Bombastic vocals, searing dual-guitar work, and what John Lee Hooker described as “the greatest harmonica player ever”.  That was Canned Heat.

Canned Heat started when Alan “Blind Owl” Wilson (vocals, guitar and harmonica) and Bob “The Bear” Hite (vocals) met and discovered they both loved blues music.  They rounded up Henry Vestine for lead guitar, Larry Taylor for bass, and Adolfo de la Parra for drums.  Later Vestine was replaced with Harvey Mandel shortly before the Woodstock Festival.

What I hear in Canned Heat is a deep and sincere love for blues music.  It’s an honest tune.  (And yes, I’m pirating that phrase.  It’s the best one I’ve heard to describe true music, music without detachment or irony.)  The name comes from the Tommy Johnson song “Canned Heat Blues”, and is a reference to Sterno – a cooking fuel that desperate alcoholics would sometimes drink.

Their first big show was the Monterey Pop Festival in June of 1967.  (The Monterey Pop Festival was also the show that broke The Who, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Ravi Shankar in the U.S.)  At this time Frank Cook was still on the drums but was replaced by de la Parra in December.

Their eponymous debut album was released shortly after Monterey Pop.  It was a collection of blues standards that showcased Heat’s love for the source material.  Their second album, “Boogie With Canned Heat” was mostly original material with the exception of a reworked “On The Road Again”.  Later in 1968 they released “Living The Blues”, which contained their biggest hit “Goin’ Up The Country”

“Goin’ Up The Country” became their signature tune and many call it the anthem for the 1969 Woodstock Festival.  In between the release of the song and their appearance at Woodstock Henry Vestine exited the group after an on-stage blowup.  Harvey Mandel stepped in and played two shows at the Fillmore before Woodstock.

Their Woodstock show remains a high water mark in Canned Heat’s career.  Following a European tour in 1970, Larry Taylor and Harvey Mandel left the band.  Vestine returned, and a friend of de la Parra stepped in on bass to record with John Lee Hooker.  The album “Hooker ‘n’ Heat” was John Lee’s first charting album, bolstered by the association with the popular Canned Heat.  And speaking for myself, it’s nice to see that they could turn around and give one of their heroes a helping hand.  Hooker’s music (and that driving Mississippi sound) is evident in many Canned Heat songs.

Before the album could be released things went dark for Alan Wilson.  A member of the “27 Club” (the age where Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, Janis Joplin, Brian Jones, Jim Morrison, and Robert Johnson died), his barbiturate overdose was ruled as a suicide.

The band continued on but in a state of disarray.  Bob Hite and Alan Wilson had been the backbone of the band, and now Hite had lost his partner and friend.  Ten years later a heroin overdose would fell The Bear.

Canned Heat soldiered on as a unit but never recovered from the loss of their two founding fathers.  They even played this past summer as members of the Heroes Of Woodstock tour.

Which is good, I guess.  Bands this amazing shouldn’t be forgotten.

My question:  What if Mark Arm had committed suicide instead of Kurt Cobain?

I thought about this when I heard a short clip of Mudhoney playing in the background on Charlie Hodge’s radio show last week.  It really made me miss my iPod, which has four Mudhoney albums.  And zero Nirvana.

It’s safe to say that most people who are vaguely into music know who Kurt Cobain was.  But no where near as many are familiar with Mark Arm and his band Mudhoney.  I was talking to a girl who described herself as a music junkie and when I mentioned Mudhoney all it got was a blank stare.  This sparked a disagreement about which band was more important.  She took the Cobain side, I stood by Arm and company.

Mudhoney influenced Nirvana and grunge as a whole.  Mark Arm and Steve Turner were better guitar players.  Dan Peters and Matt Lukin were a great rhythm section.  And I’ll take Arm’s vocals over Cobain’s any day.

Nirvana had more angst.  And better media coverage, thanks to the way Cobain presented himself.

Now, I’ll concede that I might be a little biased.  I always liked Mudhoney better.  And I’ll say that Kurt Cobain was a good songwriter, and Dave Grohl was a great drummer.  But a big part of me says that the reason Nirvana is remembered so fondly has to do with a) the angst they presented and b) Cobain’s suicide.

People of the 90’s latched onto the angst quickly.  We were all tired of the excess presented to us by hair metal – we could see that things were shit, and we weren’t having “Nothing But A Good Time”.  Nirvana was very overt in their view, they slapped us in the face with angst.  It was easy for people to get in to.

The suicide is my biggest sticking point with Nirvana though.  People who hadn’t even bought “Nevermind” were suddenly claiming that Cobain represented them, and that his death was the end of their happiness.  What people forget is that “In Utero” was a fairly weak effort – even by the band’s own account.  Cobain himself said he felt no emotion when he first listened to the album.

So here’s my thing – if Cobain hadn’t committed suicide, would Nirvana still be the band that one girl in college told me was the greatest ever?  If the roles were reversed, and it was Mark Arm who had bit down on the shotgun, would everyone still be talking about Mudhoney as the band that changed the music of the 90’s?

At any rate, Mudhoney can still kick ass:

Apparently it was the hardware on my iPod that was jacked up, so a week after my tech support call I am reloading all of my songs on to the new iPod they sent.

It’s a slow process.

Instead of trying to do one huge lot of all the songs I’m breaking it into small batches.  It’s easy in Winamp, which is the program I use for song/iPod management.  iTunes is fine for those that like it but I prefer Winamp’s stripped down interface.  It’s the program I’ve used since college, back when you would hear “Winamp – it really whips the llama’s ass.”  How can you not love a program that announces itself that way?

I know I do.

If you’ve been reading regularly then you’ll know that a year ago I lost all the music on my computer.  This story has nothing to do with that.

I have an iPod Classic, the 120 GB version.  It has served me well and often, and I have tried to be good to it.  It sits next to me as I drive.  When going inside for long periods of time it sits in my pocket.  At home it sits on my coffee table, a place of honor next to Lumpy (my cancerous stuffed penguin).  I feed it with new songs fairly often.

My point here is that I have been a good iPod owner.

But (to bastardize an old saying) bad things happen to good iPod owners.  And on Wednesday it happened to me.  I had added some Flogging Molly albums to the 8,720 songs already on there.  Just a simple sync, something I’ve done many, many times before.  As always I ejected the device before disconnecting.  When I went to check on the newly uploaded songs my iPod told me it had no music.

What?

The hard drive still showed quite a bit of space in use but it acted like nothing was on there.  I asked myself, “Self, what did you do wrong?  Maybe you should try re-syncing it.”

And that’s when my computer turned on me too.  It told me that no iPod was connected.  I told it to shut the hell up.  After many help forums, resets, formats, disk modes, and restores, it seemed like everything was working.  I began the long task of re-syncing all my music while I went out with some friends.  When I returned from the bar four hours later it was just about finished.  It seemed to be working fine, so I left it alone and tried to get some sleep.

The next morning I drove to my parent’s house for Thanksgiving.  Everything started fine, listening to a few songs, then boom – stopped playing.  Resetting didn’t help.  It would see the songs but wouldn’t play them.  Another reset and my songs had magically disappeared.  45 minutes left to drive and stuck with whatever I could find on the radio.

Back in Austin on Friday I finally broke down and called Apple support.  I have to say they were very friendly and helpful… but to no avail.  My iPod has to be sent off for repair.

Which leaves me with either lugging my CDs back to my truck or surviving on the radio for a while.  It’s easy to become dependent on having your entire music library with you at all times, and it hurts like hell when you lose access to that.  I’m hoping for a quick and easy fix.  I’m afraid that listening to the radio will kill my taste.

Some guy on my freshman dorm hall once mentioned the Screamin’ Cheetah Wheelies to me.  I don’t know if I ever thanked him for that, but I should have.

Take two really great guitar players (Bob Watkins and Rick White).  Add a stellar vocalist/songwriter (Mike Farris).  Layer that on top of a solid rhythm section (Steve Burgess and Terry Thomas) and mix into a Southern funk/rock/boogie/jam band.

“One Big Drop Of Water”

Their name comes from a Far Side cartoon and, like Slobberbone, probably hindered them a little.  But it shouldn’t have.

“25 Miles”

They have that Southern rock sound that’s rooted in blues, somewhat similar to the Black Crowes.  Very energetic, yet laid back.  A feat few manage to accomplish.

“Shakin’ The Blues”

The band parted ways in the early 2000’s, and Mike Farris has given up his rock star ways to do gospel now.  I managed to catch a little of his set at last year’s ACL and it was good… but no Wheelies.  The other band members are now with the band Stack.

If you haven’t given these guys a listen, I can’t recommend them highly enough.  Especially the “Live Vol. 1 & 2″ and “Lamanamanumi” live albums.  And I’ll close this with one of my favorite Wheelies song, “Hello From Venus”:

Does originality equal relevance?

A friend and I were talking about music and Kenny Wayne Shepherd came up.  Some background: in high school, when KWS first came out, I bought his first two albums as quickly as they could be found.  They were in heavy rotation as I entered my college days and I was excited when I heard that “Live On” was coming out soon.  If memory serves I bought it on release day (but my memory rarely serves, it usually line faults) and enjoyed it.  Not as much as his other albums, but still listened to it heavily.

A decade later and I have to be honest – it’s been years since I made an effort to listen to him.  Around the time of “Live On” I started researching more about the music I was hearing and so many reviews panned him as a completely unoriginal SRV clone who wears his influences on his sleeve.  This made me listen with a more critical ear and as soon as I heard what they were saying, I was turned off to his music.

As I explained this to my friend, he just kind of shrugged and said, “I dunno man, I can’t get enough Stevie Ray.  So anything that sounds close to that is alright by me.”

Which made me realize that it’s ridiculous to let the originality (or lack of it) sway my opinion of music.  After all, when you get right down to it Stevie Ray didn’t write most of his famous songs, borrowed heavily from Albert King and Lonnie Mack, and still managed (and still manages) to consistently be referred to as a benchmark for guitarists.

I’ve also been re-reading some books while I’m waiting on my new ones to arrive from Amazon.  One of those is Chuck Klosterman’s IV, and Klosterman is obsessed with dissecting how artists are perceived.  He talks about relevance quite a bit.  This, coupled with my Kenny Wayne conversation, made me wonder the question that started all this: Does originality equal relevance?

I’ve already said that Stevie Ray Vaughan wasn’t exactly original, but I would argue that he is certainly relevant.  Whereas Kenny Wayne Shepherd not only isn’t original, but also isn’t relevant.  He’s good – an amazing guitar player, and there’s been some great lyrics on his albums.  I just don’t think anyone will stand up and say that he’s relevant.

But now I’m not going to let that stop me from listening.

… just because I love you guys.

Alright, alright, maybe it’s also because I’m out sick today and had time to sift through some videos for Bob Schneider’s new songs.

At (where else?) the Saxon, here’s “Bicycle Vs. Car”:

And “The Bringdown”:

And finally, one that’s adapted from back in his days with The Scabs, “Get It On”:

It’s from a recent show at the Cactus Cafe, which is an intimate little room on the UT campus that has showcased some amazing musicians.  Gotta love the fan interaction.

Oh, and if you’re at ACL this year – The Scabs will be as well.  Just sayin’.

Bob Schneider released his new album September 29th.  Lovely Creatures pretty much sounds like a relaxed show at the Saxon – but toned down.  For those who missed the feature a week or so ago in the Statesman, this record comes after some major life changes for Bob.  He got married, got sober, became a father, and got divorced.  You can hear how hard it was on him throughout the album.  At the same time there’s the sound of hope (probably the fatherhood thing).  It’s a good mix.

Something that threw me was the absence of… well, full frontal Bobness, for lack of a better word.  Lyrically he’s solid, but safer than he’s been in the past.  No more lines like “I was broke down in Mozambique with a Puerto Rican speed freak”.  No more songs discussing the size of god’s genitalia.  None of the hip-hop style that would show up in his other recordings.  And really surprisingly – no f-bombs.  Bob’s not known to shy away from dropping fucks whenever he feels like it.  Some people would say that this is his way of trying to become more radio friendly, but I’m not that cynical.

None of the above was meant as a criticism.  It’s just an observation.  My opinion: it’s a great album.  That’s probably a little biased, since I’m such a fan, but I have some reasoning to back it up.  Let’s say I had never heard of Bob Schneider and someone gave me this album.  I would immediately be able to get into it – the cliched term “accessible” applies.  It is a really listenable album with confessional songwriting.

He also digs through some of his own past for a few songs.  This album features the first studio recordings of “Tarantula” and “Bombananza”, both staples of his live shows.  “Change Your Mind” is taken from his album of demos When The Sun Breaks Down On The Moon.  “The Bringdown” has been played at his live shows for a few years as “Bring The Rain Down”.  “Bicycle Vs. Car” has been available as a demo track on his website for a while now.

If you’re new to Bob, this isn’t a bad album to start with (I would also grab I’m Good Now).  So far my favorite tracks are “40 Dogs (Like Romeo And Juliet)”, “Bicycle Vs. Car”, and “The Bringdown” – but there are no throwaway tracks.  It’s filler-free.

* And in a complete coincidence, I just turned on my morning radio to hear Dudley and Bob (KLBJ FM’s morning DJs) discussing the album.  Apparently they think it’s his best work since his first solo release, Lonelyland.  I won’t go that far, but I will say it’s his most consistently solid album since then.

This absolutely stunned me when I first watched it.  And in truth, I’m still a little in awe after repeated viewings:

I’m not a big U2 fan.  Nothing really against them, and I will always listen to “Sunday, Bloody Sunday” whenever it comes on, but don’t own any of their albums.  I could listen to this all day though.

A man, a dobro, a Boss GT-10 multi-effects/loop station, and an E-bow (for those violin style swells).  With it he layers loops (small recorded phrases) and plays the melody with that beautiful dobro tone.  I’m probably a little biased since I love the sound of a slide so much, but c’mon – tell me you didn’t find it amazing.

Apparently “Eastfoldpicker” is some guy from Norway who plays one hell of a dobro.  I checked out some of his other videos and really liked this original tune, “Sailing The Fjords”:

Just incredibly relaxing.

Some background:  I’ve been playing guitar for almost ten years.  A couple of years ago I joined a band (which was really just a group of teachers who got together to murder classic rock songs).  That band spawned an acoustic trio composed of myself, another guitarist, and a singer.  We wrote a few songs together and would play them mixed with covers at some local open mics.  Alls I ever had to do was stand in the back and remember how the chord progressions went – the other guitar player was more gifted but couldn’t always remember how the songs went.  So I kept time and kept the songs on track while he would feed off of me.  It was fun while it lasted but it’s been a long time since we’ve played together.

The point is that whenever I’ve been involved in performance it’s been as part of a group.  No spotlights for me – which I was happy with.  Lately though, I’ve wanted to do something more than play to my living room walls.

Friday night I decided to go check out an open mic with the possibility of signing up.  Now I think I’ve made it clear that I’m not much of a singer.  Seriously.  That made this a huge personal step for me – I don’t think I’ve EVER sang in public.  I showed up at Hot Boiled Pho And Crawfish at the intersection of Parmer/Mopac with a friend.  They had sent out an advertisement to my school mail box which said “Open Mic Friday”.  I was expecting a small crowd, something perfect for a beginner… but  aside from the waiter/owner, we were the only two people there.  Turns out that nobody had signed up for the open mic.  Two more friends came (the now married Bachelor from my Vegas trip and his wife), so we ate and I played a handful of songs for them as a test run.

As far as first times go it could have been worse.  I didn’t have to face a room full of strangers, but I did have to face my friends.  That can be harder.  Especially when your friends have no problem calling you “Mumbles” and “Jizzly Adams” (thanks to my general lack of articulation and spectacular two-week beard).  I will say that the good-natured heckling helped me learn how to focus through distractions when I decide to perform at another one.  And the laughs helped me loosen up quite a bit.

All in all it was a really good experience.

So my advice to you, if you’re considering taking the same step I finally did – do it.  Yes, it’s a little nerve wracking, and yes, the only guarantee is that it won’t be what you expect.  But when you step back from the microphone and see a few smiles it is completely worth it.

And on a culinary note: if you live in the Austin area you owe it to yourself to check out Hot Boiled Pho and Crawfish.  It’s authentic on both ends (the owners are native Vietnamese but grew up in Louisiana) and the tastiest pho I have ever had.

Hot Boiled Pho And Crawfish

You better believe I’ll be going back.