Perfect From Now On

They finally made it - Built to Spill played their first-EVER Toronto shows last week, and it was worth the wait, almost. I say almost because really, would it have been that hard over the years to play the odd show here? If you're going to come to Buffalo, and if you're coming to Rochester, what's a little trip across the border? They have played Vancouver and Victoria, so I have always wondered what the issue was with Toronto. And none of the Toronto papers thought to cover last week's shows, so no one got to ask. I have rather hoped to run into Doug out front before the gig but missed him, otherwise I certainly would've.

Lee's Palace was the perfect venue - decent sound, great sight lines and a small enough space that even at the bar you had a decent view. H and I and the rest of our friends stood near the middle, right behind the sound guy, which also let us have a sneak peak at the set list. Doug didn't veer from the list at all, so the inevitable shouted requests went nowhere; but he was scheduled to play most of them anyway. He covered material from most of the albums - my own prejudice is that I would have preferred to have seen a bit more from Perfect From Now On, but that's just me - and he did most of the bigger ones.

Car was one of the few stripped down songs - Doug played it almost solo, with the drummer - but everything else was, well, big. Carry the Zero, Strange and my all-time favorite Velvet Waltz were each on their own well worth the price of admission. The thing with Doug Martsch is that he will find these great riffs and build on them and build on them, and he likes to find these series of ascending chord patterns that feel so incredibly perfect; so when you get a song that lasts for 8 minutes, well, that sounds just about right.

Someone has very helpfully posted the performance from that show of Velvet Waltz on YouTube. Oh, Internet, what will do you for me next?



Oh, and then he came out for an encore. He only played one song, Broken Chairs, but he played it for over 20 minutes. The only thing missing was the whistling at the end. Over all, I have to say that this show was better than the show we saw in Milwaukee a couple of years ago, mostly due to the sound. Eagles in Milwaukee had a pretty cavernous ceiling, which ate up a lot of the treble and detail. You also can still smoke in clubs in Milwaukee, and I never really noticed how much of a nuisance that was in a club until they stopped letting you do it - it made it more enjoyable certainly. (We bailed during the encore last time when H couldn't take the smoke anymore.) I haven't spoken to anyone who attended the Wednesday night show, but if you heard anything about it let me know. It was pretty much a full house, so I'm hoping that Wednesday was just as good as Tuesday.

And here's the original album version of what is one of my favorite songs ever (listen for the cello on the second verse, it kills me every time):

Built To Spill - Velvet Waltz



Get Perfect From Now On at amazon.com

Too Young To Move On

When H and I first started dating, like most guys, I had a phase of trying to make myself seem more interesting than I actually am. (HA! It worked!) And looking for something different to do on a date one night, because "You wanna go grab a couple of pints" doesn't seem all that alluring, I noticed that a club downtown was holding a Jeff Buckley tribute night. When I suggested it, H balked a little, and we wound up... going to the pub to grab a couple of pints instead. Turned out that her co-worker (and my friend who had introduced us) had said "Jeff Buckley's who guys use to get women in bed." I guess she thought I might have been showing my cards a little soon. My friend was right, though; Buckley's music was a bit of a panty-remover. Such a talented singer, writer, guitarist. It's too easy to say the usual bits about tragedy and such-a-waste and gone-too-soon... I mean, really, you think so?

Like everyone else I head heard Last Goodbye on the radio - CFNY (now: "The Edge") had it in medium rotation, I think. And when I heard that he'd died, and in such an odd way, it really struck me, somehow, and I wound up heading to Sam's and picked up Grace the same day. It quickly became one of my favorite albums of all time - if I don't play it as often these days, it's not because I don't love it anymore. I think now I just bring it out more for somewhat special occasions, when I can really give it a good listen.

There's a must-read great post on I AM FUEL, YOU ARE FRIENDS. She's assembled a great series of rarities, as well as a wonderful list of tribute songs to Buckley by other artists. I especially loved the Aimee Mann story. Read it here.

My favorite song of his, after all this time, remains Lover, You Should've Come Over. I have a few different versions of it, as it showed up on a couple of EPs. This, version, however, would be my favorite, Live @ WNEW-FM in 1995. It's a song that can still break your heart into a million little pieces, and you don't mind at all.

Jeff Buckley Lover, You Should've Come Over (Live)

Or, if you prefer, here's a You Tube video of a different performance:




This will be a good week to give it a good listen.

And if you still don't have a copy of Grace, what the hell is wrong with you? Go buy it right now.

Palms & Runes, Tarot & Tea

Just a quickie to say how thrilled I am with the Michael Penn compilation that's just come out (thanks sweetie!). Palms & Runes, Tarot & Tea (the line is taken from a voice over in I Can Tell, from Resigned) is a collection that Michael Penn was given the opportunity to choose, and now finds him back on a label. From everything I've read about him over the years, I know he's not had the best experience with them, and as such released his last album (Mr Hollywood Jr. 1947) on his own label, Mimeograph Records, part of United Musicians, the label he and Aimee Mann founded with their manager to fulfill what United Artists was for film actors back in the day. The liner notes are pretty interesting - he notes that the alternative cut of Try presented here was actually the idea of some "wing ding" at the label, but it turned out alright in the end. Material from all 5 albums is covered, and as he himself says, the goal was to create an album anew, as opposed to a boring chronological a to z thing. Long Way Down, I may have preferred the album version; the singing was a little more visceral, but the sound has improved. This may be simply because until recently I only had Free For All on cassette - found it at Sam the Record Man last month for $5! - but Coal shines out. Lucky One and Don't Let Me Go come from MP4, an album I somehow missed all together, and they form a wonderful entry. I'll be ordering that one soon.


Here is Michael's video for Walter Reed, the first track off Mr Hollywood Jr, which also makes an appearance on Palms & Runes...




You can find Palms & Runes, Tarot & Tea at Amazon here.

Between Timid and Timbuktu

When I was 11 years old, I was one of those kids who was labeled as 'gifted' and placed in a special program once a week at a different school, where we had a lot of fun, but I don't think I really learned all that much. Seemed to be that the biggest perk was having the fun, and not having to deal with the drudgery of regular schoolwork. (I missed an entire year's worth of 'music' with the worst music teacher in the world thanks to this.) In the seventh and eight grades, they started having us do independent study, and gave us theme options to loosely corral us into some semblance of discipline. One term, on a whim, I chose Science Fiction - this would have been shortly after Return of the Jedi, but long before Star Trek Next Generation, so my exposure was somewhat limited. To get us inspired, they presented us with a shelf of books, and not sure what I was looking for, I pulled this one out:



I admit, I was likely captivated by the lithe female forms garcing the cover - I would have been 12 or 13 at the time after all - but got sucked into this incredible universe, that likely forever polluted my concept of what sci-fi actually was. (I certainly don't remember much else from that particular class.) But what I took from him, and what kept taking, the more Vonnegut I read, was the overwhelming sense of humanity in his writing, the depth of feeling, and moral outrage at the shitty shitty things that man is capable of doing to man. I haven't read much writing since Timequake, and haven't honestly read any of my copies of his works in a few years, but I am certain to return to him now. Slaughterhouse-Five and Breakfast of Champions are easy and obvious favorites, but I may start with Bluebeard, a favorite for the ballsy reveal at the end that bests the title, but also for its sense of hope and optimism; in a sense, redemption for the despair of the current state of things. I think he was far more optimistic than people give him credit for.

People - at least people in movies - like to say that the dead have gone to a better place; I would prefer to think that Kurt Vonnegut has become unstuck in time, and is currently spending time on Tralfamador with Billy Pilgrim and Unk and Kilgore Trout, and that he'll be back.