rock and roll musings by Tim Byrnes

 Remembering the Future: Brave New Worlds To Go

      Things have settled down a bit here at punk rock blues. I’m moving back to my small town in 2 weeks and have pretty much arranged a transfer from my job here to one there. I have a few more options than I thought regarding a place to stay so I’m feeling a lot less stressed than I was just 2 short days ago.
      Tonight in Denver Bob Dylans’s playing with Merle Haggard opening and as much as I’d like to go I can’t afford it. I remember seeing Dylan at the Colorado State Fair in (let me check the ticket stub, it’s still in my wallet…) August of 2001. Having not seen him in over 30 years (Concert for Bangladesh NYC, 1970) I didn’t know what to expect. I remember telling my then wife Lynn, “I just hope he doesn’t suck”. Well, he didn’t suck, ladies and gentlemen, far from it. The show was, and remains, one of the best rock and roll shows I’ve ever seen, definitely  Top 3 (PiL at Roseland, Patti Smith at Denver Paramount….). What struck me about it was the complete lack of ceremony.
      The stage lights went down, a voice came over the p.a saying “Ladies and Gentlemen, Columbia recording artist Bob Dylan”. With that the stage lights came up and out strode the voice of his generation who came up to the mic and started singing the  old classic ‘Hummingbird’. His band was tight and professional and they all turned out great song after great song, most graced by the surprisingly agile blues guitar leads of Dylan himself. A slow starting harmonica solo on “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” rose with each passing chorus to the soaring heights of Dizzy and Bird, except it was one man with a $15 instrument, little more than a toy. Which, to me, serves to illustrate Dylan’s ultimate triumph of craft and artistry over image, hype and the poisonous tendency for those in rock and roll to believe their own publicity (see Vicious, Sid).
      I thought that I needed a ‘larger stage’ to make my music on a ‘meaningful’ level, hence my move to Denver. I foolishly thought that a geographic cure would change everything and, while I did meet and play with some really good musician’s up here (Hi, Maceo,  Larry, Dave, Doug and Dennis) I never felt the same rush I did when I played with Dan and Kenny in Flashback. I deleted what little I’d written about Flashback from this page during my Great Meltdown of 2004, so here’s the Reader’s Digest version. Flashback (Dan Guerra on drums, Kenny Morgan on bass and me on guitar and vocals) were something of a classic rock, blues and punk car crash. We played the old standards, including ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ like every other bar band, but not at all like every other bar band. See, we brought our hearts to the table, not to mention our record collections. We took all the funk, punk, blues, jazz, underground, overground 70’s AM dance pop and noise fests we’d played over the last however many years and broiled and boiled them into a stew that resulted in some of the most hair raising 15 minute versions of Credence’s ‘Born on the Bayou’ this side of the Grateful Dead AND Television.
      I’ve called Dan (Kenny doesn’t have a phone, he’s too independent for that) and it looks like Flashback is going to ride again very shortly. I’ve also called Lynn who has a CD burner in her new computer so maybe I’ll be able to post some sound samples here and at my lulu page. Buster the dog knows something’s up and even he seems more relaxed.
      Bob Dylan’s on the road again and so am I and all feels right with the world. Ain’t it cool?

Posted by: timbyrnes at 23:53 | link | comments

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