Shows

Go Here:Read an interview with Boots Riley, by old friend and excellent writer Tom Andes. -- @The Rumpus

A very happy confluence of events led me to lie to Chris Portugal at The Coup / People Under the Stairs show. The first thing that had to happen was that the original venue for People Under the Stairs had to be unprepared to open. That venue is the Sinclair in Cambridge. It's apparently still not open as they're shuffling shows to TT's and the Royale.

Here are some of my favorite photos from Public Image Ltd. PiL played a long set, with no opener, and a good mix of old to new music. John's voice was a bit worse for wear, but he actually became better over the course of the night, I feel, probably due in no small part to generous application of Courvoisier VS.

We spent most of the night being systematically mesmerized by Lu Edmonds and his Buzuq. Natalie was convinced going in that Warren Ellis was touring with them, because she saw multiple sources mis-identifying him from previous shows. That's really a shame. They're similarly masterful, equally anachronistic visions of a late 1940's bearded man thrashing some poor instrument to death, but not the same person. I did get a sense last night for what it would have looked like if Wm. S. Burroughs were a guitar player.

The crowd was strongly in favor of this show, but artists need to keep in mind that Boston Does Not Dance. It just seems to not be what we do. Sorry. We were dancing in spirit, John. We get that a lot here.

A few pictures from the 27 I put to Flickr:

The Jesus and Mary Chain were a somewhat disappointing and listless live show. They really, for the most part, just seemed like they wished they were somewhere else. I don't know if that means "In front of a different crowd, on a better day", or "At home not having to slog it out on the road 20 years later in front of a middle-aged crowd of people who don't choke down pills anymore".

Overall it sounded all right, though there were many false starts that I would not have expected at this point in their tour and careers. I guess there are some times bands just don't gel with their audience, and this was one. Hopefully other cities had a better experience.

These guys really are a favorite band of mine and I hope they were more together for other crowds, don't like, not go see them, it's probably worth the gamble.

We really did both enjoy The Vandelles as an opener. They were pretty much super fun, wardrobe malfunctions not withstanding :-) Their name and style aside, they really were more of an early '90s band than Another Rockabilly Band, check them out.

I did get some photos, here they are:

I really do like a good zip tie job:

csFlickr 11 years ago ago by xrayspx.

This Saturday we saw Chris Isaak in the scorching heat in Webster, MA. I don't think I've been to a hotter show, 95 degrees in direct sunlight all afternoon. Also, I'm pretty sure Natalie's little sister is just slightly in love with a musician twice her age. I'm sorry parents, couldn't be helped.

This show was absolutely the perfect summer day thing to do, and the Indian Ranch was the perfect place to be. The Indian Ranch is like a campground with a music venue of maybe 2500-3000 seats (ish?). So we were able to get campground food for lunch of hot dogs, burgers, ice cream, and you could dip your toes in the lake to cool off. The place was a real throw back and was really well organized. We'll keep an eye on their concert schedule, but so far this year it looks like we've seen the one show we would go see. (I would love to see Charlie Daniels, but I really fucking hate it when musicians hard-sell me politics and/or religion. Especially if those politics are completely off the fucking deep end and the artist rants endlessly about it as I believe Daniels does. Say your piece, then play your damn music, folks. Exceptions are to be made for bands whose whole /point/ is their politics, and if it matches mine, I don't notice. In other news, I'm a massive fucking hypocrite. This is not to say that preachy liberals aren't super annoying, or that I don't want to push them off the stage into a mosh pit of knives. Here's looking at you Mr. No-Meat-Anywhere-In-The-Venue-Or-I-Walk Morrissey).

The opener was local country singer/songwriter Kiley Evans. She did about a 30 minute set and said she's getting some airplay on Boston country stations, which is good. The best story she had, though, was the story of about the cutest thing I've ever seen at a concert. At the last two Chris Isaak shows we saw, there was a little kid dressed in a matching suit to the one Chris was wearing, once a powder blue suit with darker blue flames, and once Chris's signature mirror suit.

Of course he would be dragged up on stage and dance, and he was great, he looked just like a mini-Isaak. Turns out that was Kiley Evans' little cousin, now 10, and unfortunately absent from Saturday's show.

The Chris Isaak set was great. We don't go to many daytime shows, so it was a whole different experience for the artist to actually be able to see and interact (NICE HAT) with the crowd. A lot of the later music was from the newest Sun Studios themed record, with Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, and Elvis classics from their Sun sessions. If anyone can carry that music forward accurately it's Chris Isaak. He pays good tribute to his heroes and ours without being Lounge Coverband Guy.

As much as I love seeing local bands for cheap money playing music they just wrote about things that are so important to them that they have to tell you about it right fucking now, it's also hard to do much better than a band that has had 25 years to grow as a unit and just gets tighter and tighter, and who still seem to love every second of what they do. I do wish more rockabilly type folks would turn out for Chris Isaak, and I know Boston's got the crowd for it, after seeing the people show up for Imelda May twice in 3 months, Rev. Horton Heat and even our local bar bands.

My photos look like J.J. Abrams directed me. More lens flare than Star Trek what with the sun right in my face, but I got what I got. I also discarded any focusing mainly on Herschel Yatovitz. I don't know if it's schtickey banter or what, but apparently dude doesn't want his picture taken, so who am I to be a prick about it. It's a shame though, some of them were good!

Here are some photos from the Flickr set:

Kiley Evans:

csFlickr 11 years ago ago by xrayspx.

csFlickr 11 years ago ago by xrayspx.

csFlickr 11 years ago ago by xrayspx.

Crooning to his crowd. L.L. Chris Isaak.
csFlickr 11 years ago ago by xrayspx.

Great Balls Of Fire. Scott Plunkett:
csFlickr 11 years ago ago by xrayspx.

We're all in this photo somewhere. Zoom and Enhance, C.S.I. style:
csFlickr 11 years ago ago by xrayspx.

I'm pretty much unqualified to give anyone advice on any topic, but this is the best parental advice I can give:

Don't let people insult your kids and drive you insane with crappy childrens music.

A friend posted that she felt bad because she may have waited too long to buy tickets to The Wiggles. As a non-child-owner, I of course had to interject with my option:

It's OK, you can get these instead, with the benefit of it being Real Music: http://www.danzanes.com/tour