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Welcome to “The Goods,”
where I attempt to be much more hip than I really am by telling
you how I think you should spend your free time and extra cash.
There’s plenty to do this week, so I’ll dispense
with the jibber jabber and dig right in.
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| Mary Gauthier |
Most people I know complain that there's never any good music to see in Durango
yet never do anything about it. That is not the case with Two Nice Girls Productions. Tami
Graham and Lori Eagle got into the music promotion business
simply because they thought there wasn’t enough good live
music in town. And instead of whining, they put their checkbooks
on the line to do something about it. Tonight, Nov.14, Two Nice
Girls, along with the Durango Society for Cultural and Performing
Arts, is bringing country-blues musician Mary Gauthier (pronounced
“GO-Shay”) to town. Her songs are dark and personal
but escape the trap of sounding maudlin or cheesy.
Because of its tone and twang, Gauthier’s voice and music
invite comparisons to Lucinda Williams. In fact, the album Gauthier
is touring behind, “Filth and Fire,” reminds me
a lot of Williams’ break-out release, “Car Wheels
on a Gravel Road.” They’re both moody and personal
and are made up of slow- to mid-tempo tunes that feature organs,
mandolins and slide guitars. Gurf Morlix, who played a large
role in making “Car Wheels” sound the way it does,
produced “Filth and Fire” and plays all over it.
Gauthier’s work also can be compared to the quirky characters
and off-kilter phrasing of John Prine, only not as silly. This
will be a good show for people who like their music with a little
meat on its bones; this is not bubble-gum pop country. The show
starts at 8 p.m. at the Diamond Circle Theater and will be opened
by local performer Sand Sheff who must be a cool guy because
he once endured being interviewed by me on the radio without
walking out.
The very next night (Friday) the Diamond Circle hosts “Shakin’
in The San Juans,” bluegrass and old-time Western music
with the Bar D Wranglers, Salty Dogs and Badly Bent. There may
not be any music I like more than authentic bluegrass, and that’s
just what the Badly Bent offers. The Bar D Wranglers play old-time
Western music a la Jimmie Rodgers and Bob Wills, and The Salty
Dogs provide a modern take on traditional bluegrass. What this
gives you is a little something for everyone. The show gets
under way at 7 p.m. The cover is a mere 8 bucks.
 If
you are going to be in Farmington this Saturday (Nov. 16th)
you’ll want to stop by McGee Park Coliseum (Farmington
has a Coliseum?) at 8 p.m. for “Rage-N-Cage 2002.”
What in the world is “Rage-N-Cage” you ask? I’ll
tell you: Rage-N-Cage is a World Wrestling Federation and National
Wrestling Association sanctioned pro wrestling Texas cage death
match. Now, if I remember my days of professional wrestling
fandom correctly, a cage match is when they put this chain link
cage on top of the ring so none of the “fighters”
can escape. The “fighters” are then required to
remain in the cage until (as the name implies, I guess) one
of them is dead.
This weekend’s contestants, and I swear to god I’m
not making any of this up, are Johnny Walker and a fellow named
Honky Tonk Man. I’m sure no one has actually died in one
of these “death matches” (outside of Texas, of course),
and that makes me wonder how the promoters smooth it over with
the fans. I would expect rioting. Oh, if only I didn’t
have to work on Saturday... .
Durango’s own independent movie house, the Abbey Theatre,
is celebrating its five-year anniversary in the coming weeks
by showing encore presentations of five of its most popular
films. This weekend, the 16th-18th, The Abbey will be showing
“Down From the Mountain,” a live music documentary
featuring all of the artists on the “Oh, Brother Where
Art Thou” soundtrack. If you are like me, you were sick
of the Oh, Brother craze about one week after it started and
have yet to listen to any of that music again. But I think it’s
been long enough now to warrant a revisit, and this is a chance
to hear Emmylou Harris and bluegrass legend Ralph Stanley’s
performances on the Abbey’s great sound system. I saw
it the first time around and loved it. I’m sure it’ll
be just as good this time.
This Week’s Sign That the End is Near:
Slam dancing is a form of dancing that became outdated somewhere
around 1983. It made a brief comeback in the early ’90s
accompanying grunge rock and was called moshing. Still, that
only lasted a couple of years, and the mosh eventually became
irrelevant. Now it seems acceptable to engage in this activity
at country and western shows.`People shouldn’t behave
like this at all, but especially not at a country show. What’s
next? Slammin’ at the Symphony?
Next Week: The dreaded return of the
record review.
Keep me informed at mpsheahan@yahoo.com
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