That Was The Show That Was: Sonic Youth, The Feelies | Wilbur

[PHOTO CREDIT: Michael Piantigini | We welcome back to these digital pages longtime friend and occasional contributor Jay Kumar, who you may recall hosts the podcast Completely Conspicuous. -- Ed.]

The last time I saw Sonic Youth was way back in October 1995, when the band was already considered the elder statespeople of alt rock/punk/grunge/whatever. I was supposed to see them play at Avalon (now doing business as House of Blues) on Lansdowne Street in Boston, but the surprise success of their single “The Diamond Sea” caused the promoter to move the show to the larger Orpheum Theatre. In my late 20s at the time, I was struck by how many really young kids (i.e., pre-teens) were there, drawn by the radio edit of the aforementioned 19-minute song.

The audience at Sunday night’s SY near-sellout show with The Feelies at the Wilbur Theater had a decidedly different look: a mix of aging hipsters, college kids and the occasional pre-teen. And while the band is decidedly older -— all five members are 47 or older -— they rock as hard as they ever have.

Touring behind The Eternal, the band’s first release on Matador, SY played a 90-minute set that included pretty much everything from that album. The new material was strong, with “Anti-Orgasm” a standout with its cascading waves of noise. In addition, the band sprinkled in some classics from the 1980s: “Tom Violence” and “Shadow of a Doubt” from Evol, “Stereo Sanctity” from Sister, “Cross the Breeze” and “The Sprawl” from Daydream Nation and the scorching show closer, “Death Valley ’69” from Bad Moon Rising. Interestingly, the band didn’t play any material off its nine major-label albums. For those folks disappointed that they didn’t get to hear “Kool Thing” or “100%,” there’s always YouTube.

Guitarists Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo were in peak form, alternately bashing out violent riffs and coaxing squalls of feedback from their guitars. Moore especially was animated, jumping around and looking like he was going to jump into the crowd at times while playing at the edge of the stage. Pavement’s Mark Ibold has taken over bass duties, which freed up Kim Gordon to play rhythm guitar or just focus on vocals, although she still played bass on some songs. Drummer Steve Shelley was impressive, whether he was hammering away on the harder stuff or creating a psychedelic mood on songs like “Shadow of a Doubt.” Perhaps in a nod to the sheer volume of songs the band has written, a roadie brought out lyric sheets that were taped to the stage for Moore, Ranaldo and Gordon for the older material.

Openers The Feelies drew some of the older audience members, similar to its reunion show at the Roxy in October 2008. Although much of the younger crowd at the Wilbur were unfamiliar with the band, which only has four albums and hasn’t released one since 1991, the older fans were shouting encouragement throughout the 50-minute set.

Singer-guitarist Glenn Mercer said few words between songs but bounced frenetically around the stage as he played his similarly winding solos. Thanks to a muddy sound mix, however, Mercer’s already subdued vocals were barely audible. Rhythm guitarist Bill Million (who one audience member rightly noted bears a striking resemblance to talk show host Jerry Springer) kept the jangly chords going and provided occasional backing vocals along with bassist Brenda Sauter. Stanley Demeski was a powerful presence on drums while percussionist Dave Weckerman intently played a variety of instruments including drums, tambourine, cowbell and blocks.

Highlights included “The Time is Right,” a new song the band played last October in Boston, “Too Far Gone” and the one-two punch of “Raised Eyebrows” leading into the sped-up strumfest of “Crazy Rhythms.” Hopefully, the band will release some new material soon because they’ve obviously still got the goods.

The Feelies have been playing sporadic shows in conjunction with the recent reissues of their albums Crazy Rhythms and The Good Earth. No further dates have been announced. Sonic Youth, however, were slated to play another show at the Wilbur with openers the Meat Puppets and Cold Cave.

One note about the Wilbur: What’s up with the byzantine series of checkpoints, wristbands and holding pens that the venue concertgoers undergo? There had to be 87 people staffing this event, and it just resulted in absurdly long lines for the restrooms and overall confusion. And on top of all that, they collected everyone’s ticket stubs. Weak. -- Jay Kumar

Sonic Youth: Internerds | MySpace | YouTube | Flickr
The Feelies: Internerds | MySpace | YouTube | Flickr

Previous Sonic Youth Coverage:
Today's Hotness: Sonic Youth, Jai-Alai Savant, Thrill Jockey
Industry Watchdog: Sonic Youth, UMGI, Gawker Media
YouTube Rodeo: Sonic Youth's "Incinerate"
Review: Sonic Youth | Rather Ripped

Previous Feelies Coverage:
Review: Velvets | Big Star | Feelies | Pixies
That Was The Show That Was: The Feelies At The Roxy
YouTube Rodeo: Half-Way To The Feelies And "Higher Ground"

And Then This Happened: Sonic Youth, Feelies | Wilbur | 11.22.09

Sonic Youth and the Feelies at the Wilbur Theatre, Boston, MA; 11/22/2009; Photos by Michael Piantigini

Review: Calories | Let's Pretend That We're Older EP [MP3]

OK Calories EP review go the idea of a Calories EP is sort of laughable because the brilliant Birmingham, England-based power trio's no-bullshit approach to melodic, sculpted punkwhatever already ensures that there will be no dillying or dallying among the proceedings and the band's debut full-length was 10 songs long but a blindingly paced 23 minutes short so a four-song EP could almost theoretically take you just one cigarette to listen to the whole thing, or even a negative amount of time, yeah? The title track to Let's Pretend That We're Older is an end-of-the-night beer hall anthem, well, more contemplative than that, but the point being if we were pretending we were younger this is the song that we'd dial up every night with our last dollar for the jukebox and pound our thick-bottomed mugs to the shellacked tabletop along to as the barkeep reaches behind the dusty venetians and kills the window fluorescents and props open the door with a tired and meaningfully silent getthefuckout. Paradoxically the best track on this EP is buried in the side B track 1 slot were this a vinyl release, "Expect The Language" of the four tunes here best conveys Calories' characteristic panoramic optimism and that feeling that this day is going to be your day, which the substantially darker "Let's Pretend That We're Older" lacks a bit. In sum the EP is a fine collection to tide over fans who frothed at the debut Adventuring and are chewing fingers down to wrists waiting for the threesome's next full-length, which we are told will be issued in March by Smalltown America under the title Habitations. Let's Pretend That We're Older was co-released earlier this month by the aforementioned Smalltown America and Big Scary Monsters; the thing is being sold in a limited-edition denim sheath with a badge pinned to the front, the awesomeness of which need not be expounded upon. Mysterious commenters tell us that Habitations will be preceded in the new year by a single released by Coventry-based Tough Love Records for "The Mortal Boys" b/w "Drink The Potion," the a-side of which will appear on Habitations.

Calories -- "Let's Pretend That We're Older" -- Let's Pretend That We're Older
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[buy the EP from Big Scary Monsters right here]

Calories: Internerds | MySpace | YouTube | Flickr

Previous Calories Coverage:
Be Prepared: Calories | Let's Pretend That We're Older EP | 11 Nov.
YouTube Rodeo: Calories' "Forests of Varg"
Review: Calories | Adventuring
Show Us Yours #10: Calories
Todays Hotness: Fields, Johnny Foreigner, Calories

Coming To Your Local Bandstand: Lilys' California Mini Tour

Well, they didn't take the stage for either of the Slumberland shows last weekend, but Kurt Heasley and his current cohorts (who knows who that is; the band's redesigned MySpace hacienda is cool-looking but fairly fact-deficient) will be trekking through several towns in California next week. As this is an extremely rare treat, it is a cause for some celebration. Lilys are also playing All Tomorrow's Parties Nightmare Before Christmas thing curated by My Bloody Valentine in England on 6 December, which of course is already sold out.

Footage: Lorelei Cover Lilys' "February 14th" | Slumberland 20th Anniversary

Inveterate, jet-setting shoegaze junky and friend of Clicky Clicky mgrooves flew in from the left coast for the Slumberland 20th Anniversary shows in D.C. and Brooklyn last weekend, and captured the video above of Lorelei encoring with former labelmate Lilys' kaleidoscopic debut single. It's not the entire performance (the beginning is cut off), but it is quite awesome, and we suspect that if you watch until the huge transition at 2:30 you're mind may be blown. So while our dream of Lilys performing a surprise set during the celebration did not come to pass, the seminal Slumberland act was still represented. Lorelei delivered six other tracks, according to this set list also sent along by mgrooves, including the Clicky Clicky fave "Mostly I Sleep" and the classics "Float My Bed" and "Stop What You're Doing." "February 14th" was released as Slumberland's DRYL-7 in March 1991; the single is out of print. As we told our Twitter homies recently, NYCTaper was at the show Saturday night and recorded all of the sets. Pop over to NYCTaper now for live offerings from The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart and a sorta reconstituted Henry's Dress here and here respectively.

Lilys -- "February 14th" -- "February 14th" b/w "Threw A Day"
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[buy Lorelei records from Slumberland right here]

Rock Over Boston | drivin n cryin | TT the Bear's | 11.15.2009

[Photos by Michael Piantigini]

It would be easy to go on for a thousand words about drivin n cryin (in fact, when I started this review it was starting to look like I would), because theirs has been a long and complex story since singer-sonwriter Kevn Kinney and bassist/mandolinist Tim Nielsen released the first album with the band's first lineup, 1986's Scarred But Smarter. So let's boil it down. Here's what you need to know: drivin n cryin are a part southern rock, part country rock, part folk rock, and part hard rock working class band from Atlanta, GA. They like folk music as much as they like the Stooges, and Aerosmith as much as country music.

And why not, right? That leads to glorious live shows that start with balls-out rockers like "Detroit City" from their great new album Great American Bubble Factory, and end with their sing-along country anthem "Straight To Hell" from their 1989 classic Mystery Road. That's how it went Sunday night at TT the Bear's, where drivin n cryin played a more-than-generous two hour set to a modest - but rabid - Sunday night crowd, their first in the area since they supported their self-titled last album opening for The Who's Quadrophenia redux tour stop at Great Woods in 1997.

That gave them plenty of time for a survey of the band's entire career as well as Kinney's solo career (the line between which has always been blurred). The fan favorites were all there: the hooky southern rock of "Honeysuckle Blue" and deep cut "Peacemaker" from 1989's Mystery Road; the hard rock riffs of the title track and "The Innocent" from the 1990's commercial stab at glory that was Fly Me Courageous, the working man angst of "Scarred But Smarter" (more or less the template for Kinney's songwriting) from their 1986 debut; and - of course! - the can't-do-anything-right staple "Straight To Hell." In between there were oddball covers: Nirvana's "All Apologies," sung by drummer Dave V. Johnson, the Dictators' "I Stand Tall" (which is on the new album), and the Beatles' "Why Don't We Do It In The Road;" the latter of which, bizarrely, was interpolated into "Straight To Hell." Latter-day guitarist Mac Carter beefed-up the rockin' stuff, added color to the quiet stuff, and played a particular beauty of a solo on the the non-album gospel/blues jam apparently called "Blues On Top Of Blues." All the while, Kinney was our charming host, weaving stories into the intros and breaks of songs making the whole thing feel as much like a back porch hang as rock rave-up.

While it's been a while since the band has been active beyond handfuls of shows in the southeast, it helps that they've released such a strong new album, (Whatever Happened to The) Great American Bubble Factory. The power-popping title track adding a new wrinkle to the band's sound with horns heralding over the insistent rhythm. Inspired Kinney's purchase from a dollar store a bottle of bubbles for his grand-daughter, "...Bubble Factory" is the sort of blue-collar rumination on which Kinney has long mused (as he points out, "if you can make it there, you can make it here"), and "Preapproved, Predenied" and "This Town" ask similar questions. Rockers like "Detroit City," a tribute to the likes of the Stooges and the MC5, "Get Around Kid," and "Trainwreck," along with folk rocker "Midwestern Blues," a reprise from an earlier Kinney solo album, and the strummy mandolin-flavored "Don't You Know That I Know That You Know?" help balance the record and keep things from getting too heavy.

This is a great, old-fashioned, unapologetic, rock and roll record with its heart in the right place and a drum stick on the bell of a ride cymbal at all the right times. It feels like it was always in the band's catalog.-Michael Piantigini

drivin n cryin: Internets | MySpace | YouTube | Twitter | Facebook

drivin n cryin at TT the Bear's Place, Cambridge, MA 11/15/2009:
1. Detroit City
2. Scarred But Smarter
3. (Whatever Happened to The) Great American Bubble Factory
4. With The People
5. The Innocent
6. Preapproved, Predenied
7. I Stand Tall
8. Paid In Full
9. Honeysuckle Blue
10. Let's Go Dancing
11. All Apologies
12. Peacemaker
13. Don't You Know That I Know That You Know?
14. A Good Country Mile
15. Let Me Down
16. Dirty Angels
17. Fly Me Courageous

Encore:
18. Blues on Top Of Blues (?)
19. Straight To Hell/Why Don't We Do It In The Road

YouTube Rodeo: Johnny Foreigner's "All Mosely Gardens" Rehearsal

We're working on a write-up about this song for Sweeping The Nation's "Noughties By Nature" best songs of the decade thing. Yeah, surprise, surprise, we're writing about Johnny Foreigner again. This is one of our absolute favorite songs (statistically, it is our favorite song), and this very intimate rehearsal video is something we always rediscover every few months. Missing some of the spacey backing vocals and other extras from the version that most have heard. Despite failing to land this performance, the video is incredibly charming.