Steve Martin - Born Stanfing Up - A Review

As he prefers to call this a biography even though it's his autobiography.  This is from a period in Steve Martin's life where he broke into comedy and made a name for himself as one of the best out there.  This is a great story of how he got started in stand up from working at Knotts Berry Farm to getting gigs at various clubs throughout the Los Angeles area.

The other thing I like about this book is that there is no fluff he talks about when he bombs or struggles. He even talks about an issue he had dealing with anxiety and panic attacks. It's great to see that he was able to get past the issues and how it can really affect you day to day life.

There's some good insight into how he had to go from using borrowed type materials to all original. Taking a 5 minute bit turning it into 20 and more.

Somewhere along the line Steve wrote a movie called The Jerk and that took him from a world of standup to acting and performing music with his band.

I never knew Steve was an accomplished banjo player, but from it being a part his comedy act all the way to selling loads of CDs and touring all over the US.

Great book to read. I highly recommend picking it up.

Death Cab For Cutie 07/08/2012 Crossroads KC

Sunday night prior to the MLB All Star game one of the many events happening in KC was the Death Cab For Cutie show at The Crossroads KC right behind Grinders.  I've heard their music over the past 10-15 years and was there as part of headcount.org volunteering to get people registered to vote who have either moved recently or have never registered.

It was a good experience walking around before the show talking to people who were in town for the show and those who were in town for the MLB All Star game.  The band certainly has a diverse group of followers from young 15-17 year olds all the way up to the 40+ crowd.  I found the crowd of approximately 2000 to be very friendly and supportive of getting people to register to vote for the upcoming elections.

As far as the performace it started out with Ben Gibbard doing a solo tune "Will Follow You Into the Dark" and then set into a full band session the rest of the way through.  The band had a lot of enery and really sounded good on a hot KC night.  The crowd was energetic as well and really sang along and took part in the show.

It was a good night for Headcount in collecting some new voter registrations and a good night of music.  I would recommend checking them out if they play near you.

Set list:

Will Follow You Into the Dark
Home Is a Fire
I Will Possess Your Heart
Crooked Teeth
Why You’d Want to Live Here
Photobooth
Doors Unlocked and Open
Grapevine Fires
Lightness
You Are a Tourist
The New Year
A Movie Script Ending
Pictures in an Exhibition
Cath
We Looked Like Giants
Soul Meets Body
Blacking Out the Friction
Marching Bands of Manhattan

Fiona Apple 07/17/1012 Midland Theater, KCMO

Fiona Apple played Kansas City on her new tour supporting her new album with a name so long I couldn't remember it if you asked. It was an almost full venue with a lot of women and a lot of true fans who knew the songs and sang along.

Fiona herself looks like she could put on a few pounds, cheeks are sunken and way too skinny.  Still her voice sounded as good as always.  She danced around, played some drums and had little interaction with the crowd over her 90 minute set.

The best thing to me about the show was her drummer Amy Wood.  She kept a great beat and was quite impressive in her small kit she played.  Amy is from LA and plays with The Donnies and The Amys as well as The Broken Remotes.  Check out her stuff for sure - I bet she will be a top drummer.

A show well worth seeing as this tour will cross over the whole US.

Set list:
Fast As You Can; On the Bound; Shadowboxer; Paper Bag; Anything We Want; Get Gone; Sleep to Dream; Extraordinary Machine; Werewolf; Tymps; Daredevil; I Know; Every Single Night; Not About Love; Carrion; Criminal; It’s Only Make Believe.