Posts Tagged ‘Concert Flashback’

  
Tuesday, August 25th, 2009

Popdose Concert Flashback: Big Ass Truck, Northampton, Mass., 1997

by Mojo Flucke

There’s no ticket from this show to scan; I was just one of the guys on the guest list. Turns out that when this band came to the Iron Horse in Northampton, Mass., touring off their album Kent, me and my sidekick Jack—the funk-loving, fun-loving concert pallie who lived downstairs from me in the godforsaken burg of Rowley, Mass.—didn’t have to elbow through a mass of devotees at the club to find a seat: It was literally me, Jack, a couple other people, and some barflies who probably didn’t have to pay a cover to see the gig.

But this group threw down some of the most innovative funk rock this side of the Average White Band: Hailing from Memphis, Big Ass Truck jammed hard, with a DJ in tow punching in samples and scratching records to great rhythmic effect. Their groove and stage vibe looked a lot like this rendition of “Theem From,” one of Kent’s cuts: (more…)

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Tuesday, April 21st, 2009

Popdose Concert Flashback: David Bowie and Nine Inch Nails, 9/16/95

by Mojo Flucke

“That guy,” my wife Kate said of Trent Reznor on the way home from this show in one of the most memorable one-line concert reviews I’ve ever heard or read, “is a grease spot on the windshield of rock and roll.”

She was there to see Bowie, obviously.

This show, like David Bowie, is an enigma wrapped in a conundrum wrapped in a rid–no, wrapped in a rancid corn dog. In my mind he is a great artist and a creative force, a visionary who understands how music works (composing, performing and arranging) on a level most other pop stars just can’t. Prince and Paul McCartney and Beck are much like Bowie in this regard; Britney Spears needs to hire 15 people to do the tasks Bowie can accomplish all by himself, when he feels like it.

Bowie’s also a great collaborator, having worked with everyone from Jagger to Iggy to Lou Reed to Luther Vandross to Stevie Ray Vaughan to…Trent Reznor. He understands how to make the sum greater than its parts, musically. He also knows how to glom on to the coolest music of the moment, which in the mid-1990s was….wait for it…industrial and its son, post-industrial waste.

And, sadly, he’s also had his musical slumps, like the great Derek Jeter and his 0-for-32 a few years ago. After the fumes of the brilliant Let’s Dance gave way to clunkers like Tonight and Never Let Me Down, Bowie dusted off his crap machine, recycled some more spineless pop junk, and tried to make a silk purse out of sow’s ear with some upbeat soulful jazz arrangements and noisy rhythm, putting together his Black Tie White Noise CD. Its hit single, “Jump They Say,” showed a little promise (no video embedding, just linking, the Bowie Marketing Machine decree-eth).

Then came 1. Outside, whatever the heck that was (for the record, a concept album rumored to be the first in a trilogy but so half-baked that Bowie’s never recorded the second or third part). Funky, here and there, but it sounded like warmed-over Happy Mondays or bad jungle techno in too many spots, with some jazz sounds tossed in here and there so’s we can tell it’s sophisticated. (more…)

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Wednesday, February 25th, 2009

Popdose Concert Flashback: George Clinton & The P-Funk All-Stars, 4/22/95

by Mojo Flucke

“Incongruous” is the only way to describe this night. First of all, UNH is perhaps the whitest venue in the whitest state in the union. Furthermore, the Godfather of Funk shared a bill with…The Samples? A quirky jam band more popular in Colorado than in all of the territory east of the Mississippi? Makes me wonder who was in charge of booking. It was out of place as the Jonas Brothers opening for Ice-T.

A buddy called me up and wanted to take me along to gets us a little funk education. He didn’t know much of George Clinton beyond “Atomic Dog” and the funny hair. En route, his schooling involved mostly learning the chants (”Make my funk the P-Funk, I want my funk uncut/Make my funk the P-Funk, I wants to get funked up”) and yelling them at the top of our lungs in the cah on the way to the cohn-suht.

He later got busted carrying a switchblade into the gig (are you kidding me?) but, since New Hampshire is close to Canada–the land of Rocky & Bullwinkle and the home of the nice–the pleasant security officers checked it at the door and let him have it back on the way out.

The show was worth at least twice the $15 general-admission cover, and that’s counting having to endure the Samples, which to my ears sounded like one long droning synth chord and cute harmonies sustained for oh, about four hours. In reality it was probably just a little shy of a two-hour set, but I’ve endured a lot of jam-band shows and these guys had to have been the worst, ever. Look up “stultifying” in the dictionary, and The Samples picture will be there. This band was such a peculiar opening act for the P-Funk All-Stars–they had no funk whatsoever, unlike the area jammers from the area like Lettuce and Jiggle The Handle, whose grooves could make us shake all the junk in our trunks.

Basically, while there were probably more than a few UNH students who knew what they were doing and some actual adults in the crowd who understood the whole funkifications of George Clinton and his branch of the rock family tree with Bootsy Collins and Bernie Worrell, it felt like this crowd had no idea what was about to transpire when the house lights dimmed and Dr. Funkenstein came out to throw down an absolutely magnificent set. Few of the guys behind Clinton were recognizeable, but according to Wikipedia, Kidd Funkadelic and Billy Bass would have been in the house. Both of them—and Clinton—made the Rock Hall in 1997, for what it’s worth. (more…)

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Friday, January 9th, 2009

Concert Flashback: The Von Bondies, Boston, Mass., 12/04/06

by Mojo Flucke
Ed stole Marcie Bolens set list for me, as he knows I am an incorrigible ephemera accumulator.

Fellow Popdoser Ed Murray and I ducked down to Boston’s Paradise to check out the Von Bondies (above: rhythm guitarist Marcie Bolen’s set list that Ed stole for me, knowing that I’m an incorrigible ephemera accumulator), a band known more for lead singer Jason Stollsteimer’s dustup with fellow Motor City Madman Jack White that led to White’s pleading guilty to assault and battery charges than for the band’s actual tuneage.

The Bondies’ then-current, now-former rhythm guitarist and background singer, Marcie Bolen, allegedly was romantically involved with White for a time–which has led to unconfirmed speculation that it could have been at least part of the reason he and Stollsteimer came to blows, although testimony in a later, unrelated federal case revealed that White may have been upset over Stollsteimer’s comments in an article about White’s production of the Bondies’ early recordings.

Fans of the television show Rescue Me will recognize the Bondies’ song “C’Mon C’Mon,” an edited version of which was used for its theme. The band performed it on Letterman before Bolen left the band:

Some phone company had sponsored the free show, and Ed and never did figure out what “VIP” privileges our being on “the guest list” actually entailed, but we got on it anyway just in case. (more…)

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Friday, January 2nd, 2009

Concert Flashback: Dinosaur Jr., Worcester, Mass., 11/07/97

by Mojo Flucke

Editor’s Note: This kicks off a new series where the Popdose staff reflects on memorable concerts they’ve witnessed. They’re not reviews, per se, but in places may exhibit review-like symptoms.

Some gigs are doomed from the beginning. This one was a failure waiting to happen. First, it was to take place in Worcester, Mass., a town I love for its working-class mentality and music scene that cherishes rock, blues, and jazz. Caught between the major concert towns of Boston to the east and Northampton to the west, Worcester has hungry music fans—lots of them—and a fistful of colleges to fuel the scene. But it just can’t get the top acts to make Wormtown (as the locals call it) a regular tour stop, yet the ones who do find the townsfolk quite appreciative. Covering the city’s concert beat for several years for a local arts-n-entertainment rag has turned out to be one of the most personally rewarding periods of my music-writing career.

Dinosaur Jr. formed out there in western Mass. in 1984, predating college mates and rivals the Pixies by a couple years. They were local heroes. To the fans, at least. Club connections I knew ripped on band leader J. Mascis for being overbearing, demanding, and pompous, irritating them by showing up to sold-out shows (not his own) with large groups of friends and throwing temper tantrums when they couldn’t get in. My assignment was to interview him for an article previewing his upcoming gig at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI, or “whup-ee” as the enrolled like to call it) and he was a flaming dickass to me, answering most of my questions with one or two words and/or a grunt thrown in. He speaks like he sings, by the way, in a half-moaned, half-spoken cadence that recalls Emo Phillips on downers.

Point is, if you’ve ever tried to write a 750-word profile of someone you just realize is not actually worth the idolatry and gave you roughly 14 words’ worth of something to say…well, let’s just say it was a tough assignment. I give Mascis a mulligan; if he does that to me again, he’s on my black list. Enough other people have called him “cool enough” that I’m willing to believe he was having an off day.

But the great thing about writing club previews is that you-plus-one is always on the guest list. DinoJr continues to make great, loud, raucous pop, with occasional gems like “Feel The Pain,” “Freak Scene,” and “I’m Insane,” a little Mellotron-driven ditty from the band’s then-current album Hand It Over. (more…)

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