My Dad at the Pavement Show

The first time I saw Pavement live was in Cleveland with my sister...and my dad. Since my sister was 15 and we were heading to the big, scary city, Dad thought he'd accompany us to the show.

He enjoyed Dirty Three and their stories about the local pharmacist providing all the medication a junkie could need. They also played a stirring set of violin-based instrumentals that rocked as much as they moaned.

Fuck played next. He didn't care for them. I don't remember much more than that they didn't stick out like their name did.

The headliners finally made it to the cramped stage in the Agora Theater's ballroom. One of the members, I think Kannenberg, wore a fan-made t-shirt with ironed on letters. A few mooks stood up front with their shirts removed. The crowd moshed, but the band brought that on themselves.

While we saw a memorable set, my dad found a spot at the bar. He ordered a drink. The bartender made a joke about IDing him. Then she reached below the bar to reveal a Mason jar of clear liquid and offered him some. Wisely, Dad turned down the drink.

The Breeders and Some Annoying Opener

As a freshman in college, The Breeders were a big part of my music listening. This fan-dom was caused by a combination of MTV buzz, Nirvana praise, Pixies connections, an awakening to home-grown talent, and, most importantly, a great record. Last Splash is easily one of the best records of the 90's. This was the height of the Deal sisters' success, and I was there.

Sadly, I missed The Breeders' triumphant return to Dayton a month prior to seeing them myself. It was my sister's first concert. As they rode with her friend's worrisome parent, the girls assured their driver that it wasn't like there were going to be guns and knives at the show. Just then, they pulled up to Hara Arena, right beside the "Gun and Knife Show" banners advertising the venue's other event for the evening. They were allowed to enter anyway. For a first concert, my sister couldn't do much better than The Breeders with The Afghan Whigs, Guided by Voices, and The New Bomb Turks. Not bad.

Flash forward a few weeks in Columbus at the Newport Music Hall. I got my first chance to see The Breeders and gaze upon Kim and Kelley Deal, full of a school-boy crush on both.

Th' Faith Healers opened with a rousing set of noise and feedback. To this day, their record, Imaginary Friend, is a guilty pleasure of mine.

Then, this awful band played. It was a basic set-up of drums, bass, and guitar with exuberant front man...and a theremin. The singer pranced around and seemed to emulate Elvis as he shook his hips and shook his voice. It was wild, but annoying. The worst was when he chanted over and over "Blues Explosion, Blues Explosion". It was exhausting.

Funny thing is, that opener became one of my favorite bands of the 90's indie rock era, The John Spencer Blues Explosion. Oh well. You can't always be right.

The Breeders put on a great, great show. I moshed and rode the crowd. It was fun.

All Ages with a Curfew

Bright Eyes played what was advertised as an "all ages" show at Columbus' Newport Music Hall. I can't quite recall the year, but I know it was during the summer and it was hot.

Opener Tilly and the Wall sounded awful, but I equate this to the Newport's infamously bad sound system. Later, better sounding performances would support this assertion. The tap dancer just sounded like your upstairs neighbor stomping around his apartment.

Bright Eyes came on to thirteen-year-old screams and calls for all various ballads of teen angst and loss and whatever else Oberst laments. The set was not particularly inspired, but it cost us enough to get in that we weren't going to leave.

Then, suddenly, without warning, the lights came on and the crummy sound system was turned off. Oberst played on, eventually opting for an acoustic guitar while sitting on the monitors.

Bouncers and the management started pushing us out of the venue. I believe my brother shouted some not-so-appreciative words at the Newport folk. They ignored and sent us walking.

We ventured to several other rock shows that night, not ever feeling like we got our money's worth. It was later revealed on a Bright Eyes discussion board that the show was only scheduled to go until 10, since it was "all ages". I have since avoided "all ages" shows. However, I may reconsider once the kid is keeping me awake all night.

Beating Them with a Yardstick

I saw Archers of Loaf a couple of times at Stache's in Columbus. The second time was a letdown.

My friend's band, Monster Zero, opened the show. These jerks in front of me kept screaming for MZ to play a cool cover. MZ had played "Gold Star for Robot Boy" once while opening for Mercury Rev and Hum, but chose not to play any covers on this night.

The second band, Tuscadero, was an all-grrrl group from DC on Teen Beat. They were peppy, punky, and fresh. However, the band soon became very agitated with the same group of jerks up front. This time, instead of hollering for "cool covers", these mooks were smoking up a storm and blowing it right at the band. Normally, this is not a big deal, except for the fact that the band asked the audience before their set to hold off on smoking until they were done. The band even stopped at one point until the cigarettes were put out.

Finally, Archers of Loaf hopped on stage. I figured that there was no way that this crew of jackasses could ruin their set. I was wrong.

Loaf started off with a band, rocking through their first few songs. The crowd was rocking. I found myself in almost the same post I held a year before, right in front, just behind front man Eric Bachman's monitor.

Then it began.

The same guys who heckled my friend and blew smoke at Tuscadero were actually moshing. Sure, moshing was a regular feature of rock shows in the 1990's, but this was 1996 and it was a small, indie rock show. It wasn't the Warped Tour and that wasn't Rancid on stage.

The pushing and shoving got so bad that Bachman started cutting off songs to yell at the audience to quit. They didn't quit and the band became more and more agitated. Finally, they walked off with Bachman saying, "That's it. We're done." There was no encore.

I saw Archers of Loaf again about a year later in Cleveland at the Euclid. I was able to talk to Loaf bassist Matt Gentling about the Stache's show. He replied, "Yeah, that was bad. We needed yardsticks to beat them down."

Since that Loaf show at Stache's, I have bumped into the heckling-smoking-moshing idiots' leader at several shows. He's obnoxious. He's that guy who yells for the same song throughout a band's set and never stops. (Wait, I've done that.) The worst was the time his band opened for Guided by Voices.

Daniel Johnston

I saw Daniel Johnston perform on February 9, 2008 in Omaha at Slowdown. This, of course, does not prove that I was there, that I had heard of him first, but I did go. Then I blogged about it, pissing off one of the guys backing Johnston. (What? It was a good critique.)

Good venue that Slowdown.

One of My Favorite Venues: The Crocodile Cafe

I spent some time in Seattle during the summer of 1997. While there, I was able to catch a couple of shows at the Crocodile Cafe.

The venue was (is?) owned by Stephanie Dorgan, one-time wife of REM's Peter Buck and has been a fixture in the Seattle music scene since it opened in 1991.

There was a cafe out front, seedy bar in the back, and a small stage and dancefloor hidden behind a retractable wall. It was part of my indie rock mecca. I'm glad I was able to see some bands there.

There were two shows I attended that summer. The first was Teenage Fanclub and Bettie Serveert. Both bands put on really solid shows. Carol van Dyk has one of the best voices in the indie world and she was amiably backed by guitarist, Peter Visser.

The second show was part of an AIDS benefit show that featured Modest Mouse. MM played a short, equipment-failing set, but they rocked through material from what would become 1997's Lonesome and Crowded West.

6 Hours for 30 Minutes

Published earlier from my real blog on February 1, 2008...

I had two tickets for last night's Band of Horses show in St. Louis, but no one wanted brave the snow to see them.

Then, an eleventh-hour reply to emailed pleas gave me the permission I needed to take on Old Man Winter and make the trek to see Band of Horses. My friend TJ came through and together we headed to St. Louis.

The roads weren't actually that bad for most of the trip, but as we closed in on St. Louis, our progress slowed. It took us two hours to hit the city's outskirts which isn't far off the pace on a clear day. However, the snow was beginning to pile up and we found ourselves behind a line of snowplows that caused us to add another hour to our trip.

Somehow we found the venue, The Gargoyle, hidden in the basement of a student center on Washington University's campus. It was thirty minutes into Band of Horses' set, but we had arrived!

BoH were really solid live. Front man Ben Bridwell's voice sounded almost human without the heavily engineered effects of the band's two Sub Pop releases, but it was still powerful enough to hold its own among the guitars, bass, and drums. The band overall was tight but loose enough to cause the prerequisite head-bobbing one expects.

TJ and I had to laugh that although we had missed half of the band's set, we still got to hear the "hit", aka "The Funeral". But that wasn't even the highlight of the set. The band played a Credence Clearwater Revival b-side called "Effigy". This has to be one of my all-time favorite tracks, especially the version recorded by Uncle Tupelo for the No Alternative compilation. It was a pleasant surprise.

After the encore, we had to make our way back to highways which had only accumulated snow while we were at the Gargoyle. A drive that usually takes me just under two hours, took us over three. Between the drifts, fishtails, and iced over windshield, we were lucky to get out that quickly. It was so bad at one point that we turned onto an exit to clear the windshield and knock the ice off wipers that ended up placing us on a whole other highway.

We eventually made our way back to I-70 and back in COMO. It took us three hours to get there and three hours to get back. All that for thirty minutes of rock and roll, but it was worth it.