One Week Back : the Muses, Audio Learning Center, & the Essex Green
Posted on May 2, 2003 at 11:27 am | No Comments
Whew. And just like that… it’s May. I can’t remember a week disappearing as quickly as the last one did. I took last Thursday and Friday off, but instead of using the time to relax, I ended up packing the days in the best of ways. Seeing old friends, taking in rock shows, flyin’ around town in a taxicab, hanging at River Gods, eatin’ good food, trying to work it back off on the treadmill … and a bunch of other stuff that kinda blurs together. I slammed straight into the workweek and haven’t slowed down since. I need a couple days off to recover from my couple days off. But it always seems to work out that way, y’know?
Thursday night brought the first of two Throwing Muses shows, who are playing a few dates in support of their long-awaited (but quickly, and rawly, recorded) self-titled new album. We actually hadn’t planned on going that night since we had tickets to the sold-out Friday show, but we couldn’t resist a last-minute drive over to the Middle East. I mean, when one of your favorite bands is playing what is probably their last two area shows, how can you not go to both?
Easy parking, tickets at the door, and comfortably crowded. This show was added after the Friday one sold out, and while it was by no means sparsely attended, it was far less insane than the next night would prove be. We were able to move fairly close to the front (without annoying anyone who’d gotten there earlier), which we did just in time to see the Muses take the stage…
After a few songs, the core trio of Kristin, David, and Bernard were joined by original Muse Tanya Donnelly. I swear, whenever her and K sing together, it’s hard to keep the goosebumps down. Their 1991 album (and last as a four piece) The Real Ramona is one of my desert island discs, and it was a genuine thrill to hear a few songs from it with Tanya’s shimmering guitar parts and voice in the mix.
The setlist…
Furious, Bea, Shark, Solar Dip, Los Flamingos, (Tanya takes the stage), Say Goodbye, Not Too Soon, Mercury, Pandora’s Box, (Tanya leaves), Start, Hazing, Civil Disobedience, Pretty or Not, Portia, Speed and Sleep, Bright Yellow Gun, (Tanya returns), Honeychain, Flying, Two Step, (encores with Tanya), Limbo, Mania, (second encore), Vicky’s Box
I absolutely cannot believe I got to hear Vicky’s Box live. The songs from the new album (which honestly hasn’t settled in with me as well as I’d hoped) took on a whole new life on stage. It’s like I finally got a couple of them, especially Speed & Sleep and the album closer, Flying. So, so good. The sound mix, always a gamble in the Middle East Down, was pretty right on where I was standing… I could hear everything, and it was powerful without being ear-piercing… no complaints from me.
Actually, one complaint, but it’s not about the sound. I find my tolerance for basic social ineptitude to be growing lower by the year. There’s always going to be a couple of mentally stunted misfits in any random crowd, but for some reason the proportion seems to growing higher and higher… and near-sold-out shows are increasingly scary prospects.
This one guy…I will call him Mr. Sniff. I could sense him right behind me, seemingly getting closer and closer with every song. Granted, it happens when you’re near the stage… you’re going to get bumped, jostled, whatever. No big thing, it’s part of the deal. Then I hear someone behind me say into Mr. Sniff’s ear … “Hey, listen man, nothing personal but, um, your hand keeps hitting me in the crotch. Like… a lot. I’m sure it’s not on purpose or whatever, but if you could not do that, I’d appreciate it.” So, either that guy is paranoid and didn’t like getting accidentally poked in the jewels a couple of times, or Mr. Sniff is trying for a healthy dose of stealthy man-thrill.
Now that his posterior grope-target was off-limits, apparantly Mr. Sniff thought it was time to set his sights, and his honker, on me. I’m not exagerating here, folks… I started feeling myself get poked in the back, over and over. Y’see, the guy was pretty short, and yes… it was his freakin’ nose. Poke. poke. poke. Like a woodpecker. At the same time, his arm is bumping my ass. Wonderful.
Ok, now, independent of the fact that he’s touching me in a seriously disturbing way… how the hell is this guy watching the show? He’s staring at my back! It was the freakiest thing. I glanced back, looking around him to see if maybe he was getting pushed into me… and there’s a huge space behind him (believe me… the guy who got the repeated crotch-feels was as far back as he could be.) And I see that other people are eyeballing Mr. Sniff, wondering what the frell he’s doing.
So I start the subtle shoving… moving back into him, forcing him backwards into the gap, moving forward again… but inevitably he returns. Finally, I turn to him and say “Back off, man! seriously, what the hell?!” His eyes are glazed over, nothing comes from his mouth, he’s in some kind of substance or stupidity-enduced haze. But he does retreat a bit, thank jeebus.
A couple of songs go by, I’m totally into the show, a great song ends, and I look over to Amie to say “Wow.” So what do I see? Mr. Sniff has buried his nose in Amie’s hair. She yells “What are you doing?!” and the guy mumbles something incoherantly. Amie thinks it was something to the effect of “I like the shhhmell of yerr hairrr…” “Alright, that’s it!” I respond, as I shove him backwards. “What is your deal, man!? Back the hell up!” So he does, but not enough. He can still hear us as we start talking about him, ridiculing him, laughing at him.
Then, in the paranoid recesses of my brain, I’m thinking this guy is full-on-freaky enough to whip out a knife. Nearly three years to the day that Amie and I met at a Muses show, in the same smoky room, and I’m going to get stabbed in the back by a serial sniffer. Great.
He moved on, though. Probably to his next nasal victim. I am both amused and completely creeped out by this whole thing… more on the creeped side, though. Sheesh.
Ok, where was I? Ah, the Muses were playing. Right.
Soo… it was late night, and a great show. To my ears and eyes, the better of the two… despite the efforts of Mr. Sniff. Got to sleep in late into Friday morning, then meet up with some fellow Muses fans and friends who were in town for the sold-out second night …
That’s Shaun, Jo, Melios, Rich, fellow-Allstonian Steve, and Alistair, hanging in Harvard Square, eating some killer Pinocchio’s Pizza. After that we were off to River Gods to meet up with a bunch more fans, drink a few pints, and hang out until heading to the Middle East to catch Audio Learning Center, who were opening the second Muses show. If you know me, you probably know I’m a pretty big ALC fan … I think their debut disc was one of the best released last year, and they put on a hell of a show at the Middle East Up last May.
My love of ALC forced me into a tough decision… my longtime pals in the Essex Green were playing across the river at the Paradise that night, apparantly at the same time. I do my best to get out and support my friends bands, and this one was especially important to me… I’ve totally fallen in love with the Green’s new cd The Long Goodbye. It’s a beautifully-produced, deeply-layered, near-perfect pop record. The attention to detail, the harmonies, the occasional but not overwhelming country feel, the pure catchiness of the songs… so much of it is stuck in my head. Even writing about it, melodies get in my brain. I’ve been playing it incessantly, and my desire to see Chris, Jeff, and Sasha on stage this time was equal parts friendship and equal parts fan-ship.
So I got lucky. At about 10 minutes to 9, someone in the River Gods crew made a call to the Middle East to double-check set times, and it ended up that ALC wasn’t going on until 10 o’clock… a bit later than last night’s show started. So I phoned the Paradise, and the Green was scheduled to hit the stage at 9 o’clock. I could do it. And so I did. 15 minutes, and a $6 cab ride, later I was at the Paradise ticket window, checking if by some chance I was on the list … although I never told them I might show up, so the chance was mighty slim. At that exact moment, Chris walks up, adds me to the list, and I’m standing in front of the stage …
Alright, if I was any less objective about seeing these guys play, I’d probably be in the band. Suffice it to say, they were great. Fedji said to me afterwards, as I rushed to catch a cab back to Cambridge, “Sorry it wasn’t as good as the record.”, but that’s the thing… you can’t compare ’em. The songs and melodies are there, they translate really well live, and the harmonies come in when they need to … but they’re not going to get the sound they got on The Long Goodbye unless they double the size of the band from 5 to 10 and hire the best soundman in town. Fortunately for them, the songs are strong independent of the production… good enough for newbies to want to check out a record, and then proceed to be blown away. Hopefully this month-long tour will result in a whole bunch of that.
I taxied it back to the Middle East just in time to see Chris, Steve, and Paul kick into the first of many new Audio Learning Center songs. I was able to catch their soundcheck earlier that afternoon, so I knew there’d be at least a couple new ones (it’s been a looong time since the last record, after all), but I didn’t expect quite so many. They only played two off the debut (Prescription and Hand Me Downs… oddly enough, my two faves), and the new stuff was markedly different, in such a good way. More rhythmic, more driving, hookier… more dynamic. Instead of slow builds, there were more sudden shifts in volume, energy… they felt more like band songs than the personal recordings the previous record… which makes sense given all the shows they played together over the past year.
Since his days with Pond, I’ve always loved watching Chris sing and play bass. The guy just puts everything he has into showing off his songs … intensely emotional, fingers flying, veins in his neck tightening as his lyrics and sweat pour out of him. He does that melodic, strummy style of bass playing that I love so much … the kind that just clicks with me. There are some trios that make you miss that second guitar, who sound much thinner, less powerful, live than on record. ALC just isn’t one of those bands. Chris and Steve’s sounds blend and fill things out perfectly. Speaking of Steve’s guitar, both his playing and Paul’s drumming have stepped up a notch in the past year, or at least the new stuff seem to call for more. Their energy level and ability to get lost inside the songs has really picked up, and I absolutely can’t wait to hear these songs recorded. Especially this one called Passenger.
Speaking of recording plans, here’s what Steve had to say on the ALC website a few days back…
On the home front, we are just about to start recording our second album for Vagrant Records, hoping to have around fourteen songs completed by the first part of June. Right now, Vagrant is giving us an October – I mean ROCKtober – release date, maybe with an EP sometime sooner, but that could easily change. We are very confident that these are our stongest songs yet, and we can’t wait to get recording.
Let’s hope that EP is a go… and that Passenger ends up on it. I’ve got a hankering to hear that sucker again, and quick. I can’t get that main, hypnotic riff outta my skull.
The Muses followed up with a set that only differed from the night before by one song (with Pearl as the set-closer), and I chose to watch this one from the back, far away from the packed-in masses (and clear of any wanna-be sniffers). The sound suffered a bit from that spot, and I felt a little uninvolved… actually, Amie was home sick in bed, and nothing’s as enjoyable as it would be if she was around (yes, I know… awwwwww / barf.) Still, a good show, capping off a couple pretty amazing days of live music.
Wow, this post turned out to be a lot longer than I’d planned. And you’re still here. Thanks for sticking it out.
I Married an X-Woman
Posted on April 30, 2003 at 7:00 am | No Comments
If you had told the 15-year old comic-book-obsessed me that I’d grow up to marry a girl that was even more psyched to see an X-Men movie than I was, I’d have assumed I’d have sold my soul as part of the deal. (and I also probably would have screamed “They’re going to make an X-Men movie?!?”)
Fortunately, I think my soul is still in place, and Amie insists we see X2 “as soon as possible, on opening day.” She is, in fact, out-geeking me on this one. Miracles do happen, kids.