The Kelley Deal 6000: May 10, 1996

Kelley Deal is best known as a member of the Breeders, along with her twin sister and Pixies bassist, Kim. In 1994-5, she was busted for heroin possession and went through rehab for her addiction. Emerging from the negative publicity, she assembled and fronted her own band for a time. The Kelley Deal 6000, as they were called, showed Kelley's songwriting, playing, and singing to be every bit as quirky and cool as Kim's. I just wish they'd hung around longer. Kelley's continued to record and perform with the Breeders and took part in a one-off release from the Last Hard Men with Sebastian Bach and Jimmy Chamberlin, but sadly hasn't released any additional solo albums. (By the way, she has also found success as a crafter, selling hand-knit bags and writing a how-to book.) 

I saw TKD6K in Ann Arbor twice: when their first album came out in 1996, and a year later when they released another. This show was in support of the debut, Go to the Sugar Altar, an eccentric but very catchy collection of tunes. Before the band went on, I was at the bar when Kelley came up and asked for a Coke. When the bartender feebly joked, "With rum?" she nicely but firmly replied, "Oh no, I don't do that anymore." A good sign, for sure!

Kelley, along with a band that included Jimmy Flemion of the Frogs, played her quirky songs, gave appreciative thanks, and at one point introduced her parents, who had traveled out from Dayton for the show. And that sort of typifies what all the Kelley Deal shows I've seen have been like: There's something very homey about her performances, she comes off as nice, and she seems to genuinely take pleasure in making music and sharing it with people. I was glad to see that vibe was retained when she most recently played with her new act, R. Ring, who hopefully will record some new material soon.

John Tesh: June 15, 1996

A friend's mother and stepfather had season tickets to the historic Fox Theatre in Detroit but were not free the night of the John Tesh concert, which is how two relatively hip then-twentysomethings ended up going. Tesh, of course, is best known as a co-host of Entertainment Tonight who launched a career as a sort of new age/easy listening musician. It wasn't my type of music, but I figured it would be an experience if nothing else.

By the time we parked and got to the theater, the show had just started. An usher told us that he would wait until the first song had ended before seating us. This being Tesh, the song kept going for a good ten minutes before the exasperated usher gave up, said, "Oh, come on," and led us to our seats.  We were set adrift in a sea of khakis and polo shirts. Really, I don't think I've ever seen so many people in the same attire in one place.

Tesh played a series of very long songs and made a few cracks about the National Anti-Tesh Action Society and its assertion that Tesh is a space alien. He seemed like a good-natured guy and a decent musician, even if his music didn't exactly win me over.

Blondie: May 23, 1999

Blondie is one of my favorite groups, so when most of the original members got back together in the late '90s for a new album and tour, I was excited to see them. The resulting album, No Exit, was a mixed affair veering from the high of the appealing hit "Maria" to the low of Debbie Harry rapping with Coolio. Despite the mostly disappointing new material, I still looked forward to seeing the band live. Since Blondie originally broke up in the early '80s, it was a treat I didn't think I'd get to experience.

Having seen Blondie twice now since the reunion, I still don't feel like I've seen Blondie. Original members Debbie Harry, Chris Stein, Clem Burke, and Jimmy Destri were supplemented by additional musicians (Destri has since left).The set was slick and hit-filled. Maybe that's what some fans are looking for, but not me. It felt more like Debbie Harry and a backing band, and there were few surprises.

The highlight of the No Exit show, for me, was "Shayla," an Eat to the Beat track that was the only older non-hit that crept into the set list. It's a slow song, but Clem Burke punctuated it with an amazing drum solo, twirled his sticks with the skill of a baton major, shot one a good twelve feet in the air, and caught it with such ease that it looked like someone had just placed it gently in his hand. Many have said it before, but I'll say it again: Clem Burke is Blondie's secret weapon.

Power, humor, and chemistry in a band cannot be underestimated. Adding new, more musically adept members to a band might make the sound "bigger" or more professional, but it also changes the entire nature of the venture. I still wish I could have seen the "real" Blondie, warts and all.

Midnight Oil: October 15, 1988 & September 17, 1990

I saw Midnight Oil in concert twice within two years. These tours were in support of the best-known of the Australian band's albums (at least in the U.S.): 1987's Diesel and Dust (featuring "Beds Are Burning," "The Dead Heart," and "Dreamworld") and 1990's Blue Sky Mining. I still admire the band's melding of socially conscious lyrics with unabashed pop hooks. They had a lengthy career, but never made much of an impact on the American charts after their 1987-90 heyday.

At the 1988 Masonic Temple show in Detroit, the opening act was Graffiti Man, a.k.a. John Trudell. Trudell has an impressive history as a Native American activist, so in that regard his pairing with the politically involved Midnight Oil makes sense. However, the crowd was not receptive to his blend of poetry and traditional instrumentation, and at one point, Trudell tried to calm then down by saying "peace, man" while holding his fingers in that famous hippie V.

Peter Garrett is a very tall, thin fellow with a shaved head, so he definitely makes an impression onstage. He wore something like coveralls and danced in herky-jerky motions. Although he has a somewhat intimidating look, his stage presence was very sweet and cheerful. Midnight Oil was a very good live band, so it's a shame they very rarely perform anymore. Rather, Garrett has served as a Member of Australia's House of Representatives for several years, working on environmental, education, and arts issues.

Although I haven't seen Midnight Oil since 1990, I did see Peter Garrett once in the early 2000s, before Midnight Oil stopped touring. He was eating alone in a diner I frequented during my lunch breaks when I first moved to Chicago; the band had played a couple doors down at House of Blues the previous night. Of course I recognized him (you can't miss that guy) but I left him to eat in peace.

Liz Phair: October 19, 1998

Liz Phair has had one interesting career. A critic's darling after the release of her first album, Exile in Guyville, she appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone and was widely hailed as one of a new breed of female artists bringing a sexual frankness and indie-rock sensibility to the confessional singer-songwriter role. But her reign was short-lived as her follow-up album, Whip-Smart, failed to sell as well as the debut, in part because Phair didn't tour in support of the album, instead marrying, having a child, and going on hiatus.

Phair reemerged in 1998 with Whitechocolatespaceegg, in my opinion a vastly underrated release that found her exploring the ups and downs of "settling down" in her usual quirky way, but as a vastly improved singer and guitarist. Unlike with her previous album, Phair embarked on a full-fledged tour to support Whitechocolatespaceegg, and this ticket is from one of those shows.

On a personal note, I remember it was windy on the night of this concert. I handed my friend her ticket as we left the parking lot to walk a block or two to the venue. When we got up the street a bit, she asked if I'd given her the ticket, because she couldn't find it. We hurried back to the parking lot where, amazingly, the ticket was still on the ground where it had fallen, untouched by the breeze or a lucky pair of hands.

We watched the show from the balcony of the very strange, identity-confused Clutch Cargo's. I don't recall who opened, but Phair was really good. Because she'd shot to fame without honing her act in clubs as most artists do, she'd previously been known as an erratic performer. By this time, though, her voice and confidence had improved considerably and she was solid onstage. She ran through songs from all three albums, made jovial chit-chat between songs, and looked fantastic.

What a surprise it was, then, that she dropped from the limelight again soon afterward. Her next album wouldn't be until 2003 and featured a shiny, commercial sound that alienated much of her original audience. It would also give her a Top 40 hit with "Why Can't I."

Buzzcocks: October 30, 1999

I notice this was another Devil's Night show in Detroit -- but well past the time when I had to worry about teen curfews. This was a particularly exciting evening for me, because I interviewed Pete Shelley beforehand for the now-defunct All Music Zine. It was my first big interview, but it turned out pretty well. A friend and I had dinner in Detroit, met Shelley at the venue, then stayed for the show.

This was my second or third Buzzcocks gig; I'm pretty certain I saw them tour for All Set in 1996, although I have not come across that ticket yet. (I'd first seen them in 1994 in Brighton, England.) This show was in support of the album Modern, which had the band tossing in a few electronic flourishes before returning to a more basic guitar-bass-drums sound.

The set was a mix of classic songs and tracks from the band's (at that point) three "post-reunion" albums. The crowd seemed so genuinely happy to see the band, and were really well-behaved, unlike some of the  Buzzcocks shows I'd later see in Chicago. One guy excitedly asked us, "Do you think they'll do 'Fiction Romance'? I love that song!" When the song started up a little later, we looked over and saw the guy sporting a giant smile.

Chuck Berry & Little Richard: October 21, 2000

This will be unique among my blog entries, because I actually have a record of what I thought about the concert at the time. The following text is from my long-defunct first blog, written a few days after the show in 2000.

Last weekend I experienced something very strange indeed. Joe and I saw Little Richard and Chuck Berry ("The Kings of Rock 'n' Roll," so their posters declared) perform at a horse racetrack in Cicero, IL. It was like something out of a movie, with the betting counters everywhere you turned and the sound of the announcer talking about horses with names like "Holy Conflict" and "Mary Had a Little Wolf." 

We sat on plastic chairs in a Plexiglas-enclosed room facing the track. We actually saw part of the races and the tractor going around the track smoothing the dirt. At the bottom of the rows of chairs, someone had unceremoniously plopped a stage for The Kings of Rock 'n' Roll. Alice Cooper had just played there a few days earlier. Welcome to my nightmare indeed.

Little Richard was surprisingly good, but poor Chuck Berry was another story. First off, his band was wretched. He actually remarked that they were rehearsing and would let us know when the show really started. Sometimes they were so out of time that he would signal for them to stop and perform the song with just guitar as accompaniment. Sometimes he was so out of time that he'd stop the song altogether. He only managed to get through a couple of complete songs -- "My Dingaling" unfortunately, and "Reelin' and Rockin'," which, I'm certain, benefited from the fact that Chuck had some big-breasted women dancing onstage to inspire him.

If the show was a mixed bag, my feelings about it were even more mixed. While it's great that these guys, who surely are legends, are still entertaining people after all this time, there is something maudlin about seeing senior citizens trying to rock and roll. While there are plenty of artists growing old gracefully -- Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Marianne Faithfull, etc. -- they generally do so by coming to terms with their age, not by rehashing the past.