“Oh,” she shrugged. “You’re one of those guys.”
I’d been chatting up a leggy blonde at someone’s rooftop party well past midnight when she lobbed that one at me. The topic of conversation had turned to music at some point — it so often emanates from geeks with beat game — and having just run the table for six straight Beirut victories, my voice must’ve conveyed a loud conviction that bordered on either batshit insanity or total deafness.
“One of which guys?” I asked sheepishly, trying to play cool the fact that during my pointed lecture I had just spat on her face, breast, chest neck and head.
“You know, those guys,” she retorted. “Those guys in their twenties that talk about The Band like they’re the greatest thing in the world, as if possessing such a love for an obscure group of rock musicians you weren’t even old enough to see makes you cooler than everyone else, when really it just makes you an elitist that refuses to play nice with his own generation.”
“Look, ma’am,” I began with arrogant charm, “I make no apologies for wearing my love for the most underrated mostly non-American band in American rock history on my short sleeve for the world to see. You know how they say if we didn’t jump into World War II that all of Europe would be speaking German right now? Well, if The Band hadn’t hung ’em up in 1976 we’d all be singing Canadian-Injected Southern Country Soulful Rock right now. You don’t assemble a collection of fucking talent into one band often enough that I’m willing to just brush them into the dustpan of misplaced rock. Music From Big Pink? I mean, c’mon…”
“I’m gonna go get another beer,” she mumbled, inching away slowly. “Bye.”
I know that all sounds more like an anecdote in a J. Peterman catalogue than a newsy blog post about a new tribute album hitting shelves on January 30, 2007, but I felt the need to preface my first real post on here about The Band with a full disclosure of my belief in their greatness. Nobody puts The Band in the corner.
So when ScottyB e-mailed me the information that 429 Records is releasing Endless Highway: The Music of The Band early next year, I perked up like I’d stumbled upon a cache of free porn. Hornsby on King Harvest? My Morning Jacket on It Makes No Difference? The Allmans on The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down? ALO on Ophelia? I’m normally not a tribute album guy, but buying this disc sounds like a total no-brainer, a real Schiavo. Read on for the full setlist…
