I tried to type all this earlier. It froze up on me, but unlike Emily and Is normal computer problems I was merely knocked offline by a phonecall.
So I met crazybob yesterday! Ethiopian food, a couple beers, and a great show, with Yo La Tengo. Three outta three aint bad.
Crazybob is cool. I dont think hes crazy, but then again, as with my previous Van Gogh quote, I dunno if I can define sane He got good SATs, grows legal herbs, and occasionally lapses into being Beaker from the Muppets. But anyway, hes fun, and his friends Steve and Vera were too! Vera is funny as hell, and an English major so she liked my job. Its nice when people think Im cool for being a librarianof course, reality check is I sign people up for computers more than anything, followed by taking shit from the public, and dont devote the time to serious fiction-reading thatwell, English majors might expect (hi, Erin and Sorcha) but we did resolve I should read Lord Jim and Anna Karenina soon.
Portastatic was okay. I knew they had Mac from Superchunk but never really heard them. They had mostly normal straight songs, some better than others, but ended with a fabulous noise-guitar-loop song. Mac went WEERRR ahh ruurr a nrrr a ruuh a WEERRR ahh ruurr a nrrr a ruuh and looped it, and then played maracas over a funky-azz baseline.
Yo La Tengo defied my expectations, all right. I expected quiet songs, from recent album reviews. Instead, they did lots of analog-synth-loop songs and some hard rock, before Ira Kaplan said, You mightve noticed we have some microphones at the side of the stage, and he brought out three guys from Sun Ras Arkestra: two trombonists and a flute-player (I dont say flautistexcept just then I said it, but it sounds so dirty, like pianist), and they did a bunch of Sun Ra songs, including the recent cover they recorded in which Sun pointed out that nuclear war is a motherfucker thatll blow yr azz up. They did a Little Honda cover that stomped hard, broke down into a total NOISECHAOS jam, then came back into line. They did a gorgeous Sun Ra ballad about sleeping and dreaming, which Georgia sungand in the encores they did the second Dream Syndicate cover Ive seen them do in as many shows. They did Tell Me When Its Over last night, dedicating it to George Pelecanos. The first show I saw, Karl Precoda was in the opening band and he came out during their set and they did Halloween (which is worth buying The Days Of Wine And Roses for by itself).
While waiting with Bob at the concessions stand, I looked back and was shocked to see Ira, Georgia, and James talking to folks. Sure, Id talked to people at shows before (Chris Knox, Terri Wahl, Allison Wolfe) but never at a show this big. I heard Ira say that, with all the encore time, the Sun Ra horns had to rush to the station to catch a night train to Philly. I asked him if he would keep up the Dream Syndicate trend by doing Definitely Clean at the next show, and he admitted, somewhat humbly, that those are the only two in our book from that album.
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My dream band for the day is.more Yo La Tengo with whichever manasskicking guests they should choose to bring to the gig ! ! !
So I met crazybob yesterday! Ethiopian food, a couple beers, and a great show, with Yo La Tengo. Three outta three aint bad.
Crazybob is cool. I dont think hes crazy, but then again, as with my previous Van Gogh quote, I dunno if I can define sane He got good SATs, grows legal herbs, and occasionally lapses into being Beaker from the Muppets. But anyway, hes fun, and his friends Steve and Vera were too! Vera is funny as hell, and an English major so she liked my job. Its nice when people think Im cool for being a librarianof course, reality check is I sign people up for computers more than anything, followed by taking shit from the public, and dont devote the time to serious fiction-reading thatwell, English majors might expect (hi, Erin and Sorcha) but we did resolve I should read Lord Jim and Anna Karenina soon.
Portastatic was okay. I knew they had Mac from Superchunk but never really heard them. They had mostly normal straight songs, some better than others, but ended with a fabulous noise-guitar-loop song. Mac went WEERRR ahh ruurr a nrrr a ruuh a WEERRR ahh ruurr a nrrr a ruuh and looped it, and then played maracas over a funky-azz baseline.
Yo La Tengo defied my expectations, all right. I expected quiet songs, from recent album reviews. Instead, they did lots of analog-synth-loop songs and some hard rock, before Ira Kaplan said, You mightve noticed we have some microphones at the side of the stage, and he brought out three guys from Sun Ras Arkestra: two trombonists and a flute-player (I dont say flautistexcept just then I said it, but it sounds so dirty, like pianist), and they did a bunch of Sun Ra songs, including the recent cover they recorded in which Sun pointed out that nuclear war is a motherfucker thatll blow yr azz up. They did a Little Honda cover that stomped hard, broke down into a total NOISECHAOS jam, then came back into line. They did a gorgeous Sun Ra ballad about sleeping and dreaming, which Georgia sungand in the encores they did the second Dream Syndicate cover Ive seen them do in as many shows. They did Tell Me When Its Over last night, dedicating it to George Pelecanos. The first show I saw, Karl Precoda was in the opening band and he came out during their set and they did Halloween (which is worth buying The Days Of Wine And Roses for by itself).
While waiting with Bob at the concessions stand, I looked back and was shocked to see Ira, Georgia, and James talking to folks. Sure, Id talked to people at shows before (Chris Knox, Terri Wahl, Allison Wolfe) but never at a show this big. I heard Ira say that, with all the encore time, the Sun Ra horns had to rush to the station to catch a night train to Philly. I asked him if he would keep up the Dream Syndicate trend by doing Definitely Clean at the next show, and he admitted, somewhat humbly, that those are the only two in our book from that album.
-------------------------------------------------------------
My dream band for the day is.more Yo La Tengo with whichever manasskicking guests they should choose to bring to the gig ! ! !
VIEW 8 of 8 COMMENTS
as for the sebadoh suggestions, we'll have to get into that via email. far too many details are involved for these small, simple posts. look for me in your mailbox later today.
The shining paper is about what kubrick took out of and added to his adaptation of the novel and why he might have done it (my theory is that kubrick likes everything to be as dark and depressing as possible)
But it's mostly bullshit, as is much of my academic writing.