Pat DiNizio follow-up/Hopscotch Wonder/Madison

Ok, we're back from Madison and am trying to get caught up now on all of the blogging, Flickr, YouTube, Scat, online updating that needs doing.

Pat DiNizio at Stumpjack. photo by Nate Walkner

A brief follow-up to Pat DiNizio's performance here last Friday night. In a word, it was fabulous. Another word: fun. Another: fantastic. You get the idea. Check out some of the comments on the other, earlier post "Dinizio is the real deal" from people who were here. I haven't seen a guy put as much of himself into singing songs like Pat does. The guy sang his guts out and was just freaking amazing with his passion, sincerity, and ability to connect with people. Maria was talking about it this morning, about how Pat made her feel like he was singing to her. He's both a showman and a regular joe who truly cares about doing the very best he can and giving people something to remember.

Pat under the spotlight. Image by Nate Walkner.

We're hoping to catch the whole band, The Smithereens, in Naperville (outside Chicago) in June, and Pat asked that we get ahold of him beforehand if we do and that we may be able to hook up for dinner or something. I'm hopeful of being able to get The Smithereens here to perform. It'd be more than the shop itself could handle but Greg (Buckley, TR City Mgr) has expressed his support for events like that and I'm sure we would have city support and may even be able to block off main street for a full blown street party. Keep your fingers crossed. Like my friend Brian Powell said to me the other day about getting to meet Pat and have him perform here, "You realized one of your dreams. Make sure to enjoy the moment." Truth. Thanks, Pat, for a totally awesome performance, giving us all something to yack about for a while, and for being a good bloke all around. What a trip.

Signing a CD for Maria. Image by Nate again.

And thanks to all of our friends who came and helped make the night fun too! I'll have some Flickr pics and a youtube video or two up soon. Marty and Nate also each have a set of images from the night on their own Flickr sites:
Nate Walkner Flickr Set
Marty's Planet Neon Flickr Set
Stumpjack Flickr Set

Pat also signed some CDs for us to sell, his solo work and a couple of Smithereens albums. We've got 20 left. They're brand new but we had to remove the outer wrap so that he could sign the sleeves. Get 'em while we got 'em.

Saturday Night

Busy Saturday night w/ Hopscotch Wonder

Crazy busy night with Bethany and Hope from Hopscotch Wonder. Man, it was like a couple busloads of folks pulled up in front and everyone just piled into the shop. For an hour and a half Kim and I were like coffee makin'/beer poppin'/wine pourin' cyborgs. Unbelievable, and it was all due to those two super-sweet and talented young ladies Beth and Hope. We didn't really even get to enjoy their performance because we were sweating it behind the counter up until they finished...so I called for an encore and heard at least one tune. Very, very nice. Gotta have them back soon.

Hopscotch Wonder (Hope & Bethany Lindemann). Image by Brian Powell

Click here for Brian's Flickr set

Madison
I'm going to post with images our little two-day trip to Madison over on the Stumptoons blog, which you can also access at the top of the page by clicking on that link.

DiNizio is the real deal

Here I am, lying in bed at 2:00am Saturday morning, laptop on my belly, totally exhausted from several days of little sleep and way more to do than time in which to do it. I'm just home from a long, exhausting and wonderfully weird day and night with Pat DiNizio playing at the Stump. Pat arrived at around 1:00pm today, in a car smaller than I expected and with so little gear that I couldn't help but be impressed at the economy of it.

Pat was great from the word hello, greeting Kim and I with hugs and a smile, some silly jokes, and a sense of purpose and pride in what he is doing with this surreal Living Room Concerts Tour that he is in the middle of.

His performance this evening was stellar, filled with humorous stories and anecdotes between songs, and musically a real ball buster as he delivered each tune with what seemed like every ounce of energy he could muster. This was no laid back, loosey-goosey affair. No hesitation or uncertainty. He knew exactly what he was doing, and played every song with a certainty and confidence that you would expect from someone who owns a gunny sack full of hit songs and more "war stories" from life on the road than you can shake a stick at. The guy is a pro, plain and simple, but one who's also able to mix it up with folks and display a genuine gratitude for those who appreciate his work. And there were plenty of people at the coffee shop tonight who did indeed appreciate what Pat has accomplished in his career and what he was putting out on the stage tonight.

I'll write more about the show itself tomorrow (today); right now I want to say a couple of things about Pat's Living Room Concert Tour before I pass out. I just finished reading his post from the road titled PAT DINIZIO: Notes From the Road #1 "NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD" off his website patdinizio.com. This is a thoughtful, somewhat melocholy, and well written essay about growing older and trying to find meaning in what one does. This tour he's on makes me wonder. It's got to be weird, running into all sorts of people and situations, up close and personal, in the homes of fans and people you're meeting for the first time, performing in front of them without the "protection" of distance or bandmates. I'd think you would need a good sense of humor, a little bit of "hard-assness" and a fair amount of both humilty and healthy ego.

Frankly, I find it to be an astounding undertaking. I'm bone tired myself right now...I can't imagine how Pat feels at the end of a week of driving hundreds of miles and performing several shows with the intensity that he showed tonight. I find myself feeling concerned for him on this tour, hoping that the people who see him perform appreciate what this guy has done and what he's doing with this adventure. It seems both magical and ridiculous, ridiculous in the sense that he's even doing this, putting this kind of thing on all by himself, and magical in the sense that we're experiencing this amazing and wonderful music, that many of us dug so much when we were younger, live with Pat himself at a local coffee shop or in a friend's living room. Wild stuff.

I chatted with people at the shop tonight during the performance. It was so gratifying to hear all of the wonderful compliments that were being made about Pat, his music and his being there tonight. He was a hit. Again, more on the show later today. I gotta get some sleep.

Pat Dinizio poster image

Received this cool poster image from Pat DiNizio (The Smithereens) this morning and had to share it. If you recall, I posted about Pat coming to the Stump to perform sometime early 2009. As it gets closer I get more excited with each passing week. Needless to say, Pat's visit to Stumpjack is gonna be the cat's meow, baby...

MBB Syndrome

As my friends know, I'm generally a pretty laid-back, mellow and unflappable fellow...am cool under fire, confident and perhaps even a bit too cocksure of myself. However, yesterday I experienced a few minutes of MBBS brought on by a telephone conversation I had with a guy in New Jersey. I don't feel completely embarrassed because I'm fairly confident that everyone has experienced or does experience MBBS from time to time. MBBS is, of course, Momentary Beavis and Butt-head Syndrome, and is characterized by brief moments of slightly increased heart rate; vacant cerebral function; unintentional nervous laughter; vocal emissions, also unintentional, that sound like "uh...uhhh...haha...uh...haha...uhhh...cool"; and a distasteful though undeniable urge to name drop and excitedly advertise the source of the pathology.

Ok, the guy I just got off the phone with was Pat Dinizio! Yes, Pat Dinizio of the Smithereens! He of a truckload of hit songs, videos, sold-out concerts, and three decades of consistently excellent rock music. I was a fan of the Smithereens in my college days (although I was also briefly miffed that they stole the name I had settled on for my own never-realized band...c'mon, there's not even a guy named Smith in their band! But I got over it and claimed them as my own band anyway).

So, I've been daydreaming and talking about getting Pat to play the Stump since we opened. And now it's gonna happen. Pat and I talked about a few things, including the concept of community...people connecting with one another in an increasingly technological and at times disconnected world. He talked about why he does his "Living Room Concert Tour," about how much joy, friendship and inspiration these small, intimate shows have given him. The guy was just what I had hoped he would be...direct and honest, generous, funny and bold. How many other legitimate rock n' roll stars would hop in a van with a few pieces of equipment and a road map to unassumingly drive across the country to play in people's home living rooms and backyards, for literally a fraction of what they get paid doing full-blown stage concerts? It's heartening is what it is. I would think that you'd have to have a very healthy combination of ego and humility to pull something like that off successfully.

I'll talk more about this later, but for now here are a couple of videos with Pat's solo material. Do a youtube search to get a lot of Smithereens and Dinizio vids and music.

I love this song - "Any Other Way" - from one of his solo albums. It's got a tangible early '60s European spy movie vibe (the track that accompanies the shots of the steely-eyed hero driving his sports car, top down, through the French countryside and into the city) or "summer on the Riviera" feel to it. Love the jangly guitar and bluesy undertone.

One of the great voices in rock...earthy and rich. I told Pat how much I liked this particular song and video, the directness and simplicity of it. He said they recorded the video at his old high school. He had always wanted to perform on that stage as a kid, he said, but had been too afraid to do it when he was young. "So we went back there to my old school, set it up, and and I finally did it." How cool is that.