Sunday, November 28, 2010
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Flatwater Restaraunt Broad Ripple
The Flatwater is located in the heart of Broad Ripple on the canal. It is a "Best of Indy" pick for several reasons. First of all, location. It is really on the canal and they have a tiki bar outside. A first for Broad Ripple and Indianapolis. They have live music and I get to see my favorite blues band 78 RPM there on a fairly regular basis. They also have other blues acts like Tad Robinson singing with the Jeff Chapin trio. Wow. Blues on the canal! It don't get no better than this ...wait! Yes it does! The food is excellent and the staff is pleasant too. No cover adds to the coolness factor of this must see place.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Zakk Knight Blues Prodigy
See this young man! If you like Robert Johnson or Stevie Ray Vaughan, see this young man. If you like guitar playing ala Freddie King, see this young man. If you like the blues ... you know what to do! This guy is going places fast! He has already won a national blues award for kickin' butt on the guitar down in Memphis and you would be well advised to catch him while you can. He could be in Europe next week for all this Zombie knows. He's on his way! Zakk Knight, that's Right!
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
78 rpm
Allen Stratyner (harmonica king of Indianapolis) and Vince Mullin (slide guitar) formed a surprising little trio with drummer
Tim Duffy who has been an Indianapolis mainstay time keeper for what seems like forever. They don't even have a bass player! But they don't seem to need one either. This is a real house rockin' band and if you like the blues done right, see this group! 78 RPM is real house rockin' blues! Listen to "Tell Me Pretty Baby" or Elmore James' "Shake Your Money Maker"
Monday, April 5, 2010
The Best of Indy: Russ Settle 1918-2010
MONDAY, APRIL 05, 2010
I write a lot here about the beauty of the cafés of Buenos Aires and how they are the "living rooms" of this enormous city and how they, somehow, each one, seem to contain the lives and souls of thousands of people from their neighborhoods. Nothing new about that here in this space.
But I came to this capital of great public places, via Chicago, from the city of my birth, Indianapolis, Indiana, USofA.
That place was not friendly to those of my ilk. Like my fellow "Indianapolitano", Kurt Vonnegut, I liked to quip that I had left that town to join the USAF at the age of 18 ...and that it had taken me that long to realize "that we were actually free to go."
But there were a handful of places in that city that, not only nourished me in my vague seeking of the civilization that our city fathers generally denied us, but that also encouraged me to find more.
Places where you were welcome to enjoy the great human pleasures, yourself ...even if under the strict definition of the proprietor. I had to go to Paris before I encountered anything similar.
That strict proprietor, has died. Russ Settle, of a tavern the size of a Buenos Aires café has left this world at the age of 92.
Before you start to think that I am describing just some "anybody" that ever wiped a bar-top in anybody's old home-town, lemme tell you that the man, Russ Settle, has already been honored and feted in national magazines and novels.
No one who ever "bellyed-up" to his bar ever thought this man as ordinary. He was rare, for the world and especially, for my old hometown.
You hung your coat in the proper place. You did not move tables and chairs around to suit your mid-western party group. There was a decorum in his Red Key Tavern that was unlike the other places available nearby. Still, even we pikers seemed to recognize that there was something right and special about the place and the way that Russ insisted that we conduct ourselves within its friendly confines. There was really nothing else to compare in our little Northside. None of us really understood it.
Maybe he brought it back from the "war in France." I used to think about it that way. When he told me, one night, of his experiences as part of bomber crew over fascist Germany, and his being shot-down and taken prisoner, he spelled it out to me in such personal terms that I felt that he had never told the story to anyone else in his life.
It was only later that I learned from others that he had recounted those experiences to maybe hundreds of others he felt might be able to absorb the human-ness required to maybe understand. I felt honored ...and the others that had heard the stories, as well, seemed to feel the same way when they recounted his same stories to me.
After the war, he came back to the city that always threatened to strangle the life out of me... and took over a bar. The kind of bar that doesn't much exist anymore. Sure, it has won awards from afficionados of great dives from national magazines ...and has even won a place in a series of novels. While I think that Russ felt honored by those kudos, it apparently did not change his attitude toward how the place should be run and the ambiance it should have.
I write a lot here about how the "souls" of long-time bares and cafés here in Buenos Aires are destroyed by remodeling and changes of ownership ...and a re-direction of their purpose beyond the people that those places have devoted themselves.
Sometimes, I wonder where a kid from the Fairgrounds of Indianapolis ever got that kind of sensibility.
If you were to press me, I'd have to say that I got it from Russ Settle's Red Key Tavern. From my experience, you could drop the Red Key into Paris or Buenos Aires ...and no one would notice. You can't say that about just any other place in Indianapolis. Soul is soul ...and the Red Key has always had it.
When I walked into my first brasserie in Paris, I knew exactly how to conduct myself. Russ had already taught me.
Russ Settle made me feel, not only at home with the world, but made me feel that I could go anywhere.
With all the love in my heart,
Mike from 44th and Norwaldo
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Cool YouTube
Rich Hynes. For any fan of the Blues, your favorite Zombie recommends the YouTube uploads of Indy's own Rich Hynes. Zombie misses his old turntable so Zombie just needs to go to one of the coolest sites on the web to listen and watch his favorite old blues and folk songs. http://www.youtube.com/user/richhynes
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Eddie Brummett
I went to see a blues act at The Gaslight and walked in as Eddie Brummett was taking the stage to open. What a nice surprise! This girl has got it! A voice that sings and a stage presence to go along with it. She sang some original song that had the place at rapt attention. Keep a look out for her. Indianapolis may have a new star in the making!
Thursday, March 4, 2010
George Fish... Punster King
George Fish. King of Puns.
Mr. Fish seems to have a pun for every occasion. He will not leave your presence until he has fired off at least one pun to amuse. In real life, George is a talented writer of political articles, music reviews and album liner notes. He's a huge fan of the blues and if you haven't run into him at any of the local blues clubs yet, you will, and when you do...
Look out! Here come the puns!
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Scott Ballantine Jazz Guitarist
Scott Ballantine. Smooth. Professional. Cool.
And he makes it look easy! That's the way to do it. For all you guys out there who claim to be guitar players just think about it next time before you start braggin' about how "oh I can do that". When you reach the level of ability that Scott has, let me know.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Blues Guitarist
King Of Comedy
Marc Much! One of the most talented and funniest performers Indianapolis has known. Not only is he a very funny and learned man, he sings! He doesn't just sing some top 40 crap either. I'm talkin' OPERA man! I never was hip to the opera voice as much until I met Much.
You can find him at comedy clubs performing with his buddy Vurn as the duo "Nervous Vurn and Munchie". Don't miss!
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