34 days since my last message. Lame.
I've been doing an OK job seeing music, but mostly bands I've seen before. I've also missed a ton of great shows for a ton of bad reasons. The streak continued tonight: great concert, but only part of it because of a bad reason. Let's see how much I can catch up.
(Soundtrack for me while writing this entry: Steel Train's
Terrible Thrills, Vol. 1). And the song for tonight's Mad Men
outro, Tobacco Road by
The Nashville Teens, sounded great.
June 5 I wanted to see
Yeasayer. I waited too long at the apt like an
idiot, and when I got all the way to the southern tip of Manhattan island, I saw someone wandering around a bit holding a hand-written sign. I got closer, and finally made it out: no more ferries to the concert. Governors Island is full.
FML.
Made a phone call I don't like to make to get a favor for a sold-out show (hyphen there, yes?) for June 8.
Les Claypool. Didn't make it. Reason(s) is/are all terrible. Lame.
On June 18, I drove with a passenger in a car belonging to neither of us and not rented to Hartford, CT. I'd never met him before, but we had a good time. Listened to
Graceland start to finish. Love that. Talked a lot about
Phish. Which is where we were going, to see
Phish's second night at Hartford; I did not go night one. Met
Bruddy, C, some others. No pics worth uploading. But
Tweezer Reprise squared had me
shakin' it. Halloween is always challenging to compare to a normal
Phish show, but compared to all other shows in 2009 I saw, Hartford was probably better.
The week of June 21, I tried to listen to
podcasts. It made me
unsubscribe from Morning Becomes Eclectic. New host is no
Nic. Tough act to follow. Not a great interviewer. I'm telling you, review my
Rothbury highlight reel for pointers. I listened to
Blitzen Trapper, boring. Angela
McCluskey was
bitching about money?! Listened to Wild Beasts. Fair. I wrote some other notes to myself from these
podcasts, but I can't read them.
Oh I saw some music journalist at the show tonight. Anyway.
I watched a video by
The Shaky Hands that I thought was great from the Kill Rock Stars podcast.
June 25 it was off to Camden, New Jersey on the party bus. A real bus, although limited partying. But good people, and fun. One of them told me about the performer tonight, with some struggle. But got it eventually.
Missed the beginning of the first song of the first set due to stupidity, etc. And of course it was a hyper rarity I'd never heard before. Sigh. Also debut (and probably only ever) of
Free Man in Paris and infectious
funkiness of the
MJ tribute during 2001. A blast.
Then off to my hometown venue in my younger days.
Ziggy Marley in the late
80s at
MPP, anyone? Jimmy Buffet in 1991? ANYONE??!!
Saw family, including a young nephew and even younger niece for their first shows. P--, er, I mean S said she liked Backwards Down the Number Line, a gem debuted at
Rothbury in 2008. I sent her
B- video of that performance , and she e-mailed back: "My
fav by
phish." Mostly flat first set, despite Neutral Milk Hotel debut. Second set brought some heat. I like
Phish.
Next day I came back and was by myself. Now, one of my big music regrets of the summer is missing
Gil Scott-Heron on August 5 at a
Summerstage event, I think not at Central Park. I came back June 27, not realizing he was playing another
Summerstage show, this one I think at Central Park. I was here, didn't find out about it until too late, and screwed it up. Idiotic. That day I also could have seen
Furthur. Fail. I also skipped Bang on a Can. Sad. I did learn of the Pimps of
Joytime's song
Bonita that day, but that's hardly enough to save that mess of a failure of a day.
I listened to the new album by
Robyn, and found it very fun. I listened to the new Chemical Brothers. I wish I could remember how it was. Sort of.
(That album is over. Now it's on to Big
Boi's new album.)
I spent a few nights on
phish #
couchtour. One, really only one, night, there was very good audio. Usually it was somewhere between just below fair at best to dead air at worst. Went to a Flashing Lights party. Wow was it awful.
Wanted to go see She & Him play a free show, but screwed it up. Fail.
Wanted to see
Xiu Xiu et al. at the
Williamsburg Waterfront on July 11, but couldn't. Fail. Again a
Xiu Xiu fail, plus others.
Wanted to see Caribou play on the
16th, but didn't make it. Fail.
Watched some of the Pitchfork
webcast over the weekend. Some stuff not so good, but two highlights:
alla (can't get accent) and
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion.
Only a tiny bit more to say, but I'll break there for now.