recommended gigs

Thursday Nov 29 - Atomic Jukebox at the Double Down with live music by the Pluralses and Cadaver Pudding

Friday Nov 30 - the New Waves at the Golden Tiki
Friday Nov 30 - 68 (the band) with The Devil Wears Prada and Fit For a King at Vinyl
Friday Nov 30 - Stagnetti's Cock at the Double Down

Saturday Dec 1 - the return of the Holy Smokes with The Swamp Gospel  and No Que No at the Double Down
Saturday Dec 1 - Retro Carnival from 11 am - 5 pm at Rockin Bettie with Shanda and the Howlers, Pyro Surfers, Cherry Rat, Tiki Bandits and Los Carajos

Monday Dec 3 - Jeffrey Koenig and the Bluez Angels at the Summit at Sun City Summerlin
Monday Dec 3 - Thee Swank Bastards at the Golden Tiki

Wednesday Dec 5 - Franks'n'Deans Weenie Roast with Three Rounds at the Double Down

Friday Dec 7 - The Gentlemen of Four Outs at the Huntridge Tavern
Friday Dec 7 - Redd Kross at the Beauty Bar

Sunday Dec 9 - Shanda and the Howlers and Squirrel Nut Zippers at Brooklyn Bowl

Thursday Dec 13 - Whiskey Breath, Michael Louis Austin, Russell Christian at Artifice
Thursday Dec 13 - TV Party Tonight at the Double Down showing Serial Mom with live music by the Negative Nancys

Friday Dec 14 - the Rhyolite Sound and the All Togethers with Paige Overton at 172 at the Rio
Friday Dec 14 - the New Waves at the Golden Tiki

Saturday Dec 15 - Daikaiju, Shieks of Neptune at the Dive Bar
Saturday Dec 15 - Doyle Von Frankenstein at the Beauty Bar
Saturday Dec 15 - the Unwieldies with Jeff Mix at the Huntridge Tavern

Sunday Dec 16 - the Reeves Brothers with Shanda and the Howlers at 172

Friday Dec 21 - Le Dominiki, the Unwieldies, the Hideaway at Evel Pie

Friday Dec 28 - the Implosions, Jerk, the Maxies at Evel Pie

Mon Dec 31 - Tenacious D at the Joint at the Hard Rock

Friday Jan 11 - the Dickies with Monster Zero at 172

Wednesday Jan 16 - Mustard Plug and the Phenomenauts at the Beauty Bar

Jan 17,18,19,24,25,26 and Feb 7,8,9 - Puddles Pity Party at Cleopatra's Barge at Caesar's Palace

Friday Jan 18 - 5,6,7,8's with Shanda and the Howlers at Fremont Country Club

Saturday Jan 26  - the Gentlemen of Four Outs at the Golden Tiki

Saturday Feb 9 - The Swamp Gospel with the Implosions at the Huntridge Tavern

Tues Feb 12 - Nashville Pussy at Triple B

Saturday Mar 9 - the Swamp Gospel with the Peculiar Pretzelmen at the Golden Tiki

What have I forgotten? Lemme know

Fortunate Son - John Fogerty

Fogerty was, of course, the lead singer/lead guitarist for Creedence Clearwater Revival and has also enjoyed a successful solo career. In this, his autobiography, you get his viewpoint on the contentious ride of CCR and its aftermath as well as lots of personal insights.

As the book starts, he spends a good amount of time on his younger days, where he really grew to love music and where he became interested in the technical side - recording, engineering, production - as well as the musical side. He worked hard on his vocals as well as his guitar (and some keyboard work) and worked with several groups. Naturally, there was a lot of instrumental projects in the early days, since that was the fad at the time, but with the advent of the Beatles, vocals were essential. He dug the early American rock'n'roll, as well, and puts in a special mention of the Sonics and Paul Revere and the Raiders!

There were a couple of bands that he joined previous to the formation of CCR (who had at least two previous names, including the Golliwogs, which was used on their earliest recordings), and he did not start as the singer, but his ambition and talent put him in the forefront. He obviously - and famously - has bad blood between him and the other members and he responds to some of their accusations in this book and makes accusations of his own. He has little good to say about any of the other guys and continually complains about their lack of talent and the fact - in his eyes - that he had to show them what to play on guitar, bass and drums. Of course, a bad contract signed by inexperienced youngsters add to the animosity that he shows in the book.

Regardless, I do enjoy reading about his songwriting style and where ideas for some of his most famous numbers came from. He is rightfully proud of his accomplishments but he does border on braggadocio at times. He also gets a bit long-winded here'n'there (about things like hunting - does anyone really care?) and he does gripe'n'grumble quite a bit. He got screwed, for sure, but the book dwells on it - a LOT. Even writing about the CCR days, which should have been the best part of his life, he was bitter and angry and only got more so after the band broke up and he spent decades like this. I'm not sure how he made it through it all and really don't know how his wife handled it. It's kinda funny - she will talk about how wonderful he was and how helpful with the kids and all that and in the next breath say that it was the worst time of their lives and she almost left him. It sounds like he basically had a undiagnosed nervous breakdown.

But, even though he never truly rights the injustices done to him, he does come to terms with it all and, with plenty of help from his wife (he has her co-write part of the book), he sounds like he has adjusted and is even reasonably happy. Nice to hear after 300-some pages of misery.

I wouldn't say that this was an enjoyable read, but it does give a good indication of the man behind the songs. CCR will always remain an important part of my life and the melancholy is all part of the story.

Basstravaganza VI at the Double Down, Wednesday, November 21, 2018

One of Vegas' favorite holiday traditions is the Double Down Saloon's anniversary weekend that kicks off with Basstravaganza - Thee Swank Bastards' Jesse Del Quadro hosting a night of surf music with as many bass players as the number of years the DD has been around. This year was 26 bassists, 4 drummers, one drunken MC (thank you, Professor Rex Dart!) and plenty of audience participation and hijinks!

Almost every band in Las Vegas is represented (or at least every band that plays at the Double Down) and Jesse puts everyone through their surf-y paces and keeps everyone on their toes with his individualistic arrangements (which, as I found out, might change at any time). Everyone has to tell a bad joke, as well - a Swank Bastard tradition - and most everyone got into the spirit by wearing a variation on the Bastards's uniform of black suit and tie with a white shirt.

A good time is always had by all and the night culminates with every bassist joining together for a version of Spinal Tap's "Big Bottom", in a merrily anarchistic fashion.

Thank you Jesse for hosting the night and inviting so many terrific players to participate (besides inviting some of the best bass players in town, Jesse has helped many fledgling musicians to become solid bassists, and has the backing of some of the town's best drummers) and thank you to Moss and the Double Down for 26 crazy years as the best dive bar in Vegas!

(I tried to take a photo of everyone - sorry if I missed anybody and I apologize that some photos are not as good as others - I am still not a real photographer).

recommended gigs

Wednesday Nov 21 - Basstravaganza at the Double Down
Wednesday Nov 21 - Delta Bombers, Shanda and the Howlers, Cherry Rat at the Beauty Bar
Wednesday Nov 21 - the Heiz at the Sand Dollar

Thursday Nov 22 - Goldtop Bob at the Double Down

Friday Nov 23 - the Heiz with Stagnetti's Cock, the Pluralses, Three Rounds and Deaddolls at the Double Down

Saturday Nov 24 - the Heiz, the Psyatics, People's Whiskey, Negative Nancys at the Double Down
Saturday Nov 24 - Stagnetti's Cock at Evel Pie

Sunday Nov 25 - Ubershall, Franks'n'Deans, Los Carajos at the Double Down

Monday Nov 26 - Thee Swank Bastards at the Golden Tiki

Thursday Nov 29 - Atomic Jukebox at the Double Down with live music by the Pluralses and Cadaver Pudding

Friday Nov 30 - the New Waves at the Golden Tiki
Friday Nov 30 - 68 (the band) with The Devil Wears Prada and Fit For a King at Vinyl
Friday Nov 30 - Stagnetti's Cock at the Double Down

Saturday Dec 1 - the return of the Holy Smokes with The Swamp Gospel  and No Que No at the Double Down
Saturday Dec 1 - Retro Carnival from 11 am - 5 pm at Rockin Bettie with Shanda and the Howlers, Pyro Surfers, Cherry Rat, Tiki Bandits and Los Carajos

Monday Dec 3 - Jeffrey Koenig and the Bluez Angels at the Summit at Sun City Summerlin

Friday Dec 7 - The Gentlemen of Four Outs at the Huntridge Tavern
Friday Dec 7 - Redd Kross at the Beauty Bar

Thursday Dec 13 - Whiskey Breath, Michael Louis Austin, Russell Christian at Artifice

Friday Dec 14 - the Rhyolite Sound and the All Togethers with Paige Overton at 172 at the Rio

Saturday Dec 15 - Daikaiju, Shieks of Neptune at the Dive Bar
Saturday Dec 15 - Doyle Von Frankenstein at the Beauty Bar

Sunday Dec 16 - the Reeves Brothers with Shanda and the Howlers at 172

Friday Dec 21 - Le Dominiki, the Unwieldies, the Hideaway at Evel Pie

Friday Dec 28 - the Implosions, Jerk, the Maxies at Evel Pie

Mon Dec 31 - Tenacious D at the Joint at the Hard Rock

Friday Jan 11 - the Dickies with Monster Zero at 172

Wednesday Jan 16 - Mustard Plug and the Phenomenauts at the Beauty Bar

Jan 17,18,19,24,25,26 and Feb 7,8,9 - Puddles Pity Party at Cleopatra's Barge at Caesar's Palace

Friday Jan 18 - 5,6,7,8's with Shanda and the Howlers at Fremont Country Club

Saturday Feb 9 - The Swamp Gospel with the Implosions at the Huntridge Tavern

Tues Feb 12 - Nashville Pussy at Triple B

Saturday Mar 9 - the Swamp Gospel with the Peculiar Pretzelmen at the Golden Tiki

What have I forgotten? Lemme know

Creedence Clearwater Revival - Mardi Gras

This, the final outing for the band, came after a comparatively long dormant period for them. They had been putting out 2 or 3 albums a years but after Pendulum, it took over a year for this to be released. Bassist Stu and drummer Doug were unhappy with John's leadership role and demanded a chance to add their own songwriting to the mix, despite John's reservations. The result is varied and not totally successful, which is not surprising as John had been the sole arbitrator of the CCR sound up until this time. It is interesting to note that Wikipedia's description of this record and this time in the band's career differs wildly from John's in his book.

In any case, the record opens with a somewhat nondescript C&W outing from John (complete with pedal steel guitar), "Looking For a Reason" followed by Stu's first foray, "Take It Like a Friend", which is truly dispensable - not terrible (although his vocals do leave something to be desired), but obviously not up to the usual CCR standards. Stu and Doug join forces for "Need Someone to Hold", which does sound a bit more like something John would have written and is more substantial and Doug's lead vocals are a big improvement over Stu's - the harmonies are nice, as well. Doug gives us a pretty straight-forward, Johnny Cash-like country number in "Tearin' Up the Country" before John's "wistful swan song", the lovely "Someday Never Comes".

"What Are You Gonna Do" is another offering from Doug, a melodic, blues-pop tune with some good guitar work (I'm assuming from John, but apparently Stu played some lead on this record, as well), but not a lot else. Stu's voice is so weak and strained that it is distracting, so "Sail Away" fails, and then John is back for a pretty straightforward take on "Hello Mary Lou" in which he succeeds with some classic James Burton finger-pickin' leads. Stu's derivitive "Door to Door" isn't bad and suits his voice better, but might have worked with a stronger singer, but they pull out all of the stops for the closer, one of John's most potent blues rockers, "Sweet Hitchhiker" - a fantastic finale for the record and the band.

It's sad that personal issues caused this classic band to devolve, but it happens all too often. Unfortunately, other than the powerful, double sided single, there is not a lot on this record to recommend.

Creedence Clearwater Revival - Pendulum

Yes, I've been on a CCR kick as I have been reading Fogerty's autobiography (more on that when I have finished it). This was their second to last album and the final one with John's brother Tom, who left for a solo career as the band was already splintering at this point. Regardless, it is still a fine piece of work by the band.

A first for here is the concentration on extra instruments, including keyboards (by John and bassist Stu) and horns (all played by John), and a lack of any covers songs - the first time that all songs were written by Fogerty.

One of my many faves, "Pagan Baby" opens the record with a rockin' blast of traditional Fogerty swampy-blues-rock sounds with a hip jam at the end, giving no indication of the changes to follow. "Sailor's Lament", though, is a quieter, keyboard-laden song, that somehow does sound like the sea, with its melodic, harmony-driven call'n'answer tune - and here John adds a sax solo. Maybe not one of their best, but an interesting tangent from their usual music. They pull off a funky, soulful Stax-like number in "Chameleon", with John providing an entire horn section to great effect, followed by another huge hit, the ballad "Have You Ever Seen the Rain", which is highlighted by the addition of piano and organ, which adds to its plaintive sounds. Side one of the vinyl concludes with the mournful, organ-filled lament "(Wish I Could) Hideaway".

Flip over the record and another upbeat, horns'n'keys funky groove dominates "Born To Move" that turns into a Booker T and the MG's-styled jam before we get the big rockin' smash from the record, "Hey Tonight", another more typical CCR r'n'r classic. John gets sweetly moody again (with more nice organ work) in "It's Just a Thought", "Molina" is somewhat lightweight, but another more typical slice of CCR (although with keys and sax), and then the finale is a big departure for them - an instrumental described as "avant garde psychedelia", it starts with an almost classical phrase, that adds a rock beat and then fades into a sound experiment and random noise, something they never did before or after.

Looking back, it seems apparent that there were changes going on within the band, but despite its flaws, this is, overall, a strong record. Certainly not their best, but interesting work and if they had not fallen apart, this might have indicated a cool, new-ish direction that they could have followed.

Ghost at the Joint at the Hard Rock, Saturday Nov 17, 2018

A number of months ago we were sitting around feeling bored and somehow came across the band Ghost. They looked pretty entertaining and we were looking for something different to do, so when we discovered that they would be playing in Vegas, we bought some reasonably priced tickets for this show at the Joint, still not knowing very much about them, other than what we had read on line.

We learned that they had recently won a Grammy - and we had never (knowingly) seen a Grammy winner before - so we wondered what the audience would be like. It turns out it was very diverse, with lots of people our age or older mixing with the younger doom metal crowd and even younger teenage, dyed-hair cliques and Wednesday look-alikes and still younger toddlers in face make up!

We had hoped for a spectacle of some sort and it certainly was, although with plenty of surprises. A big stage set-up and faux-stained-glass backdrop was accented with a fabulous light show and the backing musicians ("Ghouls") were all anonymous in black outfits and masks while the singer Tobias played MC and donned numerous costumes throughout the set. There were innumerable rock cliches (purposefully) dropped in and countless chants of "Vegas! Are you with us?!" right from the start, so we soon realized that this was not going to be an overly serious outing, despite lyrics referencing "idolatry", "suffer the little children", "sacrifice", "ritual" and other demonic rants.

Musically, it was somewhat heavy, although cut with keyboards (2 female players whose sounds ranged from church organ to synths), but with 3 guitarists - 2 up front and one in the back helping with backing vocals - and bass and drums (the drummer was the most proficient musician). The were an immense amount of choral-like vocals, which was reminiscent of both horror movies and queen, which when added to the keys gave a grand effect.

Visually, they were a LOT sillier than we ever expected with one of the guitarists acting a total cut-up throughout the entire show, Tobias standing next to the guitarist when he would do a lead and asking the audience to applaud, a completely goofy guitar "duel" and several monologues by Tobias acting the MC and comedian (one intro he started talking about taints!). He was also a terrific front man, with moves that reminded us of Bob Fosse (All That Jazz and Cabaret) and costumes that ranged from a pseudo tux to an incense-swinging cardinal to a Dave Vanian cape.

There was an acoustic segment, a decked-out sax-man appearance, confetti and an appropriate Roky Erickson cover - "If You Have Ghosts", although it wasn't as good as Roky's, unfortunately. 

Especially considering how little we knew about the group before the show, and the fact that the show was over 2-1/2 hours (with an intermission!), we had a terrific time and were highly entertained. The Joint is set up well with good sight-lines and our balcony seats had a great view. I know a lot of people cannot deal with the fact that Ghost mixes genres, but since we're not big doom metal (or whatever) fans, that didn't bother us at all. I would highly recommend this fun and funny show!

Southern Culture on the Skids with Paige Overton at the Bunkhouse, Thursday Nov 15th, 2018

I admit that during their hey-day, I thought that SCOTS were a bit too goofy/gimmicky for my tastes and I really didn't give them much of a chance. These days, I guess I don't have as much of a stick up my butt, and I think they have toned down the goofiness - other than their lyrics - and are simply a hip, swampy, surf/country/blues rock'n'roll band that is here to entertain you.

Opening the night was Paige Overton of Clydesdale (I do not know if the band still exists, but they were a fun time when they did) accompanying herself on her electric Gretsch guitar, performing her own folk oriented tunes. She has a fine voice and some interesting Dylan-esque material for a quiet start to the evening.

Quite the contrast, SCOTS came out and proceeded to tear up the stage and put on a show with their own brand of stripped down rock'n'roll featuring a stand up drummer (Dave, who was excellent and very creative despite the limitations of his kit - the cowbell was prominent in a number of songs to good effect), a tremelo'd Dan Electro guitar and a groovin' bass. Their album Dirt Track Date still seems to be their most popular outing and they highlighted a number of songs from that, along with some newer tunes (which they describe as more folk/psych, but is really not that much of a deviation for them), and a mix of older numbers and covers. Bassist Mary took lead vocals for their swingin' takes on "Nitty Gritty" and "Daddy Was a Preacher" (she has a terrific voice for this type of music) and otherwise guitarist Rick was front'n'certer with plenty of finger pickin' and stacatto guitar licks and white-trash-laced songs. Lots of audience interaction with a number a people joining them to dance on stage, including a couple of talented females who brought more than one outfit and obviously knew the band, but also obvious tourists who just ended up at the bar, apparently with no idea of what was going to happen. Fried chicken was shared during "Eight Piece Box", they got funky with "Soul City", went honky-tonkin' with some C&W tunes and pulled off some excellent reverb-drenched surf numbers.

The show was a blast, everyone had a good time and joined in the mayhem and the band was excellent throughout, as well. I had heard the SCOTS had a bad experience in the past in Las Vegas, so I'm glad they gave us another chance. Hope to see them back here!