Low Cut Connie – Don’t Get Fresh With Me

Back in September, I took myself to see Low Cut Connie for my birthday. I was so pumped when the show was announced at one of my usual venues, and on my actual birthday. What a great present! I will admit that I hadn’t listened to a lot of their songs before buying the ticket, but I had heard great things about their live show and I thought spending my birthday at a slightly raunchy, straight-up rock ‘n roll show in a small club, definitely sounded like my idea of a good time.

They did not disappoint. I danced my ass off and was a proper sweaty mess by the end of the night. If you ever hear they are playing somewhere near you, go. I am not usually that into bands that are piano-forward, nor ones that veer close to a Bruce Springsteen kind of vibe, both of which Low Cut Connie does, but their stage presence is infectious. And not just front man Adam Weiner, though he surely is the driving force behind the antics, the band is right there with him.

At one point he told a story about doing a show in a dive bar in the Midwest. His guitar player noticed some skinheads with swastikas tattooed on the backs of their necks were standing in the back of the bar so they hightailed it out of there. That experience led him to write a song about it, “King of the Jews” and now he has released a film that looks to be part documentary, part concert film. There is a write up about in Rolling Stone and I’m pasting the trailer in below.

I encourage you to read the article about the film here. I have not wanted to say anything about the Hamas terrorist attack and subsequent bombing of Gaza. It seemed obvious to me that not all Palestinians support Hamas and not all Jews support Netanyahu and his apartheid policies. I am not nearly as informed as plenty of other people and I have nothing to add that someone more knowledgeable and more eloquent hasn’t already said.

Recently, however, I have read about some pretty shocking (to me) anti-Semitic incidents here in the US, in places where I would have thought it unthinkable. Jewish friends would probably tell me that was incredibly naive of me. In the Rolling Stone article, Adam Weiner wrote something I thought was worth sharing.

“It’s hard to know what to say about such things,” Weiner continued. “By and large the world generally hates both of us, Jews and Palestinians. Ultimately, they don’t really want us in their countries. It’s the kind of prejudice that can either harden you to violence, or turn you into an artist, someone who paints the world from the margins. I hope for more art, and less violence. Art can heal and connect us. Violence only destroys. Art can lead the way forward, if we let it.”

Low Cut Connie – Private Lives

I have a soft spot for Philadelphia venues, even those I’ve never been to. There’s a couple of people I know, through Instagram mostly, who live in the Philadelphia area and they used to post pictures from shows there, in our pre-pandemic lives. A lot of those pictures were taken at a club called Boot & Saddle, which you can see in this video. One of these Instagram friends had said it was her favorite venue. Yesterday, they announced they were closing, for good.

What used to prevent me from going to shows as often as I’d like was the distance from where I live to the club. It’s the part of living in a city that I miss the most. Especially small clubs like Boot & Saddle, where the ticket prices are never that high and you can be up close to the band. Maybe I’ve just been lucky but the small venues tend to have fewer assholes too. It’s that intimate atmosphere that we love which is just impossible right now. If you have been following Save our Stages you’ve heard the venue owners say, we were the first to close and we’ll be the last to open. I’m really hoping that once we get the Toddler in Chief out of the White House they can get a number of stimulus bills passed to help keep the venues, and primarily the people who work in them, from going belly up.

The main concert promoter responsible for many of the shows I’ve been to over the past couple of years managed to host concerts out on a farm from late August through this past weekend. There were a few I was tempted to attend but they were out of my budget and even farther away. You would purchase a grid that was something like 10 feet square and could accommodate two people traveling together, each grid was spaced 10 feet from the next one, like a checkerboard, everyone had to fill in a health questionnaire and wear a mask the whole time. It wasn’t like being in a small club but it worked and they were able to employ something like 77 people to work 45 shows. But they were all bands that could bring in a big crowd. Small bands need small venues. Streaming shows from your apartment can keep musicians and their fans connected but it won’t pay their bills and the energy just isn’t the same.

When the lockdowns began back in March I still had a ticket to a show in June. That got postponed until next June. I’m pretty sure it’s going to be cancelled again, they just want to hold out until it gets closer. I swear, once it’s safe to go to shows I will never take them for granted again.