Good morning. Hello. How are you? I am good. I am working my way through the seven LPs of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds B-Sides and Rarities Parts I and II. Part I came out years ago, I have the 3-CD Box, but it never came out on vinyl. The new part II just came out this week, and it did come out on vinyl, but the vinyl included Part I, so, you know, two birds, one stone. Some of my favorite Nick Cave songs are B-Sides from the 80’s and 90’s, so it’s fun to stat this at the beginning. “Girl at the Bottom of My Glass,” his songs for Wim Wenders, his covers of Neil Young’s “Helpless” and his majestic, absurd cover of Cohen’s “Tower of Song,” which still, all these years later, awaits the full studio session multi-hour release. Oh and “The Ballad of Robert Moore and Betty Coltrane,” I always liked that one. “Knoxville Girl.” “Blue Bird.” “Right Now I am a Roamin.” Man. I think I own every one of these on their original vinyl releases. I was obsessed. OBSESSED.
Programming note: Not a single person corrected me on this, and I am starting to worry over the trainspotting tech nerd credentials of my readership, but I would like to issue a correction and an apology to MKHD. It turns out you can buy an M1-MAX chipset inside of the 14” MacBook Pro body. It’s just a build-to-order option. You have to pick the high-end M1-PRO as a choice, then build-to-order it up to the M1-MAX. So, I was wrong. I stand corrected. Also, this is very exciting. Now I want one.
In a shocking turn of events, forseen by no one, my wife decided she wanted to go to a rock show last night. She had been feeling regret since skipping the Psychadelic Furs on election night 2018, stupid us thinking, like, the house would be called that evening. In the end, the results weren’t known for days and we skipped the Psychedelic Furs for nothing, which now, in hindsight, in a word of no shows for nearly two years, seems especially dumb. They had announced a return just before the pandemic, and it’s been postponed twice, but no more postponing, the show was here. Janet needed to move Jane bedtime from Thursday night to Wednesday night, so a babysitter wasn’t a problem. The stars aligned. Off we went.
Some thoughts about this show:
I wore pants for the first time since July. They fit. Thank god. But, then, the old jeans from when I was thin most decidedly not fit, so, crap.
The venue required proof of vaccination or “negative test result within 72 hours” which is BS. Proof of vaccination should be it. It’s a rock show it is not an essential service here.
That being said, it was my first time with one of those “show your vax card” check-ins. It did not make me feel especially better. These people don’t care, and I was suddenly very aware of how easy it would be to not even forge one of these, but just flash someone else’s. No one is really checking.
We got there at 9, skipped the opener. Of course I skipped the opener, what am I? Twenty?
The venue required masks, except when drinking. They played audio announcements saying they meant it, wear a mask except when taking a sip, leave it on the rest of the time. That being said, plenty of people completely ignored this rule.
There was a couple behind us where the woman nursed a single beer every hour and wore no mask at all. The man wore his mask on his chin, all night, even though he wasn’t drinking at all. There were plenty of people who just flouted the mask requirement.
That being said, I wouldn’t say that the scofflaws were in a distinct minority. Like maybe 5% of the audience, tops. I just do not understand the mentality. But there are some people who just don’t care.
It was stressful, but eventually you’re like “Well, I am here to enjoy this show, I should either enjoy it or leave,” so you sort of try and carve out a space for yourself and try and enjoy the show.
I have been neurotically collecting BINAX home tests from Walmart, CVS, Amazon, wherever I can get them, so I guess we’ll just test a bunch starting Saturday night/Sunday morning.
People love filming concerts. Just love it. They love filming hits. They love filming vertically. I love how people film vertically, then slowly scan their phone across the stage from one side to another to get the whole picture. I wonder if they’re aware that their phone possesses another mode that can magically fit the whole stage in the picture at once, instead of a bunch of black at the top and bottom.
I am sounding waaaay more negative than I mean to.
Cat’s Cradle is fucking awesome, it is a national institution, I missed it so much. It is so great and I am so happy to live near it and I’m so glad it made it through the pandemic. I’m glad I bought Mountain Goats tickets for December.
That being said, I legit can’t tell you if the art was art I never recognized before, or it had been changed in the last two years.
The things that make Richard Butler’s voice amazing and unique are still there, but his mic technique is atrocious, his high range has been limited (“Love my Way” was pitched down at least a whole step — I have nowhere near perfect pitch and it was obvious to me), and he has pitch problems a lot more than I remember from the old days.
The mix was kind of a mess, but it wasn’t the sound person’s fault. Emma watched her she was working hard. There were just some fundamentally odd choices. The lead guitar and Richard’s voice turned waaaay up, the synths and rhythm guitar turned way down, near inaudible, which had the effect of making the Furs sound way more like a bar band than people are used to. It could kind of work on the rockers, but when the synths in “Heaven,” for example, are barely audible, it just seemed weird.
All that being said, the Furs seem to have a preternatural ability to suddenly sound way, way better on the hits. They played seven songs from the new album, so you could argue that those maybe just haven’t been rehearsed as much, but it seems weird that the mix and Richard’s vocal performance and everything else is just so much better on, say, “Pretty in Pink” compared to “Mr. Jones.”
I legit don’t know why the Furs don’t play the Love Spit Love hit “Am I Wrong.” I mean, am I imagining that the current Furs lineup is, like, 75% ex-Love Spit Love members? It’s weird. It’s not like Love Spit Love is ever going to go on tour again, and it was a genuine accomplishment to have that big of a hit that late in your career, and it is a great song.
But yeah, when they sounded good, they sounded fucking awesome. “Heaven” especially sounded fantastic.
We watched about half the set from the back of stage right, then moved to the absolute back of the club, and it was just so great. I love standing in the back of small clubs. You can decide to think you’re far away or decide to pretend you’re in the third row of an amphitheater or arena. It’s the best.
There was a woman buying a beer in a tight white t-shirt with words stretched across her chest. They said WISDOM IS THE NEW TITS.
It must be REALLY HARD to go on dates to rock shows these days in masks. It’s weird how you can’t see anyone’s lips move or smile.
It is also very annoying that people can’t see my lips move singing along to more obscure Furs songs so they know how cool I am.
We did not stay for the encore. Of course I left for the encore. What am I? Thirty?
All in all, I’m glad I went.
I leave you with this photo of Atlassian’s new headquarters in Sydney, which just looks beautiful. Tallest “hybrid timber structure” in the world, whatever that means. But my god. It’s beautiful. Almost — almost — enough to make me want to work in big tech. As the gardener.
Didn’t have a mix ready this morning, so I just made this one based on all the songs running through my head at exactly this moment. It is missing Monsterland’s “Magazine,” which is also running through my head, but not available on Spotify. I had a horrible dream last night that I was eating a fancy dinner at a restaurant and some sort of silent assassin had to kill everyone in the restaurant. I was just collateral damage. But as I died, “This is my trying” by Taylor Swift was playing, so, make of that what you will. It was actually way more complex than that, but who wants to hear about dreams. Collateral risk when you write first thing in the morning, I guess.
Talk soon!