Whoa-oh, China Grove!

When I was a sophomore in high school in central Illinois, we had this thing in our school called the “Leeway.” Essentially, it was a big hallway that connected the old part of the school with a newer addition.
I came from a pretty big high school — somewhere in the neighborhood of between 600 to 1,000 kids per class — so the Leeway was pretty wide and around 50 yards long. It had to accommodate a lot of students.
When we weren’t using it to get from class to class, we hung out in the Leeway. After eating lunch in the cafeteria, the kids would congregate in the Leeway, mostly because there wasn’t anyplace else to go, but also because we were allowed to have a juke box.



Two songs for a quarter. And I’m pretty sure that nearly every day of my sophomore year, I plopped a quarter in that juke box and punched in “China Grove” by the Doobie Brothers. (The other song was “My Maria” by B.W. Stevenson, remade two decades later by country stars Brooks & Dunn.)
It was 1975. And hanging out in the Leeway listening to that song reminds me of a special and happy time in my formative years.
So when the Doobie Brothers broke into “China Grove” during their encore Thursday night at the Keswick Theater in Glenside, PA — more than 35 years later — it was all I could do to not rush the stage. I’m not sure why I didn’t, except for maybe at this age, I figured I might trip and fall down the aisle and break a hip rushing the stage.
It was the first time I had seen the Doobie Brothers live, and I’ll tell you something, they haven’t lost a step. They played all the great classic Doobie Brothers songs and mixed is some songs off the new album, “World Gone Crazy,” which are just as good as the old stuff.
These guys like their guitars a lot, and they like to play them. Loud. The musicianship, showmanship and energy of a veteran group like the Doobie Brothers made for one fabulous show — one of the best I’ve ever seen. It had been a long time since I had come out of a concert with my ears ringing and my chest still thumping.
Original Doobies’ frontmen Tom Johnston and Patrick Simmons, as well as multi-talented John McFee, were surrounded by kick-tail musicians and performers. I had the opportunity to interview Johnston for a story to preview the show and enjoyed that quite a bit.
And ever since the concert, I’ve been talkin’ ’bout China Grove, whoa-oh-oh, whoa-oh China Grove.
I just wish that I would have rushed the stage for “China Grove.” Even if I had fallen and broken my hip, it would have made for a cool story about how it happened.

Happy together . . . and forever after

My folks had quite a record collection when I was a kid in 1960s. Much if it was hip for its time — The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Elvis and the like. Mostly though, they seemed to favor music that featured harmonies.
One album I absolutely wore out as a kid was “Insight Out” by The Association. It featured two wonderful songs and big hits — “Windy,” which reached No. 1 in 1967 and “Never My Love,” which climbed to No. 2 that same year.
The Association was part of the 2011 Happy Together Tour that stopped at the Keswick Theater last week; I was thrilled to get a chance to hear a band that I so fondly remembered from my youth.
There are three current members of The Association who performed on the “Insight Out” album: Larry Ramos, Russ Giguere and Jim Yester. They are pictured as young men on the album cover.
I had interviewed Larry Ramos to preview the Keswick show and got quite a kick listening to him talk about the music of the 1960s.

The copy of “Insight Out” that my folks had is long gone, but I found another original copy of the album at a record store in Chestnut Hill a few weeks before the show. I was hoping to get a chance to meet The Association guys and have them sign my album.
Fortunately, I got to do just that. But it almost didn’t happen.
I shared the Happy Together concert with Older Daughter, which was lucky for me. She was riding shotgun during the autograph-getting portion after the show. I had already secured the signatures of Giguere and Yester on the album cover when Ramos came out for the meet-and-greet. I was so excited to meet him that I forgot to ask him to sign the album. I’m getting older, too, I guess.
“Dad, the album!” said Older Daughter, saving the day. The picture that accompanies this item shows Ramos completing the Association autograph trifecta for me, in a photo taken by Older Daughter.
My daughter, whose big-deal music group is N’SYNC, was familiar with only a few of the songs from the Happy Together show, which also included appearances by The Buckinghams (“Kind of a Drag”); The Grass Roots (“Midnight Confessions”); Mark Lindsay of Paul Revere and the Raiders (“Kicks”); and The Turtles (“Happy Together”).
In addition to meeting the guys from The Association, we also got to meet Carl Giammarese of the Buckinghams and Howard Kaylan of The Turtles and get their signatures.
When I introduced Kaylan to Older Daughter, he said, “You should thank your father for introducing you to good music.”
With all due respect to N’SYNC, Kaylan is right. There was some great, great music in the 1960s. Older Daughter and I enjoyed seeing all those talented musicians whose songs have stayed with me all these years.
You might say we were happy together.

The key was not under my brother

I didn’t know this beforehand, but it turns out Billy Gardell’s mom and my mom have something in common: They both seem to not quite grasp the intricacies of hiding a house key under the front door mat.
Gardell, star of the hit television series “Mike and Molly,” is also a successful stand-up comic, and like most comics, his ability to observe human nature and then turn it into compelling storytelling can be quite entertaining.
So there were plenty of laughs to go around Friday night at the Keswick Theater in Glenside. And the key for comedians is to tell stories that the rest of us can relate to.
I didn’t get all the details because I was giggling too much, but one of Gardell’s bits included something about his mom leaving a house key under the front door mat for him, then leaving a note on the front door telling him the key was under the mat.
During the summer of 1978, I had completed my first year of college, which for me meant that I had completed my first year of college partying. By the time that summer rolled around, I wasn’t exactly interested in ending the college party season.
One night I was out with my buddies, doing what 19-year-old guys do, and I didn’t get home until around 2 a.m. I’m not sure why, but my parents had not given me a house key.
I opened the screen door to see a note, in my mother’s handwriting, on the front door, barely illuminated by the street light. It read: “The key is under your brother.”
In my state of heightened unawareness, my first thought was: “Why is my brother on the front porch and why is he sitting on the house key?” Six years my junior, he would have been around 12 or 13 years old and it would have been well past his bedtime.
It took me a few moments of controlled confusion to deduce that I did indeed know where the key was.
My brother’s name is . . . Matt.
I often wonder if a burglar who hadn’t been out with his buddies all night would have been able to figure it out. Apparently, my mom didn’t think sober burglars would know my brother’s name.

Miller time at The Keswick

Dennis Miller wasn’t as tall as I thought he would be. But he’s got a great smile and laugh, and he seemed genuinely flattered that people wanted to meet him and get a picture taken with him last week prior to his show at the Keswick Theater.
I was fortunate to be among a group of about 20 people who got the opportunity to shake Miller’s hand that evening. He introduced himself to each person individually with a “Hi, I’m Dennis,” almost like we didn’t know who he was.



There was some brief backstage banter before Miller suggested we all go out on stage and take the pictures, with the Keswick seats steadily filling about 15 minutes before show time serving as the backdrop.
Unfortunately, the pre-show stage lighting — a kind of a dark blue — played havoc with my photos and they all came out with a dark blue tint, making the images almost indistinguishable, even when using a flash. I wonder if any of the other folks with cameras had the same problem.
As for the show, I didn’t laugh as much as I would have liked, but not because Miller wasn’t funny. Between watching his last HBO special and the phone call interview I had with him to preview the appearance, much of it was repeat information.
In fact, at the end of the interview, I had asked him what the Keswick crowd could expect at a Dennis Miller show. “This phone call for about an hour,” he said.
And that’s what it turned out to be. One can’t quibble that Dennis Miller didn’t deliver the kind of show that he had promised to deliver.
One other observation: Political humor is a tough gig right now, given the polarization in our country. I grew up with the humor of George Carlin, who I thought was both funny and brilliant. But in the latter part of his career, Carlin became more political and more anti-government, anti-religion and just about anti-everything. And it just wasn’t as funny as his other stuff.
Miller strikes me as being on a similar path. His stories about taking his mother to meet Frank Sinatra, the shenanigans during his stint as a Monday Nigh Football commentator and the craziness that was the early days of Saturday Night Live were all enjoyable and funny bits. The political stuff, not so much.
Maybe the comedians haven’t changed over the years. Maybe it’s the politics that just isn’t funny anymore.

Some deserve their 15 minutes, others don't

There are a few local things that interest me this week and a few not so local things that don’t interest me, and in fact, are trying my patience.
Among the people I find compelling is Philadelphia singer-songwriter Mutlu, who was scheduled to perform Dec. 11 at the Sellersville Theater.
Unfortunately, a car accident has sidelined him for a little while and canceled the Sellersville show for now. When he has rescheduled, look for a story on him Ticket magazine inside your local newspaper.
He’s the next generation of Philly soul and his career at this point has been influenced by local sons Daryl Hall and John Oates. I’ve seen Mutlu perform a few times and he’s quite good.
Here’s hoping he has a speedy recovery and can get back on the Sellersville schedule in quick order.
The other group that’s caught my eye is called Straight No Chaser, an a cappella group of 10 guys who will perform Dec. 18 at the Keswick Theater in Glenside.
These guys have an amazing sound. We’re trying to put together a preview story for next week on their appearance in this area. Check them out online and on YouTube.
Mutlu and Straight No Chaser are legitimate talents and deserve well more than their 15 minutes.
Consequently, there are a few stories on the national scene that are just wearing me out.
First, there’s Tiger Woods. I don’t play golf and I don’t watch golf on TV. It’s a challenging sport, but boring nonetheless. I’m a baseball player. When I hit a ball, somebody else should chase it. I shouldn’t have to track it down and hit it again.
As for Tiger’s personal life, I really don’t care. It does not impact my life in any way.
Then there are those two goofs who snuck into a state dinner allegedly without an invitation and got face time with both President Obama and Vice President Biden, among others.
OK, so the Secret Service needs to be perfect and wasn’t on this one. Fine, let it examine its security procedures and make the necessary adjustments so that something like this doesn’t happen again.
As for the two party-crashing reality TV wannabes, if everybody just ignores them, maybe they’ll go away. They got 15 minutes that should have gone to somebody more deserving.