I sayTornado

 

Sue Wee little piggies cause Pork Tornado is gonnna huff and gonna puff and blow the house down for the first time in ten years tonight back on the Higher Ground.  Pork Tornado’s drummer Jon Fishman (Phish), guitarist Dan Archer (Burlington Recording Studio Owner and Phish’s “Lawn Boy” Album Producer), bass player Aaron Hersey (also with the Grippo Funk Band whose sax player, Grippo, also plays with Phish guitar player Trey Anastasio in the Trey Anastasio Band), saxophonist Joe Moore, and pianist Phil Abair (Vermont Native) will be offering up covers such as; “Kiss My Black Ass”, “When I get Drunk”, “Blue Skies”, and the one I hope I hear the most “Guabi Guabi”, the Zulu folk song about man so poor he had to use the same first and last name.  One story I read about Guabi Guabi was that he was arrested stealing tires to make sandals from his dock job in South Africa and while in the police station an American made tire they had brought into evidence exploded and killed Guabi Guabi and when Guabi Guabi realized he was dead he was three miles down the road from the police station.  His friends wrote the tune and knew it would be heard world round and his life would not have been lived in vein for the credit for the investigations that would begin would all be Guabi Guabi’s.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5wa92lMtmI 

Pork Tornado also has my number one favorite all time Political Song “All American” which while less known, one day, hopefully, we all will hold it in as much reverence as we hold, Woodie Guthrie’s, “The Land is Your Land.”  The lyrics are we want a “Fat Black Poor and Handicap, Old Single Mother Lesbian with a High I.Q. / for president / in the Whitehouse / and nondenominational too.”

Pork Tornado is not to be confused with the Pork Tornadoes, another cover band I came across while you tubing the before mentioned.  The Pork Tornadoes play Beyoncé, Katy Perry, Stone Temple Pilots, etc.…  I did not listen them, as I am sure I can’t stand them.

This will be my and my wife’s first time back on the Higher Ground for over ten years and our first time in the new building, the last and only other time being for Brazilians percussionist Cyro Baptista’s (percussionist for the Trey Anastasio Band) band, Beat the Donkey.  The old Higher Ground was a dark tiny ballroom type venue situated right on, almost over, the rushing Winooski River just outside of Burlington in a happening little area of town in Winooski, VT.  The new Higher Ground is in South Burlington, VT on the main road leading into Burlington next the Holiday Inn and not to far from the airport, from driving by, it has sold out some character in picking the new local, I looking forward to checking out the inside vibe.

I did not notice the Pork Tornado return until a few days ago and it kind of comes at an inopportune time for me because I am in one of my rare hiatuses from beer.  The last time I made it exactly four months and twenty days before caving at a brewery over looking the Tennessee River in Chattanooga’s North Shore district.  That was back in hot southern August and I am due a break.  February has 28 days so it seems like the perfect month to get on the wagon.  Not drinking is easy for me and I would drink every day all day but my body and heart are starting to get a little pissed if I don’t dry out every once in a while.  I went to one Bikram Yoga class with my daughter right before I started the detox and almost passed out, I came very close to having to leave and puke, and the teacher even came and sat next to me to make sure she didn’t lose me to the heat.  I knew before then it was time that’s why I went in the first place.  Since then I have been using an electric heater to get the bathroom extremely hot and dumping a pound of cheap salt and stove boiled water into the tub, getting in, and sweating out my demons.  The whole process takes about two hours and through excruciating heart-pounding torment my tight chest loosens, I pour sweat, and I feel as though I might live to see my grand kids.  So only six days into my detox I am just barely getting over the hump and my favorite drummer in which I have invested countless hours of listening, traveling, and an lucidly exploring my own conscience to, is playing 40 snowy miles down the road in my new home of Vermont where he has his musical roots.  It’ll be worth it to start the detox again if I get sucked into the vacuum of the Pork Tornado.    www.highergroundmusic.com @ 8:30pm