A dream is coming true for my friend Luke Flowers and I get to be a part of its realization this coming Thursday.

But first, a little history. Not many people can say (or should admit) that they stumbled across Bob Dylan’s beautiful/haunting songs through their obsession with The Wallflowers. I saw Jakob Dylan (Wallflowers’ front man and Bob’s son) on the cover of Rolling Stone back in the late ’90’s and still have that dusty magazine tucked away in an old trunk at my parents’ house. I fell in love with his eyes and his songs and can still sing every word to “6th Avenue Heartache” and “One Headlight.” Here’s a screen shot of my prized possession:

I eventually learned that Jakob had a dad and that his dad was Bob Dylan (born Bob Zimmerman). And then my eyes were opened to the music that scored the better part of the 60’s and 70’s. And this music, songs like “All Along the Watch Tower” and “Blowin’ in the Wind”, are the reason for this post.

This Thursday night, Luke Flowers and The Zimmermans (I am, in fact, a “Zimmerman”) will be performing an entire set of Bob Dylan songs at Pikes Perk. Our 7 piece band will start around 7pm. This will just warm you up for the soon-to-be-released biopic movie. As always, Luke has designed a killer poster that further depicts the striking similarities between son (above) and father (below):

Jeff Caylor will be playing at Rico’s (a restaurant, toy store, book store and venue!) tonight starting at 6:30pm. Jon Collins and Don McCaleb will be sitting in with him, both featured musicians on the “Okay” album. Steve Russo will also be adding his drum skills on a couple songs.

I’m still deciding if I’m going to play/sing. I’ve been fighting a cold for a few days now and was slightly delusional last night (thanks TheraFlu!) as I fell asleep. Kept seeing giant purple spiders crawling out of my dresser drawers. And was then convinced that an elephant’s trunk was slowly creaping out from under a pile of socks. It might be best if I just rested tonight, lest I mistake an audience member for a circus animal.

But, either way, I’ll be there to enjoy the great music.

I have an old pair of New Balance shoes that I bought before I knew they were cool. I’ve had them for probably 7 years and they are the color of pee. Every time I’m tempted to toss them, I think to myself, “Leora, not many people have shoes the color of pee. You should hold on to these.” And I do. And I wear them still. Maybe I’ll wear them on Friday night. Luke Flowers (and me, Dawn and Paul) will be opening for John Troast and his red shoes.

Taken from his website:

Empathy is often described as the ability to “put oneself in another’s shoes”. If the shoes belonged to Jon Troast, they would be red. The folk rock artist from Wisconsin wears a trusty pair of red Reeboks whenever he performs. Literally putting on someone else’s shoes might not make a big difference, but metaphorically speaking, it could have a profound impact. That’s called empathy.

He’s about to release his sixth project called “Second Story.” The show will be at Dogtooth Coffee this coming Friday night. Starts at 6pm.