Category: Local Music

Weekend of local rock volume 11

And it sounded like eleven too. This was the show I checked out last night:

The who, what, where, when, and why about last night's show. It's a neat poster that I allocated, after all they were done with it.

I actually thought there would be three bands, so it was nice to get a bonus fourth. More on them in a bit. First up came that cast of characters known as Goatbag.

One of my few Goatbag shots that came out. As always, they start out in costume and it's kind of fun to see them as they set up before they change into their stuff.

They played sort of a short set, maybe a half hour, but it was enough time for the pancakes to be made. You had to be there.

In the second slot came the “bonus” band out of Union City, New Jersey known as Lamps Burning.

Lamps Burning was fast, heavy, and possessed a lot of energy, particularly lead singer Chris Barretto. You'll see him again on this post.

I wouldn’t mind seeing these guys make a return trip at some point. And while they have an energetic front man, these three are pretty solid in their own right:

From left to right is Chris Vargas on bass, Rob Beltran on guitar, and back on drums is J.R. Pereira.

They played a little longer set, and the mosh pit was in effect at the end. That boisterous group had Lamps Burning play one extra song in the set, so the Monkey Barrel faithful approved of the group’s efforts.

While Lamps Burning didn’t bring much in the way of merch, since this occasion was also a CD release party for area rockers Falling From Failure that band indeed had copies of the new CD called “Calculating Errors” at their table.

Here was where you could get the band's new CD, 2007's 'Unwelcome' EP, or FFF shirts with their logo. Been there, didn't get the shirt but I bought both the discs.

And I like the logo. They need a nice square sticker like this for my bumper.

The graphic could be a little busy for a bumper sticker but it might work.

Oh yeah, they played too. Actually, they were who I came to see, so I took quite a few pictures. I’ll start with one of the full band.

While I may not win any awards for composition, I did get all three band members in the shot. Up front on the left is Blake, to the right is Curt, and Chris is back on drums.

I also got shots of the individual band members, although Blake didn’t quite cooperate as you’ll see.

Next time look at the camera Blake! He's the singer and plays the guitar. Still trying to figure out why his jacket has that effect in my photo.

Why is it that bassists are always looking down? Curt was just churning out the low end rhythm.

I actually got two decent shots of Chris on the drums, which is a shock to me because drummers are hard to get pictures of.

I have to tell you that I took most of these shots relatively early in the set because by the end I was right up front on the ropes getting the occasional bump from the mosh pit. And my chiropractor will love me since I was headbanging for a good portion of FFF’s set. But it was fun.

Closing out the night was local favorite Hard$ell. I showed you Falling From Failure’s merch table, but they had nothing on Hard$ell’s.

I was a little surprised they didn't have any music to go with the shirts and other items. But the table sort of fits with the band name does it not?

There was one thing quite different about Hard$ell this time than the last time I saw them maybe a year or so ago. I took this shot just when they started playing from way back at the auxiliary bar so it’s not my greatest effort.

With this shot you get some idea of the number of folks there. It was a little less than I thought may be present, but this is Easter weekend so a lot of SU students probably went home.

This is a better shot of the Hard$ell crew. Moving to stage left worked a lot better.

There were only three guys playing last night, I remembered them as a four-piece band.

The last time I saw them they had a turntable player who also did backing vocals. He was there last night but only backed up on the last couple songs. I’m wondering if his voice couldn’t handle a full set anymore.

I'm not sure what the deal is but this guy only backed up a couple songs. The way he would scream lyrics always reminded me of some of the oldtime hardcore punk bands. By the way, as promised our friend from Lamps Burning was right up front checking out Hard$ell, he's behind the guy in the blue striped shirt.

I got a kick out of the last song, with the crowd participating by yelling out a phrase that’s eerily similar to the two words our local “pro-Maryland” bloggers place before the name of Joe Albero.

Sometime this coming week I’m going to put up some more pictures and a little more of a review on the monoblogue Myspace site. I actually took almost 90 pictures, and a lot of them were at the large format I like rather than the 640 x 480 format I use for this site. If the bands want some they can ask me at the address above.

There was one more picture I took just because I thought it was cool.

I've always found these things fascinating. It looks like something out an old science fiction movie.

I also should commend Jude for doing a great job with the sound. When he’s at a show (and he does a bunch), I can be sure that bad sound won’t be an issue. I still miss his Sunday evening radio show though.

Finally, if the creek don’t rise you can look forward to another pictorial like this sometime after next Saturday because that evening I’m going to head over to the Steer Inn to check out Skip Dixxon’s Spring Luau featuring 12 bands – Blake Haley, Crowded Outhouse, Johnny Suit and the Nice Ties, Woodstock, Aaron Howell Band, Melodic Groove, Trailerpark Romeo, Matthew King, Lower Class Citizens, Pirate Radio, Agent 99 (with a shout out to Casey!), and, of course, my good friends from Semiblind, who will be part of that bill as well. Should be a blast and it’ll be a little different sound – certainly not quite as heavy but still good music.

Weekend of local rock volume 10

Those of you who read monoblogue last weekend know that I spent quite a bit of time looking at the Maryland legislative website. Don’t get me wrong, I actually enjoy that sort of research but after awhile all those bills and fiscal notes look the same and one needs a break. Luckily I had secured a ticket to a great event that happened last Saturday night:

At least when I saw this I knew I was in the right place at the right time.

It’s a bit of cheating from a “local” rock perspective, but there’s not a lot of national acts who come down this way at this time of year. So I took a pause for the cause, as part of the 98 Days ’til Summer Flip Flop Ball proceeds went to benefit the Food Bank of Delaware. (And to think there was a developer who wanted to tear down at least a part of Ruddertowne to put up more condos.) Fortunately Ruddertowne is still standing and the event was pretty well attended as you can see here. Where the crowd is gathered is where the munchies were set up, and despite the damage it did to my diet, the finger food that was served was excellent.

A look at some of those who were eating, drinking, and being merrily rocked by the two bands that were there.

I’ll cheerfully admit that I own no flip-flops (if you saw my feet you’d thank me for that) but I decided to make the trip up to Dewey Beach anyway once I found out who was headlining because I hadn’t seen the Smithereens since their Date tour in 1995 and I like the group’s music. I believe my quote when I heard the promo for the event on the radio was, “Yeah, I’m f**king there!” They’re sort of a departure from the heavy stuff I like but they put together some good tunes.

First up though was a Bruce Springsteen tribute band called E Street Shuffle.

If you like Bruce Springsteen, these guys put together a reasonably good homage to The Boss.

I managed to bury the drummer in the shot (he’s stage left behind the man with the black guitar), but these six guys played about a dozen of Bruce’s hits and kept the crowd entertained for the hour or so they were on. Admittedly I’m not much of a Springsteen fan so I’m not going to vouch for how well they represented the experience of seeing Bruce live, but they were pretty good musicians anyway. And they did their job, which was to warm up the crowd for the headlining act.

Most of these guys have been playing together since their high school days so they were pretty tight.

Since the last time I saw the Smithereens in ’95, they parted ways with original bassist Mike Mesaros, replacing him with Severo “the Thrilla” Jornacion. He’s closest to the camera in the picture above. So as you can tell, their website picture is a bit dated. Here’s another shot of the Thrilla:

Severo handling the vocals on one of the three Beatles covers the group played.

The other three have been together pretty much from day one in the suburbia of northern New Jersey. From top to bottom is lead vocalist and guitarist Pat DiNizio, lead guitarist and vocalist Jim Babjak, and drummer Dennis Diken who also had a turn singing a Beatles cover.

Vocalist Pat DiNizio has put on a couple pounds since I saw him last, but haven't we all? He still can sing though.

Jim Babjak's guitar hooks created the base for most of the bands hits in the late '80's. You can see I wasn't the only photographer.

Dennis Diken hasn't lost anything in the 20 years since the band made its name. I squeezed that shot between a couple folks just in front of me.

So now you’ve been introduced to the band, and you wonder what the heck were they famous for? Most of the songs they played came from a group of four albums that spanned a period from 1986 to 1991 – Especially For You (1986), Green Thoughts (1988), 11 (1990), and Blow Up (1991). While the order may not be perfect and I might have missed a song, this is the set list as I recall it:

  • Only A Memory (opening song)
  • Top Of The Pops
  • Since You Went Away (from Pat DiNizio’s solo album)
  • House We Used To Live In
  • Especially For You
  • Spellbound
  • Drown In My Own Tears (by “special request” for a lucky lady in the audience)
  • Don’t Bother Me (from their latest CD, Meet The Smithereens)
  • I Wanna Be Your Man (also from “Meet“)
  • I Want To Hold Your Hand (also from “Meet“)
  • Behind The Wall Of Sleep
  • Blood & Roses
  • Room Without A View
  • Yesterday Girl
  • A Girl Like You (closed the set)
  • Blues Before And After (first encore song)
  • Behind Blue Eyes (a cover of The Who’s classic to close the show, with a lot of our singing.)

In case you’re wondering, Meet The Smithereens, which came out last year, is a song-by-song tribute to the Beatles’ Meet The Beatles album. The group claims a heavy influence from a number of British Invasion groups and in this case they decided to pay homage by redoing that album with their own style. In all they played about an hour and 40 minutes. I have a another band shots that turned out halfway decent, I believe it was during an extended solo from House We Used To Live In:

You can tell these guys are pros but they have fun. They generally play about 20 shows a year despite not having an album of original material since 1999.

As I mentioned I’d seen these guys on the tour supporting the album A Date With The Smithereens in 1995 and also was at a show on the tour after Blow Up in 1992. All three of these have been club dates and in the latter two I found out Jim wasn’t afraid to go into the crowd and play, literally playing at the bar next to me in ’95 and at arms’ length in front of me last Saturday. But this time part of the deal was the band hanging around after the show and signing items they had for sale. So now I have this nice hat to wear:

It was a treat to meet the band after the show.

I had only two issues with the concert itself. One is that they played nothing off probably my favorite Smithereens album, 1994’s A Date With The Smithereens – not even the single from that CD called Miles From Nowhere. It’s just a minor quibble since there were other songs that I wasn’t expecting to hear like Spellbound or Room Without A View.

The second problem was something that I swear follows me and that’s sound issues. These weren’t all that bad, just a faulty microphone during the Beatles part of the show where I couldn’t hear the vocals very well. It was fixed after a couple songs and they were good to go again.

It was a great show though, and I’d recommend making the trip to see them if they come nearby. That may be a possibility since I understand they are releasing a double CD (one with their classics recorded live, the other with new stuff) later this spring or early summer. It’ll be something to add to my CD collection for sure.

Weekend of local rock volume 9

Normally I put these posts on the weekend but with my heavy political posting schedule I decided to wait until now and take a break from the political for a day. Besides, it’s Valentine’s Day and one thing I love is the local music scene.

So last Friday I was enjoying three local bands, beginning with my good friends from Semiblind making a semirare Salisbury appearance.

You should know these guys, I write about them a lot. On this song Jim is singing.

From what I was told, this was pretty much a last-minute thing for them. Thus, they drew the opening slot and they got off to a late start because of some sound issues at the Monkey Barrel. Still they played a good set, which to my pleasure was mostly their originals. They do justice to most of the covers they play (like the Black Sabbath classic “War Pigs” in this case) but I really dig the stuff they wrote for themselves.

No completely gratuitous Michelle shot this time. I'm only giving them two pics today since it's not like they haven't been here before!

So if these guys put out a CD anytime soon, I’ll be the one looking to buy it, toss it in my car CD player, roll down the windows, and crank that sumbitch up! (Let’s hope this is in July, though.)

Next up was a local band I’d kinda sorta seen before called Boats to Tangier. If my memory serves they played at Salisbury’s Riverfest last September but I was working a booth at the time and didn’t hear much of them.

This is one shot I took from the front. You know, it's really hard to get a picture of these guys because they're a five-piece band.

I believe this may have been a first for me, seeing a rock band with a piano playing a bar. Usually bands I see have the normal guitar, bass, drums, singer setup but these guys are different. Certainly that element gives them a unique sound. And the young lady with the nice voice singing about ghosts and zombies doesn’t hurt the uniqueness factor either.

By the end of their set, there were cage dancers to stage right behind the pianist.

I don’t know how or why, but somehow this worked leading into the next band, Goatbag.

This cast of characters is the band known around these parts as Goatbag.

To the right of the shot you can see that the mosh pit begins when Goatbag takes the stage.

I don’t think just listening to the band on Myspace or buying one of their CD’s gives you the full experience. They put on a show to be sure, and not only were the guys in the mosh pit in front of the stage digging it, so were these young ladies.

These two young ladies were probably a little sore in the morning.

Goatbag is definitely a band with aggressive, sledgehammer riffs and I can deal with that once in awhile. Because of the sound problems early on I think their show was cut short a little bit. But they seem to be a fairly regular presence at the Monkey Barrel venue and Seaford’s CC-22 club, playing a lot with local bands in a similar vein like Hard$ell and Falling From Failure so it’s not like one couldn’t see them a lot if desired.

Aaaaaah, that was fun. Back to politics tomorrow.

Again it’s a Semiblind sighting

Taking a detour from the political scene…there’s more below if you didn’t see it last night.

Yes, once again tonight one of my favorite local bands makes an appearance on the LiveLixx at Six show on Ocean 98 (98.1 FM). Listen there or you can watch it here.

They also had a good band out of Newark, Delaware last night called Stealing December. After sort of a hiatus over the last couple months with just a few live bands in the studio, it appears the station’s trying to resume having a featured group several times a week.

If you’re not familiar with the LiveLixx format, generally the featured bands will play three to four songs during the hour intersperced with other live songs by established artists and banter between the two DJ’s, BK and Leslie. They’re supporting local and regional music in a great way since the demise of X106.9 so I encourage all of you to listen and check out some good stuff!

I’ll also take this post to mention that I’m now one of the featured local blogs on the WMDT Channel 47 bloglist, so if you’re following a link from their site welcome to monoblogue!

Weekend of local rock volume 8

It’s not a full weekend and it’s a few days past Christmas, nevertheless I went out to Steer Inn last night to enjoy the 12 Bands of Christmas. Today I’ll do the pictures and a little descriptive text for each, later this week when I have more time I’ll come back with more thoughts on the show over on the Myspace site for monoblogue.

First of all, props go to this man:

This guy has put together this event for 10 years now. At the mike is Skip Dixxon of Ocean 98.

There’s not many people who have supported local music like Skip Dixxon. When X106.9 lost his services, it pretty much ended their reign as “the” local music station (and probably hastened their eventual demise as an alternative rock outlet.) Now Ocean 98 is the place where bands go to get airtime and be noticed.

The opening band was one I hadn’t heard before, Melodic Groove. Funky stuff out of Crisfield.

Three-piece band of funk, rock, and a little blues. You pick which is which.

I’ll be linking them on here once I get through with my article. Next up was a band I was somewhat more familiar with, the Aaron Howell Band.

Take one talented musician with a liking for roots rock and add in bass and drums, you get the Aaron Howell Band. Aaron's the guy with the guitar.

His was the second band to start us off with sort of a bluesy classic rock style. But the next band in line kicked things up a notch or three. Meet Another Vicious Cycle:

These folks hammered out about a half-dozen doses of hard stuff.

I’ll go further into this on Myspace, but I saw AVC in one of their first shows and they’ve really put things together since then. After they finished, there was another band I was hearing for the first time.

Slowing things back down a bit, Trailerpark Romeo came across to me as more of a jam band than anything else.

Trailerpark Romeo is a band I wouldn’t mind hearing a little more from. Obviously they’re not as heavy as some of the others but they have a good bar band sound. I’ll be linking to them as well since they hail from Ocean City.

Of course, band number five was a good one.

New drummer, same old great sound from Semiblind.

Yeah, it’s Semiblind with their new drummer. They even played a couple covers I hadn’t heard from them before and did a great job with Sabbath’s “War Pigs.”

Michelle from Semiblind. I think I took this one just as a song that she wasn't singing ended.

As is generally the case I took my gratutitous Michelle shot as well. This one came out halfway decent. I have a second gratuitous shot later, you’ll see why.

Following Semiblind came another staple of local rock, Lower Class Citizens.

Lower Class Citizens rocking out. I thought the 'Keith Richards for President' shirt on the bass player was amusing too.

On their Myspace (it’s linked from here, look to the right) they claim Led Zeppelin as a prime influence and I’m not going to argue with that one bit. There’s more of a classic rock tone to them than there is with most bands.

The OC theme continued with band number 7, Pirate Radio.

Longtime local band Pirate Radio got their set in. Unfortunately, most of my pictures of them didn't come out so hot.

For those of you who were there, Pirate Radio was the band that got Roma (the belly dancer) on the floor. She was actually there advertising classes in tribal bellydance, so I’ll give her a plug. Roma certainly can dance, I’ll give her that. Score a point for unique marketing too. I think she’s why my picture of Pirate Radio was off-center.

Now you’ll notice that I was pretty much able to go where I want for pictures for the first seven bands. Band number eight changed that, they were called Agent 99 and you’ll see just why below.

In this shot, Agent 99 had a guest vocalist. Skip Dixxon is helping out on drums, by the way. And I have no clue what the guy on the right is looking up at.

This band was the one true cover band we had as they played Heart, Skid Row, and Night Ranger songs (among others). I also got gratuitous picture number 2 here, of the bassist – her name is Casey as I found out later.

She isn't quite dressed as black as coal, but she did pretty much stand like Bill Wyman. That reference will probably go right over the head of 99 percent of my readers. Guys like me dig chicks with bass.

The band who probably came the farthest was Skitzo Calypso. They’re from Baltimore but they come down here quite a bit. Last night was probably the third time or so I’ve seen them in my time here and I don’t go that far for shows.

Skitzo Calypso was definitely one of the more active bands on stage, as this shot bears witness to.

Finally, closing out the show was lower case blues. (Yes, there were just 10 bands but they still named it “12 Bands of Christmas” – it’s tradition you know.)

Closing out the show and making it sort of a full circle were the three-piece sounds of lower case blues.

Not surprisingly, they played the blues, but not the slow, sultry kind. A little more uptempo was their set for the most part. They had a few out on the dance floor, which didn’t get a whole lot of use for the bands prior to that (except for Roma). The crowd had thinned some since the departure of Agent 99, but those who remained seemed to dig what they heard.

So ended another marathon show with 10 bands in seven hours. Haven’t gotten word yet, but if the delmarvanightlife.com website is still a profitable enterprise, their anniversary show would fall about the beginning of February and should be the next multiband event locally. However, if you get the opportunity to catch a local band in a soon to be smoke-free bar or other venue near you, go check them out. We have a lot of talent around here as last night demonstrated.

Holiday spirit from Michelle and Jim

Last week I told you my friends from Semiblind were on the Live Lixx radio show. Here’s a song they did to put all of us in a holiday mood. (It may take a moment or two to come up on your particular audio player.)

I’ll have to make a note to myself to repost this on Christmas Eve. In the meantime, enjoy!

Semiblind alert

My friends from Semiblind make their radio re-debut with their new drummer tonight at 6:00 on Ocean 98’s LiveLixx radio program. If you live outside the area from Salisbury east that falls within Ocean 98’s signal (98.1 on the FM dial) you can go to either the Irie Radio website or LiveLixx Myspace site to listen in and even watch.

So I’ll be listening…something tells me they may put their spin on some holiday cheer.

Oh, also, someone needs to take my place in watching them and other good area bands at the Twelve Bands of Christmas show at the Steer Inn in West OC on December 29th. Skip Dixxon didn’t consult with my calendar when he picked the date; otherwise I’d have told him I’ll be out of town! It’s a bummer but parental units are important too.

And yeah, there’s political stuff below, don’t sweat it.

Post-gig edit: Boy, they did a nice job. I told you Michelle could sing.

Weekend of local rock volume 7

No, it’s not this weekend but last weekend. I’ve had such a busy week that I hadn’t made time to put in this post. It’s a “fun” post for a Saturday as opposed to the heavy politics I had all this week.

The particular weekend in question was my birthday weekend (the odometer flipped last Saturday.) So my goal was to see bands on both Friday and Saturday nights. Originally I was going to do the same combo as my last “weekend of local rock” post but plans changed so it turned out I got to see one new band to me, one band I hadn’t seen in awhile, and a double dose of my friends from Semiblind.

It started Friday night up in Seaford at Coyote’s. That was dose number 1 of Semiblind, who sounded great but didn’t have a lot of folks to play to – quite a shame. They only got in a couple of their originals because of that; and while they do justice to a whole range of cover songs I really dig their original stuff. Of course I had my camera Friday night.

The band Semiblind rocking Coyote's back on September 21.

Of course, sitting right up front gave me a chance to capture each of the band members too.

Jim singing and playing his guitar.

Asher churning out the bass notes.

Lynn hammering on his drums. It's hard to get his pic in the back.

Of course, Michelle's up front singing her stuff.

You can catch these guys almost every weekend someplace in Delaware, personally I try to see them when they play in the Seaford area. They’re talented musicians and nice folks as well.

I had planned on sticking around Salisbury to catch Crossroads on Saturday night but the show fell through. Previous to that, I had become aware that Lennex was making a return appearance to their OC stomping grounds as a benefit for the Coastal Bays Program. I didn’t figure out until Friday that it was an all-ages show at Seacrets, thus it was an early evening affair. So I had a brainstorm about doing a fun twofer. It started at Seacrets with two bands, Hot Box and Lennex. (I didn’t get there in time to catch a third area band, Loud Love.)

Hot Box is a group that has a funky sound with a hint of jazz to go with their straight-ahead rock. The Baltimore-area group does come down here quite a bit, next time they’re in the area will be the second weekend of October. I got a couple pictures of them at work, dig the bongo player on the right.

They sing about pretty in pink in the song 'Play On Playa' but look good in blue light.

And a shot from the other side. That wasn't my drink in the shot.

Because it was a benefit show, all three bands were playing for free. But Lennex brought its merch table. I picked up a couple CD’s for my collection and a sticker for my experience board. Forgot to get one for my car though!

A well-stocked merch table - obviously Lennex tries to keep its name out there.

Since they were the main attraction, they drew the better crowd up front. But I still got in a couple decent photos.

Yeah, there were a lot of folks enjoying Phil Ritchie and the band.

I got this picture pretty early on, it was likely my best - certainly blogworthy.

While I don’t have the exact amount, I’m guessing there were maybe 300-400 people in Seacrets, and at $20 a pop plus doing 50/50 drawings, the Coastal Bays folks had to make 5 figures easily from this fundraiser. Lennex is also going to hang around for awhile and they’re well worth checking out too. You never know, they could be the next big thing.

Because the Seacrets show ended about 9:00, this gave me an opportunity to see Semiblind again near their hometown of Millsboro, over in Long Neck, Delaware. They play the Sandbar Tavern there quite a bit and the folks were more plentiful and spirited. I got good birthday wishes from them that night as well. Overall, it made for a pretty good day into night. (I was merciful with Semiblind, figured I had enough pix from the night before.)

So ended another weekend of local rock. It’s the time of year when summer is winding down and the local bands look for places to play and people to appreciate them, so get out tonight or next weekend and support your local music scene!

Salisbury RiverFest 2007 in pictures

Time for me to play photojournalist again and give you something to enjoy on a Sunday evening.

Yesterday I spent the better part of the day at RiverFest. Here’s a little of what you missed if you didn’t go.

A view looking down the Wicomico toward Brew River.

This was the fourth annual event. Obviously I wasn’t here to see the Salisbury Festival during its inception and formative years but RiverFest certainly doesn’t have the participation or the crowds that the springtime Salisbury Festival has. This despite the fact both are sponsored by the same group – the Salisbury Chamber of Commerce. In RiverFest’s case, there’s a little more of an environmental focus, like this trailer:

This trailer purported to be Wetlands on Wheels. Don't recall seeing it at RiverFest last year.

While I didn’t get a blog-sized photo of their setup, rest assured the Chesapeake Bay Foundation was present. They were running the boat rides up and down the Wicomico River (it’s their boat on the left in the top picture above.) That was a popular event as each ride sold out pretty quickly. That was one thing I didn’t do that I would have liked.

But I did get my classic car fix. This was just one of the beauties they had there.

I think this is a 1955 Ford Thunderbird - hell, that was before my time. Sweet looking ride though.

The Wheels that Heal classic car club is a regular participant in events like these. With over 80 cars there, it showed that a lot of people are interested in preserving Detroit’s heritage, not to mention in this case helping out the Maryland Food Bank.

There were a lot of antique and trinket shops open along the Plaza downtown. Unfortunately as you can see, I’m not sure it did them much good.

Looking east along the Main Street Plaza. I believe I took this photo about 1:30 or so. You can see one of Salisbury's finest in the photo on the left.

Looking west along the Main Street Plaza, I took this picture about noontime.

Even the jazz trio that was playing at the time I walked through wasn’t drawing a crowd. But it did make for one of my favorite photos of the event.

These guys were playing nice jazzy tunes, but not many were about to enjoy them.

Speaking of music, the booth where I spent the majority of my day was placed in such a manner that we had the giant inflatable slide between us and the stage. So I didn’t really get to hear a lot from the various bands that were there. When I took my break, I did walk over and caught a song or so from two of them, along with the picture.

Hotline played covers of classic rock and pop songs.

This band is called Boats to Tangier. From what I heard they have a very eclectic influence and sound to them, sort of alternative.

I thought it was pretty funny how they had the stage set up, just worked the bands down from one end to the other.

Where I was situated most of the day was the area of the stage and rides, the little field at the corner of Main and Lake Streets. This is a shot of some of the other booths there.

Here's a sampling of some of the booths lined up toward Lake Street. We had a little traffic during the day, but nothing like Salisbury Festival and the booths on Main Street.

Of course, one would guess if they attended which booth I worked at.

The Wicomico Republicans represented at the RiverFest.

Gilchrest on the left, Harris on the right. Appropriate, don’t you think? No, we really didn’t plan it that way, it just happened.

If I recall correctly, last year the Democrats also had a booth but this time they were no-shows unless of course you count the radical environmentalists who vote that way if there’s no one from the Green Party on the ballot.

Regardless, most of what we had on our table were holdovers from the Farm and Home Show booth we had, with the exception of the Ron Paul items in the middle. In the photo, the Paul cards are being held down by the pile of pens next to the basket of suckers. We generally joke that it’s how we represent the Democrats.

Some of the political wares we were pressing.

There are two other observations I’d like to share about the event. There were a few who complained that there wasn’t much in the way of publicity for RiverFest. Because we were in last year’s event, we were contacted but there wasn’t the big push in the media that I’m aware of. Even Joe Albero wasn’t at the event too long, although apparently he found a more important event to cover. I did see one of the news channels taking shots at RiverFest as well, they were shooting where the Segway demos were occurring.

I do want to thank those who helped out with our booth at the event. Gail, George, Dave, Bob, Dustin, John – I appreciate your assistance. Be ready for the Autumn Wine Festival! I also want to thank again the gentleman who complemented me on monoblogue, even though he is a confirmed Democrat. We can change that you know.

So another RiverFest is in the books. I think they did have a little better attendance and support than last year, but whether the Chamber of Commerce wants to maintain an event which probably isn’t a moneymaker remains to be seen.

Radio days volume 7

Just a quick post this evening. I can’t say I did too badly for having about 5 hours of sleep last night which is why this will be a quick post! I think I only talked in a circle once and Bill gently pulled me out of the vortex.

Besides the Harris campaign and its impact on the blog scene, I also was pleased to talk about some of the other things I enjoy blogging about like the Shorebirds and local bands. In fact, it’s unrelated to the topic at hand but tomorrow is the day my friends from Semiblind return to “Live Lixx at Six”. That’s 6:00 tomorrow night, Ocean 98 (98.1 FM) locally, anywhere else (or to watch the video feed online) go here. Wanted to give them a shout while I was thinking about it.

And I got my plug in for the upcoming Wicomico County Republican Straw Poll. Guess I should’ve mentioned the Crab Feast too but I’d like to fill the room for the Straw Poll and show everyone the GOP is alive and well in Wicomico County.

As always thanks to Bill for asking me to appear and hopefully I’ll get another chance at it pretty soon! I still haven’t quite lost that thrill of getting that opportunity to get my points across to a hopefully receptive audience.

Weekend of local rock volume 6

Today’s a good day to take a break from politics. It’s been about 4 months since I had one of these posts and to be honest I cheated a bit since the Friday I rocked out to Semiblind and the Saturday I got to see Crossroads jam weren’t consecutive…but consecutive weekends, close enough for government work.

We’ll start by talking up my friends from Semiblind. They rocked Ponzetti’s in OC a week ago Friday.

Jim on guitar, Michelle singing, and Lynn on drums. I didn't forget Asher on bass, he's in the next shot down.

Lynn on drums and Asher on bass provide a formidable rhythm section.

It’s hard to describe why I like Semiblind as I do. I guess part of it is that they’re genuinely nice folks and the other part is I like their sound. It doesn’t come across as slickly packaged, they’re just an entertaining band that does a mix of good classic and alternative rock with outstanding originals. I use one as my Myspace song called “The Box I’m In.” Ok, you got me. Michelle is good looking and can sing!

Truly they are a talented group that I wish would gain more of a following. You do get a chance to hear some of their stuff on their Myspace page I link to as well as another appearance on the “Live Lixx at Six” radio show on Ocean 98 (98.1 FM). That will be on Wednesday, September 5th.

I got a message from Jim after I saw them at Ponzetti’s because I told them I’ll see them again on my birthday weekend. (This is assuming Coyote’s doesn’t cancel ANOTHER show.) Actually, I’d be interested to know how many original songs Semiblind has on their overall playlist – play ‘em all because they’re great! Yeah, you folks do a lot of great covers but I love the originals. I realize it’s a lot tougher for you to write a song than it is for me to write a post but you’ve done well with the ones I’ve heard.

Another band that makes its living off doing some seriously smokin’ covers is Crossroads, who I saw on Saturday night here in Salisbury at the Cactus Club. If you like Southern rock and blues, you’ll like Crossroads.

Crossroads jamming at the Cactus Club last Saturday night.

Now I hadn’t seen them before and I found out about them by their request. Their singer and guitarist, Doug Bounds, is a monoblogue fan (thanks Doug!) and asked me to link to them in my “local rock” link section. So I did after checking out the site and then made an effort to catch one of their shows. And after they ripped through their opener of covering Molly Hatchet and ZZ Top tunes I didn’t regret stopping by.

While I’ve only seen the band once, I’m betting that Crossroads has a pretty loyal fan base that’s built up over time. All four guys are veterans of a number of local bands and have gotten to a point where they’re comfortable in their style and just enjoy bashing out a few of their old favorites every weekend. Their fun is putting a few twists here and there on the old standbys and exhibiting their talent by playing them well.

I enjoyed seeing both bands over the last two weekends. But while I’m on the subject of the local music scene, I need to go into a rant.

In late July, events sealed the eventual doom of a good outlet for local rock bands to have their music played. The station known as X106.9 (WRXS-FM) was sold to the company that owns public radio outlets in Baltimore (WYPR-FM) and Frederick (WYPF-FM) and its current alternative rock format will be no more after Friday. Of course, that also ends the weekly hourlong show X106.9 had that featured local bands and also concludes their sponsorship of shows at the Monkey Barrel here in Salisbury on Friday nights. (However, that may continue without the benefit of X106.9 giving them publicity since TMB is right across from SU and draws a good college crowd.)

(By the way, in reposting this I found a Daily Times article discussing the sale as well.)

So local music is essentially down to one radio outlet, the aforementioned “Live Lixx at Six” on Ocean 98. And maybe it’s my imagination, but it seemed like this summer there were more venues who featured a DJ at the expense of live original local music. Do me a favor, save the DJ’s for weddings and give me a band to see. Why do I want to hear the same tunes I hear 300 times on the radio with blather between the songs? Even if the band does covers of familiar tunes, they do put a different stamp on the songs and that’s more entertaining to me.

If I wanted to support a guy who spins CD’s for a living I’d link to them. Instead, two things I thought were great about Delmarva when I first moved here were the local bands and all the support they got from local radio (and other venues like the Shorebirds) – but that support has all but petered out now with the acquisition of WRXS. (Yeah, like we need more NPR here. Bleah!)

With the end of the Pennsyltuckian tourist season and college kids getting back to school, hopefully my summer lull in the “Weekend of local rock” series will also come to an end. As long as there’s a band I like playing in a place and time that works for me, I will be there and I’ll keep posting on them.

A shout out to friends old and new

(Crossposted here and on the monoblogue Myspace site.) 

I’m pretty much taking a night off from politics for some other stuff. Trust me, I have plenty of political items to delve into this week. And to true political junkies, the payoff comes at the end of the post, so bear with me.

I haven’t been out following the local music scene as much as I’d like to have been, for a host of reasons. But I did want to put in a word for my friends from Semiblind, who will be the subject of a local music show Tuesday night, 7:00, on X106.9, prior to their show at Buxy’s Salty Dog Saloon in OC (with Pirate Radio.) Generally the subject band comes in for an hour and has some of their songs played. Not sure if they’ll be playing live in the studio or not. (The various members of Semiblind read the site sometimes, maybe Michelle, Jim, Asher, or Lynn can clue me in.)

If you go to their Myspace site I link to above, they have a nice blend of two originals and two covers on their little jukebox.

Perhaps someone in the know can also help me to find out if there’s any other outdoor venues in the Salisbury area. I know Brew River has a deck that bands play on – is that the only one in Salisbury? I like outdoor shows in the summer, although I’m thinking about making an exception next Monday for the hair metal group Skid Row – they’re coming to Seacrets in OC with opening act Baltimore-area rockers Skitzo Calypso.

And now for something completely different…

The other night I got to meet a guy whose cap I bought right off his head. Last Thursday the Friends of Lee Levis did a hat auction as the Shorebirds wore special red caps for the occasion. Turned out I was the high bidder for Kimera Bartee’s cap.

If you see me at the Shorebirds games, you know I wear my Detroit Tigers road cap to most of them. For parts of four seasons in the late 1990’s, Kimera Bartee patrolled center field in old Tiger Stadium. (He also played briefly with the Reds and Rockies in 2000-01.) Back in 1993 Bartee was an Orioles draftee, though, and he’s been involved in trades for a couple notable players – dealt to Minnesota by Baltimore for onetime O’s pitcher Scott Erickson and between the Rockies and Angels for current Angels infielder Chone Figgins. Now Bartee has come full circle and returned to his original baseball home.

So of course I was going to bid for his cap, and I’ll be sporting it for selected games the rest of the season. “KB” is a pretty nice guy and I sometimes see him with his kids prior to the games. He’s a good addition to the Delmarva area, and while you hope he can move up the ladder in his coaching career, you hate to lose a guy like him in the community.

Okay, one other Crisfield note as I slide back to politics for a little bit.

I got to meet a fellow blogger by the name of Mike Netherland along with his dad Bob. He’s a good guy, and he did a several-part video interview with First Congressional District hopeful Andy Harris on nuclear power, energy independence, health insurance, and on being a Republican. They’re all relatively short (less than a minute each) and worth seeing.