FeralBlog

(Miss Murder, by AFI) 

Pro: The bar that somehow 7 straights and 1 gay wound up going to on Saturday night had Hoegaarden on draft. ON DRAFT, PEOPLE!

Con: I have had this damn Madonna/Abba song playing over and over again, and yet I still can’t get it out of my head. Damn you, 15-minute club remix!

After a few fits and starts, including 2 reschedules, Kristin Hersh came to town last night to play at the very small and very intimate Plush on 4th Ave.

I was lucky in that I happened to be sitting by the door that Kristin and BillyO walked in, and I chatted with her a bit while he was introducing her and explaining why, due to their recent move to Portland, they didn’t have their usual stock of t-shirts and other stuff, so instead they had some awesome handmade gift bags.

I admit that I totally geeked out and turned into a slobbering fanboy talking to Kristin. We talked about her move to Portland, my move to Tucson, and the different states that I had seen her play in.

Then she was on, and did her pretty standard acoustic set. Setlist was as follows:

White Bikini Sand
Two new tracks off the forthcoming album
Gazebo Tree
Hook in Her Head
Another new song
William’s Cut
Your Dirty Answer
Trouble
Sundrops
Your Ghost
Clay Feet
Sno Cat
(encore, this time with the electric guitar)
Cottonmouth
Serene
Listerine

Her voice was a little scratchy, due to her losing it about a week prior, so she stayed away from the high notes, but she gets a pass from me. She told great stories in between, from dead/crazy people on buses to blueberry bagels looking like necrotic tissue, to being in Throwing Muses and playing an impromptu gig at a bar in Scotland filled with very drunk Scottish folks.

After her set we once again chatted a little bit. She talked at length about her new album which should be out in January. The songs that she played live had sounded darker than the last few albums, but she said with arrangements were lush, orchestral and “happy”, and she was really, really pleased with how it had turned out. I managed to completely humiliate myself and ask for a picture with her, so today in the light of day I’m happy that I did.

Highlights:

• Bauhaus
• New Order
• Coldplay
• The homefries at a Palm Springs breakfast place

• Winning $50 very quickly at a super-loose California cardroom Saturday

  Lowlights:

• The fucker from craigslist who never got back in touch about camping tickets
• Selling one too many extra Sunday tickets on Saturday, and having to buy another one Sunday
• Forgetting my ticket at the condo Saturday and having to go back for it
• Chemical Brothers
• Losing $150 not as quickly at a super-loose California cardroom Sunday
• The 5 hour drive back last night, and getting in at 3 a.m.

• The realization that I am now officially old and un-hip

This weekend I’m going to be heading off, along with Kim and two friends, to the Coachella Valley Music Festival thingy dealie. It’s sort of Lollapalooza on steroids, or Burning Man but less dusty, or even Bumbershoot without all the rain. I’m currently bidding on camping tickets for all of us, which will probably be a lot better than trying to negotiate the clusterfuck in and out both days. Granted, it’s still going to be a clusterfuck with all those bands, but hopefully a slightly more managable one. Plus, if we camp we actually get to bring in food and water, instead of paying $8 for a bottle of water or whatever it was that caused the Woodstock riot a few years back.

It’s a lot of bands, and there’s quite a few that I would like to see, but it sounds like it’s going to be a really, REALLY big crowd, which always makes me a little nervous. I wish there was going to be WiFi there, but there ain’t… so all my pictures will have to wait until I get home to get uploaded.

Update: Well, I didn’t win the auction for the tickets, but only because some fucking asshole bid me out of them, thinking they were tickets to the event! Um, $100 to get 4 tickets that cost $175 each? “If it seems to good to be true…” Fucker. Now the original seller is trying to sell them to me for a Buy It Now of $100. No way, not when individual camping passes are going for less than $20 each.

New albums out recently from both Fatboy Slim (Palookaville) and The Chemical Brothers (Push the Button). Also out at the same time is a complete remix album of PTB called Flip the Switch. Out of the two, I like the Chemical Bros’ new offering a whole lot more. Huge beats, Q-Tip shows up on track 1… what’s not to like? I particularly like the eastern-sounding “Marvo Ging”, and the slightly eerie “The Big Jump”.

The FBS album is not as good, at least for the first few spins I’ve given it. “Don’t let the man” is fun and recognizeable, both from the 5 Man Electrical Band hook “and the sign said long-haired freaky people need not apply” and the fact that it was remixed on the last SSX game I bought. The other songs are not as catchy, proving to me that Norman Cook is a better remixer/house DJ than an original composition writer. Bonus points for getting Bootsy Collins (awww, shizzle!) to help him cover Steve Miller’s “The Joker”, tho.

Last night I drove up to Mesa to go see The Pixies at the ampitheatre. It was my first time seeing them live, although I saw Frank Black and the Catholics a few years ago in Pittsburgh.

The show was awesome… it was like listening to a greatest hits album live.

Update: If you want a rough approximation of what they sounded like, go here for links to the mp3 and flac versions of an earlier show from the same tour.

Setlist follows:

Is She Wierd
Subbacultcha
Something Against You
Tame
Cactus
River Euphrates
Monkey Gone to Heaven
No. 13 Baby
Mr. Grieves
Ed is Dead
Planet of Sound
Caribou
My Velouria
Gouge Away
Isla de encanta
Broken Face
Wave of Mutilation
Debaser
U-Mass
I Bleed
Hey
Gigantic
Winterlong
Here Comes Your Man
Nimrod’s Son
Holiday Song
Vamos
(Encore)
In Heaven
Where is My Mind

They sounded fantastic, and good ol’ Black Francis didn’t even look as fat as he was a few years back. I guess they’re doing a lot of touring, so that’s a lot of good exercise right there.

Mesa itself is a strange place. It’s a suburb of Phoenix, really… so it’s all sprawl. Plus, they have a very high concentration of Mormons there, so it lends to the overall creepy atmosphere.

Joshua just pointed out to me that 50 Foot Wave is going to be at Club Cafe tonight. I would go if I didn’t a) completely suck, and b) already have plans for the evening. Oh well, maybe next time.

Have I mentioned lately just how much I fucking love Interpol Turn on the Bright Lights? Well, it’s a lot, I can assure you.

I have a bit of a bug up my ass today about finding either songs that have been covered by The Cure, or Cure songs that have been covered by other artists, and the Covers Project has been an invaluable help.