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Obama---Acting Positively Presidential

In the past week, the media sharks have been swimming around Barack Obama, the Republican vultures and their surrogates in the Clinton campaign flying overhead ready to devour. What has been Obama's reaction? Calm, thoughtful, reasoned responses.

He has not lost his cool. He has looked positively Presidential. He hasn't threatened to wipe another country and all of its innocent men women and children off the map, as Clinton has, either.

He has responded to the Wright shitstorm in a proper and dignified manner…just the opposite of the snarling, hate-filled attacks on him. And the attacks are coming from all sides. Why do you think that is?

It is because he has offered hope instead of fear, reasoned proposals for dealing with the problems we face, and a realistic perception of the country and the world.

I know many of us have been despairing one minute and angry the next as the onslaught has escalated. We are up against evil, let's face it. The powers that rule will do anything to prevent change, and I mean anything.

I stayed away from the 24 hour news channels for a day and found myself thinking that their aggregate audience, if applied to one prime-time sitcom or cop show would cause that sitcom or cop show to be cancelled inside of a month. Most people don't watch them. They are a closed circle. One Obama has stepped outside of.

Compare the two news conferences we saw today, the angry, petulant, inarticulate, lie-filled Bush performance vs. Obama on Wright. Which guy looked Presidential to you?

Americans made the mistake of voting for a dope they could have a beer with. Many are making the same mistake with Clinton. Obama's cool cuts through all the bullshit. He is calm and reassuring. He doesn't pander. He looks presidential.

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Latest LivePDX Music Blog

News & Gossip: Jumpin' Joint at deLay Memorial Show II, Beliss Being Bad Girls on the Run
Mon, 04/28
by Tom D'Antoni

While humming Jazzfest in New Orleans (which I'm not)....

Last weekend's (4/20) second annual Paul deLay memorial concert, this one to benefit Ethos, may not have been standing room only, but the big ballroom at the Portland Art Museum was full and the dance floor rocking. Ethos, btw, is the Portland organization that teaches youngsters how to play music.

Speaking of youngsters, Paul's little grandkid was tearing around the ballroom all evening wearing sneaks that had flashing red lights. Paul would have dug that.

KMHD's Jan Mancuso's pasta salad was the hit of the green room. She and husband Ric do The Night on Thursdays, 9:00pm to midnight.

Sights at the concert: Terry Robb with his arm around Linda Hornbuckle talking about her new album, which he's releasing in July. Harmonicats' Bill Rhodes and Hank Shreve hanging out. Bass player Dave Kahl, who was one of the organizers, looking harried. Peter Damman looking cool (he never looks harried, even when he should be). Duffy Bishop joking about her very very red hair color.

Singer Joe McMurrian with harmonica player David Lipkind started things off with a very large bang. The rest of the night was one long happy jam with nearly everyone who ever played with Paul playing. Too bad pianist David Vest couldn't make it down from B.C. His boogie-woogie thunder was missed.

Noah Mickens and Nick the Creature have formally formed Portland Circus Works. They started off at the downstairs room of Rotture and called it the Hippodrome...to be a circus-themed venue. When Mickens left Rotture, he apparently took the concept with him. I hear that the room is going to revert to an all-ages venue again, but that's still up in the air. Mickens will have nothing to do with it.

Instead, they write: "Mssrs. Creature & Mickens will set up shop at 2410 North Mississippi. This former warehouse was brought to notability through the work of Maria Toth (Anonymous-I). Having made their name supporting creative spaces and green building projects for years in Portland, Anonymous-I is opening the 2410 space to showcase a community of performers and craftspeople to which Portland Circus Works is already a major contributor. This will become the the duo's Headquarters, housing the CircusWorks educational operation and offices while their events spread out to cover the whole city."

Their first event is at Mt. Tabor Legacy on Sunday, April 27. It's Wanderlust Circus.

Ever wonder what bands do when they're on the road? This just in from Melissa Underwood of Belliss: In Arizona, "We went to a funny ass bar in Flagstaff on Route 66 where Belinda and I put on fake personas (she was Apache and I was Scarlett) and we were from the Aouth. Not too far-fetched, we're half Tennessee-ean. Fortunately we didn't get into too much trouble...reminded me of college time bars, barfing in the bathroom (not us), chicks falling down stairs (not us), cowboys stripping (not good). Glad we survived those shots of SoCo and tequilla, but man was it good to hear Tone-Loc again! Saguaro cactuses are so beautiful!"

Extremo the Clown's new art car is a van (pictured). If you'd like to refresh your memory, watch my TV story on him here. You may remember the two hand puppets he would wiggle out the window at you while the music blared out of his old art car. He tells me, "Spanky (the chimp) loves it, in fact he has a new primate buddy that has joined the club. Freakensteinn and Daisy have been showing up lately but they don't seem to fit in as comfortably. For months they were out of the picture, but now they have appeared again."

I've missed them, but then I voted for Extremo when he ran for mayor.

Klezmocracy is back! They've managed to round up all the players in their new configuration in the same place at the same time (Saturday, April 26). The place is Mississippi Pizza where they played weekly gigs for a couple of years in with their former lineup. This lineup brings back Joe Janiga on drums, Ralph Huntley on keys and Courtney Von Drehle on sax, and adds Damien Erskine on bass and Jason DuMars on sax. They promise a lot of new material and some old faves, too.

Art Levine and I have a new internet radio talkshow

DC-based journalist Art Levine and I have started a mostly-political talk show on BlogTalkRadio, a fairly new site. We do it live...this Thursday live at 3:30pm PT. You can call in!
It is always available to listen to after it's over tho.
Check us out. Click below, or click on the player next to the top of the first entry of this blog.
Our page: www.blogtalkradio.com/tomandart

Latest LivePDX Music Blog

While wondering what's written in the notebooks Captain Beefheart must have been keeping all these years and listening to his Making Love to a Vampire with a Monkey On My Knee:

Following last week's item about Alan Jones' new jazz club comes word from saxophonist David Valdez that he has taken over booking at Pine Street Bistro. The infamous Craig Marquardo didn't last long there and did absolutely nothing for them.

It wouldn't take David too much to be better but he's making all the right moves. He is integrating the Nu Jazz cats and kittens like Andrew Oliver, (5/3), John Nastos, (5/23), Chris Mosely (5/17) and the all-female all-the-timeQuadraphones sax quartet (4/25). I've been dying to write about them.
Valdez isn't leaving out vets like Dave Frishberg
and Tall Jazz.

At least Valdez knows how to promote. He may have set the world's record for most appearances plugging a new CD with FOUR interviews on KMHD (including my show). He also had at least one on KBOO. Hey, some aggressive promotion is just what the jazz scene needs around here.

News from Safeway Waterfront Blues Festival booker, fine guitarist and cool cat Peter Dammann is mostly awesome. I asked him if he might be trying to get Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings (the real Amy Winehouse). He replied, "I've been trying to get them here for three years. Made a big offer. They're going to Europe, then returning and playing the zoo in late July (25th)." Damn.

So far, he's telling me that booked so far are: Charlie Musselwhite, Elvin Bishop, James Hunter, Phoebe Snow; Gulf Coast Guitar slam with Sherman Robertson, Phillip Walker and Andrew Jr. Boy Jones; Canned Heat, Rosie Ledet, Lavay Smith, Classie Ballou.

Also, headlining, a Stax/Memphis soul tribute with Portland Soul Allstars (Louis Pain, Linda Hornbuckle, Laron Steele et al) followed by Isaac Hayes. Dammann says he, "Can't wait to see that rider..."

About two young guitar slingers, Joe Bonamassa, and Carolyn Wonderland, he says, "She's a grittier, more compelling and to my mind more talented version of Susan Tedeschi, from Houston/Austin."

On the Front Porch Stage, he says, "A battle of the 'bones: Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue, and Fred Wesley w/ Groove Sect (Offbeat award winner for funk band of the year last year); i.e., two of the funkiest trombonists on the planet, back to back on our front porch stage. The purists will insist Fred Wesley (James Brown, Count Basie, Parliament Funkadelic) is no 'blues' artist. But his blues cred and roots are about as deep as it goes: by the time he was 16 Wesley was touring with Ike Turner...."

I may go down to the waterfront and put my blanket down this weekend.

Peter is on his way to Jazzfest in New Orleans at the end of the month, "I'll be on a panel on the "International Festival Market" with organizers from other festivals around the country," he says, "including former Oregonian writer and percussionist Rick Mitchell (Houston International Festival). I'll also be sitting in with Charmaine Neville at Jazz Fest and at Snug Harbor, and have a gig with Reggie Houston at a little club in the 9th ward. And going to Ponderosa Stomp both nights to check out 'Lost Soul Queen' Bettye Harris among many others. And four days of Jazz Fest. Will I make it home in one piece?"

Does it matter? All that and Jazzfest too? Oregon Food Bank is banging on him to write a blog for them. It's a thankless job, Peter.

Cherry Poppin' Daddies have a new album coming out in June but they're playing Saturday night at the Wonder Ballroom. Their new album, Susquehanna is nothing like their big big big big hit. It is a story cycle in several genres. The closest thing to the jump blues that most people know them for (not us) is a dark tune about someone wearing wingtips and diapers. Nice to see Steve Perry's mind expanding (exploding?)

Jay Bozich aka King Fader reminds me that the CPD gig will be, "mixed by yours truly." Don't worry Jay, one of these days the rest of the world will understand what a huge role you've played in Portland's music scene. He has been the silent partner in Dahlia since they formed…and re-formed...but not reformed.

Patrick Lamb has recovered awful fast from that serious car accident. He was back at work playing with his band at the Rose Garden Tuesday night before the Blazers' game and at halftime.

Remember the 3 Leg Torso-fueled award-winning video I blogged about a couple of weeks ago? See it here.

The Terry Robb/Lauren Sheehan duo is a go. I was sitting in the patio of Vivace banging on this computer when it was warm the other day. Lauren was walking by. Don't know how she wasn't tempted by their coffee but she told me they're going to be making some demos and taking gigs.

Stop "Old" Jokes Now!

The time has come to stop making "Old Jokes." I shouldn't have to say that. In most societies old age is respected for accrued wisdom. Not in ours. In ours you get ridiculed, marginalized and completely discounted as though wrinkles and other natural aging processes disqualified a person from being a member of the human race. Worse, that normal aging qualifies the rest of the world to make fun of you.

There are many reasons to dislike John McCain. His age is not one of them.

In my youth, as a card-carrying member of the "Youth Culture," I may have fought against the older generation, but I never thought they were laughable. They weren't. They were in control, they could and would send me to certain death in Viet Nam.

This all started when people began laughing at the "I've Fallen and I Can't Get Up" commercials. I was in my 40's when they were running and I could never understand what was so fucking funny about an older person who was unable to get up off the floor after having fallen. I still don't. The heartless cruelty a person must have within them in order to find that amusing escapes me. And I'm the guy who wrote, "Grandma Turns Pet Dog Inside Out Looking for Lost Lottery Ticket" for a supermarket tabloid. THAT is funny, sick and funny, but not in the same way.

John Stewart should know better. His hair is getting gray. He's over forty, or looks it. He is the worst of the offenders. I understand others, the Sterns and Mancows of the world whose job it is to be cruel. But Stewart should be above making fun of someone simply because that person is old. It is symptomatic of why "The Daily Show" is shrinking in its popularity. Once you no longer have Bush to kick around, you have to go looking for targets, real or imagined. Since the writers' strike ended, they don't seem to know what's funny or what to do to be funny. So they take the easy way out, "old" jokes. Fat jokes, too.

I wish you could feel what it does to a person of age who is at least as aware as any 25 year old, and in most cases more aware. It doesn't feel good.

Try this: substitute the word, "Nigger" or "Jew" or "Bitch" or "Sand Nigger" or "Dago" for "old," either literally or conceptually. Now how does it sound? Still think it's funny?

One of these fine days, all of the folks who make "old " jokes will look in the mirror and perhaps pause, suck in their breath and say, "Oh my God. Did I really say that stuff? Look at me. I got old." And then they'll look around and find that people younger than they are pushing them out, not paying attention to them, discounting their talents and making fun of them, in public, on TV….everywhere.

I don't have to wish I were around to see it. I know it will happen.

Their smugness will be gone. Their snark in retreat.

Perhaps if they stopped the "old" jokes now, they might be better able to live with themselves later on.

I don't expect this will happen. I am a better writer, TV producer, radio DJ than I was when I was 30. I will not have the opportunity to prove that. Nobody wants to hire an old guy, no matter how good he still is. "Old" jokes feed this idea. "Old" jokes are a result of this idea. They even think there should be an age cut-off for driving a car.

So shall it be for those who now laugh. That's my only consolation. That and making fun of those stupid wool-hats the indie-boys wear.

this also appears on huffingtonpost.com

CNN's Disgraceful Push Poll on Obama

There they go again.

They being mainstream media. Remember them? They're the ones who bought and then brought to you the lies that led us to war in Iraq. The ones who laughed along with Rumsfeld. The ones who followed the lead of Karl Rove in telling you that Howard Dean was screaming like a lunatic when, in fact, he was yelling enthusiastically over a loud crowd. The ones who swift boated John Kerry as surely as the Republicans who lied about the Senator's service.

Today, after Sen. Obama's painfully truthful remarks about how politicians try to lead Americans to vote on the basis of fear and bigotry, and how people are sick and tired and yes "bitter" about how they've been treated, the Lou Dobbs Show on CNN ran this push poll:

"Do you believe that Senator Barack Obama's comments reveal his elitist attitude toward every hardworking American?"

It says "his elitist," not "an elitist" attitude as though his statements were proof of something that already existed, but was, perhaps doubtful. Viewers, why don't you validate that for us here in Atlanta!

In other words, Senator Obama, how long HAS it been since you've beaten your wife.

At 11:20 p.m. PDT on Friday night it stood 50-50, based on 18,453 votes. Under that total, CNN states, "This is not a scientific poll." Correct. It is a push poll.

The rest of CNN went hysterical, with lots of white faces calling Obama's remarks a "turning point." Sen. Clinton tore into the remarks ravenously, as though they were insults to working class voters. She was shameless when in fact it is the actions of "her administration" who allowed jobs to leave America and put us in the toilet in which we now find ourselves.

Her surrogates droned on about how the Republicans will jump on these remarks, something they beat the Republicans to, and were harder on Obama about.

Later on Obama was as eloquent as ever, calmly illuminating, even more sharply, what he had said before. That eloquence is elsewhere on this site but it bears repeating:

When I go around and I talk to people there is frustration and there is anger and there is bitterness. And what's worse is when people are expressing their anger then politicians try to say what are you angry about? This just happened - I want to make a point here today.

I was in San Francisco talking to a group at a fundraiser and somebody asked how're you going to get votes in Pennsylvania? What's going on there? We hear that's its hard for some working class people to get behind you're campaign. I said, "Well look, they're frustrated and for good reason. Because for the last 25 years they've seen jobs shipped overseas. They've seen their economies collapse. They have lost their jobs. They have lost their pensions. They have lost their healthcare.

And for 25, 30 years Democrats and Republicans have come before them and said we're going to make your community better. We're going to make it right and nothing ever happens. And of course they're bitter. Of course they're frustrated. You would be too. In fact many of you are. Because the same thing has happened here in Indiana. The same thing happened across the border in Decatur. The same thing has happened all across the country. Nobody is looking out for you. Nobody is thinking about you. And so people end up- they don't vote on economic issues because they don't expect anybody's going to help them. So people end up, you know, voting on issues like guns, and are they going to have the right to bear arms. They vote on issues like gay marriage. And they take refuge in their faith and their community and their families and things they can count on. But they don't believe they can count on Washington. So I made this statement-- so, here's what rich. Senator Clinton says 'No, I don't think that people are bitter in Pennsylvania. You know, I think Barack's being condescending.' John McCain says, 'Oh, how could he say that? How could he say people are bitter? You know, he's obviously out of touch with people.'

Out of touch? Out of touch? I mean, John McCain--it took him three tries to finally figure out that the home foreclosure crisis was a problem and to come up with a plan for it, and he's saying I'm out of touch? Senator Clinton voted for a credit card-sponsored bankruptcy bill that made it harder for people to get out of debt after taking money from the financial services companies, and she says I'm out of touch? No, I'm in touch. I know exactly what's going on. I know what's going on in Pennsylvania. I know what's going on in Indiana. I know what's going on in Illinois. People are fed-up.

They're angry and they're frustrated and they're bitter. And they want to see a change in Washington and that's why I'm running for President of the United States of America.

The misguided mainstream media may be right about one thing, this may be a turning point, the point at which Americans begin to listen to a politician who tells the truth and refuses to pander, to stoop as low as Senator Clinton and the rest of the Republicans.

That would be Barack Obama.

Here's video of his reply:



also appears on huffingtonpost.com

This Week's LivePDX.com Music Blog

While plotting to somehow arrange it so that no song ever again begins with an acoustic guitar going "chunk chunk-a-chunk-a, chunk, chunk-a-chunk-a, chunk chunk-a-chunk-a"…etc:
The Mt. Hood Jazz Fesitval is actually the Mt. Hood Jazz Festival again. On Monday, with saxophonist Red Holloway in attendance, they announced that the festival will come back to the campus of Mt. Hood Community College (also the home of KMHD) Friday and Saturday August 16 & 17. That's where it started in 1981. There are still bad feelings about how and why it left. Not toward the college, but toward those who ran it back then. No, it won't be like it was, but it's a good thing it has come home. More info later.
A new jazz club in Portland! And run by a musician! Come May drummer Alan Jones will be opening a club in the basement of the Green Onion near Portland State called The Cave at 636 SW Jackson St. (at Broadway). And hallelujah!!! Wednesday nights will be owned by Nancy King. There will be music on weekends, too.
Yes, of course Alan will be playing, it's his club.
There's some grumbling among and between the musicians over Jimmy Mak's new policy of booking two bands in one night. Two bands, one cover. Sometimes a band will open for another, sometimes they share the headline. I think it's a great thing for music consumers (us).
I reported last week that Margaret Slovak was having her shoulder examined in New York. Not exactly. She says, "I got a grant to go to NYC for two weeks to study with a classical guitarist, David Leisner, who has developed guitar playing techniques utilizing larger muscle groups in the shoulder/armpit to help regain right hand function due to injuries. The lessons went very well and I feel that these techniques will help me to get more of the use of my right hand back. It will still take a while to fully integrate the techniques but the study gave me a lot of hope! I had shoulder surgery in 2006 to fix the damage from the (auto accident)."
On the teenage blues front: Last Friday (Muddy Waters' birthday) guitarist/singer TJ Moor was thrilled to be able take the stage with Pinetop Perkins and Willie "Big Eyes" Smith at the Aladdin Theater while multi-instrumentalist Mac Potts, "danced the night away whirlin' and twirlin'," according to TJ. Saturday Mac played in the lobby of the Schnitz.
One good thing about working for nothing at KMHD is the DJ email list. For instance, a couple of weeks ago Jeremy Appleton, who does the awesome Soul Station show at 10 pm on Tuesday nights wrote, "Robert Parker is an Australian Sound Engineer and Broadcaster. Over the last thirty years Robert has developed a unique, award winning system for extracting high quality sound from early mono 78 rpm records. He has been collecting records since the age of around twelve - and has now amassed one of the finest vintage music collections in the country. It has formed the basis for 'Jazz Classics in Digital Stereo'. You can now hear the seris over the Web."
Brother/sister electronic/trip-hop duo Oracle with Keith Schreiner,
twin sister/sister duo Acoustic Minds
and Morgan Grace (among others) performing at a tribute to Billie Holiday? Now that sounds like fun. It's a benefit for November's Siren Nation Festival on Saturday, April 12 at The Fez. MCing is Tahoe Jackson. I wish she were also singing. Somebody has to get her to sit in on something that night.
Bassist Damien Erskine is always busy. There's finally a Klezmocracy gig coming up (stay tuned) and recently he signed with Alfred Publishing for an instructional book and a DVD. He ought to have one on how to grow and maintain an awesome half-a-goatee.
I won't jump the gun on a piece I have in this week's A&E section but one of the happiest happy hours in town these days features former Artichokians Kate Power and Steve Einhorn every Monday night in April at the Alberta St. Public House.
There are no Oregon bands nominated for Jammys
this year. You can vote there anway. I voted for Bonerama and Galactic.
Tom D'Antoni is a Portland writer and TV Producer/Reporter. Listen to his show on Saturday nights 10pm to 2am on KMHD 89.1 fm and streaming on the web at kmhd.fm.

A good time to remember this song

I'd rather support the people ho faught against the Iraq war than the ones who actually faught it in Iraq.

This week's LivePDX.com music blog

While trying to recover from two days in Bend "covering" the famed Pregnant Man story for Inside Edition:

Word from saxophonist/composer Patrick Lamb's wife Amy Maxwell tells me that he is home and recovering from last week's traffic accident at Grand and NE Weidler where his car was smacked by a dump truck. She said that the people who found him immediately after the wreck thought he was a goner. He was not. He has some broken bones, but after a couple of days in the hospital, he was released. She is grateful for all the good will sent her way…and Patricks's.

Not sure how long it'll be before he's up and playing again. The sooner the better.

Another medical report: Margaret Slovak is back from New York City where she was having her shoulder examined. The lingering effects of her own auto accident several years ago is one of the sad stories in the Portland music community. She was rear-ended not terribly far from where Lamb's car was hit.

And you thought drugs were the biggest danger to musicians. If I was a Portland player I'd stay away from Sullivan's Gulch!

3 Leg Torso is going to be "featured in the DVD release of Diary of the Dead, George Romero's latest zombie movie" according to Courtney von Drehle, the accordion leg of the band. & Teller, a short film by the silent half of Penn and Teller along with Ezekiel Zabrowski won one of the five first prizes in a George Romero-sponsored contest. That's how it gets on the DVD. They used the 3 Leg tune "Elliot's Dream." It comes out May 20.

Teller narrates the film which tells the story of how his Las Vegas hometown is overrun by those cute undead folks. He kills them, I hear. Violinist Bela Balogh said, "We’ve been licensing a lot of music lately…to Bill Plympton and others. Von Drehle added, “Though in retrospect, we were glad they didn’t ask us to help clean all that zombie make-up and glue off of them after filming!”

Think that rock operas are dead? A new one called Toy Room by performance artist Sally Tomato premieres April 4-6 at the Wonder Ballroom. A soundtrack album has already been released and a DVD of the performance will be released in the fall. Proceeds go to Portland Women's Crisis Line.

According to what they sent me, the show "chronicles the life story of the enigmatic Sally Tomato. Touching on her childhood and hurtling into a chaotic adult life, the story line moves through an abusive marriage on its way to rediscovering the innocence of youth. Throughout the play, Sally struggles to regain the ability she had as a child to rise above the mundane via her imagination. In the end she triumphs, finding that the toy room has always existed in her own mind – and reminding us that it exists in ours as well."

Sounds like a chick thing.

One of the happiest elements of the show is the return to the dance world of Clynthia Chimienti who came out of the late great PSU dance program and who hasn't been active for the past few years while getting her masters and launching her counseling practice. She does the choreography and plays the part of "Destiny."

Boomerific bass player Freebo who backed Bonnie Raitt, John Mayall, CSN (that's Crosby, Stills and Nash, kids), Maria Mauldaur and even Ringo Starr (although who didn't?), Neil Young and Dr. John (I don't remember that)….whew that was long…he's coming to Artichoke Music for a songwriting workshop on Sunday, April 6 2-6pm. He was Best Folk Artist in last year's Los Angeles Music Awards. F.Y.I. His real name is Daniel Friedberg.

R.I.P Sean Levert. According to news reports, " Sean Levert, a third of the 1980s R&B trio LeVert and son of lead O'Jays singer Eddie Levert, has died after falling ill while serving a jail term. He was 39. Authorities said Monday that an autopsy was inconclusive but foul play was ruled out.

Levert was sentenced last week to one year and 10 months in jail for failing to pay $89,025 in child support.

Wednesday is (was) Leon Russell'sLeon Russell's 67th birthday and he's still caught in a masquerade.

Art, waffles and music? Rich going, huh? Scott Stobbe of the band Zdrastvootie says, "I am having some of my compositions performed (a collage of pieces for trombone, oboe, violin, accordeon, toy piano, guitar and percussion) come if you can. Jace Gace makes good waffles and has beer!! There is also a free impov sextet on the April 9th show!!" It is sponsored by Portland New Music Society.

And on Friday, April 5, don't forget Rachel Taylor Brown's CD release gig at Mississippi Studios.