Asides

You’re not going to get these too often because most of the time my weekends are pretty boring but this one wasn’t. Now before telling you who I saw on Saturday afternoon, I have to provide a little context. I was a big fan of the pop-punk SoCal band Wax back in the early ’90s. They put out 2 records before splitting up and while singer Joe Sib continued on with 22 Jacks, the other guys seemingly disappeared. Not sure how I stumbled about guitar Soda Gardocki’s stuff but just a few years ago discovered the former Wax guitarist was doing this tin pan alley/Tom Waits/old-timey style music and it sounded damn good.

Recently I become one of Soda’s “friends” on Facebook and a status update last week indicated a show in Ohio! As luck would have it, Soda was in Columbus this weekend visiting a friend – a violinist he introduced me to as “Sea Bass” (short, I think, for Sebastian) – and Sea Bass hooked Soda up with a gig at Vic’s Cafe. Soda texted me about an hour before he was scheduled to play on Saturday and my youngest daughter (3.5) and I made a quick trip south just in time to catch Soda and Sea Bass run through a 40 minute set. This is one of those occasions where I really have to pinch myself because I never thought I’d have the chance to see the West Coast troubadour unless I happened to run into him at SXSW. To have him play in my backyard during the daytime? Priceless. (Video coming soon)

Sunday is a bad day to play a show. When it’s Mother’s Day, it becomes worse. When you have to finish the show by 10pm due to a previously scheduled reggae night, well, you can imagine what the turnout was like for The Dears/Great Northern/Eulogies show at Skully’s. Eulogies started off … EARLY … and play to about 5 people. A few more turned up to see Great Northern during whose set singer Rachel Stolte mentioned that there probably weren’t any vampires in the house since it was still light outside! For those going to check out this tour, Great Northern is playing music exclusively from their new record so if you’re hoping to hear something from Trading Twilight for Daylight, you’re out of luck. That being said, while Trading Twilight for Daylight was my favorite release of 2007, I’m thinking that I like the new record – Remind Me Where the Light Is – even more.

The Dears – 7 strong – made up for the last time I saw them and put forth a valiant effort despite the lack of crowd size. There were only two songs I really, really wanted to hear and The Dears delivered on both (“Lost in the Plot” and “Disclaimer”). I wasn’t quick enough to the draw on either song so the video that I did capture was only for about half the song for both. I still need to check them out to see if the videos look okay before posting.

In the meantime, enjoy Great Northern performing my favorite song from the new CD, “Fingers”.

Great Northern perform “Fingers” at Skully’s Music Diner on Sunday, May 11, 2009