They’re Arlo’s kids.

I just had the most amazing experience. You see in the wee hours, the 17th, 18th and 19th floor are turned over to these showcases, hotel rooms with players. Last night I was flummoxed, but tonight I got tips.

My newfound buddy from the High Sierra Music Festival told me to show up at 10:30 to hear this guy from the Mother Hips and his wife.

I couldn’t get there right away, I couldn’t find an empty elevator. And when I finally found room in a car the sign said the limit was sixteen, and I counted nineteen inside. Do elevators only plunge in New York City?

But I eventually made it to find Tim and Nicki Bluhm harmonizing as good as any record, with no tricks, just their regular true voices. It was staggering. We remember the glorious background singers of yesteryear, everybody from Merry Clayton to Rita Coolidge. We’ve heard the voices on the albums, so pure. Could anybody replicate those live?

Turns out Nicki Bluhm can.

She’s a freak of nature.

I couldn’t believe she was real.

And then I stumbled into Renee Bodie’s room, where I heard two girls singing:

Knock me up if you love me

Now one was playing a guitar, and the other a uke, as a matter of fact, they were billed as "Folk Uke". And the song was meandering along until…we were hit over the head with this line.

But it only got better!

The song ends and one of them says, we heard we were coming to the FUCK ALLIANCE!

I didn’t think they made people like this anymore. One was wearing a dress, the other a white sweater, there were no tattoos in sight, one looked like she was studying for her PhD, the other resembled nothing so much as a homemaker.

And then they started singing about being hit.

Strip off your belt and give me a welt

Huh?

In a nation of pink ribbons, where domestic violence is just to the left of child molestation, no one even makes jokes about being hit. But like the best of comedians, these women did.

And they finished with a number entitled "Motherfucker Got Fucked Up".

It’s like everything you know is wrong. That SoundScan is obsolete and "People" magazine is an alternative universe.

The action, the mainstream, the hip are on the tippity-top of the Marriott tonight!