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More about Bumbershoot: Anyone familiar with me knows I detest the annual event, and, though you might jump to the conclusion, it's not because I'm some kind of music hater. Truth be told, it's because I'm some kind of people hater. I very much do not like the jacked up, four-wheel-drive toddler hoopties blocking my every path, and I don't like the paper plates of half-eaten soba noodles lying beneath my every step. Each year I vow to avoid Seattle's Labor Day weekend pride and joy, and every goddamn year they book someone so enticing and exclusive that I find myself down at the blasted Bumbershoot with hoopty tracks and soba noodles miring my feet. So you ask: Who's dragging me down there this time round? Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, that's who! Now, Joan's last show in Seattle at Parker's Casino was nothing short of a disaster. Not that it wasn't good, because it was, without a doubt. And the Fastbacks opened. The disaster I'm talking about came when Joan, in bleach-blond butch drag, sang her new song "Fetish"--and it was d-i-r-t-y. So dirty, in fact, that most of the audience was either aghast, or, like me, dying a thousand deaths. This was the woman whose black bandanna wristband remains on display in my childhood bedroom to this day, after my having caught it when she threw it into the crowd during a 1982 performance. This was also the woman whose hit "Bad Reputation" became the theme song of my teenage gang the Good Time Girls--six Catholic schoolers who smoked Benson & Hedges menthols in the bleachers during free periods while fantasizing about having sex, which none of us, God forbid, had ever had. Plenty of sex and 18 years later, there's Joan, up on stage a mere three feet from me, and I'm turning 17 shades of red because her performance of "Fetish" was so lascivious. However, I doubt her Bumbershoot set will be so "intimate," so once again and against my better judgment, I'm so there.
Who else can we expect so see at the Labor Day hoo-hah? For better or worse, here's a short list: Jonathan Richman, Sugar Ray, Elliott Smith, Freakwater, George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic, Big Star, Ani DiFranco, Ronnie Spector, Ben Harper, and Kristin Hersh.
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Speaking of silly concerts, here's one for the "What Tha?" file: On Tuesday, October 3 at the Showbox, Thin Lizzy is scheduled to play. As we all know from Behind the Music, Thin Lizzy singer Phil Lynott dropped dead as a doornail way back in the early days of 1986. Apparently, the show must go on, and the band now comprises Scott Gorham (guitars), John Sykes (guitars and lead vocals), Darren Wharton (keyboards and backing vocals), Marco Mendoza (bass), and Carmine Appice (drums).
