The Living Rockumentary

Every SFTD member was involved in extracurricular musical activity this weekend. Max and Henning with The Fawns, Brian sitting in with Mudpony in the Joe Strummer/Clash tribute and myself with The Parents. Ken? Whatever Ken was up to, it was music-related. Every day of that boy's life is all about music.


Saturday night found me and Sam Loewenstein trekking down to Red Hook in Brooklyn. The most desolate part of New York City I've ever seen. Small neighborhoods turn into long streets of uninhabited buildings, sidewalks free of people, the landscape barren except for an unhinged random car door lying on the side of the street. At one corner in the middle of this wasteland there's the bar, Lillie's, although there is no sign on the outside to tell you so. No lights outside either, and to enter, you pass through sheets of fabric and plastic (to keep the heat in?). However, the scene indoors was bustling. However the word gets out, this place packs 'em in. Ari's band The Pelicans, who were headlining, draw well in their hometown and the bill's middle band, Telenovela, was playing their debut show so all freinds of the members were on hand to support. The Parents were added late in the game but we did draw two people of our own, Sam's brother Jason, who actually biked out to Lillie's from his new residence in Brooklyn and a girl who saw the name Samara Loewenstein advertised in a trade paper somewhere and came wondering if it was the Sam she knew. Indeed it was. This girl was a good friend of one of Jason's (longtime) ex-girlfriends and was pleased to see him there as well. And she also happened to know Ari Vais because she was a UMass Butterfielder. I didn't really speak to her much myself but I believe her name was Nora, if that means anything to Henning or Brian. Blonde girl, around Ari's age.


Anyway, I pulled a Henning and played the first Parents song with the capo on the wrong fret. No, I took it one step further. I didn't use the capo at all, simply played the song in open D, the key that I sing it in. Sam sings it in F! Ouch! Throughout the first verse and chorus, I was just thinking, oh my, Sam is having lots of trouble staying on key tonight. Can she hear herself in the monitors? Can she hear my guitar? I considered stopping the song halfway through and re-starting but Sam gave me a look like, "Nah, just keep going" so we did. I apologized profusely at song's end to Sam and the audience, called the performance merely a soundcheck and we went right into I Wouldn't Know, which sounded just perfectly fine. It was a short set overall. Highpoints were the tempo-less bridge in Rainy Day Grocery Shopping (always a highlight for me- thanks to Frank Padellaro for suggesting the idea ages ago), all of Coolboy (which features some new countermelody bits and harmonies from me) and Sam always sings Slow Day At The Shoe Store well and Saturday night was no exception. The response was outstanding. A lot of love in the room and our only real criticism was this: (and we heard it from a number of people) that a soft, quiet, supportive rhythm section was missing. Nothing rocking or that makes its presence known but just a fuller sound to flesh out the arrangements. To be felt but not heard kinda thing. Something to keep in mind. But would these two new members have to be parents as well? Oh yeah, Henning, Sam also wanted to let you know that she missed you terribly. In many ways, this was a dream out-of-town gig. Plenty of people there who were supportive and friendly and enthusiastic about our set and the soundman himself was friendly and cool but all the same, you still miss the familiarity of Henning behind the board.


Telenovela was rockin' in the most stereotypical indie-rock way. A muliticultural power trio- a gangly Indian boy whose drumming owed as much to Beastie Boys beats as it did to Dave Grohl, an Asian kid with glasses tossing out sheets of effects-laden guitar noise a la Billy Corgan and a diminutive Jewish NYC grrrl thumping her bass and delivering her melodies and sassy lyrics (their hit song is an ironic ode to Steven Seagal) at full lung capacity to soar over the din. Debut of a band with a definite future.


Ari's band The Pelicans took the stage with our boy Ari starting things off a tad more tipsy than he used to be for Humbert shows. But he's gotten so confident and so good over the years as a performer that the slight drunkenness doesn't mar things, rather it amps up the entertainment factor. When he wants to scream a note now, it doesn't come off as off-key, it's now right on and there's a growl in his voice that's as cool as it is alarming to those not used to the punk coming through in his otherwise hookypop melodies. Amusing between-song banter, too. At one point, he was going on about the band adjusting their amps to the number of people in the room considering the tiles on the floor and the acoustic effects therein, you know, the person-to-tile ratio and the respective volume of the tones the band would have to counter with. Really, though, at this point in his career, with 2002's Winter Wonderland and the new Pelicans EP to add to the backlog of Vais songs, there just isn't a even a slightly mediocre song in their 20-song set. And their one cover is none other than Henning's "Overs" so no slouches in material to draw from. It's weird to watch Ari play without me being a part of it and for the most part, my replacement, Blain Kennedy, plays similar guitar parts to the songs I used to play with Ari in Humbert. However, he and Ari also do this new thing where they play some solos together. They pick the notes at exactly the same time with exactly the same tones on their guitars but in these strange intervals so that the effect is like Iron Maiden or Yngwie Malmsteen overdubs. Just a weird classical music-inspired metal guitar solo playing that hasn't been in vogue since 1984. And it's cheesy when placed in the context of metal music- stick it in the middle of Greyhound, though, and the effect is just delicious. Funny but also entrirely appropriate and musical, too.