Posted on Thu, Jun. 01, 2006

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Kava: St. James Park will be hosting hot punk band

Brad Kava

Mercury News

Micah Smith

San Jose's Music in the Other Park series, which begins tonight, scored a big coup last year, bringing in the Caesars before Apple put out the iPod commercial featuring its song, giving the band worldwide buzz.

It looks for a repeat success next week when it brings in New York's Matchbook Romance, a band that's due to be big, but isn't quite there yet.

The band, on underground punk label Epitaph, draws comparisons to the now big emo (emotional punk) band My Chemical Romance.

Epitaph founder Brett Gurewitz (also a member of the band Bad Religion) was so enthusiastic about the songs on the band's Web site that he had its members live in his Southern California home while they recorded their first disc in 2003.

Since then, they've been road dogs, and last month they were named a hot pick to break out this summer by Newsweek magazine.

Meanwhile, the St. James Park shows start tonight with reggae star Pato Banton and over the next three Thursdays feature Matchbook Romance, stylishly soft rockers Matt Nathanson and Mat Kearny, and more reggae with the Wailing Souls.

The shows at First and St. James streets go from 5:30 to 9 p.m. and are free.

Even the most ardent blues trivia fans may not be able to come up with this Jeopardy-style brainteaser: He grew up on Stovall's Plantation in Mississippi, but he's not Muddy Waters.

Question: Who is Johnny Dyer?

If you don't know Dyer's name, you should. The harmonica player is one of those old-school guys, from the first wave of bluesmen who moved from the cotton fields to the big city, bringing with them the bright lights of the blues.

A lot of people trekked over the hill last week to see B.B. King, born in 1925, all saying the same thing: There's no telling how much longer he'll be around.

I'm not saying you should see Dyer, born in 1938, for that reason. You should see him because you don't get many chances in San Jose to see the authentic golden-age bluesmen, the Mount Rushmore of the blues, if you will.

Dyer toured for years as a member of the Mannish Boys, who took their name from the same Muddy Waters song as the Rolling Stones. (``I'm a man . . . that means mannish boy . . . I'm a man . . . I'm a rollin' stone.'')

Dyer plays JJ's Blues at 3439 Stevens Creek Blvd. on Friday at 9:30 p.m. for $15. This is a guaranteed great show, in part because he'll be backed by East Bay bluesman Mark Hummel. The discs they've done together bring out the best in both men.

MINI REVIEW: I was so lukewarm on Neil Young's last disc, ``Prairie Wind,'' that I thought he might never rock again. And with a gale of bad tidings stirring around, I wished Young would write another political rocker like ``Ohio,'' or a whole album's worth of them.

With very little publicity, that's what he's done. ``Living With War'' (Reprise Records) is a blistering indictment of the government, consumerism and a somnambulant public, and it pulls no punches. It's like he's gone back to the ``Ragged Glory'' days, quickly recorded, hard-edged music churned out with the necessity to be heard.

It's never angrier than ``Let's Impeach the President,'' on which he howls over tapes of George W. Bush speeches and a tune that sounds vaguely like ``The City of New Orleans,'' not without some irony. Isn't this what a contemporary folk singer is supposed to do?

Thank you, Neil.

Les Claypool, who has written a novel and released a new album, plays tonight at the Warfield and will return to Santa Cruz on June 29. The Alkaline Trio plays the Fillmore tonight.