The South Padre International Music Festival (SPI Music Fest) announced today the initial lineup for the 2008 festival, which will take place October 31st through November 2nd on the beautiful beaches of South Padre Island, TX. ... The second annual international music festival will be spread out over more than 10 venues across the island, giving music fans a chance to spend their Halloween weekend on warm, white sand beaches surrounded by turquoise water. Attendees can look forward to a wide array of stunning musicians, and take advantage of windsurfing, kiteboarding, scuba diving, sea kayaking, deep-sea fishing and vibrant nightlife in the 70-degree breeze.

My family has vacationed in South Padre for about twenty years, and I've yet to witness these alleged "white sand beaches surrounded by turquoise water." There's nothingwrong with the beaches, but they're certainly never going to pass for a Sandals commercial set (thank God).

A truly honest press release would read something like "The second annual international music festival will be spread out over more than 10 venues, giving music fans a chance to spend their Halloween weekend on a small island with average beaches, a few decent fried seafood restaurants, a three-screen movie theater that they will eventually visit out of idle boredom, and a couple of over-priced grocery stores for lazy tourists who don't want to cross the bridge to the mainland for the H-E-B."

Anyway, here's the lineup:

Willie Nelson
Foghat
Los Lonely Boys
Blue Oyster Cult
Ghostland Observatory
Alejandro Escovedo
Del Castillo
Grupo Fantasma
Fastball
Sara Hickman
Vallejo
Airline
meridianwest
Nakia & His Southern Cousins
Pelican West
The Last Vegas
Ginger Leigh
Twanguero
Bongodogs
Stewart Mann & the Statesboro Review
James Speer
Big Burn
Brownout
Phillip Thomas Kellogg
Suzanna Choffel
Eric Hanke
Bree Stevens

I'm torn here as to whether I should make a cutting remark about the the term "early-bird discount" (many of these bands are for old people!), or a wisecrack about paying $70 to see Fastball. The banality is clogging my senses. Let's make it a choose your own adventure joke and call it a day.

South Padre International Music Festival [Official site]

It's a part of my little corner of history that I went at the age of 15 and bought the Patti Smith album [Horses] the day it was released. And I sat listening to it all night, and it changed my life—I decided to be a singer in a band. What I've never told anyone, and this is exclusive, is that I also bought four other albums that day. One of them was Hall & Oates, one of them was Foghat, Fool For the City. I don't where I got all that cash from—records were kind of expensive at the time—but I think I bought five records altogether that day. I gravitated towards one over all the others. But all the others were still there, and still in my consciousness.

That was the backdrop of me being in high school: Ted Nugent, Foghat, Styx, REO Speedwagon and these were the bands in the Midwest that resonated with regular kids and what was on the radio. It was rock. Pathetic, but there it is.

Will this revelation allow Foghat to join Hall & Oates in the ever-evolving Pitchfork canon?

Probably not.

The Mysterious Mr. Stipe [Death + Taxes]
FOGHAT-FOOL FOR THE CITY Live 1981 MTV Concert [YouTube]