Even the Losers Get Lucky Sometime

When I returned home from teaching, a wecome message awaited me on my answering machine. After a couple listens I was able to discern that I'd won two tickets from WXRT to see the Cowboy Junkies play a secret show Tuesday evening at Schubas Tavern, an intimate little club on Southport, not too far from my home, that specializes in singer-songwriter and folkier indie rock. I didn't even remember entering WXRT's contest, so this was quite a surprise. I just wish Ira was in town for the show, but she's in Dublin, downing Guinnesses in honor of James Joyce and Ulysses.

I haven't seen the Cowboy Junkies live since, if my memory serves me well, 1992, when they opened for the great John Prine at a show I attended with Steve Horowitz, who was then teaching journalism courses at Coe College. I'll reminisce about Steve another time, but do want to say that he still practices music journalism and is one of the critics polled for the Village Voice's annual Pazz & Jop list. Steve's top-10 list is generally filled with goodies, and I credit him with predicting that I'd be getting into more country music as I aged.

I must confess that I haven't kept up with the Cowboy Junkies. Black Eyed Man (1992) is the last CD by them that I bought, and Pale Sun Crescent Moon is the last CJ CD that I've heard in its entirety. So, it'll be interesting to see if their sound has evolved at at. In any case, I expect Margo Timmins' voice is as haunting as ever.

This concert should be the third great Americana/Y'alternative/Alt-Country (or whatever they're calling quality country music these days to distinguish it from the phony crap heard broadcast on stations throughout middlebrow America) show that I'll have seen in five days. On Friday night, Jim Kourlas and I heard Nora O'Connor play some songs from her forthcoming (due in August) album on Bloodshot records. For those who don't know of the lovely Miss Nora, she's an Irish-American girl from Chicago's southside, and she's got a voice as good, if not better, than that of the more famous Irish singer who shares her last name. I like to describe her as the Emmylou Harris of Chicago's indie scene, and as if to justify that description she played a couple songs that Emmylou has covered the other night. On Saturday, I returned to The Hideout, where I met Jim and Leo, to attend a secret Handsome Family show that was also a celebration of Brett and Rennie Sparks' 16th wedding anniversary. They playfully bickered throughout the whole set, & it was just fantastic. Brett singing reminds me of Peter Sellers morphing into a cross between Johnny Cash and Nick Cave. That is, his barritone conjures up the Cash and Cave comparison, while his facial expressions add a touch of the comic to the often gothic scenarios about which he's singing. More on The Handsome Family later...

Time for the News Hour, some exercising, dinner, and scholarly pursuits.