shameless family plug

If you have five free minutes (and obviously you do because you're reading this), I strongly encourage you to check out my sister Leslie's newly established blog. Only a few posts on there so far, so it doesn't take long to read the whole thing. But I'd be willing to bet the $3.52 in my pocket that it will be the best five minutes of your day. When we were little kids, I used to torture Les by telling her she was adopted...of course I was kidding, but now I'm not so sure - no one else in my family comes close to being as clever and funny as she is (and she's likely to post a lot more frequently, too).

hi. i used to play your songs in high school.

Way back in the early 1990's, rock music was just beginning to transition out of its big-haired, glam-rock, 1980's childhood into a funkier, groovier, sometimes-angstier adolescence. (Actually, come to think of it - maybe that was ME and not the music. Or maybe both.) One musical era was definitively ending, a new one beginning. The new scope was pretty broad: the heavy grunge of Seattle (Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Nirvana) to the light, clean "jam band" style of Blues Traveler and Dave Matthews. Nestled in the latter camp, the Spin Doctors released their album Pocket Full Of Kryptonite in August of 1991. I was about to start 9th grade.

People just three or four years younger than I don't remember this album or its creators. But for those who do, you may recall the easily digestible candy-sweet bounce of tunes like "Jimmy Olsen's Blues," "Little Miss Can't Be Wrong," and "Two Princes." I even remember playing some of these songs with high school friends back in the day.

This is all a long way of saying that Chris Barron, lead singer for the Spin Doctors, performed for the Children's Center here at the church a couple of weeks ago. He was in town for a gig and somehow ended up playing this middle-of-the-day thing for the 25 or 30 kids in attendance (all 5 or 6 years old or younger). Really nice guy, very laid back. But I have to admit it was surreal to sit there and watch this now-over-40 front man sing to a group of kids that had no idea who he was. It was interesting to hear the new songs Barron has written - like catching up with a friend you haven't seen in years (maybe decades) and finding out all that they've been up to. But I have to confess: as much as I like the new songs, I couldn't help but get a kick out of hearing live acoustic versions of "Little Miss Can't Be Wrong" and "Two Princes" while sitting in a church building with a couple of dozen little kids at lunchtime. Not an experience I would have anticipated when I was playing these songs at the age of 15.