Robert Baird

Much as I hate to admit it, the experience of going into a record store, particularly a big glorious mom and pop indie store, is fast becoming a thing of the past.

The measure of a champion is how he performs under pressure and on Saturday night at HE 2006, Dr. John (Mac Rebennack), despite a nasty running head cold, gave us some vintage Mac.

So there I was, part of a motley crew of HE 2006 attendees and fellow travelers, groovin' with deejays Ming and FS and their four turntable assault at the Friday night rave that ended day one of HE 2006. Unfortunately, no one else was there.

Back before music fans morphed into gaming fans, before lip synching became the rage, before utter horseshit like American Idol was even a wet dream, there were thriving clubs and committed music freak club owners like Clifford Antone.

As a follow-up to my last entry, I was sitting in my favorite watering hole over the weekend, listening to my favorite jukebox㬎 tunes for 5 bucks–when a couple sitting at the bar next to me struck up a music conversation about what was playing: Elvis Costello, The Shins, King Sunny Ade, Lefty Frizzell, James Brown, Arctic Monkeys, you name it. At one point, talking about the cover art of an album I can’t remember now I said, being the absent-minded old man of the bunch, 'Have you ever seen that record?'

I've come to the conclusion that birthdays really aren't a whole lotta fun. I mean what's to like? You're another year older, fatter, dumber; in short, whatever detriment is plaguing you at the time is magnified by yet another año.