Posts tagged with "live shows"
Snickerdoodle, Labradoodle, Gottadoodle
Happy New Year, everyone. The family and I spent the post-Christmas interlude in a part of the U.S. that was new to us, northeastern Iowa. The rolling hills in and around Decorah belie the Iowa stereotype, and the weather is even more extreme than Chicago's. It felt about as bitterly cold as Maine out there. My brother, my lovely sister-in-law-to-be, my kids and I did very little for three days, but we did find time to sled the gentle slopes of Luther College, watch one-half of "Some Like It Hot" in shocked silence, read D.H. Lawrence's "The Rocking Horse Winner" aloud (more shocked silence), and prepare an upright piano, using staplers, clips, and random metal objects. [Is that prepare or repair?] We failed to stage an intervention to address my brother's mental illness, which manifests itself in the kitchen, where he keeps a shelf of two dozen unrelated spices and condiments over the stove and feverishly assaults each pot with arbitrary combinations. Before leaving we ate fried potatoes covered in salt, paprika, honey, red wine vinegar, black pepper, powdered onion, Tabasco, and, I believe, attar of rose.
For those who think the world doesn't have enough interview shows hosted by handsome guys with ready wits, the one I did last month with Mark Bazer is now posted at Huffington Post.** I come off a little weird, but I also think this is an accurate portrayal of my Martian body language and horrible posture.
End Of The Year Show
Attention, lackeys!
The Robbie Fulks band end-of-year wrap-up, now an 11-year tradition, will take place on Saturday night December 27 at Fitzgerald's in Berwyn, Illinois. This is the venue where we have staged my little farrago of merriment for the last 3 of the 11, and it seems to work best there. "It," if you haven't been there, is: bemoaning the outrages and depressive pitfalls of the year past and celebrating the prospect of change...any change. These are the cliched sentiments of New Year's, but at some point we got too old for December 31. So we moved it to the weekend before year's end, and quit going abroad in favor of hanging at Bill Fitzgerald's place, where we're more likely to arrive home alive after the show, and the audience does not reach the tipping point of alcoholic stupefaction by 11:15 P.M. (our second or third song). Also, it seems that people who live in or near a big city are more vocal in responding to jokey references to abstract concepts -- especially important in a year like 2008, which saw exciting public developments in particle physics.
That's just one of the threads in our skein this year. Our look back at '08 also puts paid to Proposition 8, Mrs. Palin, the economic meltdown, and other targets blindingly obvious and, if I may say so, eggheadedly subtle. Beyond that we're premiering a new audience participation game, with a copy of my new release as the prize. And then there's the internationally revered Rap of the Dead. Our guests this year include keyboardist Chris Neville of the hugely popular Chicago band Tributosaurus, and the delight-inducing (don't you hate the word "delightful"? Let's force it into retirement.) comic actress Beth Kathan. The roots-country Long Gone Lonesome Boyz open the show at...I forget what time, but if you arrive at 9 I would think you'd be well in time for everything. Check the Internet or something. We will also play a goddamned hour and a half of music. Once again, the vitals:
Robbie's End of 2008 Show
Fitzgeralds
6615 Roosevelt Rd., Berwyn IL
Happy New Year!
xo, robbie
It is just about over
How was your 2008? My wife's theatrical work kept me home for almost half of this year, making it my most housebound year since 1994. Since I used the surplus of settled time to write and record the 50-song release shortly to come (not to mention spending more time at the gym and with the children and making meals at home and all of the other mundane activities of civilized healthy people -- a/k/a "non-musicians"), the sabbatical from roadwork was a boon. Two months without gigging is too long, though: mid-October to early December was gigless, leaving me with itchy feet and tender fingers. The digits haven't been so weak in a while -- I failed to account for the muscular loss following a prolonged stretch during which most of your guitar playing is done as an absent-minded accompaniment to writing. So I'm hoping to get out a little more -- more days than this year but fewer than the 150 that's been my standard for a while -- in 2009.
Hear It
Own It
See It
Book It
