It's funny how certain artists inspire fangirl status while others that you adore equally leave you calm and polite. I once saw Ernie almost hyperventilate before meeting Kieran Kane whereas he's generally pretty calm meeting anybody. For whatever reason, I totally fangirled all over Eric Ambel last night. He was charming, I was giddy. I was a HUGE Del Lords fan back in the day. Well, of course, Joan Jett as well and we saw him in that lineup (Mabel's!). The Del Lords just hit me though (and I've been happy to see Owen discover them and love them as well). I mean, just watch this video for God's sake.
Of course, there's all his other work we love as well…with the Yayhoos, Roscoe's Gang and the billions of folks he has produced. Tons of great stuff but it's the Del Lords that tug at my heartstrings. When we lived in Ypsilanti our apartment was the second floor of an old house. The living room had a closet off of it. In there we had a few stacks of record crates with the stereo sitting on top of them. I would pull an old bean bag into that closet and curl up in it right in front of the stereo so I could sit and play things over and over.
Last night Eric was playing with Sarah Borges at the Rosebowl. The rest of the band was Mark Ortmann and Keith Voegele of the Bottle Rockets. Not TOO shabby, eh? It was lovely to see Mark and Keith. ONE of these days we'll get them back at SLHC. The show was wonderful. Sarah Borges was GREAT, GREAT, GREAT but my favorites were a song or two that she sang with Eric.
I drank a tad too much wine, chatted with friends, and came home and made sweet potato hash (purple sweet potatoes FTW) and Ernie put a perfect fried egg on the top of it. A very, very good night.
Thanks, Eric.
Onward.