He's good. Very good. Certainly not the best "ever".
He'll never make it big. His singing will hold him back, if not his personality and ego (which far surpasses his talent, imo).
I have several cds, and have watched him live since before he moved from San Antonio to Austin. Used to watch him play REALLY small clubs, and I just can't find anything to call him that won't get edited by the profanity filter. "Jerk" is the best I can do, given the limitations of the forum.
It's hard to watch old snaggletooth play after seeing him mistreat fans so often.
I have seen the look of perfect disillusionment, and it was a MM fan just GUSHING to him after a gig as MM was winding up his mike cord. MM made eye contact with the guy as he was winding, as if he was listening, and the kid was telling him how great he was and how he studied him and wanted to learn to play like him, etc. THE INSTANT MM finished winding that cord, he turned his back and went about his business with the kid in mid sentence. Not a "sorry, gotta pack up" not a raised eyebrow, not a minute change of expression. Just a 180 degree turn. It was 100% apparent (especially to the kid) that he had never been listening, even though he did LOOK AT the kid.
I wasn't surprised at all. I was standing there waiting for MM to demean the kid (or maybe I was hoping MM had changed, somehow?), and he did it in spectacular fashion. The look on the kid's face as he turned around to leave the stage area was hilarious/horrible, depending on how you look at it. Just another notch on MM's guitar...
[edit - this happened at Floore's Country Store, within the last year]
[This message has been edited by TX AG 88 (edited 3/26/2005 7:53a).]