October 31 2006: The Amity Front, Adam Sweeney – Toad, Cambridge MA

The Amity Front was playing, Adam was playing, Adam offered me a ride, it was Halloween, I was feeling adventurous, and when I sat down to write an email to my Tuesday night professor informing him that I would be unavoidably detained and unable to make it to his class, an email from him was already waiting for me in my virtual inbox, informing me that class had been cancelled. And thus the gods smiled upon the mortals (ie: Adam and myself).

So we drove to Cambridge and Adam played real nicely, including in the set a few banjo tunes which I felt were just top fuckin notch. And also including in the set a cover of “Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton,” which song when he started to play I found myself wondering why the hell he was hitting his guitar so hard. And then he got to the words and I was able to make a correct ID on the song and suddenly realized EXACTLY why the hell he was hitting his guitar so hard. And Brianna Lane was there with a friend of hers, and this guy Tim with whom Adam and I went to school was there, and this girl Liz who also went to school with us but whom I’d never actually had the pleasure of meeting before was also there. And the Amity Front, collectively, were there. And the Amity Front played some GREAT fuckin tunes, and much beer was consumed, and much clinking together of beer-filled glasses occurred, and even a little bit of dancing to Dylan cover tunes occurred, and pretty much a hell of a good time was experienced by all.

And, to further evidence the gods’ apparent smiles, after the Amity Front played their last tune Adam and I grabbed his gear and proceeded to locomote at near-top speed to the nearest red line station and wound up, with mere seconds to spare, catching the very last train of the night back to Alewife, where Adam’s auto was for parking-type reasons at that time located. Last fucking train. Beautiful.

October 29 2006: The Fawns – The Basement, Northampton MA

So after the Tracy Grammer show we headed across the street to the Basement with intentions of enjoying some beers, only to be greeted by some great fuckin music. You know how you go to the bar and just want a beer but then some shitty band starts playing? This was exactly the opposite. The band picks up their instruments and instead of the awful stuff you’d expect from a band whose bass player is playing some sort of orange BC Rich knockoff, they start playing these fabulous little pop songs, all perfectly accented with tasteful little guitar or keyboard bits, with the vocals perfectly phrased, and with some very nicely subtle drumming. It was great. It was exactly what I wanted to hear without even knowing it.

October 29 2006: Tracy Grammer, Adam Sweeney – Iron Horse, Northampton MA

Adam opened for one of his favorite folk players and got me in for free! Can’t beat that.

Adam played really well, and it was kind of a pleasure to see him at the Iron Horse. Because now his musical career has reached its high water mark: he has played on a stage that the Mountain Goats have also played. Hard to get any bigger than that.

And Tracy Grammer played really well too, with Jim Henry playing REALLY well on guitar. Quite the contrast from last night: the Gandalf Murphy guy wanked his way though pretty much every song. Jim Henry played three times as well and about a million times as tastefully. “Crocodile Man” sounded better than it does on the record, pretty much entirely due to the guitar playing. I was impressed.

And Tracy closed their set by having Adam come back up and play banjo to a cover our (mine and Adam’s and Sairi’s, amongst other people’s) old English prof Bill Jolliff’s “Laughlin Boy.” It was great. Jim took some great mandolin solos, Adam took a banjo solo (really fuckin nicely, I might add), there was three-part harmony, etc. Great times.

Also, I have determined that the Iron Horse french fries are amazing. Perhaps my second favorite french fries of all time, falling short only to the fries at Produce Row in Portland. And that’s saying something.

October 28 2006: Gandalf Murphy and the Slambovian Circus of Dreams – Center for the Arts, Northampton MA

Adam talks this band up like they’re fucking Jesus on stage. So I figured I’d give them a whirl, even at $15 a ticket. And thank goodness I’m a student, because the full-price ticket was $25.

And it was fun. It was a big Halloween party show and everyone was dressed up. The band played two sets, very competently, but it really wasn’t my style nor scene. I mean, the band played well, but it seemed like a lot of gimmick and a singer who talks too much (and a folk-crowd audience who absolutely LOVE it when the singer talks too much) and a good lead guitar player who’s been listening to Dave Gilmore solo records a little too often.

So yeah. I won’t be paying good money to see Gandalf Murphy again, but it was fun for what it was.

October 27 2006: Brianna Lane – Bishop’s Lounge, Northampton MA

Adam and Sairi were going to see this show and I was tired of putting off homework so I joined them. But I hadn’t had much to eat so two beers spun my head around so much that I wasn’t able to listen too closely. But I liked what I heard.

The most interesting moment of the night was when Brianna went into “Learn to Fly” by the Foo Fighters and I didn’t realize who had written it but simply recalled it as a pretty good tune from my younger days. So I asked Adam and he told me who it was. And I sat there and my head spun and I thought about the long-gone days when I could find beauty in meaningless arena rock anthems. And the fact of the matter is that I can’t deny it’s a good song.

And after the show Adam and Sairi and their friend Jessica and Brianna and I went to the Whatley Diner and I was able to eat hashbrowns for the second time in one day.

October 19 2006: Appalachian Still – Iron Horse, Northampton MA

Adam has a buddy who plays fiddle for this band, and thus had himself two spots on the guestlist, but no one to go with. So I volunteered, if for no other reason than to enjoy a BBC Porter. Which was just as tasty as the last time I had one.

And the music was pretty good too – old-timey songs with banjos and fiddle and upright bass and harmonizing vocals and the like. Not the kind of music I’m in the habit of paying for, but certainly worth listening to for free in a nice room with a beer to drink a friend to shoot the shit with.

October 13 2006: Fancy Trash – The Shire, Syracuse NY

First date of the Fancy Trash fall tour, but Ben (my housemate, your favorite drummer) had a statistics exam in Amherst at 5pm. So the band went ahead to set up and Ben talked me into giving him a ride there after his exam by promising a cheap motel room and some free drinks and the use of his car and gas and toll money. And I’d never been to Syracuse and didn’t have anything really going on otherwise and Whitney said she’d come along, so that’s what happened.

And oh was it worth it! The Shire was about as shitty a place to play a show (or, really, drink a beer) as they come. It was on a street that Josh (bassist) accurately described as “Route 9 with strip clubs.” There was the Adult Club down the street, Paradise Found in the other direction, and the Liquor Square (a place the size of a grocery store) right next door. And Chuck E. Cheese right across the street. But the last two lights on the sign were burnt out so it actually read Chuck E. Chee. Classy neighborhood, to be sure.

And so the bar was as could be expected. And by the time we arrived we’d just missed happy hour (5 to 9), during which a full-size pitcher of Keystone Light cost exactly one dollar. Goddamn.

And there was exactly nobody there who wasn’t a holdover from said happy hour – Whitney and I at times comprised 67% of the audience, the other person being the guy who booked the show. And then sometimes this guy in a Mets tshirt decided he was just drunk enough to justify some solo cutting-of-the-proverbial-rug in front of (and sometimes on) the stage, something made all the more amusing because he was the only person who ever got within fifteen feet of the band, much less looked like they were enjoying the music (Whitney and I were sitting in the back, tapping our feet and enjoying cheap libations). And all this in front of a big window, through which the lights of the Chuck E. Chee shined strong and bright. We took some photos but this was one of those things you probably have to have spent half your life studying photography before you can really accurately capture the moment on film. Oh how I wish I hadn’t ABSOLUTELY WASTED MY LIFE by not studying photography, if only for that one shot.

So, long story short, we had a great time. And Fancy Trash played really well, and I salute them for it. If I were them I’d have stopped about 5 songs in and just gone home.

October 12 2006: Calvin Johnson, Mount Eerie, Karl Blau, Wolev, D+ – Red Barn, Hampshire College, Amherst MA

Went to a little five-dollar college show with Adam, and it was probably worth the five dollars. Despite the fact that we sat through five acts over five hours on a hard wooden floor, we got to see Phil play “We Squirm” and Calvin play “Your Asterisk,” and I think those two tunes alone were worth my money. Even just “Your Asterisk” would have been worth it. Nothing like watching Calvin Johnson dance while singing about trash vampires and doing the “hey ya hee ya hey ya hee ya” part.

And on top of those two (the only ones I knew all night), we got the bonus value of the rest of the Mt. Eerie and Johnson sets, one good tune from Wolev, and a few from D+.

And I bought one of those Calvin Johnson mix tapes that I used to look at in Jackpot Records but could never work up the courage to ask for from under the glass. It’s called “New Wave Underground U.S. 1980-83” and I’ve never heard of any of the bands and I can’t fucking wait to listen to it.

Also, they had some really really really really great sounding Mirah remixes playing in between sets and so I asked Calvin what the story on them was and he handed me a double LP. A double LP of the greatest remixes ever made.

October 5 2006: Damien Jurado, Rosie Thomas, Casey Dienel, Drew O’Doherty – T.T. the Bear’s Place, Cambridge MA

This was an instance of perfection. Really.

I showed up with none other than my very own mother, straight from picking her up at the airport, and we sat at the bar during the first two singers (the first guy, Drew O’Doherty, sang a great rendition of the Clash’s “Straight to Hell”) and she drank tea and I drank Harpoon IPAs and how often does that happen?

Then for Rosie Thomas we went up to the stage and Rosie sang some absolutely beautiful songs (I hadn’t seen her in probably three years, and I definitely don’t remember her being as good as she currently appears to be) and I think the mom was genuinely enjoying herself.

And then Mr. Jurado came out, with a cellist I didn’t recognize and Eric Fisher on guitar/keyboards/drums, and that little trio is probably the best combo I’ve ever seen him play with. They were pretty much just flat-out fabulous. And I hardly even noticed that they did only four old songs (“Tragedy,” “Abilene,” “Lottery” and “Ohio”) – I don’t often really enjoy a show where the band plays 75% new songs from the yet-to-be-issued new record, but this was definitely an one of them. The new songs were just plain fuckin GREAT.

And the crowd! So good to be at a show where no one yells for old songs and no one sings along and everyone just shuts the fuck up and listens to a genius play his songs.

October 1 2006: The Mountain Goats, Christine Fellows – Bowery Ballroom, New York NY

Pretty good day all around. New Friend Whitney came down for the day and that was fun, and while we were walking around in the park we ran into Christine! So not wishing to not say hello twice in two days, I walked right up and said, “Hi Christine! I like your songs!” To which she acted as if she thought I was crazy.

But it was a beautiful day, and really not a bad show to end the tour on. But oh the Mountain Goats crowds eat me up inside. For instance, the following is a list of the first eight songs that were played, in order: “Maybe Sprout Wings,” “Jeff Davis County Blues,” “Jenny,” “Color in Your Cheeks,” “Love, Love, Love,” “Game Shows Touch Our Lives,” “Shadow Song,” and “In the Hidden Places.” Look at that and ask yourself if you could really be asked to write a setlist with a better eight tunes to start off with. Because I don’t believe you could. And yet it’s only now, looking at the bare facts of what was played, that I realize this. Because the goddamn crowd was a huge fucking collective asshole, singing and yelling during just about the whole show. The only song they really shut up for was “Shadow Song,” and that was only because John said, “I wrote this after a friend hung himself,” and then went immediately into it. And it was great because everyone just stood there listening instead of yelling out older-than-sin requests and/or cracking wise to their buddy and/or singing along in my ear even after I gave the old nudge-and-finger-to-my-lips-and-evil-eye routine. Oh well.

It really was a good show though, it just could have been so much better had different people been there. And afterwards I got a big hug from Mr. Hughes and was able to apologize to Christine for scaring her in the park, and then took the long train back to Brooklyn happy. I need to figure out how to solve this love-for-Mountain-Goats-songs/loathing-of-Mountain-Goats-fans problem though.