My Husband is Famous!

Okay, so maybe being featured in the Des Moines Register doesn't actually make him famous, but it makes me proud!



He performs in this show called, Yesterday and Today with two of his brothers. (Matt is the brother in the middle.) It's an audience-driven tribute to the Beatles. The audience picks what songs they want to hear and they make a set list out of the top picks. It's pretty incredible. Some of the songs they play are dead on. I Am the Walrus, for example, blew my mind the first time I heard them play it. My jaw literally dropped. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. It was like I was listening to the recording it was so accurate.

Check out the article here. I'm going to go see them this weekend. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I get there in time to go to the Des Moines Art Center. It's one of my favorite museums to visit. I took my very first solo road trip there in college. (Does a 2.5 hour drive count as a road trip?)

Hail! Hail! Rock -n- Slow

This evening started out with me being incredibly excited to go see Chuck Berry.

It ended with me being massively disappointed in him.

I knew that having high expectations in an 81 year old man's ability to rock would just be a recipe for a let down, but I didn't anticipate it being as bad as it was. Yes, he's 81 years old, but he's also a rock legend who charges $30 a ticket so I'm allowed to upset when the show is a complete and utter disaster. Problem #1: Mr. Berry cannot hear, evidently, and thus cannot play in key. Let me be clear and say that I do not have an ear for pitch. At all. But even I could tell that he was playing in a different key from the rest of his band. Problem #2: Everything slows down when you're in your 80s. Chuck talked slow, "sang" slow, "played" guitar slow. So, in turn his band had to slow everything down. Classic rock and roll tunes turned into unrecognizable ballads. Problem #3: The guitar "playing". It sounded like me up there when I play Guitar Hero. It was a mess of missed notes and string taps.

I really, really like Chuck Berry. I'm so disappointed in the way everything unfolded. I have a huge amount of respect for him and what he did for rock and roll. (Even if he did recycle the same four songs over and over again.) The only good thing that resulted from tonight, is that Matt and I were relived that we didn't take a road trip down to St. Louis to see him play at Blueberry Hill (his hometown regular joint). I'd rather pay $60 to be disappointed at home than travel six hours and pay $60 to be disappointed in another state.

My Morning Jacket Show

This ringing in my ears won't stop
I've got a red Japanese tea-pot

Yes? No? Ok then...

I don't think the ringing in my ears will ever stop. We went to My Morning Jacket last night, and it was loud. So very loud. Even though it was outside at Stir, it was impossible to get away from the ear blowing loudness of it. Every time we go to Council Bluffs I have really concentrate on giving directions, regardless of how many times I've already been there. I misdirected once and accidentally took us to Martha Street. Oops...

Matt got a free ticket from a friend so we were expecting to only have to buy one more. We didn't pre-buy so we went inside the casino to the box office to grab an extra. We were at the back of the line and a girl came up to us and asked if we were in line to buy tickets. We told her yes, and she said, "Here you go. I have an extra one." SCORE! We were in exactly the right place at the right time. Which means, me getting us temporarily lost on the way to C.B. worked out in our favor. Hooray for a poor knowledge of the North Freeway! I love it when the universe throws me a little break. We saved $61 in tickets and we celebrated by buying $5 beers. Last time we went to Stir it was 40 degrees outside, so it was nice to be able to hold my aluminum beer bottle without gloves.

It was a good show, not great. But, since we lucked into free tickets, dollar for dollar it was the best concert ever. I really like MMJ's albums, but live they were a little too jam-bandy for my tastes. They are great musicians but it was obvious that they weren't all that into the performance. The crowd was kind of lame. Except for one girl, the girl in the black dress and cowboy boots. I suspect that she had the time of her life. I also suspect that she was on massive amounts of acid.