Cayamo Cruise: Day 2

[livingdeb]

The second day of the cruise was a sea day, as you might expect. Buckets of music!

But first:

Tai Chi with Jim Lauderdale

I had never heard of Jim Lauderdale before. I assumed he was a famous musician who also liked doing tai chi. He was like I expect a tai chi instructor to be like: quiet, thin, fit, soothing voice. He talked for a while about what tai chi was and why it was so great, but of course it's the same stuff as my friend Edwin taught us, so we didn't hang around.

Richard Thompson Trio

The Richard Thompson Trio plays Richard Thompson's louder, more rocking songs. Here's the Trio:



They sang "Sally Bee." Richard said Sally Bee must be some kind of politician.

Then there was "some kind of malfunction. It's quite exciting."

Then Richard tried to describe the kind of music they were playing: "This is Dark Lounge, a new genre. Dark Lounge. Death Lounge. Norwegian Death Lounge." (The "Norwegian" part was because we were on the Norwegian Cruise Line.)

Then they played the perfect Norwegian Death Lounge song: "Easy There, Steady Now." It starts like this:

Jackknife with a precious load
Spews its guts all over the road.
Excuse me, I had to smile:
Lost my grip, too. For a while.

Easy there. Steady now.
Easy there. Steady now.

She didn't have the decency
To sweep away what's left of me.
I didn't have the presence of mind
To walk along a straight line.

Easy there. Steady now.
Easy there. Steady now.

So he keeps working himself up (Norwegian Death) and then calming himself down (Lounge). Here they are jamming:



Then he talked about having watched "The Iron Lady", a movie about a woman "loathed and loved in unequal proportions." He said something about Thatcherite uncaring British (yes, he's British) and then they sang "Al Bowlly's in Heaven." It's not about Al Bowlly, a famous singer who died early in the war, but a solder remembering the good old days and comparing them to the way things are now that he's back.

Then he said that his band wasn't always a trio. It used to be a nine-piece band. "Economic times. Next year's not looking too good." Then he looked sideways at his two remaining band members. Then they played "Did She Jump or Was She Pushed?"

There were a lot of other songs I didn't write down. Here's a clearer shot of the band, except for Richard Thompson's eyes:



He enjoyed saying, "This will be our last one because it's the witching hour. Two in the afternoon is always the witching hour."

Shawn Mullins

We couldn't decide between watching Shawn Mullins (3:30 - 4:30) and Sara Watkins (4:00 - 5:00), so we did a little of both. That was not the greatest idea.

I did get to learn about "deceptive cadence." Shawn Mullins says it's when you end on an unexpected chord. It's how you try to make a three-chord pop song sound cool. Here's him (with the light-colored guitar) with his band:



We heard several songs, the last of which, "Light You Up," he described as his best (written with Chuck Cannon). I quite liked it--fun and catchy. The verses are all multiple versions of "Everybody wants to [fill in the blank]." Then the chorus starts "I just want to light you up." Well, since we got to hear the best song, we decided to go ahead to check out Sara Watkins.

Sara Watkins

I have no notes at all. She's very cute, sings well, and had a few guests. Here she is playing the fiddle. You can also see Sebastian, a bassist:



Here she is singing:



Joe Purdy

We stayed in the same venue to see Joe Purdy. Terrible venue. Loud. Bad lighting. Looks good in silhouette, don't you think?



He said, "You know, when your heroes are on the boat, it makes you real limited in the songs you play."

I don't have any notes about his songs. He introduced one like this: "Occasionally, I'll write a song about murder. And this is one of those occasions."

He introduced another like this: "Everybody's got to have a cowboy song I suppose. This is mine."

He's one of the rare guitarists who needed his guitar miked. He ended up having to deal with a lot of feedback because of that.



He was obviously quite frustrated with the poor sound and possibly all the ambient noise from two floors.

He had another show scheduled for four days later in the same venue. We got word that it was canceled and another singer would be there instead. Was it because he was stubborn about keeping his guitar old-timey like his songs and his outfit? Did he get angry, cause problems, and have to get thrown off the ship?

No! They added him to the schedule the next day. In a better venue. We went to that, hoping things would go better for him. (Suspense. In the Caribbean. Norwegian Death Lounge Caribbean Suspense.)

Chuck Cannon

And this is where the comments on dealing with wave action while performing on stage began. Chuck Cannon said, "I'm dead center at the top of a ship--I'm not as drunk as I look."



He started with "Whiskey Drinking Preacher" which he said led his family to start a prayer group for him. Here's a lyric I really like in that song: "Every sinner's got a future; every saint's got a past."

Then he did a song about that guy. Who's always right. You know the type. That guy in the mirror. "You Can Be Right Or You Can Be Happy."

He also taught us that "You Can Learn to Love Anything" (even if it's wrong).

Then he introduced Sara Buxton who sang "You Stupid Boy" about a guy who mistreated his love so much that she basically withered up and died.

Then he talked about how Leonard Cohen threw out sixty verses before he was happy with his song, "Democracy." Then he said, "I don't think this is anything like 'Democracy,' but I did throw out twenty-two verses" and then he sang "Greed."

Then he sang "Light You Up" with Shawn Mullins.

James McMurtry

Two songs stuck out for me. One was about a reunion. Each verse was about a different family member and what they were doing on the way to the reunion. Cool idea.

The other one was "We Can't Make It Here Anymore," partly about how we don't manufacture as many things in the US as we used to and partly about how it's hard (impossible) for some people to make ends meet nowadays. (Yes, he's American.)

(This is the same guy who sang "Airline Agent," about a guy trying to board a plain but getting hassled about his guitar and who knows what else, which I recently noticed and shared on Facebook.)

He's the guy in the white shirt:



WPA

The WPA includes people we'd already seen in the Sara Watkins performance:



There's Sara Watkins with the fiddle on the left. She didn't sing much this time--the two guys in the front did. There's Sebastian on the far right. He got to talk some. He was so interesting I was hoping he was headlining somewhere, but I didn't see any evidence. He played plenty just being everyone's go-to bass player.

WPA as a whole did not impress me much. For example, they had a song "You Bring Out My Wild Side" that wasn't wild at all except for one bass solo. But then maybe I'm jaded, from listening to too much Lyle Lovett.

Sarah and Christian Dugas

We just happened to pass these guys on our way to bed. They sounded pretty good.

Wave Motion Quote of the Day - "If you're playing with anyone too serious about bowling, it just takes that right out of the equation." - Sebastian (I think)

Heh, Robin also noticed that ping pong on the extremely windy deck didn't seem like the greatest idea either.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Were you on the Jade? It looks identical to the NCL ship we were on, but of course I'm sure their boats are all pretty similar...Texpenguin

[livingdeb.livejournal.com]

Nope. The Pearl.

[llcoolvad.livejournal.com]

Aw! Richard! My favorite musician! Jealous. I've seen him live more than any other musician. He's always funny.

[livingdeb.livejournal.com]

Yep. We got to see him three times! (You'll get to read a few more quotes.)