« Bush v Gore V years later | Main | Third Coast 2005 »
October 17, 2005
a story about three concerts
I had originally planned on using these elements for this weeks TOE, but well, things are in meltdown mode once again. Too much going on all at once. Too much traveling, and more to come.. Tunis in a few weeks and this weekend Chicago! I will be presenting at the Third Coast Festival, but I certainly don't want to spend the whole weekend in the hotel - so if any Chicago Listeners want to take me out drop me a line -
so here is what happened.
Last weekend I had to go to Philly to take Melia's mom to go see Olivia Newton John. It was not pleasant. There was not a single non white person in the building. Most of the crowd was barely ambulatory, sitting next to me was an old lady with binoculars. I am not familiar with Ms John's work, the only song I knew was the physical one, which brought back painful memories of summer camp ice skating rink bully beatdowns...
anyway - the concert was of course totally dreadful.. these dudes kept bum rushing the stage with giant weeping bouquets of flowers and gift bags! Ms John looked really old herself.. In the lobby I overheard some story about Ms. John's current beau disappearing at sea.. a giant screen displayed these nauseating images of Olivia cavorting with Dolphins - I was tempted to shout out 'why can't you get them to find your man??' but I'm too cowardly to do something like that. And I was sitting besides an elderly woman with binoculars.. surly she would have brained me with them..
Then, two days later I went to the Destroyer/New Pornographers show at the Roxy. I am an unabashed Dan Bejar fan, and I was curious to see what a New Pornographers show would be like with him actually on stage (he has never toured with them before..) The show was a disappointment - The Destroyer set was lifeless.. Dan used the NP rhythm section - and now that I think about it - the only destroyer shows I have liked are the ones he did with with Frog Eyes backing him up (you can actually get a cd of that combo now)
At the Roxy it felt like I was watching some guy try to be Bob Dylan with a high school marching band backing him up. The New Pornographers set was lackluster too.. And Dan only stuck around on stage to do his songs.. what a prince!
I decided to have him sign my Destroyer 45 that I picked up at the Merch table. but when I went back stage.. neither one of us had a pen.. so I interrupted this gal to ask - whoops it was Neko Case - she definitely did not have a pen.. then I interrupted a guy - whoops it was AC Newman! He didn't have a pen either - finally I got one from the bar and Dan scribbled something unintelligible on my record.. He said he was drunk.. this is the same thing he said to me when I tried to talk to him at SXSW 2 years ago.. heh
And then on Thursday I went to NYC to catch the Either/Orchestra perform with Mulatu Astatke. Mulatu's on fire right now, the night before he and Russ (the Eithor/Orchestra maestro) were on Open Source radio, and on thursday Mulatu was in the times. This is all part of the piece I am working on for my trip to Tunis, and an eventual TOE. I spent the afternoon with Mulatu recording in Boston yesterday - he is a very generous man, we watched some amazing videos of some international concerts he has done, and he gave me a copy of his unreleased Echos of Ethiopia! Below is a pic I took at the Open Source studio (Mulatu, Russ and Chris Lydon)
So there you have it. A long rambling excuse for why I do not have a new show. But you watch, things are close to coming together for yours truly - it feels like the cocoon is just about to fall away, but of course, I could be wrong...
Posted by bw at October 17, 2005 09:47 AM