Author: Ira

Happy birthday to our friends Phil Morrison and Bob Lawton.  Regular readers of these posts won’t need to be reminded that Phil directed most of our music videos and Bob booked our shows from . . . when did Bob become our agent . . . late ’86? until 2003.   On this day in perhaps 1989, the band Double Dynamite–fronted by Phil, Bob on drums, me on guitar, and Greg Kendall on bass–had both our first show and our first rehearsal, opening for Big Dipper at Maxwell’s.  [UPDATE: Now that I think of it, we opened for Dumptruck.]   If I’m right about the year of our debut, then we’ve been together for 25 years without a personnel change and, at the risk of immodesty, every one of our performances has been better than the one before.  (Admittedly, there have only been five, most recently in 2004.)  No one who saw it could possibly forget our set-concluding “O-o-h Child” at Merge 15, Phil bearing his soul and much of his anatomy.   But forced to choose one, my particular favorite moment would be at Under Acme when Bob, having fought “New York Groove” and “Baby Strange” to a draw, effortlessly nailed the drum fill at the end of “Young Americans.”   Here I go, bragging again, but no less than Hyped to Death considered our lone 45 “Hero Takes a Fall” so successful, they called it excellent, not once but twice.

 

Formed a scant two years before Yo La Tengo, Asia have always lit the path ahead of us, pointing us toward our future.  And yes, their logo mops the floor with ours, and no, there’s no “Heat of the Moment” on our journey, but a beacon is a beacon, and we are devoting much of our time these days reminding ourselves how Geoffrey Downes et al spent their 30th year.  And speaking of Asia, July 29 finds us making return visits to Fuji Rock (2000) and the Formoz Festival (2007).  Last year on this day, after one last ramen breakfast, we flew home from yet another Fuji Rock, enjoying an in-flight double feature of North by Northwest and Horrible Bosses.  (And am I jealous of Asia’s Wikipedia page?  You know it.)

 

Thirteen years ago today, we made our Taiwan debut at the Formoz Rock festival.  In one of those lost-in-translation moments that we’ve never stopped enjoying, our promoter was known to us as “Mr. Freddy.”  We were one of three western bands on the bill–you probably already guessed that the other two were Megadeth and Biohazard.  That’s a festival t-shirt I continue to wear with pride.  Georgia and I stayed an extra day, and consequently had the responsibility of bringing all of our gear back, checked as overweight baggage.  And I mean ALL: multiple guitars, an Ace Tone, an amp, all in road cases.  We changed planes in San Francisco, where we collected our stuff to recheck it for the flight to Newark and got chewed out by a Customs official.  I was afraid I might have to surrender my Formoz Rock t-shirt as a peace offering, but they settled for an abject apology.  Also in the news is an email from Heather: On July 28th, 2012: Trenton and Heather had their first dance at their wedding to “Our Way to Fall” in Portland, Oregon. 🙂  Thanks for asking!  We hope you come back through town–we’ve seen you every time you’ve played in the last 4 years!

 

1989: A little over a month after we bid our final auf wiederesehn to Stephan Wichnewski, Georgia and I travel to Cambridge, and play with Dredd Foole and 7 or 8 Wormhearts (my notes say 2 or 3 Wormhearts, so either this was a stripped-down lineup or I’m in error–I’m guessing the latter).  We both played electric guitar, and our repertoire was almost entirely new material, mostly instrumental, all of which would be turned into songs over the next year.  Also on this day, we performed at Fuji Rock in Japan on two different occasions over the years.  Particularly memorable was 2003.   James encountered Nick Lowe and Elvis Costello in the dressing room area (he asked for a photo, but Nick Lowe begged off, citing his excessive age) and I had a delightful chat with Steve Winwood.  Best of all, the Sun Ra Arkestra were playing that day as well, so we invited Knoel Scott, Dave Davis and Michael Ray to sit in for most of our set, including the closing “Little Honda” and “Nuclear War.”

 

3:00am, first night out with M., riding our bicycles, Cherry Chapstick on the phone’s speakers, to the outdoor pool Max Frisch built in the 40’s, climbed over the fence, took a swim, lay down on the still warm concrete, then fell in love.

I am Marco and I am from Zurich.

 

 

 

Only one show on this date, and it’s in 1997 at the Garage in London.  As exciting as it was to play in Europe on our first visits, that’s how bad a time we had in England.  It got to the point where we tried to avoid it altogether (our 1991 tour with Eleventh Dream Day ended in Amsterdam–they went on to London, jealous that we got to go home).  At some point, the combined efforts of City Slang, Matador, and as of 1993 a new European booking agent convinced us that this was not long-range career planning at its finest.  Over time, our fortunes in the UK improved, and the venue I associate with that improvement is the Garage.  We started playing there in 1994.  Was it our second appearance of that year, on July 4, that was murderously hot and packed?   Maybe that was the July 25, 1997 date with Movietone . . . or maybe both.  I can say without a doubt that after one of our shows there, I tried to walk a guest backstage, and was rebuffed by security, which had probably never happened before or since.  A fun show regardless–we played “Rocket #9” with Kate and Rachel from our Planet labelmates Movietone, and ended the encore with “Borstal Breakout.”