Ponderosa Stomp 8th Annual Music Festival House of Blues, New Orleans Night 1 April 28th, 2009

The Ponderosa Stomp is a sensory overload.  Nearly 10 hours straight of nonstop music and something for all musical tastes, as long as its good.  I was fortunate to attend two Ponderosa Stomps, numbers 8 and 10 which were held at the House of Blues and the Howling Wolf respectively, and I have to say the House of Blues had a little better layout physically to handle two stages running continuously as well as providing space for people wanting to cool out and have a conversation.  

One of the cooler things they had at Stomp No. 8 was an outdoor patio where djs from my favorite radio station, WFMU, were spinning the music that I listen to.  I will never forget when I “discovered” WFMU on the internet and was so blown away by their free form playlists and the best music archives, that I wrote an embarrassing, gushing letter to the station manager Ken thanking them and have been a member for over 10 years.  The Stomp and WFMU are such a perfect fit in that they both focus on educating the public and emphasizing the artist not selling a commodity for ratings aka profits for the station owner.

There are so many memorable, poignant moments you encounter while attending the Stomp you cannot possibly retain them all without taking notes, which unfortunately, I did not. One of the most incredible stories/memories I have of that night is running into some newlyweds from the Northeast U.S.  One of them had on a NRBQ t-shirt and like Bonnie Raitt, I always will use that as a conversation starter to express my comradery with a fellow Q head (that’s Q as in NRBQ not the delusional right wing organization).  Turns out they had the Spampinatos play their wedding reception. I'm thinking to myself wow someone who knows Joey and loves NRBQ… hmmmm....  So I say “who are your favorite musicians/bands?” and the guy responds without hesitating the Nighthawks and Eddie Hinton.  Thinking I am being played, as these are my 2 most favorite music entities, I am looking around for a mutual friend and finally seeing none, all I can manage to blurt out is "Fuck You"!

The Stomp is like a home coming. Here was the community of  like minded music heads, people with actual taste in real music, that I had been searching for my entire life.  I truly felt I had found my home.

Speaking of Bonnie Raitt, in one of the weirdest moments of serendipity I

have encountered in my life, on Night 2 of the Stomp I got up from my seat in the VIP seating section located in the loge section above the stage to go to the bathroom.  I felt the VIP package was well worth the additional price and made sense since I was attending by myself and would have no one to save my seat.  When I returned from the can, I can see someone is sitting in my seat.  I do a doubletake and rub my eyes.  It is Bonnie Raitt, who had come to New Orleans a couple days early before her appearance at Jazz Fest to take in the Stomp, specifically Wanda Jackson, the pioneering woman of

rockabilly.

Now normally I would have loved the chance to meet Bonnie Raitt.  That is, up until about twenty years earlier.  You see, I had always wanted to talk with Bonnie.  Over the years I had read about what a down to earth, approachable person she was, like how she would approach someone wearing a NRBQ t-shirt, introduce herself and just to talk about the band.  She was also famously quoted  “I miss Little Feat more than I miss being eight years old” endearing her forever in the hearts of Lowell George fans.  With our shared interests like NRBQ and Little Feat we were sure to hit it off I thought.  I also wanted to tell her about my seeing her friend and my favorite artist, Lowell George, at Lisner Auditorium the night before he died. An event that had made a profound impact of sadness in my life. 

Well remember that saying “Be careful what you wish for?” In my case they should have added the corollary “When you’re drunk”.  I had seen her many times including when she was a surprise guest at a Little Feat show at the Warner Theater in D.C. (she ended her concert early that night so she could race across town to sing backup harmonies with Nicolette Larson on “Dixie Chicken”).

Besides attending her concerts and the Feat show in D.C. back in 1976, I have also seen her as an unannounced special guest at some bar gigs in Minneapolis, where she recorded her first album and her brother Steve lived.

The first time was at the Cabooze Bar in the Spring of 1980 with the Lamont Cranston Band, one of the headliners the next day at a large outdoor music festival on the Mississippi River front called River Flat Jam.  The Cranstons had something special planned to wow the crowd:  unannounced special guests Bonnie Raitt and Albert Collins, whose career was reviving after a long hiatus in the early and mid 70s.  It was so cool to see their working  rehearsal that night and then the finished product the next day at River Flat Jam.  Unfortunately I never had the opportunity to approach her at those events.

The next time our paths crossed was a little over a year later when she made an unannounced appearance at a Willie and the Bees show at a notorious dive bar in downtown Minneapolis called Moby Dicks.  Willie, the leader of the Bumblebees, was Willie Murphy, perhaps most famous nationally as the producer of Bonnie’s first record recorded at a house on Lake Minnetonka and for his critically acclaimed 1969 album with Spider John Koerner  on Elektra entitled “Running, Jumping, Standing Still”. 

Moby’s, as the locals called it, was not so much a music venue as it was a denizen for the street people i.e. prostitutes and their pimps.  The bar’s trademark pour, “A Whale of a Drink”, also attracted, if not encouraged, the hardcore alcoholics. But this was a special occasion, the bar’s 10th Anniversary celebration featuring live music and 1971 drink prices of 25 cent beers and 50 cent shots.  Despite it being finals week at the University of Minnesota, the chance to see one of the best local bands and those drink prices made it too good for a college student like myself  to pass up. 

So after partying all day at the dorm and then taking full advantage of the cheap drinks at Moby’s, it wasn’t long before I was a stumbling, incoherent mess.  Towards the end of their first set Willie announces his special guest which gets me thinking to myself “Ahh!  What better time then to approach the table Bonnie was sitting at to have that much anticipated conversation”.  To make matters worse, sitting alongside Bonnie, Willie Murphy and some of the Bees was Spider John Koerner’s bandmate, Tony Glover who  along with Koerner and Dave Ray comprised the legendary folk trio Koerner, Ray and Glover.  In addition to being a musician, Glover was an author and music writer writing reviews for the likes of Rolling Stones as well as local papers.  I rather enjoyed reading his sardonic and somewhat cantankerous reviews wherein he sometimes critiqued the audience as well as the performers.

I was only able to get out a couple lines of my slurred attempt of a conversation starter out of my mouth before one of Moby’s extremely large bouncers grabbed me by the shirt collar and waist of my jeans and literally showed my head the back door of the club knocking me out.  I awoke in the alley several hours later, long after the club had closed and my ride had gone.  Although I was able to hitchhike a ride  back to my dorm, when the next edition of the local music paper came out, to my private shame and horror it contained Glover’s review of my performance as the “drunken college kid” complete with quoted dialogue.

In what could only be described as narcissistic paranoia, or perhaps, self-preservation, I elected not to reclaim my seat or take a second attempt at starting a conversation with Ms. Raitt on the chance of her remembering me and screaming “Oh No!  Not you again!”.