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A community of voices on music, travel, foodways, sports and anything else that matters.
September 19, 2007
Nick Lowe's America
11:10 a.m. Sept. 19
I've been a Nick Lowe fan since his 1977 solo debut "Pure Pop For Now People," a vinyl copy of which I am now holding in one hand. What a great record. Side one begins with the high octane rock anthem "So It Goes," it includes "Marie Provost," a ditty about a hungry dachshund devouring an aging starlet and concludes with a glam rock parody on the Bay City Rollers.
I have been to London twice in the past 30 years and each time I have combed record stores for similar compact pop in the style of Lowe, a native of Woodchurch, Suffolk. One of my best finds was Dodgy's engaging "Staying Out For The Summer' 95." All this is part of my quest to merge music with travel.
Lowe looks at things in a similar light............
Over the weekend I picked up a dusty '45 of soul stylist Jack Hammer singing "Obviously I Love You" at A Repeat Performance resale shop, 156 First Avenue in New York. There is no date on the record, but when I got home and played it, Jack sounded like Frankie Lymon meets early Grandmaster Flash. The record label is EXPERIENCE in Brooklyn, N.Y. It was a NICE souvenir of my trip.
Jack Hammer sounded like New York.
I grew up on a diet of regional '45s with the Buckinghams on U.S.A., the New Colony Six on Mercury, both out of Chicago, James Brown on King from Cincinnati, Lee Dorsey on Fury in New Orleans and so on. The colorful label logos and the diverse music took me places far beyond suburban Chicago.
I enjoy exploring regional music as much as I like regional food. Before I left town I put that notion to Diane Hatz, Founder/Director of Sustainable Table, the New York-based group that promotes sustainable agriculture. Her roots are in rock music.........
NEW YORK CITY---Farm Aid 2007 is being held at Randall's Island, a dusty encampment along the East River that has been the stomping grounds of Lollapalzooza and Dave Matthews. If you are from Chicago, picture Thillen's Stadium in the middle of a river and you begin to catch my drift.
This is the first time in my career I have taken a ferry to a big concert. Nearly 25,000 people were expected to attend so I was encouraged to find this tiny shack at the East 34th Street Pier which took us to a stage, park and miniature golf course near the Triborough Bridge.
As usual things got off on the right foot with the morning press conference that featured Farm Aid board members Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp, Matthews, and last but never least......Neil Young......
9:30 p.m. (eastern)
JERSEY CITY, N.J.-----As one who has celebrated the spirit of tequila on a tequila cruise and on a tequila train through Mexico, I had to break away from my other duties to check out the Oaxaca Old Fashioned at the new Death & Co. bar on East 6th Street in the Lower East Side.
The Oaxaca Old-Fashioned has 1 1/2 ounces of El Tesoro Reposado (tequila), 1/2 ounce of mezcal, a teaspoon of amber agave nectar, a dash of bitters and a orange twist. The orange is peeled and the slice is flamed a few inches above the drink and spread around the lips of the glass. Each of my bartenders had devlish hipster goatees that acccented the Hades feel of the pyrogenics as well as the Gothic atmosphere of the small bar........
SANDPOINT, IDAHO---Huckleberries can be an unbearable obsession.
On Sunday morning I found myself picking huckleberries at Schweitzer Mountain Resort, 4,700 feet up into the northern Idaho sky from Sandpoint (pop, 6,835). I’ve never picked berries before. I love blackberries, blueberries and Chuck Berry, but I’ve always kept my distance.
About a mile east along the GRR (like a mad bear) Trail my tour guide Patrick Sande found a hot patch with dozens of huckleberries. I crouched over and picked each purple berry off its branch and dropped it into a clear plastic water bottle. We did this for a couple of hours. This is what they must mean by “Slow Food.” I am now bringing home 24 ounces of ripe huckleberries. That’s enough to make Huckleberry Cream Pie with a Graham Cracker crust....
7:52 p.m. July 24---
America's small towns continue to turn to hometown heroes in efforts to cook up tourism. I've seen it with Dean Martin Days in Steubenville, Ohio and the Donna Reed Festival in Denison, Iowa. Now Bowling Green, Ky.. (pop 55,000) is paying tribute to native son Duncan Hines with a festival and a new exhibit at Western Kentucky University's Kentucky Museum.
Duncan was down with this quaint regionalism.
Since transportation and refrigeration systems were erratic in the 1930s and 40s, Hines figured locally grown foods would be the freshest. Hines was the precursor to the Zagat Guide, publishing the handy "Adventures In Good Eating" guide from 1935 until his death in 1959. Duncan got around. Here's his comment on the "Top of the Mark" at the Hotel Mark Hopkins (one of my favorite views in America) from his 1950 edition of "Adventures In Good Eating:"...........
Dave Hoekstra has been a Chicago Sun-Times staff
writer since 1985. His collection of Sun-Times travel
columns, "Ticket To Everywhere," was published in 2000
by Lake Claremont Press. He was lead writer for "Farm
Aid: Song for America" (Rodale Press, 2005) which
commemorated the 20th anniversary of the Willie Nelson
inspired effort.
He won a 1987 Chicago Newspaper Guild Stick O-Type
Award for Column Writing. Hoekstra wrote and
co-proudced the WTTW-Channel 11 PBS special: "The
Staple Singers and the Civil Rights Movement,"
nominated for a 2001-02 Chicago Emmy for a documentary
program/cultural significance.
Dave Hoekstra has been a 
