By: Dan Israel
Editor’s preamble, warning, and disclaimer.
This is the first, and possibly last time howwastheshow will publish a review of a show by the person who did the show. Dan Israel’s review of his own show is more than 4,000 words long! That’s feature article length folks, and not for the faint of heart. The howwastheshow contributor guidelines suggest single show reviews should be 500-750 words because even without the space limitations of the printed page, most people won’t normally read too far beyond that. But because Dan’s review is a great slice of the current music scene, and a decent overview of a Dan Israel show we missed, I decided to run the piece in its entirety with just my bracketed headings to break it up. However, unless you have a LOT of time on your hands, you might just want to skip the quite fair and comprehensive reviews of the opening bands and Dan's actual performance at the end. (The section breaks below are mine and are anchored to their corresponding points in the review.) – David de Young
Table of Contents
• Dan’s Preamble and Disclaimer
• The Beginning
• The Music Video
• The week of the show arrives…
• The day of the show arrives. (Dan takes his cat to the vet and drinks too much coffee.)
• One of the most amazing digressions I’ve ever read in a music review
• The opening bands, The Wooldridge Brothers and Molly Maher
• Dan reviews his show
“Howwasmyshow.com (Note: not an actual web domain name)”
[Dan’s Preamble and Disclaimer]
Well, this is a little unorthodox. Because of, as the current movie title goes, "a series of unfortunate events," howwastheshow.com was unable to send a correspondent to my CD release show at Lee's Liquor Lounge on Friday, December 3. They had every intention of covering the show and reviewing it, but when their correspondent couldn't make it due to circumstances beyond anyone's control, the ever-so-slightly novel idea came up of having me review my own show. Egotistical? Of course. Biased beyond belief? Hell yeah. A chance to talk about myself at length without having to see you yawning out there? Sure. But I couldn't resist the opportunity. It just sounded like a lot of fun. So, I will henceforth cease with all disclaimers and just let you read one man's completely subjective and rambling account of his performance (and the events leading up to it) at his own CD release show.
The story all starts out when I was born. But that's all kind of boring, so let's just hit the old fast-forward button (on high-speed fast-forward, mind you) and skip ahead 33 years to the year 2004. I had just released my sixth album (I still call them albums, sorry. I know "record" is much cooler and "CD" is really lame), "time i get home" on local singer-songwriter-record-mogul Martin Devaney's Eclectone label. It was technically a "solo album," because I recorded the vast majority of it by myself in my St. Louis Park basement, but it also featured drums by regular Cultivators drummer Dave Russ and Honeydogs keyboardist Pete Sands. The first CD release show was held in October at the Turf Club and was a success, at least in "Dan Israel" terms. That means that a lot more people showed up than normally come to my shows and we got a lot of good advance press for it. (I will try to cease using my name as an adjective or any other type of modifier from here on out.) Anyway, as I did when I released my last, um, record, "Love Ain't a Cliche," I decided that I would really "milk it" and have a 2nd CD release show in Minneapolis at Lee's...the idea being that the first CD release show at the Turf was the "St. Paul" CD release and the second one at Lee's would be the "Minneapolis" CD release. Yep, that's milking it alright! However, I decided that this time, since I was really repeating myself, I needed to do something else a little bit bold and adventurous (and, as it turns out, expensive) to make the 2nd CD release a real "event," not just a rehash of the first CD release. As luck would have it, I sort of had an ace up my sleeve.
We had a music video shot and edited (for the Dan Israel and the Cultivators song "Overloaded," off the aforementioned "Love Ain't a Cliche" record) that no one outside a small circle of friends had ever seen. It was shot in 2003 and took a while to edit. The director was a guy named Andy Uzendoski, a friendly and cool college kid who had taken a liking to my music (as was once documented in a Jim Walsh Pioneer Press column) and wanted to shoot a video for us as a class project.
Of course I said yes to Andy...he was going to shoot the video on 16 mm film at no cost to us. Having been a film major in college years ago, I knew that we were getting a hell of a deal - it would have cost me thousands to do such a project on my own. Film is super-expensive. So, with the help of some friends and Andy's brother Mickey, we shot this video...and then hadn't done anything with it. Which was really a shame because it was great. It was funny and well-shot and well-edited and looked so damn good on 16 mm film! I decided I would make the Lee's CD release show into a "CD release/music video release" show. The publicity wheels were already turning.
I decided I would get DVD copies of the video made, send them out to local media persons, and also get enough copies made so that we could hand them out (yes, for free) at the release show. Great idea, but, like I said, expensive. Well, you gotta spend money to make money, right? Yeah, I keep hearing that, but all my life I've pretty much just been spending it and not making much in the music business...but I digress. So I bit the bullet and got the videos pressed. Sent 'em out, started hyping up the show. Around this time I was also thinking how I should try to make the show an interesting musical experience as well. You know, the music, the thing I'm supposed to be most concerned with but get so wrapped up in the business part of all of this sometimes that it seems to almost fall by the wayside? Yeah...that. So, having played with Big Ditch Road pedal steel player and good friend Brian O'Neil at the Turf Club CD release, and having played many times over the years with ace guitarist and good friend Randy Casey, I decided to invite them both on board for the Lee's CD release. There would have to be some rehearsals, but the groundwork was now laid on both the business and music ends of the show.
[The week of the show arrives…]
The week of the show arrived and I was going about my usual "juggle two careers" act. In case you didn't know, I work for the Minnesota Legislature, full-time, and so I've gotten pretty good over the years at balancing the day job and the rock and roll life. But it's tough sometimes. Throw in a full schedule of family and social events that come from living in my hometown and having a tight-knit family and group of friends here, I've pretty much always got a full slate in my life. It's probably no surprise that I wrote a song called "Overloaded." If it weren't for the release I get from writing and playing music, I probably would have "gone postal" a long time ago. Anyway, the week of the show arrived and, because of conflicting schedules, I did a rehearsal with Brian and our bass player Kris one night and another rehearsal with Randy the next night. Also, we actually did manage to get some press for the show, despite the "milking it" aspect. The Pioneer Press ran a big picture of me (which seemed to impress my St. Paul co-workers a little bit) and the Onion ran a photo with a nice blurb, while Tom Hallett made the show his "Gig of the Week" in his "Round the Dial" column in Pulse and commented on the video.
[The day of the show arrives…Dan takes his cat to the vet, drinks too much coffee.]
Finally, Friday had arrived. Showtime, baby! I got off of work early, partly because we had our office "holiday party" at work that day (which cut the day a little short, thankfully), and had to rush home and take our cat back into the vet's for a follow-up appointment (he had swallowed a piece of fabric the week before and had become quite ill, so they had to open up his digestive tract and they pulled the fabric out of his small intestine...yes, I know, yuck...this appointment was just to remove the stitches from the surgery, and he was fine). I got back home after that and had to get a ton of things ready for the show, including disconnecting our DVD player at home and making sure I had all the right cables and stuff so we could screen the music video on the big-screen TV at Lee's. I drank too much coffee, which would haunt me later when I was stressing out and, well, had had too much coffee. I also had a lot of gear to shlep down to Lee's. I got there and had a nice chat with Dan, possibly my favorite soundguy in town. I finally got all my stuff loaded in to Lee's and then was busy trying to help Dan set up a audio feed from the DVD player so that we could run the audio of the music video through the house PA. Fun fun fun! We (well, Dan) finally got it figured out and then I ran home to pick up my wife Lisa back in St. Louis Park. In between there was all kinds of pre-show stress, including trying to figure out what gear the opening bands were going to use (they used our bass and drum rig, for example, but one of the opening band's drummers was left-handed, making for some necessary last-minute adjustments on Dave's drum kit) - as well as the aforementioned "too much coffee" phenomenon.
[One of the most amazing digressions I’ve ever read in a music review…]
Another thing that had happened was that when I first arrived at Lee's and was trying to unload all my gear and CD's and DVD's and what-have-you, a homeless woman outside the bar was trying to tell me in broken English some story about how some guys had, I guess, abducted a woman and taken her down to the Farmer's Market area. I freaked out and told her I would call the police on my cell phone, but she kept insisting (rather adamantly) that I not call the police. In fact, she wanted me to go down to the Farmer's Market by myself and investigate the situation. I was really torn on what to do and kept telling her that if this had really happened, I was obligated to call the police, but she was equally insistent that I NOT tell the police and very insistent also that I personally go down to the dimly lit Farmer's Market by myself (on foot...when I offered to take my car she said that was unacceptable). I'm not making this up. Finally, after talking about the situation with Dan the Sound Guy, we decided that I should give her one final option - either I could call the police on my cell phone and have them come to investigate this seemingly disturbing situation, or I would do nothing at all. Me walking down to the Farmer's Market to confront 4 possibly armed men was not an option. But no, the homeless woman (whom I had given a dollar to, already, I should add, before she told me about this situation) would not allow me to call the police, even after I repeatedly insisted that I would not tell the police about her (in case she was worried about talking to them herself, which she seemingly was). Well, as terrible as this sounds, that was the end of that. She walked away and I didn't see her again. Did I turn my back on someone in need? I don't know. I hope not. But I wasn't willing to go down to the Farmer's Market by myself and possibly risk my life in a situation I had no knowledge about other than this woman's word, and I have to say she didn't seem exactly trustworthy. Furthermore, it might have been a set-up to mug me or worse...stranger things have happened in this world. I hope I did the right thing. I probably didn't, but I tried.
[The opening bands, The Wooldridge Brothers and Molly Maher]
Anyway, I went to pick up Lisa and we got back down to Lee's, where the
Wooldridge Brothers had just started their set. They sounded really good, but in "working the room" and dealing with all the other pre-show stuff I rarely get to hear the other bands enough to give an informed review of their sets, so I'll just say that both opening acts – the Wooldridge Brothers and Molly Maher and Her Disbelievers, are tried and tested troubadours who know how to put on a great show and this night was no exception. Anyway, I'd already had a beer or two and was starting to (finally) settle down after a rather (typically) hectic work day/rock and roll night situation. Friends started to trickle in and the night was feeling good. Molly did her set, which I did get to hear a little more of than the first band's set and I thought it was particularly excellent - she had two drummers up there and was playing cool new songs and the crowd seemed really into it. The woman's got soul, brother. Then it was time for us to take the stage. In between all this were numerous worries on my part about who would get the remote control for the TV from the bartender (he keeps it behind the bar, of course) and who would get the remote control for the DVD player to start the music video...all of which I had to worry about in addition to getting all my stuff on stage and getting ready to play the set. Luckily, my wife and my friend Steve helped out with the "remote control issues" and as we took the stage and tuned up, the music video ran and most of the people in the bar crowded around the big-screen TV to take in our somewhat-hilarious MTV-like antics. People seemed to like the video, judging from the smiles on their faces and the occasional chuckle I heard from the crowd. The sound through the PA worked, and even though we hadn't played a note as a band yet, the night was a half-success, since the "video release party" part of the show was, as GW Bush would say, "mission accomplished." (Obligatory name-dropping warning!) ...I said hi to friends and fellow scenesters like Mark Stockert, Dave Boquist, and Greg Burke on my way to the stage. Finally, and I mean finally (is this the longest pre-show buildup for any review ever on howwastheshow.com? I would imagine so. This ought to be posted on howwaseverythingbeforetheshow.com!) we started playing. At this point in this entirely long-winded review, I now have to consult my set list that I did in Word at work on the day of the show and have now printed out again for reference sake. The reason I have to do this is that at the point where we started playing at Lee's, I had, um, had a few drinks and without the pre-printed set list as a guide here, I'd have a rather difficult time telling you how the show was. I think you, the intelligent reader, understand what I'm trying to say here.
[Dan starts to review his show]
We kicked off with "Better Road," a slide-blues rocker from "time i get home". On the record, it has no drums, but we said "to hell with that" and played it with drums. I have to play it on my other guitar, because it's tuned down to open-G (Keith Richards tuning) so I can slide away. People seemed to like it and I switched back to my Strat and we followed it up with "Brings You Back", another one off the new record (I'm sticking with "record" now instead of "album"). It's kind of a rocker, but more subdued and downbeat. All this time, we had Brian up there playing pedal steel, and he would play about half the night or more with us (Randy was up there the whole time). Then, we did what is really the title track of the new record, "You Know" (since each chorus/verse ends with the phrase "Time I get home"). That went off well too, despite being a slower number. I should say at this point that all night I had been worried about the crowd numbers. But I finally pretty much stopped worrying about it a few songs into our set. For one thing, it wasn't a bad night, numbers-wise. The bar was never "packed" but it certainly wasn't empty either. It was respectable. I hate when I worry about stuff like that when I'm on stage, but I'll admit that sometimes I let things distract me and that sucks because I'd rather be up there going "wow, I'm playing at Lee's on a Friday night and people are dancing and a bunch of my friends are here and these awesome musicians are up here with me playing songs that I wrote in my basement." When I look at it that way, I feel really blessed. I struggled a LOT of years just to get to the point where I could headline on a weekend night at a good club in the Twin Cities, and I try to never lose sight of the fact that there were many years before this one where I couldn't expect to even land an opening slot on a weeknight, much less a headlining slot on a weekend. So I took a swig from my "stage beer" and reminded myself to have some fun.
We launched into the Stonesy rocker "Somebody Better" from the new record, and Randy tore off an absolutely delicious solo at the end, that we dragged out for just long enough that he could really shine. I have to say some words about the guys I was playing with at this point. First of all, Dave Russ is beyond rock-solid on drums. Playing with him is like playing with Charlie Watts, Keith Moon, Bonzo Bonham, and Ringo Starr all at once. The guy can fuckin' play, OK? His resume with local bands is far too long to list, but he's currently also filling in on drums reguarly for such heavyweights as Martin Zellar, Tina Schlieske, and Billy Johnson. Throw in our stalwart bass player Kris Bowring, who has gone from really good (five years ago when he joined the band) to even better...all this in a band that frequently throws the bass player a hell of a lot of cover-song curveballs...well, Kris just knows how to hang with everything we throw him, which is a tremendous ability in a bass player. Brian O'Neil has really added some moody, cool elements to our recent shows with his top-notch pedal steel playing. I've known Brian for a while and seeing how good he is with Big Ditch Road was enough to convince me that he would sound great guesting with us too, and I'm glad to find out I was right. Finally, there's Randy Casey, a guy good enough on guitar to play big-time tours with Shannon Curfman and then come back to the Twin Cities and be able to back up Paul Westerberg for a 3-hour set of randomly chosen covers (with Randy's band Retrofit), which is what happened this past summer at the 400 Bar. Randy is the shit, and that's a compliment, believe me. He's also played with Ol' Yeller and Peter Himmelman, among many others. This guy's been around.
Anyway, we finished the first part of the set with "Windowsill," a song on the new record that builds and builds, and was made even better live by the presence of Randy, who played the harmony guitar parts that are on the recorded version with me (that I was previously unable to recreate in a live setting because we didn't have a second guitarist). The crowd really seemed to like that, and Bic lighters may have been waving. I don't know for sure, but it's possible. Then Brian sat down and we had our first real flub of the night (hmm, maybe we shouldn't have let Brian leave the stage!). We managed to botch "Hey Kid," a song from "Love Ain't a Cliche" that I wrote for my sister that has a lot of personal meaning for me. The version we played that night at Lee's just sucked, and the fault was all mine, since I had forgotten to include it in our rehearsals. Oh well, live and learn. This crowd was probably almost as tipsy as me and were quite forgiving. We recovered decently with what passes as a holiday song for us, "George Bailey," which I of course wrote based on the Jimmy Stewart character in the sappy, tear-jerking holiday uber-classic, "It's a Wonderful Life." I tend to think that, although many people consider this movie to be ultra-uncool because of it's sappy, all-American, holiday movie reputation, that it actually deserves better for several reasons. One is that it's not nearly as "fuzzy-soft" of a movie as its reputation would have you believe. Have you actually watched "It's a Wonderful Life" lately? It's about a man who is driven to the point of suicide by ruinous financial events, and is only coaxed back to wanting to live again by an angel who shows him how awful the lives of people in George Bailey's hometown of Bedford Falls would be if not for ol' George. Suicide doesn't make for a good Hallmark card, and it's a lot deeper movie than it's usually given credit for being. Furthermore, Laurie Lindeen's old band was named Zuzu's Petals, which comes right out of the movie, and Paul Westerberg himself had a song on his Suicaine Gratifaction album called "It's a Wonderful Lie." Come on, that makes it cool right there. Finally, I watch the damn movie every year and start bawling like a baby when they all sing "Auld Lang Syne" at the end, so there...that's why I wrote the song about it.
Anyway, shaking off the semi-sappiness of George Bailey, we launched into the rocker "All the Phonies" from the new record, which also is sort of a pop-culture/literary/movie reference song, as I kind of wrote it as a song written from the point of view of Holden Caulfield in "Catcher in the Rye" (minus the awful Mark David Chapman element) who refers to almost everyone as "phonies." It's sort of that, anyway, though it's more personal than that, as I guess I feel like I'm constantly dealing with phonies myself and the song was kind of therapy for me to write. I won't name names, however. Then we did "Feet in the Water" from "Love Ain't a Cliche," which I dedicated on stage to my wife. I wrote it about when I proposed to her (sigh). Then we launched into the opening track of the new record, "Come to Me," which, with all due humility, if there was one iota of justice in the music business would be a bona fide nationwide radio hit and I could quit my damn day job once and for all. Not that I'm bitter or anything. We finished the Brian-less set (not brainless, Brian-less) with "Don't Feel Like Laughing" which has the trademark ripoff ending of the Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again." The crowd loved it. That bit always works.
Then Brian came back and joined us on pedal steel for a blistering version of Johnny Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues" (Brian and Randy both took hot-shot country solos on this one), and we followed that up with our own "twang-rock" classic "All Alone" from the 1999 "Mama's Kitchen" record. I never know if people want to hear our older stuff, but I try not to make the set list entirely out of our last two records. Well, at least there were one or two exceptions on this night ("George Bailey" is on my solo record "Cedar Lake" as well). Then we called up our good friend Molly Maher and she sang splendid backup vocals on a version of Lucinda Williams' "Big Red Sun Blues" from Lucinda's phenomenal self-titled 1988 record. This was, in fact, the second time Dan Israel and the Cultivators had ever performed this song at Lee's...the first time being in 1999 with the "old lineup" of the Cultivators (Tom Sampson on guitar, Andy Rauh on drums, Chris Andree on bass), when we opened for Bruce Robison and had him come up and sing backup on the same song. Bruce Robison, of course, is the husband of noted country crooner Kelly Willis and the brother of country-rocker Charlie Robison, who is married to Emily Robison of the Dixie Chicks (and Bruce is seeming now set for life since the Dixie Chicks have had successful covers of a couple of his songs). But I digress. Anyway, this really opened up the final chapter of the night for us - the "mostly covers" section of our set, and of course we followed it up with an appropriately boozy version of "Dead Flowers" by the Stones, complete with kickin' solos from our multiple axe-men. We then snuck one last original in, "Some Time," the first song on "Love Ain't a Cliche," and, as per the custom at our recent shows, our good friend Martin Devaney came up and sang some great backup. Things get a little hazy here for me, as I believe we veered off our pre-printed setlist, but I think we then did a rambunctious version of the always-popular Cultivators cover song, The Who's "The Seeker." I think then Dave Russ did lead vocals on Led Zep's "Rock and Roll" and Randy Casey tore off a sick solo (that means good). Finally, as last call went out and time was ticking off the clock, we launched into a thoroughly inebriated version of the Stones' "Let it Bleed" and were joined onstage for backup vocals by the likes of Devaney, bass player Steve Murray of Molly's band and Friends Like These, our video director Andy Uzendoski, and local songstress and Mike Lane-collaborator Kiki Klein. That was it. The crowd that was still there went wild, and Lee's owner Louie Sirian seemed happy with the evening. Well, if he was, then we were too. We sold a few CD's before people left, gave away a few DVD's of the video, said thanks and goodbye to our friends who had "stuck it out," the musicians got paid, everybody looked to be in good spirits (pun intended), and the place was soon empty, save for Mike, the clean-up guy. Thank you, and goodnight.
Location Info:
Lee's Liquor Lounge
Artist Info: Dan Israel, Molly Maher, Woolridge Brothers
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