Greetings once again, Gentle Reader(s), in this, the fall/winter of our discontent. Of my discontent at least. It doth boggle the brain most verily, but a cursory examination of the record indicates that it has been 5—count ‘em, FIVE years—since my last New Orleans Report. How is this possible? Is some sort of discombobulation betwixt and between Time and Space to blame? Or have I just been Goofing Off? Tough call. Well, whatever the explanation, I am here to rectify matters and provide the update that all of you… some of you?… one or two of you?… have been waiting for, lo these many years.   No need to thank me. Not yet, anyway.  

If you're like me (and, for your sake, I sincerely pray that you're not) you just cain't git yourself too much Kate. There is No Such Thing as too much Kate! And towards that end, I am passing along the link to an excellent hour-long documentary on my favorite BBC Channel, Radio Four. Hosted by NPR music critic Ann Powers, this feature is sort of a feminist bookend to my admittedly dude-ish perspective as a besotted Kate fan from the U.S. side of the Pond. I was very pleased to see that that post (July 26, of this year) got a lot of readership with folks clicking in from South Africa, Sweden, the U.K., Hong Kong, India and beyond. Your kind attentions are greatly appreciated, whoever and wherever you may be.

Some Thoughts on the Passing of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II   Well, first of all, I never met her. Never even came close, so far as I'm aware. If she was ever in line next to me at Whole Foods or if we were ever waiting for a flight in the same gate at the Albuquerque Sunport it managed to escape my notice. I detected no scrums of corgi dogs tearing about, no Gentlemen At Arms whispering into their lapels. She liked to keep things pretty low key, it is said, like not sporting the crown or waving a scepter about unless circumstance specifically called for it.    As has been pointed out in these pages on prior occasion(s), I am an unreconstructed and unrepentant Anglophile. I cannot say with any specificity quite how this came to be, but at some point—far, far back in my days as a wee lad in New Orleans—something about our cousins across the pond tweaked my fancy. The most likely scenario is that it began with the Beatles, of whom I became enamored while still in my grade school years.

I can’t be any more precise about the date other than it was probably late 1981 or early 1982. I do remember the place, though: Budget Tapes & Records in Albuquerque. I was 21 or 22 at the time and I’d been working in record stores for a couple of years. There were two Budget stores in Albuquerque: One right across the street from the University of New Mexico at the corner of Central and Harvard, and the other one way the hell up in the Heights in a strip mall at the intersection of Eubank and Candelaria.   By all rights, the store across from UNM should have been the hip one, what with its built in collegiate clientele, but it was an aggressively uncool establishment. The store was company-owned and its inventory was therefore restricted to whatever bland swill was available via the Budget corporate order book from the Budget corporate warehouse in some corporate business park somewhere. Very dull, milquetoasty and mainstreamy stuff: Styx, REO Speedwagon, Journey, Heart, Kenny Rogers, Lionel Richie, the Oak Ridge Boys, Huey Lewis & the News—whatever musical plaque was clogging up the Billboard charts at the moment. I worked at Budget with the Goof and together the two of us waged a subtle insurgency against the middlebrow aesthetics of the place, bringing in our own records from home—ones that Budget would never stock—and playing cassettes of our own original recordings when management wasn’t on hand to shut us down.   The NE Heights Budget store was locally owned and the owners, while not musical aesthetes by any stretch, were cooler than the corporate bollards at the Central Avenue location. The Heights store was free to stock the racks from whatever distributors it saw fit and therefore had access to a wide selection of esoteric material and hard-to-find imports. That said, most of the specialty stuff they stocked was metal (Anvil, Dokken, Iron Maiden, the Scorpions, Ynge Malmsteen—pick your Poison) but not exclusively. Eventually, my refined sensibilities could abide the Central Avenue store no longer and I started working at the Heights location exclusively, even though it was a long haul from my student ghetto apartment. There was an Arthur Murray Dance Studio next door and we took special orders from the slinky, heavily made-up girls that worked there. Budget Tapes & Records has long been consigned to the shitecan of history, but the Arthur Murray studio still abides. Go figure.   Gentle Reader(s), I can feel you out there thinking, ‘All of this is more than adequately fascinating, Humble Narrator, but get to the goddam point already.’ Patience, patience—I’m getting there.

It's a jarring thing: You go to sleep in one world and wake up in another.   Not that we didn't see this coming, but the actual arrival of the Supreme Court's decision striking down Roe v. Wade landed like a neutron bomb in the sociopolitical life of this fraught union. In the course of two days the court has struck down longstanding limitations on guns in public places and ensured that American women born after 1973 will have fewer rights than their mothers did. All this even as the mind-boggling spectacle of the January 6 congressional hearings has unfolded, laying bare the moral corruption and insanity of the 45th president and his cabal of misfits, nut jobs and sycophants. This is an extraordinary time in the history of this nation and concerns about the future of democracy in America seem more real and pressing than ever. Not moving forward is one thing, but going hard in reverse is another altogether.

It has been a long time, Gentle Reader(s)—longer than I care to reflect—since I last posted any ruminations regarding whatever the heck has gotten stuck in my thinky-thing. Perhaps the reason for this hiatus, or at least part of the reason, is that there’s just so much… stuff. Personally and otherwise. Another day, another challenge, another outrage to decency, common sense, humanity—whatever. Where does one begin?    Personally and otherwise, I have been stunned and horrified by Russia’s brutal and inhuman invasion of Ukraine. Of course it’s not extraordinary to see suffering, suppression, oppression and horror in this world—there’s more than enough to go around. But being who I am, with all of the innate socio-cultural baggage that being Me entails, I find my response to a land war in Europe to be particularly visceral. I’ll admit: When the horror is taking place in Africa or Asia or Latin America or wherever it’s easier for me to maintain some sort of intellectual and emotional distance from it all. It’s sort of a ‘Oh my God, that’s so awful, but…’ response. The ’but…’ being that my prejudice, to some degree, is that the people being murdered in Ukraine look more like me. I’m not proud of that. I know it’s not an excuse, but I’m just trying to be truthful here. I do what I can with the resources available to me to try and make the world a slightly better place. I could certainly do more. We could all do more.   Having said that, why in the world would I be moved to write something about the spectacle that unfolded at the 94th Academy Awards last night? The reason might be because of the immediacy of it. Because I saw it right there in my living room on the ol’ Sony idiot box—live, give or take nine seconds. Like a lot of folks—including people right there in the Dolby Theater—at first I couldn’t figure out what was going on. Was this a scripted ‘bit’? Will Smith—the smiling, perpetual good guy, mainstream feature film actor—smacking the shit out of Chris Rock?? That can’t be real, right? 

Can you believe that it's been over a year since I started working on this series? Hard to believe on the one hand, but not so hard on the other, I guess. There's been a few... distractions, shall we say, Humble Reader(s), along the line but all good things come to those to wait. Or perhaps to those who have nothing better to do? I know that YOU, of all people, have better things to do, but as for myself... well, I'm not so sure. This might be the best thing I can do, so it's a damn good thing that I'm finally getting it done.   Now, I know this is at cross-purposes of a sort, but one of the distractions that I've been dealing with is the previously mentioned exhibition of my dad's work at the Historic New Orleans Collection in my benighted hometown (which is, at this very moment, having its collective ass kicked by hurricane Ida). As part of that exhibition I created a 22-minute film which I have to say I'm fairly proud of. If you've got 22 minutes that you've nothing better to do with (see above) I hope you might find that if you watch my cinematic offering you might not despair of having squandered those precious minutes too carelessly. One hopes. So here's the link to my dad's website and its News page where the film is embedded, via the good graces of YouTube. I hope that you enjoy: https://johnclemmer.com/news   In the meantime, the show must go on and so here it is: The final installment of The Shows that Mattered. Hopefully the future will offer more Shows That Matter and one day there will be a part The Quatre, but let us not get ahead of ourselves.

This July finds Your Humble Narrator back in his steamy ancestral stomping grounds of New Orleans, attending to activities relative to the opening of a long-awaited exhibition of work by his late, great father, the highly regarded painter and sculptor, John Clemmer. Over five years in the planning and accompanied by a lovely exhibition catalogue, you can find all the relevant info by following the link over to the News page at johnclemmer.com.   But, monumental and earth shaking though this news is, that is not why I have gathered us all here together on this auspicious occasion. No, Gentle Reader(s), today we are convened for a different matter entirely: The announcement of a singular discovery of High Import in the worlds of Biology, Evolutionary Theory and Batture Studies. I am here today to announce to the world a newly identified species of critter: The Louisiana Batture Dingo. ‘What?’ you say? ‘How is this possible? How can this be??’ Well, I can assure you, Gentle Reader(s), that it be. I shite thee not.

Here, as promised, Gentle Reader(s), is the long awaited, much anticipated, second installment of the compilation of performances that have withstood the test of time and stand out as watershed musical events in the estimation of Your Humble Narrator. It's quite the eclectic mix, ranging from the outer limits of avant grade jazz to the body slam of American hardcore in its bareknuckle heyday. And, praise be on high, it's not over yet. There is sufficient material for a Part the Troisiéme, lawd hep us all, so stay tuned for the final installment in the days/weeks/months to come. Wilco, Saccharine Trust, Gang of Four, Lucinda Williams, Yo La Tengo and more are yet to have their day.   But for now, I give to you the Shows that Mattered, Part the Deux:

And now, Gentle Reader(s), for something perhaps not completely different, but somewhat different nonetheless. I have been ruminating upon the concerts that I have attended in the ebb and flow of my approximately 21,000 Days on Earth and have decided to give you a breakdown of the ones that had the most impact on me in terms of my enjoyment, enlightenment, and overall significance. My presence at some of these events was carefully planned in advance and in others instances the result of spontaneous decisions or pure happenstance. Some of these shows took place in arenas and vast halls and others were in tiny venues with a bare handful of people in attendance. One way or the other, these are the shows that made a significant impression at the time and have stuck with me over the many years. It’s a pretty wildly diverse collection of performances but that’s the way Your Humble Narrator rolls, yo.   I give you The Shows That Mattered, Part the First: