Author: Ira

I’m not here to pretend that we had high hopes for our Milwaukee show on this day 25 years ago.   Yes, it was our first time in the city, but it was also Easter Sunday.  As we drove in from Minneapolis, we became aware that we were the only car on the road in which no one was dressed for church, and while that might not literally have been true, maybe it was.  We had a friend who had been in the Weathermen, and he couldn’t make the show because of Easter.   Making matters worse: We were booked at the Odd Rock Cafe, which less than a month earlier had been the site of a GG Allin performance that was still making news (and in fact would continue to for years to come, culminating in his arrest and conviction for disorderly conduct).   So ours was an intimate soiree.  Eleventh Dream Day’s Rick Rizzo made the trip from Chicago, and played guitar on “Halloween” and “Time Fades Away”–mid-set, of course.  There was no encore.

 

For the first four dates of our second tour 2000, we were joined by James’s Charlottesville buddies, the Happy Flowers, their first shows in a decade.   The run ended March 25 in Atlanta.  The night before in Chapel Hill, Mr. Horribly Charred Infant and Mr. Anus had sat in on our cover of Blondie’s “Dreaming,” but there would be no repeat performance in Atlanta–I’m afraid we were distracted.  Less than three months earlier, Atlanta Braves’ numbskull/closer John Rocker had popped off to Sports Illustrated, confirming his role as the face of the Mets-Braves rivalry.  As we pulled up to the Cotton Club that afternoon, I noticed a ticker on the nearby CNN Building advertising Braves souvenirs.  I had a few minutes to kill, so I went over to price John Rocker merchandise.  It wasn’t cheap.  Now if you know me, you know I’m an anything-for-a-joke kind of guy, but that doesn’t mean anything.  I returned to the Cotton Club empty-handed, and that’s when Joe Puleo went to work.  He discovered the Braves’ store had a no-questions-asked 30-day money-back policy.  One thing led to another and before our encore, all three of us changed into John Rocker jerseys and Braves hats, price tags waving proudly, and charged back on stage, flipping off the audience and each other before launching into the Randoms’ “Let’s Get Rid of New York.”   We’re not taking full credit, but a little more than a year later, Rocker was traded to Cleveland.

 

Did we really play a show with the Afghan Whigs on this day 25 years ago at the Cubby Bear Lounge in Chicago?  There’s every indication we did, but I have zero memory of it.

 

We threw together a benefit at Maxwell’s three years ago today to aid with the recovery from the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan.  Fred Armisen comes by to play drums for the entirety of our two sets.  The last four songs of the opener feature David Byrne, including an arrangement of “Thank You for Sending Me an Angel” that we threw at him–am I remembering it right that he had to go online to fill in some gaps in his memory of the lyrics?   Glenn Mercer finishes the night with a couple of Feelies songs, one of ours, and the Velvet Underground’s “Run Run Run” (as opposed to “Run Run Run” by the Who, the Gestures, the Supremes, or the Third Rail).   Speaking of the Velvet Underground, in 1989 we make our Indiana debut, at the Second Story in Bloomington.  As sparsely attended shows go, this was a real fun one, even before it started, as I watched Bob Knight and Indiana University get eliminated from the NCAA tournament at the bar on the first story.  Heading back upstairs, we open (“Craig’s Version”) and close (“Pablo’s Version”) with “The Evil That Men Do,” which I suspect we’d never done before, and then return for an uncharacteristic two encores totaling seven songs, each one requested by name.  Well, almost: A request for the Velvet Underground (I promised you we were speaking of the Velvet Underground) leads to us ending the first encore with “I Heard Her Call My Name,” and someone’s “Play some more Velvets” results in a night-ending “Sweet Jane.”

 

Today’s the 23rd anniversary of James’s first show, at Maxwell’s, of course.  Taking the advice of Glinda the Good Witch that it’s always best to start at the beginning, we open with “The River of Water,” but before the evening’s through we’ve premiered “Satellite” and “Artificial Heart.”   Not part of the set: “Drug Test,” but President Yo La Tengo fans don’t go home disappointed, as openers, Sleepyhead, cover it.  Fast forward: If you bought a copy of Prisoners of Love the day it came out, your record is nine years old today.  One more: Last year in Glasgow, Stephen McRobbie joins us during our encore and sings a heart-tugging “Different Drum.”

 

Twenty-seven years ago today, we take another step towards becoming a full-time trio, opening for the Neats at T.T. the Bear in Cambridge.  We play nearly the same set we did earlier in the month.  Come April, kinda like Vince Guaraldi before us, we will cast our fate to the (trio) wind.

Elsewhere, we recently heard from Rich Barnes of Wild Carnation: I’m hoping you have a record of the date of a show you did at Maxwell’s sometime in March or very early April of 1992.

Chris [O’Donovan] and I went to that show, and Brenda [Sauter, of the Feelies, Trypes, and Speed the Plough] was there too – I was standing on one side of the red pole, and she was on the other.  We didn’t know her but Chris approached her and asked if she would be interested in playing bass with us, gave her a cassette of some demos I had made, and the rest, as they say, is history.  It’s an important date for us and I have been meaning to ask for a while – we may have never met if it wasn’t for that show.

I’m pretty sure it would have been mid to late March ’92. We didn’t hear from her right away – I was sure that she had listened to the tape on the way home in the car and threw it out the window – but she called on April 8.  She didn’t even have a cassette player in the car!

We’re on it, Chris: The date was March 21, 1992 (we were preceded by God Is My Co-Pilot).   The debut of “I Heard You Looking” ended our set.  Incidentally, Wild Carnation were playing at Maxwell’s with the Bats–revisiting the location and bill of their very first show–on the night last year when the club announced its closing.