It's been a while but we're back in full force for the next couple of weeks and tonight, the 19th edition of the Jay Porks Never ending concert series brings us to Hammerstein Ballroom 311 West 34th street, or as the outside of the building indicates: The Manhattan Center. Tonight we are here to see the one, the only The PIXIES,
who on tour celebrating their 20th anniversary of the release of their major label debut 'Doolittle'. The Pixies are a phenomenon of proportions which I thought had passed me by already, broken up for over a decade, who would've thought the opportunity to see them would present itself, and yet so timely-Last show I went to was the Breeders just days after this tour was announced in August. Three NYC dates were announced, Novemeber 23th, 24th and 25th, taking a look at my concert calendar, the Tuesday night, middle show is where we land (Meat Puppets @ Bowery tomorrow night)-$50 any of the nights with no opening acts listed. Who could NOT be there? Doors open 6:30, show at 8pm.
Was twenty minutes after seven when I stepped out of a cab, on a rather chilly NYC late afternoon turning into night-I stand in front of a movie theater across the street from the venue which is flooded with a mob scene in front of movers and shakers, people headed in headed out, event staff making life a little harder for everyone-the norm. I take it all in, get my stuff together(camera and notepad out of the back pack and into the pockets) and head across the street and step on up to the door where the event staff asks me “Sir, do you have a cigarette lighter on you?” Myself, somehow overcome with a sudden honest Abe demeanor, replies “yes I do” as proceeding to hand my lighter over to be thrown in the garbage. I don't care that the dude threw it away, its his job-but why would I say that I had one? It had a flashlight on it too. Damn. Anyway, continuing in I found the merch table and beer. Get a $7 beer(and then they put it in a fucking dixie cup whats up with that??), and start pondering on what I'm gonna spend my money on at the merch table. There was a few $35 and $40 tee shirts to choose from. I was settled on the shirt that has these tour dates on them-but then I saw a hoodie. I asked if the XL would fit me and I took a look at it. It's cool its brown and it has a 'P' on it, that $60 is feeling snug as I change and check my bag. This hoodie is kinda tight-but I'm still loving it.
One odd thing about the merch table is that I notice they were also selling “Jay Reatard” stuff. Then all of a sudden I hear a band sound checking at like 7:40. Walk in and I see three dudes on stage. The lead singer and guitar player (playing of those flying V's, cheesy) has long hair in front of his face, the bass player looks bored out of his mind and the drummer smiles a lot. At about 8 o clock when I realized that the Pixies were obviously not coming on stage at 8-I turn to somebody next to me, and I ask because I need to be 100 percent sure, I'm like “Who the hell are these guys?” and it was in fact, Jay Reatard. I mean, I tried to sit there and listen to it but it's a tough spot to be in being the surprise opener for the Pixies, I just looked at the ceiling pissed every time they started another song. Soul reason being that they weren't the Pixies, myself and I bet a few others who have never heard of him before didn't really give them a chance. They didn't suck, they did some things that were interesting...sort of. They played til about 840, then the roadies tore down the set and prompted it for the one, the only, Black, Deal, Santiago and Lovering-The Pixies!
A video screen type backround the stage has, began to roll before 9:10 showing a video. The clip is “Un chien andalou” in its entirety. I know, I know-What the hell is that you're asking. It's a surrealist film from France -short about 15 minutes long and it came out in like the 1920's. The first scene is an eyeball being sliced open, hence the lyric from the song “Debaser”, when Frank Black says “Slicin' up eyeballs I want you to know”. I looked it up a few months ago and was fascinated by the deep underlying of the song. And I'm not the only one who knew what I was, in fact I was probably more out of the loop then most people as I heard it being explained to others around me by each other. A shrieking simultaneous gasp through the crowd when the eyeball gets sliced open(the same people who have watch every version of SAW to ever come out) and I gotta tell you-though spacious, where I was standing was a tight squeeze and I wasn't even that close. The tall people in front of me were pissing me off, don't they know I have video to take? And this is in the wake of people bloggers saying the monday night show was over sold and that Livenation should be ashamed of themselves. I didn't think it was “over sold”, just tight up at the front not to mention very hard for me to navigate my hand held camera device, I got some really crappy video but the sound is awesome. They came out eventually and Kim Deal screams out “B-Sides!” right before they kick off the night with “Dancing the Manta Ray”, “Bailey's Walk” and “Weird at my school”. The way Joe Santiago and Frank Black sort of trade explosions
of noise with every chord-the way the sound meshes is brilliant. Music is so much better live. The harmonies Deal and Black kicked out on every track was, if not better, than equal to the swiftness it was 20 years ago and on some songs you get Deal's voice in the same exact key as Joe's guitar combining the two elements to one. They did “Manta Ray” (not to be confused with “Dancing the Manta Ray”) before they kicked off the album part of the set with “Debaser” and proceeded to rock that shit out, Doolittle in listed order. “tame” came next-these songs were almost obnoxiously loud and we were loving every second of it. “Wave of Mutilation”, “I bleed”, “Here comes your man” followed with jokes in between songs by Deal-like when she said “Anyone here last night?.....Yea, we're doin the same thing” and she kept saying “We're almost through side one”. It got nuttier in there when “Dead” came on-the jagged guitars stabbing through all attending and Lovering and Deal pounding out rhythms. “Monkey's gone to heaven” was cool”,
and I love “Mr. Grieves” and “Crackity Jones” so I'm glad I got video of those two back to back. “La La Love you” was fun, the only song where drummer David Lovering sings lead vocals. Then we got into the extended version of “No. 13 baby”, that one went long it was so awesome. We took a trip far away from that song with the melding of noise between guitars, like the aforementioned of trading explosions. Finishing out the set was the rest of the record, “There goes my gun” followed by a crowd sing along “Hey” (words from the song scrolled on the screen in the back ground), “Sliver” and “Gouge Away” before they pretended to say goodnight. They took a bow and went off with the screen showing a picture of the four of them together. This was freaking incredible- I mean I wouldn't blame them if they didn't come back out.
But they did as Kim Deal screamed “More B-sides!”, as they played the UK Surf version of “Wave of Mutilation” and “Ed is Dead” before the smog machine starts to really fill the place and we get into “Into the White”. At this time the screen had a visual that was hypnotic-strobe light effect along with the smoke clouds on the lights I swear it was an epileptic seizure. It was insanity, I was floored after into the white-what a moment. Then they went off again only to come back out to play, and correct me if I missed one in the midst of taking in all this, “Caribou”-which was very, like, make the crowd lean in sync like trees in a forest when the wind blows. “Broken face” and “Plant of Sound” to end the night-and someone needs to hit me up and let me know which one I missed because I know there's one that I'm leaving out, I didn't have enough room to take notes.
Overall it was so worth it. I'm so glad I got to experience that at least once before I die. They were on my list of bands I must see before I die. Check. Right now cutting up the video into pictures the songs are bringing me back to the moment as I listen-it's really cool. It was an amazing show, from the instrumentation to the light show to the vocals to the songs to the atmosphere. It all melded into a unique beauty-just seeing that fog as the drum beat to “Into the white”. Just indescribable.
Now in a few hours I'll be back here to tell you people how the Meat Puppets Wednesday November 25th show at the Bowery-there's already a autographed poster waiting for me!
What's really pissing me off is having to sit in this crappy spot for this opening act I've never heard of- “Whispertown 2000”. I was getting antsy, felt like screaming “lets go already” and here they are setting up there equipment at 9:02, do they realize it's a Tuesday night? But then came out these two hot chicks, one holding an acoustic guitar (which in my book makes a girl like, extra hot) and assuming the role of lead vocals. They played they're first song and I noticed the end of the song the drummer was playing a harmonica as well to add a little folk sort of feel. And the song wasn't bad, I was nodding a bit. They had a weird looking bass player, and the other hot chick who wasn't the lead vocalist was using that jingle-jangle thing that have the mini cymbals on them. I'm not going to look it up-you know what I mean. But when it came time for the third song she picked up a telecaster and added some effects to the bluegrass feel. All of a sudden it went from folk sounds to loud noise in a flip of the coin. Next song, the drummer gets up and switches spots with the chick just playing the telecaster, so now she's on drums and the drummer is on electric guitar and the lead singer has put her acoustic down for a few songs. The drummer is kicking ass on guitar on this first song he's playing on, and the drums haven't skipped a beat (no pun intended) with the chick drumming. Then everyone returns to their spots, a little tuning up and then I see the bass player pull his strap up really high and then he takes it and hands it to the drummer-now the drummer is playing bass and the bass player is on drums. Even if the music sucked, the interchangeable musicians was really cool. And they're weren't half bad. I thought they were kind of groovy if that word is still allowed to be used. I would definitely recommend checking them out @ Myspace.com/Whispertown2000
They came out kicking ass man. There was a drum set up in front of Kim Deal for the first song and they kicked it off with “Hoverin'”, a song by The Amps-another past side project of Kim's, they released one album called “Pacer”(It's being communicated to me that the song was actually recorded by the Breeders as a B-Side for Divine Hammer). After that song she moved the drum away and pick up her guitar, and there were smiles all around. You love to see a band enjoying themselves and not just punching the time card so to speak. They rocked through a couple more songs before getting into a few crowd favorites. “Huffer” off they're previous record Title TK was when I turned around and noticed the room had filled out and heads were nodding everywhere. And every time I looked up I saw pot smoke in the air-it wasn't me this time. Then “Divine Hammer”, a great song altogether. The Breeders have three guitarists so the abrasive, noisy intertwined melodies were freaking awesome-they were in top form. And just as everyone's rocking, you see Kim going to the effect mic set up on her mic stand and start breathing-you know what's coming. The baseline drops, drums kick in and here we go...........
CANNONBALL! What half the people in the crowd came to see. Pandemonium breaks out in there, good times all around. That was definitely the bong in this reggae song of a show and we're only half way through. They played some songs off “Pod”, including 'Happiness is a warm gun'. I love that song. They encored about five times seriously. They went off first at 11:14, and came back on right away. Now we have people in the back of the crowd chanting for “Gigantic”, a Pixies song written by Kim Deal that they have done live before-but I doubt they wanted to get out of Breeders form-and good for them. On the last encore, Kim
actually sat and played drums while the drummer played keyboard, and not your old mans keyboard. This thing was run through effects pedals and sounded nuts. They overall show sounded nuts, it was nuts. They went with the loud, quiet, loud format with the way they set their songs. Here's a soft one, here's a hard one-here's everything at once. The Deal twins and the Breeders proving yet again that all the good bands just fly under the radar. What a show. Loud, abrasive, sweet, soft and grinding guitars. Can't ask for anything more. I'll be wearing my tee shirt tomorrow proudly.
to date the best place in the city I've been to for seeing a rock concert. The first opener is different from last night, as tonight we will be hearing a band called “Dynasty Electric” along with Retribution Gospel Choir and the almighty Meat Puppets. Last night I got there early and TK Webb and the Visions went on at 8:30, so for tonight I caught the 8:30 ferry into the city and figure for once in my life I'll be the guy who only shows up for the headliner, like the rest of those people- I mean come on now I've had to go to my actual job before and morning after both these shows-I'm a little tired. So I had planned to miss “Dynasty Electric”.
for me to enjoy them. It was a really interesting cool sound. Kind of electronica but when the guitar player all of a sudden pulled out a saxophone and started whaling on it the crowd if it wasn't already was won over. And DeVeau was definitely hot. She was all over the stage. She stood on the table that the amps where on if front of me and literally it was wild man. My face to face with a vagina in the tightest pants ever. I heard Ted is the one who got her in on this gig. A freaking Theremin, now there's something I haven't seen live before or even heard of before. Could have sworn they played Shocking Blue's "Venus" before they went off. Good set.
city-I'm from the fucking desert man” and I said how I'd never experienced life like, living outside of the 5 boroughs and he's like “Yea like I can't even imagine it. So much goin on all the time. It's like the opposite for me." Someone had mentioned that they saw a picture of him hanging out with the dudes from Ween from this afternoon when the Pups played an afternoon show in Philly before tonights show. He's like "Wait a minute-from like this afternoon? they're on the internet already? then says "that's crazy man the world went and got itself in a hurry”- and did the funny voice as he continued quoting Brooks from 'Shawshank Redemption'. Then of course some guy gets out of a cab, another fan and starts saying stuff like “man Cris I'm so glad to see that you're all better and stuff. And he also mentioned how he's a lawyer and he was looking into Cris's case when he went to jail and didn't take it or something. Not for nothing, we're out here having fun-does the first thing out of everyone's mouth have to try and remind the guy of a part of his life that's behind him. Funny story though, Cris says “When I was sitting in prison a friend of mine, this girl, had like a shitload of coffee mugs made up that said 'FREE CRIS' on them. She was trying to raise money-I mean, I know your hearts in the right place and everything but I don't exactly think the feds are saying wow look at these great cups, open the gates.” After that the merch clerk, same as last night, very nice guy(name's Dennis, does WAY more than sell tee shirts); comes over with someone and says “Cris this guy is a huge fan, and one of NY's Finest.” Then the laywer dude is like “wow man , you could have been of use a few years ago” and then Cris's eye's widen as he says “Yea you could say that again”. Then Cris's phone rings and he picks it up but doesn't leave the circle like so I say to the dude next to me who just got his CD autographed(and help with getting me another signed ticket stub with his sharpie), I'm like “Can you believe we're standing on the street having discussion with Cris fucking Kirkwood?”and I said it as if I didn't meet him in December which I did, because I didn't want this dude thinking that he wasn't exclusive-he was loving it. The crowd disbands leaving just me and Cris and I didn't want to keep him any longer so I said “ight man, I'm gonna catch you in there-rock on” and he's like “Yea I gotta head in anyway, I have to say hi to Ted's mom” then he surprises me. Cris says as he puts his hand out of a shake “yea man see you inside-it's Jay right?” and I was like “Yea it's Jay like the letter” and then we both headed inside. He knows my name. Great stuff.
to everyone around me saying things like “Wow this is so fucking cool” or “I hope they play Attacked by Monsters”. They hit the stage at 12:01 AM; after midnight, now I feel like I'm at an actual rock concert. The Grateful Dead used to start show's at midnight and play til 8AM, damn do I wish that would be the case tonight. Bands don't do things like that anymore, but in reality they rocked harder then they did the night before. Last night almost seems like a test drive compared to tonight, being they played a similar set of songs with a few exceptions. The drift off solo's during songs were absolutely epic. The version of “Up on the Sun”(I clocked that version at 13 minutes at least) with Alan Sparhawk again coming out to play it with them and they also covered a song that, to be honest was so filled with heavy riffing feedback driven guitars that I have the slightest clue what it was. Eric Pollard, the drummer from RGC sang on Plateau with them, but only did the chorus parts-sort of like singing harmony. When the RGC boys headed off stage I tapped Eric's shoulder and said to him “man, welcome to the greatest day of your life!”. It had to be an experience for them, not only touring but sharing a stage with the brothers Meat. “Aura Borialis” was great, I love that damn song man. They played it last night as well, I'm not sure if I had it down Cris's vocals on “Station” (Curt makes him sing that one) were better sounding then last night, I think they added more monitors in his vocals because the harmonies were different sounding also. And I gotta tell you I can't get that song “Rotten Shame” out of my head, it sounds like a throwback Puppets song when it's on the latest record. Then the fastest, hardest version of Lake of Fire to date-Curt always fools the crowd like-he starts this really sweet melodic couple of chords and you're trying to figure what song its going to be then out of no where it's Lake of Fire. Meat Puppets show's are indescribable so pardon me if begin to lack adjectives after these two crazy nights. They ran off stage after that(with me getting the sole hand shake from Cris on the way off stage (I'm telling you we are total BFF now) and everyone was wondering if they were coming back out-everyone turning to me asking me if they came out for an encore last night and the answer was no they didn't-but last night they played Backwater and now they're off stage without playing it. Don't worry, here they come after about 10 minutes get up on stage and play “Backwater” like a millisecond slower version. The rhythm section was slower pace but Curt was going full force. Absolutely just played the shit out of that Strat to end they officially went off stage at 1:35AM. Unbelievable, the Meat Puppets once again fail to disappoint.
ds performing tonight: Nine Inch Nails and Jane's Addiction. Street Sweeper Social club(Tom Morello's like 73rd side project) opened, but the group I was with-we were all in the parking lot enjoying cold beers and friendly conversation with what looked to be the rest of the crowd. When you buy tickets to show at PNC first thing you think of is “Will we be allowed to tailgate in the parking lot?” and when we showed up and were directed to park on a lawn in Lot 9- I noticed tons of red cups. Beer is good to go.
Well here we are, at the SOLDOUT Music Hall of Williamsburg for the 12th edition of the Jay Porks Never Ending Concert series to witness the greatest band to ever come out of Glasgow, Scotland: The Vaselines, with the opening act being Adam Green. I get to the door and am briefed with the event staff saying “Opening act is at 9, headliner is at 10 there is no re-entry”. I looked at the time it was a quarter after 8, so I let them scan my ticket and headed on in to the bar area. This is going to be fun.
covered (by the way, did not spot ONE Nirvana tee shirt. I really thought I would) and from opening strands the tone of the night was set. The riffs were melodic yet so fused with noise and distortion but in a controlled sort of way. And with the male-female vocal harmony dynamic, it was abrasively blissful to say the least. They had a third guitarist with them to add to the boisterousness sound. Once Frances starting talking (being from Scotland) some dude screams out in the ultimate ‘drunk dude at a rock concert’ voice “YOUR ACCENT MAKES ME FEEL SENSUAL!!” It was funny, but even more hilarious when Frances responds with “well, I’m feeling a bit moist me self I’ll tell you what” and then got into the song “Monsterpussy” followed by “The Day I was a Horse”. The Frances says something to the effect of “we had the oral sex discussion when we played a couple years ago right? Eugene, have you learned how do to it yet”. Eugene, not paying attention says “Learned out to do what?” and when she says oral sex he says “Oh no, no I haven’t” paused while tuning and then said “but I’m pretty sure I understand the concept and am capable”. We’re all just cracking up at this point when Eugene is like “what Frances, you want me to just bend over and suck your cock now?” That was all before getting into “Molly’s Lips”, because Frances had added
“we didn’t know exactly what it meant when we penned it”. Then she said “You know, we’ve been broken up for almost 20 years already and we have our entire recordings on sale at the back-we’re really milking this aren’t we? Anyway, a special treat for you, here’s a new song. The song rocked too. I didn’t think I’d hear any new songs from them, they’ve only played a handful of gigs since sort of re-uniting in 06. After the new song they get into “Oliver Twisted” and that’s when I look down (I’m up on the side ramp like three steps up from the floor leaning over) to notice the crowd in an absolute frenzy, and a frenzy of the good variety. Heads nodding with circles of people just running into each other just getting totally loose to the loud, exciting punk rock that the Vaselines ensue into you. The show just totally kicked ass overall. After Oliver twisted they played “Jesus Doesn’t want me for a sunbeam”, and it sounded really cool with the added guitarist playing the riff in a different style. I hope I can upload the video. Then came “LoveCraft” followed by yet another really good new song, another one of which they didn’t tell us the name of. Then “Slushy”, a sort of lovey dovey song but beautiful in terms of musical excellence. After that they played “Teenage Superstars”, “Bitch”, “No Hope” and “Sex Sux (Amen)”. After that Eugene says “I’d like to thank you all for coming out. this is the last song of the evening….well you know how the industry goes I saw it’s the last song we run off stage and come back and do a few more” and follows it with “Dying for it” which is one of there best unknown songs (well, most of there songs are unknown) and head off stage at 11:27. When they come back out and they're tuning up for the next song someone screams "Who are you guys opening for?!!". Everyone chuckles, then Eugene hits him with a: "Who are we opening for? We're opening for your mother." Then followed by the ceremonial "ohhhhhhhhh!" from the roaring crowd and the energy level in this place is floating at the top of the radar.They then proceed rock out hard with the song “Rory Rides me Raw”; I mean the tongue and cheekness with them is so great. They sing in harmony very sweet sounding to a song with the lyrics “rory rory ride me rory/ rory rory ride me slowly/ ride me raw raw raw”. The Eugene is like “Okay, is disco time”, referring to their reworked version the song by Divine “You think you’re a man”. That song is fucking cool man, its got the greatest riff ever. A must listen. And then last but not least they played “Dum-Dum” the title track to their only actual studio record, released in 1989. everyone in that place was jumping at that point-total rocking and the only problem was that they hit the last note, unplugged the amps bowed and said good night. That was the end. We’re going to call it at 11:45. The end to night where I couldn’t have asked for more
What an absolutely amazing show. I loved it from 10 minutes in until the end. Once I realized that he wasn’t retarded and Adam Green was just a funny musician-from that point on the night was marvelous. The Vaselines played every song they have in their catalog plus two new songs, which by the way who knows if those songs ever make it to an album-remember they’re broken up, this is more a reunion tour. These 6 shows they played in the US was their first US tour. The 2006 show at Maxwells was their first time performing IN the united states; so they’ve played 7 US shows in 25 years almost and I’ve was at one. And if I did my job correctly, you too the reader kind of feels like you were at one. Well, we have a week and a half off before I hit up Terminal 5 in NYC to catch the band “Cake”, most popular for their song “The Distance” but are a well oiled machine and have tons of great songs. Catch all you concert goers there. Thanks for taking the time.
