Mp3s: John Vanderslice in Cambridge, MA
Posted on August 1, 2007 at 1:20 pm | No Comments
So John Vanderslice, songwriter extraordinaire and friend to the music blogger, released his latest album last week. And what a fine, fine album “Emerald City” is. I might even jump to calling it my favorite of his so far, but that just could be the rush of the new talking… need a little more time to let the sucker settle in.
When I caught J.V. here in Boston back in the Spring, he was touring as a duo, just him, his guitar, and drummer Dave Douglas. Spinanes-style, if you will. But not exactly. In each city, on certain songs, John & Dave invited local fans and musical friends on stage to fill out the band for a bit, pre-arranged team-ups that added bass, maybe some extra vocals, and who knows what else. Here in Boston we were treated to guest bass (and super-cool keys) from T.W. Walsh on a few songs, some excellent dulcimer action from Elijah Wyman on another, a fan named Carson on some vocals, and for the finale, a duet with the wonderful Annie Clark, aka St. Vincent, who opened every date on the month-long trip.
I hadn’t even planned on recording the show… that night I just wanted to be able to wander about, hang with an old friend; to just relax and not bother with getting good sound. But after a few songs, it was just too enjoyable not to capture, especially given the guest stars and one-time-only versions we were hearing, so I clicked on the mini-disc and let it roll. That explains the not-as-good-as-usual mix below (we were off to the side of the stage), and the fact that the first part of the set is absent, but it’s all still well worth sharing (especially for T.W.’s ace keys on “Do You Remember?”). Have at it…
Live at the Middle East Upstairs
in Cambridge, Massachusetts
on April 20th, 2007
01. Time Travel Is Lonely
02. Dear Sara Shu
03. Wild Strawberries (with Elijah Wyman)
04. Letter to the East Coast (with Carson)
05. Radiant With Terror
06. “TW To The Stage” (banter)
07. Time To Go (with TW Walsh)
08. My Old Flame (with TW Walsh)
09. Do You Remember? (with TW Walsh)
10. “We Need Guest Singers” (banter)
11. Me And My 424 (with guests)
12. Nikki Oh Nikki
At the end of the set, John says “See you in the Fall…“, and the man’s no liar… he returns with his full four-piece in late September for two nights at the same room, upstairs at the Middle East. And kudos to John for doing two shows in a small room rather than one night in a larger one, which he could no doubt fill. Whether it was his decision or not, the continued intimacy is appreciated. Get tickets for the shows here and here, or stop by the Middle East box office to avoid the pesky extra fees.
Some J.V. links…
His official site, Wikipedia entry, MySpace page, and his Barsuk Records page. Audio: Stream the entirety of “Emerald City” here. Mp3s: “White Dove“, from “Emerald City”. There are a truckload more Mp3s available over at John’s own site. For far superior sounding live recordings of “Dear Sara Shu” and “Wild Strawberries” from the same show above, check out Mobile Man Boston. Video: There’s an official video for “Time To Go“, and John is also doing a very cool “online tour”, where he’s sharing a different in-studio performance (each recorded at his own Tiny Telephone) of each song on “Emerald City” through various music blogs, so far hooking up with Stereogum, Gorilla Vs. Bear, Brooklyn Vegan, and You Ain’t No Picasso. Hit those links to see John and his band performing four songs so far, and keep an eye here for future ones blog-tour stops. And for more JV video, there’s always the handy YouTube search. Brooklyn Vegan, who helped present that Vanderslice/St. Vincent tour, posted John interviewing Annie on the road. And here’s some serious coolness, but on the wrong damn side of the country for us East Coast Vanderslice fans: Tomorrow night, Thursday, August 2nd, Aquarium Drunkard will present a “guerrilla-styled free concert” with J.V. performing in the L.A. River Basin. Full details over at the Drunkard. More of my own photos from the show can be found here. As always, you can easily stream all ‘Nac-hosted tracks on the Hype Machine.
the post-script to the post… If anyone has an issue with these Mp3s being made available, just let me know (my contact info in the ‘nac faq). Live sets recorded with a Sony ECM-719 mic and a Sony MZ-RH10 minidisc, converted to .wav and then edited to 192kbps Mp3s. Files are made available for a limited time, and are not reposted once removed.
Before the Bordello: When Eugene was a Fag
Posted on July 26, 2007 at 9:56 am | 3 Comments
And here’s the post that, as if it hasn’t happened already, officially adds the Almanac to the profanity-blocking filters of every American school system…
I’m compelled to following along with Eugene Hutz‘s story over the last 15 or so years: First, a newly-immigrated Ukrainian guitarist/songwriter putting up ‘bandmates wanted’ signs around Burlington, Vermont; Soon after, a manic three-chord, punk rock frontman for a trio he confrontationally (for Vermont, at least) called the Fags; Then, after incorporating the musical leanings of his ancestry and leaving town, the NYC-based leader of the gypsy-punk collective known as Gogol Bordello; Next thing you know, movie star on his way to being Madonna’s Live Earth sidekick. Totally surreal.
Surreal for me, anyway, mostly because I’d answered Eugene’s call for ‘bandmates wanted’ waaaay back when. In Vermont, he was Eugene Nikolaev, and if you know of him through his Gogol Bordello performances or the many interviews he’s been doing to promote their out-now album, “Super Taranta!”, he was pretty much exactly the guy he is now, minus the carefully-cultivated wardrobe. A rock star waiting for the rest of the world to catch up with him, a bona fide showman full of enthusiasm, punk attitude, and energy enough to make shit happen.
That musicians-wanted poster listed influences like Sonic Youth, Fugazi, and Dinosaur Jr., so even though I was in another band at the time, I couldn’t not give the guy a call. Burlington was tiny enough, and so completely Phish-ified back then, that finding another musician with similar tastes was a relative rarity. So we hooked up to mess around on a few covers (“Waiting Room” and “Kool Thing” among them, I think) in my band’s practice-space basement. Fatefully, nothing ever came of it, as Eugene would go on to find a more like-minded (and far more punk-rockin’) drummer in Dana Shephard, and the two would start up the Fags.
I was a Fags fan from the get-go, even though their punk-on-their-sleeves attitude and Eugene’s over-the-top on-stage (and off-stage) personality rubbed some of my friends the wrong way. Not me, though. I dug him, and his band, and not just because no other local acts playing at the 242 Main teen center were doing anything like what they were. The thickly-accented vocals (which, at first, some wrongly assumed were affected) fronted undeniably catchy songs… it was punk with melody, some bite, but without a raging mean-streak. The only full-length they released, “No Fleas, Lunch Money, and Gold Teeth”, even threw in a touch of acoustic guitar, accordion, and some additional percussion, something most area punk or hardcore bands at the time wouldn’t dare try. Their live shows usually blew away their studio recordings, as is the case with Gogol Bordello, mostly because Eugene & co. brought so much damn energy to the stage.
The Fags circa 1995: Dana Shephard,
Jason Cooley, and Eugene Hutz
While Dana was the Fags’ only-ever drummer, three different (and all excellent) bass players would come and go: Josh Levy, Shawn Flanigan (who’s now in Fire The Cannons), and for the longest and most productive period, Jason Cooley (who co-runs Icebox Records). I’ll leave it to some future historian to chronicle the Fags’ “Behind The Music” story that details their difficulty in keeping a bass player, but it maybe says a bit about Eugene and Dana that they were able to get such talented guys to fill the spot, and have trouble holding onto them (Denny and I would eventually, and fortunately, snag Shawn to play with us in our own band).
So before I left Burlington behind, I’d somehow become a sort of local music scene booster, writing about area bands, putting together shows, and releasing a series of split 7″ records (on the imaginatively named Split Records). In the small pond that was Burlington, I always tried to tread kindly, steering clear of negativity and doing things with bands I wasn’t necessarily all that into musically in order to foster a closer sense of community. But with the Fags, I was always psyched to see and play with them, always into the songs they’d contribute to compilations, a few of which I’ll share here…
The first comes from the last of the six Split 7″ singles, which was released in the fall of 1995. The Fags recorded one of their most frenetic numbers, “Pills Of Patience“, for the three-song record that also had cuts from local bands Jesus Nut and Rocketsled. I’ll never forget the day I got back that test pressing… it just sounded so perfect on vinyl, and I played “Pills…” incessantly. But since I can’t mail each of you one of the dusty extra copies I’ve got in my basement, have an MP3…
In 1996, I put out a cassette compilation of local bands recorded on a four-track by Denny Donovan called “4-Track Action”, and the Fags song “Let’s Not Be Friends” was the lead-off, and a personal fave. By then I’d become increasingly tired of Burlington’s small-pond syndrome, and Eugene’s biting lyrics were exactly what I wanted to hear…
I guess you don’t really understand
That I don’t give a fucking damn
About winning your respect
Oh no, it’s nothing I collect
Let’s not be friends, let’s not be friends
Let’s not be friends, let’s not be friends
And I don’t care what kind of shit
Flies off your mouth behind of me
Or your retarded, sucky zine
Or your position in the scene
Let’s not be friends, let’s not be friends
Let’s not be friends, let’s not be friends
The last track I’ll share isn’t one I helped release, but is one that is long out-of-print. It’s the song they offered up for a 1996 Big Heavy World cd compilation of Burlington-area bands called “Sonic Tonic”…
Last I checked, someone had made the entirety of “No Fleas…” available for download over here. Looks like that zip file was made from a cd burn I created for a Gogol fan awhile back, and it includes some other extra tracks.
A related postscript: In 1994, in one of the stranger (sloppier?) and short-lived incarnations of cartoonist/songwriter James Kochalka‘s backing band (aka James Kochalka Superstar), I had a total blast playing drums behind James, Eugene on guitar, Pistol Stamen on guitar (of the Pants), and my pal Colin Clary on bass (catch him now in the Smittens & the Magogs). Here’s a little video evidence, from a show at the still-missed Club Toast…
I’ll be sharing up more of that performance eventually, but considering it took me years to get that one clip posted, don’t wait up…