Posts Tagged ‘Crusin’’

Don’t Bug Me, Baby

Tuesday, July 6th, 2021
Crusin' at Proof Social 2021
Crusin’ at Proof Social, l to r, M.A.C., Steve Kundel, Bill Anson, Scott Anson

The gig Saturday, July 3, at Proof Social in Muscatine went very well, especially considering it had been two years since Crusin’s last outing.

This was the first public performance with bass player Scott Anson (our guitar player Bill’s son). Scott filled in for Brian Van Winkle at the last performance – a private function in 2019 – before Covid sidelined us and everybody. He is a terrific bass player and a real asset to the band. Of course, it was bittersweet without Brian, whose premature, unexpected passing remains hard to accept.

We had a number of my fellow classmates of ‘66 Muscatine High School grads who came out for a kind of unofficial 55th reunion. But the performance on the patio outside the club (the same patio where we performed a number of times in past years for the Second Sunday concert series) enjoyed both nice weather and a standing room only crowd reflecting a broad demographic. My old pal from early Crusin’ days, Charlie Koenigsaecker, brought a group down from Iowa City. Charlie ran sound for us for back in the day and is a popular dj with great taste in addition to working at the Iowa City Library.

Another old friend, Doug Kreiger, came up to me and – once we’d kidded each other for a while – thanked me quite sincerely for all the music and stories I’d shared with my hometown (and beyond) over the years. It was a nice moment and an unexpected expression of sentiment.

I do find myself reflecting on all the years of music, knowing that the road ahead is limited in that regard whereas storytelling is less so. The loading in and out – as I mentioned last time – is so onerous that it calls into question whether or not it’s worth the effort. The day after, as I write this, I feel like I was hit by a truck. That was always the case after a band job, for the last three decades anyway, but now it feels like a bigger truck.

Gigs are unpredictable, always, and after a nice evening with weather cooperating, darkness fell and bugs attracted to the lights illuminating the band swarmed us, like Pappy Yokum getting assaulted by hordes of locusts as he tried to protect the turnip crop. These were tiny bugs, unidentifiable but similar to gnats, though they weren’t biting, just turning my keyboards into a gummy, sticky runway and clinging to my exposed flesh the same way. This didn’t happen till the last set, toward the end, and we limped through fifteen minutes of absolute insect invasion…and toward the end the notorious “fish bugs” joined the assault. They tell me fish bugs have only a 34-hour life span, and that’s way too long.

I’ve played in bands since 1965, frequently out of doors, and never had this happen before. And today I spent an hour cleaning the two keyboards of crushed bug carcasses, also a new experience.

Did God send the little devils to tell me I’d been doing this long enough?

* * *

On our recent trip to Minnesota for a family reunion, which centered around the graveside service of Barb’s mom, Barb and I went to a movie in Minneapolis. And I think I may be seriously out of step. I felt the same way this evening when I watched a movie on HBO Max.

In Minneapolis, we went to F9, as it’s being called, and it’s an appropriate title if “F” stands for what it should. I am easy to please with dumb action movies, and have seen every Fast and Furious movie in a theater and had fun. This one is sloppy and stupid, lacking both the Rock and Jason Stratham, but it did mark Barb and me officially getting back in the moviegoing swing – by walking out.

I didn’t walk out on director Steven Soderbergh’s No Sudden Move, with a cast so star-studded Matt Damon didn’t bother with getting a billing. But the only reason I didn’t walk out was because I was home. It’s a mess, incomprehensible and pretentious and frequently shot with distorting lenses that call attention to themselves. The great Don Cheadle spends the running time looking like he wished somebody had shown him the script. But the critics love it, so I am probably wrong.

F9 puts me out of step with the public and No Sudden Move puts me out of step with the critics. I’ve got all the bases covered!

* * *

Here’s a great review of Two for the Money (mostly about Bait Money but also the Nolan series in general).

And here’s a spiffy review of both novels collected in Double Down (Fly Paper and Hush Money).

Finally, here’s another Two for the Money review, generally not bad, but apparently the 22 year-old me in the early ‘70s was supposed to have better attitudes than “cringingly archaic” ones about women’s looks and tough guy prowess. You’d think I’d been writing a paperback crime novel with an early ‘70s mostly male readership in mind.

M.A.C.

Crusin’: One More Time, and Ms. Tree: One Mean Mother

Tuesday, September 10th, 2019

My band’s “season” is winding down – we have only one gig left, in a couple of weeks. Crusin’ has been playing outdoor gigs at scenic Ardon Creek Winery in recent years – I believe this was our fourth (maybe fifth) appearance. We had 365 people for the fresh-air event, which made us the second biggest draw in the venue’s history (“That’s the second biggest draw I’ve ever seen!” – Maxwell Smart.)

The weather was beautiful, the audience responsive, and the only drawback was I forgot how dark it could get by the time the third set rolled around (we began at sunny six p.m. and closed out at stygian nine). You will note the improvised lighting on the picture of us playing.

We already have lined up two of the three jobs we’ve decided to do next summer. The other one will likely be at the Brew for the Fourth of July. That doesn’t mean we won’t respond to phone calls seeking to book us, but we won’t be actively seeking any.

For me, seriously considering rock ‘n’ roll retirement comes down to the setting up and tearing down – I’m dealing with two keyboards, an amp, and fairly elaborate pedals and so on to hook up. It can require a lot of bending, kneeling, standing, repetitiously. While I am in generally good physical condition, I have side effects – dizziness, balance issues – from the handful of meds I take each morning. Barb has been helping me set up, which has been a real boon, but she was down with a cold and couldn’t make Ardon Creek. After three hours of playing, the tear-down and loading (and returning home to load back out) is a drag, as Paul McCartney said asked for his response to the news of John Lennon’s murder.

What is keeping me going is the desire to do one more original material CD. The plan, as I’ve mentioned here, is to do the CD over the winter and sell it at the three bookings and offer it here (and on CD Baby). It will (if it happens) include 9 new songs and three songs from “Real Time: Siege at Lucas Street Market” that have never been on a CD; these mark the last recordings with my longtime musical collaborator, Paul Thomas, who also produced the tunes.

Photos of the Ardon Creek gig are by our guitarist Bill Anson’s son, Scott Anson, who also ran sound for us at Ardon Creek. He plays bass with his dad and his dad’s brother Dave (a gifted guitarist) in the Anson Brothers Band.

* * *

There seems to be some nice buzz about the first of the five Titan Ms. Tree collections, Ms. Tree: One Mean Mother. I will provide some links to some of the coverage, and it feels good to see fans saying how pleased they are that these books are happening.

Let me address the one complaint, though I believe I’ve already talked about it here, so forgive my redundancy. I made the determination to lead with the DC material, the ten graphic novellas we did for Ms. Tree Quarterly – the last published Ms. Tree comics to date. This was in part because we had already collected the earliest stuff in trade paperbacks back in the day. But also I felt this was strong material, perhaps our strongest, and wanted to lead out of strength.

Additionally, five of the ten DC novellas form (somewhat loosely I admit) a single graphic novel, while the other five are stand-alone stories, not tied to ongoing continuity (at the time). So the DC novellas have been rearranged into the graphic novel and a “casebook.” Anal retentive fans who want to have the material in published order will only have to put up with my desire for shuffling those ten stories in that fashion. Volumes three through five will print everything in order, with one continuity leading into another and bringing the ramifications along for the ride. (A few oddball standalone stories, like the one in the 3-D comic book, will be dropped in here and there, and the Johnny Dynamite crossover will appear in the Johnny Dynamite collection that Terry Beatty and I are editing for Craig Yoe. I wrote the intro for that last week.)

My understanding is that the early volumes of collected comics are invariably the bigger sellers, which is another reason to (a) put our best foot forward, and (b) collect material previously ungathered.

So my advice to any of you lovely, wonderful if anal retentive fans – when you put the books on the shelf, start with volumes 3, 4 and 5, and then add on 1 and 2. (But buy them as they come out!) Since they aren’t numbered on the spines (or anywhere else), you will only have to suffer minor distress.

* * *

Here’s a nice example of the coverage the Ms. Tree: One Mean Mother trade pb from Titan is getting.

The delightfully titled site Comics for Sinners covered us this way.

Here’s another.

But wait, there’s more!

M.A.C.

Spoiler-ville!

Tuesday, August 13th, 2019

Crusin’ played on Sunday, from six p.m till around a quarter till eight, at the Musser Public Library in Muscatine – part of the Second Sunday Concert series. We’ve been part of that concert series for about a decade, but previously we’d been on the patio, outside, at Pearl City Plaza. That space is now privately owned and being developed for a restaurant, so the series is now at the library.

We were supposed to appear outside, in the parking lot, with a Mississippi River view (as the patio had in the past provided), but the morning was rainy with the day bringing dark clouds, so we headed inside to a nice big air-conditioned room on the third floor.

Frankly, I thought this change in venue – two changes, actually, from Pearl City Plaza to the library and then from the parking lot to inside the building – would mean disaster. I’m happy to have been wrong – we had a capacity crowd, easily over one-hundred, with the overflow seated outside the room itself in the hallway.

It went well. In a way that’s frustrating, because I’ve been leaning toward making this my final summer playing regular gigs – even our schedule of six appearances has seemed too much. But we are planning to do an original material CD over the winter months, so maybe we’ll be back for a limited schedule to peddle our CD…three gigs, maybe.

We played five of our originals from that project and they were well-received. It’s tricky as hell for an oldies band to do original material, but we got away with it. That is encouraging.

For a long time I’ve wanted to do one last rock ‘n’ roll album, something that sounds like a really good record from 1967.

We’ll see.

* * *

Welcome to Spoiler-Ville, and continue on at your peril. Skip down quickly if you haven’t seen Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and the fourth season of Veronica Mars.

First, Veronica Mars.

The world of Marshmallows (the cringe-worthy name for hardcore Veronica Mars fans, who have been, shall we say, a-twitter over the death of Veronica’s longtime love, Logan Echolls, portrayed by slow-burn actor Jason Dohring. Marshmallows want the show (assuming it comes back for a fifth season) to find a way to bring Logan back. Creator Rob Thomas and star Kristen Bell are speaking in terms of the finality of the character’s demise.

This is in concert with Thomas (and to some degree Bell) talking about freeing Veronica from her high-school-heavy past in Neptune, California, and (literally in the final episode) sending her off to solve mysteries in what appears to be a hip variation on Murder, She Wrote.

Look, Bell is great, and so is the character that the actress continues to love playing – she knows it’s her signature role. Thomas is a gifted writer and TV guy, and they presumably know what they’re doing. I believe part of the notion of leaving Neptune flows from the two painfully mediocre tie-in novels that Thomas co-bylined but almost certainly had little to do with. The Neptune setting and extended cast, in those novels, are burdens and baggage.

Veronica can lose all of those characters, except one – and that character is not Logan Echolls, who has ceased to be useful in her story. The essential secondary player is Veronica’s father, Keith Mars (as portrayed by Enrico Colantoni). Their chemistry – their verbal interplay – is the heart of the show. If Veronica leaves Neptune behind, including Keith, the character becomes just another detective, if the cutest on the planet.

So if Rob Thomas doesn’t find a way to keep Keith solidly in the mix, that could sink the show, whereas all Logan’s presence does is drag it down.

On the other hand, Logan is probably not dead.

Huh? What?

Logan is a Naval Intelligence Officer, who is established in season four as someone who suddenly leaves from time to time, to do dangerous spy stuff. Also, right before he marries Veronica (I told you not to look, Nate!), she receives a text from him that says, “Sorry.” But then he shows up to marry her anyway, and shrugs off the “Sorry” as meaning he was sorry he was going to be a little late for the wedding (not a big church one, after all).

Okay. So how hard would it be to write Logan back in? Not at all. He’s off on secret spy stuff, so secret and dangerous that it might come back on Veronica if he’s found out. Naval Intelligence could easily fake his (off-camera) death. Then why would he marry her and put her through this? Part of the cover for his disappearing into undercover spy stuff would be to seem really dead…and marrying Veronica would at once (a) show her how he feels, and (b) get her all the perks of having a dead husband in the military.

So here’s what could happen. When Rob Thomas knows Veronica Mars is finally at its end (and it’s a hard show to kill, let’s face it), Logan can return. All kinds of melodrama can ensue, because Veronica will be furious with him, and so on.

This reading of the Logan Echolls demise may not be new – I do not keep up in any with Veronica Mars fandom, not being a Marshmallow, although I do like Krispie Treats.

On to Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

First of all, I have seen it a second time and like it even more. It’s a masterpiece. I was able to convince Barb to go, even though the Manson aspect put her off; but she loves violent revenge (always a bit unsettling in a wife) and loved it as much as I do.

Tarantino fills the screen and the soundtrack with references that will fly over many heads. I thought I’d caught plenty of ‘em, but new ones hit me this time.

For example, when a bus glides by with a banner promoting the Combat TV series, the star pictured is Rick Jason (not the better-known Vic Morrow). Jason, whose name is obviously similar to DeCaprio’s character, Rick Dalton, died a suicide. And Rick Dalton is a fading TV series lead who has suicidal tendencies (he’s somewhat patterned on Pete Duel of the TV western, Alias Smith and Jones, as well, another real-life suicide).

And when Brad Pitt as Cliff Booth stops to possibly give a ride to Manson girlie Pussycat (Margaret Qualley), his POV shot of her is ironically accompanied by a “Heaven Sent” commercial on the car radio; her POV shot of him includes a billboard with a big slab of meat advertising a supermarket.

Tons of that kind of stuff. I look forward to spotting more next time around.

The looming question about Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is whether Cliff Booth killed his wife or not. But that question is not answered, although significantly the moment that seems to say he did has him pointing his speargun at his wife while seated before her on his boat deck – she looms above him, carping at him, and when we cut away from them, the thought that he might pull the trigger in the next instant is inescapable.

But…(and my son Nathan had already ascertained this) on second viewing, I could clearly see that the speargun is not loaded.

I continue to feel the purpose of the rumor about Cliff killing his wife is a commentary on Hollywood judging people by rumor and not fact, and is a sly critique of #Metoo gotten out of hand.

When I revealed here last week that I had not liked Tarantino’s early films, I was hit by a few folks who wondered how my taste could be so terrible. Surely everybody loves Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and the Kill Bills! Well, I didn’t, although I may revisit them. My problem at the time, mostly, was that I knew the references – and not the resonant kind in Once Upon a Time, but more I knew where he was stealing from.

I also found him to be an obnoxious interviewee, still the nightmare video store clerk who tells you what’s good and bad and ugly, and assumes you don’t know as much as he does. I still have that problem with Tarantino when I have to look at him and listen to him. It’s just, now I understand that behind that geek-made-good persona is a truly gifted storyteller and filmmaker.

I think he turned the corner, in a good way, with Inglorious Basterds. Barb pointed out something that shows how smart she is and how slow I am – she said, after viewing the slaughter of the Mansonites by Pitt, his well-trained dog, and DeCaprio, “Tarantino really likes to right wrongs, doesn’t he?”

That was it. The cult movie regurgitation of his early films was replaced by a real theme that generated compelling narratives, not just clever, dialogue-driven playlets not adding up to much (Jackie Brown, excepted…Elmore Leonard, after all). Now he’s giving Nazis what they deserve (Inglorious Basterds), and slave owners (Django Unchained).

And the Mansion family.

Also, Once Upon a Time is his best film because it addresses Hollywood in a different way than the fan boy/video clerk manner of his earliest, over-praised work.

You are now exiting Spoiler-ville.

* * *

This is a wonderful write-up in Booklist about the Mike Hammer novels that I’ve been completing.

Here’s another of those write-ups where somebody notices that Road to Perdition the film began as Road to Perdition the graphic novel.

And another.

Finally, here’s a short but sweet RTP write-up, acknowledging the great Richard Piers Rayner.

M.A.C.

Yesterday

Tuesday, July 2nd, 2019

Yesterday, as I write this, Barb and I signed at the Davenport, Iowa, Barnes & Noble. The turnout was light (an air show was in progress), but those who came were great to talk with and they all bought books. In addition, the staff was warm and friendly and helpful. We were asked to sign all of the (considerable number of) books in stock, as a previous lightly attended signing was followed by us signing a ton of books, which went on an end-cap and sold out fairly quickly.

I knew that the B & N events person had ordered Girl Most Likely (and of course that chain does not regularly carry Thomas & Mercer books, because of the Amazon connection) and was disappointed when none were included on the huge display of M.A.C. and Barbara Allan books. I delicately inquired and learned they had indeed got in a good supply – but it sold out before the signing!

That was nice to hear.


M.A.C. with fan Clay Huffstutler

* * *

After the event, Barb and I took in a movie.

As you know, if you follow these updates, we almost always go to a movie every week. Lately what we’ve seen includes the unfortunate Men in Black: International, which wasted good leads Chris Hemsworth and Tess Thompson and demonstrated how an overage of CGI aliens could bore a jaded audience now (particularly when the aliens are poorly designed). Very good, however, was the Child’s Play reboot, which was funny and scary and everything you want a Chucky movie to be, assuming you want a Chucky movie at all (which both Barb and I do). Mark Hammil as the voice of Chucky is worth the price of admission.

Yesterday we saw Yesterday.

Again, regular readers of this weekly blog know that I am a movie buff. Over the sixty-some years of my moviegoing, I have amassed a considerable number of favorite films. Among these are Harvey, How to Succeed in Business, Anatomy of a Murder, Vertigo, Kiss Me Deadly, Gun Crazy, Chinatown and Groundhog Day, plus probably another dozen. It’s a fairly long list, but one I haven’t added anything to in some time. Maybe a couple of decades.

I added one yesterday – Yesterday.

You may be familiar with the premise, since this film has been talked about a lot, but actually you aren’t familiar with it, because it’s been inaccurately reported.

Everybody says it’s about a smalltime musician who gets hit by a bus and wakes up to find out everybody in the world has forgotten the Beatles. No. The lead is thrown by some world-wide electrical event into an alternate universe where the Beatles didn’t happen. Neither did Coke (the drink, not the drug) or cigarettes or Harry Potter, and, oh yes, the weekend comedy show Thursday Night Live is big. Everything else seems to be the same.

I’m not going to say much about this, except the filmmakers – writer Richard Curtis (co-creator of Blackadder and Mr. Bean) and director Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire) – are world-class. Take the ride they offer. Now, I have no idea how well this film will work on you if you were not born between, say, 1945 and 1960. But if you were, you probably have an affection for the Beatles, and an understanding of what they mean for our culture (not just popular culture), and this movie will likely work on you.

Of course not everyone in the Baby Boomer age group likes the Beatles. I remember my pal Ed Gorman, the great mystery writer, hated the Beatles and much, much preferred the Rolling Stones. That misses the point (although is typical Ed). In addition to writing an insanely diverse range of wonderful popular music, John, Paul, George and Ringo changed the world. Everybody from the Rolling Stones to Herman’s Hermits, from the Zombies to the Who, rode in on the wave they made.

If you are male and have ever worn long hair, the Beatles – not your barber or lack of one – did it.

There are lovely surprises in this film, and one took me so close to the edge of tears by the shock of it that I can remember no moment in any movie that hit me harder – not even in Vertigo or Chinatown. I will not spoil that moment for you by telling you what it is.

Also, Yesterday captures a lot of things about being a smalltime (or for that matter bigtime) musician that I’ve never seen in any other film – how the clueless parents are nailed is just dead on, for example, as is the experience of playing for small audiences who couldn’t care less.

So I’m not going to say much more, other than it’s also a lovely love story as well as having a ton of funny moments (the character Rocky rivals Ernest T. Bass in the comic relief department). Much hinges on the performance of Himesh Patel, who inhabits his character completely, taking his lucky predicament seriously, and sings and plays very well – when he brings out John Lennon’s original intentions for the song “Help!” as an anguished plea while still really rocking it is a fairly mindboggling ashievement.

Also, Lily James is supernaturally appealing here, even more so than in Baby Driver and The Darkest Hour. And in any other movie, Kathryn McKinnon’s screamingly funny performance as a venal show biz manager would have stolen the show. That she merely commands the scenes she’s in seems enough in this case.

Also you need to see the Criterion edition of I Wanna Hold Your Hand (another on my favorites list).

* * *

Crusin’ played at the Ice Cream Social for the Muscatine Art Center today (Sunday June 30) and the people were great but the weather was brutal. Barb pitched in and helped me with set up and tear down, but I now know that I’m very close to the end of this long and winding road of performing rock ‘n’ roll.

This year will be it – if we make an album, the current plan, we’ll do a farewell show next summer.

* * *

Here’s a very nice Girl Most Likely review.

And scroll down for a great Last Stage to Hell Junction review.

M.A.C.