The stifling heatwave that gripped southern California for a full week blew away just in time for Robert Plant and Alison Krauss to fill L.A.’s Greek Theatre with music and people for two nights early this week. Unfortunately, while the music was quite wonderful, many of the concertgoers at Monday’s gig seemed kinda miffed – or at least nonplussed.

“I’m bored already,” a fiftysomething woman told my wife not four songs into the main attraction. Afterward, a man I’d never seen before sidled up to me and said, “I thought Plant was gonna play more of the old stuff. Didn’t you? I’d heard he was gonna do a solo set at some point.”

Apparently not. In fact, from a quick scouring of Plant-obsessive websites, it appears that Monday’s set was identical to the ones this new dynamic duo have been playing throughout their tour behind the magnificent Raising Sand album. Still, I’d guess that more than half the 5,800 souls who filled the Greek arrived expecting Robert Plant to be, you know, Robert Plant.

On those few occasions when Plant allowed a smidge of the old Zeppelin pomp to sneak into his voice or demeanor, a Pavlovian standing ovation would erupt. Most of the time, however, Plant remained a cool customer, reveling in the Southern-goth rockabilly-bluegrass concoction that he, Krauss, and producer/sideman T Bone Burnett have cooked up for this album and tour. And the plurality of patrons who had driven into L.A.’s Griffith Park expecting an evening of Cock Rock didn’t know what to do with themselves.

It’s a shame, really, because in their ambivalence they may not have noticed what a remarkable show the “Raising Sand revue,” as Plant has labeled it, truly is. Using the album’s riveting blend of R&B, early-rock and gospel covers as a springboard, Plant, Krauss and Burnett retrofitted classics from the Zep catalog (“Black Dog,” “The Battle of Evermore”) as well as a Ray Charles chestnut (“Leave My Woman Alone”) and a couple old-timey hymns. During one centerpiece of the set, Krauss’ always-virtuosic fiddle easily replaced the synths that once washed over Plant’s solo hit “In the Mood”; in mid-song she briefly banished contemporary music altogether to indulge in a couple verses of the 17th-century Child ballad “Mattie Groves.” (more…)

Around this time last year, I was in the throes of a terrible depression. It was unlike any wave of emotions I’d ever been through in my entire life. For four long months, I would struggle to get through my day without turning into Holly Hunter in Broadcast News, having to sneak away and cry for ten to fifteen minute jags. I never analyzed the cause for my mental woes, but I have a pretty good idea what was weighing heavy on my mind. Every year at this time, as we approach the CF Great Strides walk, I can’t help but get a little overwhelmed. 2007 just happened to be particularly difficult.

I wrote the following Basement Song entry while I was slashing through this depression with a dull butter knife. This week, I wanted to revisit this entry because a) I never had a chance to actually share the song with any readers and b) most of the emotions I wrote about still exist. This song, “The Greatest Gift,” continues to move me whenever I hear it, especially the intricate guitar playing by the late Kevin Scott MacMichael (formerly of Cutting Crew). What I poured into this entry came out in one twenty-minute sitting. I decided to repost it as originally written without any further edits or polishes. I hope you enjoy it (and the song).

What can you say about a song that is like a parasite? It latches into your brain, your heart, your soul, and grows tendrils, sucking the life out of you. It becomes everything that you are, everything you think about, everything you want. A song like that is what I find so wonderful about music. A song like that is what loving music is about. It’s not something you can explain. Good song. Bad song. It’s your damn song, so who gives a shit what everyone else says. A song like that is magic. A blessing and a curse. A song like that is the definition of a basement song.

Last week, I received a copy of Robert Plant’s Fate of Nations album, released in 1993. I was riding a wave of euphoria — life felt good after several weeks of depression. For those of you who keep up with the blog, you know why I’m depressed so much. You may not understand it. I don’t even understand it most of the time. I like to think of myself as an optimist, but I continually find myself sinking to such depths of despair that I don’t know if there is a way out. For the first time in my life last week, I actually saw how a rational person might think taking their own life could be a means to an end. I would never do that, but I understood how they could feel that way. (more…)

My mom, God rest her soul, hit the nail on the head. She always used to ask me, “Why must you do everything ass-backwards?” She had a point. Shoes went on before pants, finalizing efforts always preceded initializing efforts, and have you ever seen me get out of the backseat of a car? It’s like some horrid recreation of a breach birth.

So in this modern age, you can put a shiny, silver disc into the face of your car’s dashboard and hear wonderful sound. You can put a machine the size of a candy bar into your pants pocket and a headset the size of dental floss with tiny tumors into your ears and hear wonderful sound. Me? I like records.

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