T H U R S D A Y
So to recap: Superchunk crossed-off the list, done, Teenbeat records, finished, Interpol (wtf, the unexpected start), over. Thursday Night was the RoughTrade Records Showcase at the Bowery and the lovely lovely Mates of State @ the Knitting Factory playing with whiny emo Rainer Maria (it's kind of sad when the band instead of the poet Rilke gets the ".com". sigh.). I missed out on the whole Knitting Factory deal, but I was told there was a beautiful running tribute to Elliott Smith the whole night.
Missed the Fiery Furnaces set and am kicking myself big time for it. kick kick kick. Well what can you do, being a corporate slave isn't exactly easy (fucking sellout! but ey, if i didn't sell my soul i wouldn't have the moolah to be watching this yeah? let the vicious cycle continue-- till december, then i'm out.). I watched the show with Bjork's cousin, Isold (seems all Icelanders are related by some nth degree. it's coo,l they even have a website that traces their geneology.) who had come from midtown to support a slew of Icelandic bands (Icelandic hip hop anyone? I'm not kidding!).
So British Sea Power. Hooooooly shit,These boys are freaking hilarious. In they came, flora and fauna in tow (yes, like literally tree branches), in their little ragtag gilligan's island uniforms. Either these kids are on crack or they just exude that natural overabundance of energy only horny 18 year olds can have. There they were hopping around everywhere, little drummer boy jumps into the audience, guitar man climbs up on speakers-- all the while rockin it with their feisty sound. I love it when you get such enthusiasm from performers, so rare in the cool-to-be-blase New York crowd. Fuck being cool man-- rock it. (oh, and they had cute little british accents, of course).
Adam Green came on next. Adam's ex-band The Moldy Peaches was a favorite of mine, I'd never seen him perform alone before and wasn't quite sure how he'd hold up. He was, well-- Adam Green, minus the funky costume and instead dressed in a somber black blazer and jeans. He was still sporting the same quirky lyrics in more laid-back tunes that made The Moldy Peaches an instant hit. He still did his crazy dance, college girls still stood right in front and oggled him, he still looked spaced-out and on serious hard-core shit, but Adam Green being Adam Green gave a good performance. He also gave a great shout out to Jessica Simpson, yo.
Dood, after that fantastic build-up (from BSP and Adam Green) The Kills were a big let down. Allison came out in her usual rocker way, sporting the nervous lip-pulling and chain smoking (she's still fucking cute though). They ran through their set, never really connecting with the crowd (except for the frat boys behind us who were there to solely oggle anyway), giving the impression that this was more a chore than fun, rock star blase at it's finest. Not that i'm being extremely fair to The Kills, they were rockin it at the Siren Festival (but I was also 100 yards away and couldn't really see them), and the juxtaposition with the high-energy BSP and a quirky Adam Green was too much for them to pull a great follow-through-- or maybe i just should have been drunk by the time they came on.
Rough Trade Records though had boxes and boxes of free sampler cd's waiting at the door (I love you Rough Trade!) and that almost made up for the disappointing end. Maybe I should have hightailed it to the Knitting Factory-- the Mates of States would never let me down (amen).
(thanks to www.underexposed.org.uk for the BSP pic used below)
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