A freshly-minted transplant to Salt Lake City, arriving here in January of 2022, Thomas Crone serves as the Music Editor of City Weekly, while also contributing online coverage of the local music, arts and food/beverage communities to Salt Lake magazine. Unlike many of his new kinfolk, he prefers the indoors.
As a band with a quarter-century of gigs to their credit, Lucero has downshifted their touring ambitions in recent years. These days they’re out on the road for a crisp 100 dates or so, a considerable amount by most bands’ count. But for an act that used to eclipse the 200- or even 250-gig mark, this is a real change. One of those 100 dates is coming up on Friday, Nov. 8, 2024, at The Commonwealth Room, a venue the band says falls into its sweet spot of smaller music halls.
Ben Nichols, the band’s primary songwriter and founding member, said that Lucero’s career has moved into something of a sweet spot. Though the band’s last album, 2023’s “Should’ve Learned By Now,” is nominally the reason the band’s going out on tour now, the group has always been active on the road, whether there was new material or not. And Nichols believes that the sound he and his bandmates have achieved this time out will be crowd-pleasing.
“Right now, we’re a five-piece, a stripped-down rock ’n’ roll band, doing the simpler version of what we were doing 10 years ago,” Nichols said in a recent phone interview. “With our last album, ‘When You Found Me,’ we had a darker, moodier record. Synths are all over that album. A lot of fans came along with us for that. I like that record, it was a fun experiment. But with ‘Should’ve Learned by Now,’ all that is out the window again. We’re back to the classic form of bass, guitar, drums and some keys.”
As has been true for years, Nichols (vocals, guitar) is joined by drummer Roy Berry, bassist John C. Stubblefield, guitarist Brian Venable and multi-instrumentalist Rick Steff. For this round, Nichols notes that some of the extras of recent albums – horn sections, pedal steel players and the aforementioned synths – have taken a backseat to the simpler, straightforward lineup, with a lyrical bent that neatly accompanies the instrumentation. (And there’s more cowbell!)
“I had a couple of songs left over from previous albums,” Nichols said of the assemblage of material for “Should’ve Learned.” “They weren’t quite serious enough for those albums; those had a darker tone, sonically were a little more intense. I had these upbeat, lighthearted songs floating in limbo and needing a place to live. So I wrote the rest of this record with that intention. It’s a fun, rock ’n’ roll record with catchier songs and our old-school, rock ’n’ roll feel. The first song, ‘One Last F.U.’ has got that kind of attitude to it and it wouldn’t have fit on every album. There is some humor in it that’s not appropriate everywhere, but it sets the tenor of the rest of the album. Lyrically, it’s all pretty straightforward, it’s about rock ’n’ roll-type things, relationships and bars and whiskey and regret and guilt and love. It was written to not be too deep and still offer quality rock ’n’ roll.”
Fans are noticing and the press is catching up. “Pitchfork” concurs with Nichols, writing that “After a handful of albums that prioritized southern gothic atmosphere over southern rock riffs, Lucero is back where they started. They’ve been playing barstool blues and ballads for 25 years now, cutting their teeth in the very joints they sing about and surviving even when most bars have replaced rock bands with jukeboxes or, worse, DJs… Like the Hold Steady and the Drive-By Truckers—two other unkillable bands associated with the bar-rock trend of the 2000s—Lucero is still making solid albums that expand their catalogs in unexpected ways.”
While the current tour finds Lucero adhering to the classic idea of an “album release and tour cycle,” the band’s not exactly shy to hit the road at any time, knowing a base of fans will be at each stop, many of them traveling from place to place to catch the group. It’s not uncommon for the band to see fans that have seen them 10, 20, or even 50 times or more, be those shows in their home markets, or at some of the annual events Lucero plays, like their trademark hometown show, the annual Lucero Family Block Party. That one grew from an annual event held in the countryside to one that finds an entire city block in Memphis shut down for Lucero and a cast of exceptional, complementary bands.
They’ve also been regulars at other smaller festivals, events that allowed them to get to know their deepest supporters in a more personal way. Add in the fact Lucero will play rooms in smaller towns and it’s easy to see why they have a following that’s been with them for literally decades.
“The Lucero fan base,” Nichols began, “isn’t the biggest audience. We don’t draw the biggest numbers. But we’ve been going for 25 years now and the folks who’ve been coming to shows have been very loyal. Some of them have been with us since the very beginning. They’re bringing their kids to the show now, which is just wild. There’s no way we should be that old! It’s also encouraging that some of those kids actually like it. The fact that two, even three generations of a family enjoy us, I take as a compliment. It says something about the songwriting, that they keep coming back. It’s pretty simple rock ’n’ roll when it comes down to it, done on an accessible level. It’s pretty easy to come see us. We play at manageable venues and it’s always a very laid-back kind of show. So, yeah, if you like rock ’n’ roll and don’t wanna go to a venue that’s monster-sized, we’re a decent bet.”
Over the years that the group’s been touring, venues have changed, whether it’s the rise of mini-chains (like a City Winery) or larger ticketing agencies taking on the ownership role in some rooms. Nichols notes, “Today things are so complicated that you don’t know who owns what. But we’ve been mostly playing the same venues for 20 years. We might play a 500-seat venue in one city, or something smaller, like 300. In some places, we’re lucky enough to play a 1,000-seat theater. We’re very comfortable with that range and size of venue.”
These days, Nichols is also comfortable in saying Lucero is a well-tuned unit, onstage and off, with a manager, a booking agent and a publicist. Beyond that, they release music on their own label, Liberty & Lament. They keep a tightly-knit road crew. And they’re even working on music videos, as Nichols has become pretty adept at various editing platforms via his trusty iPad, of which he said “I’ve gotten my money’s worth.”
If it sounds as if Lucero has things figured out, a chat with Nichols doesn’t indicate anything different. The band’s goals are clearer than ever, the fans have grown alongside them, and the quirks of the industry are either shaken off or handled in-house.
As a document of Salt Lake’s mid-’80s punk-rock underground, this darkly funny film is not accurate enough for the scene’s survivors and a face-slap to the conservative Reagan-era types who had no idea mohawked, slam-dancing punks full of anarchistic rage were roaming the night, saying “Hell no” to saying “‘No’ to drugs,” breaking things and fighting everything and everyone, even (and often) each other. The 1998 feature, by Judge Memorial High School alumnus James Merendino, peels back Salt Lake’s squeaky clean sheen, revealing a motley crew of characters based—at times controversially—on real SLC punks of the era.
There are fights. There’s gunfire. Robberies. Wanton acts of abandon. Characters collapse into mental and physical illnesses, all catalyzed through heedless descents into drugs, sex and rock ’n’ roll, right here in sleepy Salt Lake.
Stevo (Matthew Lillard), left, and Heroin Bob (Michael A. Goorjian) in a scene from SLC Punk! shot in what is now Big D Construction’s office building at 404 W. 400 South, SLC. Photo Courtesy of Everett Collection
“Back in 1985, I was living in Salt Lake City, and, at 14, I was already different, already bizarre,” Merendino recalls. “I was bored and I was very much an outsider. I was a Catholic in a Mormon state. I was the geeky guy in the cafeteria who was always getting his ass kicked. I began listening to punk music because it appealed to me, and gave me an identity to help me survive the horrors of high school.”
Punk was a response to the failures of the ’60s starry-eyed idealism that led to the top-down restructuring of economies in Europe and America. Merendino’s Utah experience is not uncommon and made Salt Lake fertile soil for the punk movement as embodied by Stevo’s (Matthew Lilliard) diatribe at his parents in one of the film’s most memorable scenes.
Stevo’s hairstyles change radically throughout the film. Photo Courtesy of Everett CollectionPhoto Courtesy of Everett Collection
“Mom, don’t talk to me about self-destruction,” Stevo shouts, his blue mohawk waving. “And don’t start blaming yourself either. It ain’t how you raised me… It’s the future baby. Take a good look, I am the future. I am what you so arrogantly saved the world for. You saved the world for guys like me. Guys who are going to send it straight to hell!”
Salt Lake played host to the most well-known punk bands of the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s. They stopped in town on the way to Vegas or Denver to play in Salt Lake at wild venues like Speedway Cafe, The Painted Word, the Indian Walk-In Center and punk crash pads like Hell House.
Mark (Til Schweiger) and Mike (Jason Segel). Schweiger, a German actor, helped get the film released in Germany. Photo Courtesy of Everett Collection
When we interviewed him, Merendino suggested that we were calling too early and that the film does not hit 25 years of age until next year. And that’s true to a degree: the film debuted in the U.S. at Sundance on Jan. 22, 1999, with a U.S. release on April 16. But German investors pulled some strings and the film opened there early, on Sept. 24, 1998, thanks to the presence of the German actor Til Schweiger—whose Euro trash drug-dealing character, Mark, is one of the film’s more engaging, if not necessarily likable, characters.
Years later, the impact the film made on the scene it depicted is hard to quantify. Not just in Salt Lake City, where the film’s name still brings nods of recognition, but also in punk circles around the country (and the world). The film tackles punk rock with elements of reality. It does that with specific references to Salt Lake—the Utah State Capitol, the Great Salt Lake, the University of Utah, Memory Grove Park and West Side industrial districts—that provide either color, backdrop or plot points. (For example, the gang tries to sink a stolen car in the Great Salt Lake.) All the fights in the film? Yeah, they’re dramatized, but they’re heightened representations of the real contradictions and the clashes among tribal groups.
Jason Segel as the deceptively not-so-straight-laced character Mike in SLC Punk! Photo Courtesy of Everett Collection
Anarchy in the SLC?
SCENE: A beat-up pickup truck pulls onto a quiet corner in Salt Lake’s Avenues. In the distance, we see the LDS Temple and the Utah State Capitol. Two rednecks in wranglers and ball caps climb out and chug down Budweisers, tossing empties onto the quiet street. Stevo narrates:
“The thing about me and Bob and pretty much all of us was, we hated rednecks more than anything else, period. Because rednecks, for us, were America incarnate. And America…Well. F*** America.”
Stevo and his sidekick, Heroin Bob, emerge from the shadows. They ambush the men, with fists, legs and Bob’s metal pipe, laying them out. Victorious, they run toward the camera, laughing maniacally and disappear into the night.
Heroin Bob (Michael A. Goorjian) and Stevo (Matthew Lillard) in a scene shot at Milly’s Burgers in Sugar House. Photo Courtesy of Everett Collection
It’s scenes like this that cause blowback. The main beef: Writer and director Merendino liberally adapted storylines based on the exploits of actual figures in the SLC punk rock scene. Some names, like the colorful Sean Fightmaster, were used outright in the film and factual events were only lightly burnished for narrative effect.
As Merendino told Billboard in 2019, “[Stevo and Bob] are named after two people who were actually pretty big figures in the punk scene and I got their permission to use their names. One is Stephen Egerton from The Descendents. He grew up in Utah, and was in a band called Massacre Guys. But the story’s not based on them in any way, I just liked the names. Heroin Bob’s stories are drawn from experiences I had with a guy named Chris Williams, who’s now an Episcopalian priest and a great guy. He didn’t actually overdose. He’s the one who came into school with a shaved head and he looked like Travis Bickle; he really looked good with a mohawk.”
Still, there’s some consensus that the film is important both as a representation of the international punk scene and mid-’80s Salt Lake. Merendino is aware of the praise. And the criticism. He’s self-effacing about it all. “Like many filmmakers, I only hear negative reviews.”
Finding Stevo
Regardless of the tribal battles over the film’s authenticity and its, at times, too-close-to-home scenes, SLC Punk! set the stage for some of the actors, whose memorable early-career performances would lead to varying degrees of stardom.
(Stevo) Matthew Lillard crowd surfs to the stage in the film’s representation of the many ’80 underground punk clubs. Photo Courtesy of Everett Collection
Take, for example, the on-screen successes of Matthew Lillard (Stevo) and Jason Segel, who played clean-cut, preppy Mike, with a violent temper. While there are many local actors and crew members scattered throughout the credits, Lillard and Segel came to the film through a national casting call that included interest from well-known actors like Jack Black, Vin Diesel, Jared Leto and, whoa, the late Heath Ledger.
One of the greatest challenges in the production was finding the right actor for the role of Stevo because of his large amount of screen time and role as the film’s narrator.
“We couldn’t move forward until we found exactly the right person,” says Merendino. “We read a lot of people. Matthew Lillard came in and he was the most interesting person to come to audition, mostly because I think he said he didn’t understand the script. It messed with my head because he forced me to pitch my own movie to him. It made him stand out. He said, ‘OK, well, let me go now. And now that I understand where you’re coming from, let me come back in and just nail this.’ He came back the next day and he was just awesome.”
SLC Punk’s Not Dead
Merendino’s noticed over the years the tendency for SLC Punk! to get referenced in a variety of pop cultural contexts, many found close to home.
Proper Brewing Company’s SLC Pils Photo Courtesy of Proper Brewing Company, SLC
SLC Dunk!, for example, is a podcast dedicated to Utah Jazz basketball, affiliated with the SB
Nation media family. After a lot of uploads in 2022, the pod seems less populated today. Credit, though, for the clever title in the first place.
SLC Punkcast is a much longer-running podcast, dedicated to “new songs, old songs, great albums, influential individuals, live shows and guilty pleasures.” The show is hosted by Dustin and Eric and has topped 320 episodes.
Merendino says that friends let him know about new homages “All the time.” Take, for instance, Proper Brewing Company’s pilsner ‘SLC Pils!’
“I guess though it’s ironic to call it SLC Pils because in the movie the guy Bob overdoses, he’s murdered by or inadvertently killed by pills. Wow. Well, I don’t know that they made that connection, but…When I posted pictures of it on my Facebook page, a lot of people came in saying, ‘That’s not cool!’”
Merendino says one platform, unimaginable at the time of the film’s release, has birthed some attention-grabbing content: TikTok. Merendino says TikTok is actually one of the main ways he stays connected to the film, which he seldom watches anymore.
“There are these TikTok edits where, you know, kids on there repurpose shots from the movie and make little homages and their own edits, which I find actually more interesting now than the movie itself.”
Flashback: The Speedway Cafe
Jerry Leidtke in 1984 photographed by Christian Werner
Salt Lake City upped the punk reaction to the Reagan era. The extra sheen of squeaky-clean Mormonism bred an especially virulent antibody to the cultural vaccine: a raucous and edgy underground manifestation of punk rock ethos.
“As an old guy, I look back at the ’80s and I see why we were so angry,” says local chef Jerry Liedtke. “Reagan was working with the Taliban, the CIA was working with Pablo Escobar, there was talk of a draft, Russia had nukes pointed at us. So we took a lot of drugs and there was a good amount of hooliganism, but here in Salt Lake, it was different because you’d have these Mormon kids and straight-edgers, who didn’t do drugs, in the scene, too.”
Liedtke and his partner Kestrel went legit and now operate the Tin Angel Cafe in the Eccles Theater. But he came up in the heat of the punk scene in SLC and ran with a punk crew called the “Fry Gods.” The music and mayhem were centered around a host of small and medium-sized ad hoc all-ages clubs like the Palladium, DV8, The Bar and Grill, Maxims and the Pompadour, to name a few.
The epicenter of the scene was the Speedway Cafe, a truly subterranean venue buried underneath the viaduct at 500 South and 500 West. Liedtke’s punker cousin Paul Maritsas co-owned the Speedway with the aptly named metalhead Jay Speed. Young Liedtke got the coveted job of running the beer room. Punk and hardcore legends like Black Flag, the Circle Jerks, The Stench, the BoxCar Kids, GWAR and many more sweated it out on the stage, and Liedtke had a front-row seat. The Speedway closed in the early ’90s but its legacy and impact on Salt Lake’s music scene remain.
The Sequel (or Spin-off)
Photo Courtesy of Everett Collection
When Merendino was typing up a script for a sequel to SLC Punk!, he had some pretty big ideas. The script was going to follow the lead character Stevo, with shooting locations “around the world.” He estimated that the film would cost around $7 million as envisioned, a figure that he had no chance of raising at that time.
Fans of the original film asked about a sequel enough that they convinced Merendino to tackle the project, even if at a lesser price than the already-modest cost of the original. He turned to crowdfunding to add to the coffers and was able to secure just enough cash from the old-head fans to proceed with a stripped-down follow-up, much of it shot in and around Ogden, beginning in 2014.
Released in 2016, Punk’s Dead: SLC Punk 2 drew mixed critical reaction, which rolls off of Merendino. Discussing it today, Merendino says, “It turned out how it turned out. I like it. And some other people do. A lot of people don’t. That’s okay with me, you know, that’s the nature of art.”
Colson Baker (aka Machine Gun Kelly) stars as the scene-stealing punk rocker Crash—the most well-drawn character in the film, portrayed with gusto by Baker. On the other side of the fame conversation, several of the star-level folks who appeared in the original (Segel, Lillard, etc.) didn’t take part in the rebooted version, and there are moments in the film in which you sense that Merendino was padding out the run time, with lengthy concert segments shot for the film given plenty of space in the second half of Punk’s Dead.
In talking to Merendino about the work, there’s the sense that he’s okay with leaving where it lies, even if there was a different story that he wanted to tell. Faced with creating a different version of his original idea, or letting it go, he says, “At the last minute, I ended up sort of making it more of a spinoff.”
Three new lead characters carry the film, while actors and their respective characters from the first film were written into smaller support roles and cameos.
“Had it been a real sequel, it would have been about Stevo. And that was the subject of the script I originally wanted to do, but I just couldn’t afford to do that.”
Where Are They Now?
James Merendino (Writer/Director)
Merendino continues to write and direct films and television, including the sequel to SLC Punk!, called Punk’s Dead (2016). Merendino later created the series Great Kills (2023), a dark comedy about a small-time, Staten Island hitman, released on Tubi.
Michael Goorjian (“Heroin” Bob)
Over the years, Goorjian has guest-starred in numerous network television comedies, dramas and procedurals. He wrote a science-fiction novel titled What Lies Beyond the Stars, and he directed, wrote and starred in the film Amerikatsi (2022).
Jason Segel (Mike)
Segel’s career took off after landing big parts in high-profile shows like Judd Apatow’s Freaks and Geeks (1999–2000) and How I Met Your Mother (2005–2014). Segel now stars as a therapist in the Apple TV+ series Shrinking (2023), for which he won an Emmy.
Summer Phoenix (Brandy)
Phoenix is a musician (piano/keyboards) and has made a return to acting, starring in the thriller directed by Amy Redford, What Comes Around, released August 2023.
Matthew Lillard (Steven “Stevo” Levy)
Lillard has since appeared in dozens of films and TV shows. Lillard starred in the third season of Twin Peaks (2017), co-starred with Christina Hendricks on the NBC series Good Girls (2018–2021), plays an undercover FBI agent in the Amazon Series Bosch and appears in the live-action movie adaptation of Five Nights at Freddy’s (2023).
Francis Capra (Young Bob)
This prolific child actor went on to star (as an adult) in the TV series Veronica Mars, as well as a subsequent film of the same title, and the film Shadows (2022)
James Duval (John the Mod)
Duval, known for his later roles in Go (1999) and Donnie Darko (2001), continues to star in numerous independent films.
Adam Pascal (“Mod” Eddie)
Pascal works as an actor on screen and stage, singer and musician, starring in multiple recent Broadway productions like Something Rotten! and Pretty Woman: The Musical.
Til Schweiger (Mark)
The German actor and filmmaker notably appears in the Quentin Tarantino film Inglourious Basterds (2009) and is slated to appear in an upcoming Guy Ritchie movie, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.
Devon Sawa (Sean the Beggar)
Sawa continues to act in film and TV—particularly adjacent to the horror genre—reprising his role in Punk’s Dead, starring in the thriller TheFanatic (directed by Limp Bizkit’s Fred Durst) and the horror comedy Black Friday, appearing in an episode of HBO’s Hacks and filling recurring roles in the SyFy show Chucky.
Annabeth Gish (Trish)
Gish has had a long career on both the big and small screen. She is known for her recurring roles in Mike Flanagan’s horror series on Netflix, including The Haunting of Hill House, Midnight Mass and The Fall of the House of Usher.
Jennifer Lien (Sandy
Lien has retired from acting, after starring in Star Trek: Voyager.
Christopher McDonald (Mr. Levy)
McDonald has had a full career as a TV, film, theater and voice actor. McDonald appears in Hacks on HBO Max as Marty, a Las Vegas casino owner and the Marvel series Secret Invasion on Disney+
The core of the setlists Duran Duran will play in concert on June 3 at Vivint Arena, will be made up of songs the group made famous during the 1980s and 1990s. Those tracks by the band—including classic era members Simon Le Bon (vocals), Nick Rhodes (synths), Roger Taylor (drums) and John Taylor (bass)—provide a crowd-pleasing selection of winners, cuts that’ll be played virtually every time that the Rock & Roll Hall of Famers take the stage.
These are the bedrocks: “Rio,” “Hungry Like the Wolf,” “Come Undone,” “Ordinary World.” And a whole passel of other tracks that are staples of new wave radio stations and streaming platforms the world over.
But the group’s also coming off of the success of creating new work, with songs that very much fit into the band’s considerable canon. The band’s 15th album, 2021’s Future Past, is arguably the best, full work by the band in years. And those songs are being spotted into this year’s sets, allowing fans a chance to enjoy the ear candies of youth, as well as songs written and recorded by a band that’s clearly still interested in crafting new material.
Thinking about balancing new songs and old, Taylor, in a late-May interview, said “There’re songs you’ve just got to do, they’ve got to be there. Then you start thinking about what older songs are fans really going to be delighted to hear, and be surprised. Then you start thinking about how new songs can fit. And we tend to revolve them a little bit. Maybe we do ‘Anniversary’ one night and we do ‘Invisible’ another.”
Those are among the standouts of the album Future Past. For that writing and recording session, the group assembled a dream team of producers and collaborators, including producers Giorgio Moroder and Erol Alkan; plus Graham Coxon of Blur, who added guitar and songwriting, one of several notable guests on the album. Like many an album of the past few years, the work, begun in 2019, was scuttled by Covid for a number of months, before reigniting as in-person restrictions began to loosen.
Praised by critics and longtime fans of the band as one of their best, overall albums, the wait was rewarded.
Taylor said that “when we make the decision to go into the studio to start working on a new batch of songs, we tend to almost feel like we’re reinventing the wheel. We always set our sights very high and inevitably you have to let go of certain ideas. I get very excited at the beginning of a writing project because when there’s not a lot to the idea—like, maybe it’s just a groove with some chords and like a melody—I mean, that’s at the point where this thing could be anything. This could become the greatest song ever written. And as the song evolves, someone else hears it differently than me and you kind of have to let go. Each song is kind of a fight in a way. You have to choose your battles. And then as a suite of songs starts to come together, then you’re asking, ‘is there a theme here?’”
For Future Past, the title gives a decent hint as to what was on the group’s mind at that time.
Taylor suggested that “if there was a theme in the album, I think it was almost looking back to, there was a genesis to all of our careers in music. I would put it down to the punk rock revolution of 1977 in the U.K., where every kid my age decided they wanted to be in a band, whether they could play an instrument or not. We had this incredible… I mean, they called it a youthquake, you know, this incredible movement of kids that just were just jumping up on stage and singing whatever and getting their hair cut and slashing their ties and shirts. This kind of artistic revolution took place. I would say that’s at the core of this album.”
Taylor added that the group was aware, through its management, that the band’s 40th anniversary was nigh. And though that was secretly known by all parties, suddenly some energy and light was being brought up around that fact.
The band wanted to create an album that fit within the continuum of past albums, while not sleeping on new sonic potentials. It had to count, to matter.
‘There were like these undercurrents of the anniversary and longevity and, you know, (wondering) ‘what does that mean?’” Taylor said. “So that was probably there.”
Though Duran Duran are the stars of the concert tour they’re embarking on, the group’s support acts aren’t to be missed. Among them is Chic, the Nile Rodgers-lead group that Taylor views as a spiritual contemporary of the band; Rodgers, himself, worked with the band way back in the mid ’80s as a producer and remixer.
“I think fans of Duran Duran will know that our story has run parallel with Chic’s since the band’s inception,” Taylor said. “We were very, very influenced by Chic’s music as teenagers. When we finally came to America and met them, we became great friends and started to work together. Niles has been in the studio with us for some of our greatest moments and we love touring with them. They’re a super-tight band; it’s not like you’re going to see another band like them again. They’re everything you loved about the disco/funk era of music. We also have Bastille with us, who are a relatively-new band from Britain. They have more Spotify followers than we do! So I’m looking forward to having them on the bill with us, too.”
In a bio sent out by the group’s publicists, a lot of time and attention is paid to Duran Duran’s relentless incorporation of the newest toys and techniques into their career, be it in the studio or on the stage. They’ve been innovators all along the way, probably not getting enough credit for that role. For this tour, Taylor’s psyched about the blend of human and technical elements that’ll add to their thoroughly-contemporary live show.
He said that the show will be “stunning. We always say this, but visually it’s one of the best shows we’ve ever put together. I mean we’ve reached a degree of integration with the visual and the music like we’ve never done before. This show has evolved out of the shows we did last year. Rather than having to build a completely new show from scratch, we’ve taken elements of what we developed last year and made it better. It’s a very dramatic show, it’s a very sexy show. For me, it’s cerebral but also poptastic, you know?”
Unlike a number of bands of its generation, Duran Duran are not calling this a farewell tour and there is new music in the works. So this year’s tour is a part of the overall career path, not a finale. And for Taylor, it’s being seen as the band working at a peak level of satisfaction.
“This is a privilege,” he said. “There’s a deeper level of pride, I think, In what we’re doing today.”
Get your tickets to the Vivint Arena show this weekend here!
Playing a concert originally scheduled for late winter of 2022 (but postponed due to COVID infections in the band), Son Volt finally made it to Salt Lake with a show at The Commonwealth Room on Tuesday, Aug. 2. In support was Jack Broadbent, a sub for the originally-slotted opener, Old Salt Union’s Jesse Farrar.
It’s Hip to Have a Hip Flask
It was a minute, maybe two, after 8 p.m. when opener Jack Broadbent arrived onstage in an all-black outfit, sitting down on his amp for the duration of his set. With a good portion of the audience assembled on the smoking patio, he ripped through a few chords, paused, thanked the small crowd and noted that he had merchandise for sale in the lobby. That bit of dry humor was present throughout his opening set, which involved a lot of chit-chat with the railbirds assembled just in front of him. An amiable guy, Broadbent was able to blend his good sense of humor alongside a uniquely modern yet traditionally respectful take on the blues.
A native of Lincolnshire, England, Broadbent has six albums to his credit, including his latest Ride. Adding classic, time-tested blues cuts to his original material, Broadbent’s voice and guitar style more than satisfied those longing for a straight-ahead blues set, though he also bent into singer-songwriter territory on a couple songs. This created a diverse, compelling 40-minute appearance during his first show of a week’s worth of gigs with Son Volt.
The charming and self-assured Broadbent had the room listening at pin-drop level, fully enchanting the early birds before heading out to the lobby for those promised merch sales. Which, of course, included a personalized hip flask, fully lining-up with his self-described “rhythm-and-booze” style. Those who arrived late surely missed out, though it’s assumed here that the talented Broadbent won’t be a stranger to touring (and winning over) the U.S.
Giving Us a Break
As a quick compliment, I’ll note that Son Volt took the stage and played their first notes at the promised 9 p.m. start time. Too many local shows of late have seen interstitial breaks of 30 minutes, 45 minutes or even longer. With little equipment to change over, Son Volt were ready, able and willing to allow their fans a moment to stretch their legs before launching into their own 100 minutes of the evening’s entertainment. Appreciate it!
And Speaking of Stretching Legs
Let’s note up top that Son Volt’s not a band given over to showiness or theatricality. Founder, songwriter and frontman Jay Farrar said maybe 200 words to the audience over the course of this show (including a shout-out to Red Iguana and their many moles) with half of those spoken during a brief moment of technical adjustments for drummer Mark Patterson. Reliant on the strength of the songs (which date back to the mid-‘90s) rather than straight-up, play-to-the-crowd showmanship, the group’s content to remain hyper-focused and precise in their instrumentation and stage approach. At one point during the group’s three-song encore, guitarist John Horton wandered a couple of feet from his pedal board, which was as wild and spontaneous as things got on this evening.
This isn’t to say that the band’s not compelling in their own right.
The group—which also includes longtime Farrar collaborators Andrew DuPlantis on bass guitar and Mark Spencer on keyboards, guitar and steel guitar—has an obvious chemistry. Pulling songs from their 10-album catalog, including 2021’s Electro Melodier, the band mixed-and-matched songs from different eras, to the obvious delight of longtime fans, including known Son Volt winners such as “The 99,” “Drown” and the night’s closer “Chickamauga,” a song dating back to Farrar’s pre-Son Volt band, Uncle Tupelo. Also heard during the encore was “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” which was infused with enough originality to make the track feel vital. (To be fair, those of who grew up on the popular Guns N’ Roses version of the track might have different feelings about this song than contemporaries from Dylan’s day-and-age; forgive this Gen X musing!)
Son Volt is a hard-working band of veterans playing a no-frills style of rock/Americana that’ll always have a place on the touring circuit (for as long as Farrar finds interest in sharing his songs in the live setting.)
A few hundred Utahns were treated to a fine night of rock ’n’ roll on Tuesday, via a mid-career band playing stellar songs wed to a high, high level of professional musicianship.
A Quick Personal Aside
Son Volt’s home base is St. Louis, where I lived until moving to Utah this year. Family needs have me moving back there shortly, so Son Volt was my last touring show to take in as a full-time resident here. Almost-impossibly, due to Son Volt playing dozens of shows in/around St. Louis for the past 28 years, I’d never seen the group live. As Farrar’s songs can direct your emotions into a degree of melancholy, this gig was special, a tad bittersweet, but also hopeful. Thanks be to Jay Farrar & Co. for keeping this rock ’n’ roll unit on the road.
When an intra-band bout of COVID-19 struck Son Volt in late winter, the critically-acclaimed group lost an entire western states tour run, including a stop in Salt Lake City. That show has reappeared on the local concert calendar with a gig at The Commonwealth Room on Tuesday, August 2. The KRCL-sponsored show will also feature opener Jesse Farrar of the well-regarded, decade-in string band Old Salt Union (who also happens to be the nephew of Son Volt songwriter/bandleader Jay Farrar.)
Throughout Son Volt’s history, the latter Farrar has been the group’s linchpin, with an uncommonly talented group of accompanying players coming and going over the years. Guitarist John Horton’s the latest to join on, after the departure of Chris Frame last year. The dissolution of Horton’s long-standing, nationally-touring act, The Bottle Rockets, allowed Horton to sign on to play with Son Volt.
He was the band’s only target to replace Frame. Like Farrar, Horton lives in St. Louis. There, his talent’s a well-known commodity. Slotting into the group’s well-seasoned roster was relatively-smooth, he says, noting that “there’ve been a lot of really good or great guitar players in this band.” That number includes current guitarist Mark Spencer, once of the Blood Oranges, and someone Horton feels is a “stellar musician. I’m a fan of his playing.”
In addition to that guitar duo and Farrar, the current lineup includes drummer Mark Patterson and bassist Andrew DuPlantis. The mix of new and longtime players neatly ties into the setlist being planned for this summer 2022.
“It’s really kind of a scattershot look at the catalog, without any emphasis on time period or album,” Horton says. “And it’s a big catalog. I never really realized that before joining the band.”
The group’s first album dates all the way back to 1995, when Trace was released. At that time, the band had a completely different lineup, including two members of the famed, recently-deceased alt-country band Uncle Tupelo—Farrar and co-founder/drummer Mike Heidorn. With ever-fluctuating lineups since, alongside several solo and collaborative albums, Son Volt’s now up to 10 full studio albums, including 2021 Electro Melodier.
In crafting each group and album, Farrar, Horton says, has an eye on accomplished players who can hack it on the road.
“It’s a very businesslike way of doing things,” Horton says, before suggesting that “workmanlike might be a better term. I think in situations like this, it’s just assumed that you’re ‘a stepper,’ as they say. Jay’s assembled a band in which everyone has this roots rock pedigree.”
Horton has that pedigree himself with multiple St. Louis projects, including The Bottle Rockets. That group toured the U.S. for years, releasing records on a variety of labels before calling it a day in 2021. Though acclaimed by the press over the years and possessing a hardcore fan base, they never quite broke through to the next level, though not for lack of skill or effort. The western states, Horton suggests, wasn’t home to a large fan base at any point—they did play a gig with Lucinda Williams in Salt Lake City early in the Rockets’ career, the only time that the well-traveled Horton’s played in Salt Lake.
The Bottle Rockets, he says, “didn’t do great on the west coast. And the differences between the two bands… well, Son Volt’s got a much bigger following than The Bottle Rockets did. Exponentially so. It’s definitely a level up from what I was doing.”
For Son Volt’s deepest-cut fans, this tour should provide some fun moments. Horton says that “Drown” and “Route” will always be found at the beginnings of their sets, while Uncle Tupelo’s “Chickamauga” is there for the closer. A cover that varies from tour-to-tour will be peppered in and after that, it’s anyone’s guess, with the setlist changing subtly as the tour rolls along. And for this upcoming date at The Commonwealth, the band will have just kicked off the tour, hitting the stage only a few dates into this delayed tour.
“Seeing different places than I’ve been,” Horton says, “is always exciting and fun.”
Who: Son Volt with opener Jesse Farrar
What: Alternative country/Americana
Where: The Commonwealth Room 195 W. 2100 S., SLC 800-501-2885
It’s just over the border after all. Once you’ve run out of breweries to explore, there is still plenty to do in Southeastern Idaho, from small town zoos to delightfully strange museums to the minor-est of minor league baseball.
The Experimental Breeder Reactor-Iis the world’s first nuclear reactor. In its operational day, it provided power to the first nuclear-powered town, nearby Arco, Idaho. Now a fully-curated museum, the facility gives tourists a good look at the guts of the place, with visitors allowed a fascinating chance to climb and duck and wander their way through a good-sized building that provides info on a very particular slice of US history. The facility’s located on Route 20, about an hour outside of Idaho Falls; though remote, highway signage is sufficient to get you to the location.
Now here’s a real corker. In li’l Rigby, you’ll find a museum dedicated to the life and work of television’s pioneering visionary, Philo T. Farnsworth. But the actual space given over to the building’s namesake is minimal, with displays and exhibitions given over to him, but also to taxidermy, skiing, local horsemen, antique agriculture equipment and special exhibitions, like a quilt show that was literally being broken down as we arrived. Its other name, The Jefferson County Historical Museum, does better justice to this sprawling place, as a host of weird odds/ends of the region’s past are housed here. Special mention has to be given to many mannequins found throughout the space, each looking quirkier than the last. Did we mention the taxidermy? All these curiosities for the mere admission price of $4.
Gotta be honest: this one sounded like it could have some real snooze factor happenin’, but the reality is that the Idaho Potato Museum is loaded with fairly-interesting, well-curated and even entertaining micro-exhibits about the history and impact of the potato on agriculture. There’s a bit of whimsy (à la the well-represented Mr. Potato Head), but it’s mostly-straightforward in approach, not the least bit dull in making that choice. Best of all, you can get some fries or a stellar baked potato at the in-house cafe. This place was surely a bit of a surprise, found in the heart of tiny Blackfoot halfway between Pocatello and Idaho Falls.
A gentleman by the name of Don Aslett had a mission in life. And it wasn’t only to create a nationwide janitorial company, which he did, before turning his attention to the very-specific goal of curating a museum of cleaning products. Over several floors, Aslett’s sprawling collection includes a bit of everything, with an in-house cinema showing highlights from his dozens of appearances on network TV, where he preached his gospel of cleanliness. It’s weird and charming and well worth the modest admission. On a given day, you’ll also find Aslett, wandering through his collections, holding court with visitors. To say it again: charming; weird.
On a day-to-day basis, the Museum of Idaho contains several exhibitions of hyper-regional interest, with natural history at the core of its standing, curated collections. Currently, the space also holds what’s clearly a touring exhibit, “Genghis Khan: Conquest & Culture.” It’s a big ol’ show and will take most of your attention as you wander through two floors of interpretive displays of Mongolian culture. While seeming to be a bit of a conceptual stretch for a small-town museum, a drive in any direction from Idaho Falls will take you through lands that may not differ all that much from Mongolia. So, yeah. Good job, curators!
200 N. Eastern Ave., Idaho Falls, Idaho 208-522-1400
In full disclosure: on the day that we passed through Atomic City, the raceway was closed. And it’s in that state most days, save for about a dozen nights a summer when weekends are loud in this li’l town that once served as home to many of the workers at the EBR-1 facility. In fact, you can still find some of those workers (now handling tours, rather than radiation) at the Atomic City Bar, which is located directly across the street from the track. The bar is open and it’s a decent place to enjoy a cold, cheap beer, while getting the lowdown on this town’s history and the 40-odd residents who still call it home. Catching a race here would undoubtedly be a treat.
1769 N. 2650 West, Atomic City, Idaho 208-313-8815
A member of the western states’ Pioneer League, the Chukars are an independent baseball team that’s served as something of a feeder for the Kansas City Royals’ system. The team’s 3,400 seat, single deck stadium is Melaleuca Field, located a few minutes from Idaho Falls’ lively downtown. As you’d expect, games here are typical of unaffiliated minor league action. There’s a lovable, shaggy mascot (Charlie Chukar). There’re sound effects and advertisements for a local autoglass company, heard with every foul ball leaving the park. Concessions are affordable and offense is the rule, with most of the team’s 2022 hitters batting over .300 and ERAs routinely 5.00 and above. America’s pastime in this environment is both pretty cheap and pretty fun. Just be careful that you don’t collide with a kid; they’re everywhere.
The self-titled “Best Little Zoo in the West” affects the displays and exhibitions of a larger zoo, with monkeys, tigers, kangaroos, penguins and other popular, plushie-ready animals. We’ll definitely say that the place smartly uses a literal river that runs through the zoo, while the place is generally well-shaded. Though we showed up with less than an hour of operation to spare, we were able to take in the whole facility. Some of the exhibitions have clearly been updated in recent years, while others could, quite frankly, be shuttered until later expansion (including the primate house which features a sad gibbon, one deserving of a better life). The overall feel here is family-friendly and the location, in a public park, gives it a relaxed feel.
2925 Rollandet St., Idaho Falls, Idaho 208-612-8552
To its credit, this 1932 facility is under major construction, part of a long-term plan to revitalize the space. Already, some exhibits showcase an updated feel, with larger enclosures and a more-contemporary. A few, though… well, they look as if not much about them has changed in the 90-years since open, with large mammals like mountain lions and black bears found in spaces small enough to cause obvious agitation for the animals within. That said, the 25-acre park is seamlessly blended into a hillside and surrounding meadows, giving it a unique look-and-feel. And a shout-out to the zoo’s many, many marmots, local smarties who’ve figured out that they can eat and drink to their heart’s content, while milling in with official zoo residents like elk and bison. Clever li’l mammals!
I enjoyed a recent trip back “home” to St. Louis, where I remember the fact that STL’s brewing scene is among the best and deepest in the country. While new entries into the market have seemingly slowed in the COVID era (after a decade of non-stop growth) the town continues to make great, varied beer within the same market as the birthplace of Anheuser-Busch.
Arriving in Salt Lake City in 2022, I’ve become a semi-regular at Proper, Epic, RoHa, Fisher, TF Brewing and Kiitos quickly enough, with single passes through a large number of other spots— just last week, I finally checked the downtown location of Shades off of the list, after visiting Strap Tank the weekend before. So many brewpubs, so little time! Without any knowledge of Salt Lake’s brewing scene prior to arrival, these trips have been a welcome way to learn the city and its neighborhoods, while sampling from food trucks all along the way.
If you enjoy craft beer, making a pilgrimage to cities great and small is a nice way to find yourself finding pockets of a town you might not consider otherwise. Over this past weekend, our car was pointed north, heading to the southeastern Idaho towns of Pocatello and Idaho Falls. With parts of three days to enjoy the two cities with 50,000(ish) population, we sampled the wares of a half-dozen microbreweries, as well as the in-house food options at some. As a caveat, my pen wasn’t out at all times, preferring to live in semi-vacation mode, so we’ll skip the IBUs, AVBs and price points, while still giving at least a little color on the vibe of each location.
Friday Night
Star Route Brewery (218 N. Main St., Pocatello, 208-252-1591): Arriving in town on a Friday night and with an AirBnB booked on the edge of town, it seemed smart to head right into the action of downtown. So we alighted to Pocatello’s historic Old Town, where we were greeted by a largely-intact group of facades and storefronts—the ravages of disinvestment that’s affected many American small towns may’ve touched this place, but a lot less so than other li’l cities. This was a cool landing spot to begin a weekend.
Star Route’s affiliated with a restaurant under the same roof, Villano’s Italian, which provides food service for the brewery. As the name suggests, the fare here is pizza-centric along with sandwiches and a small selection of salads. The barroom’s also attached to a large patio—on this night, the Aaron Ball Band was playing to a good-sized audience, with the patio doors kicked open on a beautiful summer’s evening. The bar itself serves from in-house brews, as well as popular favorites, with beers from across the light-to-dark spectrum represented. The beer was fine, the food was okay, the environment was fun enough. I wish this’d been a home run, but it was a solid, line drive single, at the very least. So, Star Route was a solid way to start the evening and a simple hop-skip from…
Off The Rails Brewing (228S. Main St., Pocatello, 208-904-0212): With a small patio out front, Off The Rails Brewing makes itself known along the main drag of Old Town. Unlike their neighbor down the block, which features outdoor live music, this spot has the sounds emanating from inside, with a local group called Sons of Bannock bringing their country- and rock-tinged bluegrass to a good-sized audience on this night. Like Star Route, the hours at these Pocatello brewpubs are relatively short, so keep an eye on last calls if you’re hitting town during the evening hours, lest you go without.
As we’d eaten at the friendly competitor down the block, we passed on food and went directly to the tap handles, where about a dozen house brews were available—a fridge next to the bar offered some as take-home canned options, as well. We opted for a round apiece, then decided to share a quick one before close. That vanilla cream ale turned out to be the best beer of the evening. With good service, music at a conversational volume and a location that allows for a leisurely walk down Main, this choice worked out quite nicely.
Saturday Day
Exterior of Portneuf Valley Brewing (Courtesy Portneuf Valley Brewing)
Portneuf Valley Brewing (615 S. 1st Ave., Pocatello, 208-232-1644): Located in an industrial section of town near the railyards, Portneuf Valley’s tucked away from the main action in Pocatello, though in a town of this size it’s really only a few minutes from the other breweries. As we’d eaten a pretty large late brunch at an old-school diner named Elmer’s, we passed on the little-bit-of-everything menu and sat at the pub’s small bar for a single round and impromptu conversations with the staff and customers.
As the place crams a lot of elements into a relatively-thin space, the pub’s got a kitchen, production house, dining room, bathrooms and bar all tucked into a slim, shotgun-style layout. Like the other locations we visited, this brewery aims for a bit of everything, with options from across the taste spectrum, often giving a slightly-naughty naming flair. The beer was fine, service was quite friendly and the space was a pleasing, dark, cave-like vibe on a super-sunny afternoon. This would be a decent location to alight if you visited the nearby Museum of Clean, which provided plenty of discussion fodder.
Saturday Night
Idaho Brewing Company (775 S. Capital Ave., Idaho Falls, 208-534-7232): Located not far from the Snake River and Idaho Falls’ downtown, this smaller brewpub was a bit tricky to find. The GPS looped us through some under-construction gravel streets before we landed in the parking lot. The initial trickiness was offset by a friendly bartender and a mellow patio scene, some of which is under-the-stars, some within a greenhouse-like canopy. There was no live music on this night, but a stage was outside and we sensed, from eavesdropping on our neighbors, that a band may’ve canceled. Alas.
The lineup here was, once again, covering all the basics and the house porter was a decent choice for a single round here. On another night with less ground to cover and a bit more social activity taking place at IBC, another pint might’ve been ordered. A picture-perfect night, though, called for one more, which was enjoyed at…
Snow Eagle Brewing & Grill (455 River Pkwy., Idaho Falls, 208-557-0455): If Idaho Brewing is close to the Snake River (which you can kinda sense is near, though you can’t quite see the real splendor), then Snow Eagle significantly ups the ante. A couple of outdoor tables are just yards away from the site of Taylor’s Bridge, the Snake River-spanning 19th-century marker that accelerated this town’s growth of yore. From the exterior of the place, you can hear the roaring, namesake falls. And even if those tables are occupied, you’ve got a big, multi-use dining room to sit in, featuring everything from brewing tanks to an open kitchen; a sushi bar and giant Christmas tree festooned with American flags; countless sports flags and an immaculately-clean bartop fish tank. There’s a lot happening here!
We opted for the very different options of Japanese rice lager and a barleywine and both delivered. Because we arrived close-ish to the 9 p.m. closure, the staffers dipped out for a pre-close smoke, so a second (and probably unneeded) round wasn’t ordered. This actually gave us a chance to cross the bridge and wander downtown, which was a perfect way to wrap the night in a beautiful, busy little corner of Idaho Falls.
Sunday Day
Jim Dandy Brewing (305 E. Lander St., Pocatello, 208-240-0470): Heading back south after a lazy morning in Idaho Falls, it made perfect sense to find ourselves at one more brewpub before arriving back in Salt Lake City. And Pocatello’s Jim Dandy wound up being the highlight of our trip. Located in a pocket of downtown called the Iron Triangle, Jim Dandy was just a tad off-the-beaten-path, but was super-worth the trip, especially as a Pocatello-based food truck called Thanks A Brunch was onsite to provide perfectly-right-on breakfast sandwiches.
A crazy breeze sent us inside after a few minutes of dining on the well-appointed patio, but even 10 minutes outside convinced us that this was probably among the best spots to sit, chat and enjoy a drink in this town. Inside, too, was a nice barroom, with plenty of seating at the bar and at two- and four-tops. In combination with the better-than-expected food, the beer here was the best that we’d enjoyed over our three-day weekender and we’d give a pair of thumbs-up to the IPAs here. Every spot on this trip offered at least one cool element (whether music, views, beer, et al.). This place, though, hit all the right notes.
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