We did a few dates in support of Strange But True, our 1998 collaboration with Jad Fair, the first of which came on this date in Providence. I loved those shows. There were two drum kits on stage–when we did Half Japanese songs, James and Jad played guitars and Georgia and I played drums. Between those and the new record, we still found time for Jad to sing “Big Day Coming” and, on this night, Ian Whitcomb’s “You Turn Me On.” (Somewhere is an unfinished recording we made of that.) Three years ago we took part in Norton Records’ gala 25th anniversary. In our Condo Fucks guise, we backed up the Great Gaylord for 20 raucous minutes, the highlight of which might have been our interaction with MC Kim Fowley. When he couldn’t be located, it was suggested that we go on anyway to keep the long night as close to on-time as possible, which was fine with us. Not so fine was when Fowley belatedly took the stage as we were concluding our warmup number–we wanted to be the ones to bring the Great Gaylord on. So I just let my guitar feed back and James and Georgia maintained a suitable racket, and when Kim Fowley realized we weren’t going to give him space for his spiel, he left. And Gaylord killed. More 11/11 backing band action: Ann Arbor, 1995, Stephen Pastel sings “Speeding Motorcycle,” the overlap in the Venn diagram of the Yo La Tengo and Pastels repertoires; and Leuven, Belgium, 2009, Wreckless Eric and Amy Rigby sing Eric’s (by way of Tommy Roe) “Dizzy.”
