I’m more a classic rock and cheesy ’80s kind of guy. A lot of the music that has been done since then just kind of… oh, what’s the word… ah yes- sucks. As I said, there is and/or has been some good stuff out there, but the lion’s share blows.