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All posts by Pat La Penna
Jay Farrar: Another Round Before You Go
There are times when you stop by the local watering hole only expecting to have one beer, and you take your barstool and place your order with that avowed intention, when you feel a hard slap on your back and a loud voice in your ear and turn to see the face of a friend you haven’t seen in awhile. He orders another round, and you settle in. That’s what Jay Farrar’s set at the Intersection was like.
If some of you like me are a little fuzzy on the names like I always am, he did a couple of albums with his band Son Volt, and before that, he was in Uncle Tupelo with a certain Jeff Tweedy (does that make Tweedy his cousin if they’ve got the same uncle?). His accompanist, Mark Spencer, played a Telecaster and a lap steel, while Jay had about half a dozen acoustic guitars with him, although I only saw him play one of them. The crowd was a little too old for a Tuesday night, and pulled tables and chairs up close to the stage where the dance floor would usually be. Farrar’s voice had that familiar tone and cadence, instantly recognizable.
Most of the set was comprised of songs from his new solo album, Sebastopol, very appropriate for the two guitar arrangement (even if the house acoustics and stage configuration was not), the songs a little like the conversation with that old friend where you talk about what you’ve been up to lately. Mixed in was an Uncle Tupelo number and a song or two from Son Volt’s debut Trace.
With the first couple of bars of “Tear Stained Eye,” after the appreciative woops from the crowd died down, I had to wonder why the old songs gave me so much more of a twinge than the new. Is it the fact that they’re old times being talked about that makes them good times, the years and a lively imagination putting a spin to them? Or do good songs become great when you’ve listened to them time and again on mix tapes, and sung along with the tune, out of tune, on road trips into the great West? Maybe he says it best in that very song: “Can you deny/there’s nothing greater/nothing more/than the traveling hand of time?”
Whatever it was, the songs sounded good, the slide guitar on the solo sounding like a trembling saw. I was still thinking about the question when they wound up their set and were brought back for an encore by the polite but insistent applause. They closed with another Son Volt song, “Windfall,” which sounded like the promise you make after a few too many rounds to keep in touch and do this more often, and they were done. I picked up his disc on the way out—as our man Scott put it, “It’s almost like buying the artist a beer, considering you’re cutting out the middleman.” And Jay definitely deserves another round.
Chuck Barris, Scott Baio and the Village People
The Scariest Halloween Costumes Ever
At Glorious Noise, we’re always decked out in orange and black, so it’s like Halloween 365 days a year. And strangely, people ask us all the time if we’re wearing masks, when it’s really just our real faces. Anyway, if you want candy, but you don’t have a costume, check out some of these at retrocrush. It’s like a trip down the K-Mart aisle of marked down memories, with some of the finest examples of the classic “cheap ‘n flammable” costume, with the plastic mask in the shape of some lovable celebrity, and a plastic smock which was easy to clean the vomit off of after you ate a whole bag of candy corn and circus peanuts. It reminds me of many Halloweens as a child, making the trip to the supermarket on the night of Halloween, just after they marked down the costumes and candy, my little brother crying because they were sold out of the Spiderman costume he wanted, my mother yanking a “Small Wonder” costume off the rack for him, while I roamed the bulk candy aisle sticking my head into the barrel of malted milk balls and chowing down until the store managers dragged me outside.
[link via coudal partners]
GRAND ROYAL, RIP 1993-2001
“Our intentions were always simply to create a home for exciting music and the people who were passionate about it,” Diamond said. “It really sucks that we can’t continue to do that.”
That’s Mike D of the Beastie Boys in the press release regarding his Grand Royal record label going out of business today. You can read it in it’s entirety here, and sound off on their board.
[More on this coming up soon… – ed.]
Monday Morning Coming Down
If you’re like me and the rest of the Glorious Noise editorial staff, Monday morning is when you realize that Saturday’s hangover has not departed with the beginning of the work week, but in fact has removed the For Rent sign from your frontal lobe and has filled the front yard with rusty muscle car parts and broken toys. It’s my own fault, of course, for trying to play the Sex in the City drinking game with wine coolers instead of shots. Coffee will only make you (more) irritable, so in this case, it’s best to open a pack of scratch attack at elimin8.net. Reach for the 33 1/3 project along with your asprin, and don’t call me in the morning. It’s a big download, but that means you can just stare at your screen for awhile, an additional positive side effect. Oh, and use headphones so as to not tip off your boss.
Songs for Big Dame Hunters
Since I’ve already gotten into a knockdown dragout discussion of the essential integrity of vinyl records with Phil Wise and Jake Brown of the crew, I know this little posting culled from the linkmastas at k10k.net will be of interest to at least two of our frequent readers. One of the points made while the boys had me on the floor in a sleeper hold was that LPs are worth collecting just for the cover art. If that’s the case, then Show and Tell Music (Evel Knievel’s spoken word album, or Laussmann’s Lousy Loggers Band, or The Plastic Cow Goes Moooooog. If you don’t have time to browse endless thumbnails (a little too tiny for my taste), take one of the theme tours — some of the covers in the Girls section could easily replace Herp Alpert in my Desert Island Discs.
Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt
Very seldom does a internet news posting make you want to run out and rob a bank, or better yet, knock over one of the largest auction houses in the world on a Thursday afternoon. This is one of those rare occasions. Christie’s is auctioning off the original typed scroll of Jack Kerouac’s On The Road. I quote from the auctioneer’s site: “the working draft from which the published novel derives. Typed by Kerouac in New York City in a 20-day marathon between April 2 and 22, 1951.” Still mulling over whether or not you should dig out your ski mask and water pistol and head over to your nearest savings and loan? It’s 119 feet long, typed on a continuous scroll of paper! Throughout the manuscript Neal Cassady’s name is crossed out and Dean Moriarty’s is pencilled in by ol’ Jack himself…
Continuing Education Dept:
Have you ever found yourself at the head of the line for the dancing cage on Soul Train and remembered you never learned how to dance? Well, in addition to providing a forum for crabby music critics, the internet can also be used as an instructional tool. How to Dance Properly uses the advanced technology of the world wide web to give you detailed instructions and animated examples so that you can be doing the “Who’s you’re daddy?” in no time, and never again feel the shame of not being able to groove.
Link from K10K
When the fat guy plays the didgeridoo
For me, the phrase “when the fat lady sings” does not signify anymore. For me, the universal sign that it’s over is now “when the fat guy plays the didgeridoo.” This implies no slight to the aboriginal wind instrument, elegant in it’s simplicity and able to be created from almost any available material, nor towards anyone with the oral and pulmonary dexterity to play one. It’s just the image that I’m stuck on since I saw DJ Polywog and her band at Justice League in San Francisco California. She was the evening’s entertainment at the New Media Underground Festival, which is sort of like a poetry reading, but for computer programmers and web animators where everybody gets to drink beer.
So, after some stimulating demonstrations of what Flash is capable of, including a demonstration by couple of kids who wrote a program to allow raw Midi data (from, in this case, a sampler) to manipulate animations while the music is playing (allowing you to actually see the music, man) and many full sail IPAs, I was in a pleasantly dreamy state of drunkenness, both from the ale and from the possibilities. Plus, I’d heard things about DJ Polywog, or at least I’d seen her picture in Rolling Stone back when I still read Rolling Stone, she was the festival dj for Lollapalooza and a bunch of other bullshit.
But back in that singing fat lady time, I didn’t think much of it when the band started to set up, a couple of turntables, an upright bass, a guitar, and a didgeridoo attached to the aforementioned fat guy but then, the image did not signify. The guy from New York I’d been talking to decided to call it a night.
I was leaning back on the bar next to the cash register, perfect view of the dance floor, if there was anybody dancing, just waiting for things to get started. That’s when I smelled it. Weed. I spun around. The smoker stared back at me. Either this was the Notorious B.I.G. hiding in plain sight after faking his own death, or it was someone with a very striking resemblance and a well defined respect for the deceased rapper’s personal style and attitude, puffing on a blunt the size of a Monte Cristo cigar, blowing out thick clouds of ganja and clearly not giving a shit about anyone who knew it.
Like me, for instance.
I turned back to the stage where the fat guy was blowing a mean, mournful retort from his tube that blended in to the synth track coming from the turntable. Biggie started heading in my direction, but I didn’t look. He stepped up to the bar right next to where I was standing. He ordered a drink from the bartender. I don’t remember the bartender mentioning the uniform non-smoking policy for all restaurants and bars in the state of California, but it could be that it just slipped his mind. I honestly have to say it slipped mine until just now. As the bartender reached into the speed racks for the bottle of Stoli, Biggie turned to me, took another deep draw on the massive blunt, turned in my direction, and blew a cloud of smoke the size of a beach ball right at me, paid for his drink, and returned to his posse. It was then I knew it was time to start the long walk back to my hotel.
As for DJ Polywog, I’d recommend following Biggie Jr.’s implicit advice and get really high before you see her show. There really isn’t that much else to say about it. Just make sure you’re out of there by the time the fat guy plays the didgeridoo.
Minipops
Hey guys, not to bring down the level of discourse on the site, but I’m here at Flash Forward 2001 San Francisco and there was a site that I figured I should forward on to you guys. Flip Flop Flyin’ has icon sets rendered in a pixel style that will be familiar to anyone who has ever played 80’s computer games, exept that they are your favorite stars from music and movies. The A-Team, David Bowie (both thin white duke and ziggy stardust), Leo Sayer (!), CSNY, Neil Young , and the Wu Tang are all represented.