Thurs. Nov. 17

 Ted Drozdowski got hooked by punk and psychedelic music when he was a young guitarist; then the dirty Southern blues bit him and bit hard. He moved from Boston to Nashville a while back to continue with his (mostly) two-man blues project, Scissormen, which plays the Regent Theatre in Arlington Thursday Nov. 17. Scissormen is steeped in Elmore James-like slide guitar and juke joint attitude. Drummer Rob Hulsman is the other full-time Scissorman; on their disc, "Luck in a Hurry," guests include the Mighty Mighty Bosstones singer Dicky Barrett, ex-Concussion Ensemble and current a.k.a./c.o.d. drummer Larry Dersch, ex-Morphine drummmer Billy Conway and the late pianist Teo Leyasmeyer, to whom the new CD is dedicated. Noted producer Jim Dickinson calls Scissormen "acid blues for the 21st century."

Thurs. Nov. 17

Funeral for a friend? Well, yeah, sorta. I knew Bill Morrissey - the wry, melancholic, witty folksinger from New Hampshire - quite well during the '80s folk boom in Cambridge. Both from gigs and hang-outs, including one rather enjoyable session of whiskey-drinking and guitar-picking at my home in Newton. We'd more or less fallen out of touch over time. There was a really bad gig, a really drunk Bill. I almost went to his Passim gig late last year, wanted to introduce him to my wife. But I didn't. I didn't know what I'd find or how we'd relate. I did, though, go to Bill's funeral with Barry Crimmins - the lefty comic and Morrissey's sometime touring partner - in early August. It was a dry Catholic service. Bill was raised Catholic but had pretty much left it, and at the service there wasn't a lot of the Bill I knew in it. None of his music and not much for recollections, aside from his family. The organist even played "O Danny Boy." Bill wasn't yet in his grave; had he been, he might've rolled.
    At any rate, the proper sendoff to Bill is Thursday Nov. 17 at the Somerville Theatre, with profits to benefit the MusiCares organization.  Playing music: David Johansen, Peter Case, Shawn Colvin, Mark Erelli, John Gorka, Peter Keane, Fred Koller, Patty Larkin and Cormac McCarthy. Singer-songwriter Cliff Eberhardt and David Dye, host of the nationally syndicated NPR radio show, World Café, will co-host this very special event. Crimmins will tell some stories about Bill. Follow this piece to the jump and you'll see a dead-on appreciation of Morrissey from Crimmins.
   I wrote a few things about Bill back in the day for the Globe. This is from a concert in 1983 he did with Stan Rogers: "Morrissey is equal parts melancholic and humorous - and he continually shuffles those qualities. His melodies are understated, but infectious. His themes often deal with fear, loss and regret; there's a quiet desperation present in 'Small Town on the River' and 'He Drinks Alone.' Yet there is also a wry, playful spirit at work. 'Morrissey Falls In Love' is a self- deprecating, peppy song of lust-turned-to-love-turned-to-marriage - all of which happens in Morrissey's head before he's even introduced himself to his intended. Like Loudon Wainwright 3d, Morrissey often growls out reflective songs from under the barstool, where things get wild and crazy or painful and sad.

Morrissey's between-song humor, deadpan and off-the-cuff, is integral to his appeal. He talks of Space Invaders as "an ultimate existential game. You can't win, you can just stave off death a little longer," and of the liberal Cambridge attitude toward fishing as "the senseless slaughter of the aerobically impaired." Saturday, standup bassist Grieg Westley provided a rhythmic counterpoint to Morrissey's sharply detailed tales."

The quote that is probably most known about Morrissey came from Stephen Holden's in the New York Times is the one that'll live: "Mr. Morrissey's songs have the force of poetry...a terseness, precision of detail and a tone of laconic understatement that relate his lyrics to the stories of writers like Raymond Carver and Richard Ford."

Thursday. Nov. 10

Billy Ruane died a year ago. He long had done a birthday bash show/benefit around this time of year and last year's turned into an Irish wake for Billy. This year, his pals A have a memorial show Thurs. Nov. 10 at the new Somerville club Radio. Billy was, among other things, the effusive, hyperactive champion of the Boston music scene. So, in 2011 friends like Thalia Zedek, Mary Lou Lord, Reid Paley, Hilken Mancini, MG Lederman, and Michael Tarbox and more are putting together this show in his honor.  

I do critic's choice bits for WBUR's "Radio Boston" every third Thursday and here are this wseek's: Billy Ruane's Birthday concert tonight at Radio, Noel Gallagher and the High flying Birds at the Wang Theatre Saturday and the Ploughshares 40th Anniversary party/reading at the Paramount Theatre Monday. (Story coming soon in the Boston Herald, too, on the Ploughshares event.)

http://radioboston.wbur.org/2011/11/10/weekend-picks-gallagher?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wbur_programs%2Fradioboston+(Programs%3A+Radio+Boston)

 Fri. Nov. 4

Ian Hunter wrote the verse a long time ago, 1973, when he was 34. It was in Mott the Hoople’s hit "All the Way From Memphis" and Hunter sang, ""Yeah, it's a mighty long way down rock 'n' roll/As your name gets hot, so your heart grows cold/And you gotta stay a young man/You can never be old."

And so, on the phone with him this week, I ask, as Hunter, now 72, continues his 16-date Northeast string of gigs, stopping at the Paradise Friday Nov. 4: Does he do the song in concert? How does it feel being, well, even older?

Hunter laughs. "It gets played," he says. "It’s a good song. It’s a rock ‘n’ roll song. It’s got a piano base, a couple of nice riffs running up and down. It’s fine. It’s still in the set. I really don’t think about the old stuff much. The set is usually a third recent, a third from before and a third why-the-hell-is-he-doing that? ‘Memphis’ is one of those old ones. I’m more concerned with making a new lyrics than thinking about lyrics from ‘All the Way From Memphis.’ I never wanted it out as a single in England. Dick Asher, who ran CBS in London at that time, waited until we toured here and the minute we were gone he put it out on his own and it was top ten so that just goes to show you how much I know. Dick only put it out cause his 14-year-old son liked it."

Studio version with Mott: http://youtu.be/ubBpu3MHmtM

So, Hunter’s not about to reflect on the rock-aging question right now. I’d asked hm something similar in 1988 and then he mused, about age, "It's better. It's less body and more head. It's not at all what I thought it would be. I like it a lot better; I'm more balanced; I'm a lot more confident.