jono11

Yase, yase, the recording is excellent.

My review: http://www.bethelks.edu/collegian/archives/002435.php#002435

A couple of caveats: first, the review was originally about twice this size, plus one of Clay's photos. However, on production night, I discovered that I didn't have room in the Entertainment section for all of the articles that were slated to appear in my section, and I would have to drop two if I didn't drastically cut some other stuff. As it was, with a massively reduced review sans photography, I still had to drop one article. Anyway, point is, the review loses a lot of its luster in this cut-down, especially the middle third or so.

Second, there are usually a couple of errors in the transfer from hardcopy to online. Not my fault. I'm an impeccable editor.

Soon, complete with some outstanding art done by "creativetype" with those kick ass photos of his that have been seen here. This may be the first fan compiled package that has a photo credit from a band member.

 

I kind of like to have some fresh ears listen and proof the recording before it's shared in mass, and that's being done now.

Chill out you have still have the memory.

 

dave

No way I am taking this point by point, but the following things I do want to respond to. I don't attend bluegrass fests, but I did make a trip to ground zero of bluegrass last fall along the VA/NC board and the audiences at every show I went to were way older than me. Bluegrass fests used to be rather staid affairs, with no drinking and a family friendly atmosphere and I believe the older ones still are (I did attend Bean Blossom in Indiana many years ago and it was very controled and not debauched at all)

Classical music does tend to look back, but there are many modern classical composers who look far forward of most rock musicians and those can't be ignored either. Frankly all music these days tends to be rather self referential, particularly and including rock. All musical genres have innovators to be sure, but rock tends to be just as stuck in a rut as any other form. I used to have a joke that the music of the new Millenium was "post punk power pop", now it seems alot of groups are coping a "soul" vibe instead. My daughter and I have a running joke about the sound of indie rock, which is so generic it really is impossible to tell who is playing the music. Frankly most artists musical vocabulary (as opposed to their actually musicianship which is far better than ever) is pretty limited. Most groups can be classified in ways that are pretty embarrassing (oh yea, they sound like the Kinks/Stones/ Beatles with a touch of Beach Boys and Nick Drake.....)

 

We are currently in an era when musicans can hear any and all types of music because virtually nothing is out of print and yet most musicians fall back on some pretty tried and true formulae and even those that appear to be somewhat experimental sound like the group next door.

 

Quick edit to Mountain Bed.....I agree that bluegrass has moved somewhat forward over the past few years and that if anything in its short history it some remarkable twists and turns, (new grass, dawg music, Bela Fleck's experiments, etc. etc) and most of it is pretty enjoyable stuff, particularly some of the newer artists such as Jim and Jenny and the Pinetops, but ultimately bluegrass may be THE most conservative genre there is (with the possible exception of Blues..), with many bands writing new material that sounds identical to old material and the general intrumentation and singing style remains fairly static. Frankly there is nothing wrong with that at all, because there is great comfort (culturally speaking) in hearing something that is familiar and recognizable and doesn't really shake up the status quo that much.

 

Back to a general discussion - if age has brought me anything it is an appreciation for older stuff and the more older stuff I listen to the more I like it (hence my current obsession with Archeophone records). But if anyone really thinks that rock is all that progressive, stand back and do some real objective listening for a change (not based on the fact that we are supposed to like certain artists), and much of the indie rock scene apes one another to a degree that even country, blues and bluegrass musicans would be embarrassed by. (Yea I know my syntax sucks....

 

LouieB

1. The Walnut Valley Bluegrass Festival, here in Kansas, which is the home of the National and International Guitar Championships, and has one of the richest traditions of any music festival, is also one of the most booze-and-pot-soaked events I have ever witnessed. The crowds are not predominantly old.

2. "Modern classical" seems like a contradiction. I'd call that neoclassical, also something of a contradiction, but at least it clearly separates the genre. Classical music needs to have occurred in a period that satisfies the basic requirement of "not in the recent past."

3. Yes, there is too much self-reference in all music. But the indie rock scene, which is the most forward-thinking of rock scenes, is obsessed with moving forward (your soundalike bands aren't true indie because they aspire to nothing more than major contracts.)

4. "they sound like the Kinks/Stones/ Beatles with a touch of Beach Boys and Nick Drake....."--The day I hear that sound will be the day I vomit up my lungs.

5. Well, at least we can agree that bluegrass isn't particularly forward-thinking. Off on a tangent for a second, I get tired of bluegrass musicians who seem more concerned with showing everyone how talented they are at instrumentation, rather than bothering to write good/fun/catchy/interesting/original songs. Also, would you really still classify Bela Fleck as bluegrass? He seems to have moved into some different territory by now.

I think jono11 is Jesus Christ in disguise.

Why, yes, I am. I didn't want to say anything, because I figured that anyone claiming to be the Second Coming would get crucified faster than the first time. That's the irony of Christianity: they're all waiting for the Second Coming, but they probably already burned him as a heretic.

That appears to be the case....he has listed exactly zero personal information.

 

This must be the second coming....

 

LouieB

What, should I list my location as "Way Over Yonder In A Minor Key"? Would that help you get to know me?

did we run jono11 off already??

'The musical styles they watered down' were anything but blue-collar actually, the blues and country and folk artists were made up of outcasts/underclasses/migratory workers without real homes/slaves and criminals not everyday joes who went to work down the power plant. Blue-collar workers don't have the time to sit around thinking up songs and sitting around in groups playing them. The greatest influence that the blue-collar workers had on the genre is that they were perhaps the biggest social group to buy the material and so popularise it - they certainly didn't make it.

1. Forgive the expression "blue collar." As the language evolves, "blue collar" has come to mean "lower classes."

2. Rock music was for the working classes. Classical was specifically a means of separating rich people from poor.

Progress is a form of change. However, change does not necessarily equal progress.

That's just change for its own sake' date=' not progress.[/quote']So, basically, you're agreeing with me?

 

Exactly what is so unhealthy about the progress of pop/rock music and its vitality?

It's unhealthy because it's not about progress. It's about changing things for the sake of change.

 

What exactly makes a fixation on progress strictly worse than fixation on music from previous and or present periods?

I didn't say any fixation was good. Progress, and references to the past, should be organic, because they make sense, not just because it's trendy.

 

Furthermore, who judges which fixations are good, bad, and etc. even though they are opinions and preferences?

Why, you're right. I will never again say anything is good or bad again. Because that's too judgmental. Nobody can have an opinion. I'm gonna hold you to that, too, OK, buddy?

Lou as usual you're spot on man.I should say that I'm not the sort to patronize,either.

Not too sure about jazz or folk these days but bluegrass has been undergoing some really healthy changes for some time now.There are more younger fans digging than any time in recent memory.In my opinion Rock isn't nearly as innovative or original as it has traditionally been(a notable exception being the band that gave rise to this forum here).If it was why does it seem so easy when hearing a "new' band to immediately identify them with something that has come before? A bad habit of mine,to be sure,but only rarely do I hear something new and say,"wow,what the hell was that"? I loooove it when that DOES happen!

To me, this is a classic example of the rock community's unhealthy fixation on progress. It only proves my point about vitality, but it's also unfortunate. Why must something be COMPLETELY different from what came before? That's just change for its own sake, not progress. All music comes from what came before, in the end, so why not just label everything as derivative!

How is Wilco "different"? Did Wilco REALLY make you say, "wow, what the hell was that?" If they did, I have to imagine that you never listened to music before. What makes Wilco great is that they do well-worn ideas extremely well. They make the old new again without needlessly changing it around. And when they do, it's generally just to add 10 minutes of noise at the end of a song, which can hardly be classified as musical innovation. That's just a slight misstep to be skipped through, to get to the next (better) track on the album.

That's pretty much like saying the progenitor of Croissan'wich is undeniably French. Which is to say, what the fuck does that have to do with the Croissan'wich?

Well, you can't have a Croissan'wich without Croissants...or am I missing something?

1. I thought that the birth of Rock music instead of say, Rock N' Roll was said to be the point where Dylan was shouted at as a Judas and his reply was to play fucking loud. So from it's very birth your statement proves false. I would actually define Rock music as being very confrontational with its audience instead of bowing down to what the masses want to hear. Its the difference between proper Rock music and a bunch of people just playing very loud.

2. The people that 'stole' it from the black people were far from working class, certainly many were, but just as many were not - certainly the majority of the ones that took the blues and country and whatever else and turned it into Rock music during the 1960's - and the archivists who made field recordings for those people outside the Southern States to hear it.

3. He was clearly joking.

2. This discussion is about to turn to a dry history debate, and if you really want to carry it on, let's do it privately. I love history, personally, being a history major, and pop culture history is one of my favorite areas. But not too many others do. That said, if the earliest practitioners of rock 'n' roll were not exclusively working class, which they weren't, the musical styles they watered down, as well as the traditional greats of those styles, were undeniably bule-colllar.

3. The misfortunes of printed sarcasm.

Wow, where you do start with this. First off, irony is clearly lost on this guy. Of course we don't all have to go to classical concerts rather than rock ones, but the point is, some types of music (including jazz and folk venues to a greater or lesser extent), do not tolerate the kind of behavior that goes on at rock shows. FYI to jono11, I come home many a night smelling like beer and cigarettes, because I like seeing rock music also. I am also in the demographic of the guy he was dissing and more often than not it is the younger fans who act the fool rather than the older ones since the older guys like me DON"T GO to rock shows because there aren't seats and there is too much bullshit involved. Calling rock more vital than other kinds of music (including classical) is just so much bullshit that there is nowhere to even start with it. Sure classical audiences are diminishing as people age, but that doesn't diminish its importance or quality. The same also happens to be true about jazz, folk and bluegrass by the way. In fact if ever there was a genre that needs something, it happens to be rock, but I suppose we shouldn't really go there.

 

I don't think we should assume that rock audiences are more alive than any other audience nor that rock is more vital than other types either. That is about as elitist as you can get. Yea jono11 I am probably gonna be dead long before you are, but until then I figure on squeezing everything out of life I can get; but I intend to do it with as much respect for myself and my fellow show goers as I can and that includes having the right to not get stuff spilled on me, get burned, get pushed aside from my space, have someone talk through an entire show if I don't want to hear them and any number of other things. Needless to say it is going to happen and there ain't really shit I can do about it, but for us all to remind one another that we are all individuals with the right to enjoy ourselves without being threated or mistreated shouldn't be too much to ask.

 

LouieB

1. The phrase "irony is lost on this guy" means nothing if you don't detail the irony.

2. Haven't been to too many bluegrass festivals, have you? Loud, drunken debauchery is the rule at such places.

3. If I offended the sensibilities of your generation, I apologize. I should make it clear that my parents are aging hippies as well. The distinction I draw between them and most other members of their generation is that they were effective--leaders of Cesar Chavez's legal team during the farmworkers' union movement, presiding over many hard-won victories.

4. Classical music is always looking backward (and I am friends with enough classical musicians, and I listen to enough classical music to not just be talking out my ass) while rock music is always looking forward, often to an unhealthy degree. I was just arguing with a buddy last night over his statement that rock music should always be pushed forward and further, and that he often enjoys a band simply for their ability to do so. That's the sentiment all too much in the underground rock scenes, and while I disagree with it, it does represent a vitality to the genre that most other forms don't exhibit.

5. Classical music's importance to the history of music is not diminished by the decline in its vitality, nor is its quality. But it is dying, and feeding off of itself rather than moving forward.

6. Jazz, folk, and bluegrass are also reinventing themselves. That's what makes them more vital than classical. They don't recieve as much recognition for it, which is why I call them less vital than rock music.

7. Fair enough. You have those expectations for a concert, and I suppose most of us have similar ones. But the fact that they've been less than satisfied once or twice in your life is not enough to warrant telling people to scamper off to classical shows where they can revel in their upper-classery.

1. Democratic? Please explain what you mean.

2. Blue-collar? (well maybe that's true in America, but although the famous English Rock acts of the past might have acted like they were working class, they were pretty much all a middle class bunch)

3. What exactly is your point?

2. Yes, it's true in America, and it's our art form. We ripped it off from black people before the English did.

3. The guy proposes that we all go to classical shows because of a few people talking too loudly at rock shows. It's elitism, and it pisses me off that people will run to a dead art form, an art form with a history of classism, to escape the very minor vagaries of the greatest and most vital musical form this country has to offer right now.

not me. i'd sooner buy a vintage retro-washed pac-man tee at urban outfitters than use the word 'underbunnies'. i'll bet $5 that kid owns at least one item w/ the pabst blue ribbon logo on it and another $10 he won't watch the Office on NBC because it's not the original BBC version.

 

loosen your scarf, project runway. it's a rock show, not an immigration rally.

I don't own a vintage retro-whatever it is. I have no PBR merchandise--I drink beer, I don't wear it. I do prefer the original BBC version of the Office, because it's better, but through a strange twist of the way things are, I only have the American version on DVD at the moment. Because it's still pretty good.

I don't like hipsters and trendies either, dude. And I've never heard one of them say "underbunnies." Picked that up from one of my geek buddies in a Superman vs. Batman discussion.

Immigration rally? Wha...whuh?

Yount.

No wonder you don't "get" Mozart.

Don't get Mozart? Who said anything about me not liking Mozart? I just know a dead art form when I see it, and I don't bother to go to Mozart performances, except theater. And honestly, his best work is for the theater setting.

I love Mozart! Don't presume so much.

Masked Hater VI?

You're pretty goddamn full of yourself for someone who still shouts "Freebird" at concerts.

Well, I'll be honest with you here, the only time I personally ever shouted "Freebird" was at this little coffee shop venue where everybody at the show knew the guy. But I do laugh when other people shout it.

Not everybody who gets beers at a show ends up drunk. Incredibly, some people just enjoy the taste of beer.

Amen to that. Nothin' like a tasty Guinness after work.

I once peed on a guys leg in freedom hall('82) at a Van Halen show because I did not want to loose my spot in the second row.

There is no rock concert etiquette...everyone knows that. Anything goes!! You can puke on someone, spill beer on them, burn them with your cigarette, push them aside to get upfront, scream at the top of your lungs even during quiet songs, talk during the entire show even if you paid alot of money for tickets, threaten people for no reason, get on stage and accoust the performer, etc. etc.

 

LouieB

So don't get mad...get elitist! That's right, folks, despite the fact that rock music is a vital, democratic, blue-collar, working-class, energetic art form, with constantly new and evolving ways of expressing itself, abandon it for a dying, decaying corpse of a bourgeousie musical form: classical! That's right, listen to stuff by guys that are so dead, they make your grandparents look alive and kicking! Listen to the final death rattles of an art form devised specifically by and for the upper class as a way of distinguishing themselves from peasants. Listen to the expiratory throes of a form that refuses to acknowledge its own irrelevance!

Don't like the smell of beer on your clothes when you come home from a show? Got yourself in a tizzy over cigarette-scented underbunnies? Not to worry! Go to a classical show and listen to dead music! Who knows? You just might end up dead yourself!

That's absolutely true,especially from a pharmacological standpoint.I have always said I'd rather be around a group of heads than drunks in any situation(even though I myself love my beer).

 

It seems as if we've entered another "Drunken Nation" phase in this country.Lord knows why.

Judy??

Incredibly, some people enjoy being drunk.

It's not going to stop until venues stop serving alcohol at shows, and get rid of all seating. Simple as that. Alcohol loosens tongues, and seats encourage complacent pseudo-enjoyment of a set. When forced to stand, one is forced to acknowledge the music without the ability to lean back and have a conversation with some dumb schmuck. Without alcohol...well, it's obvious that people are loud when they're drunk. No need to be drunk at a show. You're supposed to be there because you enjoy the music while sober. You shouldn't need to be drunk to like it. If you need that, you probably wasted your ticket money, not to mention what you paid for the overpriced underflavored concert beer.

That said, I think too many people, performers and listeners, take audience noise too seriously. "Free Bird" is not an insult to the band, it's not a serious request for that outdated fucking relic of a song, it's a joke. If you can't laugh at what is so obviously a joke, or at least brush it off as a poor attempt at humor, if that's your opinion, you're taking yourself, and your life, too seriously. Whoops and hollers are, in general, an expression of appreciation. I have rarely been to a non-punk show where audience noise actually obscured my listening. Even been to a Metallica show and I heard the band just fine. Only shows in which I missed some of the music were the two Flogging Molly shows I went to a couple years back, but hearing the music is not really 100% of the point at a punk show.

I've heard plenty of bootlegs which were obscured by audience noise, however, and I have a suspicion that some of these posts may have an underlying sentiment of, "quit ruining my bootlegs." Concerts ain't about the secondary market. No bootleg recording will ever be as good as having been to the show. That sentiment should never be the undercurrent of this conversation. Not accusing anybody, it's just that I've seen this movie a couple times before, and a few characters always end up really being angry about their bootleg quality.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, there could very well be a problem, and bootlegs provide documented evidence of a minor problem. But when I'm at a show, it takes a truly vile individual to mess with my listening pleasure. I'll relate the story of that vile individual now:

I was at one of The Who's shows a couple years back, the tour when they only played two or three dates in the U.S. My show was at the Hollywood Bowl. My family happened to be visiting old friends in the Bay Area when The Who came through, so we went up to LA to catch the show. The opening band was a big, steaming pile of hot, sweaty crap. Just awful. Put John Mayer, Jason Mraz, and any number of other acoustic singer-songwriters that won't be trendy in five years together, and you get the godawful pastiche that was this opening band. Just terrible. Bad and wrong. It was one of those things that makes you feel like The Chosen One in Kung Pow: "There should be a word for things that are bad and wrong. Like badwrong. Or badong." This opening band was badong.

But no matter how bad a band is, I usually hold my tongue, you know? I mean, I'm not up there exposing myself to the world--what right do I have to lampoon somebody who has the sack to throw his hat over the wall like that?

Enter the Vile Individual. Actually, he's been right in front of me the whole time, right in front of my brother and me. About a minute into the first song of the set, this asshole, and we're talking middle-aged, former-hippie-who-never-really-got-the-movement-and-was-only-in-it-for-the-drugs-and-music-and-sex-with-the-yuppie-he-eventually-married, thinks it's still his generation that matters and his dangerous to the establishment even though he's a fucking banker, kind of asshole, he starts heckling the band. Now, keep in mind, the band can't hear him--he's easily a half mile away. Hollywood Bowl's a big venue, and we got our tickets pretty late. It's a purely symbolic gesture, and the other ineffective aging hippies are starting to chuckle along with this guy, who's having entirely too much beer (see first paragraph.) My brother and I are going irate, a row behind the son of a bitch, and finally we can take no more. The bastard's screaming, "Get this band off the stage! We didn't pay our hard-earned money [this is an interesting idiom endemic to the rich white male population: they think, for some reason, that they've earned their money, when in fact they haven't worked a day in their life for a red cent of it.] to see some crappy opening act!"

My brother and I launch into our counter-tirade. "Get this asshole out of here, I didn't spend my hard-earned money to have my listening experience fucked up by this guy!" I yelled. My brother leaned in real close to the sextagenarian's closely-cropped silver hair, and yelled, "Boy, it sure must be right to be right all the time!" "Yeah!" I chime in. "Being so judgmental would be a major bummer, if you weren't always right!" We go on like this for two and a half songs worth of time, with the drunkard's audience aghast at our audacity, and he himself hunkers down in his chair, chastised. At one point I looked up at the other audience members, who were totally shocked at our behavior, and shouted, "What are you staring at? You used to do this! Remember that? Remember when you stood for something? Remember when you counted?" And they all looked away.

Eventually, the guy apologized, assuming that we had known the band personally. We berated him again, for assuming that we would only defend a band we liked, or knew personally. He didn't respond.

That's my story.

Well I'll be a son-of-a-bitch! Pleeeeze tell me there were tapers

Jono! How come we didn't meet up at the concert? I totally forgot you were going ot be there. Where was your vantage point? We were six back, dead center for the amazing show. Can't wait to hear your thoughts on the night.

jono11, do you mind telling us which school/paper so we can look for it?

 

Thanks!

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4502847

Anybody grab NPR's Wilco podcast while it was available? I didn't know about it so I didn't.

i think freebird has really grown old. if anything, i think "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" should take its spot. or hell, i'd love to see a band take a shot at "Bohemian Rhapsody". i can totally see jeff rocking out to it.

if everyone knows it (and everyone does) its not an inside joke.

Freebird isn't just an old joke that's overdone. It's an inside joke for people who go to enough shows, of any artist, to know that it always gets requested.

jono11,

 

Since you're up late, you might like to see the additional pics that have been uploaded ...

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wilcobase/set...57594332103295/

 

And I, too, am eagerly anticipating the audio from the show!

You catch on pretty fast around here for a newbie

Thats what I'v been doin' this evening... working on it.

it took me until today to recoup enough from the 16 hour 800 mile RT i made to capture it on Sunday and real job duties waiting on Monday.

After 50 minuets and 9 songs of the boys blasting us with their outstanding play Jeff spoke...

 

How ya guys doin'? (cheers) You know usually, when you go see a rock show, there is about a second or third song check in with the audience. Where you go, how ya doin? I'm not standing on custom tonight...i missed it, i skipped it...i forgot the 3rd song check in.

So just a little old friendly how you doin? you guys doin ok?(cheers) I'm gonna do it twice now. How ya guys doin'? you doin' ok?(louder cheers) your doin' better than the first time i asked that's awesome.(cheers) I hope your enjoying the show so far. This is certainly a crazy pad you have here. We would love to visit your town more often but we get called fagots when we walk around here...(boo-hiss)seriously,yes, yes it's true. Granted we were drinking lattes in front of the antique store...alright...we gotta, we gotta, yea. It's ok we gotta take the good with the bad. This is a beautiful place. But um now that I've checked in i feel comfortable asking you all to sing along, I've heard you guys sing along a little bit earlier. Bravo, well done, we enjoy that. (some guy yells "come back!") we've already heard ourselves sing( he shouts it again) Come back? Come back? Already? OK... (jeff turns and walks briefly off stage right. Returns to center stage, raises his hands and says) "Ah its good to be back in Wichita!" (audience erupts while Glenn taps his sticks to start Jesus Ect.

I know I sound like a terrible newbie who only joins to get that recording...but I just really really really really really want to be able to relive Sunday night. That was maybe the greatest rock 'n' roll experience I've ever had.

Sooooo...yeah, that was a good show. I had to spend most of my time back in the tables because I was reviewing the show for my college's paper (BC represent!) but I made it down to the floor for Misunderstood and the encores. Misunderstood live, I've decided, may be the single greatest experience in rock 'n' roll ever anywhere at all.

Anyway, if anyone finds out if that show's up somewhere, I am interested in the extreme. I was going to tape it myself, but I forgot to bring a minidisc recorder.