Paul's Web Space 2.1

Guitar Heaven

A couple weeks ago, I had a busy musical weekend — sort-of an early birthday present.

First on Friday night I went to see Ivan Neville's Dumpstaphunk play a benefit for the Tipitina's Foundatation at the City Tavern Club in Georgetown. The funk was top-notch – the best I've heard in a while, and New Orleans agrees:

The New York Times recently declared "Dumpstaphunk is the best funk band from New Orleans right now." A huge overstatement from a respected but decidedly Yankee interloper? No, probably Two of the Big Easy's most respected music publications -- Gambit Weekly and Offbeat Magazine -- also selected Dumpstaphunk as the city's best funk band." (timesunion.com)

I would go see them if you've got the funk and you have the chance. The club was also really nice, and a lot of my New Orleans music fan friends were there.

Then on Saturday night, I went to see a show at the Deej (my friend's house concert series) that I've already blogged about — featuring Karl Straub, Eugene Chadbourne, and Jimmy Carl Black. The show lived up to the hype, but even better, I had totally forgotten what an amazing guitarist Eugene Chadbourne is. I've seen him over the years with his own punk/rockabily act Shockabilly, the low-fi noise-sters of Half Japanese, and play along with Karl at a previous Deej, but this time, his weird genius shone through brightly. He shredded many twisted numbers during Jack & Jim show, and then sat in on lead during most of Karl Straub's set - giving Jeff Beck a run for his money during an extended solo on "Shapes of Things" by the Yardbirds.

(The same night Julie took Fiona to see Arturo Sandoval close out the Silver Spring Jazz Festival. I couldn't be everywhere....)

On Sunday, the piece de resistance — the Meat Puppets played at the Black Cat. Reunited with his brother Cris on bass, Curt Kirkwood played like the old days, the amazing guitarist he has always been. (He's a multi-year Guitar Player award winner.) One of Nirvana's favorite bands, they played along during the MTV Unplugged show, which even included two Meat Puppets songs, including my favorite, "Lake of Fire":

Where the bad folks go when they die;
They don't go to heaven where the angels fly;
They go down to the lake of fire and fry;
Won't see them again 'til the fourth of July. (Curt Kirkwood)

So that capped off a week of guitar heaven. It would be made even more complete if I could go see John McLaughlin this Friday at Lisner Auditorium, but alas, I'll be at the beach preparing for a gig by my band, the Oxymorons — we're playing Dogfish Head in Rehoboth, DE on Saturday, September 29. I once wrote a term paper comparing John McLaughlin's and Charlie Christian's influence on jazz guitar. (While McLaughlin is great, there are very few with Christian's influence on jazz, period.)

Labels: guitar, music

¶ 8:04 AM | Permalink | | | Links to this post
Sphere: Related Content