Once upon a time in the early 1990s I got together with a young Hampshire college student and punk rock juggernaut named Jesse Kimball and Western Connecticut ne’er do well Steve Dore (late of Maude, more recently of Casual Dots & Deep Lust) to form what we conceived as the perfect band for Northampton, Mass. Jesse dubbed us “Goblin Market”. We were certain we would be awesome. We had precious little material. We never took the act outside of the warehouse. Somewhere I have one tape of us rehearsing. It is a wobbly document that I dimly remember the squall of. It must be more brilliant than I think.
A couple years passed. I went to visit Jesse in his new home of Portland, Oregon, where he seemed to be employed by Adidas (yes, Adidas… in Nike’s home town) He hooked me up with the puffiest, goofiest sneakers of all time in mis-matched colors that were a factory prototype reject and were exactly my size. He was in a proper band by then, Portland’s The Automatics, with another Jesse.
Jump forward 15 years ahead to just a few months ago and he tracks me down through some art and our mutual love of pinball. So, a few day ago, I get this cryptic email from him.
“Tonight memphis taproom 9pm diners driveins and dives.
or tune it to the Food Network at home to witness my trip to flavortown”
OK. Dude, I didn’t even know you could cook. I’m thinking Jesse is some barfly, passerby or walk on in this show. No. He is the star. Nearly half of the episode of Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives “From Pork to Tofu – Episode DV1101H” is devoted to Jesse’s fine work at Philadelphia’s Memphis Taproom. He more than holds his own up against host Guy Fieri, who is constantly amused by Jesse’s personality and amazed at his kitchen skills. No joking. I watched this one twice. Jesse is an awesome kitchen wizard. Jesse’s food-related bio has to be read to be believed. That is truly epic. Catch Jesse on D, D-I & D today, Sunday, January 16 at 3pm.
The Automatics have at least four CDs still available.
You can go get them now from teh Amazon: The Automatics | Go Bananas! | Murder / Suicide | 20 Golden Greats
UPDATE: Now with video. Check out this condensed preview of the episode:
