There are two kinds of music in this world,
The Blues,
And all that other shit they play on MTV.
        George Thorogood

Summer is a very busy time for me, with little time for BDSM play. It's not only the heat that keeps me out of the dungeon most of the summer. It's the music. But this year has been an embarrassment of riches. So once again I'm going to urge all you BDSMers out there to forsake the playroom for a night or two and get out and see some of the other wonders of this world, like the music. As most of you know I'm a blues freak and a major parrot head. For those of you who don't know what that means I'm a big fan of Blues music and I worship live at the summer alter of Caribbean soul musician Jimmy Buffet. Tickets for Buffett's summer tour usually sell out within an hour of going on public sale, but thanks to two lines and a speed dialer I've managed to get tickets for at least one of his concerts every summer for the last god knows how many years. This year I scored for two different concerts. (one down one to go.) If you don't ski, the Poconos are hell in the winter but during the summer they are music heaven. Concerts every other week and as some of you may know the Poconos are also home to the now famous Pocono Blues Festival held every year for two days at the Big Boulder ski area and second only to the Chicago Blues festival in fame and well deserved renown. But this year is special. Music in every direction. In early July near Hazelton. PA (which is 1/2 hour west of us) was the first ever "Soon-to-be-famous" (their slogan not mine, but they are right, or should be.) Briggs Farm Blues festival. An easy going one day long affair with mostly local bands and artists and Big Jack Johnson to headline the show. A damn fine first time effort. And the corn, steam cooked over a roaring fire was not only good and cheap but a welcome change to most festival food. Unfortunately the hot dogs were not. Then two weeks later was the Lehigh Valley Blues and Jazz Fest (http://lvbluesfest.com/) in Allentown (1/2 hour south of us) which headlined two acts I've never heard of but fell in love with. First was Duffy Bishop (http://www.halcyon.com/davidhof/duffy.htm) who bills herself as the self proclaimed "Queen of her own thing" and believe me when I tell you the title is hers for real) Duffy is a young lady who I am told is a big local name in the Pacific Northwest but who isn't really known too well here in the East. She should be. Her voice and power reminds everyone of Janis Joplin (enough so that she has even played Joplin on stage) but what keeps her from being just another Janis clone (and there are an amazingly large amount of them floating around these days) is a LOT of original Blues material penned by herself and her Husband/Band leader, Chris. Good original Blues songs written for her and the blues band backing her, that are just traditional enough to make you think you've heard one or two of them before but to realize as you listen how unique they really are. It turns out that this appearance at Allentown was a very rare East Coast gig for her and if you live in Washington or Oregon I recommend you check her out.

But it was the closing act that really blew me away. Kid Bangham and Amyl Justin are more rhythm and blues or jazz blues or down right kick ass roots rock and roll than they are traditional blues, but in two short weeks they have managed to make every other person in my office hate them because I loved them so much I bought their first CD "Pressure Cooker" at the show and haven't taken it off my CD in all that time. Again what makes this group different is that most all their material is totally original (and 98% of it is written by Bangham). Kid Bangham is a wildly talented guitar picker from rural PA of all places who was with the Fabulous Thunderbirds (Tough Enough) for 4 1/2 years and Amyl Justin is a Detroit Blues shouter who puts Banghams lyrics out there with an intensity to match the Kid's Guitar playing. These two young white guys have a sound that takes me back to my youth in the 50s and reminds me of nothing less than the "nigger rock and roll bop" that the bigots were so worried would corrupt us back then (gee, I guess they were right after all!). Damned if I don't think some of Bangham's songs like "shoot me" are BDSM oriented. Check out the lyrics and you tell me.

"Turns you on to see a grown man cry". and "pick me up just to knock me back down." I rest my case. Blues, Rock, no matter what you call it this CD is the best I've bought all year. You can get yours too at http://www.tonecool.com/ (but mine is autographed!) order it today. After all, have I ever steered you wrong? Trust me you will be tapping your foot and singing along with this CD by the second time you play it.

Next came a real treat. George Thorogood live at the Bud Lite Amphitheater at Harvey's Lake (1 hour north of us). The quote at the beginning of this column was from his show, and ain't it the truth. I must have 5 or 6 George Thorogood CDs and even more on vinyl but I've never seen him live. Man what a show. This man works hard for his money. The concession stands must not like him much because he did a good 2 hour show with no breaks and I sure wasn't going to get out of my seat (I should say move away from my seat because most of the audience was on their feet the whole time including me) just for a drink or a pretzel while he was playing. He did every song he's famous for and none of them sounded like he was sick of playing them for the 10,000th time.

I personally prefer his version of "The sky is crying" to the great original Elmore James version and that is going some. This is the way the blues (or blues rock if you prefer) should be played. True raw emotion and energy. What a show.

Music on every side and then I got the good news. A club called the Pocono Brewing Company opened not 10 minutes from our house and it isn't, despite its name a micro brewery, it's a BLUES club. Damn there goes another night in the dungeon down the drain. Carmen and I got to run down there, and checked it out, one night. (Oh, yea, did I mention that Carmen is also a big blues fan?) Sure enough its true, Carmen and I caught John Primer and the Real Deal blues band, and damned if they ain't. Primer was as good as I had heard he was and the harp player was up there in quality with guys like Sugar Blue as far as I was concerned. The only disappointment was that they didn't have any copies of their first CD together as a band so I had to settle for an older John Primer CD autographed by the man himself. Some settle. But the important thing was that this club meant the Blues had finally come to the Poconos, and we wouldn't have to drive an hour north to the closest club up till now in the lovely Pocono Winter! Man I was in Hog heaven. BDSM? What was that? And that was just July.

August opened with the famous Pocono Blues Festival (http://www.big2resorts.com/blues/) at Big Boulder about 1/2 hour southwest from us. (I told you I was surrounded by music in the summer). There were just too many artists to mention them all but I have to single out Sandra Hall. This rather large round lady with the biggest rack of tits I've ever seen on a human, started out her set sounding like a clone of KoKo Taylor, she even sang Whang Dang Doodle which made it worse. but just as I was about to cross her off my list (although she was good, she wasn't KoKo Taylor) she started singing an original song she had written herself called something like "My size isn't important to me." which poked fun at both her hefty figure and at all the skinny little figures of all the thin women in the crowd. I remember only one line "and I'm not a 38... anywhere." She milked her heft for all it was worth and belted out her own personal anthem with enough verve and gusto that any man would have gladly taken the chance to find out what she was like in bed. If this lady keeps singing her own stuff and leaves the other ladies material to the other ladies she is going to be even "bigger" in the Blues field.

The next performer was Eddie "the Chief" Clearwater, who is a well known and respected talent in the Blues field, but who left me cold. Just another Chicago blues guitar was my only feeling, but I may have been put off by the stunt entrance. (He rode in on a horse with the announcer yelling - Eddie, "The Chief" Clearwater - over and over and over until he came over the hill into sight. By which time, I was ready to play cavalry and shoot him out of the saddle.) I wandered over from his big stage to the little acoustic tent where Louisiana Red, who had just done an OK "electric" set on the main stage, was doing a great acoustic set. He was joined by Jerry Portnoy on harp (harmonica to the uninitiated) and as I sat and listened I was transported back to the coffee houses in NYC in the sixties where I would sit for hours and listen to people like Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry and I quickly forgot all about the main stage until it was time to walk back and see Day 1 closing act Otis Rush. who lived up to his reputation as a top notch "legendary Guitar great". We missed Day 2 because we had to drive out to Columbus for the Jimmy Buffett concert on Monday. After all Blues is King, but Jimmy Buffet is God.

It was the best Buffett concert I've seen in three or four years and was well worth the drive. In the parlance of the Blues, a 4 hour performer is not one who plays for 4 hours, but one who you would travel 4 hours to see perform. Well, to me Buffett is a 10 hour performer and he was well worth the drive this year

So that's why the dungeon is getting dusty, but fall is coming and so is our annual fall fling, so until then I hope you enjoy the summer. CS

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