Review: Robyn Hitchcock at the Somerville Theatre

In a break from my personal housing crisis, the Swami and I saw Robyn Hitchcock last Friday in Somerville. We first saw him with the Egyptians in Columbus back in 1993, and I remember that show being awesome. Next, after moving here in 2000 we saw him with Grant Lee Phillips at the Middle East, where they screwed around with a lot of cover songs, including an infamous rendition of “Kung Fu Fighting.” Also thoroughly enjoyable, of course. So when I saw he was coming by again, I immediately bought some tix.

What I didn’t realize until the day of was that Robyn was traveling to a few cities across the US performing the entirety of I Often Dream of Trains, his second solo album from 1984. Now, this is where I reveal that I must not actually be much of a fan, because despite this album being legendary among the knowing, I’d never heard it at all. But what it meant was that I got a very cool opportunity to listen to an album for the first time, played live.

Well, it was fantastic. I mean, you have to take Robyn with a grain of salt sometimes, because he has a love for surrealism that often pushes his lyrics right past reasonable into the downright silly. But the music, the music always makes up for it by being absolutely beautiful, or catchy, or some diabolical combination of both. And with two sidemen that play just about everything except drums, you get a very fluid and multilayered sound that can fill a room without puncturing your eardrums. It’s like a chamber orchestra for the slightly insane.

For visual aid, I can direct the curious to a random guy’s Flickr page, where he took some pics of the event. You can even see Robyn in the polka-dot shirt holding the polka-dot guitar, which is somewhere between totally cool and extremely dorky.

Finally, a word of hurrah to the Somerville Theatre. They’ve more than taken up the slack since Avalon disappeared. Granted, I think GA venues like Avalon tend to stir up more energy in both bands and audiences, but there was always a huge downside of drunk assholes screaming inane nonsense to each other at the bars, an annoying person constantly elbowing you in the back, and an annoying girl in front of you constantly flipping her hair in your face. There’s something to be said for the better behaved types who come to Somerville. Also, how weird is it that you can get popcorn and Twizzlers at a rock show? Hey, not weird if they’re playing movies in the room next door.

Goodbye Sandy Allen

Everybody, please break out your Time and Tide albums, Sandy Allen has died today. She was 6'3" at age 10; I didn’t break the 5-foot mark until I was 12!

Review: Crowded House at the Somerville Theatre

Rather than attempt to be coherent, I’m going to do this in a more stream-of-consciousness style, because I’m still buzzed and not interested in making sense. First, I want to thank the Swami for indulging my need to go to both shows, even though they were on a Monday and Tuesday, because I really couldn’t have lived with myself if I’d missed one.

First night (setlist, although see below for more details): We were up in the front part of the balcony, but I wasn’t about to complain because I damn near missed out on getting any tickets at all. (Foolishly gave up a pair of orch seats right at 10:04 on sale day and then couldn’t get anything for an agonizing fifteen minutes.) It’s not like the venue is huge, either, so you’re never that far from the action.

Funny thing is that I thought the show started out kind of low on energy, although we got some songs I really enjoy (“Everything Is Good for You” and “Say That Again,” for example). And they’re workshopping new songs, which is something special that I’ve never seen with the Crowdies before. But then things really took off. We got absolutely scorching versions of “When You Come” (which Neil had to interrupt because he thought he was going to sneeze, heh!) and “It’s Only Natural,” with Nick at one point cheerfully abusing a tambourine like a madman. And the encores kept the energy level high, with a great version of “Fingers of Love” featuring one of Mark’s magisterial solos.

And then—chaos! Neil actually agreed to attempt someone’s impossible request of “Mary of the South Seas,” which he has obviously forgotten almost entirely. He sang the chorus a couple of times while the rest of the band looked quizzical (Mark did his soldierly best to accompany on harmonica). Then Neil started thinking about all the songs he’s written that mention names. So he played “Lester,” “I Love You Dawn,” and “Hello Sandy Allen” while calling chord changes out to Nick. Then somebody yelled for “Log Cabin Fever,” which Neil again did his best at. (Unlike Neil, I remember the second verse, dammit, but I was too far away to yell it to him.) At this point I was thoroughly falling out of my chair. During the rockout end of the song, Neil was playing alone, then said “You know it’s all in E, boys,” and the rest of the band finally joined in—though of course it did not resemble the actual song. Then we got the insanely obscure “Evelyn” and a bit of “Iris,” and finally the whole awesome detour was capped off by a full and gorgeous version of “Catherine Wheels.” What else can I say!

Actually, I should mention the night’s theme of Sharks, which is a kids’ game where you try to make it across a room without touching the floor. I’ve been informed that it’s nuts that I hadn’t heard of this game, but apparently the Kiwis have come up with something entirely original. And it led to a fair amount of silliness, which is another reason to love seeing these guys live.

Second night (see discussion thread here): I figured it would be hard to live up to that first night, but they still put on a great show. I also had the best seats I’ve ever bought for a show in my entire life, second row center section. The ticketing gods smiled upon me that day, and I am grateful.

They stuck to the set list this time, but the best thing about CH is that they can do a second show with hardly any overlap. I’m a huge fan of the unpredictable set list. As for songs, there’s never any reason to regret hearing “Private Universe,” and they did a kickass version of “Chocolate Cake.” But the highlight for me was “Whispers and Moans,” which I truly thought I would never hear in person. Ohhhh yeah.

It feels very, very weird to not be at a Crowded House concert tonight. And what a treat it was to have two shows in a row. Considering that I went from 1994 to 2007 without any live CH, but have seen four shows in the last ten months, this is just what a fan needs. Whoop!

(Postscript added on edit: I should also mention that Mark, in his suit and tie, looks more and more like an English teacher rocking out on stage. I also spotted Nick and Mark on the sidewalk shortly before show two, but managed to keep my cool [i.e., chickened out] and didn’t bug them. Another opportunity to look like a crazed fan avoided.)

Vinyl Elvis

Hm, I need to stop thinking about how badly the Wizards are playing in the playoffs. Because they are playing very, very, very BADLY. It’s killing me. But I can’t blog about that, it’s really too painful.

So yesterday Elvis Costello released his latest album as vinyl only (though there is a promise of a CD version to come out later). It’s interesting to watch the reaction of the fans, because two things become clear: (1) both he and many of his fans possess a huge, I might even say irrational, love for vinyl LPs; and (2) I don’t.

I suppose there’s a reason one refers to the formative years as being, well, formative. During mine, there was one record player in the house, and it was smack in the living room. And the floor in there was incredibly susceptible to vibrations, so if you wanted to listen to a record you had to announce your intention so that everybody could sneak around and not make the record skip. The implication of this is that playing music in record form was not in any way a private activity, even with headphones. So if it hadn’t been for the cassette tape, I wouldn’t have had any freedom to listen to whatever I wanted, or to give the music the kind of undivided attention that music sometimes demands. (Or to get emotional when the music demanded that you got emotional.) This set of circumstances also means I never had the magic moment of putting a needle down on a record to hear it the first time, and so I don’t have a desire to recapture this with Elvis’s new one. (I also don’t have an audiophilic passion for the topic of fidelity, but that might be worth a whole post of its own.) But I can’t fault Elvis for engineering that experience anew for a lot of people who find that important, so that’s cool. Although he’d better put the damn album out on CD too, dammit.

Through a strange coincidence I also watched the movie High Fidelity for the first time last weekend, and of course it’s awash in record-store geekery and nostalgia for the vinyl. God, how I wanted a summer job in a record store when I was younger. It’s probably for the best that I was never granted such a platform where I could feel cooler than the rest of the world, heh. But as a mini-review I’ll say that I wasn’t super impressed with the book, and the movie didn’t work any better. For a John Cusack plus Tim Robbins flick, I would definitely watch Tapeheads a few more times rather than see this one again. (Heh, according to the IMDB rating I am in the minority opinion there!) And for John Cusack directed by Stephen Frears, for the love of Pete you should totally go with The Grifters—much better.

Think there’s any chance the Wizards won’t get swept? Aaaaargh.

Striking writers

So Hollywood’s writers have gone on strike for the first time since 1988. That gives me the perfect excuse to think about what I was doing in 1988 (since this blog is All About Me, of course). That was the spring I was stuck at home before I went (back) to college, when I was slogging through a year of community college. I watched Letterman religiously back then, back when he was the funniest thing on TV. (For the record, though, I hate Chris Elliot.) I had not yet decided to watch Star Trek: TNG, which was probably a good thing because it pretty much sucked until the third season.

Of course, that was an election year, and the inevitable end of Reagan’s presidency was finally on deck. I was still too young to vote, and things didn’t exactly turn out the way I wanted, but at least Bloom County’s National Radical Meadow Party was still holding raucous caucuses. And we all have fond memories of Bentsen’s “You’re no Jack Kennedy” moment.

In the realm of music, I was just getting into Crowded House with the foolish impression that I was finally getting into a band fairly early on in the game. Then I found out about Split Enz, whoops. I think that was also during the brief period when Sting was cool, which lasted up until I went to a show on his “Nothing Like the Sun” tour in August and decided he was kind of lame. That summer was also spent buying all the Genesis albums, which may cause you to wonder whether I should really consider myself an arbiter of cool.

All in all, the spring and summer of 1988 were characterized mostly by lots of sitting around waiting for my life to get its shit together. Er, is there any way I can tie that in with the writers’ strike? Too bad nobody from the Guild is around to help me out.

A little catch-up

It’s been way, way too long since I posted, sorry about that. I’ve been waiting for a theme to surface that covers the last couple of weeks, but it turns out I got nothing. So here’s a summary.

New nephew! Welcome to Earth, Corey Michael.

Work kind of sucks. Counting on other people doesn’t work when they’re slacking fuckups. And getting a lengthy lecture from the Usual Suspect is enough to sour my cornflakes for days. At least I have an office door I can close when it all weighs on me a little too heavily. And, of course, there are good points such that I shouldn’t stalk out the door with no plan for the future. But still, right now it’s generally bleah.

Tennis is better. Despite my automatic feeling of disappointment for getting demoted down a skill level, the last three matches have been a lot more enjoyable than the first three. And not just because we won two of them. (Although: hooray!) When I play people who are a little more laid-back, it’s a lot easier to temper my naturally psychotic competitiveness. Having said that, I do have a bit of advice for people who play in social leagues: please, please, keep the score carefully. Giving yourself a boost by announcing it’s 15-15 when it should be 0-30 makes you look like a tool. (I’m glad we ended up beating them anyway, despite losing more than one game due to the crappy scorekeeping.)

Cycling is an obsession. But you dear readers already knew that. Last Saturday we rode 35 miles, the second longest ride ever. And it felt great. Just signed up for this year’s Hub on Wheels, too. This year the goal is 45 miles!

Hooray for Crowded House. Not only did they kick ass both nights I saw them in August, they had Kufala sell discs of the complete live shows. I’ll happily pay $20 to get a soundboard-quality recording, over a free one taped by the audience that sounds like shit on toast.

Live Nation/Clear Channel sucks. Thanks to their dickishness, CH shows performed at their venues have been pulled off Kufala and can’t be sold. Monopolistic jackasses. At least their bogus patent got busted. Still, there is work to be done to bring these bastards down.

Happy Birthday to MWL. Somehow I missed the first anniversary of this blog. I bet nobody else noticed, either. But how about that! Blogito, ergo sum.

Squonk

Last week I was both shocked and pleased to find a lot of Genesis-related stuff on VH1 Classic; they were part of this year’s Rock Honors concert or somesuch. Let me tell you, I never thought I’d get to see Peter dancing around in his Slipperman costume while flipping channels. There was a long show on their history, which fortunately spent more time and attention on the early stuff than the superstar/sellout phase from the late 1980s. The live footage was amazing, partly because I never expect to hear such obscure music on TV, partly because Peter was such a freak onstage at that time, and partly because I can’t believe live shows were ever like that: all the musicians sitting down, one lunatic jumping around wearing bat wings on his head, and eons of dead time between songs while the band set up the equipment for the next song. Totally alien to the modern pop era in every way. And then they showed an hour-long show of live footage from the Seconds Out concert, where a pre–pop slimeball Phil sang Lamb songs while sporting a beard of mountain-man proportion. I mean, you can’t beat that with a stick.

Unfortunately, my Genesis buzz was totally killed later in the week, when the Rock Honors concert was aired. It was all has-beens: Heart, ZZ Top, and the boys in Genesis, who reformed this year in order to fund the pensions. I watched about two minutes of “Turn It On Again” before I had to look away—man those guys look old, and Phil sang with absolutely no energy. They also knocked the key of the song down a few steps, I suppose in order to spare Phil’s voice, but it was a move that thoroughly sucked the life out of the song. Ugh. I guess I’d better pull out Three Sides Live if I want to experience the full, glorious spectacle that was Genesis.

Oh, and one more thing I must gripe about: at one point during the history show, they interviewed Phil talking about the fact that their early fans were almost always male. Bastard made some idiotic comment about men being better able to handle the complexity of the songs. I know, I know, Phil is a complete tosser, despicable in many ways, but I always held off with my own contempt because of what he was part of, what he accomplished when he was just a drummer in a band. That kind of statement indicates that I should probably give in to the scorn, what a sexist asshole. No more slack for you, pal.

Arrrgh

Small frustrations all, but they add up.

• Nasty head cold for the last four days


• Arenas and Butler out for the season


• Elvis Costello tickets weirdly out of reach because eeeevil Ticketma$ter wants me to pay with a Visa


• Ridiculous $8 “convenience charge” per ticket should I ever be able to actually buy the damn tickets


• Cut my vacation short to try to make a deadline that I ended up not making, and that it turned out I didn’t even need to try to make in the first place!

Arrrrrrrgh!

More Finn newz

Remember how I mentioned Neil recording a new album back in October? Well, turns out that Nick Seymour was also in the studio with him, and now thanks to this news article and confirmation/clarification from Peter Green (see this post from the Gryphon himself) we now know that it’s going to be a Crowded House reunion album, complete with Mark Hart! I would be sorely disappointed if Mark hadn’t been included, by the way. And there aren’t really words to describe the lack of Paul. I still can’t believe that I never even got to see them live until after Paul had quit back in 1994.

They’ve also rereleased the Farewell to the World DVD and it’s finally out in the US; I have got to stop putting off my next Amazon order and get the damn thing. (Actually, I almost ordered it straight from Oz earlier this month before seeing in the fine print that it was a Region 4 disc! Disaster averted.)

Could it be true? Solo Tim and Crowded House all in the same year?

Finn newz

This is rapidly becoming unbalanced in favor of Finn things, but anyway I just found Tim’s blog on MySpace. It’s kind of funny to see him writing on that site, it just seems like such a breathless teen hangout with all the emoticons, but hey, what do I know. I also am a little unsure of that first single, which seems excessively happy. (Watch the vid on YouTube) I’m going to have to offset it by listening to Nine Inch Nails or something.

I also heard that Neil’s finished recording his album at Real World in the UK—I’m just glad it isn’t taking him six years to do it, as it always does for the most habitual denizen of Real World.

OMG Neil r0x0rs!!1!!
Current mood: abliquafregious

Newspaper reporters spoiling all the fun

Because TJ was scarred by watching Midnight Oil jump around in dorky coveralls, here’s a far more stylish video from Tim Finn.

Soup du jour

• Happy Birthday to Anne and Judy!


• Only two more days until the Fantasy NBA draft, and I am completely without inspiration. All I know is, I don’t care how high Kobe is ranked, I’m not picking his ass.


• I feel like my head is carrying around 100 good ideas but I can’t get a single one down on paper (or screen).


• Here is a very good picture to look at when feeling frustrated.


• In another rock and roll moment, Midnight Oil tried to burn down Alan Thicke’s talk show in 1984. Am I the only person who remembers Alan Thicke?

How soon one forgets the sticky floors

Tonight Steve and I were driving by Newbury Comics, and it launched a series of memories of seeing Neil Finn do an in-store performancethere, and the concert at the Paradise later that night, and it snowballed into recalling all the Finn-related concerts we’d seen here: that Paradise show in summer of 2002, one at Avalon the following February of 2003, and then the Finn Brothers in 2004 and 2005. It’s about time to have another visit, I think! But the Paradise one might always be the best to me. The venue is so small, the farthest away you can get from the stage is probably 20 feet. Even the annoying chick in front of me trying to push backwards the whole time couldn’t bring me down. Ah, GA shows are to love, and to hate.

There’s something so special about knowing that the guy standing in front of you on the stage came from the other side of the world and is probably losing money on the tour because he had to fly all his gear, but dammit, he’s in front of me right now playing his heart out. And Neil’s stage persona is half perfectionist, half laid-back dude screwing around. I don’t know how to explain it; it makes for the best shows. I love seeing Elvis Costello live, but not as much, because the venues are always large and so much more impersonal. Plus, 70% of the people are there to hear the hits, or discuss stock trades, and don’t really give a damn. At Finn shows that bunch of jackasses is closer to 10% or less of the crowd, I’d say.

In April 2001 Neil played several shows in NZ with a bunch of musician friends, and it was broadcast over the web. I was glued to the computer and that tiny, grainy window onto something that was happening thousands of miles away. I snapped the screenshot you see here; more are available at somethingsofinn.com (follow the left sidebar: Neil Finn > Live Shows > 2000-2003, scroll down to 6 April 2001). That experience is yet another reason why I can say, with a minimum of irony and cynicism, that the Internet changed everything. For the better.

How long til the next tour, Neil?

Dancing out with the moonlit knight

My undying gratitude goes to Brent for sending me a link to this video on YouTube:


Even with my overdeveloped sense of irony, I can’t resist loving early Genesis. But I won’t blame the rest of you for giggling through the vid, especially if you make it to the part where Peter Gabriel starts playing the flute. Knights of the Green Shield stamp and shout!