Finally, I get around to reviewing this show two weeks after the fact. The simple truth is, the show was like taking a time machine back to 1997 when a college buddy first turned me on to Urban Hymns. Richard Ashcroft and the band look and sound just like they did 10 years ago. I was taken back several times during the show at how good Ashcroft sounded. I was standing pretty close to the stage, near the left PA and I couldn’t see him wearing an ear monitor. Perhaps it was tiny and wireless but the guy can still rock the vocals.
Another obvious observation: everyone there was my age…or older. Ashcroft made references to coming to play New York for the first time when they were 21. Something tells me they were a lot like the younger musicians I meet these days: punk douchebags. But their talent has carried them through some superb material, a long break-up/hiatus all to return in 2008 to make a boat load of money from the reunion tour and, oh, record a new album.
Believe it or not, the two new songs performed were some of my favorites of the evening. It’s not their same sound but more their psychadelic-rock view of today’s indie-rock music. Although a cool song on its own, expect a slammin’ dance remix of Love is Pain to be hitting the bars and clubs later this year.
The rest of the show, as Ashcroft remarked, proved the break didn’t make them any less psychedelic. My only complaint is that they didn’t play Blue - my favorite song by the band. It also didn’t help that I lost hearing my in left ear for a couple of days (I’m sure some of it is never coming back) but that wasn’t their fault. I maybe getting to that age where earplugs are a good idea.
New Decade
Sonnet
This Is Music
Space In Time
Life’s An Ocean
Already There
Weeping Willow
Sit and Wonder (new)
The Rolling People
Gravity Grave
Drugs Don’t Work
Lucky Man
Come On
History
Bittersweet Symphony
Love Is Pain (new)
Les Claypool plays the whamola among other instruments for the theme and character music in Mushroom Men: The Spore Wars. The music on the website and in the game trailers sounds appropriate for a fun yet mysterious mushroom adventure. Les writes about the gig:
When Mushroom Men was first presented to me I was coincidentally on the perpetual late fall hunt for the elusive King Bolete mushrooms which dot the West Sonoma County landscape where myself and my family dwell,” said Les Claypool. “The yearly quest for these fabulous, fungal delicacies has become a bit of a seasonal obsession for myself and my two children over the past few years. Coupled with my son’s obsession with fantasy gaming, it was all I could do to get anything else done around Rancho Relaxo once he got wind of the impending Mushroom Man game and the creator’s interest in having me do the soundtrack. After seeing the design material and mock-ups online, I was queried on a daily basis whether or not I had ‘talked to the Mushroom guys’ and would they be sending us a beta version to try out. I knew at once that this was an opportunity to gain massive brownie points in the eyes of my offspring, a feat that becomes more and more difficult the closer they get to adolescence. Thanks Mushroom Men.
I was just listening to Les Claypool - Mushroom Man
I have to say that I concur on characterizing last night’s presidential debate as a “study in douchebaggery” on the part of ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos and Charlie Gibson. Not that I expected anything less from Gibson. I often remember reading about him in an article – Charlie the Conqueror – published in the issue of New York I bought the week I moved to New York.
I was just listening to Pink Floyd - Money
Some people in college used to give me a hard time and call me “The Count” on the account of my power-brows and pointy nose. Now they’re my best friends. Figures. And so when I read this emotional Cookie Monster editorial on McSweeny’s, I couldn’t stop laughing:
How can they be so callous? Me know there something wrong with me, but who in Sesame Street doesn’t suffer from mental disease or psychological disorder? They don’t call the vampire with math fetish monster, and me pretty sure he undead and drinks blood.
I was just listening to Happy Mondays - W.F.L.
I got 31 out of 34.
I was just listening to Gorillaz - Dirty Harry