Before we get to the virtual tunes, let’s have a moment of silence for John Prine, Adam Schlesinger, Hal Willner and all the other talented musicians we’ve lost to COVID-19.

As if we needed any more bad news, The National’s Homecoming festival has officially been cancelled. But list member Dale Doyle (the original D2) is doing the album artwork for Matt Berninger’s solo album and says the tunes are great. So we have that to look forward to.

It’s yet another week of live music lockdown, which stinks. But it seems like more and more artists are turning to the “home concert” option to stay connected. Here are a few of note:

List members Dave and Jacqui are turning their Parlor & Patio house concert featuring Liz Longley into a virtual event next Friday (4/17). This is sad news for people who like free pie (they serve it at intermission of their house shows), but good news for those who originally couldn’t snag a seat when the show sold out in 48 hours! Here’s the Eventbrite link. Just like usual Parlor & Patio shows, all ticket proceeds go directly to the artist.

List member Doug Hill-Harriss is still trying to convert me into a Radiohead fan, so he mentioned that they are posting a classic show every Thursday on their YouTube channel. Read more here.

The Grateful Dead are streaming an old show each Friday at 8 pm EDT on YouTube. Read more on Rolling Stone.

NPR’s list of virtual gigs keeps growing. I’ll let you peruse for yourself, but the Hamilton Leithauser show tonight at 7 should be fun, and these Saturday gigs look promising:

Billboard also has a list of virtual gigs.

Shawn Colvin is playing from her house on Saturday afternoon:

Rob Fetters will be doing gig #3 Saturday at 9 pm. Here’s what list member Lisa Collins had to say about his first show: LOVED the Rob Fetters show! Wow! Such a great songwriter!

Jesse Malin will be doing his third home show this Saturday at 4 Eastern on YouTube. Both previous gigs have been killer. (Last week’s show is posted below.) Don’t just take my word for it, here’s what Rolling Stone had to say in their “Best Streamed Performances of the Stay-at-Home Era” article:

For the past two Saturdays, Jesse Malin has been performing full two-hour concerts from his Manhattan apartment, each with their own theme. Dubbed “The Fine Art of Self-Distancing” (a play on the title of his 2003 debut, The Fine Art of Self-Destruction), the intimate gigs touch on songs from throughout his career, along with covers by Neil Young, Squeeze, and his old band D Generation. He also does a goofy show-and-tell routine and offers his recommendations for staying sane during quarantine: books by Alan Ginsberg and Debbie Harry, a doc on the Bad Brains, and what he calls Scorsese’s last great film, The King of Comedy. But it’s Malin’s stories — told by a guy who literally grew up in and around the New York punk scene — that are the rare gems, like one in which Joey Ramone tells off Lorne Michaels for never booking the Ramones on SNL.

And my boy Bill Janovitz from Buffalo Tom is doing his 4th weekly “Virtual Happy Hour” – last week’s 24-song set included covers of Hüsker Dü, Fountains of Wayne, Psychedelic Furs, Lefty Frizzell, Bill Withers and the Rolling Stones. His rehearsal version of the Fountains of Wayne tune is below.

Dan’s with the Band

“These virtual concerts are all well and good, but how about a story from list member Dan ‘Reds are gonna win it all’ Lewis?” you say…. So here’s Dan’s sordid saga about what went on backstage at a KISS concert:

My brother met the tour manager in our hometown of Lancaster Ohio (small world). He got us passes. If it wasn’t for a neighborhood buddy who I hadn’t seen in a while… back in eighth grade, if he didn’t invite me up to hear the new KISS record, I’d probably be a lawyer today. (I didn’t even like KISS but he had every Cream and Circus rock magazine …so very cool). So my brother says he’s got backstage passes for KISS. This is like 1998. I’m like, “I prefer to remember them from the Destroyer tour. But sounds like it would be fun.” Guy was great. Showed us the oxygen masks behind stage. Machines that blew the smoke out, then the machines that sucked the smoke back in!! (Because they were getting old, etc.)

There you have it, Dan Lewis’ tale of “sucking” backstage at a KISS concert.

Tributes to Prine

First Avenue Club in Minneapolis — documentary

List member Mighty Joe Sampson (as heard on the 97X podcast here) sent the link below. Cool doc celebrating 50 years of the iconic Twin Cities club. You’ll see some familiar faces mixed in the awesome archival footage

Gigs, interviews, and clips…

Shameless self-promotion

Sometime tomorrow, you’ll be able to check out a new episode of the 97X Rumblings from the Big Bush podcast featuring our interview with John Curley of the Afghan Whigs. NBD.

Hate to start on a sad note, but losing Adam Schlesinger from Fountains of Wayne and Ivy (and other projects) was a real kick in the trousers. This line from a Washington Post tribute sums it up nicely:

… his sharply tuned ear for both catchiness and emotion meant that Schlesinger could do something rare: He wrote songs that were not only wonderful but also could help you understand what it was that you loved about an entire genre of music.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/02/adam-schlesinger-wrote-great-songs-helped-us-understand-why-we-loved-them

A couple of nice tributes are in the WaPo and The Ringer.

Here are a few links to check out over the weekend (and in some cases, ongoing) for your semi-live music fix.

KEXP in Seattle has a list of Virtual Concerts here: https://www.kexp.org/events/

NPR’s list is here: https://www.npr.org/2020/03/17/816504058/a-list-of-live-virtual-concerts-to-watch-during-the-coronavirus-shutdown

A few shows of note for Saturday 4/4:

• Jesse Malin plays at 4 p.m. on YouTube. Last week’s gig is here (and below)
• Bill Janovitz (Buffalo Tom) is doing another Happy Hour at 4:30 on FB (at that link he has video of his rehearsal of the Fountains of Wayne song “Hackensack”)
• Rob Fetters is playing another “from home” show at 8 p.m.

FWIW, I think the Instagram interface is the worst of the bunch… small screen, and the artist is usually partially obscured by the comments stream.

Shows already recorded for your viewing pleasure:

Richard Thompson did a great gig. Then again, every gig he does is great.

Here’s Jesse Malin’s show from last week:

Joe Pernice is doing Barry Manilow covers here: https://vimeo.com/user6808878/videos. (This Paste interview with Joe has more details.)

Sofar has a YouTube channel with several artists’ performances: https://www.youtube.com/user/Sofarsounds

Just for fun

If you’ve never checked out the Comedy Bang Bang podcast, you need to do so. And here are videos of the host (Scott Aukerman) and a frequent guest (Paul F. Thompkins) adding their own version of the Star Wars cantina music to classic scenes from several movies. The entire playlist is below… watch all of them as it has a cumulative silliness effect.

Adam Schlesinger’s passing reminded me of this great Robbie Fulks tune:

And finally a great tweet from Craig Finn:

Stay positive indeed!

This coronavirus lockdown is a real kick in the trousers for fans of live music. Yes, it’s flattening the curve, but it’s also flattening the hearts of music fans everywhere, and flattening the already-skinny wallets of many performers.

Several artists are turning to “virtual concerts” to raise funds for themselves, raise funds for charity, or just to keep from going stir-crazy.

NPR is listing a lot of the virtual gigs here:
https://www.npr.org/2020/03/17/816504058/a-list-of-live-virtual-concerts-to-watch-during-the-coronavirus-shutdown

I’ve tuned in to a few: Lucius with Courtney Barnett, Josh Ritter, Indigo Girls, Orville Peck, Julia Steiner (lead singer of Ratboys – check ’em out), Bill Janovitz from Buffalo Tom, Liz Longley… not the same as being at a club, but better than sitting in your basement staring at the same four walls.

List member Michael Orzali offered up these viewing options as well, courtesy of Nugs.net: YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCs9tH6M6AW16i3s8WabzAfA

1. The Brothers: “Mountain Jam” – Madison Square Garden 3/10/20
2. Billy Strings – Tipitina’s New Orleans 1/24/20 FULL SHOW
3. Melvin Seals & JGB ft. John Kadlecik plus George Porter Jr. Trio FULL SHOW 10/17/19
4. Drive By Truckers – Tipitina’s New Orleans 9/26/19 FULL SHOW
5. Wilco – Live From Brooklyn Steel 10/13/19 FULL SHOW
6. Bob Weir and Wolf Bros – The Ryman Auditorium 3/7/20 FULL SHOW
7. Circles Around the Sun & Greensky Bluegrass 1/18/19 FULL SHOW
8. Dead & Company: “Shakedown Street” – Bristow, VA 6/26/19
9. Joe Russo’s Almost Dead – The Peach Music Festival 7/27/19 FULL SHOW
10. Widespread Panic – Sweetwater 420 Festival 4/21/19 FULL SHOW

And Michael said you’ll find more “couch tour” shows here: https://www.jambase.com/collection/couch-tour-alert

(In case you couldn’t tell from the links above, Michael is a jam band fan.

Happy listening, until we meet (in person) again!

Hey kids, let’s Spring Forward into some live tunes (see what we did there?)

On Monday, you should get to bed early to make up for lost time.

You’ll need the extra rest, because it’s a very busy week of music.

Tuesday gigs:

• Fruition plays Madison Live, with former Houndmouth member Katie Toupin as the opener
• Bear Hands plays Riverfront Live
• Ms. Lauryn Hill is at the Taft Theater
• Jerry Springer records another batch of podcasts at Folk School Coffee Parlor in Ludlow, KY.

On Wednesday, Pigeons Playing Ping Pong (they’re a jam band, in case you couldn’t tell by their name… “I’ll see your String Cheese Incident and raise you 200…”) will be at the Madison Theater, with Goose as the opener.

Other Hump Day gigs:

• Theo Katzman plays 20th Century Theater
• Ladysmith Black Mambazo is at Memorial Hall
• MammaBear plays MOTR

Thursday shows:

• Whiskey Myers plays Taft with The Steel Woods
• Melvin Seals and the JGB play Ludlow Garage (Jerry Garcia will NOT be there… well, I suppose it depends on what sort of mushrooms you have for the pre-show dinner)
• Kelly Richey and Sherri McGee play Dead Low Brewing
• Fea, Patsy, and Megahussy are at Southgate
• Death Hags and Brindle play MOTR
• Ben Levin is at BrewRiver

This coming weekend is close enough to 3/17 to serve as a handy excuse for a “St. Patrick’s Day Weekend” at every bar in America. Please be careful out there.

Friday is busy night for gigs too:

• of Montreal plays the Woodward, with Lily and Horn Horse
• Caamp plays a sold-out show at Madison Theater
• Tommy Emmanuel plays Taft with opener Sierra Hull
• Christone “Kingfish” Ingram plays the Mad Frog
• Motherfolk and Bad Bad Hats play Southgate’s Revival Room
• Lost Dog Street Band plays Southgate’s larger Sanctuary
• Culture Queer plays MOTR with Disaster Class and Quotah
• Saxy man David Sanborn has a sold-out gig at Ludlow Garage

Here’s your Saturday smorgasbord:

• Guster plays an evening of acoustic music and improv at Memorial Hall
• Kasim Sultan’s Utopia plays Ludlow Garage
• Dermot Kennedy is at Taft
• The Nude Party and Boa (seems like a fitting pairing) play Southgate
• Anna Burch and Carriers play MOTR
• The Ark Band is at Fretboard Brewing
• Georgia Middleman and the Ruby Green Duo play the Downtowne Listening Room
• Ben Levin and Noah Wotherspoon play Mansion Hill Tavern
• Camp Springs Tavern (co-owned by the extremely talented designer/artist Keith Neltner) hosts a 4-Year Bash and Print Trader art show, with a nice music lineup:

On Sunday, Bogart’s has a nice double bill: Anderson East and Foy Vance. And Southgate has a four-band lineup of Tiny Moving Parts, Belmont, Capstan and Jetty Bones.

Recommended Reading

This Robbie Robertson interview (with video clips) about the new movie about The Band called Once Were Brothers is worth checking out. I hear the movie is quite good too.

Recommended Viewing

If you weren’t alive when Battle of the Network Stars was on TV, have you really ever lived? Feast your eyes upon the glory of this clip:

Check out Bill Simmons’ ESPN article about the Battle clip too.

Concert Review

Wussy crushed it, as always, at Woodward this past Friday. Such a fantastic band! In my next life, I want to be married to Chuck Cleaver and/or Lisa Walker.

Album Cover of the Week

Shows that I’m attending

A recurring theme in the tons* of emails we get every week is: “Hey TWILM Editor, you seem like a really cool person. What shows are you attending?”

Why, thanks so much for asking! Here are the shows for which I have tickets in hand (I type with my other hand):

• Rob Fetters at Roebling Point Books in Covington on Saturday, March 21
• Bob Mould at 20th Century on Sunday, March 22
• Shovels & Rope at Ludlow Garage on Wednesday, April 8
• Watkins Family Hour at Memorial Hall on Saturday, April 11
• Liz Longley at Parlor & Patio on Friday, April 17
• Robyn Hitchcock at Southgate House on Sunday, April 26
• Greg Dulli with Joseph Arthur at Woodward Theater on Wednesday, April 29
• The National’s Homecoming Festival on May 8-9
• Andrew Bird, Calexico and Iron & Wine at PNC Pavilion on Saturday, June 20

(*tons = smattering)

Have a great week!