You know the summer music season is coming when you can't decide what to see...

Dick Dale
Originally uploaded by V'ron.

Its getting harder and harder to decide where to spend my musical dollars. It's bad enough exhaustion forced me to skip Dick Dale at Vnuk's last Sunday. Me, missing the King of the Surf Guitar, unheard of. Especially since I gushed so much about Los Straightjackets last week. Especially since I've written so much about my ongoing love affair with the power and beauty of instrumental surf music. So I'm posting this shot of him, just to remind you all how much I love his music. Shot this at the Miramar Theatre -- one of my favorite local venues-- a couple of years back.

• If I do nothing else this weekend, I am going to see the Chop Top Toronados Friday night, dammit. Speaking of the Miramar Theatre, that's where they'll be for a relatively early show with the .357 String Band, another group on my "I really should see these guys" list. Then its off to the Uptowner for a night of an acoustic rehashing of old punk and newwave classics with Mr. Wrong, and it's The Wrong Man's Tom Lesions' birthday to boot. So I'm expecting a cadre of oldschool Milwaukee riverwest to be around.
  
  
• Eat The Mystery is at the Bremen Café, but frankly, I'm not sure when. Bremen Café's website says Friday, but email from Paul Setser says Saturday. Aw heck, I know for a fact I'll see them again in less than a month at Bucketworks, so I'll have to miss them this time around. And judging from what looks to be a scheduling snafu, I won't be the only one that misses them. What is this, the Shepherd Express?
  
  
• Anyway, Saturday. Catherine Cowling, the Garden Girl, is hosting a lovely garden party, and if anybody knows how to cover every square foot of a postage stamp of a yard with natural beauty, its her. Just to go and shoot photos of her garden, I'll be there with my new camera and macro lens. I'll come home to the South Side, first to catch the near debut (missed the official one two weeks ago) of the Bikini Beachcombers at Lulu -- ukelele-strewn hawaiianness (I just made that word up, but it sounds soooo good) at a bar where I know if I ask for it, I can get umbrellas in my drinkie poos to go with what I'm sure will be some of the most atrocious floral print and bamboo-themed shirts I will ever see. Then its back to the Port of Hamburg (or House of Hamburg, or whatever the hell they're calling it) for yet another night of Dr Chow's Love Medicine. I just cannot get enough of Frank, Fly, Andy and the gang. And by the gang, I'm not just talking about the rest of the band: Chris and Dan. The whole Dr Chow vortex is packed with interesting artists, guests, fans, that I'm always happy to see and mingle with.
  
  And now, they've just come out of the studio with the Brew City Bruisers (next time you do such a thing, gentlemen, please call me and my camera, this needed to be visually documented!) with a new tune on which the lovely sk8r grrls sing backup. Their swirling vortex of fans, associates, and hangers-on is growing, and in the right direction. I can't wait until this gets released. Hear me? I.Can.Not.Wait.