Good Morning. Hello. How are you? #1231
We went to see Love & Rockets and Jane's Addiction. Plus a few musical odds and ends from Mount Erie, Mercury Rev, Nick Laudadio.
Good morning, hello hello hello. What is up. Sept 4, and there is a chill in the air. Autumn is coming. I am so excited. I am done with sweating, bring on my electric slippers. This is gonna rule. Where are my cardigans.
Yesterday was my parent’s anniversary. Would have been their… um… 57th? I think? That sounds right. Man. I miss my dad. In my vinyl reorg this weekend I found a photo of me, my dad and my sister. It got hung in a place of honor.
Went to see Love & Rockets and Jane’s Addiction last night. Using an ampersand and the word “and” to designate two different types of “and” in a sentence is tight. Ought to be a rule. It was at the Red Hat amphitheater, which is a super great venue in the heart of downtown Raleigh. And, as Emma points out, not named after a bank! Sweet.
Tight and sweet, tight and sweet.
I am a bigger fan of Love & Rockets than Jane’s Addiction, but I like them both a lot. Well, I love Love & Rockets, I just like Jane’s Addiction a lot. I like Jane’s Addiction more live, and I like them more — pretty much only — when they have the original lineup. Because as the years go by, the reasons I like Jane’s Addiction are more and more confined to the band as opposed to Perry. I mean, I never loved Perry, but I admired his artistry and his drive, Lollapalooza is dope and all (tight, sweet and dope). Or was, or something. But, yeah, his voice is shot and the hard living has gotten to him. He does… okay. Maybe a B-/C+ on the vocals. Good enough, his elderly, aging-alcoholic-smoker rasp is definitely distracting. There is a paradox in Perry, though. How is it he can still hit all the high notes, but not the midrange? A mystery, a mystery.
But the band, the band. My god, they sound so huge. Just monstrous. I have only seen Jane’s three times — pretty much once an era. But the best one was in 2008, when Jane’s Addiction was the surprise guest at a Playboy/C3 party we went to in an abandoned Safeway in Austin. It was the first show of the reunited original lineup, and it was just… insane. Insane. It could not be topped. I mean, this show was really good, but Perry’s voice problems and the larger (very nice!) venue made it less special. But my god. Just huge.
(we’re a pic of the 2008 show just to drive home the absurdity of the venue)
We had to leave early because we are old and had a babysitter and whatnot, so we left during “Three Days,” which was just surreal. You could hear them playing this amazing, giant version of “Three Days” all through downtown Raleigh. As we walked up the flights of stairs of the parking garage, as we drove out of town. An entire metropolitian area listening to a killer live version of the weirdest single ever: Jane’s was one of the biggest bands in the world and they launch their highly anticipated new album with… an eleven-minute single. I still have this bad habit of thinking of Ritual De Lo Habitual as a sell-out album but… who launches a sell-out album with an eleven-minute single. I am too harsh on Ritual. Stop is great. Been Caught Stealing is a bit dumb but the lyrics written out — and I have said this before — are just so great. “I enjoy stealing, it’s as simple as that.”
They opened with “Kettle Whistle” and it was epic, giant, enthralling. At one point the Amtrak sleeper train from Florida went by during “Ted Just Admit It” and honked its horn for a good long while. Perry sure liked that.
Then we have Love & Rockets (well, they were first I don’t know why I wrote about them in the opposite order) who I have loved since I was a kid, well, 13 or so, when this older, cool girl came to a dance party at my church clutching her new vinyl copy of The Seventh Dream of Teenage Heaven. I wanna say it was Liz… Smith? I can’t remember for sure. Someone 3-4 years older than me, friend of Dylan Wallace (RIP). She seemed so cool and I tracked down my own copy and I can still remember the first time I heard “Dog End of a Day Gone By” and later I totalled my parents’ Dodge Caravan while listening to that song. “Haunted” is still the song I test any new piece of audio equipment with, one of my favorite songs ever.
They are aging well, and compared to Perry, both of them still have great voices, which is no mean feat given they both probably partied as hard as Perry and come from a previous generation. I mean, shit, Daniel Ash is 67 years old. But they still got it, he is a great guitar player. And my god, I love an outdoor show as the sun goes down.
But I have complaints about them live, I have always had complaints about them live (sorry, Liz). Daniel puts too much effects on his acoustic guitar. But mainly I wish they had a consistent POV when it comes to backing tracks. The thing about Love & Rockets is they are a cool live band — Daniels’ guitar parts and David’s bass parts are unique and awesome. But they are an amazing studio band, because they have this giant, reverb-ish, psychadelic vibe to the albums that is reminiscent of Floyd and I miss that live so much.
My preference would be for them to employ a session musician as a fourth member to do the guitar parts that Daniel doesn’t want to do, and synth the rest of the time. Failing that, use backing tracks? I mean, here’s the thing: Love & Rockets already use backing tracks on their biggest hit, “So Alive,” which to do maybe three-quarters of the way through the set. I mean, I guess they have to, that song has some great female backing vocals. But.. they don’t have to! There are other acts out there that completely change their biggest hit when doing it live. So, I mean, if you’re going to have backing tracks on one track, why not the rest?
“Well they just do it on the one,” you might say. “It’s the hit and they want to do it justice.” Well okay then, but the weird thing is, from that point forward, they use backing tracks! They did “Ball of Confusion” next and the (awesome) twangy, distorted high-bass part is a backing track. WTF! If you’re gonna do the bah-duh-buh-bum-dooonnnnn-wowww of “Ball of Confusion” why wouldn’t you do the awesome, necessary, iconic pan flute solo in “No New Tale to Tell.” I am confused!
But I am also used to it, they have always been this way and I have seen them a bunch. I remember I was like 16 and I obtained a copy of… I’m gonna say the “Lazy” 12” and it had a live version of “The Seventh Dream of Teenage Heaven” on it and I knew, I knew.
Ball of Confusion: written in the 70’s, a hit for Tina Turner in 1980, a hit for Love & Rockets in 1985, performed live in 2024, and lyrically relevant in all of those times, spanning more than 50 years. If you ever think America is uniquely terrible now, look at these lyrics from 1970, from a Temptations record:
People movin' out, people movin' in
Why? Because of the color of their skin
Run, run, run, but you sure can't hide
An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth
Vote for me and I'll set you free
Rap on, brother, rap on
Well, the only person talkin' 'bout "Love thy brother"
Is the preacher
And it seems nobody's interested in learnin'
But the teacher
Segregation, determination, demonstration, integration Aggravation, humiliation, obligation to our nation
Ball of confusion
Really is quite a tune.
Speaking of “Ball of Confusion,” for both that song and “Dog End of a Day Gone By,” they play the US edit versions, not the versions on the UK albums, they always have, but it really got me thinking: are the US versions canon, not the UK ones? That is weird for an English band. Except they all live in America now but.. back in 85, 86? Fascinating.
Standout track of the set was “American Dream” did not see that coming. “Dog End” was about 6BPM faster than the recorded version, “Haunted” was inexplicably about 4 BPM slower and suffered for it. Wish they played “All in My Mind” but “Mirror People” was amazing. I keep forgetting I am not enamored with the live version of “Yin & Yang and the Flowerpot Man” it’s weird how I have different favorite Love & Rockets songs live vs album.
In the pit, we ran into an old Boston friend, Gilday, with whom I’ve been trying to meet up. He had his kid with him. Said he loved it here but everyone was too nice — pretty much the way all Bostonians feel when they move here, but they settle eventually.
Saw a dude in a Spiritualized shirt, tried to talk to him, he was not having it. Fucking hate that. Saw a dude in a Ministry With Sympathy shirt, he saw me looking at his shirt, I looked up, we both smiled and nodded. That is the interaction you want with band tee shirt dudes, come on people. Once again I went too obscure and I wore my new Planning for Burial shirt no one complimented me. Because this was basically a classic rock show and the vast majority of shirts were old people bands. The youth were scarce.
All in all a great night out. We were thinking of going to the Buzzcocks on Thursday it is not sold out. May as well continue this run of classic rock gigs. After that, our next show is Sigur Ros in two weeks. Are they classic rock yet? Kinda think yes.
We are listening this morning to the new Thou record, Umbilical, it is our third listen. It is hard to choose favorite songs on this album they are all black metal bangers. Maybe “Emotional Terrorist” cuz it has a bit of a chorus, a rarity for them.
We are down to 60 hours, 21 minutes on the “To Investigate” playlist we made good progress yesterday and I did a bit of pruning of albums in it that I don’t need to listen to a second time (I think I’m all set on Taco’s Glenn Miller Tribute Album).
Today we have a pain doctor appointment. Had to look up which pain doctor it is my arm doctor not my neck or back pain doctors. Sad, I was hoping for the 20 shots of muscle relaxers into my neck. OH WAIT I am wrong. Neck shots today, neck doctor tomorrow, tennis elbow catch up Friday. Yay! PAIN DOCTORS.
Good band name.
Guess we’ll just round this out with music stuff today, couple more music items:
There is a new Mount Erie single, and it is.. fine. It may be the first new Mount Erie music ever that did not enthrall me immediately. And, look, I am happy he seems to be getting over the untimely, miserable death of his true love, wife, and mother to his child, no one can wallow forever. But we are never going to get another A Crow Looked at Me. This is very good for Phil Elvernum’s mental health and less good for my artistic rapaciousness. So, on balance, good. And the new song is hardly a banger or anything. But it would be hilarious if Phil Elvernum had a monster Tik Tok hit with the kids, I feel like I could really get behind that. Also, the video is pretty. New album Night Palace coming November 1.
There is a new Mercury Rev coming out this Friday. I have only listened to one of the three pre-release tunes, and I liked it. I am excited. Born Horses out this Friday.
My friend Nick has been making music daily for ages, and it is an amazing project, not dissimilar to Good Morning. Hello. How are You? but musical. He is visiting this weekend, very exciting. But also, he has made a few musical motifs based on the words of GMHHAY. I need to figure out how to post them for you but I am enjoying the interaction between two daily-habit artists-way projects. It is great. Maybe he will make one into a morning music track. Wait, Nick, did that already happen? Anyway, here is a different morning music track. Yesterday’s, in fact.
And that about wraps it up. Didn’t see much of Jane yesterday! School drop-off both yesterday and today were great. She was great at dinner. Oh! I came up from working for dinner and she was on her iPad and I said “Hi! How was school?” and she immediately answered, and not in a surly distracted way. Amazing. I feel like parent of the year.
You’d think after an entry of GMHHAY like this I would make you a playlist of old-fart music but no, no, au contraire, I need to counterbalance with some new music that the cool kids are listening to, plus, you know, a bad 80’s Lou Reed solo track. Also I doubt cool kids are listening to the new Snow Patrol but you know what? It is pretty good. I maintain a soft spot for that guy. New Samia is Americana poppy and I am here for it. Rosalia is keeping Bjork focused, with a chorus. Okay Neptune is old too, and Honeyglazed, got a bit of the Boston 90’s underground thrown in what can i say you can take the boy out of Boston, etc. Ior is Finnish and I love them so much. Cassidy Brooke is great, Lucy Gaffney too you will be hearin gmore of them in my playlists. Been into Kill Rock Stars immigrant-rock act Habibi for a while and I love their new record. Excited for the new Kate Bollinger she is coming to Cat’s Cradle I really gotta figure out how to make that show. Nilüfer Yanya is the new hot thing and after the first two tracks, I really love the record.
Okay over and out talk to you tomorrow .
Wonderful pic of your dad with Val and you!