Okay, gang, here's where you will find me if you need to, starting Sept. 20

Dan Nailen
Salt Lake Magazine
240 E. Morris Ave. Suite 350
Salt Lake City, UT 84115

email: dan@saltlakemagazine.com

Check in at www.saltlakemagazine.com in a few weeks for the start of a new blog by yours truly.

In case y'all didn't know, this Spelunker is taking his show on the road. Or at least down the road. Starting on Sept. 20, I'll be working at Salt Lake Magazine instead of the mighty Tribune. And shortly after I arrive there I'll be firing up some online attractions — including blurbs on upcoming shows, concert reviews, etc. — that will hopefully inspire you to come visit me online over there once in a while.

My new email will be dan@saltlakemagazine.com. The phone number is in the book.

And now, some Mike Watt:

Sorry 'bout the lack o' bloggage the past few days. Busy, busy, and for those of y'all who haven't heard, I'm moving on from the Salt Lake Tribune next week. I'll address that later. In the meantime, here's this week's column from In Utah This Week, my last for the Trib-owned Arts and Entertainment tabloid:

About a year ago I launched my search for a new favorite band after my old one, Sleater-Kinney, called it quits.

Maybe they "retired." Or went on "indefinite hiatus." Whatever the terminology, they're not around anymore. And starting next week, "The Weird Turn Pro" won’t be around anymore either.

Yes, this one-man band is going on indefinite hiatus, and I'm no closer to finding a Sleater-Kinney replacement than I was a year ago. In fact, the list of possibilities has grown, not narrowed, so I'd have to call my New Fave Hunt a failure.

Thankfully, the rest of the year spent writing this column was more productive. Like any good "Brady Bunch" episode, I learned valuable life lessons almost every week. And the weeks I didn't, I usually had a few laughs thanks to Cousin Oliver.

As one of my old high school English teachers liked to say at the start of class, "Allow me to drop some pearls of wisdom from my ruby-red lips." And yes, he did teach drama class, too.

1. Near-death experiences lead to mental clarity

I've never been into the so-called "extreme" sports, but I came to a new understanding this year of why people would put themselves in death-defying circumstances by choice. All it took was 90 minutes in a bikram yoga class for this out-of-shape, regularly hungover dude to KNOW what a near-death experience was like. But after the class, I felt great, and my mind was a lot less foggy than normal.

The same can be said of my night at a tent revival run by born-again Christians. When the preacher man tried to replicate what hell is like by firing up some charcoal with a super-sized dose of lighter fluid, the fumes drove me from the tent. When I got into the fresh air, though, everything cleared up. Maybe that’s what people think they're feeling when they say they've been hit by the Holy Spirit.

2. Not all needles are bad

I donated plasma in downtown Salt Lake City in order to have an extra $60 or so one spring break when I was a student at the U. But at some point in my adult years, I lost my stomach for being poked with needles. I hate getting shots and I get squeamish when I have blood drawn.

Doing this column, though, I reacquainted myself with a tattoo artist's needle for the first time in 10 years when the annual Salt Lake City tattoo convention rolled around. And while that needle came with the expected annoying pain, the needles of the acupuncturist I visited brought nothing but relaxation. I even fell asleep for a while with needles protruding from my ears, ankles, neck and spine.

3. Embrace the metaphysical and spiritual

I'm too much of a realist to REALLY get into things like tarot readings, palmistry or numerology. But both times I had readings done doing this column, it was either highly entertaining or ego-boosting. Even if you don't believe what you’re hearing, it's always good to
enjoy a laugh or have your ego stroked.

Thanks for reading. Both of you.

This column written under the influence of fIREHOSE's "If'n" album.

Here's this week's column from In Utah This Week:

In the year-plus I've been writing this column, I've used it on occasion to explore various types of self-improvement.

I took on the physical with visits to practice bikram yoga, to experience the business end of acupuncture needles and to ascertain the manliest facial I could find. I dabbled in the metaphysical with tarot readings, I Ching tosses and palmistry. I occasionally even found ways to exercise my intellectual side, researching topics like Native American pow-wows or Middle Eastern dance when I had occasion to write about them.

What I've largely ignored, though, is improvement on my spiritual side, so I decided to get right with God and make a little visit to what was being pitched as an "old-fashioned tent revival" in Taylorsville.

In my head, I pictured folks speaking in tongues, some laying of hands to heal the sick, maybe some rattlesnakes. Growing up Catholic, even serving as an altar boy for a few years, I've seen plenty of religious rituals up close and in person, but nothing like the stuff I've seen from fundamentalist preachers on late-night cable.

The Taylorsville tent revival had nothing too outlandish, an unfortunate turn from a purely "entertain me!" point of view. Mostly it consisted of gospel readings, music and calls to join the Born Again party.

A fellow named "Doc Van" ran the show. He was the bandleader of a three-guitar/standup bass combo that played hymns both old and new -- some penned by Van the Man himself. And he was the featured sermonizer of the evening, bringing the evangelical noise with a treatise called "What does God Think of Hell?"

I daydreamed through some of Doc's sermon, and the fumes from a charcoal pit he fired up to represent hell were playing games with my mental capacities, but I'm pretty sure the answer was: God thinks Hell is useful as the home of the Lake of Fire, where he can throw the souls of all us sinners. And to hear Doc and his fellow revivalists list off all the things verboten by the Bible, everyone I know will be making that lake trip someday.

Doc Van's band was actually worth hearing, and he told me before he got into the Born Again biz about 23 years ago, he traveled "from California to Texas to Alaska to Wisconsin" playing guitars in bars. These days, he tours through the summer doing tent revivals and playing religious tunes.

When I complimented Doc on the music during a break in the proceedings, he said "That's old-fashioned country-gospel." When I told him it reminded me of some Elvis gospel albums I've heard, Doc gave me a steely look and didn't say a word. I guess The King isn't exactly the kind of role model Born Again preachers want to be compared to.

I never really felt any surge of any spirit that would have me join Doc Van's merry band, but the music certainly made the evening worthwhile. Even a perusal of The All-American Church Hymnal used by the congregation amused me for a spell.

Most of the songs came from the early 1900s, and had titles I never saw in any Catholic hymnals of my youth. "The Great Physician," for example, was a hymn I'd never heard. So was excellently titled "Dare to be a Daniel." I believe I saw Ralph Stanley once perform "When the Roll is Called Up Yonder," but maybe it just SEEMS like the kind of song he'd do just before or after "O Death."

Other songs in the hymnal didn't really act as great selling points for Doc's church. "Constantly Abiding" just doesn't sound like much fun. "Rock of Ages" doesn’t even have that "Gunter, glieben, glauchen, globen" thing that Def Leppard does at the beginning. "You May Have the Joy-Bells" sounds more like an STD ad campaign than a hymn.

"You may have the joy-bells. Call the Great Physician."

This column written under the influence of M.I.A.’s "Kala" album.

Sad news for all fans of legendary New York club CBGB, or the slew of pioneering bands that started out there, including Blondie, Ramones and Talking Heads: club owner/founder Hilly Kristal died yesterday.

Over in Sweden, some bad reviews of a Rolling Stones concert got the typically mellow -- or is that barely breathing? -- Keith Richards to respond with a letter.

In news that particularly amuses me, some dude lit the Burning Man statue on fire four days early.

And now, just because I was listening to them on the way to work today, some Fugazi:

There are many obvious mileposts on the road to adulthood.

Getting a full-time job. Getting hitched. Moving out of your childhood home. Pounding out a kid or two yourself. Buying a house. Getting a divorce.

I've only passed a couple of those mile markers myself. No doubt that's a major factor in my aging hipster/stunted adolescent lifestyle. Without kids and the massive responsibilities that come with them, or a Better Half to point out any obvious mistakes in judgement I'm about to make, the only differences I see between myself at 36 and myself at 21 are thinning hair, a growing waistline and dramatically fewer recreational "youthful indiscretions."

Lately, though, I've recognized another clear sign that I'm turning into one of the "old people" I once considered so laughable – I have become a target of nostalgia marketing, and I'm a totally willing
buyer.

It's sad, really. There was a time in the not too distant past when I was living as an SLC punk of sorts, complete with combat boots, multiple piercings and a mohawk fashioned after Joe Strummer's, circa "Combat Rock" (NOT a faux-hawk, all you posers rocking that weak sh-- with your Abercrombie and Fitch). And back then, I was constantly mocking all the "classic rock" acts filling Salt Lake radio and the fans who love them.

I thought of that last week as my day job as the music writer at The Salt Lake Tribune took me to three concerts full of bands from my childhood, aka the "new classic rock." To my surprise, I was genuinely excited about all three for one reason or another.

The Stray Cats/Pretenders/ZZ Top show was a blast straight from MTV in 1983, when I was 12 and just starting to embrace my music geekdom. I had never seen the Stray Cats, a long-time favorite since my older sis went through a rockabilly phase, and it was 45 minutes of bliss.

The next night I was at a 311 concert, and while I'm not a huge fan of the band's music now, I had a brief 311 phase way back when. They were the first band from Omaha, where I grew up, to break out nationally, and they played the clubs of Salt Lake some in the early '90s. I’m always amazed at the crowds they still draw, playing pretty much the same songs they've been playing since I lost interest 13 or so years ago.

And Saturday I made my way to West Valley City to see Ratt, the very definition of a "guilty pleasure" and always my favorite of the hair-metal bands. I'm sure my Music Critic Coolness Card will be torn up for admitting it, but that hour of '80s oldies was a real treat after a summer filled with "serious artists," even if it was only three-fifths of the real Ratt on stage.

Granted, I didn't have to pay for any of those shows out of my own pocket, but I would have considered it if I wasn’t there for work. And even before this week's gigs, I noticed a drift in my music toward the old. Most of the music I buy is from before I was born. When I pop on a music TV channel, it's usually VH1 Classic. The box sets lining the shelves where I'm writing this are full of dead old folks: Johnny Cash, The Clash, Bob Marley, Led Zeppelin, KISS (save the letters - I'm talking about former drummer Eric Carr, not Paul, Gene, Ace or Peter).

My nostalgia trip extends to TV. I'm one of the consumers who have made TV series the most popular DVD sales category, and I'm sure we're all trying to capture some earlier, happier time when we pay for reruns of shows that we've seen for free for years. Why else would my collection include "The Muppet Show," "Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends" and 10 years of "The Simpsons?"

My most recent movie purchases? How about "Fletch" and "The Blues Brothers," now taking up space on my shelves next to other blasts from my movie-watching past: "Caddyshack," "Chariots of Fire," "The Wizard of Oz," even though it's on TV for free at least once a year.

And I might be the only person to ever buy a copy of "Three O'Clock High," a pretty weak teen comedy filmed at Ogden High School in the summer and fall of 1986. I had several high school cohorts land either speaking parts or roles as extras, and I couldn't resist even that little bit of looking back on my Ogden years when I saw the movie on sale at Best Buy.

And I HATED high school.

This column written under the influence of Saturday's "Beavis and Butthead" marathon on MTV2.

If this were television, you could see me holding my breath until Salt Lake City gets an almost reunited Van Halen show. I still want Michael Anthony on bass instead of Eddie's kid, but I'll take Diamond Dave in trade for Sammy all day long.

In today's weird tidbits, some punk stole The King's piece, USA Today asks "Why is 'Superbad' popular?", and Britney is still totally crazy.

Looking for something to do tonight? You can catch Fountains of Wayne at The Depot, Donny Osmond at the Capitol Theater or join me at the Usana Amphitheatre for the "Rock the Bells" tour, featuring Wu-Tang Clan, Cypress Hill, Nas, Talib Kweli and a cast of thousands more.

Here's a taste of Cypress Hill on "The Simpsons:"