Via our friends at Live From Memphis. Written by Sloganeerist.Reflections on a Recent Recital by The Vending Machine
By E. H. "Boss" Crump
[Cable Dispatch exclusive to Live from Memphis]
On a fine Saturday evening of late, I was fortunate to make good on a long-standing promise to accompany my friend, Dr. Francis Arthur James Clement of Mid-Town, on an outing to the Hi Tone Café. Our plan, should God will it: to enjoy a scheduled recital by popular musical ensemble, The Vending Machine.
This was to be my first of the group in the flesh, but not my first exposure to its music. On the contrary, their latest recording, King Cobras Do, has rattled the stylus of my parlor Gramophone for some months. Those readers who like-wise find themselves in possession of this pressing need not be reminded that, embedded in its grooved troughs, there exist one-dozen compositions of unwavering melodic beauty; no small feat for a group counting nary a single clarinetist in its employ.
Overcome with anticipation, my colleague and I set forth to arrive in time for the concert’s ten o’clock curtain, but were shocked to discover the establishment closed for business! On further inspection, a colorful window advertise-ment revealed the nature of our folly: We’d arrived a full twelve hours early! We had a good laugh, and ferried home to our respective dens for naps and tobacco, vowing to revisit our engagement later that evening.
Returning long after sundown, we encountered a scene of stark contrast to the one we’d witnessed that morning. The small venue was now chock-a-block with merry youngsters abuzz with irrepressible gusto, thirstily imbibing bottle upon bottle of the tavern’s selection of cold-served malts. Never the kind to turn our noses at the will of the common majority, the good Doctor and I bade the bar-tender fetch us two Pabst Blue Ribbons at once! He obeyed, and spirits in hand, we pushed forth through the exuberant hordes and secured quarter near the stage.
For my companion, Dr. Clement (himself an accomplished trombonist), music is both a passion and a pursuit. He is a follower and great admirer of Vending Machine’s focal artiste and song-writer, a Mister Robby Grant, late of Mid-Town. It is an admiration not without due cause. Mr. Grant (former, I am told, to the vulgarly named ensemble Big Ass Truck) is a gifted musician whose effusive, unconventional brilliance as a composer is matched only by his astoundingly effortless abilities as an instrumentalist. And make no mistake; I am not one to cavalierly bandy about flowery adjectives.
As the players took the stage and their leader conducted them into their first number (the marvelously agitated “Babies”) I was struck by the notion that Mr. Grant is a man who very much resembles the music he creates. His facial contortions, forceful squint and rapid cranial undulations serve to accentuate the delicate balance between order and chaos that his music so perfectly achieves. The next song, the peculiar and heart-raising “44 Times,” revealed a theme that would be under-scored repeatedly throughout the evening: that The Vending Machine is, first and foremost, an agglomeration of awe-some musical prowess. [... continued here...]
