Nels Cline

I am not a gigantic Nels Cline fan, but he has always impressed me when I've seen him live.

I first saw him play with Mike Watt at Stache's. That was a pretty awesome set. I was maybe three feet away from Cline's incredible performance.

I also saw him play with the Geraldine Fibbers and Porno for Pyros (with Mike Watt on bass).

The last couple of times I've seen him were with Wilco, a pairing which never made sense to me, but it worked.

I Saw Brainiac a Few Times

I saw Brainiac a few times. There was the time at Lollapalooza on the second stage in 1995. Then I saw them at Stache's maybe a couple of times.

I once took my sister who was in high school to a club in Dayton a day or two after Christmas in 2006. It was maybe a few months after Tupac Shakur died, but that didn't stop Tim Taylor from dedicating a song or two to his memory.

The most memorable show for me was the last time they played Columbus. There was a lot of buzz about the band signing to Interscope. They played hard and completely demolished the place...which literally happened a few months later.

Sadly, Taylor died in a car accident in Dayton. It was before they could ever finish their record.

Dave Doughman Sets Me Straight

I feebly tried to tell a story about Dave Doughman of Swearing at Motorists. He found my post and set me straight. In case you missed the comments, this is what he said...
wow, i had almost forgotten about that story... except, sorry, but i have to set you straight on a few details... the club was a sold out Canal Street Tavern, it must have been 2001 or 2002, because we couldn't get more than 50 people in the room until after we signed to Secretly Canadian... i did not notice this guy walk through the door, nor did i know who he was. and in fact he was not dating an ex-girlfriend, but stalking her (which i was only later told). what happened is:

we had started a song, when a beer bottle came flying through the crowd, just missing my head, but hitting the headstock of my guitar and knocking it out of tune. i stopped playing and started yelling "Who threw the fucking bottle?"
"you got something to say, come say it to my face, don't throw things you fucking coward!"
"Who threw the fucking bottle?" "come up here right now!" so as i am yelling this, some friends and fans who saw this idiot throw the bottle start pushing him from behind, towards the stage. as he
"arrived" at the stage, i resisted the urge to punch him in the face, and instead bent down and calmly asked him why he threw the bottle.
his answer was something like " She loved you, why do you hurt her?" that's when i offered him his money back and asked him to leave. he would not take my money, but started towards the door, yelling threats and more nonsense about my ex-girlfriend. that is when i ran across the table tops after him, knocking over everyone's drinks...
my good friends Rod Boggs and Tom Byrne stopped me from following him out the front door, but once i had returned to the stage, they ran after him, chasing after his car on foot, until he stopped in the middle of 3rd Street, and pulled "something" out of the glove compartment. they then decided maybe it was best to go back inside before he could get out of his car. we later heard he was riding around town, saying he was going to shoot me, but obviously he didn't want to shoot me too badly, as he never came to the after show party...

My brother was one of the 50 or so people at Canal Street that night. It's actually his story and I butchered it. In the spirit of accuracy, I'll leave the original post and this Doughman's account.

Crooked Fingers at Little Brothers

I saw Crooked Fingers play Little Brothers twice.

The first time was forgettable.

Eric Bachman played alone, opening for Superchunk. His dirge of a voice was barely audible over the talkative crowd.

What made his set even more forgettable was the fact that an unknown ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead also played on the bill. It was Trail of Dead's first gig with Superchunk since joining Merge. The lead singer at some point leaped into the crowd and screamed into the face of the biggest guy in the crowd.

(That happened to me once at Stache's when the front man for Six Finger Satellite screamed into my face while opening for Brainiac. I was not the biggest guy in the venue. But I digress.)

Superchunk played well.

Then, I saw Crooked Fingers in a nearly-empty Little Brothers on a cold, winter evening.

Crooked Fingers, now a three-piece, played their first three songs on the floor with no amplification. The third song was announced as a Prince song. Someone gave a sarcastic cheer.

Bachman gruffly replied, "Seriously, it's a good song." Silence.

They played "When U Were Mine". It was maybe the most beautiful thing I've ever heard.

The rest of the set was fine. My friend Brad yelled for a few Archers of Loaf songs to no avail.

Ugly Casanova and Iron and Wine

We saw Ugly Casanova play the Beachland Ballroom in Cleveland.

There was a band opening to whom we paid little to no attention. It turned out the hushed band was Iron and Wine.

Some of Iron and Wine played with Isaac Brock in Ugly Casanova as well as members of Holopaw and Fruit Bats.

Brock did a lot of barking through his mega phone and even played "Styrofoam Boats/It's All Nice on Ice, Alright".

Hanukkah with Yo La Tengo

Every Hanukkah, Yo La Tengo goes on an eight-night tour. I was lucky enough to catch one of these tours. The band stopped off at the Beachland Ballroom in Cleveland, OH.

I don't remember who opened, but I know they closed with "Nuclear War" as they weaved through the audience with bongos in-hand. I left with a t-shirt featuring a menorah with the flames spelling out "Yo La Tengo".

We drove home in the snow that night.

Beck and His Backing Band: The Flaming Lips

I saw Beck play in Mershon Auditorium on the Ohio State campus. This was in support of Sea Change.

His backing band was the Flaming Lips. Not bad.

Wayne Coyne split his time on stage between playing guitar and encouraging the audience to cheer.

Beck mentioned that the last time he had played Columbus, it was at Bernie's. I remember that show. Bernie's could fit 100 people and there was a line around the block. I didn't go.

The other two times I saw Beck was at Lollapalooza '95 and on his Midnight Vultures tour several years later.

The Mershon show was the best of the three.