And they played almost the entire song! I thought the Word Waits for You song would have been in context to a child birth, but boy was I wrong.

Just curious, why the 'curmudgeon' status on Son Volt?

[Posted by stlmark on Mon., Jan 8, 2007 at 12:09 PM]

Maybe I should've limited the "curmudgeon" status only to Jay Farrar: if you've seen him perform live, surely you've noticed that his crowd-interaction skillz are a bit, um, lackluster.

[Posted by amanda on Mon., Jan 8, 2007 at 12:12 PM]

True. What is your ideal artist:crowd interaction? I don't like chatter boxes. I actually like someone who just brings the music. I try to hold to the saying "if it isn't funny or interesting, don't say it", when it comes to public speaking in front of strangers. This is a nice blog, by the way.

[Posted by stlmark on Mon., Jan 8, 2007 at 1:07 PM]

thanks for your kind words about the blog; make sure to check out our umbrella site, www.stlsyndicate.com, to get hooked up with other STL goodness.

I guess I like a small amount of song-linking banter from a performer. However, it wouldn't stop me from seeing a show: two disparate examples of a couple of my favorites are the Iris Dement concert experience (in which she actually looks pained to be there, and mostly just straight-out sings, with between-song chatter limited to her futzing with the equipment and complaining about various aspects of it) and singer-songwriter Christine Kane, who has this amazing knack for seeming like she's just shooting the shit while she retunes, but then at the last minute, the story she was telling directly and perfectly sets up the opening notes of the next song.
Maybe Jay has nothing nice to say, so he ain't saying nothing at all...

[Posted by amanda on Mon., Jan 8, 2007 at 2:31 PM]