highlifer

4 Shows in 4 Weeks and lots of 90s Nostalgia

At the TLA in Philly I saw French-Algerian punk rocker Rachid Taha, someone who I completely discovered through WFMU.org playing the song from the Black Hawk Down soundtrack. He played for 2 hours, lengthy dancy jams that moved the smallish crowd (probably 150-200 people tops).If the scale of crazy performers starts with Van Morrison (chaotic but in total control) and moves to Shane McGowan (chaotic with no idea what's going on) I'd say this was solidly in the middle. It was, most of the time, complete controlled chaos - nearly every young N. African guy there went on stage and posed for a picture with Rachid, shouting things in Arabic to the delight of their friends, women got up and belly danced, the Algerian flag was thrown, Rachid hit himself in the head with the microphone, he signed autographs from the stage, all the way just kicking out the jams. And finally, he is SEXY SEXY SEXY AS HELL. Really, I was just blatantly melting right there in front of The Husband. We both came to the same conclusion - he's like the Algerian Greg Dulli -not the best looking guy in the room, but his cocky confidence makes him so - and for me, who thinks the Afghan Whigs are the greatest live band that ever came out of Ohio, to say the least, that's about the biggest compliment I can give/
XOXOXOXO Rachid Taha. Oh, and he speaks barely any English, so most of the time, my pedestrian ears had no idea what was going on. And it totally didn't matter.

I saw Dinosaur Jr. twice in the 80’s, once with My Bloody Valentine, and once with the Pixies and both times all bands were dead boring. Other than thinking “Just Like Heaven” is probably the best cover ever,I don’t think much of them. Plus, after the split, I discovered Sebadoh during a breakup and spent the better part of a summer mooning around to their sad sad songs, so I’ve always felt squarely in the Lou Barlow camp, not the wankery J. Mascis camp. But I enjoyed the reunion show at the 9:30 Club, especially their commitment to only play songs from the early albums. Not as much as the Husband, however, who also went to the Philly show and made friends with some tapers who are supposed to be sending him live bootlegs. Dinosaur Jr. are the New Grateful Dead, and J. Mascis and the Fog are the New Jerry Garcia Band.

The New Peach Pit after Dark is the Ram’s Head Live, actually a pretty cool club which makes you feel as if your in a Hollywood movie version of a rock club, it’s so clean and glamorous looking. If only they booked some better shows. I finally made it there to see Common, John Legend and De La Soul. The show was to start at 9. After being somewhat enterertained by some djs and Rahzel, the Human Beat Box (who quickly disintegrates into that guy from the Police Academy movies.) I looked at my watch to see it was 10:30 and we hadn’t seen anyone yet. Then Common hit the stage – great, lots of energy, but a little more cliché “Wave your hands in the air” “Say Oh-oh” than I might have expected. He plays for an HOUR – a long set for most rappers and a REALLY long set for the first performer on a 3 man bill. Close to midnight, John Legend comes on, with his beautiful voice, and plays another hour of music. FINALLY at well after 1 a.m. we get a shortened De La soul set, only because it was last call. I don’t mind staying out late if I expect it was going to be late but this was a LOOOONG night. Also, putting the slow jam John Legend in the middle really killed the energy. All in all, a great show, marred by Philadelphia Eagle in the Super Bowl poor clock management that kept it from being a winner.

But the real winner was Teenage Fanclub. The most clichéd story about them is that in 1991, Spin magazine declared Bandwagonesque their album of the year over Nevermind, which of course is a cultural phenomenon to this day. Taken on purely musical terms, Bandwagonesque is one of my 5 favorite albums ever, while I haven’t played Nevermind in probably 10 years. So this was the first time I’d seen the Fannies since 1992, when they played with the beloved Afghan Whigs (see above) or as I like to call it the BEST SHOW EVER. 13 years has aged the band, but not their music, it’s as timeless as pop music can be. I saw this show at the North Star in Philly and there were so many cold chill moments, not the least being in a room with a bunch of people who all scream as soon as they heard “She wears denim wherever she goes, says she’s gonna get some records by the Status Quo” and sing every lyric. Especially since I had to go to Philly to see this show instead of DC because I only know one person on the whole east coast besides myself who likes them. Seriously is there a better lyric than “There are things I want to do,but I don’t know if they will be with you?” I think not!

Looking back at my month I realize that with the exception of John Legend, it could have been 1991. This was driven home even harder by the piece in Pitchforkmedia.com about Lollapalooza, talking about how Indie Rock is now a “nostalgia driven installation piece.” http://pitchforkmedia.com/features/weekly/05-08-01-museum-of-alternative-rock.shtml And driven home again when I was drawn to buy the Judgment Night soundtrack (for 98 cents on ebay)to complete my Teenage Fanclub collection, only to be reminded that they sang with De La Soul on it, and Dinosaur Jr. were on it too (Remember before rap rock was sullied by Fred Durst?)

I don’t want to become a museum piece, and I got NOTHING on my calendar for August. Is there anything new that some young whippersnapper can recommend?

posted by jamie @ 7:21 PM