George Jones...Sept. 12, 1931 - April 26, 2013

When I was a teenager I used to hate country music. It wasn't until the end of the decade that I started listening to some jazz, and after that it was a natural progression (to me, at least) to move on to classical. But country & western? No way.

My distaste for the genre probably began in my early teens with the first pangs of adolescent rebellion. Country was "my daddy's music", so it COULDN'T be any good, right? We'd get in his pickup truck, he'd turn on that chinsy AM radio perpetually tuned to KVOO (the legendary country radio station out of Tulsa) and he'd just start singing, like he knew practically word to every song. I've never really thought of my dad as an extreme music enthusiast. Certainly not to the obsessive point I turned out to be. But looking back I can see that he really did have a decent command of and an ear for that kind of music. I probably just never took it seriously because so many times he would "goof" on some of his favorite performers. By "goofing" I mean that he sang their melodies in an extremely exaggerated manner that pointed out the vocal mannerisms of the artist he was aping. For instance, if he was going to sing "Hello Darling" you can bet he'd take Conway Twitty's "seductive" tone and magnify it then multiply that by 10. I was a stupid kid so to me it just seemed goofy and I guess you don't look to your dad for "goofy" even if you're on the best if terms. If I'd had any sense at all I would have laughed my ass off so many times I'd be as skinny as Twiggy (that's a little inside reference for all of you 70's children). When he wasn't trying to be silly he could really sing well. He had a great voice for that old country music. He'd do his hilarious thing with a song one time, then the next he would sing it like he owned it.

With all that you'd think I'd come to an appreciation of country by then. Nope, I still hated it.

Of all the country legends that he loved, there was one who stood above the rest. George Jones. Jones sometimes had an exaggerated delivery himself, so dad had a hard time going over the top with him. He would try but with no luck. I guess they were on the same wavelength. George's claim to fame were heartbreaking ballads of lost love, and soon enough my old man was feeling those emotions firsthand. I won't go into details as they don't really make a difference in what I'm writing. Suffice to say that "The Grand Tour" took on an entirely new significance.

One day I was in my bedroom doing whatever it was that I did back then. I got up to go to the kitchen so I quietly slipped down the hall. My dad was in the living room watching television. I could see that it was some HBO special musical tribute to George Jones. I silently did my little "hmmmph..country music!" Then I looked over at my dad. He didn't know I was there. He was silently crying. He was crying because the music was getting to him. Surely that happens to all of us at least once in our lives? I couldn't bear to watch for long so I sneaked out the way I came.

...and I thought to myself...what kind of singer can weild his voice so skillfully and powerfully that he can bring a grown man to tears? What kind of artist can deliver a performance just this side of breaking down and then smile and say "thank you" immediately after it's over? What a master. I thought to myself, well, I don't have to like country and western music but I'm gonna like George Jones! And that's how it was for a long time afterwards.

I wasn't prepared for the news that Jones died today. It really bowled me over and had just about the same impact on me had it been a major rock influence that had passed. I'll tell you this...ANY modern male country singer who says he wasn't influenced by George Jones to one degree or another is a liar. To my mind George Jones is every bit the legend that Hank Williams was. I hope he gets the respect he deserves in the music community, and not just within the country genre.

The trip to Grand Prairie, Sigur Ros concert 4/7-9/13

So, I'd been looking forward to the concert ever since it was first announced and we bought tickets. Originally it was going to be all three of us. Bryan and I were obviously not going to miss it, but I was surprised when Stacie said she wouldn't mind going along if it wouldn't make Bryan uncomfortable. You know, being seen out in public with the parents seems to be a real issue around here, as I assume it is the same with a lot of 17 year olds. She said she wanted to go because it would be something different. She hadn't been to a show like this before and I guess we kind of absorbed her into the camp of Sigur Ros fans by playing their music in the car so much while she drove. So I thought that was pretty cool and Bryan was okay with it. When he gave me his answer he said, "I'm not a little kid anymore, you know!" That was funny in it's own particular way and I had to try not to laugh.

The tickets went on sale in November, I think it was. For a concert that wasn't going to happen until early April. So yes, the wait was a long one. Surprisingly it didn't seem that way. I put it out of my head, didn't really think about it much until a few days beforehand.

Unforeseen scheduling issues came around and Bryan was unable to go. I know he was disappointed but oddly he didn't seem too shook up. Not nearly as shook up as I would have been. This meant we were stuck with a third ticket and nothing to do with it. I don't have any friends in these parts that are Sigur Ros fans and even if I did they would have to make plans for a Dallas trip we couldn't have helped them with. I wanted my daughter to come but I couldn't expect her to be able to find someone to watch the kids and scramble up a hotel room on what was relatively short notice.  I put it up on Craigslist about a week and a half before the show but I've never used that service and for all I know the ad didn't even get published. There was the possibility of selling it at the show to anyone who was looking for a single ticket. I didn't feel comfortable selling it someone I'd have to sit next to for the entirety of the performance so I wasn't keen on that idea. As it turned out there wasn't anyone looking for a seat. Upon further deliberation I concluded that the $15 parking fee could have contributed to that situation. Who is going to pay $15 in hopes of getting a ticket? We wound up eating the $50 we paid for it. I chose to look at it in two ways. Number one, the wife would have an empty seat next to her which would be more comfortable. And number two, I figured even if we cut it in half and added it to the regular ticket price, $75 was still a really, really good price to pay for such an essential concert.

We left early Sunday morning with a reservation at a Howard Johnson hotel...

Well, we THOUGHT it was a Howard Johnson hotel. It turned out to be a Howard Johnson MOTEL in a neighborhood that, though it didn't seem too poor, was not exactly filled with places to see and things to do. I was very concerned upon entering the office that the motel would turn out to be less-than-inviting. Bad enough that we were both disappointed it wasn't an actual hotel. Don't know how we could have made such a mistake when we reserved it.

Still, the room wasn't so bad. It seemed clean enough. It might not have been luxurious but wouldn't be too terrible to spend a couple of nights in. The only real concern I had was that the water was slightly discolored. It was like the water in our town becomes when the river shifts and the fine dirt gets on the line. I'm sure the Howard Johnson water issue was similar and even it wasn't as bad as we've experienced here. I wondered if all of Grand Prairie's water supply was similarly "tainted". I kind of hoped it was...

Monday morning, the day of the concert, we sat around goofing off for a good chunk of the morning. When lunch time came around we couldn't be bothered so we decided to eat a large "lunch/dinner" in the mid-afternoon and maybe get something small after the show.

Don't ask me why, I don't even know myself...we wound up at the Golden Corral. Ugh. Nothing against Golden Corral in general, but the food isn't exactly remarkable. It's good if you're really hungry and want to pig out. The salad bar is good, if you don't mind eating off of a salad bar. But I always walk out feeling awful, or maybe it's an hour or so before I start feeling awful...I just know that many is the time I've said "never again". It was all my doing this time. I'll take the blame. Stacie wanted Chili's and in retrospect I seriously wish I'd followed her lead...hell, there was a Chili's not 200 feet from the Corral we ate at...It's bad enough we made that choice but to have made it on a real vacation, when you'd think we could "shoot the moon", was practically a sin.

This area (and maybe Grand Prairie in general, I don't know) is very much a Latino community. That whole damn Golden Corral was packed with Latinos. There couldn't have been 10 caucasions in the bunch. Which, of course, I have no problem with. It's cool...but then again it was quite disorienting to hear every conversation taking place in the restaurant being spoken in Spanish. It was, I suppose, a "shoe-on-the-other-foot" moment. Food quality, however, knows no geographical boundaries and this was some of the worst. Just one look at the salad bar and I knew immediately that I would not be eating from it...which was disappointing because that's usually what I load up on. I wound up sampling the taco salad & chili which I had hoped would be better, having originated in a Latino restaurant, than your typical Golden Corral. That turned out not to be the case. I should have known that GC's food is all the same anywhere and everywhere.

We got to the theatre and, as alluded to above, were greeted by a team of parking lot attendants enforcing the $15 parking fee signs. Of course we had no idea it would cost us to park because the lot is adjacent to the venue and obviously it's not owned by anyone other than the theatre. So I guess they're the ones reaping the profits. At any rate we did not have $15 in cash on hand. Apparently the policy allowed in such cases is that you give them your driver's license and get cash from the ATM inside then bring it out to exchange for your license. What if someone didn't have the cash OR the money in the bank? Or what if they just didn't have their credit card with them? Would they have to turn around and leave having already paid for a ticket? We did as we were told, feeding even more money into the ATM charge and the money our bank would tack on would be even more.

But it was Sigur Ros, so we never gave it a second thought.

The show was magnificent, as I knew it would be. Jonsi's voice was in fine form, the sound was exceptionally well mixed even if it was much, much too loud. The song selection was good (really hoped they'd play "Glosoli", which was the first of a two-song encore). Light show was jaw dropping, to put it mildly. They had an opening act...a one man vintage synth drone musician known as Onethrix Point Never. I hate to be negative about someone trying to do something new and different, but his set was very boring. It was a tedious wait for the band to take the stage, but once they did time flew by way too fast.

We decided the day before that we were going to avoid the heavy Dallas Interstate traffic entirely if at all possible. God I hate that traffic. I'm not that good of a driver and my nerves always get the best of me. We google a route that would avoid highways and even though it added another hour to our arrival time I felt it would be well worth it. A few commercial roads and farm roads, it was so much better than I-35 etc. Google got it wrong a couple of times and we almost got lost, but the MapQuest GPS saved the day. Those Texas farm-to-market roads are barren in some places.

We did make it home, though, and glad to see it we were.

New Spotify playlists. Some good stuff here.

Here are some Spotify playlists I've put together recently.

Wordless Poetry and Sonic Mathematics
Rolling Stones: Best of the Mick Taylor Years
MY Best of Bruce Springsteen
MY Best of Talking Heads
MY Best of the Psychedelic Furs
Rapid Eye Movement: MY Best of R.E.M.
MY Best of Genesis
Golden: MY Best of John Denver
Elvis Costello: Still the KING
MY Best of the Coop
MY Best of YES
Various Artists: Steal What's Yours/The Klepto Years
MTV's 120 Minutes (1986-1990)

Sigur Ros at Verizon Theatre 4/8/13: a few videos shot by strangers

Sigur Ros finally made it back to the tri-state area, so there was no way I was going to miss it. No, I haven't been blogging much lately...I don't think I've ever been so apathetic about it. I'm not sure why, other than I never think I have anything worth saying. I really should get back to it soon. In the meantime here are a fewvideos that other people took from the Sigur Ros concert last night at the Verizon Theatre in Grand Prairie, Texas. I may well want to write about it at a later date.