What the DJ is listening to: St. Paul & the Broken Bones

So, as a DJ I am exposed to a lot of music. Brides & grooms turn me on to new bands all the time. I watch every band on Fallon and Jools, listen to what my wife and kids are into, roam the dial and net for new vibes and just have a lot of tunes. The garage is full of vinyl & CDs while two macs and an iPad are filled to capacity with digitized songs. I love music and am always listening to new artists as well as discovering and rediscovering older stuff. It's an obsession with me that never subsides- looking for the next great band or finding that hidden gem of an album in a second-hand store.

This past November, late one Saturday night after a wedding, I was flipping around the tube, still wired from the evening's adrenaline and happened across one of my favorites, Flaco Jimenez, doing a song on a PBS Americana special. He was amazing, as always, and Jackson Browne followed him with a fine but unmemorable tune. Just as I was ready to flip to another channel, these guys came on and literally blew me away. They played one song, "Call Me" and then some other acts came on but that song was imprinted in my brain- I was humming it for days. Deep down, though I love lots of genres, I am an R&B guy at heart, and it was like Otis Redding and James Brown had come back to us in the form of some slightly nerdy white boys from Alabama.

I hunted down their album and it has been on very heavy rotation in my truck ever since. The local progressive station has been playing several songs off it the last month or so, and lo and behold they are on Letterman this Monday, at Coachella in April, but most importantly at Cargo in Reno next month. 

I don't go to many concerts. Almost 30 years of deejaying has thrashed my hearing. I tend to watch my decibel intake and splurge only on what I consider hearing-loss worthy. Last concert I attended was the Texas Tornados a couple years back- previously it was the Fixx a year or so before that. There are a few bands that I'll break the rule and see whenever they come around- EW&F and the Stray Cats come to mind- otherwise I really am picky about who impacts my stereocilia.

Long story short- I have tickets to SP&tBB next month and can't wait to degrade my hearing just a bit to see these guys in person. Check them out below then come check them out with me in person Friday the 13th before they get uber famous and stop playing the intimate clubs. I'm a fan.