“And around we go,” warbles Chuck Berry in his iconic paean from 1956.  Around and through the revolving door of fickle time and taste, now 2011 is no more!  What surprises are in store for us in 2012, besides the ineffable ticking of faceless Mayan clocks and growling glyphs, of course?

 

First, thanks to the fricking fickle “Economy”, if that is what you want to call it, has devoured the SALOUN, the last remaining “local” music bar in Georgetown.  The final nail in the coffin of Georgetown Rock and Roll has been driven.  Ergo, exeunt Paul Mall, The Silver Dollar, Mac’s Pub, Crazy Horse, and the old Bayou beneath Whitehurst Freeway’s clanging beams.  Bye-bye Three Thieves, Clancy’s, Joker’s Wild, Babes, Poseurs, Desperados, Apple Pie (same joint – earlier moniker), and Garrett’s Railroad Tavern!  All gone, like SALOUN (previously The Saloon, and the Tattooed Lady, among other names), without even so much as an adios.  Gone with the stroke of a real estate broker’s pen.

Oh, the fun we had, as Blues Museum slid in with the help of Chris and Diane’s urgings of the longtime owner who had belatedly decided to spice up the bland jazz and somewhat livelier Soul Revue with a hairy, raunchy, rather unshaven bunch, who between Haggard, Jagger, the Beatles, and the Eagles became very exuberantly the Unforgiven Band, a request band known to many loving and strictly over-the-top fans, and on any given night, the hottest jam band in Maryland or D.C.

 

Now comes word that Tony of Hank Dietles Tavern, a certified century-old pour house on Rockville Pike just north of once sleepy Bethesda, has put his watering hole on Facebook and is entertaining live country and blues on any night you want.  Etufe and the Unforgiven might sign on, who knows?

 

The revolving door goes round and round, never stopping, only pausing briefly…in the belly of the National Gallery of Art, in the film Auditorium of the East Building.  Warhol’s fog-lit “SCREEN TESTS” played recently one Saturday.  We saw Lou Reed drink a large-ribbed bottle of Coke as one of his nihilistic ballads droned, not by him, but the amazing electronic combo of Dean and Britta.  Clad all in silver and black, the 1964 era youngish duo from Pittsburgh by way of London, England, with their two backup accompanists on drums, shaker and synth-clavinet, aptly froze for our own time, the dominant-submissive subtext of Andy Wharhol’s camera explorations of he human psyche.  Dennis Hopper yawning, and then bursting into inexplicable laughter.  The signature super-stud, Paul America, merely brooding, but oh so menacing.  Baby Jane Holzer and Nico, the original blonde “Superstars,” (along with the doomed Edie Sedgwick and the compelling Mary Woronov), all mystify us because of their sheer opacity of gaze.  Dean and Britta’s looping vaguely Dick Dale on ecstasy-feel on the guitar and vocal and keys really set the stage for Gigs and Digs to embrace the sheer uncertainty of the music and arts scene for 2012.

 

Back through the Star Gate portal of forgiveness, emerges LA’s seminal Black Rock-founding Punk act, Fishbone! No phishing needed here folks.  At a surprise showing of two cutting-edge Cali filmmaker’s docu and an incredible Q&A with two founding members, Andre and Norwood, the oh-wow factor was palpable.  This, dear readers, was at the staid Lincoln Theatre, where the lice portion of the act saw real honest-to-goodness stage diving as hasn’t been witnessed in at least 20 years…with even Fishbone’s Merch lady being passed (carefully) thru the adoring and yelling throng.  Yes, Fishbone is back…no doubt!

 

Now comes a moment to gulp back sad tears, for the halls of drumming have a silent corner with the passing of neo-jazz monster, master Paul Motian (pronounced “motion”).  The Armenian-descended Motian spent most of his productive years in New York, backing an illustrious cadre of front men, including Miles, Horace Silver, Larry Coryell, and always employing a characteristic bop-bounce, which could not be duplicated by any percussionist we knew of, at least in the known universe.  Plus, session-men, producers and various lucky individuals on both coasts and abroad, knew Paul was an unfailingly a big-hearted soul and a heck of a nice guy to play or do business with.

 

Sky Shaw weighs in with a sudden burst of sincere prayer at this point in the proceedings…”Diane and I sat spellbound nearly three January’s ago in Blues Alley watching Hubert Sumlin, guitarist for over two and a half decades behind howling Wolf wail out amazingly with the assistance of former SNL bandleader, G.E. Smith and his trio.  Not that the head of Chester Burnett’s Little Wolves really need that much backup.  Slowed by time and mild strokes, the –then 78 year-old electric picker caressed, then assaulted his Les Paul axe with the most blinding sharp-spikes of notes you would ever want to hear.”

 

Does anyone out there recall the hurting this Mississippi sharecropper’s son put on Wolf’s Killing Floor, Howlin’ for My Darlin’, or how about a 1973 home-recorded disk by the Bea and Baby label out of Chicago-BACK TO MISSISSIPPI ?  Yes, it sounds like Junior Walker and the All-Stars’ Cleo’s Back, but where do you think that riff originated?  Hubert Sumlin was irreplaceable, and Clapton would be the first string-bender to tell you so…believe it!

 

Somehow readers…we are gonna have to pick up the pieces and stumble on… but lovingly!

 

 

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