Videos

Gloria

Patti Smith – Gloria (live at the Beacon Theatre 11/10/15)

Last night. I really can’t write a concert review. I think you can probably find one out there if you want to read one, though, or troll around YouTube looking for clips like I did to find this one. I am still too wrapped up in it to say much.

Here’s what I can say. Patti Smith is a badass and her gray hair is the only thing that would lead you to believe she’s 68 years old. Her voice was strong, her performance was captivating, the band was tight, and joy filled the theater. In between songs she was funny and sweet. Both of her kids were there as well and it made me wonder what it must be like to have Patti Smith as your mom. The crowd was, older. True, as a 40th anniversary show that’s not a surprise but for example, the woman next to me looked way older than my mother who is 78. I am not used to being on the younger end of things but it did not have the effect of making me feel younger.

If you saw my Instagram shots then you also know that Michael Stipe opened up the show. I knew he had done that last year and I figured he would make an appearance at some point but not necessarily play a set. He came back out to sing back up on “People Have the Power” while Jesse and Jackson Smith joined the band. I looked on YouTube and someone has uploaded it so take a look. We were a few rows up from the gum-chewing security dude you can see facing the audience so you know my view of things.

With that, I’m going to bed. Back to normal life tomorrow.

My Generation

Patti Smith – My Generation (by The Who)

Tonight I’m going to see Patti Smith for the 40th anniversary of Horses show at the Beacon Theatre in New York. For years she’s been performing a run of concerts at the end of the year, including her birthday on December 30th and then New Year’s Eve, at the Bowery Ballroom or Webster Hall. Those shows always seemed to me to be for the insiders. Very intimate affairs that I’m sure were great shows, I’ve seen plenty of videos from those nights, but I felt like I should leave those to her hardcore fans. I didn’t feel like that was the right concert for a first-timer. So when I heard about this show at the Beacon, I felt the time was right. After all, it’s a bigger venue and while this is a special event, it feels more like an open invitation.

Patti Smith was a huge influence on so many of the musicians who influenced me. It’s well documented that Peter Buck and Michael Stipe met at the Wuxtry record store in Athens, GA, talking about Patti Smith. And if you listened to yesterday’s post and this one, you will hear that influence. That was enough of an endorsement for me. Yesterday marked an unbelievable 29 years since my first R.E.M. concert and I think it’s safe to say that I am who I am today because of that night and everything that followed. Even if it’s indirectly, I owe much to Patti Smith.

But it has taken this long for things to come together for me to finally see her live. I am excited and nervous. I am hopping the local trains and meeting up with my best friend, who was with me 29 years ago, and the symbolism is just about to do me in.

Just a Touch

R.E.M. – Just a Touch

Only rarely can you point to something, a song, a book, a speech, an album, a concert, and say, that was it. That was the moment things changed.

Maybe that doesn’t happen for everyone. Or maybe it comes in varying degrees of intensity so for some people, it represents a blip-like pinging in your consciousness while for others, it’s nothing short of an epiphany.

Personality Crisis

New York Dolls – Personality Crisis

My local record store is a tiny cramped space, even if you’re the only customer in there. Today there were a couple of people in there when I arrived and more came when they left so it felt particularly tight. The guy who works there said there were several bins of records that they hadn’t had a chance to price yet, a big collection that they’d bought, but they were all for sale so feel free to dig through the milk crates.

While the owner does get in new records, re-issues as well as new releases, he mostly sells used stuff. New vinyl is generally too expensive for me so I stick to the used bins and hope that he has something different in stock. That new collection had some interesting records but most of them were in kind of iffy shape. Missing inner sleeves, worn out covers, some scratches on the vinyl. I passed on a number of albums that I might have thought about buying if they’d looked a little less worn out.

After flipping through seven or so dusty bins, in the last box of records, I found an original copy of the first New York Dolls album. The cover was coming apart at the seams, as was the inner sleeve, but the record itself was in good condition. Such a classic. My brother used to play it all the time when he was in high school. I think he probably still has his copy, and given how meticulous he has always been about his stuff, I’m sure it’s in excellent shape. I only have a tape that my brother made me with this album on one side and Lou Reed on the other. I decided it was worth taking a chance with this copy since I’ve never come across it (in recent years – oh if only someone would have told me to grab a bunch more records back in the day).

I paid a little more for it than I thought it was worth really, given the sorry state of the cover and sleeve, but the guy cleaned it for me and I brought it home and ordered everyone else in the house to sit still while I put the needle down. This song came screaming out through the speakers and I got a huge grin on my face. It sounded great. It looked great too, nice and flat. Not bad at all for a 42-year-old record.

Flesh Without Blood

Grimes – Flesh Without Blood

New release Friday (still not used to that). Though this track was released about two weeks ahead of the album, Art Angels came out today. I have made peace with my streaming app for the car, after all it lets me listen to things like the newest releases on my way to work on a Friday morning and I’m paying $10 a month so I might as well use it.

I don’t think I could ever be a music critic because I need more time with albums before I can deliver an opinion and even then I’m more inclined to think my views are just mine, extremely subjective, and I don’t feel I have the musical knowledge to deconstruct songs the way reviewers always seem to.

I do know that this song sounded great in the car driving home in the dark this evening. Really loud. It made me want to drive much faster than is both legal and safe. In lieu of that, after everyone else went upstairs, I had a dance party by myself in the dining room. Come on over.

Sometimes I marvel at how people who are young can be so self-assured. When I think about what I was doing and how I felt about myself and my place in the world when I was the age Claire Boucher is now … well, I’d rather not. There are plenty of days where I still feel like I’m going to get caught impersonating an adult. Not that I feel childish but wasn’t there supposed to be some watershed moment that marked my passage from youth to full-fledged grown-up? You’d think marriage or having kids would have flipped that switch but in fact I think having kids just exacerbated my feeling like an impostor. I’m somebody’s mom?! Shit! I know how it happened but, how did that happen?

Is the kind of vision and will that Grimes has innate or did her parents have some really incredible skills and traits that they passed down to her? Even if her music isn’t your thing, you have to acknowledge that she’s managed to carve out a chunk of the music world and put her stamp on it. What’s the secret?

She Will

Savages – She Will

The concert season is starting to ramp up again. I have decided not to go to a show this weekend as I’ve got one next week and then a possible show about a week later. I’ve got a ticket for a show in December and a few more on the horizon that I’ll decide about closer to the night in question.

But I already have my ticket for Savages in April. That seems so far away but I’m sure it will sell out and I didn’t want to miss them a second time. Plus I can have that carrot dangling there when I need something to get through winter.

I don’t care if they sound like a cross between Siouxsie and the Banshees, Joy Division, Bauhaus and whatever other bands the detractors are tossing into the comments section, I think they kick ass. Each one of them is just pouring it all into every song and I fully expect the live show to be a blistering full-on assault on all of my senses. I can’t wait. Not to mention they look cool as fuck. I better start looking around now for something appropriate to wear.

Timing

Tono and the Finance Company (Anthonie Tonnon) – Timing

All the credit goes to my local college radio station for introducing me to Anthonie Tonnon. I heard two different tracks from his most recent album, Successor, on this one woman’s show on Thursday mornings. I Shazamed those two so I could look him up later on and I think you might say I’m smitten.

Take this song, for instance. That charmingly different New Zealand accent singing, “I used to go for girls with better music collections than I have, providing they weren’t musicians…” Anthonie! Where were you when I was in my early 20s (oh, probably not born yet, hmm). Then he goes on to ask,

“How long ago did you split up with your boyfriend?
Does your blood still rush when you think of him?
Do you still kind of think that one day you’ll be back with him?
Oh come on, be honest!”

Oh come on, be honest!?! Here’s where that little Twitter exploding heart might actually be appropriate. Switch the genders and you have the story of my romantic misadventures all throughout college and my 20s. And if his songs about ill-fated relationships* aren’t your thing, there’s Marion Bates Realty, or Railway Lines, or Water Underground. Or if you’re a year out of college, Twenty-Three is for you.

I lose myself in his stories, sung in a voice that’s a little swoony. If you happen to live in the Los Angeles area, he’s playing at some French restaurant on Friday (11/6) and I think it would be well worth your time to check him out.

*Although, I don’t know how you can listen to a song like Skinny Jeans and not be taken in.

Rimbaud Eyes

Dum Dum Girls – Rimbaud Eyes

English majors or French students may know a lot about Rimbaud but I’m afraid my knowledge is limited to his reputation as an inspiration for musicians. I should really do something about that, I suppose, but I find that I rarely have the quiet needed.

I was recently asked what I’ve been reading and I answered that I had just finished Patti Smith’s M Train. In my circles, this is a no-brainer but it didn’t seem to register with the person who asked me. Immediately I thought about other books I’m planning to read, hoping maybe one of those would ring a bell. Probably not though as I’d really love to get my hands on Carrie Brownstein’s memoir, Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl. What can I say? There are a lot of really interesting books out written by women in bands I like. I’ll get to the poetry eventually.

Lights Out

Santigold – Lights Out

The first week day of Daylight Losing Time and I am definitely feeling it. Someone I follow on Twitter posted a link to a desk top light called Happy Light and said we’re all crazy if we don’t buy it. Then she posted a picture of it on her desk, so it wasn’t just a sarcastic crack at the name of the light.

I clicked the link and looked at it, read the reviews, and left the tab open all day just in case I decided I might want to place an Amazon order. I didn’t, today, but even though I talk about how much the darkness gets to me, I have never seriously considered buying one of those lights before. I never knew anyone who actually had one and I was doubtful that it would truly make any difference.

My office has very bright overhead lights but it’s in the middle of a building and I get no natural light. I do go out at lunch and often I’ll have a meeting that gets me out of my office and in the daylight but I really don’t want this coming winter to get to me like last year’s did. A lot of that was the snow, no question, but even if the Happy Light only helped a little, wouldn’t that be worth the $40?