HOODOO

HOODOO Facing the Storm

CurtIs salgado’s new reCord, Damage Control, unCannIly refleCts the pandemIC year even though he Completed It In the wInter of 2019.

BY B.J. HucHTeMANN

“Iwas on the island of Guam when COVID had really hit the USA -- March 11,” Curtis Salgado recalled in an email interview. He was performing with Alan Hager for a gig they’d accepted in February.

“It didn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that everything was going to stop,” he said.

As the crisis unfolded, Salgado said he realized some of the songs on his new record were relevant to what was happening. He shared this with Hager, who responded: “Curtis, you’re now the Nostradamus of the Blues.”

“This is an Accident,” Salgado stressed.

While the songs may seem to speak to the events happening today, “the songs are pertaining to me,” Salgado said.

“Because I’m in my 60s and with all the politics and the media pounding us every day, with the shenanigans of our [former] president. Plus the Internet, Facebook and the division of our country, etc., etc. It was already crazy before the pandemic. It was the perfect storm brewing.”

“Life is Damage Control,” he explained by text message. “Life is Finite. Better grab it Now. That’s where I was coming from, and now it’s all so surreal.”

The name of the new disc, which dropped at the end of February but was actually completed in 2019, is Damage Control.

“Alligator Records scheduled it to be released on June 26, 2020. I was looking forward to coming out and being on the road to support it. Hell, yes! Let’s party!!! Damage Control has been on the shelf for a full year…Ouch!!!,” Salgado wrote by email.

“I started writing songs for it in 2017,” Salgado noted. “I write stuff all the time, so some of the songs have been sitting on the shelf for a while. One of them, called ‘Hail Mighty Caesar,’ I wrote back in the 1990s.”

That track is a zydeco-inflected romp. Another song, “Always Say I Love You (At The End of Your Goodbyes),” is a soul-tinged, piano-driven ballad that contemplates the heartfelt ties between friends and the surprise of suddenly or unexpectedly losing them. The song is made even more poignant by all of the losses so many have endured during the pandemic.

Salgado wrote or co-wrote all but one of the tunes and produced the record.

“I deliberately set out to write a rock ‘n’ roll record of all original songs. My kind of rock ‘n’ roll. And I honestly didn’t think Alligator would accept it,” Salgado said of the project. Blues label Alligator Records tends to focus on more traditional blues music. “But Bruce [Iglauer, label president] is cool and he loved it, and the staff loved it. And I’m lucky to have them back me.”

Salgado became an Alligator Records artist with his 2012 release, Soul Shot. He has been a professional musician since his teens and is a multiple Blues Music Award winner, including five wins for Soul Blues Male Artist of the year and the prestigious B.B. King Entertainer of the Year Award in 2013. See the Blues Foundation website at blues.org for more details. His roots are in soul and blues, but he takes delight in all kinds of music. A diehard music fan and music history buff, the production of the tracks on Damage Control takes listeners on a musical road trip from soulful gospel (“The Longer That I Live”) to Louisiana rhythms (“Truth be Told”) to echoes of ‘60s harmony groups (“Oh For the Cry Eye”) to a vibey stomp (“The Fix is In”).

Salgado said he used three studios with three different rhythm sections to record the album. He started in Nashville in 2018 and moved on to San Jose and the Studio City, Calif. He also did a guest artist session in Lafayette, La., with zydeco performer Wayne Toups. “Of course the musicians are the cream of the crop of America, which is why I could pull this off,” he said.

Damage Control hit Feb. 26 on Alligator Records. To find out more, look up Curtis Salgado at alligator.com or visit curtissalgado.com.

What started out as a record reflecting curtis salgado’s oWn life turned into a recording that also speaks to the pandemic year, Which happened after the record Was finished.

Photo credit: Jessica Keaveny

Thursday Blues

The Blues Society of Omaha’s long-running Thursday 6-9 p.m. shows continue at Stocks ‘n’ Bonds. Daddy Mac & The Flack are scheduled Thursday, March 4; Travis the Band is up Thursday, March 11. Kansas City’s Scott Moyer Band and another K.C. group, The Old No. 5s, play Thursday, March 18. The rest of March is still shaping up. Visit facebook.com/bluessocietyofomaha for updates and last-minute changes to the schedule. Looking ahead, singer-songwriter Randy McAllister takes the stage. He released a new disc, Paperbag Salvation, in December 2020.

Hot Notes

Lincoln’s historic Zoo Bar continues to offer Zoo Bar +Plus Patreon memberships to help support the bar during the ongoing pandemic and to offer members special perks now and in the future. Check out patreon.com/zoobar for more information. As of this writing, the Zoo has resumed its Zoo Bar House Band shows on Monday nights, currently just the first Monday of each month. For details and updates visit facebook.com/zoobarblues.

Other local venues still offering live roots music include The B. Bar, facebook.com/theb.baromaha, and jazz club The Jewell, jewellomaha.com. Check their websites and Facebook events listings for updates on performance offerings.

A R T very becomingvery becoming

Seven make good impreSSion in g1516’S firSt ‘emerging artiStS’ group exHibit

By Kent Behrens

Neil Griess BluRRed landscaPe, 2019

at the former’s location at 16th and Leavenworth. Amplify Arts’ Program Director Peter Fankhauser offered this as the venue’s definition: “Artists VIEWABLE in the early stages of their creative development, with 2 to 10 years of generative experience, a focused direction and goals, a developing artistic “voice,” who have yet to be substantially celebrated within their IN PRINT ONLYHave you ever found yourself asking “What exactly is an emerging artist?” Is it as obfield, the media, or funding circles.” The exhibit, which takes good advantage of G1516’s excellent space, features the work of seven local contemporary artists at varying levels of experience and renown. shows; group shows have always TalberT Reflection of PoweR, 2019 vious as it sounds or is there more Gallery 1516’s Assistant Curator been a good way to show more there than meets the eye? Suzi Eberly tapped into Amplify Arts work to more people. Searching the term on the web only confounds the issue; it appears that arts writers and curators are in little agreement about this somewhat new and seemingly overused label. What they do agree on, mostly, is these artists evolving presence and reputation. INTRIGUING, ISN’T IT? extensive roster to serve as guide through the forest of those transpiring from unknown to known. Together, they assembled a group of local talent, as described in the show’s accompanying pamphlet, “that reexamines and rewrites traditional artistic narratives.” Prior to the completion, Eberly moved away, but still consults with the gallery. Subsequent curation and installation was then taken up by the staff at 1516. This transient collaboration yielded a group of seven artists at different stages of their careers: Camille Hawbaker

One possible enlightenment is Gallery Director Pat Drickey said Voorhees, Shawnequa Linder, Jenna the recent collaboration of Oma- the show was “put together as a Johnson, Neil Griess, Tom White, ha’s Gallery 1516 and the art center kind of precursor and complement Patty Talbert, and Anne Dovali. DeAmplify Arts which resulted in an to the upcoming Spring 2021 Bi- pending on your frequency of galexhibit, appropriately titled Emerging Artists, which opened Sept. 13 ennial.” In addition, it satiates the recent virus-induced dearth of art lery visits in the area, a few of these names may be new to you, and shawNequa lindeR scotch and soda, 2020

FILM Awards of Advice

How to Fix tHE oscArs in 5 simplE stEps

by Ryan SyRek

Everyone has a line from a movie or TV show that they always repeat, despite no one around them getting the reference, right? For me, it’s a statement by a young Timothy Olyphant, whose wood was not yet dead, in the quasi-cult-classic film Go. Olyphant explains to a young Katie Holmes, who had yet to Cruise a Tom, why he is compelled to tear the Family Circus out of the cartoon section of the newspaper. “I hate it, yet I’m uncontrollably drawn to it,” the future Raylan Givens says.

Forgive the long preamble, but does that not perfectly explain our collective relationship with the Academy Awards? We could, as Holmes suggests in that scene, just ignore the Oscars. We have no problem doing that with the Golden Globes. Despite protestations otherwise, we do (by and large) care about this other stupid, frustrating, nearly-always-wrong, self-celebrating nonsense.

Instead of pretending we don’t, here are five simple ways to fix both the ceremony itself and the quality of the awards doled out. I’m not saying the Academy has to listen to me, but to paraphrase a Matthew McConaughey who had yet to all right his all rights, “It’d be a lot cooler if they did.” Step 1: Quota Pounders

The first problem is the Oscars already has its very own branded hashtag. April Reign introduced #OscarsSoWhite six years ago, before President Obama’s racism-ending tenure was even up. At that time, the Academy membership was 92% white and 75% male. That’s a far cry from the 84% white and 68% male it is now. Of course, by “far cry,” I mean that minor shift should make everyone weep in frustration.

Not that any other event has stormed the capitol of our minds, but it’s pretty obvious that white dudes kinda have a thing about surrendering positions of power. Unless the Academy actually does follow through on banning every Harvey, Donald and Joss who deserves a booting, the bulk of folks voting on nominations are still going to reward folks who look like themselves.

So make a new rule that says if all nominees are white men, the highest vote-receiving non-white man gets the nod over the lowest of the five vote-receiving white men. Don’t like it? Tough. If you weren’t racist, quotas would only be how Ben Affleck pronounces “quoters.” The rule can be written to specify that all the candidates can’t be from one race or the same chosen gender, depending on the category. We’d never have to know whether the rule kicked in or not, as Hollywood is pretty fantastic about keeping secrets.

Is this ideal? No. Is this the best way to guarantee the bare minimum amount of diversity? Short of Hollywood suddenly being filled with better people, yes. Step 2: Stunt Some Growth

The second problem with the Oscars everyone points to bothers me slightly less. Complaints that “popular movies don’t win awards” are silly because those movies win the only awards that matter in this country: monies! Still, if you want people to care if something wins, they have to either really love or really hate the things nominated, am I right American electorate?

Instead of “Best Popular Movie” or whatever nonsense token award was going to be used to bait normies into watching rich Hollywoodians metaphorically French kiss each other for four hours, add some long overdue categories that people would love: Best Stunt Work, Best Comedy and Best Comedic Performance. That last one should not be split into gender-based subcategories but follow the rule from that suggestion above (meaning it can’t be five folks of the same gender/race).

Not only would this capture more popular films, these absolutely should have been awards already since forever. Inviting more funny people to be in your ceremony is just smart, and comedy is harder than drama. Don’t believe me, imagine Jared Leto trying to make you laugh on purpose. Stunts have long been an art form that people have literally died doing to further the field. To my knowledge, the Academy has yet to lose a costume designer in a tragic hemming accident. These categories fix the popularity problem, and they represent doing the right thing, which is probably why they haven’t gotten awards yet, right Spike Lee? Step 3: Murder the Montages

Now that we’ve fixed the diversity and popularity issues in just two steps, let’s solve the ceremony’s issues with the next two. First up, kill the montages. At least two or three times during every Oscars broadcast, they roll out a long series of film clips about some random theme. I don’t know what brainiac watched YouTube once and thought “supercuts” were the key to the Academy’s salvation, but stop it. Don’t. Don’t do this anymore. It’s dumb and bad.

While we’re at it, murder everything that doesn’t work. Hire a director who is talented enough to read the room (and Twitter) when a winner is speaking. If they suck, wrap ‘em up, Maestro. If they are killing it, have the conductor bury that baton. It’s less about the weight of the award and more about the flow of the show, ya dig? We’ve seen rambling Best Actor acceptance speeches that deserved to be shorter than that winner’s on-set patience. We’ve seen funny, moving reflections cut short because someone pre-decided that nothing the Best Live-Action Short Film winner says could possibly be cool.

Ultimately, it’s not about trying to make the ceremony shorter. People love to bitch about how long it takes, but nobody would be complaining if they were having a good time. Just like the movies they celebrate, a shitty film can be 90 minutes and feel like the director’s cut of Das Boot. A good one can be four hours and feel like the director’s cut of Das Boot. Sorry, I liked the director’s cut of Das Boot. The point is, ignore the clock-watching and start trimming the stuff that’s lame and giving more time to what isn’t. Speaking of what isn’t…

Believe it or not, the AcAdemy AwArds don’t hAve to Be terriBle! we’re just five chAnges from hAving them suck less.

The point is, stop thinking of the show as being about what gets awarded. That is important, but we can get that information on the Internet or via a newspaper with the Family Circus removed from it. See how I tied it back in there. Maybe the Academy should call me… Step 5: Actually Do the Work Now that the ceremony and nominees are fixed, here’s a solution for the Oscars as a whole. And I’m going to take off my flippant, sarcastic hat and put on my serious, no jokesies hat. I have and will continue to argue for the Academy’s potential. Film is the dominant artistic medium of this era. Imagine an organization that takes that responsibility seriously. Imagine a group that fights for underheard voices, that celebrates new artists, that spreads the gospel of cinema all year round. I am aware that the Academy has events and outreach. Can you name what Step 4: Make a Spectacle those are? I can’t without looking them up. The biggest and best way to improve

The big problem with the ceremony is the awards that they give out is to make that you can really get the same general the Academy itself something more noble effect by being disappointed while read- and commendable than it currently is. ing the list of winners the next day. Not I joked earlier about kicking out abusive having a host at all is so dumb that I’m monsters, but why not make members confident someone in the 84%/64% came adhere to a high moral standard? Why up with it. Find someone funny, smart and not find a way to screen movies for undertalented and let them actually do enter- privileged communities? Why not stage taining shit. high-profile events for the winning films

Don’t just have famous people read after the awards are over? typical award show patter. Put them in If these things are currently being interesting, unusual positions. Have them done, it isn’t on a level that rises to nasing. Have them do sketches. Something, tional attention or structured enough to anything, that actually uses the talent that make a difference. If the first four suggesis getting more wasted than the talent will tions are simple steps, this final one is an be immediately after the show. overall call to arms. Get angry that “The

Instead of that boring thing where some- Academy” is said in a derisive, mocking one super famous comes out and reads a way. Become the champions for this speboring synopsis of the Best Picture nominee, cial, important form of art that it deserves. have folks not already in the cast act out a If you need more details, have one of scene. When the Best Stunt Work category your people get a hold of my people. And is added, have stunt people do something by “your people” I mean a famous movie on stage. Look, I shouldn’t have to come up director like Taika Waititi or performer like with all these ideas. I’m a local film critic in Tatiana Maslany, and by “my people,” I Omaha, Nebraska. You have access to people mean me. You’re welcome in advance. so creative that they don’t have to have other jobs to supplement the job where they get to be creative.

Not All Dumb Idiots Are Ruining America

Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar is Stupid (in a good way)

by Ryan SyRek

In the before times, a certain kind of moron was harmlessly endearing and not treasonously dangerous. Barb (Annie Mumolo) and Star (Kristen Wiig) are that type of moron. They have been sorely missed. Their feature debut, Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar, is flagrantly idiotic and intentionally nonsensical, in what feels like as close as we’re legally allowed to get to a cult classic these days. Director Josh Greenbaum’s film is the rarest of modern comedies, in that it is actually funny. But also in that its big jokes kinda flop, while nearly every single little beat hits. For example, prepare to cackle at the whispered refrain of a single word: “Dumbledore.” Barb and Star are from Soft Rock, Nebraska, a town you know is made up because Sam and Dean never killed a vampire there on Supernatural. When they get unceremoniously shitcanned, the ladies decide to go on vacation to Florida, which even meth-using alligators will tell you is unwise. Once there, the duo gets debauched with Edgar (Jamie Dornan), who happens to be the pawn of a mad scientist (also played by Wiig), who intends to kill thousands using weaponized mosquitoes. The simplicity of chatty middle-aged rubes cutting loose on vacay is at total odds with a plot device that feels like a vestigial tail from the Austin Powers series. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as the disconnect adds a quasi-hallucinatory vibe that excuses all non sequiturs and lets the titular goofuses goof their asses off. Wiig and Mumolo, who also wrote the script, deliver the kind of hard-labor funny that looks effortless. Watching them lie to each other about turtle encounters is more riotous than any of the big set pieces, which barely beg a chuckle. Dornan can’t keep up really, but who could possibly match pace with the women behind Bridesmaids? Presumably, he was strategically snagged by a claw from amid a pool of hunks because he is forever unencumbered by the very concept of shame, after the Fifty Shades trilogy. The remainder of the supporting cast are given more cameos than subplots, save for Damon Wayans Jr., whose character simply must have worked better in theory. Speaking of theorizing, the reason Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar works, but something like (gestures to Adam Sandler and friends’ last decade of work) doesn’t is elusive. Maybe it’s that watching two proudly middle-aged characters who are women — and whose idiocy skews toward kindness and whose horniness feels wholesome somehow — hits different? Or maybe it is as simple as the fact that the film goes out of its way to conceive of an environment and plot circumstances that can’t possibly be construed as having any real-world implications. Who cares? All that matters is this overstuffed SNL sketch is a nonstop giggler, filled with quotable nuggets and gleefully dorky. In the dead of a uniquely hellish winter in which vacations are ethically impossible, Barb and Star provide the getaway we all need.

Grade = A-

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