Empire Blues: The Devaronian's Tale, by Daniel Keys Moran

I found this one to be one of the better stories. Not so much because of the character, but because of the story itself and the way it is written. Kardue is as evil and rotten as there is in that town, which is saying something in Mos Eisley, so he's not someone you take a liking to.

The story is written as a first person narrative, which I thought made it much more engaging. He tells how he came to live on Tatooine (which would make an interesting novel itself) and why he stayed.

You learn a lot about his daily routine and how he spends his free time, etc. He has a low opinion of just about everyone, including himself. For me, his cynicism is what makes him so interesting.

He's a big collector of music and part of the story is him trying to arrange to see the cantina band, who he thinks are fantastic.

Obviously all of these stories have some relation to the cantina scene from the film, but this one has almost no connection to the movie story, other than part of it happening on that day. I found that to make it even more enjoyable. It was nice to get away from the film for a while. This is another good example of expanding Star Wars, not relying on it.