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Jeff Sarli Gets Satisfaction

A YEAR AGO, Jeff Sarli was in Branson, Mo., playing upright bass in a stage tribute to Patsy Cline. He was doing seven, eight, nine shows a week for the bused-in audiences. He'd arrived in May and would leave three months later, despite the good paycheck. "The scene in Branson just wasn't me," says the 37-year-old man with a soul patch on his chin and a mop of hair falling over his eyes. "I'm into rock 'n' roll, y'know?"

It's a good thing he is, because Sarli has just been tapped by one of rock's true gods, Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, to play bass on Richards's upcoming recording sessions. "Man, I saw the Stones on Ed Sullivan 30 years ago and remember it clear as day," says Sarli from his home in Annapolis. "For something like this to come together, it's more than I could hope to ever happen."

Not a bad gig for a guy who's been kicking around D.C. bands and bars for nearly 20 years. "I first started working in D.C. around 1979," says Sarli. "I was playing with Billy Hancock and the Tennessee Rockets. That's when I first started playing upright, and I kinda sucked back then." He stayed busy though, getting his chops down with the Dynettes, Tru Fax & the Insaniacs, Bob Margolin, the Uptown Rhythm Kings, Tom Principato, Bill Kirchen and especially Big Joe & the Dynaflows.

Sarli and his red-and-black acoustic bass have also hit the road several times over the past 10 years with bluesman John Mooney. When he returned from Branson, Sarli called Mooney in New Orleans, who invited Sarli into the recording studio down in the Crescent City. Producer Rob Fraboni liked the way Sarli clicked with drummer George Recile and Sarli ended up on several tracks of Mooney's latest disc, "Against the Wall" (House of Blues).

"Then George told me he was doing drums on the Keith thing," says Sarli in his seriously cool-cat drawl. "He said I should do it too. I said, `You go tell Keith and I'll hold my breath.' " But Sarli had someone else to champion his cause. Mooney's producer Fraboni was also lined up to produce "the Keith thing." One thing really led to another, and in early May Sarli found himself in a Connecticut recording studio for a tryout.

"I walked in and there was Keith sitting at a piano goofing around," says Sarli. "I just grabbed my bass and we started jamming. The tape was running, and we might get a song out of it. Then he picked up a guitar and he started playing and I thought, `Goddamn, that is definitely Keith Richards, in case you hadn't noticed.' " After hanging out for the day, Sarli headed home. Fraboni called and said that Richards "dug the way I sounded on upright and definitely wants me to play on the record," says Sarli.

The timing is "really strange, because in the past couple of years I've been getting back into the Stones in a big way, and listening a lot to Keith's two solo records and I remember thinking about a year ago, `Man, I'd really love to play with this guy.' Now here it is happening."

So having passed the audition, Sarli's waiting for the studio time to be nailed down (probably late July), and with time to kill, is waiting on calls from D.C. bands for some pick-up gigs. With a laugh, Sarli says he's currently available "for weddings and bar mitzvahs. Just because I get to go play with Keith doesn't mean I don't still need work!"

Costume Jewel-ry
A quick lesson in not believing everything you read: In an advertisement on Page 55 of the July issue of Spin magazine, there's an ad for singer-songwriter Jewel, whose videogenic face has finally made her a star a year after the release of her debut recording, "Pieces of You."

There she is, all half-page of her, staring out at the reader with her golden eyes. In big letters superimposed over Jewel's flowing blonde locks it says: "As close to heaven as you can get." And right under those eight words it says "The Washington Post."

That seems straightforward enough. But wait! Let's check this out.

In a profile of Jewel that ran on Feb. 1 in this paper's Style section, Liz Leyden wrote: "Though a variety of critics have raved over her voice, which has been called everything from ethereal and crystalline to as close to heaven as you can get, her lyrics have been criticized for being just a little too sweet, a little too naive." Out of that sentence talking about what others have said about Jewel, Atlantic Records cut-and-pasted "As close to heaven as you can get." Hmph.

Just for the record, upon the release of "Pieces of You," Washington Post critic Geoffrey Himes wrote that Jewel "may yet write songs worthy of her remarkable voice."

Blossoming Birchmere
Word's been out for some time that something was going on with the Birchmere, the internationally known Alexandria nightclub that features folk, country, bluegrass, rock and more. Rumors had it closing. Moving. Expanding.

There was talk that owner Gary Oelze was so tired after 30 years of running the club that he and his wife were going to sell and move. "It's true," Oelze says. "Linda and I were going to go to Kentucky and fish all the time, but then we hatched this plan with my two partners and it seemed like too much fun to leave."

"The Plan" is an ambitious one, one that will surely bring new life to a less-than-booming stretch of Mount Vernon Avenue. Oelze and his team are looking to transform a 56,000-square-foot industrial building two blocks up from the club's current location into "a Birchmere complex."

Inside this football field-size structure, Oelze has plans for a "street" along which you'll find a re-creation of the current Birchmere (with seating for 350 to 500), a 200-seat restaurant ("roadhouse style"), a separate bar, a gift shop/record store, a game room, a microbrewery and even a brewery museum. The steel pillars inside the building will be turned into "street lights." "What you'll feel when you walk in off Mount Vernon is that you've stumbled onto a street in Memphis," says Oelze. "It'll have a real theme to it, and it'll be much more than just a listening room the way the Birchmere is now."

In nine months, when Oelze expects the doors to open on the new Birchmere, you'll be able to buy Birchmere Beer, a product he hopes to make available to bars and restaurants across the region and eventually nationwide. He says feedback on his plans (which are still in the blueprint stage) has been nothing but positive, though filled with concern about the club. "One thing people say to me is `Don't change the Birchmere.' So we're not. While there will be plenty of things to do before and after the shows, once you walk into the club you'll feel like nothing changed."

Summertime Views
Though summer's officially only a week old, we all know it really starts at the end of May. And so much has happened since then, it's tough narrowing down the Nightwatch highlights, but here's a very capricious list of the best so far.

May 31: The full moon rising over Wolf Trap's Filene Center as Emmylou Harris and her opening act, Lucinda Williams, team up to sing Williams's "Sweet Old World."

May 31: The Graverobbers performing a medley of "Taste of Honey" with the MC5's "Kick Out the Jams" during their four-set night at the Meeting Place on L Street downtown.

June 1: The Make-Up's Ian Svenonius doing his Prince imitation on the opening night of the club Red (1802 Thomas Jefferson Place NW.)

June 2: Sunset at Fort Meade on the closing night of the Capitol Jazz Festival while Take 6 sings like angels.

June 8: Midnight cheese fries at Arlington's Galaxy Hut, with Pixies' "Monkey Gone to Heaven" on the jukebox.

June 12: Graham Parker strumming a killer version of Prince's "Cream" on his acoustic guitar at the Birchmere. (Later that night Parker cleaned up on the Funhouse pinball machine at Alexandria's Laughing Lizard Lounge.)

June 19: The bowl of mixed nuts at the Madison Hotel bar (not a peanut in sight) to go along with the perfect summer drink, Mount Gay rum and tonic (extra lime).

June 20: The official opening of the 9:30 club's no cover Backbar, including the welcome return of the "Frozen Blue Thing."