My brother, BB, came to town this weekend. He recently picked up a gig playing drums for a band, Indigenous, who have been making waves out of South Dakota. They were in town last night at 3rd & Lindsley and BB invited us to the show. A 6-piece band out of Austin, TX, Del Castillo, opened the night with some of the most incredible, rapid-fire southwest flamenco guitar mine ears hath heard. These gents very nearly stole the show.

I picked BB up from the airport on Friday afternoon, he expressed a craving for Japanese sushi and so, that night, we partook of some of the strangest, most beautiful food I’ve eaten to date. He insisted on ordering gobs (an awful word to describe any type of edibles) of various delicacies (freshwater eel, tempura rolls, California rolls, East Coast rolls, and edamame beans) to which I thought in my mind, “No way on earth that’s going to be enough food for three people”, Danielle included. So after BB rattled off a few sushi items to our inexplicably nervous waiter (we were very nearly the only patrons in the whole joint), I additionally ordered a noodle dish which regrettably turned out to be some kind of soup in which every element (shrimp, sweet potato, broccoli, etc.), liquid aside, was deep-fried. For Pete’s sake, if I wanted deep-fried anything I’d head to Louisiana for a fix. After one taste I deemed it wanting. And in one of those Eureka! moments I realized that man can indeed live on sushi alone. Mental note: a few tempura rolls, Cali rolls, perhaps some Ebi and a cold Sapporo, et voila!, we have ourselves a meal fit for two.

Indigenous took the stage last night at 9pm sharp since this was a show being aired live on local Lightning 100FM. Personally, I’ve never been much of a fan of the Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jimi Hendrix guitar-slinging thing, but I, being a very mediocre FOLK guitarist at best, can recognize skill when I see it on stage right in front of me. I absolutely love that the world of music is so monumentally varied that not everyone has to dub themselves a “singer-songwriter” in order to effectively speak their peace. How the human mind and heart can translate itself through an amped up (my ears are still ringing this morning as I write this) Fender Stratocaster is one of the great Mysteries of music. Hearing live music is always a healthy experience… unless you happen to be attending an American Idol Tour. What the??

Smelling affluently of cigarette smoke, Danielle and I dropped BB back off at the band’s hotel later that night, wished him well and gingerly made our way home across the moonlit Cumberland River to our quiet complex. Thanks for coming to visit, BB. Your on- and off-stage energy makes me look like a walking coffin. Tanks, tanks fer nutt’n….
EP