Let’s try this again.
“Chicago at Night” live at KCRW in 2012 is the oldest live recording of the oldest Spoon song that I could find on the internet, because the internet has a weirdly short memory and, quite ironically, a rather large blind spot for the decade or so following its inception. So, for no other reason than we can, let’s take a little trip.
The year is 2002 or 2003 (or 2004). The “club” is little more (arguably less) than a small corner stage in the back room of a shitty upstate New York bar filled with smoke because you could do that back then. The room is mostly full mostly because Guided By Voices is playing next, but anyone paying attention in this (admittedly uncertain) moment knows that Spoon is also a good band and probably a great one and they are playing right now.
Even back then it seemed like a miracle that this GBV/Spoon tour could exist at all, a chance of circumstance akin to turning a telescope to the sky at precisely the right moment and place to witness something very cool. Robert Pollard was nearing (or at) the self-proclaimed end of what would have been by any measure a prolific career (it was, in fact, a brief intermission), while Spoon, following the release of 2002’s Kill the Moonlight, had been launched into the indie rock stratosphere. The fact that the latter was opening for the former was technically correct, but to return to the universal metaphor, it felt like catching two stars at opposite ends of their lives — the venerable GBV having attempted to burn very brightly but now teetering on the verge of implosion, Spoon growing inexorably brighter by the minute.
Spoon and Pollard combined to play for 4+ hours that night — there are pages in the dictionary with fewer words than a GBV set list — and if I never see another rock show that’s fine with me. The color of cigarette smoke, filthy walls, and alcohol is a very specific shade of nostalgia, but in retrospect it couldn’t have been anything else.
Who’s got good “I saw them back when…” stories? Let’s have ’em!
Not that long ago, but a damn good live show, Father John Misty in 2013 in Philly at a smaller venue. Keitel went along to humor me and became a convert. And he was less well known to the extent that I got more than one “I didn’t know you were Catholic” comment when I told friends where we were going.
I’ve had my ass handed to me for the better part of 2 weeks now. I’m getting it from all sides, work and home and can’t seem to get a win anywhere I turn. Had no power most the day yesterday and today had the other accounting peeps call in leaving me flying solo and driving me mad. The power outage was most my town and I couldn’t even get to the pot shop or make a beer run…oy vey.
Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome from Oyster Bay. Billy Joel…
Blackout, heatwave, .44 caliber homicide
The bums drop dead and dogs gone mad
in packs on the West Side
Oh! Okay, so I am older than dirt and forgot about this. I saw Billy Joel in 1977 and chickened out of the invitation to stay after and party with the band. Also, sorry for your troubles.
I sat next to Billy Joel’s manager in first class going to Hawaii when I used to work for an airline. We got drunk as hell together & he asked me if I could help get him weed for the concert. I hooked him up and he gave me tickets but I was so tired and drunk I didn’t want to go. When I told my girlfriend I had free tickets she MADE me take her. I ended up falling asleep at the show and she was pretty pissed off. I wasn’t a big Joel fan at the time but the guy had some amazing stories of managing for Zep’s final tour and smoking coke w/ Ricky Nelson on a plane. Good times!
“I ended up falling asleep at the show…”
That’s called “Passing Out.”
Hey now, jet lag is real, time change is real, being really fucked up is real. Yeah, I passed out
Also, I like Spoon quite a bit. They phoned it in when I saw them locally at a small venue. Your experience with them sounds transcendent- good for you!
That’s a bummer! There are some fun parallels between GBV and Spoon’s career arcs, but the highs and lows of Spoon’s are more obvious. Their sound and lineup have changed — a lot.
Pandemix
🤘
Long before all the hippies migrated from the Grateful Dead to them, I was at a small club in Breckenridge, CO. after snowboarding and this quirky cool band came out. We asked if we could film them (of course it is on my 8mm camcorder that I can’t even play from anymore). They said “no problem” and they jammed all night long. We bought a cassette of their music & I didn’t really think much of them again until years later a Deadhead friend of mine told me all the Deadheads were migrating to the String Cheese Incident.
Hell yes
I saw Tool open for Henry Rollins at a club in Boston about a month after they released “Opiate” in 1992. The place held 750 people. I don’t think it was even sold out. I’d never heard of them, but they did make a serious impression. “Opiate” is still my favorite CD from them.
!!!
About two weeks before that, I saw Pearl Jam in the same club. Again, the place held 750 people. They were touring for “Ten” and hadn’t really gotten any airplay yet. Kind of a weird song to open with:
Cream – Spoonful
Winter, 1982, I was in Jamestown, NY with a group of friends. We were bar hopping, stopped at a place called Mothers. I was drinking White Russians out of a Mason Jar(they were ahead of their time.) A local band was playing covers, the young vocalist was whirling like a dervish and her voice was amazing. My friends wanted to leave but I refused to go with them. I told them I was staying to listen to the band,to pick me up at closing. My boyfriend was pissed because he didn’t like me doing my own thing. But I knew the band was something special and dug my heels in. Eventually he gave me enough cash to drink on and I happily watched both their sets. I don’t think I even spoke to another person outside of ordering drinks,I was so entranced by 10,000 Maniacs and the singer I later learned was Natalie Merchant. I’ve been following her career ever since.
That’s fantastic.
Chris Stapleton covers The Allman Brothers “Whipping Post”.
When I was in my early twenties, I lived in my girlfriend’s house with her family while we were in between apartments and her younger brothers would have their friends over to play and write music. Sometimes it was cool to chill with them, but when you’re 20-something, it isn’t all that cool to chill with young teenagers and at times, it was pretty annoying. Although I did think one of them in particular was a pretty cool girl and outgoing and funny, I’d close the bedroom door after complaining about the noise and I would laugh that her response was that she wanted more studio time.
A couple years (if that?) later, this was the number one song in Canada (and I’ll always be a fan):
You could have been sk8er boi!
I also want to throw these in with no explanation for doxing reasons:
If he’s not going to do it, I might as well: Loveshaq and I knew this guy when he was just a little 18-year-old weirdo giving guitar lessons out of his parents’ house:
Saw his band play a free show in the student union or something at the University of Hawaii, a club or two, and the Hawaii State Fair where they didn’t even have a bass player. He went on to record one of the greatest thrash metal albums of all time:
I was saving that for my Thursday thing. Marty is such a freak, I still can’t fathom he was our guitar teacher!
…thursday, you say?
I didn’t say what Thursday but maybe I should make it this Thursday?
…so, I forget if I mentioned this a million times already but I went to one of those british boarding schools you hear horror stories about…& therefore I knew a bunch of people who endured a similar fate…some of them went to a particular place in deepest, darkest dorset…& I was in their company when I saw a band perform to much teenage acclaim but which I personally thought was god-awful
…a lot of affected teen-angst that sat poorly in the context of a text-book privileged existence & the lead singer (who I was informed wrote the band’s material & at least a few girls thought was a big swoony deal) was the most affected of all…flouncing about singing songs I couldn’t distinguish from one another…with the exception of one particularly pretentious attempt to compare his work to shakespeare & himself to “the player king” from the play within the play in Hamlet…the only lyric of his I’ve ever been able to remember for more than 5mins being “I am the player king/I know everything”…ladies & gentlemen, I give you…Chris Martin
…or rather, I don’t – since the subsequent good fortune coldplay have enjoyed is a mystery to me…I could name at least three people from the same year of the same school who were more talented…so I don’t aim to post any of that insipid fare in these hallowed halls
…so here’s a bit of kingdem for you, featuring the riddimkilla himself, Rodney P…who I might have met one time…
“The player king.” Amazing.
…if smug had an atomic weight it would have been a critical mass event
…& the worst thing is I think the metaphor could have something going for it in the right hands…although, in his defense (which is not something I’d have foreseen me offering) he was a teenager at the time?
saw these guys back in 2001..i think.. in fort worth,tx
i think they were only just starting to get big at the time…i’d not heard of them over in europeland yet thats for sure
anyhoo…was a pretty good introduction to the american metal scene for me…turns out you guys mosh just as hard as us generally drunker europeans :p (that 21 year old drinking age was noticable to me…mostly coz i was mostly sober at a gig for once..lol)
Back the first time I lived in Uptown (Minneapolis), twenty-ish years ago, I worked at a little place called The Bryant Lake Bowl, which is a bowling alley/ bar/ restaurant/ live theater.
I worked in the theater part, as a box-officer (selling tickets to customers at the door, setting up the greenroom, taking ticket orders off the voicemail line, etc.).
We had all sorts of random shows, from the weekly Drag King show, to local theater groups** to live music & the occasional music debut party.
But one of the nights I’ll never forget was an Atmosphere & Heiruspecs show.
I swear to god, the performers for *that* show tried to put about 56 people on their comps list, because the show had about 20 different rappers/ artists/ spoken word performers.
It was SUCH.A.HOT.DAMN.MESS!!! I pretty much LOATHED everyone involved by the time I was able to close my ticket booth, and I thiiiink we maybe *sold* 38-50 tickets–there were more performers & comped bodies in the theater than paying customers…
Of course, NOW I wish I’d stayed to watch the show!🤣🤣🤣
But that night, all I wanted to do was go home & get away from all the loud little *pains-in-my-ass,* who made working the door so awful that night.
But, yeah, I missed out on my chance to see Atmosphere, Brother Ali, te rest of the Rhymesayers crew, Heiruspecs, and Dessa live…
It sounded like it was probably a fun show, but it was SO loud and I was just SO sick of the bullshit of one person after another coming out & demanding that I “Add my friend____!!!” to the comped tickets list, that I left as soon as I could after shutting the booth down.
That was also the show that put a hard limit to the number of comped tickets at a BLB show.
Before that night, there was always an unwritten rule of “yes, we can allow you to bring a few folks to get in free” for performers. But after that show had *more comps than paid guests,* and the bands STILL wanted a cut of door revenues (I can’t remember how the house manager ended up settling it out with them, but iirc, they were told they wouldn’t be allowed to *do* any more shows at The Bowl, if they didn’t suck it up for that particular show & understand that “since the house LOST money, y’all aren’t getting a cut of the little revenue there WAS, after your basically open-doors stunt”… (since they DID play more shows there in the lead-up to them all getting bigger) it appeared they finally agreed that doing a “free show” that night WAS worth the ability to have a venue to play at.😉
**That’s also how/where I met Stephen King, and didn’t say anything to him other than “Have a good evening & enjoy the show!”
I stupidly thought he was just a dude who *looked like* Stephen King, and I figured he got “Hey, you look kinda like….” ALL the time.
I decided when I was selling him his ticket, that it must be a TOTAL p.i.t.a. to hear that ALLLLLLL the time, and just let it go without being said… He looked at me for a couple extra beats, like he WAS expecting me to say it, quirked his head a bit, smiled, nodded, said “Thanks,” took his ticket, & went inside the theater, and it wasn’t until my friend the house manager/lighting tech asked me (practically jumping up & down🤣), if I’d seen him, that I realized it WAS King, and *that* was why he’d given me the head quirk, nod, & grin.😉😂
He was there, because a local theater group had petitioned him for the permission to do.. I think it was Misery?.. as a live play.
It took a LOT of negotiations for them to get permission, but eventually he ok’d it. He flew in to watch during opening week, and after seeing the performance, told the guys involved that ANY time they wanted to do any of his stories as a live show, they had his blessing😁🤗💞
I know they ended up doing both Misery & Shawshank while I worked at The Bowl, I’m not sure if they did others, too, or not.