A few years ago I wrote a little post on this here website about my idea for the Best Band Name Ever. Imagine my surprise when there was a comment on that post, this here mornin’:

did a google search of my band name… found this…

So it appears that some one else passed all those highway exit signs in Jersey for “The Amboys” and figgered it was a cinch for a great name for the band!

Folk rock, not my thing. But at least someone has the stones to put together a band and make some music under the banner of “The Amboys”! Check ‘em out on this here myspace page, they might just float yer boat.

It was my idea first, though. I’m just sayin’.

Last night, my friend Leslie & I went to see Cake play at the Chatauqua Auditorium, as the title of this post suggests. Cake is another one of those bands that thrived when I was in musical denial during the ’90s and early ’00s, but I guess I discovered them for myself a few years ago. I love their sound, their lyrics and their “whatever” attitude. Their lyrics touch on so many of my cares and beliefs that it’s uncanny. They mock music groupies in “Rock & Roll Lifestyle” (and interestingly they probably hurt their own t-shirt sales in the process; read the lyrics, you’ll see what I mean), the insanity of war in “I Bombed Korea”, and, in what is probably my favorite Cake song from a lyrical/message standpoint, “Tougher than it is”:

Well there is no such thing as you It doesn’t matter what you do
The more you try to qualify
The more it all will pass you by
Some people like to make life a little tougher than it is
Some people like to make life a little tougher than it is
Well the more you try to shake the cat
The more the thing will bite and scratch
Its best I think to leave its fur and to listen to its silky purr
Some people like to make life a little tougher than it is
Some people like to make life a little tougher than it is
Well there is no such thing as you
It doesn’t matter what you do
The more you try to qualify
The more it all will pass you by
Some people like to make life a little tougher than it is
Some people like to make life a little tougher than it is
Some people like to make life a little tougher than it is

Sadly, they did not do “Tougher…” last night, but they rolled out a lot of the faves, including a great rip at “Short Skirt, Long Jacket” for the encore, with a rousing crowd participation for the “na-na-na-na-na-na, na-na-na-na-NA-nas”. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve ridden home from work with my iPod blasting that tune, rolling into the twists and turns of the Skunk Creek bike path singing the “na-nas” out loud, so it was fun to do it along with a few hundred other fans in the auditorium last night.

It also appears that 70’s metal/rock is the thing to cover these days, because just as the Eels covered “Zep’s “Good Times, Bad Times” at the show I saw a couple months ago, Cake covered Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs” last night. Good choice, fair execution, I thought.

Brenda is fully into 12-hour days at the Colorado Shakespeare Festival already (two weeks in), and so even though we bought the tickets together a few weeks ago, she begged off at the last minute so she could get some well-deserved couch time. I’m glad Leslie was willing to tag along and check out the show, and to show me where the hell the auditorium was in the first place.

The Chatauqua Auditorium is a nice venue, a semi-open arena with good acoustics and a great location at the base of the Flatirons. It also turns out that you can get a decent listen of the show just outside the place, and if you get there early enough, you can plop a blanket down on the grass just outside the seating area and not only listen to the show but even see the show. I’ve made a mental note of that for next time.

All in all a great night in Boulder.

Last night I went to see the Eels at the Fox Theatre in Boulder. It was my first concert in about ten years! The last concert I intentionally went to was to see Bluetip at Maxwell’s in Hoboken, New Jersey (which was great).

Once again, as I did when I went to see Bluetip, I went alone; Brenda hates going to shows, and I kind of do too, these days. For a kid who used to see a minimum of three bands a weekend from junior year of high school though college, my last couple decades seem pretty pathetic by comparison, but I have my reasons. I’m an old fart who doesn’t like people and crowds, as well as most new music. So naturally I’m not a fixture at clubs anymore, but the Eels drew me out of the house.

Thanks to my friend and former co-worker, I was introduced to the Eels a few years ago, back in New York. Led by Mark Oliver Everett, son of some sort of quantum physicist genius, the Eels have been inventing new music for the last decade and a half. Their music is alternately haunting, rocking, sad, happy, and always inspiring.

This year’s iteration of the Eels features Mark Everett (a.k.a. “E”) and a dude simply known as “The Chet”. Not Chet, The Chet. They both took turns playing instruments as diverse as the guitar, the piano, drums, xylophone, saw (serious), and others. They even shared a drum solo:

The show was very fun, tight and entertaining. Standing room only, I was tapping my toes and bobbing my head in the aisle at what is now my favorite venue ever. The Fox Theatre is a tiny venue; it feels like you’re having a band come over to your house to jam in your living room. And the Eels are known for their covers, and this tour did not disappoint. This year the cover of choice is Led Zeppelin’s “Good Times Bad Times”, and E and The Chet rocked it as hard as Zep ever did. The Chet was playing a very cool Gibson Les Paul with a tremolo bar, and you can enjoy a segment of the cover here:

A great night of music and fun. Rode my bike home from the show in the rain, drunk, bombing down the hill along Colorado Avenue. Gotta love it.

I’m so distraught, I put it into song:

The Night the TiVo Died
(sung to the tune of Paper Lace’s “The Night Chicago Died”)

In the chill of a winter’s night
In the land of the yoga hippies
When Rob & Brenda’s TiVo died
And they talk about it still

When Rob arrived home from work
Brenda displayed a nervous quirk
She said “I have some bad news”
And then she gestured towards the tube

We heard Robbie cry
We heard him pray the night the TiVo died
Brother what a night it really was
Brother what a plight it really was
Live TV

We heard Robbie cry
We heard him pray the night the TiVo died
Brother what a night the people saw
Live TV and no pause
Yes indeed

And the box it would not light
What’s happened to the shows
And Rob considered his plight
And said “this really, really blows”

We heard Robbie cry
We heard him pray the night the TiVo died
Gonna miss stuff when I pee
Maybe it’s time we got HDTV
Glory Be…

Seriously; after almost four years, the damned thing just took a shit on us, and I’m now looking for the next thing to replace it.

Today, a co-worker shared some of his recordings from when he was in a band. They had toured for a couple years, playing mostly in the Atlanta area, and were reasonably competent. A discussion arose regarding band names; I may have possibly brought it up.

You see, I have some really solid names for bands, and it pisses me off that I lack the musical talent, connections and material to plug into a band name. And tonight, I hit on the greatest album name ever, so now I’m really feeling down.

Lemme start with the band name: There are a few towns in New Jersey all ending with “Amboy”, such as South Amboy, and Perth Amboy. When you drive through central New Jersey, you can easily come across a highway exit sign or two with destination references to, simply, “The Amboys”.

The Amboys. Perhaps the Greatest Band Name Ever. Done.

This easily eclipses my alternate band name of “Best Before”, which I feel is a witty play on the bread expiry dates found on those little plastic things you clip on bread loaves to stave off staleness. I always held these two band names on equal footing until today. For today, I was listening to NPR and heard a phrase that could only be the title for The Amboys’ much-awaited second album: “Happy Zacarias”. (The Amboys’ first album would of course be eponoymously titled.)

The Amboys, Happy Zacarias. I’m totally seeing this as a hot download on the iTunes Music Store, aren’t you?

So how’d the title come about? Well, the radio was talking about Zacarias Moussaoui’s trial and how his defense lawyers (just when you thought Johnnie C was a piece of shit) were arguing that his childhood was a happy one, and the term “happy Zacarias” was floated out there. I thought it was pure brilliance, and was immediately delighted to have secured the second album title for my non-existent band’s follow-up to my non-existent band’s non-existent and eponoymously-titled first album. So, if I ever progress beyond barre chords and actually write a few tunes, you can bet that they will be unleashed on an unassuming public by The Amboys, with our best work appearing on “Happy Zacarias”.

Our later releases will likely suck, but I will still get interviews in Rolling Stone because of my personality, bitches.