mogwai- lawrence, ks- the granada- 6.2.01

first in a small series. i'm in the process of moving and recently came across a box filled with tapes of various shows that i went to during the years 2000-2001. just before i went to london for my semester abroad i bought a tape recorder at best buy of somewhat questionable quality- it had a stereo microphone with a clip. i took it with me to london and recorded every single show that i went to (except for maybe one of two). once i'd started this process i couldn't stop and the taping continued until about the time we moved to portland. after finding this treasure trove of forgotten stuff and discovering that many of these old recordings made with this crappy tape recorder were of perfectly listenable quality i decided to take the time to convert the best ones of the bunch via the new ion usb turntable i have (it has an 1/8" input jack). the first show i converted was this one from my first mogwai show in lawrence, kansas at the granada. to anyone who doesn't live in the kansas city area basically what you need to know is that hardly any bands that a 20 year old into indie music would want to see ever bothered to stop in kansas city. this was true of most american bands but went double for british bands. the majority of good indie music within range passed through lawrence, kansas- the tiny, idyllic college town that is home to the university of kansas. 90% of the high school graduates from my class ended up at ku. i reviled the idea of following them, but once i moved back to kansas city from my year at columbia college here in chicago i spent most of my nights driving to lawrence to go see shows at the bottleneck (a dingy, dark, smoky, poorly-ventilated club that had about a 300 person capacity) and the much larger granada. when i think of a lot of my poetic show-going moments the lion's share of them happened at the bottleneck.
about mogwai. i continue to love mogwai. i still don't have 'the hawk is howling,' but was a fierce devotee and defender of 'mr. beast.' back in 2001, though, they were one of my favourite bands as they had been since 1999 when i bought 'come on die young' and 'young team.' back then i used to spend tons of time on the radiohead message board and one time struck up a conversation with someone about mogwai. the person i talked to was friends with barry, the keyboard player who was a new member at that point. i talked to him about how i was dying to see them live as i'd heard they were fantastic, but that this would probably never happen due to the fact that i lived in kansas city and that mogwai probably couldn't find the state of kansas or missouri on a map (fuck, i bet you could find plenty of people who live in new york, l.a. or chicago who couldn't either). the person i was talking to seemed to take it to heart and within two years they showed up to play at the granada. i don't know if that had anything to do with it, but regardless i went and it surpassed my expectations. i've seen them twice since and i think that nothing will ever surpass the amazing feelings that were stirred up for me at this show. so given all of that, here it is in all of its glory-



http://www.mediafire.com/?mnj5nat2i0g (192 kbps mp3s)
if you want the flacs you'll have to ask for them and then i'll post them.
stay tuned for the next in the series. mogwai is a good jumping off point stylistically for the types of shows that i went to back then.

take care

r.i.p. alex chilton. can't believe this happened only a few weeks after mark linkous. i'm going to have to write my rambling entry on this later as i'm starting a six-day week tomorrow. in the meantime i would like to post the shalloboi cover of 'nighttime' which is one of my favourite big star songs from my favourite big star album, 'third/sister lovers' (although really i have about twenty or more big star favourites).

nighttime

this isn't a great cover by any means, but i think the rough edges in and of themselves are an appropriate nod to mr. chilton. the music world is running out of overlooked/underrated/genius songwriters at an alarming rate...

booking agent/nice, enthusiastic fresh-faced person for the band needed

yeah, i'm done. my energy for begging for shows is gone. i just don't have the moxie, likability, social skills to be bugging booking people all over town to add us onto shows. seriously, i've had it. i don't think i can send another email about this stuff... it's amazing to me that we have this amazing record we're sitting on and no one will let us play. i'm aware already that it doesn't have to do with how good the music, how well we play live or even whether or not we have a draw. it's purely that we don't know the right people and aren't social beings. we aren't going out to venues every night and befriending bar-tenders and ingratiating ourselves to the right kind of people who are running things. to be quite frank i still have no interest in it. if i were the type of person who were capable of such things, then by all means i'd be out there kissing as much ass as i could, but sadly i'm not a social person at all. i am not a charming person. i am a very reserved and humble person and it's just not in my nature to go around being witty, charming and sociable with people i don't know and probably can't trust. i'm convinced now that if i were we would probably be one of the biggest bands in the little indie underground. it's a bummer too because i know that the price for my introverted nature is basically that i'm going to have to resign myself to the fact that i'm just going to be relegated to releasing records on my own while supporting myself with a day job and accept that my music will barely reach anyone.
as i'm writing about this i'm just sick about it. it appears that we most likely will not be playing at the empty bottle on the 18th of april. i have nothing else going at the moment, i have no ideas as to where to go next- all of my reliable contacts have dried up and new venues that have cropped up won't even return my messages. what to do? not sure...
so now here i am with 300 newly pressed records and no shows to play to promote them. i'm not real sure what to do. i'd like to get some help with this dilemma, but who's going to bother to give me the time of day about my band in the first place, nevermind do all of our dirty work for us. i guess i shouldn't give up hope just yet, i'm just completely out of energy. i'm only one person and i can only do so much... i just got the screen for the back covers done the other day.
i'm thinking of doing some kind of film project like 'thee hounds of foggy notion.' but what good would that do? i don't know- it's just kind of weird. i'm just so out of ideas that it's not even funny...

'may your shade be sweet...'

yes, i'm very bummed about the passing of mark linkous. to whit- unless you don't want to scroll yourself. i stand by my gushing sentiments about 'it's a wonderful life.' i did take the opportunity to revisit 'dreamt for light years in the belly of the beast' and (i'm sure this will be a huge surprise) found that it was a beautiful, overlooked gem. i do also really love 'good morning spider,' i just think that 'it's a wonderful life' is sparklehorse's (and mark linkous') crowning jewel. my friend james has asked me to submit a sparklehorse cover for a tribute he wants to release. stefanie is really not into the idea of tributes, but as i was walking around the morning after i'd heard about mr. linkous and listening to 'dreamt for light years...' i thought to myself, 'maybe we should do a sparklehorse cover in light of these events.' plus, i was kind of in awe of how great the songs on 'dreamt for light years...' were. it's basically a very valiant attempt at writing sunnier, poppier songs. in a way i think that the quality of the songs was so consistent that when you listened to the whole thing nothing really jumped out at you and it made you think that the album is flat, but there are some gorgeous sun-drenched songs on there. i do love 'don't take my sunshine away' and 'knives of summertime' and have loved 'shade and honey' to death since i first heard it in 'laurel canyon.' when it came out of the speakers i was delighted to hear that it was on the album. beautiful song. when we saw them at the double door it had always been my feeling that they weren't as great as a live act as they were on record and i also suspected that we caught them on an off-night. he did say that they were all sick with the flu. that said, the parts of the night that worked worked really well. i remember being thrilled to hear 'spirit ditch' (the song that made me fall in love with sparklehorse back in 1998), loving the live takes on the new songs (particularly the two previously mentioned songs) and also thinking they did a great live rendition of 'pig' to wrap up the set. i've never liked 'pig' that much, but when they did it live it made a lot of sense. they also played 'eyepennies,' which wasn't expected at all. there's also an amazing live clip posted on pitchfork of them doing 'it's a wonderful life' which was pretty amazing to me. it kind of highlights the fucked-up weirdo old analog keyboard aspect of the band, something which i don't think anyone else will ever do as well. listen to 'babies on the sun.' how the fuck did he do that?
while listening to 'good morning spider' i kept hearing a keyboard sound that took me back to when i was four years old because my grandmother had the same keyboard. can't remember which kind it was, of course, but i do wonder what ended up happening to that keyboard and how or why i didn't end up with it. fuck! i want to say it was an optigan, but i don't think that's right...
regardless the loss of mr. linkous is very sad to me. i'm hoping whatever he was working on at the time of his death ends up getting a release and i'm looking forward to the physical release of his collaboration with danger mouse because i haven't heard any of it as of yet.
i'm thinking 'spirit ditch,' 'shade and honey' or 'knives of summertime.'
we'll see...

'i've never been so colourfully see-through'

not so sure what to write in here these days. i don't really care about much of anything- not real stressed about the whole touring thing, not real stressed about the entire playing live aspect of the band, not really stressed about much of anything. bought a giant screen and some new photo emulsion to make the screen for the back cover of the lp. printed up some promos (four are ready to mail out). still waiting on the confirmation of the empty bottle show. pretty weird that it's been taking so long- not terribly sure what that's about... i'm just going to try hanging back this time out and not do as much. a new approach, if you will. what i'm mainly planning on doing is mailing out all of the promos- to reviewing sites/blogs and college radio stations. it kind of occurred to me that for a band as out-there and weird as us that's probably going to be the best way for us to be heard- pretty much randomly on college radio/what have you. i am sending pitchfork an actual copy of the lp in the hopes that it might get reviewed. not holding out much hope that it would be reviewed positively- there definitely aren't enough hooks on it for them to give us one of those star-making 8+ ratings. the main hope is just to get a bit more exposure a different way. i was thinking about the fact that there are tons of bands around that people have heard of that don't tour. it seems to me that that might have to be the route we will have to go, because we don't seem to be able to connect enough to go out on tour and play tons of shows which is a shame because we are really good live. i am going to try to apply (again) for sxsw 2011. i might hit up stefanie's friend for some contacts to help make that happen and maybe we can finally go to the cool kids party at least once.
bonanza of extra moneys as well- i made a killing in tips on monday, tuesday and wednesday- $80 just from those three days. unheard of. i have a little monetary cushion so i should be able to afford all of my bills- having to do some tricky maneuvering after dropping so much money on getting the albums ready to go out- $40 for printer cartridges, $50 for a screen and photo emulsion and $60 on copies (and more to come, believe you me). not sure when i'll be able to burn a screen or how (it's really huge- 16x18). but i am really hoping to get some of the full lps finished next week. i have enough covers printed up for the first little box of 15- just need to mount them. as it turns out just printing them off of our printer at home is the way for them to look the best. i'd really love to be able to ship out copies of everything to billy by the end of next week. also- next week i'm working six days. i have to work tomorrow, which totally blows, but at the end of the six-day week i'll have a three-day weekend, which will be amazing. i have a ton of concert tickets to buy as well- woods, the big pink, the black lips and i am still pondering going to see the vivian girls at subterranean. it's more tempting now since it's on a friday night and i wouldn't have to slog my way into work the next morning on three hours of sleep. i severely doubt i'll go- i've seen them twice now and really enjoyed both times but i'm not so sure that i need to be seeing them every time they come through town. they do tour a ton, after all.
that's about all i have to say for right now. still working on the 7" series- hopefully stefanie will be able to do some recording tomorrow. i am in need of a few vocal tracks from her- possibly a drum track as well if everything works out alright.

'walk all over me'

reliving the my bloody valentine show right now- i think i've gotten my recording to sound as good as it's ever going to sound. it captures the cavernous sound at the aragon very perfectly. ironically it sounds better and is more listenable than a lot of bootlegs i have- certainly mbv ones.
not too much to report- i am busy, busy busy. so many shows. i'm still not sure if i want to go to the sunny day in glasgow show or not. i'm feeling quite burned about being strung along and not given the opening slot. also not sure if i've gone into my long and maddening relationship with schuba's and their talent booking guy- over the past four years plus i've sent him no less than four cds- 'blue-eyed' in 2005, 'petals' and 'learning how to crawl' in 2007 and 'down to sleep' in 2008. i kind of figure that if 'down to sleep' doesn't catch his ears then nothing i send him is going to. emailing him every once in a while, asking to be added to bills, blah blah blah. the final time was when i emailed him asking to be added to the sunny day in glasgow show and he finally emailed me back saying that it might work and that he would check. wait a week or two, no response. finally i email him again to see and he emails me another semi-positive response that he's still not sure yet and then the next day i check their concert calendar to find that they've filled both slots. why didn't he just tell me that he was going to go with someone else? that sort of shit is so typical of what booking people do and i can't for the life of me figure out why they do that shit. i could see if i'd never contacted him before and had just sent him a cd six months prior, but i've sent him four of our cds and been in sporadic contact with him for over four fucking years! to me this is like when i spent two years applying and calling trying to get a job at borders in kansas city and when i interviewed they have a single question that basically makes or breaks you and i didn't give them the answer they wanted on that one so i didn't get the job. you've got to love that irony- apply to a place for two years, call trying to get an interview, majoring in the field that they specialize in and then all of that suddenly doesn't matter when you don't give them the exact answer that they're looking for on one question. it's one of those examples of how i wished that people placed more stock in what individuals actually DID over what they SAID because the two aren't the same. most people talk a great game but deliver nothing. other people aren't as big on the talk but deliver the goods with their actions. it seems to me that 'all talk and no action' is the way to go, really. so that said i'm not so sure i want to go to the show- it's coming up pretty soon, but does fall on a night i have off. i'd only have to pay for myself.
chapterhouse are playing at lincoln hall in may. sort of weird- someone on the my bloody valentine board was taking suggestions for venues to recommend to them for their little reunion tour and i was the one who recommended that place for chicago. i think it's a good choice for them- i don't think they're well-known enough to sell out a place like the metro, but it's possible that a place as small as the empty bottle wouldn't be big enough. i'm not 100% certain of their notoriety, though. lincoln hall's a nice middle ground- it could go either way. the guy who asked for the potential venues ended up telling me that he also recommended my band as possible openers for the show and that if we're asked we would know who to thank. i had kind of forgotten about it as this was quite a long time ago. so now that they've been booked i'm hoping that they contact us but in a stance that's typical of my world view i'm not expecting it.
i'm not real sure what's going to go down in the future. i would like to play some out of town shows this year but nothing really seems to be panning out so much- no response from the guy who booked us at MSU, no confirmation on the proposed record release show at the empty bottle. i've tried to get booked at smaller loft sort of places, but to no avail so far. i'm not sure what the deal is with that- i guess it comes back to the not being able to talk that good of a game. why is this? i don't really know. i'm trying not to be upset by it and just keep busy. whatever happens i'm probably just going to keep at it. i see no reason for stopping. everything else is pretty much out of my control.

'days were long and the living was fine'

the records arrived. i've been finding some warped ones, which is a bit of a concern. i think for the most part they're going to be okay, it's just a bit of a concern. not sure what it's from- probably from ordering them in the jackets. yay! lessons! however i've found shelf space for all six boxes of 50- don't know how i did that...
have to go buy some printer cartridges after i get my paycheck today- possibly at least start on the printing of the promos and i was going to try printing out the cover image straight from the computer since the print i ordered through snapfish kind of sucks. i'm also going to print out a copy of the back cover image to take to kinkos to print onto some transparency film and burn the screen for the back cover. i think i'll print up about twenty zines while i'm there as well. after getting my paycheck i'm going to have to stop at staples to get a few things- most notably cdr envelopes for the promos and a stapler that i can use to staple the zines together without fucking them up. it's time to mail out the promos. it's been time for a while. hop to, son. as if all of that weren't enough to do chris is coming over tonight to record and we're going out to dinner afterwards at one of the many nearby ethiopian restaurants in the neighborhood that we never bothered to go to during the four years we've lived here. all part of the bucket list we're trying to make and get through before we move in april. yikes, it's coming up!
still waiting on the confirmation of the record release show at the empty bottle. come through come through come through. once that's all done and finished i'm going to mail take some of the warped records and make them into promos to mail out to a few choice places. bill smith also sent us a box of an extra 15 records- six of which were warped, the other nine of which i'm going to use to distribute to band members/helper bees/family/etc. i guess that's a word to the wise, kids- don't have your records shipped inside the jackets. no good!
at some point i need to go by gramaphone on clark st. to get some black jackets for the test pressings, which i'm giving out to band members as well. not sure what to do with the final one. i was thinking we should sell them for $15 each, but i'm beginning to think that we should sell them at shows for a nice, round $10. i forgot to factor into the cost the fact that the mastering is a one-time fee. mail-order ones will be $15, though. probably going to sell them on consignment for that price as well.
i'm very excited at the proposition of this and i hope that it works out well. i'm just going to send them all over hell and hades and hope for the best. i have 100 promos after all. i'm going to send those around to student radio stations regardless of whether or not we go on tour, i think. i think there's a good chance things'll work out well.