The Pavarotti of Blues

Brad Cordle and his band played at The Sand Dollar last night. Drew Zingg was to have played alongside the awesome John Wedemeyer on guitar as well, but came down ill and couldn't make it. Too bad, that woulda been so cool. Drew, we're hope you're better today, bro'.

As it was, they were smokin'. Michael Grimm and some of his cats came by. At one point I joked to Michael 'here we are in this tiny roadhouse with this low ceiling, and there's enough P.A. to do the Clark County Ampitheatre' (it was loud). He laughed and said 'Brad doesn't even need a mic. He's the opera singer of blues.' LOL! So true. In fact, last Saturday, I went to hear Brad over at King Tut's on Charleston & Jones, and at one point he just stepped back a couple of feet from the mic and let loose, incredible voice filling the room.

Cat can really sing.

I'm gonna drag this dude kicking and screaming into the digital age. He doesn't have any promo kit stuff or online presence. So, I collared his ass last night before they started: 'Brad, c'mere, bro', we gotta improvise. Come stand over by that Miller Beer neon guitar light sign above the cigarette machine...'

The only illumination of any consequence in the dad-gumbed room. Hey, 'make lemonade.'

Well, we now have a couple of pics. Myspace page to follow. Stay tuned. This cat is just too good for people to not know about more widely.

Good crowd last night, $5 cover notwithstanding (instructive, that). Place was about full by the time I left at 11:20.

DON McGREEVY

I had the pleasure of hanging and chatting over a couple of "Fat Tire" brewskies with Michael Grimm's agent last night, Don McGreevy. Very nice dude. Interesting history. We're close to the same age, and he's also an "ex" player (drums & vocals, from the Buffalo, NY area).

www.thelasvegasagency.com

Noon update: OK, tweak that shot...

This took all of 10 minutes. More to come.

MySpace update

OK, I spoke with Brad, and just now posted him a first MySpace page. See www.myspace.com/bradcordle. We'll do him a music page as soon as we can get some mp3 cuts. If you're a MySpace user, request a "friends" link so we can spread the word.

'NUTHER UPDATE: TAGG GUITARS

Met another cool guy last night, John Taggart. Cat builds custom guitars and basses.

Check his website at www.taggguitars.com. Beautiful, creative stuff of a wide variety. Man, if I didn't already have my very nice Gibson SG Supreme that set me back a couple grand, I'd be ordering one like that pictured above.

UPDATE: a Top 10 list I got in an email...

TEN THINGS TO PONDER FOR 2007

10. Life is sexually transmitted.

9. Good health is merely the slowest rate at which one can die.

8. Men have two emotions: Hungry and Horny. If you see him without an erection, make him a sandwich.

7. Give a person a fish and you feed them for a day; teach a person to use the Internet and they won't bother you for weeks.

6. Some people are like a slinky... not really good for anything, but you still can't help but smile when you shove them down the stairs.

5. Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in the hospital dying of nothing.

4. All of us could take a lesson from the weather. It pays no attention to criticism.

3. Why does a slight tax increase cost you $200.00, and a substantial tax cut saves you thirty cents?

2. In the 60's, people took LSD to make the world weird. Now the world is weird, and people take Prozac to make it normal.

AND THE NUMBER ONE THOUGHT FOR 2007:

1. We know exactly where one cow with mad cow disease is located among the millions and millions of cows in America, but we haven't a clue as to where thousands of illegal immigrants and Terrorists are located. Maybe we should put the Department of Agriculture in charge of immigration.