Come around here some more

We're cursing ourselves for missing Tom Petty's tour stop at Summerfest. The Heartbreakers by all accounts are delivering the goods this summer in support of their new album Mojo, splicing in a handful of fresh songs as an "interlude" to the classic jam most fans come to hear.

We are often guilty of bemoaning the demise of rock 'n' roll and yet here in our midst we have practitioners of the highest order.  Seriously folks, is there a better rock band in America these days?

Any live show featuring the Heartbreakers is worth its weight in rock amperage, so see them this summer if you have the opportunity. If you're lucky you'll catch them with the Drive-By Truckers (ZZ Top opened in Milwaukee, and Crosby, Stills and Nash and My Morning Jacket are slated later in the tour.) 

Here's the set list from last Friday's sold-out show at the Marcus Amphitheater, which pretty much tracks other shows on the tour.  (Songs from Mojo are in italics; the Sanctuary's review of the disc is forthcoming):

Listen To Her Heart
You Don't Know How It Feels
I Won't Back Down
Free Fallin'
Oh Well
Mary Jane's Last Dance
Drivin' Down To Georgia
Breakdown
Jefferson Jericho Blues
Good Enough
Running Man's Bible
I Should Have Known It
Learning To Fly
Don't Come Around Here No More
Refugee

Encore:
Runnin' Down A Dream
Mystic Eyes
American Girl

Not your grandma's foxtrot

Have we really been rockin' this long?

Bill Haley's "(We're Gonna) Rock Around the Clock" became the No. 1 song on this day in 1955 and stayed there for eight revolutionary weeks. Good golly Miss Molly!

Originally recorded by Sonny Dae (we once knew a weather forecaster by that name) and his Nights, Haley took the song and pretty much ripped the balls off it. But it wasn't until producers of Blackboard Jungle decided to include it in the movie that the song became an anthem for American youth.

Not even the record company knew what to call the song it pressed on the other side of Haley's single "Thirteen Women."  Decca called it a Foxtrot with "Vocal Chorus by Bill Haley."

Rock 'n' roll and dacron polyester were born in the same year.  What do you make of it?

And all you gotta do is ...

It was Alvis Edgar Owens' first No. 1 song and it ruled the country charts on this day in 1963.

Folks who listened to "Act Naturally" back then were getting an early taste of the Bakersfield sound that Buck Owens would make famous with the Buckaroos and those twangy twin Telecasters. The song and the movement strongly influenced bands of many genres, but especially the evolving rock scene.  Two years later Ringo sang a cover on the Beatles' flip side of "Yesterday." And years later the Rolling Stones gave it a nod on "Faraway Eyes" with Mick Jagger drawling the famous intro:

I was driving home early Sunday morning through Bakersfield...

If you don't like twangy country you may never appreciate bands like the Buckaroos and Merle Haggard and the Strangers. And that's okay. But you know where we stand on twang here at the Sanctuary. We love Buck Owens BECAUSE he was the biggest fool to ever hit the big time. All he had to do was act naturally.

You know what we'll be playing as we're driving to work early Monday morning through Brookfield...

It's all about perspective

WHITEHALL, WIS. -- We used to fish beside him when the spring runoffs turned the Trempealeau River into a wild and productive stream. Fish of every imaginable species -- northern pike, walleyes, trout, catfish, large and smallmouth bass, sunnies, carp and suckers -- would run upstream until they were stopped by the gates of the Whitehall Dam.

The boy, a few years older than us, would stand on the sandbar among the mass of casting rods propped up by V-shaped tree branches and reel fish from the roiling waters. Lots of fish. Mostly rough fish -- there were so many spawning carp and suckers you could almost cross the river on their backs. But occasionally a big northern or a giant catfish would put up a good long fight, often tangling itself in other fishing lines. At least that is our memory of those late spring days along the once mighty Trempealeau.

We saw him the other day, still a resident of our small hometown, sipping a cola beside our draft beer in a local watering hole. This town has never known a traffic light and lost a bit of its soul years ago when the historic "city" hall on Main Street met up with a wrecking ball.  The coffee shop just reopened under new management and a promising new meat market has opened on Scranton Street, but the best place to bump into someone you might remember is still the tavern.

He had come into the bar from the cemetery, having fired one of the rifles at the military burial service.  But his day was not done.  "They need some flags tonight at the Relay For Life," he said. So he would be toting his rifle up to the high school track where he would march one honorary lap with a few comrades from the local American Legion Post. And that would be that.

We talked about fishing and the old days until he finished his cola and it was time for him to leave. "I gotta get out of this rat race for a few days," he said as he left.

Requiem for Swede

Time is a jet plane
It moves too fast...

I awakened this morning to the crowing of a rooster and I knew I was at my sister's place in Whitehall, where just a few weeks ago we gathered as a family on Memorial Day to remember those who serve in the military, of course, but more importantly to celebrate the bond of family.

And today we bury a dear family member and a true hero. Uncle Swede, who enjoyed that glorious recent afternoon with the rest of us, left quite suddenly the other day after suffering a heart attack.  He was famously stubborn to the end, refusing to be taken to the hospital by ambulance which allowed him to spend his final lucid minutes with Aunt Iva, who apparently is quite a driver.

Swede will have a proper military burial today, as you would expect for a man who served in Europe during World War II and returned with the sword of a German officer.  They found that sword in the garage this week, along with a German helmet, which reminded us again the monumental task these men faced. How sweet were the spoils of victory?  My uncle never said.

Swede also came home with a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star.  He never talked about those, either. Our real heroes, even after so many years, leave us too soon, leave us to wonder...

Making hay with the Heywoods

KBILLY's Super Sounds of the Seventies continues. We just heard "The World is a Ghetto" by War, and "Billy Don't Be A Hero" by Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods. And if you're the 12th caller you'll win two tickets to the monster truck extravaganza being held tonight at the Carson Fairgrounds, featuring Big Daddy Don Bodean's truck, "The Bohemoth". The 12th caller wins, on the station where the 70s survived, KBILLY.

How clever was that for Quentin Tarantino to reference the Bo Donaldson song "Billy Don't Be a Hero" without actually including the music in his fabulous Reservoir Dogs soundtrack?  "Billy" (unlike "The World is a Ghetto") was just a little too gummy for our tastes, but every word that came out of Steven Wright's deadpan voice was hilarious in the movie.

Even without our support "Billy" sold more than 3 million copies and became Billboard's No. 1 song for two weeks beginning on this day in 1974.  Here was your Top 5:

1. Billy Don't Be a Hero, Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods
2. You Make Me Feel Brand New, Stylistics
3. Sundown, Gordon Lightfoot
4. The Streak, Ray Stevens
5. Band on the Run, Paul McCartney and Wings

Despite the popular belief that "Billy" referenced the Vietnam War the lyrics were fact written about the Civil War.  But if you're lucky enough to score a Gold Record there's no reason to quibble over details.

All you need is ... $1.2 million

I read the news today, oh boy

Here they are, the lyrics to "A Day in the Life" written by John Lennon in 1967.

They sold recently at a Sotheby's auction for $1.2 million, well above the pre-auction estimate of $500,000-700,000, but just under the record for handwritten lyrics from the pen of a Beatle.  In 2005 "All You Need Is Love" sold for $1.25 mil.

You might not be John Lennon or Paul McCartney, but you are saving all your lyrics and scribbles, right?  You just never know.  The "A Day in the Life" lyrics were once in the hands of Beatles road manager Mal Evans.

We still have the handwritten poem "If I Had a Go-Kart" from fifth grade, not because we expect to sell it one day for a large sum and build a log home in some secluded coulee.  We just can't bring ourselves to part with stuff like that. Paper doesn't take up that much space, and childhood writing projects remind us that our penmanship was actually once decipherable.

We've also been known to snag playlists taped to stage floors after concerts, mostly so we can wake up the next morning and be reminded what the artist played the night before.