there is no methadone for the blues
White blues guitar blowhards are really not in fashion these days - see George Thorogood - so it seems especially tricky that Austin decided to tie its identity so closely to Stevie Ray Vaughan. For reasons having something to do with music, something to do with sales, and something to do with aviation mishaps, we have a bronze statue of Mr. Texas Flood down by the river. It crops up in all kinds of brochures and murals, and seems to me only a couple of steps away from a bronze of Erik Estrada, or Steven Seagal. Philadelphia, we feel your pain.
But I do have to give Stevie Ray thanks, and credit, and an unseen raise of the coffee cup, for bringing me into blues music. He was truly a gateway musician for me: as Jack Nicholson said in Easy Rider, he led to harder stuff. My friend John had Texas Flood in our NYC apartment, I played that thing over and over, and listening to that and the Great Tomato Blues Package
The first articles I published on music (thanks, Southland Blues!) were about a local (L.A.) bluesman, J.J. “Bad Boy” Jones (R.I.P.). And a J.J. show was, in turn, the first place I heard “Feel Like Breaking Up Somebody’s Home”, and come on now, things are all pretty good after you hear that song. You could say, in fact, that if not for Stevie Ray Vaughan, I might be doing something useful, contributing to society, earning a decent living, building a haven for battered cats. Yes: let’s blame him for that too. It is partly his fault that I’ll always come back to blues music - if I ever feel a little shaky about what I’m doing out here, in the blogosphere, talking endless crap, I can always listen to any of the aforementioned artists, and it all makes good sense again.
So, thanks, Stevie Ray Vaughan. And now here’s some of the harder stuff:
*in fact, Steve Buschemi modeled his character in Ghost World after me. Well, he could have. Incidentally, J.J. ‘Bad Boy’ Jones actually was in Ghost World, playing, basically, himself, which made the whole film into a strange overlapping parallel universe for me, and left me deeply confused. But I’m ok now.