April 28 2008: Josh Ritter - Music Hall of Williamsburg, Brooklyn NY

Caitlin and I went down to New York to see some friends and Josh Ritter. Who was pretty good. Show started out really well with "Naked as a Window" and "Mind's Eye," and he did "Come and Find Me" about halfway through, which I don't think I'd ever seen live before, and it was pretty good. "Here at the Right Time" was great, as usual, and it went right into "Wings," which I don't think I've heard live since the first time I saw him and which was hands down the best tune of the night. The lights were all the way off and you could just barely make out Ritter's form on stage, singing about little towns in Idaho and eastern Washington. I used to adore that song. Then I didn't listen to it very much. I'm going to start listening to it again.

Really, the whole show was great. But I'm left with a bad taste in my mouth cause three out of the last four songs he played just frustrated the shit out of me. "Empty Heart" is one of my favorite songs ever, but Ritter thought it might be fun/amusing/endearing to stop the song halfway through and discuss how nice the guy running the sound is. And that's fine. The sound guy can be nice. He can be an upstanding citizen. He can be a fucking pillar of society. But I don't need "Empty Heart" to be stopped halfway through to hear about it. And I especially don't need to be encouraged to dance to a little waltzy tune that Ritter's decided would be fun to play in the middle of "Kathleen." Instead, I need brilliant songs to be taken seriously and for "Kathleen" to be played like it ought to be played. I could go to the comedy club open mic if I wanted to hear stupid jokes about sound guys and even stupider jokes about dancing. I don't go to Ritter shows for comedy. I go to hear brilliant songs. And I especially don't go to watch a juggling routine in the middle of "Lillian, Egypt." I'd go to the fucking circus for that. I just want to hear brilliant songs played seriously.

So yeah. Great show, spoiled at the end by that sort of stuff. Which, to Ritter's credit, the crowd loved. Big cheers, big smiles on everyone's faces, etc. But I'd appreciate it if he didn't go for so many cheap laughs at the expense of the songs.

April 20 2008: Lou Reed, Thurston Moore - Calvin Theatre, Northampton MA

I guess maybe Emma was supposed to go to this show, cause Drew had two tickets and no one to go with. So I offered to buy beer if he wanted to take me.

Thurston Moore was up first and played three songs. The first an acoustic number I didn't know with a woman on violin. The second was Cohen's "Hallelujah" with Thurston on acoustic, violin woman on violin, and some other guy on vocals. And the third was ten minutes of noise with thurston on electric, violin woman on violin, some other guy on bass, and about a million different fuzz pedals. If it had been a bunch of kids at the Elevens playing it I would have walked right out, but I was willing to give Thurston the benefit of the doubt. And if nothing else it was pretty amusing to watch everyone in the Calvin try to figure out what the fuck was happening. When it ended there was probably a 60:40 claps-to-boos ratio.

Lou played about half songs I knew, half ones I didn't, and played them all pretty well. "Sweet Jane" was second in the set, and thought it was good I've heard it better. "Ecstasy" was really good, as were the two songs from his Edgar Allan Poe album. He did "I'm Set Free," which I didn't expect at all and which was really fun to hear. And a new song, presumably called "Power of the Heart," which was slow and maybe the best thing I'd heard in a month. Drew agrees. It was incredible.

And for the encore, he did "Pale Blue Eyes." Never thought I'd see that live in all my life. It was good. Not great, but really really good.

For a couple beers thrown Drew's way, the night was well worth it.

April 19 2008: Oneside - WWII Club, Northampton MA

We were playing with this group Oneside, who are from Boston. They played some pretty good songs, with a really tight rhythm section. But, frankly, I was more interested in drinking free booze with Caitlin.

April 12 2008: Shawn Mullins, Tyler Ramsey, the Winterpills, Dar Williams - Northampton Box Office, Northampton MA

Free show!

Met Adam and Sairi and Caitlin there. It was sunny and warm. Things were good. Dar played a couple of songs. Then the Winterpills did a couple. Then the other guys did a tune each. Then we went and got ice cream at the chocolate emporium. It was tasty.

April 5 2008: Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks, John Vanderslice - Mass MoCA Hunter Center, North Adams MA

Caitlin and I headed up to North Adams to see Malkmus and his Jicks play in an airplane hangar. Or what seemed like one. I wonder what they used to manufacture in that space.

Vanderslice played first, mostly songs from his new album, mostly uneventfully. And he did throw "Time Travel is Lonely" in there near the end, but even that lacked any real captivating qualities. Too bad, that's such a great song. He's got a violin/bassist now who wears skinny jeans, instead of Broecker, so that made for some interesting arrangements. And for their last song the band got off stage with acoustic instruments and played "Nikki Oh Nikki" in the middle of the crowd with a lot of floor tom and harmony vocals. Which I thought was pretty great. Always did like that song.

The Jicks were pretty good, but pretty boring sometimes, and pretty full of stupid guitar solos. I used to adore the way Malkmus plays guitar. And I think he's the one who's changed here. Lots of boring wanking. And lots of the songs were long and dull. None of those atonal lines that always blew my mind. It occurrs to me that this is the only time I've seen Malkmus outside of Portland or Seattle, and maybe he just really makes a point to not play boring solos for minutes at a time in the Northwest. Maybe.

On the plus side, I hadn't heard "Dark Wave" in a while, and "It Kills" was lots of fun, with the backing vocals getting sung like they were before the album came out, and I hadn't heard "Vanessa from Queens" in a really long time. And Janet Weiss was playing drums, after all. Really can't complain about things when you've got Janet on drums.