May 22, 2003 - Eagles Club - N'ton - with: The Holics and Cobra Verde
BRIAN: Oy, this crap weather is depressing. Andrea and I just got back from dinner at Springfield's "Sitar" restaurant. I always feel great after good Indian food. Must be the spices, because normally, that much butter and cream would leave me feeling balloon-like. Last night was a funny one. I decided to take a walk by the Iron Horse to see the Beck scene. But much to our surprise, there was no scene. I heard part of one song walking by, but the imposing tour bus and apparent roadie type guy watching us go by made us self conscious so we kept walking. We did a figure 8 and walked down again. This time a few more people were gathered and we watched a bit through the window and stayed to dig about 5 songs. It sounded very groovy. But excuse me, I have my own fans to tend to across town. Walking into the Eagles Club, Cobra Verde were hanging around, and J mascis was wandering, playing an unplugged electric guitar. Murph was there too, and talked to me for a few minutes. We talked about Joe Boyle and his success with the musical he's playing in in West Springfield at the Majestic theater. I was borrowing the Holics' drummer (Dave) stuff. They were second on the bill. Big rock set.I tested out the drums, got a beer and made a set list with Tony. The post Beck crowd arrived, and Max had only good things to say. Wasn't Max's Beck fanstasy the funniest thing ever, btw? Our set (Ken-less, He was in San Antonio, TX w/ the Mammals) was brisk. "One Lady" was so friggin' fast I actually missed a couple beats in confusion. Mascis was up front stringing his guitar, stretching the strings by playing along with us. I think he may have dug Screen Door, but left during Omnivore (perhaps hearing Henning repeat 'I'm a dinosaur" got to him. It's true on a couple levels with Mascis). But as always, I had fun. Afterwards I was asked if I wanted to play drums on a local songwriters' album. Not Mascis. But I said yes and if it all works out, it'll be a lot of fun. My ears were ringing, so Andrea and I went to Hugo's. We returned for 2 Cobra Verde songs. Swaggery, NYC-style punk attitude rock. When I return to the states, I wanna see 6 summer gigs for SFTD listed on this site. TONY: Not much to say about this show. The big news of the night was the Beck show at The Iron Horse anyway. Meh. Sure, I like Beck and it's cool that he would play such an intimate show but so what? He's just a guy who sings and writes songs and is no more or less interesting or talented than many of my friends here in town. Northampton goes crazy because Mr. MTV Loser deigns to throw our small town a bone but goddamnit Northampton- you're blessed every week with the chance to experience artists who are just as incredible and you have been for many years now. I just hate celebrity. It's all because of TV. Beck looks good on TV and he's been on it many times so it's a big deal. Sea Change is a good album but it's Nick Drake for the slackers and those who weren't paying close enough attention to the goddamn Pink Moon car commercial. I hate TV. Okay, settle down. I've just heard too much about Beck and I've spent the day at the in-laws where TV is king and what was on today but a Saturday Night Live rerun with Beck as the guest? Was I going to say something about our performance now? Okay, more celebrity in tha house as we were on a bill that would be featuring another alt-rock god in J Mascis. I like Dinosaur Jr. fine but again, he's no more special than my Northampton artist friends so I just can't get wrapped up in it all. Our set was really only merely okay to me but I also believed Crom sincerely meant it when he raved about it at the end. I really enjoyed the insanely speedy race through One Lady Dancing. It had to be half the length of the recorded version. Anyone who might've picked up the chain CD that night may have trouble even recognizing that it's the same song. Not only is the tempo half as slow but the instrumentation is radically different. Nice work. It's always cool when a band can present a song differently live than in the studio. Didja hear that, cover bands? You don't have to sound EXACTLY like the record. (Why am I so cranky?) So anyway, as Brian noted, J Mascis spent the majority of our set sitting on a chair just off to the side of the stage down in front, spending about 20 minutes fiddling with his guitar, changing strings, stretching them, toying with the tuning pegs and the bridge, etc. and then for a few songs, he played along, unamplified of course. He was kinda staring off into space but he was definitely playing along. For instance, Henning would sing, "All that makeup spelled out a breakup" and Mascis would slide his fingers way up near the 12th fret and wail off some fast lead guitar lick, diddley-diddley-diddley, bending strings and basically shredding then he'd wait until the next break in the vocal to do it again. Cool and funny. I would've appreciated it and found it amusing even if it were just, say, Frank Padellaro doing it but since it was Mr. Alternative Rock MTV guitar hero J Dinosaur Jr. Mascis (by the way, did you all know that, I, Tony Westcott am close personal friends with Sebadoh's Jason Loewenstein's sister Samara?) made it that much more worthy of mention. (I also know Krista Hollywood too). No, I'm not envious of not getting in to see Beck and don't give a toss that he didn't come to our show. I've just become jaded and contemptuous of celebrities. Just too much lately. All this brouhaha about Beck, and also that American Idol TV show plus communicating with a friend who's currently down on himself and his artistic career because he has friends who are successful in the godfuckingawful entertainment industry of 2003 when he hasn't been when it's nothing to do with aesthetic quality. He watches American Idol-he should know. I've never seen the show- I saw a pic of the three final contestants on the cover of a People magazine in the supermarket- that's all I need to see to know it ain't worth even tuning in for a minute just to deride it and see what the fuss is about and curse the mainstream for its slovenly, mindless, heartless attitude towards entertainment. And dude, the MATRIX returns for another installment of shite- I saw it on video years ago and was just mortally offended by how a movie could be such a waste of time and be so successful- all that time they put into those SPECIAL effects and they go and get Kenau Freakin' Reeves to ACT and cough out a screenplay that had to have been written by a mildly retarded 13-year old boy who knows no world beyond Dungeons & Dragons, Nintendo, Rambo movies and the X-Files TV show. Mother of all that is ass. And that's my gig diary. Wait, let me just also say I really enjoyed The Holics and their energetic brand of loud rawknroll. Not a band I would've expected to fall for and I don't think I'd get much out of listening to a record of them but what a delightful punch in the face with tongue in cheek of a show. And how did they know that their impact on me was that much more effective and successful because they played such a short set? Less than 10 songs, about a half-hour. JP's guitar hero antics leaned maybe a bit too much on the Angus Young and could use a few dollops of say Jimi Page or Hendrix sprinkled in for a more potent brew but the Marty McFly dive onto the knees was the cherry on top. Delicious. MAX: I am just back from six hours of rainy driving, and getting ready for the Fawns' rawk show tonight. So my gig diary for the Eagles' show will be brief: We played a show. Ok, I'll elaborate a little. I was one of the lucky ticket holders for the Beck show earlier that night, and I will happily disagree with pretty much everything Tony said about Mr. Hanson. His show was tremendous: the tender acoustic songs blissful; the rock songs anthemic; the weird songs weird-ass-excellent. Was the show's excitement level ratcheted up a level because he's a celebrity? Of course, and that's not a bad thing. The first time I heard "Loser" was driving around Boston dressed up as a chicken looking for a K-Mart in Rochester, where I was to stand outside and greet people during their big grand opening. I was very lost. I think it was FNX who had latched on to the single and were playing it hourly, and it was immediately addictive. I've liked every album and have never seen him live. So yeah I was excited by the celebrity-induced hype preceding his show in town. And yeah he lived up to the hype. And yeah I danced so hard that my calves are still sore days later. And yeah I would be just as excited to go see him play in town again. Yeah yeah yeah. Anyway, I rushed over to our show with a Beck-rattled head, sweaty shirt, tired legs and hungry stomach. Drank a beer, set up quickly and played a decent show which felt kind of weird and distant from the audience. I imagined us as the kids doing a presentation on the theory of relativity to a classroom full of kids in detention on a Friday afternoon. I guess that sums it up.	Uncomfortable Something's Taking Over Thug 1,000 Times Everybody Loves Martha Rock & Roll Camper Photobooth Curtain The Wichita Train Whistle Sings The Screen Door One Lady Dancing Omnivore