October 15, 2002

It's been a long week and half - full of Rock and Roll and punctuated by the sniper in Northern Virginia.

Richmond, where are you?

Corey Harris rolled down from Charlottesville on the Friday before last. Mike and I rolled down from Church Hill to see him play at the Canal Club. With only an $8 cover to see a fine contemporary blues player, we figured we had stumbled upon a deal. Apparently, we were some of the few people to stumble on this bargain. Harris's bus broke down, so they had a late sound check around 10 pm. Only a dozen bodies other than the band were in the club. Mike and I figured the audience would fill up later. We milled around the open red-carpeted space, eyeing the bare pool tables and booths. However, when Corey and his band took the stage, only about sixteen people other than the bouncers and the bartenders were in the club.

To his credit, Corey and his band played with heart and commitment to our small band of spectators. The other guitar player, Jamal, compliments Harris's playing very nicely. They played a good long set with the entire band, bringing together the blues, Caribbean and African music. After the band, Harris stayed on stage to play four more songs. All-in-all, our small audience got a lot of music for our money and we tried our best to make the loudest ovation possible with sixteen pairs of hands.

Of all of the clubs to be poorly attended, the Canal Club is one of the strangest. The top floor is nearly as large as the downstairs of the old Flood Zone. With a dozen and a half audience members loitering around, we looked more like warehouse workers waiting for a delivery than a crowd at a concert. One has to wonder if attendance at the club has to do with their bar. For the same price as a 16oz beer at other clubs, the Canal Club serves up foamy refreshment in 8 oz.cups. That's right, a beer cup at the Canal Club holds exactly one cup of beer. Even compared to the bars up in the DC, the Black Cat and the 930 Club, the Canal Club charges more.

Sad Shakers and Sad Hits

On the Monday before last, we cruised up to DC to meet Pat. We then cruised over to the Black Cat to see Ghost with Damon and Naomi. Mike mentioned to me a month ago that Ghost were scheduled to play in DC. I wasn't quite interested enough to drive up on a school night. However, with Damon and Naomi opening, the show became a must see. We were also looking forward to draft beer at reasonable prices.

Damon and Naomi lead off. Damon played a couple of acoustic guitars and Naomi alternately played bass and pump organ. Both of them sang a variety of songs from their latest live CD, and a couple of songs from their album with Ghost. With only two instruments and two voices, they produced some great mellow rock. They ended with a Japanese folk song that accented the harmony between their voices.

Ghost is a live band. I've heard a couple of tracks by them, but recordings haven't managed yet to capture their impact live. On record, the production makes them appear ambient and thoughtful. Live, there create a wall of sound that is both dense and complex. Masaki Batoh is riveting singer in both Japanese and English, grabbing you no matter which language he's singing. Kurihara is a guitar maestro, grabbing great wailing cries and soft whispers from his SG. The rest of the band all contribute mightily. The show easily exceeded the expectations that I had for it. It was an hour and a half of flawless rock and psychedelia. Afterwards, CD's were $10 at the merchandise table. Inspired by the show and being the bargain hunter, I had to walk out with a couple of discs.

First Sign of the Sniper

Mike and I dropped Pat off in Alexandria around 12:30. We hit the Beltway, then got on 95 south a little before 1 am. As we passed by one of the first interchanges, Mike mentioned, "That's a tricky place for a speed trap. There's two police cars on the on-ramp back there."

I replied, "That's odd, there was a policeman on the overpass as well."

As we drove on, there were at two to four police cars at each exit between the Beltway and Massaponax. Squad cars were parked on overpasses, on-ramps and in the turn-arounds in the median. Driving at 1am on a Tuesday morning, we probably saw more police cars on I-95 that we'd ever seen before.

You Can't Stop Rock and Roll

This past Friday, we had planned to see Guided by Voices. However, that morning, the sniper had killed a man at an Exxon along I-95 near Fredericksburg. Police were stopping traffic on I-95 that morning. Slightly more disturbing, the victim had been shot at the same gas station at the same pump I had used on Monday night. Given the location of that station, I'm sure hundreds, if not thousands, of people used that gas pump. However, it was more than a little jarring to see the familiar gas pump with the Waffle House in the background.

Mike and I headed up to DC anyways, picking up Pat again. After some Thai food in Old Town, we drove up to the 9:30 club. The three of us walked through the doors just in time for GBV's first song. We grabbed some reasonably priced beer and found some spots in the crowd. Compared to their Richmond show this spring there were differences:

• Fewer songs from Bee Thousand. With the release and success of their latest album, the show had most of the songs from the new album as well as more recent cuts.
• Only one encore. Nonetheless, the band still played for over two and a half hours.
• A little less love from the crowd. The DC crowd, while enthusiastic, didn't have quite the same level of affection. The crowd by the stage actually was just drunk.

On the down side, there was no Baba O'Reilly for the encore. On the up side, the band gained velocity and momentum with each song. "Hey, Glad Girl", not one of my favorites on record, rocked the entire house. Rob and the boys even made a stab at "Start Me Up" for the encore. Nonetheless, Guided By Voices provided over a hundred and fifty minutes of great Rock and Roll. And if GBV proves anything, it's that nothing – not snipers, Budweiser or a fifth of Jack Daniels – can stop great Rock and Roll.