Imagine yourself panicking, quitting work, subletting your apartment, packing up, and tearing west on I-80 in a gas-guzzling old beater. In a few hours you’re across the Mississippi and the landscape is flat as ocean. Suddenly it dawns on you: This is crazy. You have no plans at all! The sky turns gray; then comes a cloudburst. Scared, you drive on anyway, windshield wipers churning. You feel just like someone in a song by the Service, and it only figure you’d think of them at a time like this, for even at their most raucous and rocking they still capture the kind of lost feeling you’re experiencing now. Rick Mosher writes and sings the songs–some angry, some funny, but nearly all exploring that anxious sadness that hits people hardest when they’re alone. No, the songs aren’t exactly happy, but they’re good, lent a certain buoyancy by rollicking keyboard runs and occasional blasts of rock ‘n’ roll tuba(!). Some kinds of rock blow you away on first hearing, but this moody stuff unveils its considerable pleasures more slowly and over time. Saturday, Cubby Bear, 1059 W. Addison; 327-1662.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Sheila Sachs.