i wanna be bob dylan

we interrupt these comments already in progress....

back when that first counting crows record was big, i kinda liked it.  i still do actually.  (it's a guilty pleasure - though not enough to ask for it back when i split up with the now ex-girlfriend i lent it out to.)  i listened the shit out of that record; it went everywhere with me in the summer of what?  '94?  anyway, i was home for the summer from college and i heard an announcement on the radio that the counting crows would be coming to toledo with alex chilton and a "very special guest."  now, the counting crows... well, i might have gone.  but the counting crows with alex chilton opening - there was no way in hell i was missing that.  and the icing on the cake was the "special guest," who i was convinced - no fooling - would be none other than paul westerberg.  he was just embarking on his patchy (sorry, jodi) solo career, and with the mild success of 'singles' and the overwhelming success of the counting crows - who name-checked the mats' icon routinely in concert in dylan's place on "mr. jones"....  well, i was young and stupid.

i called my friends matt, who lived a half-hour away and was the one responsible for the 'hotrod' moniker, and vrabel, who made the trip up from the 'burgh.  neither was as keen as i on seeing the counting crows, which is to say that they weren't keen at all, but the lure of big star songs in the flesh proved too strong.  they were on their way.

and after all that, well, not put to put it too bluntly, but the concert sucked.  you've probably guessed already that the "special guest" wasn't paul westerberg, but was some talentless boyhood friend of adam duritz who couldn't carry a tune.  alex chilton not only didn't perform any big star song, but was so atrocious that the unctuous fraternity/sorority dominated crowd booed him off the stage.  and i didn't even mind.  he performed some of the worst songs i have ever heard.  they were so bad, in fact, that i vowed to purchase the record that he was touring behind if i ever found it.  which i did.  and it sucks.  it sucks so bad i had long contended it was the worst record in my collection until one day when i tried after a long break to listen to 'goodbye, cruel world.'

oh, and the counting crows?  they sucked too.  adam duritz was so drunk he could barely stand and there were about a thousand too many frat boys with their south carolina gamecocks hats turned in a backward direction.  a good time was NOT had by all.