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Roger McGuinn @ the Huntington IMAC, Long Island, NY - April 4, 2008
Emily Saxe @ the Allen Room/Jazz at Lincoln Center - April 5, 2008
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Seven Mary Three
InterMedia Arts Center 2/2/08
Huntington, NY
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David And David
Listen to David And David:
“Welcome to the Boomtown” is kind of like "Hotel California", part two, only now the paint is peeling off the walls and there are exposed cracks in the ceiling from one too many tremors. Like the Eagles, David and David lived in Hollywood. Also like the Eagles, they were fixated on the social collapse of their hometown paradise. There was one very fundamental difference between each band's style, though. While the Eagles found themselves sunk up to their necks in the mire, David and David stood on the sidelines and witnessed the piece-by-piece destruction of their surroundings with a detached sense of bemusement and disgust. Like unprotected workers in a nuclear reactor, they had to be at least vaguely aware that the drug culture, the sex culture and the money culture were taking its toll on them, as well. They knew that the only way to protect themselves was to leave town, but they were fascinated by what they saw, and ambitious, so they chose to stay and become infected. Aware of the self-inflicted damage that was eating up every last trace of their innocence, they came to despise that part of themselves. Perhaps as a means of exorcism, they chose to expose the rot that was eating at their souls and created this damning single and the revelatory album that came with it.
Oh hell, maybe I'm just making all of this stuff up. Maybe David Baerwald and David Ricketts aren't self-flagellating seers who drove themselves to the edge just so they could bring us a report from the front line. Maybe they're only a pair of songwriters with overactive imaginations. If anything can be judged from David Rickett's subsequent work with Toni Childs or both of their contributions to Sheryl Crow's first album (with the singles "All I Wanna Do", "Leaving Las Vegas" and "Strong Enough"), this may very well be the case. On the other hand, if you ever heard either of Baerwald's solo albums, you'd be much more inclined to believe the "prophets of doom" theory. It is up to the listener to decide whether they are real or phony visionaries, but if they are real, then boy oh boy, is a hard rain gonna fall.
For generations, folks on the East Coast have accepted the implicit knowledge that they are living among the ruins of a cultural Babylon. West Coasters, though, tend to see themselves as just missing the Promised Land's final bastion of greatness, with nothing else to do except wait for the walls to come tumbling down on their heads. With the constant fear of earthquakes and other natural disasters hovering in the air, while social unrest simmers on the back burner, it is easy to view the cultural collapse of California in Biblical proportions. Fire, flood, cultural famine and the attack of the Barbarian hordes will eventually combine to bring about an instantaneous demise. Obsessed with thoughts of impending doom, an entire culture locks itself behind steel gates and expensive security systems. Residents are so focused on the oncoming slaughter that they fail to realize that they are already perched among the ruins, and the enemy has already scaled the walls and infiltrated their abodes.
A swift, overwhelming and climactic collapse would certainly be an appropriate end to a town that has created countless climactic endings, and if it were a movie, then perhaps things would eventually end that way. Unfortunately, it is doubtful that the reality will be quite so grandiose. In all likelihood, the decline of West Coast civilization will occur much like it did in the East: brick by brick, cobblestone by cobblestone. David and David don't talk about the heavens parting and angels on chariots riding down from the clouds with spears of fire. They simply focus on a couple of poor souls who got too caught up in a decadent lifestyle that they couldn't (or didn't want to) escape. Brick by brick. Cobblestone by cobblestone. One soul at a time.
 
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