Spoon live at the Museum of Fine Arts, 4/28/2007

Posted on April 29, 2007
Filed Under Blather, music | 2 Comments

Last night I saw Spoon live at the MFA in Boston.  I’d never seen a show at the MFA.  All I can compare it to is to say that it’s a much smaller, scaled back version of Radio City. Or at least, the experience of seeing a show there kind of felt that way.  It’s really an auditorium, with seats and excellent sound.  My friend bought the tickets.  For an extra five bucks he got us “Front of House,” which meant that we could sit in the first three rows.  That was a five dollars well spent.  I was just slightly off center in the second row.  One of the other unique things about this venue?  They don’t seem to care if you photograph to your heart’s content.  So I did.  The lighting wasn’t fabulous, and I couldn’t get right up by the stage, but that aside, I can’t complain too much.

Britt Daniel, Spoon

I didn’t write down the setlist, but I can tell you that they played Everything Hits at Once, Lines in the Suit, The Way We Get By, Fitted Shirt (someone asked for it in the encore and they played it), several new songs, Two Sides of Monsieur Valentine, I Turn My Camera On, and Someone Something.

Britt Daniel is a doll.  He seems like a really smart, funny guy.  Here’s a little story.  At first, people were sitting in their seats and listening–sort of bopping along.  I noticed that the first night I saw Interpol at Radio City, too.  The niceness of the venue throws people off a bit.  Perhaps thinking that she’d stir people up, a girl went up front and started dancing rather suggestively. She jumped on stage and was putting on this sort of early-Madonna show. Britt seemed to find it pretty funny. When the song was over and she had gone, he said “Thanks, Mom.”

Britt Daniel laughing

Bird at Coachella

Posted on April 27, 2007
Filed Under Blather, music | Leave a Comment

Friends, if you like Andrew Bird, listen up.  His performance at Coachella will be webcast live here on Saturday at approximately 10PM EST.

Interpol news

Posted on April 24, 2007
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Since I am the resident Interpol informant in my little world, I bring you this:

“Interpol have set a July 10 release date for their still-untitled new album, their first for Capitol Records. The lead single, “Heinrich Maneuver,” impacts at radio the week of May 7.”

Found here: http://www.fmqb.com/Article.asp?id=395773

This site is based in New Jersey, so I assume this is a U.S. radio date. I’m not sure whether or not it applies elsewhere.

UPDATE

New album scoop as follows:

INTERPOL
Our Love To Admire
07.10.07

Track Listing:
1. Pioneer to The Falls
2. No I in Threesome
3. The Scale
4. The Heinrich Maneuver
5. Mammoth
6. Pace is the Trick
7. All Fired Up
8. Rest My Chemistry
9. Who Do You Think
10. Wrecking Ball
11. The Lighthouse

My adventure

Posted on April 18, 2007
Filed Under Blather, friends, music, wide world of vacation | Leave a Comment

I have been a little too overwhelmed by recent events to post my little tale, but I’ve been home for a day or two now, so here goes!

Last Friday I trekked down to NY to visit my friend. We hung out there on Friday and then on Saturday jumped in the car and drove up to Montreal, where we stopped to have dinner with another mutual friend. Much fondue was consumed. Then we got back in the car–rather late, but oh well–and continued on to Ottawa. We arrived at about 2 AM. Though we were tired, we decided to walk over to the concert venue just to check it out. There were loads of drunk people spilling out of the clubs and bars. After much walking around in circles, we found the entrance to the venue. It didn’t look like much, I have to say! Here it is in daylight:

Capital Music Hall Ottawa

It’s apparent crappiness appealed to us–small general admission venues=good. We finally got to sleep around 3… or 4.

On Sunday we gathered ourselves together and prepped for a long day of waiting and anticipating. It was already cool and misty in the morning. The rain increased as the day wore on. We walked by the venue just to see if there were any hardcore people already in line, but finding none we headed across the street to this cute little tea place to fortify ourselves.

The Tea Party

I had very hot veggie barley soup and a pressed veggie and goat cheese sandwich-very tasty. I sampled a bit of my friend’s scone and we were in pre-heaven. We grabbed some copies of a local rag that included a short Interpol blurb and went back to check on the line.

As there was no one there, we started the line ourselves. Due to the weather, we opted for cover on a loading dock platform. (To our delight, people did in fact line up behind us later on.) No one came by for quite some time, so we got to chat, watch a homeless guy root through some dumpsters, and discuss our strategy.

Later in the day, two sweet young Canadian guys who didn’t have tickets showed up and hung out with us. We listened to soundcheck with them and generally grinned and acted ‘pol-fan-like. We were the only people there for soundcheck and it sounded really good. They did PDA, Not Even Jail, Evil, and a new song (!), which we later determined was Pioneer. At times a guy propped open a door, so we could hear everything crystal clear. Here’s me listening to soundcheck:

me at soundcheck

We asked our new friends to hold the line for us while we took one last run to the hotel, and when we returned they told us that we’d missed two other new songs at soundcheck, plus Carlos walking his dog. Whoops. Well, I had to take my camera back to the hotel because it was clear that I wouldn’t be able to get it into the venue with that big lens. I bought a few disposable cameras (we’ll see if I got anything with those.) By that time, a handful of people had joined us in the line. The next couple of hours went by really quickly (with my friend and I totally forgetting to EAT). Just before the doors opened, we ran over to where the actual line was supposed to be, and we were the first to get in. We got right up front, slightly to the right.

It was a long wait, and very chilly, so my friend and I had decided to have a nip. (Yeah, there was some nip in that Diet Coke.) In the venue, she sent me off to get rum and cokes. First, you probably know that I don’t usually drink a lot of liquor. Second, as mentioned, we hadn’t eaten since our late breakfast. Needless to say, I was feeling fine.

Lynx and Ram were the opening band. I wanted to give them a chance, but they were pretty terrible. Everyone standing around us was really nice. We chatted with a Canadian girl and two French girls after the opener.

Then Interpol took the stage and we were happy little revelers. They sounded great, they looked great (although I could do without the moustache, Carlos), and the new songs were all excellent. First up was Pioneer, which reminds me a little of the old song Mascara. It’s sort of downbeat, but has a good pace. The full setlist was as follows:

Pioneer
Obstacle 1
NARC
Say Hello to the Angels
Mammoth
Slow Hands
Leif Erikson
Heinrich Manuever
Evil
Not Even Jail
——–
Length of Love
Stella
PDA

I want to hear Mammoth on record, because I don’t think I got a strong enough impression of it that night. Heinrich Maneuver was fun, and I suspect it was as poppy as they’re going to get on the new record. Based on those three songs, it sounds like the new record will be a little more downbeat and maybe a little more ambitious musically than Antics was. As has been hinted elsewhere, it sounds like there’s been a progression. I am VERY excited to hear the new record, but I’m not expecting it to be released until at least July–maybe later.

Not Even Jail worked well as the closer for the main set, and though many people don’t seem to like Length of Love, I always enjoy it live and was glad to hear it. And of course Narc and Angels are live favorites, and Leif is one of my favorite songs period. It was a pretty great night.

After the show my friend zipped away to get to the merchandise table. I hung around to see if I could get a pick and/or setlist, but I didn’t have any luck this time. My friend and I finally reconnected in the parking lot and just headed back to the hotel, knowing that we had a long, possibly unpleasant (weather) drive the next day. We later learned that there was some little afterparty or something. I’m a little disappointed that we missed it, but I arrived home in one piece with some very nice memories, so I can’t complain. There will be more shows for me.

Press!

Posted on April 1, 2007
Filed Under Blather, art | Leave a Comment

I’m certain that Ez will post about this, but I just have to mention that we got a great big Chandler and Price letterpress yesterday, along with a bunch of other tools and goodies.  We haven’t even really done a full inventory yet, but there’s a furniture cabinet with some furniture, two slug cutters, some small packages of Kelsey paper, three or four chases, and two sets of rollers.

Getting the roughly 1800 pound press from the back of a pickup into our garage was quite an adventure.  It took all three of us (me, Ez, and the man who sold us the press) to do it, and there were some moments when it was touch and go.  And we’ll be moving it again, too, though we’re not yet positive of where we’ll move it to.  I took some pictures, but they kind of stink.  Photos to come.

Song of the Day

Hospitality-Eighth Avenue 

Photos

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