so last week i tacitly suggested that maybe '94 phish was not nearly as good as it gets credit for. then i listened to this show the next day and it slapped me across the mouth for my impertinence.
good god. there are bands who can be more technically proficient live than '94 phish, there are bands that can improvise better than '94 phish. but there is no band i've ever heard in my life that can do both at the same time so well as this era of this band. i'd forgotten, and was immediately reminded why people have complained about phish live for 15 years. because they never have been and never will be as flat-out good as they were then. does that mean that they're not worth listening to now? of course not. this summer '94 tour was like catching lightning in a bottle; it's so good you feel like there must be some sort of mystical, ghostly force that decided to infuse the band's instruments with the power to play the music of the cosmos.
no, seriously, it's so good it's driving me to a fucking histrionic breakdown.
anyway, here's the set.
to avoid just bellowing superlatives for ten paragraphs, i'll just hit the really, really high points:
- "rift". this version of "rift" is amazing, and amazingly fast.
- this "AC/DC bag" was so exciting that i broke into spontaneous horn-jamming:
- the entire second half of the first set has no particular standout, but is pretty much the epitome of the improv/technical brilliance i was ranting about above. every song boomerangs out into places you don't expect, with everyone still hitting every note, and then when the do wrap back around to the typical parts of the songs, they do so with a speed and a skill that's rare even for phish.
- maybe my favorite part of this show is the opening of the second set. i very keys-heavy "peaches en regalia", followed by a "bowie" that takes about six minutes to even get started due to three distinct but equally brilliant improv jams the band breaks out in sequence. then, when "bowie" finally hits in earnest, it's one of the best versions i've heard yet, with a groove in the middle that needs to be heard to be believed.
- the other highlight of the second set is "you enjoy myself". for a phish song i've probably heard a few hundred times by now, this version did a great job of throwing in some curves that i still didn't expect, and made a great closing case for this being one of the best shows i've ever heard.
- the encore is simple, short, and perfect in terms of song selection. what else would you end a show like this with besides "tweeprise"?
Sep 17, 2010
Sep 13, 2010
new (old) poem
i actually wrote a new poem today. which is not a huge deal, but it also sort of is because i haven't written literally anything new in at least a year, maybe more like a year and a half.
unfortunately for you, i'm not going to post my new poem yet, as i want to look at it in the morning and see if it makes any sense at all, and then i'll pass it along.
however, i've finally gotten this other older poem to a point where i can read it out loud and not feel like it absolutely sucks, so i'm calling it officially finished. so i'll distract you with it while i continue to work on the new one. cheers!
-------------
three peaces
I
talking can terraform
can flatten the tangled
topography of the mind
into flat verdance
i can see what’s coming miles away
nothing jumps out
nobody screams
and even at night the shadows stretch under the moon
but at least i can see the tips of them.
II
the edge of the shore
water running
into
and up
and over the pebbles
pulling them
pushing them
they roll as they rest in that
interminable but
gentle grasp
fireflies at the edges of this scene
at the edges of my fingers
fighting off
cold darkness indefinition
all at once
giving form to everything
while also being cowed by it
the stars are coldhardbright
they eat enough of the sky that
i almost feel like i can grab them
but i won’t
even the utmost beauty
perhaps especially
the utmost beauty
seems perilous to touch out here
i stretch out on the rocks
a million peas with a mattress hidden underneath
from this angle the sky is splintered
by the spidery fingers of a birch tree
leaning out over the beach
from the closest green spot to
the fringe
the edge
the fire’s light
is almost invisible
but i can see the smoke
curling
around the tips of my toes.
III
the moon’s loud enough that it’s night
but not it's night enough to sleep
the riverbed
long since abandoned by anything that could have given it that name
lies
dappling the moonlight into a thousand shades
rose, for love (?)
pearl, for age
silver, for time
blue, for the sky
which is still blue even when it’s too dark to tell.
unfortunately for you, i'm not going to post my new poem yet, as i want to look at it in the morning and see if it makes any sense at all, and then i'll pass it along.
however, i've finally gotten this other older poem to a point where i can read it out loud and not feel like it absolutely sucks, so i'm calling it officially finished. so i'll distract you with it while i continue to work on the new one. cheers!
-------------
three peaces
I
talking can terraform
can flatten the tangled
topography of the mind
into flat verdance
i can see what’s coming miles away
nothing jumps out
nobody screams
and even at night the shadows stretch under the moon
but at least i can see the tips of them.
II
the edge of the shore
water running
into
and up
and over the pebbles
pulling them
pushing them
they roll as they rest in that
interminable but
gentle grasp
fireflies at the edges of this scene
at the edges of my fingers
fighting off
cold darkness indefinition
all at once
giving form to everything
while also being cowed by it
the stars are coldhardbright
they eat enough of the sky that
i almost feel like i can grab them
but i won’t
even the utmost beauty
perhaps especially
the utmost beauty
seems perilous to touch out here
i stretch out on the rocks
a million peas with a mattress hidden underneath
from this angle the sky is splintered
by the spidery fingers of a birch tree
leaning out over the beach
from the closest green spot to
the fringe
the edge
the fire’s light
is almost invisible
but i can see the smoke
curling
around the tips of my toes.
III
the moon’s loud enough that it’s night
but not it's night enough to sleep
the riverbed
long since abandoned by anything that could have given it that name
lies
dappling the moonlight into a thousand shades
rose, for love (?)
pearl, for age
silver, for time
blue, for the sky
which is still blue even when it’s too dark to tell.
Sep 8, 2010
RIDESHARE - Wilco 02.24.2005
wow, tuesday was a good day for in-the-car music. it suppose my luck was cosmically meant to balance out the fact that every other aspect of my life was totally and randomly ruined and obliterated yesterday.
as he types, still-drying black fingernail polish dripping onto the keys.
so, on tuesday i pulled a near-perfect ghost is born-era wilco soundboard, and an incredibly varied yet gorgeous '94 phish show. i'll be reviewing the phish later, as i still have one disc left to listen to.
setlist for wilco is here.
so usually what current-era wilco does is center their main set around whatever newer material they're most excited about at the time, and then they follow that with two encores (the definitely-two-encores-all-the-time thing is something i've never really understood, but oh well) that revisit a lot of older, being there-era songs (for all the "old school" fans who apparently want all their wilco to sound exactly the same). that formula normally makes a great show all by itself, but here they twist that formula a bit, and to great effect.
the main set is almost all ghost is born material, and it's played with a mix of screeching, crunchy big guitars and that harrowing screaming noise jamming that the band really started scaling back in '07-'08. '05-'06 is probably my favorite for the band (was there something in the air in 2006?), so i guess i'm biased here, but in this show they play the ghost tracks enough like the studio arrangements to communicate the songs' subtle details while deviating (mostly by making the guitars a little heavier) from those arrangements just enough to make things interesting.
interspersed perfectly with the ghost songs are a few old, toned-down staples, that after the torrents of noise and crunch come like breaths of folky-fresh air. "should have been in love", "always in love", and "shot in the arm" fill in nicely in this role. the main set closes with "reservations" coming out of an absolutely harrowing "poor places" jam, and then segues into an exceptional "spiders".
the first encore goes by pretty much as expected, save for a "misunderstood" that's worth noting, as it's played with the amount of intense noise and dissonance present on the amazing album version, which is something i've rarely heard from '98-'03 wilco.
the second encore is seven songs long, and includes a rendition of "bob dylan's beard" and covers of "comment" and a note-for-note-perfect "don't fear the reaper".
i'm just going to leave it at that. because that's amazing.
on a scale of 1 to 10, this show, like my fender hot rod deluxe amp, goes up to 12.
as he types, still-drying black fingernail polish dripping onto the keys.
so, on tuesday i pulled a near-perfect ghost is born-era wilco soundboard, and an incredibly varied yet gorgeous '94 phish show. i'll be reviewing the phish later, as i still have one disc left to listen to.
setlist for wilco is here.
so usually what current-era wilco does is center their main set around whatever newer material they're most excited about at the time, and then they follow that with two encores (the definitely-two-encores-all-the-time thing is something i've never really understood, but oh well) that revisit a lot of older, being there-era songs (for all the "old school" fans who apparently want all their wilco to sound exactly the same). that formula normally makes a great show all by itself, but here they twist that formula a bit, and to great effect.
the main set is almost all ghost is born material, and it's played with a mix of screeching, crunchy big guitars and that harrowing screaming noise jamming that the band really started scaling back in '07-'08. '05-'06 is probably my favorite for the band (was there something in the air in 2006?), so i guess i'm biased here, but in this show they play the ghost tracks enough like the studio arrangements to communicate the songs' subtle details while deviating (mostly by making the guitars a little heavier) from those arrangements just enough to make things interesting.
interspersed perfectly with the ghost songs are a few old, toned-down staples, that after the torrents of noise and crunch come like breaths of folky-fresh air. "should have been in love", "always in love", and "shot in the arm" fill in nicely in this role. the main set closes with "reservations" coming out of an absolutely harrowing "poor places" jam, and then segues into an exceptional "spiders".
the first encore goes by pretty much as expected, save for a "misunderstood" that's worth noting, as it's played with the amount of intense noise and dissonance present on the amazing album version, which is something i've rarely heard from '98-'03 wilco.
the second encore is seven songs long, and includes a rendition of "bob dylan's beard" and covers of "comment" and a note-for-note-perfect "don't fear the reaper".
i'm just going to leave it at that. because that's amazing.
on a scale of 1 to 10, this show, like my fender hot rod deluxe amp, goes up to 12.
Sep 6, 2010
RIDESHARE - Phish 04.17.1994
more phish!
for last thursday's drive, i took a trip back to what's generally thought of as the phish golden age: 1994. this is the time when the band (at least in the popular view) had melded together their pre-1994 shredding skills with a new, occasionally more measured and experimental approach, and had, on top of that recently started road-testing a ton of songs that would eventually go on to become phish live staples. interestingly, this show turned out to be about as far from the quintessential '94 phish show as i could have gotten.
setlist here.
so, last time, if you'll recall, i unilaterally decided to declare that phish shows could be split up into two types. this show, out of sheer spite, i'm sure, decided to go dramatically against my proclamation. the setlist was varied, the performances were varied, and everything was, by and large, excellent...though by the end of the show the one significant thing missing was any sense of "flow" (to use an English 101 student term). if i had played this show and then had someone tell me it was actually a mixtape, i wouldn't have been surprised.
the show opened with "loving cup", which is odd in and of itself. "foam" is always a welcome sight, and this version ended too soon. easily one of the highlights of the first set. "divided sky" as the fourth song of the show just confused me. it felt really early to have to digest a 15-minute-plus monster, and the band sounded like they felt the same way. there were no mistakes, per se, but the jamming sort of circled itself over and over for about ten minutes and then we moved on to "mound". similarly to "simple", i pretty much ALWAYS love "mound", and this version was no exception. the "down with disease" > "if i could" run was the best part of the first set. i'm one of the few (apparently) who can't get enough of "if i could", and this particular jam carried that ethereal, almost-but-not-quite-cheesy punch better than most. the transition to "my sweet one" was pretty brilliant, but the rest of the first set itself was nothing to write home (or on your blog) about.
i'd like to reiterate the comments i made last time about "bowie". this version was no different for me: i love it, but i don't know why. "wolfman's" > "uncle pen" was the highlight of the second set for me. a long, drawn-out funky jam following "bowie" was a perfect juxtaposition, and then following that with the tight, composed bluegrass of "uncle pen" made a great one-two (-three?) punch. from there on out, though, the second set (and the encore) were a bit confusing. they were an eclectic mix of pre-1994 and "new" songs, and it really just sounded like the band wasn't really comfortable with getting those two sides of their sound to cohere yet. especially, the encore, which should have some aspect (i think, anyway) of a coda or reprise or just a straight-up balls-out facemelt to it, was pretty flat. "cracklin' rosie" is always fun to hear, but it's never going to make anyone pump their fist in the air. "hold your head up" was actually just page playing the organ riff through once, which lead directly into a pretty by-the-numbers version of "bold as love". and that was that.
overall, and interesting setlist and a few great moments, but there's not much to recommend this show over, say, the previous ones i've reviewed on here. definitely check out the "if i could", though. it's good stuff.
on a scale between a compsognathus and a tyrannosaurus, this one's definitely a styracosaurus.
for last thursday's drive, i took a trip back to what's generally thought of as the phish golden age: 1994. this is the time when the band (at least in the popular view) had melded together their pre-1994 shredding skills with a new, occasionally more measured and experimental approach, and had, on top of that recently started road-testing a ton of songs that would eventually go on to become phish live staples. interestingly, this show turned out to be about as far from the quintessential '94 phish show as i could have gotten.
setlist here.
so, last time, if you'll recall, i unilaterally decided to declare that phish shows could be split up into two types. this show, out of sheer spite, i'm sure, decided to go dramatically against my proclamation. the setlist was varied, the performances were varied, and everything was, by and large, excellent...though by the end of the show the one significant thing missing was any sense of "flow" (to use an English 101 student term). if i had played this show and then had someone tell me it was actually a mixtape, i wouldn't have been surprised.
the show opened with "loving cup", which is odd in and of itself. "foam" is always a welcome sight, and this version ended too soon. easily one of the highlights of the first set. "divided sky" as the fourth song of the show just confused me. it felt really early to have to digest a 15-minute-plus monster, and the band sounded like they felt the same way. there were no mistakes, per se, but the jamming sort of circled itself over and over for about ten minutes and then we moved on to "mound". similarly to "simple", i pretty much ALWAYS love "mound", and this version was no exception. the "down with disease" > "if i could" run was the best part of the first set. i'm one of the few (apparently) who can't get enough of "if i could", and this particular jam carried that ethereal, almost-but-not-quite-cheesy punch better than most. the transition to "my sweet one" was pretty brilliant, but the rest of the first set itself was nothing to write home (or on your blog) about.
i'd like to reiterate the comments i made last time about "bowie". this version was no different for me: i love it, but i don't know why. "wolfman's" > "uncle pen" was the highlight of the second set for me. a long, drawn-out funky jam following "bowie" was a perfect juxtaposition, and then following that with the tight, composed bluegrass of "uncle pen" made a great one-two (-three?) punch. from there on out, though, the second set (and the encore) were a bit confusing. they were an eclectic mix of pre-1994 and "new" songs, and it really just sounded like the band wasn't really comfortable with getting those two sides of their sound to cohere yet. especially, the encore, which should have some aspect (i think, anyway) of a coda or reprise or just a straight-up balls-out facemelt to it, was pretty flat. "cracklin' rosie" is always fun to hear, but it's never going to make anyone pump their fist in the air. "hold your head up" was actually just page playing the organ riff through once, which lead directly into a pretty by-the-numbers version of "bold as love". and that was that.
overall, and interesting setlist and a few great moments, but there's not much to recommend this show over, say, the previous ones i've reviewed on here. definitely check out the "if i could", though. it's good stuff.
on a scale between a compsognathus and a tyrannosaurus, this one's definitely a styracosaurus.
RIDESHARE - Wilco 11.02.02
finally, something that's not phish. i've been on a bit of a phish kick lately because that's just what happens to me during late summer for some weird, probably evolutionary reason. my phish hormones start raging and i want to eat bacteria cultures and use my own dreadlocks for clothes. but none of that happens in this universe, because this is the clean-person universe.
well, now that it's fall (at least i'm wearing a hoodie indoors and not sweating), wilco will likely take over. especially because i have to get my wilco fix vicariously this year thanks to the fact that they're not touring the US this fall, leaving with my no choice but to constantly play "the lonely 1" on loop every night while tearing my tweedy posters off the wall, throwing them across the room, and then falling asleep hours later cradling them to my tearstained face and mumbling apologies.
god, i've been reading cracked.com too much.
amidst the blathering, have thee a setlist!
i picked an '02 show to listen to on a cold, dark day because i figured it would be mellow and it seemed to suit the proceedings. little did i know that i'd chosen quite literally the show that plato saw the shadow of on the wall of the cave and he knew he was looking at "mellow".
wilco shows, as is to be expected, generally don't deviate as greatly from one another as phish shows tend to, simply because the songs are mostly pop-rock songs of under four minutes in length. as such, i probably won't talk much about specific tracks in wilco show reviews, but more just about the show in general.
this show started pretty interestingly, with "hesitating beauty" sort of lazily fading in from silence, followed by "one by one". things got about as rollicking as they would ever get with "sunken treasure", and then there was an early pre-ghost is born version of "less than you think", which was pretty much just who i presume to be jay bennett on the keys while tweedy sung over it. pretty great, and lacking the 15 minutes of distortion from the studio version of that track. another highlight was the "war on war"/"kamera" combination...these songs are both mid-tempo slow-rockers in general, and they sound almost indistinguishable if you just have them on in the background, but for some reason i love them both and love hearing them back-to-back even more.
the highlight of the show (maybe) for me was a brief and totally unexpected wilco jam which took place first at the beginning of "how to fight loneliness", then led out of it in the form of a segue into "not for the season", which itself concluded with an epic, multi-minute kotche drum shower.
"poor places" and "reservations" made a good pair of closing songs for the main set, as the static from one led appropriately into the naked-sounding piano chords of the second. after a closing bit of noise-jamming, the encore started with "misunderstood" and continued to be a pretty normal wilco encore, aside from the general mellowness. it's funny how the one thing that always stays the same about wilco is their encore(s). you know you're going to get tons of loud being there songs. it was nice to hear "red-eyed and blue" and "far, far away".
overall this show was very slow and "chill" (as the kids say), and also the soundboard feed is mixed in such a way that often all you can hear is the cymbals, keys, and tweedy's voice, so a lot of times even when the band is clearly playing like they're rocking an arena, it sounds like you're listening to them play on only a piano to a small crowd in a small barn. not bad, but potentially disappointing, depending on what you expect.
this was a show that absolutely epitomizes that just-post-YHF era brooding wilco sound for me. subtract a few style points for all of jay bennett's "i'm soloing even though it's the verse because i don't respect the fact that a song has to have some level of inherent structure because i'm so different", and you have an otherwise great winter '02 show. on a rating scale based on the first five numbers of the fibonacci sequence, this show is a 2.
well, now that it's fall (at least i'm wearing a hoodie indoors and not sweating), wilco will likely take over. especially because i have to get my wilco fix vicariously this year thanks to the fact that they're not touring the US this fall, leaving with my no choice but to constantly play "the lonely 1" on loop every night while tearing my tweedy posters off the wall, throwing them across the room, and then falling asleep hours later cradling them to my tearstained face and mumbling apologies.
god, i've been reading cracked.com too much.
amidst the blathering, have thee a setlist!
i picked an '02 show to listen to on a cold, dark day because i figured it would be mellow and it seemed to suit the proceedings. little did i know that i'd chosen quite literally the show that plato saw the shadow of on the wall of the cave and he knew he was looking at "mellow".
wilco shows, as is to be expected, generally don't deviate as greatly from one another as phish shows tend to, simply because the songs are mostly pop-rock songs of under four minutes in length. as such, i probably won't talk much about specific tracks in wilco show reviews, but more just about the show in general.
this show started pretty interestingly, with "hesitating beauty" sort of lazily fading in from silence, followed by "one by one". things got about as rollicking as they would ever get with "sunken treasure", and then there was an early pre-ghost is born version of "less than you think", which was pretty much just who i presume to be jay bennett on the keys while tweedy sung over it. pretty great, and lacking the 15 minutes of distortion from the studio version of that track. another highlight was the "war on war"/"kamera" combination...these songs are both mid-tempo slow-rockers in general, and they sound almost indistinguishable if you just have them on in the background, but for some reason i love them both and love hearing them back-to-back even more.
the highlight of the show (maybe) for me was a brief and totally unexpected wilco jam which took place first at the beginning of "how to fight loneliness", then led out of it in the form of a segue into "not for the season", which itself concluded with an epic, multi-minute kotche drum shower.
"poor places" and "reservations" made a good pair of closing songs for the main set, as the static from one led appropriately into the naked-sounding piano chords of the second. after a closing bit of noise-jamming, the encore started with "misunderstood" and continued to be a pretty normal wilco encore, aside from the general mellowness. it's funny how the one thing that always stays the same about wilco is their encore(s). you know you're going to get tons of loud being there songs. it was nice to hear "red-eyed and blue" and "far, far away".
overall this show was very slow and "chill" (as the kids say), and also the soundboard feed is mixed in such a way that often all you can hear is the cymbals, keys, and tweedy's voice, so a lot of times even when the band is clearly playing like they're rocking an arena, it sounds like you're listening to them play on only a piano to a small crowd in a small barn. not bad, but potentially disappointing, depending on what you expect.
this was a show that absolutely epitomizes that just-post-YHF era brooding wilco sound for me. subtract a few style points for all of jay bennett's "i'm soloing even though it's the verse because i don't respect the fact that a song has to have some level of inherent structure because i'm so different", and you have an otherwise great winter '02 show. on a rating scale based on the first five numbers of the fibonacci sequence, this show is a 2.
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