"Did you call me up just to see if we're still speaking?" - Joey Sweeney.

We accompanied H-Dawg from Accounts Receivable Friday evening to see The Texas Governor, the newish project from former Elevator Drops chap David Goolkasian. The performance, as well as the performance of the openers, prompted much discussion and analysis. Certainly too much to rehash here. But it was interesting to kind of put two and two and two yet again together and draw some conclusions, as erroneous and misinformed as they might be.

One disappointment with the Texas Governor set was that it seemed Mr. Goolkasian was sort of hiding behind his band a little, allowing a second guitar player to drown out his own playing. The second guitar player rocked steadfastly enough, but in the context of the songs the band was playing he seemed to be overplaying. On a related note, the songs also seemed to give credence to a proposition that Goolkasian was sort of hiding amongst the music. Instead of directly delivering the fractured pop that we had hoped for, the songs, save for the opener and the closer, couched themselves in straight rock, pop and blues forms, following standard chord progressions.

Goolkasian still gave interesting vocal performances, doing that thing posing his arms that we recall from seeing the Elevator Drops at Ye Olde College about 10 years ago. But on the whole it seemed Goolkasian was either taking a new tack musically (obviously fine), or letting his bandmates in on the songwriting process somewhat to the detriment of the music. On the TG page Goolkasian talks about the decision to leave the Elevator Drops, and it makes us wonder whether it had, and if his current band dynamic has, something to do perhaps with no longer being as comfortable as a frontman as he once was.

All that said, we look forward to listening through the Texas Governor catalog, which H-Dawg purchased, and seeing the band again in the future, although their live performances are evidently rare.

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Currently watching disc two of the Pavement Slow Century DVD, which is comprised of what we suspect are two of the final performances of the band's final tour. Good stuff.

With regards to our promise of a week or two ago to revisit Small 23's Free T-Shirts for Spain record, we see now that we have already pretty much said all we wanted to say in earlier posts here and here. Really, the Eric Bachmann connection is really what always sticks out in our minds. We can't but wonder whether the EP's opener, "Rhymes With Fame," is a tell-off to Bachmann after he left Small 23 and devoted his full attention to Archers of Loaf. Obviously, Bachmann made the right choice. Small 23 never was able to surpass "Rhymes With Fame" and their best song, "Zoo Girl," which are contained on Free T-Shirts. The latter song is one of our favorites. So there, book closed on Small 23. Moving on...

More Zipperhead nostalgia at Philebrity. We wish women still had such great haircuts. And we used to go to the Revival Teen Night, too, with PFC and KFB and WPRS. Of course, we were too shy to actually meet anyone else, but we got to listen to Nine Inch Nails and Bauhaus on a huge soundsystem and be inside an actual club, and that was pretty much all the excitement we could handle at such a tender age.

That is all.