G:TB silent reader Juan Carlos and I headed uptown to catch SJDK at the (surprisingly small) Apollo on Saturday. As Ice Cube would put it, they tore that mothafucka up. I was completely unprepared for their energy and musicianship. Here's a brief sample of Saturday's show:
This wasn't a fluke. Here's some of what they did the night before:
Sharon Jones claimed to be four-foot-eleven, making her the little guy here today. The Dap-Kings towered behind her, 15 musicians strong. Not a typo. She had a 15-piece band including Neal Sugarman of the Sugarman 3 on tenor sax and hypeman/guitarist Binky Griptite, yes, that Binky Griptite, as in Binky Griptite's Ghetto Funk Power Hour. She also had a four-piece string section, a bongo/congo player, and a timpanist. On top of that she had three backup singers. So 19 people groovin on stage. Jones said she's 54 years old but she sang and danced her ass off for two hours straight.
According to a recent NYT interview, Jones attributes her on-stage energy to her pre-show ritual:
Q. What do you do to prepare to go onstage? You consistently have such amazing energy.
SHARON JONES Right before the stage I’m into a little Jameson.
NEAL SUGARMAN [making the sign for a joint] And a little something to smoke.
JONES Don’t write that! Not much. I can’t do that too much. I don’t want to go out there, like, are my eyes all red?
You're probably nodding your head in approval. Jones was a prison guard at Rikers Island before her music career took off. Then she was a backup singer for Lee Fields. Now she's appearing in theaters near you. So mark your calendars:
Richmond May 6
Norfolk May 9
Boston May 27 (looking at you Dooger)
Elmer NJ June 5
SJDK are on now my list of acts to see every time they're in town. If you check them out they'll probably end up on yours as well.
Tangentially, I bummed a cigarette off a Swedish tourist after the show and I told him that I saw "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" and I asked if Sweden's really that messed up and he said "No" but I'm not sure I believe him, he's probably biased.
Even more tangentially, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club is very much on my list of acts to ignore. I saw them last month in Boston and they were either too banged up from their previous night in Toronto, bitter about the 6:30 start time, over-produced and not that talented, or some combination of the foregoing. Save your money and stick with their studio stuff.
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15 comments:
Is this Gheorghe or NotsoGheorghe? Discuss...
http://tinyurl.com/2bu5kxc
LT...what in the fuck are you doing with a 15 year old girl in a hotel room?
he was probably having intercourse, Mark. And smoking crack.
So I guess this means it's Darryl Strawberry's turn now. Gooden had the DUI, LT was on a crack/whore bender, so Straw is due to get pinched for one of the following, sometime before July 4th.
a) tax evasion
b) possession of coke
and/or
c) felonious assault
i'm putting the girl with the dragon tattoo on my queue.
i like to believe that sweden is full of serial killers-- and i'm sure that "tourist" you spoke to was nothing of the sort.
marls - i'm here for ya...i'd say it's pretty Gheorghe. at least the part about playing on his buddies softball team, not so much helping his wife out with her clothing line. that's kind of gay. i like his vibe other than that...seems like a real hipster.
Thanks Dan.
I cool with the softball and even helping out with the clothing line. What seems un-Gheorghe is the fact that he got a big contract and then just sorta tanked it. Maybe that is totally Gheorghe.
As for his hipsterness, I assume you mean that in the 1950's beatnik way, because in NYC hipsters are bunch of losers using their parents credit cards to shop at thrift shops and pay their rent while trying overly hard to be ironic by wearing bad clothes and scruffy beards.
i don't think he tanked it, i just think he started sucking. he's not really the tanking type - he's always played the game like a spazmomaniac.
Point of order on Marls' hipster comments. They shop at "vintage stores," not "thrift shops." Big difference, as in a 1000% mark-up at the vintage joints, as well as a higher grade of used crap.
Pound for pound, I've always found better treasures at the thrift shops. And it's better karma, except when you end up shopping next to somebody who's legitimately too poor to shop anywhere else. Then it's just awkward.
Rob,
I thought the same thing at first, but then I looked at the numbers.
On August 7th of 2007, Arizona gave him a 3 year extension averaging $11M per year, which is more than he had made in all of his other years combined (about $10.5M total). At the time he was having a very nice season season. .303 average, 17 homers, 64 RBI's which averages out to .303, 25, 92. From that day forward (47 games), he hits .243 with 4 homers, 9 doubles, and 19 RBI's for a 162 game average of .243, 14, 32, 66. It is a rather sizeable dropoff.
Then from 2008-2010, he has averaged .210, 14 homers, 54 RBIs.
I think tanked may have been the wrong word, but you can make the case that once he got the big contract baseball may not have been his main focus. Perhaps he was busy trying to elect a pope.
Good catch TR, you are 100% correct.
For more on this loathsome subspecies see here (Site name may be mildly NSFW):
http://www.latfh.com
Great link, Marls. That web-site is off the charts. Unfortunately, it takes the luster off of this group's love off of the ironic mustache look, but we're so old it may make people think we're naive enough to think we look good.
Wow, that site is fantastic...
I think the fact that he's immediately joining his friends' softball team is extremely Gheorghe.
And, I love thrift shops (have since high school) and could care less if some legitimately poor person is shopping next to me. A love of bargains knows no economic boundaries.
I'll try and make the 27th show. Can't be I had to miss the NYC show. Stupid work. Binky Griptite from the Dap Kings is supposed to be great.
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