Alienation and Despair - Faves
Alienation and Despair - Faves| Volume 1 , Number 12 | Yo La Digest | Jul 29, 1994 |
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a good blessing will help you. it will sometimes save you from having a physical check-up, which are expensive. ...leo germino the duplex planet
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the next time one of your friends wants to go mountain biking, and one of your all time fav bands is playing on the same day, just say NO to biking. 22 miles into to ride, i realized that there was no way i'd make the show in time. what's a guy to do, except sigh once or twice then order a margarita or three. when i finally did make it down to the bottom of the hill, i couldn't get in. neither could chuck prophet (green on red), evan dando (and band), n/or mark eitzel (amc) . sign read "sold out - you won't get in". sold out? i thought this was a free show. fifteen minutes later, evan was audi 5000 & the doorman let everyone in! yeah! once we did get in, i ran into my pal, oscar. he was kind enough to tell me that "ylt just finished and they were fabulous". as american music club (surprise show) took the stage, i wandered around in search of ira & georgia. they were both engaged in major indie shmoozing, so i just kinda hung around like the geek that i am. finally, ira was freed up and i introduced myself. surprisingly, he knew who i was instantly and we proceded to gurk it up. he seemed genuinely interested the digest and hoped that someone from the list was keeping a setlist for the recent shows. he also said that he had been using the discography as a personal reference. geez! other topics included, the yoyo show, hoboken, jad fair, and the usual unabashed name dropping. i talked to georgia for awhile too. she's pretty funny. she said," tim mcginnis, you're famous". and her female friend said, "that name sounds *familiar*", i cut her off before she could finish with "do you play in a band???". apparently georgia's bro-in-law submits to the list occassionally. she was careful not the reveal his name. well, whoever you are thanks for writing! the conversation then moved on to the bottom of the hill, red woods, tightening of hoboken drinking laws, maxwells and the neighborhoods. even tho i brought up the neighborhoods, i began to realize that it was time to bow out of this conversation because i have absolutely NO RIGHT talking about the neighborhoods. i bid both of them fairwell and caught some of 'merican music club's set. tim tim@vestek.com
from: Matthew Ness <moebius@netcom.com> upcoming Ira & Georgia / Jad Fair i'm going to try to make this one (well, the only thing that will keep me away is a ticket sellout). i also saw the Jad Fair show, but on Monday. it was nice to have him playing at a club within walking distance of my apartment. before the music started, he was just wandering around the club, mostly looking lonely and preocupied...i went up & introduced myself as a somewhat new fan, having only really "discovered" him after seeing the "Half Japanese: The Band That Would Be King" documentary (which was horrible except for the scenes with Jad in them). he was appreciative of my appreciation and shook my hand but we were both a little too shy to be able to carry on much of a conversation further than that (or perhaps he just wasn't interested in talking w/strangers at that point). i did tell him how someone called into the local "modern rock" station's shock-jock morning radio show (Alex Bennett, for locals), raving about the Sunday night performance. Bennett, of course had no idea who the caller was talking about and was suspicious that the guy was a friend of Jad's. (sigh...) anyway, the show was great, pretty much ditto what you said. i brought some friends who had never heard of the guy before and they really enjoyed it. Jad's really sweet. it's funny, i thought about writing to you about it, but i wasn't sure if you'd care. then i saw yr. bit in #11 and decided the event was relevant after all. Jad Fair definitely fits into the "YLT Aesthetic," whatever that is. matt
from: Matthew Ness <moebius@netcom.com> aaaaaahggg! I'm sorry you didn't make it to the show! It went pretty well...here's my take on the event: I showed up at The Bottom of the Hill w/my friend Chip at 5:30 Sunday (July 24) afternoon, just in time to see The Softies start into their act. On our way in, we nearly stumbled over Ira and Georgia, who were standing near the door, possibly in hopes of getting some fresh air before performing. The Bottom of the Hill was sweltering as usual; the closer to the stage I got, the more gallons of sweat seemed to pour off of my body. The Softies turned out to be a two-woman-two-guitar arrangement, and they were pretty good, hitting some nice melodies and vocal harmonies that set a good tone for the evening to come. I have to admit, however, that my critical edge was softened somewhat that night by the unusually early start time for the show--it just wasn't late enough for me to be _that_ grumpy. The second act, however was a lone guy on acoustic and he was fairly forgettable (perhaps sensing this, he seemed to quit early). so then it was up to Ira and Georgia, indie-rock's sweetest couple (in my addlepated mind anyway), to pull up the slack and shoot us over the moon. They played a somewhat free-form show, asking for requests for the audience to help guide them, though since most of the requests were for their own YLT songs, they might as well have played from a set list. My favorite bits from their first set were a cover of a Brian Eno song (I'm very possibly wrong, but I think it was "Everything Merges With The Night" from _Another Green World_) and their rendering of "The Whole Of The Law." In the second encore set, which was nearly as long as the first, I liked their version of "Days" (The Kinks), a kind of acoustic-punk cover of "Rockaway Beach," and a fresh acoustic version of "Big Day Coming." When Ira would ask for requests, people'd usually shout out the usual hits from past albums, and he and Georgia would usually grin and shake their heads in a generally negative fashion, only to play the rejected song later on in the set. As a kind of experiment (and mindful that they'd perfomed with Jad Fair earlier this month in Olympia), I shouted out "Play something by Half Japanese!," and won a rather shocked stare from Ira, maybe even (dare I imagine it?) a look of recognition (after all, I have been in the front lines of three of their past four SF shows...). Still, they didn't play any HJ, or Jad Fair for that matter. Sigh. Other than a potentially sound-monitor blowing glitch with a distortion pedal the gig was mostly glitch free. For those trying to visualize the show, it was just Ira on acoustic guitar with Georgia standing next to him holding a bottle of spring water. She was wearing a lovely "18th Dye" shirt (a band which James McNew lauded in an interview reprinted in an earlier dispatch of the YLT Gazette). After the show, Ira bounded over to the stage and apologized to me for not playing any Half Japanese and asked if I'd caught Jad Fair when he came through SF earlier this week (of course, I did). We chatted for awhile as he unplugged everything and I learned that when they played with JF in Olympia, Fair's son played with them, and also that the woman drummer that performed with him in the recent show (the one who seems either to be having an epilleptic seziure or a *damn good time*) is actually his wife. In the end, I ended up speaking to both of them, and I let both of them know I followed their every move via this Internet newsletter. (Georgia asked "Oh, are you Tim?") Since they get occasional copies of it, I guess they'll be reading this. Hi guys! Great show! One last note: if any of y'all are indie _comic book_ collectors, you might be interested to know that Adrian Tomine (who self-publishes _Optic Nerve_, has done a monthly cartoon for _Tower Pulse_ magazine for the past two years, and has appeared in Spin and Details) and Dan Clowes (the creator of _Eightball_, many fine album covers, and recent cans of OK Cola) were there. Apparently both are big fans of YLT. If you don't know who they are, go down to the local comix shop and check 'em out. They both do work that is somewhat music influenced and highly entertaining. [I would consider Tomine's Optic Nerve to be part of the 'YLT Aesthetic' that matt mentioned above. this might sound like a commercial but Optic Nerve and some of linda berry's stuff are the only comics that i have ever paid fer - tim] 'nuff said, moe
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