Homage to the Weasel (his lordship)

Concerts in Zen Part III
Coming Clean …

Phish
July 3, 1994
The Ballpark, Old Orchard Beach, Maine

Setlist

1. My Friend My Friend
2 Poor Heart
3 Down With Disease
4 Fee
5 NICU
6 Horn
7 The Old Home Place
8 Reba
9 Axilla Pt. III – David Bowie
10 Split Open and Melt
11 Lizards
12 Bouncing Around the Room
13 Its Ice
14 The Horse-Silent in the Morning
15 Julius
16 The Squirming Coil
17 Run Like An Antelope
18 Suzy Greenberg
19 Crowd
20 Fire



So, here's an interesting one. Interesting, primarily because I have long declared myself not a Phish fan. It's just one of those things – kind of inscrutable, but so obvious that I never took any effort to attempt an explanation.

With such a plain reputation for over-explaining, this has confounded some in the past. One such time involved an acquaintance from the Damariscotta era, Bittersweet Bartender Dave. Guy had one of the most unnerving, yet funny, bartender games – upon delivering of a credit card slip back to its owner, he'd say, "… got some bad news … your card was accepted." More than one close-to-his-limit cardholder turned white at such moments.

Anyway, Dave one night reached that moment that all Phish fans reach when challenged about the purported brilliance / perfection of the Vermonsters, to the effect of "What can you say about Phish … they're amazing musicians, they put on a great live show … what? In 30 words or less, tell me why you don't like Phish."

And yet, I only needed three:

"Because they suck."

Hyperbole? Perhaps. After all, they are all fine musicians, and as this post attests, I saw them live and they did, in fact, present a thoroughly enjoyable show.

But there has always been something … I don't know … creepy about Phish fans and they way they always seem to be pushing their band upon the unwilling like door-to-door missionaries pushing their religious awakening upon those unlucky enough to open their doors.

"Just listen … the vacuum cleaner solo is coming up … Trey … so amazing!"

But alas, I yield that for an Independence Day Eve, 1994, in the buggy surrounds of Inner Old Orchard Beach, Phish provided a thoroughly enjoyable evening's worth of music, fireworks, and entertainment. Two words: The Ballpark.

For Phish fans, Maine is more memorable in their band's annals for their series of summer festivals in The County, on the decommissioned Loring Air Force Base. And yet, the more discriminating fans seem to suggest that something special occurred on that summer evening at a woods-encircled swamp where I took in my first several professional baseball experience a decade earlier.

I'll refer you to blogger Chad Finn for his sharp recollection of the semi-storied history of the Maine Guides. Here's another nice Guides-centered post. For a truly disheartening photo journey through the park as it looks today, see this website.


Otis Nixon … not a Phish fan

Alas … I won't try to recount the specifics of the show, other than my recollection of the aforementioned fireworks. Here's the version offered by one fan who provided this review of the show on a site with the subheading By Phish Fans For Phish Fans:

By this time, I noticed that it was dark outside, the stadium was packed with about three thousand people, and everyone was baked. They then played Run Like an Antelope, which was a great jam, as always. In the middle of the jam, before the vocals came on, fireworks started going off outside the show, to celebrate the fourth of July, which was the next day. When a big Phish firework exploded, the audience also exploded. Everyone was going nuts, screaming, dancing, and the band was really getting into it. They closed the second set with Suzy Greenberg, which was phat because everyone sang along with the chorus, and it was like we were all linked by this music, and the band was like a transmitter to our souls.

Well, I won't go that far, but the fireworks display, seemingly in time with the rhythm of the jam, was pretty amazing. And perhaps most amazing was that I was there at all … at a much maligned Triple A baseball stadium, cum Seashore Performing Arts Center, cum municipal tax base liability for the poor folks of Old Orchards.

This was The Ballpark. A venue not 20 minutes from my boyhood home by car, and perhaps 45 by bike. The Ballpark that paid witness to my first professional baseball games in the early 1980s, where the Maine Guides for three seasons, and Maine Phillies for one, played their home games. It later served as the venue where I would collect for free in the parking lot to hear Bob Dylan and James Taylor, and where I would inexplicably pay good money to see Europe open for Def Leppard. Yeah … The Final Countdown … Pour Some Sugar on Me … the whole bit.


Europe-ean w/ Much Hair ... not a Phish fan

Portland Press Herald columnist Bill Nemitz, in 1996, offered this bit of pondering about the stadium gone wrong:

The drone from Tommy Bill's weed whacker bounced off the center field wall and echoed back to the empty grandstand Thursday morning. Then he clicked off the machine - and The Ballpark fell silent.

''I grew up just beyond those trees,'' said Tommy, pointing through a gaping hole in the left-field fence. ''I was in seventh or eighth grade when they played the first game here. And when I was in high school in 1989, I played five games here.''

Tommy's 24 now. He's young enough to remember climbing the pine trees overlooking The Ballpark's outfield to watch Maine Guides baseball for free.

But he's old enough to know that what he saw from his perch turned out to be an illusion: The jewel Sports Illustrated once dubbed ''maybe the prettiest ballpark in creation'' has decayed into the ugliest municipal mistake in Maine - if not the most costly.

While town officials spent Thursday futilely begging the Finance Authority of Maine to forgive the $ 1.4 million they still owe on The Ballpark, Tommy went about his depressing duties inside the cavernous complex: Mow the weed-infested ''turf,'' clean up after the vandals who smash the windows and smear the knotty-pine press box with lurid obscenities, and do whatever else a young man can to keep the place from falling completely apart.

''I work for Archie St. Hilaire - I'm his cousin,'' Tommy said, referring to the promoter who now pays the town $ 75,000 a year to stage concerts and other shows at the park. Last year, it was The Horde Festival and The Royal Lipizzaner Stallions; this year, it's James Taylor, Hootie and the Blowfish and, on Saturday, a dog show.

Baseball, however, is long gone. And Tommy, who spent many a sunny day jockeying for position by the chain-link fence with a ball in one hand and a pen in the other, knows it.

''After the dog show this weekend, we're going to seed the whole field with grass,'' he said, staring glumly at the muddy infield. ''That'll be it.''

How, you wonder, could such a good thing go so bad?

And yet, it was Phish that turned in the most satisfying performance I ever took in at The Ballpark, with apologies to former Maine Guides pitcher Steve Farr, who finished 1984 with a stellar 4-0 records and 2.60 ERA before an ill-fated bump up to the big club in Cleveland.

And to think that I went, essentially against my will, courtesy of a friend who paid my way, threw me into her car, and later forced me to admit that I had a good time.

They're can steer toward annoying, their fans can be insufferable, and the vacuum thing is asinine … but they don't suck, and I'll say it again – they put on a fine live show.

MtTomPhoto photo

Concerts in Zen. Pt II
Rustic Overtones

at the Maine Lobster Festival

Many thanks in advance to the following Flickr photographers for the use of their great Rustic pix:
MtTomPhoto
William Thibault
Justin Russell
Kimberly Nicol Natural Focus

Perhaps this ought to be listed with some kind of an asterisk … or three. I provide it mostly because:
1. I was able to walk to and fro the event,
2. it was the first outdoor music venue I've attended that was within view of the shoreline,
3. it represented a serious break from the typical musical act booked to play the CrustaceanFest, and
4. Canada Mike was good enough to capture a good chunk of the show on video.

Without further ado …

Rustic Overtones – Rockland, Maine – Maine Lobster Festival – August 1, 2007



Try to let that one sink in a bit. Fresh off a reportedly explosive first swing of reunion shows in and around Portland, the funky-fresh, four-man horn-sectioned, and biggest pop cultural phenomenon thing, like … ever to come out of Portland either since Henry W. Longfeller or Judd Nelson braved the Wiscasset bridge in August in order to bear their musical souls for the people of Knox County.

Don't get me wrong. The Lobster Festival is surely a big draw, as the Knox Co Village Soup reports. But, as this story notes, the headliner of the festival was some country singer named Terri Clark, while this one is a bit more representative of what is considered news at Bug A Go-Go.

Well, lightning didn't impede the Rustic septet from getting ridiculous before a pretty inspired crowd assembled in Rockland's Harbor Park. The band played through a set that seems to have primarily focused on newer songs, excluding the act's most familiar tracks "Simple Song" and "Check" in favor of others apparently designed to highlight the newly-added strings section … err … violinist. So, while I registered some measure of disappointment over not being able to play sing-along with the "… you ain't got funk …" business, there was little with which anyone attending had any legitimate right to be disappointed. Quite simply – they are a great band to see live, wherever and whenever.



I've had a hard time finding review-type press of the event, but I'll refer you to a "my so-called life …" type blog entry by "Entity" here. She notes

:… Afterward when Maggie and I were trying to find Leila and Issac, (I was very wound up, hot, a little tipsy, and very very dehydrated) I was yelling "I can't believe it was Rustic and none of the fucktards were dancing! No one even knows who they are! No one appreciates awesomeness of this night! All these fucking idiots think they're soooo cool, but they weren't even dancing!"

Well, Entity, I hear you knocking, and I hopefully you kept right on a-dancin' anyway, fucktards-be-damned.

Thankfully, Canada Mike was good enough to play cameraman for the show, which I present to you here. Thanks Mickey:



http://vimeo.com/260879 from Mike and Vimeo.

http://vimeo.com/260879 from Mike and Vimeo.

If the video above doesn't open, here's a direct link to Canada Mike's fine filmography. The shots that include the ferris wheel in the background are wild ... like, mad wild. But I'll have to talk with your soundman ... "Kris" ... tell her she's fired.

For those of you who have never lived within the 207 area code, Rustic Overtones were pretty much the biggest act to come out of Portland during the grunge and post-grunge eras. They were reportedly "this close" to following through with a big label record deal before circumstances supposedly converged to prevent things from fully materializing. The band's wikipedia page notes:

After the release of their 1998 album Rooms by the Hour, major record label Arista expressed interest in signing the group, much to the excitement of fans and the band members. Arista produced a one-million dollar record deal with the band, opening the door for the one chance at the big times the band had always been waiting for. However, after hearing the new, heavier, grittier material that the band had been working on, Arista was not pleased and eventually pulled out of the deal, leaving the Rustic Overtones without a record label. According to the band, the label sent back a demo tape of Rustic Overtones material dubbed over with keyboard bass parts and fake drums, and notifying the band that they would release the album only if it included the changes made. They were shortly afterwards picked up by Tommy Boy, and released Viva Nueva! in 2001. However, Tommy Boy dissolved shortly after the release of the album, once again leaving the Overtones without a record label. The disappointment of two major record deals falling through proved too much for the band members, and they went their separate ways in 2002. Their "final" preformance was a three-hour show at the State Theater on May 11th, 2002. … The Rustic Overtones remain arguably the most successful band to come out of Portland, Maine.

More pointedly, BDN artsblogger Emily Burnham observes that:

Unless you lived under a rock in the late ’90s and early part of this century, if you’re from Maine, you knew about Rustic. Quite possibly, you saw the band live, since it played all over the state. At one point, it was arguably the biggest band in the 207.

The 2002 State Theatre show is available for free and fully sanctioned download at Archive dot org. I must express some hesitation about posting the songs that follow, as I recall that the pages for this show used to feature requests by the poster not to share MP3s converted from the shorten files he posted. However, that warning no longer appears to be in effect, and the band now seems to encourage such sharing. To all who might be affected, please alert me if I have this wrong and I will immediately take the MP3s off this page with all appropriate apologies, etc.

That said …

I highly recommend what one bandmate dubbed "the anthem," Simple Song, as well as Check, which received a fair bit of WCYY airplay back in the band's heyday, and the extended jam of Smoke featuring some great farewell shout-out raps from several pals from a handful of other Portland acts.

Also, check this this fansite Rock Like War and this one too for more current band info. Rock Like War has all kinds of goodies at its media thread if you're a serious fan or a budding fan, so check it out. Finally, linkage-wise, here's a link to the band's Myspace page, which provides a few tracks from throughout the career.

If you're up to the downloading, also check out this show from 1999 at Stonecoast Brewing Co - a sadly defunct Portland venue that burned out before it faded away or something. I could link to some Press Herald story describing it's implosion but really, what's the point. The version of Huey Lewis & Das Zeit's '80s hit I Want a New Drug is a fine cover that warrants some listening. Do it.

So … what's all this about the Rustic Overtones playing at the Lobster Festival? Well, I'll tell ya. In the interests of full disclosure, I wasn't really on the Rustic bandwagon when they first ruled Portland. I sorta maintained a healthy distance from the G Love & Special Sauce-styled funk/rap with horns, occasionally careening into the ska-core world representing a kinder and gentler Mighty Mighty Bosstones. Plus, I was in the full throes of indie rock snobbery and couldn't yield any hint of interest in something as obviously fun as what Rustic was putting out. Yet, I couldn't help but get into their act when I was finally prodded into seeing them live.

The dumbest thing is that I can't tell you exactly when it was that I finally saw them. I'm pretty sure it was at Stonecoast in, probably, 1996, but who knows? I know it was fun and that when I returned to Maine from a spell away from my beloved home state, they were no mas.

While I'll not likely hold my breathe for a return visit to the Greater Rockland region in the near future, I do hope this find local band makes an honest go of it this second time around. Based on the impression left with the local 15-25 year olds who were smart enough to be down front while the Rustic Overtones blasted their guitars and horns across the harborfront, I think the waters might be right for the ride.

The Spaceman Cometh to Waterville

Former Red Sox pitching great, or at least, pitching pretty good, Bill "Spaceman" Lee appeared in Waterville last night for the premier of a new movie about his life. This photo and two articles appeared in the Morning Sentinel and Kennebec Journal today, recounting the event. Here's the tag line from the staff photographer Jeff Pouland's pic:

SOX APPEAL: Former Boston Red Sox pitcher Bill ``Spaceman'' Lee acknowledges the crowd after arriving at the Waterville Opera House for the showing of his film ``High & Outside'' on Wednesday evening. His film is part of the Maine International Film Festival.

Some key excerpts of his comments from the Q&A, per the MS article:

Bill Lee is standing in front of the stage at the Waterville Opera House, signing autographs, when a fan brings up the fight.

Yankee Stadium, 1976. Before Pedro dropped Zimmer in the 2003 American League Championship Series and Jason Varitek made A-Rod eat his catcher's mitt in 2004, this was the brawl by which all Boston Red Sox and New York Yankee brawls were measured.

"I'll show you something. Watch this," Lee says to the fan as he reaches into his wallet. Out comes the Graig Nettles card. The Yankee who punched Lee in the fight that ended with Lee hobbling off the field with a separated left shoulder. His throwing shoulder.

"I'll have Graig Nettles right against my (butt) for eternity," Lee says, laughing.

Lee was in Waterville for the world premiere of the documentary "High And Outside." The film chronicles Lee's career in baseball, including his run-ins with management in Boston and Montreal, his social commentaries, as well as his life in Craftsbury, Vt.

...

On Don Zimmer ending up as a coach with the Yankees: "You know why (Zimmer) got that job? Because he threw the '78 season. I'm No. 3 lifetime winning percentage against the Yankees. We lost nine straight games to the Yankees ... I did not pitch," Lee says. "Bobby Sprowl (pitched). How many games did Bobby Sprowl win in the big leagues folks? Zero."

On Manny Ramirez: "I've watched (Ramirez) approach the game. He does not think. A guy comes up to me, 'I know my problem.' That's your problem. Don't think Tiger, you'll hurt the ballclub."

Right on, just as usual.