Month: September 2014

Eleven years ago today, Johnny Cash passes away, and we are in Atlanta, where we opened for him nine years (and three days) earlier.  We begin our set with “I Still Miss Someone.”  In 2000,  Georgia and I walk the pediatric ward at Sloan Kettering, playing songs for anyone who wants to hear one.  And I’ll take this opportunity to remind you that there’s still a few days left to download the Little Black Egg big band’s performance last week at Hopscotch–that’s Georgia, James, me, William Tyler and Steve Gunn– in return for a donation to our friend Letha Rodman Melchior.  Go here for more details.

 

Two Sun Ra songs, a decade apart . . . On this day in 2007, we play in Paris and it’s très amusant indeed.  Mike Ladd opens the show, and helps out on the encore for “Nuclear War” (he provided a mix to our 2002 Nuclear War ep, comme vous le savez).  Ten years earlier, we’ve traded the Sorbonne for the University of Kansas.  Our tour with David Kilgour continues–tonight in Lawrence he and Hamish join us for “Anything Could Happen” among others.  We open with “Rocket #9” and somehow turn it into a tribute to the recently departed Burgess Meredith.  Keanon remembers it like it was yesterday: Took my father to see YLT in Lawrence, KS on this date. First time I took HIM to a concert, and not vice versa. He loved it. Still talks about the band and that particular show to this day.

 

 

September 1995 found us traipsing about Europe.  On the 8th, amidst what felt like stops in every city in Germany, we got on a plane for Barcelona, where we played the El Pop festival on the 9th.  Nineteen years ago today, we woke up bright and early for the flight back to Hamburg, where another 37 German dates awaited us.  Correction: four of us woke bright and early.  Our soundman, Joe Hickey (not his real name), had overslept, a direct consequence of the copious amount of alcohol he had imbibed the night before–people, many of them strangers, kept telling us just how copious that amount was. . . .

. . . did I write Joe Hickey?  My mistake–turns out that is his real name.

All of which is to say that by the time Joe joined us, we were late.  And when we discovered that we did not have a key piece of our equipment, that in fact it had never left the car that dropped us off at our hotel the night before, the choice we faced was to retrieve it or make our flight, not both.  We held out hope that it would be delivered to us at the Barcelona airport before we took off, but that didn’t happen, so it was decided that tour manager Joe Puleo would stay behind in Barcelona until our gear was in his hands, at which point he’d continue to Germany on a later flight.  This was all happening quickly, a little too quickly: Belatedly, we realized that all our guitars, organs, maybe more that we were traveling with had been checked on Joe’s ticket (a detail that makes this story a period piece as decidedly as if we refused to leave Barcelona without our mustache wax and spats).  It was too late to do anything about that.  Joe–and an arsenal of musical equipment–would wait in Barcelona.

We arrived in Hamburg, met by our merchandise seller, Colin, left in charge of our van and the remainder of our backline during our Spanish jaunt, but were reluctant to make the drive to Hannover without conferring with Joe.  Still a few years from our band’s first cell phone, the ticket agents at whatever airline we were on very generously kept placing calls from Hamburg to Barcelona, where Joe kept updating me on the lack of progress.  This involved constantly going the wrong way through security checkpoints, another sign that when we sell the movie rights to this story, we will insist that it be filmed in black & white.

All told, we were at the airport for a good 90 minutes before being satisfied that all was well in Spain, and that we could safely head for our next destination.  As I went to the van to deliver the all clear, I was told to look at a bench outside the terminal.  There, sitting by himself, was Mick Fleetwood.  Apparently, he’d been there when Colin picked us up, and there he remained, as we left.

 

                                                               this could’ve been mine

We played four shows in support of the National in 2011.  September 8 was the back end of a two-night run at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia, and Michael Ray, Danny Ray Thompson, Dave Davis and Fred Adams from the Arkestra were there to augment our lineup.  During Wye Oak’s opening set, the digital mixing desk crashed, and all attempts to revive it were unsuccessful.  The delay was not only inconvenient for bands and audience alike, but carried the risk of causing very costly overtime charges.  We offered to go on on schedule and play instrumentally without the p.a., but as that might inhibit the trouble shooting, we were asked instead to sit tight.  But at a certain point, it was decided that maybe we should start playing after all.  James, Georgia and I played “Green Arrow” and “The Evil That Men Do–Craig’s Version.”  Still no p.a.  We went into “I Heard You Looking” and invited the Arkestra members to parade through the audience, playing their horns–remember that if they were on stage with us, they wouldn’t be heard.  And then a bulletin from the front, or more accurately the wings: The p.a. is back, albeit without monitors.  We pull the plug on “I Heard You Looking” and go into “Sudden Organ,” the first song we’d planned to play with the Arkestra, while someone in our camp points them back to the stage.  Due to the delay, we’re almost out of time, but manage to squeeze in “Nuclear War” and “Little Honda,” during which another communiqué reaches me, this one giving us an additional 10 minutes.  (Let me make clear how generous this was of the National?  Shows at your Academies of Musics are extremely expensive and this was above and beyond.)  I called for “Our Way to Fall” and then “Dreaming,” to Georgia’s mounting concern–unaware that our set length had been extended, she thought I had lost all sense of space and time.

Elsewhere in the news, Julie writes: My husband and I were married in the woods near Santa Cruz, CA on 9-8-07. Our first dance was to “My Little Corner of the World.”  We have both enjoyed your music for about 10 years and some our first “dates” were at the Fillmore in SF.  Doubly magical to see you at that venue because my father was one of the early rock poster artists for Bill Graham.  http://www.normanorr.com/

 

 

 

An upstate New York doubleheader for us on this date in 1991.  We start in New Paltz with an acoustic set at the recently opened Rhino Records outlet, acknowledging their LA. roots with a closing flurry of “Sex,” “Adult Books” and “Let’s Get Rid of New York.”  Then we head north another few miles for our third visit (there has yet to be a fourth) to Bard College.  Phil Morrison is on hand, and sings “Ramblin’ Rose,” which ends up being released on perhaps our most hidden of hidden tracks.