When I Saw You

Last night, we took my 16 year old nephew to another concert. We've taken him to a few, but this one was quite low-key for him.

I got him to go see Don Dixon & Marti Jones. Yes, they are not big names and the only way most of you might have heard of them has been through this blog. In all my years of fandom, I've only seen them four times in 20 years - the last being about 16 months ago.

You might know Dixon from producing classic disks from REM's early days, or the Smithereens. You might really know him from being the guy who wrote and performed "Teenage Suicide: Don't Do It" from the movie Heathers.

Marti is his wife, but she's been putting out music for the last 25 years. She has a great alto and chances are you've never heard a things she's done. Some of her stuff is on iTunes, but most is out of print. Both she and Dixon have had a big following in DC and North Carolina. But they live up here and rarely perform.

Since they rarely perform, I dragged Denton but asked Matt. He's up for most things musical and I think he likes spending time with us. We weren't sure if he could go, as he is in the midst of having a pneumothorax. That is a collapsed lung, not a Dr. Seuss character.

Docs aren't sure what's going on with the man, but he's seemingly ok as long as he doesn't play tennis, cough or laugh. It's painful for sure, but he's seeing a specialist on Monday. And he can go since not only does my sister trust my judgement (I think), but that I know every frickin' hospital there is to know and what to do and how to manipulate those systems if I had to.

Anyway, like last time, Dixon and Jones played in this small "basement" in Canton that held maybe 100 folks - most of them friends and family. We felt like we were crashing a reunion.

It was just the two of them, no other musicians and they can pull that off quite well. And they did - and they didn't. Vocally, they've both sounded better, but musically they were just fine. Marti is a strong guitarist, Dixon a great bassist.

(the iPhone only takes so-so pics in a dark venue. sorry)

Neither has nothing new to promote. Hell, Marti is eight years out since her last disk. They performed songs I've never heard them do live before - actually most of them, so that was a plus. But I found they did best when singing together - not just backing each other stuff. In the course of their careers, they probably have 5-6 songs where they actually duet and when they did some of those, they truly shined.

I think Matt got something out of it - least of all being exposed to new kinds of music for him. But I probably wouldn't go out of my way to see them again. If they were in Cleveland, maybe. The hour to and fro (each) to Canton is questionable.


Song by: Marti Jones & Don Dixon