Slim Forsythe & The Parklane Drifters

Kopec's, Pittsburgh, PA....

After going to see the art on display at a former plant warehouse at 3618 Penn Avenue for Art All Night (and saying hello to Bumblebee Slim and Wrett Weatherspoon, who were broadcasting live on site for WYEP), I went with Betsy and Ned to see Slim Forsythe and his band do their old time country swing radio broadcast simulation thing. It was a very entertaining show.


Kopecs Bar

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Michelle Shocked, Michael Penn, Erin McKeown, Assembly of Dust, David Poe

Allegheny Landing Park, Pittsburgh, PA....   The WYEP Summer Music Festival   In Brief: The only old song Shocked played was "Anchorage"--everything else was new. But unlike many performers who are heavy on their latest material, she was so dynamic that no one seemed to mind. Erin McKeown sat in on guitar for about 4 songs. There were some technical troubles during Penn's set, but he still played well. "Long Way Down" was interrupted halfway through ("I'd like to soldier on," Penn explained when he stopped the number, "But it's hard to sing if I can't hear the guitar"), but I'm so glad he played it. He closed with "Walter Reed," one of my favorites of the new record.
Read more

Jake Bugg

Image
Point State Park, Pittsburgh, PA ..... The final headline show for the 2014 Three Rivers Arts Festival. I had been a fan of the then 20 year-old British performer shortly after I caught a few songs from his 2012 UK debut album, even before it was released here in the States. At WYEP, we ended up playing "Lightning Bolt" some in November 2012. His record label released an EP to radio with a few of his songs, but not "Lightning Bolt." They were concentrating on promoting "Two Fingers" for his first single in the U.S., which is a great song but not the right one for here--"So I hold two fingers up to yesterday" doesn't hold the same weight in American English as it does in UK English. Sigh. They finally switched to promoting "Lightning Bolt" in late March 2013.  Either way, it was great seeing him live, performing on guitar with a bassist and drummer backing him up. The aforementioned song s sounded great, as did "Messed Up Kids,...
Read more

Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Sonic Youth, Social Distortion

Brendan Byrne Arena, E. Rutherford, NJ.... It was a couple years before Neil was bestowed the "Godfather of Grunge" moniker, but this tour made clear he had an affinity with noisy, scruffy bands of younger vintage. A great show all around. It was my first time seeing Neil, so I was pretty psyched. He had snapped out of his weird '80s era with a vengeance on 1989's Freedom and 1990's Ragged Glory albums. I was pretty blown away with how hard he rocked at the show. My most vivid memory of the concert was a giant microphone with a yellow ribbon on it getting a lot of applause (due to the Gulf War being still in progress at the time). The opening acts were pretty memorable as well. I was struck with how low-slung Mike Ness played his guitar. And during Sonic Youth's feedback-drenched finale, Thurston Moore used his guitar as a bridge between the front of the stage and a security barrier and he carefully shimmied across it, all the while spewing caterwauling nois...
Read more