TARBOX RAMBLERS

Last night my old lady and I spent far too much time at the Tractor Tavern, enjoying about half of a performance by the Tarbox Ramblers. I say about half because these bald-headed fuckers went on and on and on and on ... a great band, the first band I've gone to the trouble of the leaving the house for in a while, and for about half an hour I was digging it enough that I was determined to finish it off and buy a CD. Song after song we waited politely while six drunk "dancers" (Lori accurately likened them to the Peanuts kids in full swing) ruined it for the rest of us by encouraging the Ramblers to ramble on for a full 75 minutes. As Lori wilted patiently, I drank myself into a firm position that I wanted to congratulate these guys on their blurry, rhythm-heavy blues and uncanny resemblance to Pat Bills (all three of them, it was eerie). At the second song of the encore they lost me, so we spent the hour-long bus ride home with irritated headaches and a sense of wasted time.

Still, this should serve as an endorsement of the Tarboxes. It's a raw blues for albino Bostonians, reverent but not slavish, idiosyncratic without being postmodern, mostly standards with a few high quality originals tossed in. Most assholes love it when a band just won't shut the fuck up ... if you are such an asshole, then you'll be entirely satisfied. I appreciate the fact that the Tarbox Ramblers are likely semi-pros, boasting four-star reviews and puny paid admissions, and they probably figure they won't be back on a Seattle stage in a while, so why not milk it for the drunken enthusiastic few? Good luck to 'em ... I'm still enough of a fan to want to follow up and see if I can't find a venue for a write-up.

Speaking of which, my new scheme is to interview Carol Channing when she comes to town in September. More on this as it develops.