Bobby Bare Jr.
Saturday, 6-7:15 pm, the Backyard Stage on the Broad Street Lawn
One of these days, I'm hoping some Pike/ Pine-corridor resident can help me decipher when and why a tall, rail-thin silhouette topped with messy black hair became the hipster masculine ideal. Honestly, if I ever found myself in bed with one of those self-conscious, skeletal guys, with his faux-thrifted "Virginia Is for Lovers" T-shirt and his goddamned trucker hat slung on my bedpost, I think I'd have to stick my head in an oven afterward. This just isn't sexy, kids, and it needs to stop.
The beanpole brigade would be wise to take a cue from brash, badass boo-tay shaker Bobby Bare Jr. The Nashville native and son of country legend Bobby Bare pretty much blew the doors off the Tractor during his last stop in town, using nothing but pure rock 'n' roll muscle (think Tom Petty in the late '70s or the Replacements at their Hootenanny height). What's more, the boy had the balls to dress his fortified form in a powder-blue tuxedo getup, complete with a ruffled shirt--all while belting out Smiths covers and taking serious pulls off a bottle of Maker's Mark. That's just paint-peeling hot in my book, and the fact that he's now added former Jesus Lizard (and current Tomahawk) guitarist Duane Denison to his band's lineup only raises my temperature further. When Bobby's not busy blowing my mind or shopping for new tuxedos, he gives frank advice to his lovelorn fans, so listen up, skinny, inky-haired boys--maybe you'll learn something.
Dear Bobby,
I love my boyfriend very much, and I have few complaints about our life together. However, he has a bad habit of singing along to EVERYTHING--commercial jingles, classic-rock radio, the sound of the washing machine, cats fucking. This might be cute if his voice was decent, but he sounds like that asshole from Creed. How can I make him stop without hurting his feelings?
Dear Music Critic,
The best way I see to tiptoe through this situation without making him feel bad about his singing is to dump him like a bag of wet Kenny Chesney CDs--this way you are free to go out and find the next Fred Durst and bring him home to sing you beautiful lullabies of love, joy, and happiness.
PS: Are you Gwen Stefani? If so, just shoot the guy.
Dear Bobby,
I'm a good boyfriend most of the time and don't drink heavily all the time, but about every six weeks or so my friend Phil and I get shithoused and I end up coming home at 4 a.m. to an angry girlfriend. How can I convince her it's okay for me to get tanked once in a while?
Dear Drunk,
The best way to get to spend more time with your "friend" Phil in his "shithouse" (almost too descriptive of a romantic phrase) is to make sure your sweet, neglected girlfriend ends up drunker than you. Bring her out with you and make sure the bartender doubles up on the shots of vodka in her fruit drinks--it will be just like high school when you would come home drunk, after staying up late at your "friend's" house getting drunk while watching Brian Boitano videos. If your girlfriend is drunker than you then she will think you're sober--and she might even end up being turned on by you and Phil and what you do in the shithouse. The world would be so much happier if people were drunk all the time, don't ya think?
Dear Bobby,
I'm 35, female, and still a virgin. My friends say I look like a cross between Molly Ringwald and Celine Dion. Will anyone still want me? And if so, where will I find them?
Dear Pretty in Dion,
Play up the Molly Ringwald look and stand in the front row of the Backyard Stage on the Broad Street Lawn at 6 pm on Saturday, August 30, during Bumbershoot and request a lot of Pet Shop Boys songs--that way I will know it's you, and maybe I will dedicate our Smiths cover to you. If that doesn't work, come to the Tractor Tavern the next night.
