Jethro Tull - Never Too Old to Rock 'n' Roll

 Jethro Tull

In the seven years I've lived in the Lehigh Valley, I'd never gone to Bethlehem's yearly Musikfest. The idea of stumbling around drunkenly listening to hippie bands in the heat & humidity of August didn't appeal to me; I guess I felt I'd done enough of that in my youth. (And believe me, I did plenty.)

When my Sister-from-another-mother & ace co-worker Mamavicki told me that Jethro Tull would close Musikfest, I decided that it was time to get off my ass & get down to Bethlehem to see them.

I was a huge Tull fan when I was growing up; Aqualung was the first album I bought (on 8-track tape!) with my own hard-earned money & I played the hell out of it. I bought all their previous records & immersed myself in them, memorizing every song, word for word & note for note. Thick As A Brick & Passion Play were brilliant examples of long-form prog rock, & I enjoyed them greatly.

As the years went on, I lost interest in most rock music & jumped into punk/new wave with both feet...though I did regret that I'd never seen Tull live. Well, now I have, thanks to Mamavicki & her hubby the Busterman, & I had a truly wonderful time. The festival brings out people from all over the area, & for a show like this, the average age of the audience members was around 50. There were many fine-looking ladies (of a certain age) at the show, lots of good food & good beer, & the best company imaginable in Mama V & the B-Man.

So - the 2017 version of "Jethro Tull by Ian Anderson" is:

Ian Anderson, Flute, vocals, acoustic guitar
Florian Opahle, guitarist
Scott Hammond, drummer
John O’Hara, piano and accordion and vocals, and
David Goodier, bass guitar and vocals

Ian has always chosen excellent players for his groups, & these guys are just outstanding, but the revelation of the evening was guitarist Florian Opahle (the youngest guy in the picture). The kid was just fantastic, playing everything we expected to hear, perfectly, but with his own signature style overlaid on every solo. He's a bright young star, & deserves all the acclaim he'll undoubtedly get. Ian's voice was a bit weak, but he gamely soldiered on & gave a very solid performance, delighting us with his inimitable flute & masterful acoustic guitar playing.

The show was great, the venue was pleasant (as was the weather), & the company of my friends was the best a guy could have. It was a wonderful, memorable day & night.

Maybe I'll go to Musikfest again next year...depending, of course, on who's playing, & if Mamavicki & Buster are available. I avoid hippie bands, of any age, but Tull were never really hippies. They worked too hard to be hippies, & they still work hard & do a hell of a job. God bless you & the boys, Ian.

And big thanks to my friends Mamavicki & Buster for making it all possible.

R.I.P. Glen Campbell

Country guitar legend, studio guitar legend, Beach Boy, TV star, etcetera etcetera. Let everyone note the passing of Mr. Glen Campbell, & watch him work:

The word itself is overused, but the correct description of Glen's playing is "amazing". Goodbye Glen, & thank you.

Late-Night TV, & Why It Doesn't All Suck

At my job, I'm unlucky enough to be on the midnight shift, but lucky enough to have TV to help while away the hours. Now, I don't have TV at home, as such...what I do is find stuff to watch on the 'Net, download it, convert it, & burn the programming to a re-writable DVD to watch in bed. This works out pretty well, because I'm a fan of old movies & TV shows, & these are easily (& legally) available if you know where to look.

At work, however, we're at the mercy of the basic cable channels & all the garbage they foist upon the public. "Reality" shows are, of course, the worst, & I will not watch any of 'em. Ever. I don't give a flying one about "Children of Hip-Hop Legends", "Million-Dollar Matchmakers", or any of the other rich & obnoxious sh*tbirds featured on these freakshows. I truly believe that watching that kind of tripe lowers the IQ of those who watch.

What I do like are the dozen or so "secondary" networks that have popped up as a result of the giant entertainment companies utilizing their vast libraries of old shows & movies. Outlets like MeTV, Comet, Antenna TV, etc. really do feature some of the finest shows of the recent & distant past...stuff like The Outer Limits, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Mary Tyler Moore, Taxi, & more. Comet even broadcasts (& I do mean broadcasts; most of these channels are available over-the-air, for free, as secondary digital channels) the original Mystery Science Theater 3000! Sure, there are a lot of not-so-great old shows on these channels, too...like "Ironside", or (eccch) "The Mod Squad", stuff I wouldn't have even watched as a kid, but having to avoid the old junk is a small price to pay to be able to see the old gold.

Whether they realize it or not, MGM/UA, Sony, Warner Brothers & the other giants are doing something worthwhile with these "little" channels, & I'm grateful that they're doing it.

Pets: Mine, and Other People's

Lileks' dog got away again, & I pray they find him...again. "Again" is the key word here. All the Bleatnik-ball-busting that he endures every time this happens seems to have had no effect. For God's sake, if that was me, if the collar could slip off, there'd be a harness....if the harness slipped or broke, I'd use friggin' handcuffs, cable ties, anything to keep it from happening again. And the gate in his yard? I'd make it foolproof, fail-safe, so tight a human would have a hard time getting out.

But I do understand the dog's point of view in this.

The dog of my childhood, our first & best, was named Gypsy, & she used to give us fits at our summer home in upstate NY. She was a beagle/terrier mix, with all the strengths of both breeds & none of the weaknesses of either, & her hound instincts were very strong indeed. Our rural road must have seemed like heaven to her, with the maddening scents of every animal that lived in the area. So she'd occasionally escape, even after we'd "dogproofed" the screen door with a hook & eye latch; she learned to jump high enough to push the hook out, & POOF she was zooming across the road, into the deep, dark woods, with only the white tip of her tail visible to mark her position. We'd call her name over & over, sometimes sweetly & lovingly, sometimes angrily & threateningly, & she'd poke her head up, look at us saucily with her tongue lolling out the side of her muzzle, as if to say, "Nope. Not done yet." Then, when she was finally exhausted she'd come home in her own good time, crawling on her belly, low, so low to the ground, looking up with such guilt that you just couldn't stay mad at her, you couldn't do anything but a) thank God she came back, & b) hug her wet, dirty body like the father of the Prodigal Son would have hugged his kid.

These were incidents that ended happily, though each time the spectre of death by car loomed over them. Luckily, there wasn't a lot of traffic on the roads of West Saugerties, but the possibility was always there. Gypsy was a good, smart dog, & never even tried to get out at home in Queens...the scents & sounds of the woods were evidently just too much for her to not bolt. But she always came back.

I hope Scout comes back to the Lilekses, & in one big, guilty piece.

Their name was...Mud.

For my first real post, I want to show yez this relic of the UK glam trend of the mid-70's...ladies & gents, I give you...Mud:

These guys look pretty goofy now, & truth be told, they looked goofy then, too. But the song is just great, a product of the Chapman/Chinn hit-making machine of the time. Chapman & Chinn were responsible for many hit songs by Sweet, Suzi Quatro, & others. Enjoy, & please comment.

Hiya, folks!

Hello, & welcome to StiivLabs, a place for Bleatniks & non-Bleatniks to hang out, joke around, etc. Watch this space!