Watch This

I remember being a kid when the whole world was MTV and the holiest of holies was the MTV Video Music Awards. In 1989, they announced a special guest would close the show and I stayed up real late to see who it was. When Tom Petty came on, I was a bit underwhelmed, until...



This happened.

The 25s: Menthol Edition

The 25s will be an occasional feature where we in Virgil Kane country highlight the great Christmas Songs.

Here in Virgil Kane Country, Robert Earl Keen’s MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM THE FAMILY might be the truest Christmas song ever written.

"Carve the Turkey, turn the ball game on
Mix margaritas when the eggnog's gone
Send somebody to the Quickpak Store
We need some ice and an extension chord
A can of bean dip and some Diet Rites
A box of tampons, Marlboro Lights"

This is one you want to track down every version of and listen to them until your ears bleed egg nog.

Robert Earl Keen: Merry Christmas From The Family (live)

The National League

There are few things in life as sweet as October baseball. A cigarette after a long flight. Mom’s soup when you are ill. A good dog. That’s about it.

After 162 hard fought games in the spring and summer, as the days themselves become shorter, only a select few get to keep playing. Call it natural selection.

This year, the Chicago Cubs and the Los Angeles Dodgers will face off in the crisp autumn. Coincidentally, these just happen to be the two teams about whom the very best baseball songs have been written. So lets have our own playoffs.

Pitching for the Dodgers is VKC fave Ry Cooder doing THIRD BASE DODGER STADIUM. In 1959, the final Mexican families were forced out of quaint Chavez Ravine, their houses demolished to make way for the very apex of sports design and city planning: Dodger Stadium.

Cooder’s tune is written from the perspective of a man who used to live where the Stadium now stands, right about where third base is today. Now he works in the parking lot.

“Mister, you’re a baseball man, as anyone can plainly see.
The straightest game in this great land. Take a little tip from me.
I work here nights, parking cars, underneath the moon and stars.
The same ones that we all knew back in 1952.
And if you want to know where a local boy like me is coming from:
3rd base, Dodger Stadium”

Pitching for the Cubbies is Steve Goodman the late best friend of John Prine. A DYING CUB FAN’S LAST REQUEST captures everything that’s great about baseball, and all the heartbreak inherent in loving the Cubs. Did you ever love a girl that you knew would let you down every time, but you couldn’t help loving her? That’s not even close.

“Do they still play the blues in Chicago when baseball season rolls around? When the snow melts away, do the Cubbies still play in their ivy-covered burial ground? When I was a boy, they were my pride and joy, but now they only bring fatigue; to home of the brave, the land of the free and the doormat of the National League.”

VKC Verdict: Goodman takes it. Cubs win! Cubs Win!


Songs Mentioned
Ry Cooder:: 3rd Base Dodger Stadium
Steve Goodman:: A Dying Cub Fan's Last Request

Answer Tracks: Mr. And Mrs. Miller

answer tracks is an occasional feature where we in virgil kane country unearth hidden connections between songs.

We have a saying here in Virgil Kane Country, “there’s nothing sadder than a man misappropriated” And that includes women. Think of poor Joan of Arc. Spent her life rallying against the Church, and when she died, they made her a Saint. Or Jimi Hendrix who burned a guitar for his art and whose name now graces the main blvd at Universal Studios, Hollywood. Or Roger Miller’s King of The Road used to sell everything from blue jeans to automobiles.

But ROAD means the exact opposite of what they tell ya. It’s the Joan of Arc of jingles. Its about a man without a dime, a hobo. As we say in the VKC, he aint King of Shit. By no means, King of The Road.

In 1965, Jody Miller (no relation) recorded a true answer track entitled QUEEN OF THE HOUSE. How creative.

ROGER MILLER BONUS TRACK: He also happened to write the definitve song about getting one’s first taste of booze. CHUG A LUG.

And as Wikipedia tells us:

“a lifelong cigarette smoker, Miller died of lung and throat cancer in 1992. In a TV interview, he once explained that he composed his songs from "bits and pieces" of ideas he wrote on scraps of paper. When asked what he did with the unused bits and pieces, he half-joked, "I smoke 'em!"

Sounds like one helluva fella.

Songs Mentioned:
Roger Miller:: King Of The Road
Jody Miller:: Queen Of The House
Roger Miller:: CHUG A LUG

Left is Right

His name was Lefty Frizell. He once told someone that when he and his wife split up, they split the house. He got the outside, he said.

Here’s Lefty doing his classic track Saginaw Michigan about a young man of little means who hustles his way past a greedy father into the arms of a well-off gal. He rhymes “Saginaw Michigan” with both “Saginaw Fisherman” and “Wild Young Ambitious Man” – I can’t rhyme it with anything else.

Can you?

Song Mentioned:
Saginaw Michigan:: Lefty Frizell

The Lost Rolling Stones Album Vol 1.

Virgil Kane loves a good jam session. A good we’re all here, we’re all talented, lets make some music vibe. The Basement Tapes. Exile On Main St.

So one night the Stones are making Let It Bleed. Brian Jones has one foot out the door. Mick Taylor hasn’t entered the picture. Ronnie Wood is just a twinkle in Keith Richards’s eye and Keith doesn’t show up for the session. He sleeps in. He was probably out the night before committing senseless acts of senseless-ness. Everyone is waiting at the studio. No one even knows the tape is running. Mick Jagger writes:

"The album consists of the Rolling Stones rhythm section: plus solos from two instrumentalists – Nicky “Woof” Hopkins and Ry Cooder: plus the numbled bathroom mumblings of myself. I hope you spend longer listening to this record than we did making it.”

At about 1 minute in, BLOW WITH RY, becomes a vintage Stones tune, a drunken rambler’s tale. And if you really want to know what the Stones would have sounded like with Cooder on guitar instead of Keith, just listen to soundtrack from the movie PERFORMANCE. MEMO FROM TURNER will knock your teeth into your bourbon.

Much respect to the Aquarium Drunkard (www.aquariumdrunkard.com) on MEMO FROM TURNER. He’s the best in the business.

Songs Mentioned:
Blow With Ry:: The Stones, Cooder and Hopkins
Memo From Turner:: Mick Jagger and Ry Cooder

Mission Statement

This seems about a good a time as any to restate what we do here in Virgil Kane Country.

If you like whiskey, come in. If you like cowboys, detectives and screaming blues guitar, come in. If you like swampy grooves and licks so greasy you can cook bacon on 'em, come in. If you like music that makes you want to burn down your own house, youve found the right place. Welcome to Virgil Kane Country.

Mike Bloomfield is Virgil Kane to the core and as the months go by you can expect a few more visits from the neighborly Mr. Mike and a little more information about him.

But it’s the weekend, the coiled spring needs to release, the whiskey has begun to flow and the dark cape of the weekend has begun to engulf us. This is not the time for information, this is house burning time...

Here’s the nastiest lick ever to melt wax.

Mike Bloomfield, Al Kooper, Stephen Stills:: Stop