For some ungodly reason, Kenny G and his hair will be in town this Sunday. And while I do have to pass on sitting through his smooth jazz stylings, it would almost be worth going to the show just to see what a Kenny G crowd looks like. Something tells me he’s going to draw a good-sized crowd in Charlottesville.
Anyway, all this thinking about Mr. G led me to The Smoking Gun, where a copy of his rider resides. If you haven’t checked out these things, they’re well worth blowing off an afternoon of work to see what weird (and precise) shit people request to play a show.
Mr. G requires five rooms, according the rider, one of which must be equipped with, among other things, two eight-foot tables (with table cloths), two lamps, a clothes rack with hangers, 12 towels, large clean floor carpet and—I’m quoting here—"fresh floral arrangement with Japanese flair."
Look, I know these folks have to be specific in their requests because for the first 10 years of their careers they got dicked around. But Japanese flair seems a little, I don’t know, specific. Which leads me to this question: What happens if Mr. G walks into a dressing room that includes a floral arraignment with Indochinese flair?
One can only imagine he storms throughout the room, destroying things, screaming "Too far west! Too far west!"
Oh, and if you have committed to want to read what officially is the most entertaining rider in the distinguished history of riders, please read Iggy Pop’s. The only way to describe it is as an 18-page stream of conscious from a very Iggy conscious.