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this, but I've spoken to him on the phone. He called our house once to talk to my boyfriend, who was considering going on tour with him to do sound. "Is Day-vid there?" he asked in an English accent that made him sound like a character from a Charles Dickens novel. "Just a moment," I answered in my best professional voice. That was the extent of our conversation. I doubt he remembers it, but I couldn't help feeling a little nostalgia when I learned he was coming to town. This tour is to promote Harding's latest Mammoth records release, The Confessions of St. Ace. The liner notes for the disc contain biographical information of the fictional saint -- whose name was a take-off on Harding's actual surname of Stace -- as well as a humorous quote from the saint himself: "Give me chastity and moderation, but not yet." The disc is a lot of what I would call British pop: Beatles-esque tunes in major keys, with predictable but strong melody lines. Harding's voice is smooth and easy on the ears, a la Elvis Costello, and his lyrics can go on about crazy ex-girlfriends and the whole world being against him and still sound cheery -- maybe because of that Dickens thing. Track seven on the disc, a song called "Bad Dream Baby," is where Harding breaks out of the Beatles mold and goes for solid rock. The song begins with a distorted electric guitar and the lyrics are completely wacky. "She had a criminal conversation with the devil on the backseat of her burned out Toyota Camry," Harding sings. From there the girl goes on to have a dream about feeding a baby to a thousand spiders, and if you want to know the rest you'll have to listen for yourself. Steve Earl makes a guest appearance on the disc to sing a duet with Harding. "Our Lady of the Highways" is a country-rock song about the road, with a pedal steel guitar and lyrics that ask the patron saint of highways to look after us while traveling. "Now I'm in San Francisco, it's a town too hard for love, she's driving from Seattle, 800 miles above me … so please don't let the fog roll heavy on that Highway 5, I want her here soon, but I want her here alive." Harding now makes his home in Seattle and makes his living largely by touring. He was featured on the cover of the Bumbershoot guide this year and in that article talks about how he's kept his tours successful for the past 10 years. "I never go on late and I've never come off late," he says. "I've never got drunk and not played. I wasn't ever addicted to anything except going onstage and doing my show." John Wesley Harding performs Saturday, Dec. 9th at Taylor's. The show starts at 9 pm with Christy McWilson opening. Tickets are $10 adv., $12 dos. Tickets are available at Fastixx outlets, Face the Music and Taylor's. Acoustic blues man Paul Geremia performs this week. Geremia has been on the road for the past 30 years, performing songs by such blues legends as Robert Johnson, Blind Willie McTell, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Blind Boy Fuller (Are we starting to see a theme here?), and Tampa Red. Geremia also writes tunes of his own, which fit right into the mold of the classic Delta Blues. "If a woman's love was whiskey, I'd be drunk all the time, if the worried blues was money, I wouldn't have a dime," he sings in his gravelly but happy blues voice. Geremia performs Thursday, Dec. 7th at Chez Ray's. Walker T. Ryan opens the show at 9 pm. Tickets are $8 adv., $10 dos. Tickets are available at CD World or Chez Ray's. Also performing this week is the Noe Venable Trio at Sam Bond's on Monday, Dec. 11th at 9 pm. The Bay-area singer mixes a little bit of Jewel with a whole lot of Ricky Lee Jones-style jazzy pop to get a sound that isn't half bad. If you want to be serenaded by a siren from the south, or just escape the madness of another "Ally McBeal" Monday night, head for your friendly Whiteaker pub.
won the coveted "top of the heap" spot on the old CD stack this week. OK, so Gabriel Blue was the CD stack this week. And a worthy little disky these local boys have put together, too. Their Sun Shots, a rough-mix version of their forthcoming second CD, The Runaway Sun, is a dandy dose of modern rock. It's supposedly 17 tracks, but my copy, which I'm guessing was a computer-burned job, only made it through track six before freezing up for good. I enjoyed it up till that point, though. Listened even though it had that crunching static noise those kind of discs kick up on the kind of cheap portable player we have hear at the official listening station. Lay a good version on me when you press up the mastered bunch, boys, don't leave me hangin'. The boys of Blue will be at John Henry's the 8th, along with Fells Acres and The Messengers. Rock on. Tasty-sounding show coming up the 9th at Taylor's, with John Wesley Harding this time fronting The Radical Gentlemen. The guy's a spot-on songwriter and cracks witty all through his show in that Brit way. Opening will be Seattle's Christy McWilson, touring on her solo debut, The Lucky One. You might know her from The Picketts, with whom she recorded three CDs. Blaster and supposed X-er Dave Alvin produced The Lucky One, and plays on it in the company of Seattle luminary Peter Buck, with Mike Mills, Bob Glaub, Syd Straw and others also making appearances. Alvin calls McWilson "a roots-rock Sylvia Plath." This should be a happening evening. This Week: LCC's jazz program hosts the third annual Lane Jazz Festival over the 8th and 9th at LCC's Performing Arts building. Friday has performances by high school and middle school bands from across the state. There will also be clinics and an evening concert with the Oregon Jazz Ensemble and LCC's Jazz Ensemble featuring trumpeter Thara Memory of the Mel Brown Septet. The Septet will join in the giving of clinics and workshops on Saturday, and perform Saturday night. The 8th brings a return of tribal folker Joules Graves, who will be throwing a CD-release tizz at the WOW Hall, aptly named A Sacred Tantrum. Rafe Pearlman of Riveroots opens the show. And speaking of the WOW Hall, its Membership Party the 9th will celebrate 15 years of the hall's magical existence, with performances by Elizabeth Cable, Lo Nuestro, the young funketeers of SOMA and more. Of course, expect major eatage. Competing for your time on the 9th will be folk patriarch Tom Rush, who plays at North Eugene High School. In addition to being one of the rare Harvard grads in pop music (Yeah, Jerry Harrison, right, but did Zach DeLaRocha get the sheepskin? And Bonnie Raitt dropped out of Radcliffe.), Rush was an early popularizer of songwriters like Joni Mitchell, James Taylor and Jackson Browne. Rush's best-known composition is "No Regrets." On the 10th, The Wailing Souls bring their reggae to the Wild Duck. Winston "Pipe" Matthews and Lloyd "Bread" McDonald have been singing together since the mid-'60s, and their latest CD is Equality, where they team with Sly & Robbie. Opening are Naboule, DJ Professor Stone, Selectas Snacks and YT. Adam's Place Barnes & Noble Beanery Bliss Steak Ranch The Brickhouse Buzz Coffeehouse Chez Ray Diablo's Doc's Pad Groucho's John Henry's Lavelle Wine Bar Mystique Restaurant Nite Owl (Ramada Inn) The Old Pad Oregon Electric Station Piccolo Quacker's Rick's Pub Sam Bond's Garage Sam's Place Stepina's Theo's Jazz Club Tiny Tavern Tsunami Books Waterfront Bar & Grill WOW Hall AA NS
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