Ascended Master opened up the show at around 7:30pm while Memorial Day holidaymakers dined in the surreal Brook Room next door. The heavy, trance-inducing rok of AM must have just made the whole experience even wierder. They have 2 girl singers and a couple of guitarists and a drummer and they reminded me of Amon Duul II. Highly recommended.

During the intermission before SF band Bronze I went off to the bar. During my 3 week trip, Makers Mark whisky was one of my happiest discoveries, so I ordered one. The barmaid must have been out of her mind because she did me up a huge serving in a tall paper cup - maybe she couldn’t see how much she’d given me? No, I don’t think it was that, because having tilted the bottle up again, she held it up to the light and saw there was another finger of whisky in the bottle, which she then dumped into my cup too. I swear there must have been a quarter of a bottle in there. She saw my delight and rhetorically asked me my opinion as she handed it to me with the word “healthy?”. “Looks good to me, I said”. “5 dollars”, she informed me. Fuck, I’ve gotta come back here, I thought. I was nursing that sucker for the next 2 hours so cheers to the Brookdale Lodge staff.

Bronze came off like a more aggressive take on Silver Apples or Joy Division. The singer reminded me of the guy who plays the schoolteacher leading the mayday dance in The Wicker Man.

Brian turned up during their set and introduced me to some of his friends. I got talking and went and smoked a joint outside as Howlin Rain started. I love getting high, and it was cool coming back inside to watch their show. Ethan Miller played a lot of guitar with this sympathetic band and bared his teeth for that real Woodstock/Creedence vocal delivery. But stripped of Comets On Fire’s distorted effects, are these Howlin Rain songs ultimately just dull pastiche?

I had noticed Ariel Pink coming into the hall with his band, it must have been during one of the earlier sets. He had long, somewhat frizzled hair and was stooped and nervously biting his lip as he helped carry in the band’s kit. So they missed their sound check and therefore spent most of their allotted show time sound checking. So they only played 4 songs in the end, and they sounded pretty good really. They started to to play For Kate I Wait, but stopped 2 bars in and played something else instead. It was wicked to see the man himself in the flesh. It took me a couple of days of sitting around in a motel in the middle of fucking nowhere to get to see him, but it was worth it.

Cluster just played some bland laptop ambient electronica, which I must say sounded to me like the very crappiest mid 90s chillout dross. It was disappointing insofar as they were billed as returning Krautrock legends.

Then I thought - wouldn’t it be interesting to see how members of my family who are famed wrappers would fare given the opportunity (the circumstances??) to roll a joint. And even the ones who aren’t so good. Aunt Matty’s joints would therefore be strong and rather too loosely made. Mum’s too would probably be rather good, interestingly.

Dad never wrapped a present in his life, but often clamoured to try various drugs, and in fact if one had broken out an amazing stash of this or that in private, he may have gone for it. Somehow it was always a bridge too far in our family. Many families on the other hand have no qualms. They must operate on a different level of intimacy.

LA
Beatles - Magical Mystery Tour (esp Blue Jay Way)
Rolling Stones - Exile On Main Street
My special LA mixtape which I made especially:
Faca Amolada / Rpyal Trux
East Mountain Joint / MV & EE and The Bummer Road
Set us Free / Black Mountain
Dawn / Mahavishnu Orchestra
L.A. / Neil Young
Suburban Home / The Descendents
Back To School / Royal Trux
Hey Pig He Stole My Sound / Wooden Wand and The Vanishing Voice
Program / Silver Apples
Summertime / Janis Joplin
Don’t Be Denied / Neil Young
Introduction / Boris
Been Too Long At The Fair (live) / Bonny Raitt

LA to SF
Funkadelic - Free Your Mind And Your Ass Will Follow
Harmonia - Deluxe
Flaming Guitars of Jimmy Bryant and Speedy West
Wooden Wand and The Vanishing Voice - Buck Dharma

SF
Devo - Are We Not Men?
Butthole Surfers - Blind Eye Sees All [DVD]
Neil Young - On The Beach
Bardo Pond - Set and Setting
Do Make Say Think - Do Make Say Think
Yes - Fragile
Funkadelic - Maggot Brain
Richard Buckner - Meadow
Nurse With Wound - Homotopy to Marie
John Coltrane - Giant Steps

SF to Portland
Neil Young - Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
Led Zep IV
Zappa - Burnt Weenie Sandwich
Dungen - Ta Det Lugnt
Ariel Pink - Worn Copy
Ween - The Pod
The Kinks - Muswell Hillbillies
Syd Barrett - The Madcap Laughs

Portland to Seattle
Guided By Voices - Titus / Propeller (track 30*)
Earth - Hibernaculum

Seattle
Yes - Tales of Topographical Oceans
Steely Dan - Aja

Seattle - Ashland OR
Pussy Galore - Historia De La Musica Rock
Royal Trux - Sweet Sixteen

Neil was in incredible form on this occasion, it was better even than the first time I saw him in Finsbury Park in 93 on the Booker T tour. The stage was set up with an artist painting pictures based on the songs throughout the show. It wasn’t really a distraction, it just gave a relaxed and homey vibe to the gig. the first part of the show was Neil playing solo on guitar, piano and organ. And what a set list. He opened up with From Hank to Hendrix, off the over-produced Harvest Moon album, and it was great. He must have done 20 others, including Ambulance Blues, Love in Mind, it was just a dream set list.

One thing I remember is when he played After the Goldrush. For the first time in my life I actually saw the song like a movie, with images opening up in my mind. When he sang “I was lying in a burned out basement with the full moon in my eyes” I was right there, lying on a bare mattress on the floor and looking up through the curtain-less window at a full moon. Then the next line hit me like a psychedelic dream: “I was hoping for replacement when the sun burst through the sky”. Suddenly I saw in my mind’s eye the sun appear out of nowhere and shine out in place of the moon. I mean, it’s supposed to be a moonlit night, right? So that’s totally fucking surreal, right? I got the whole thing like the cuts in a movie and it was amazing. I was stone cold sober and for the first time in my life I was open enough to the music to actually experience it. Which is what rock music is supposed to be about, isn’t it?

The second set was 2 hours of beautiful electric rock. He came on with a band featuring Ralph Molina on drums and Ben Keith on slide / electric guitar. Again, a brilliant set list of favourites - not necessarily the famous ones - and some new ones off Chrome Dreams II like The Hidden Path. I mean, in one respect that song’s just another 4 chord vehicle for Neil to solo with, but on the night I really got lost in his playing and could let my mind wander. He jammed on The Hidden Path for a good 20 minutes, and I enjoyed the sound of his electric guitar playing so much. Compared to the harsh sound produced by so many noise and indie bands, his sound was very much controlled and well mixed and just so rich in texture. Sure it was distorted, but it was a distortion that you could hear and enjoy the sensation of. It wasn’t in-the-red digital crap, it was nuanced and expressive and sounded great.

The doom / drone triple bill of seminal band Earth, Japanese contenders Boris and reigning heavyweight champions Sunn O))) had started at 7.30, we were told by security as we bowled up at the very reasonable time of 8.30. Funny, I thought - don’t these deathdrone doom folk prefer things to happen in the black of the night? Well they probably do, but there are licensing laws in this country and when you like to play as long as these guys and you can’t finish late you gotta start early.

So Boris were already banging out a very decent stoner rock jam when we entered the auditorium. One thing I noticed about them was their way of sounding like they were just finishing a song, only to keep it going over and over again. The drummer was giving it everything, and when things got too much for him he turned and struck the enormous gong hanging behind him. Repeatedly. It was almost comical. Just having the gong there seemed this big 70s kind of gesture, it really looked great in the sepulchral light and ornamentation of the Forum’s stage. And in the end to cap it all he jumped down off the riser and threw himself into the crowd. It was a sweet moment of rock n roll abandon. I basically enjoyed their set but at the same time wanted it over. I think that says a lot about me. Just ordered the Boris CD with the Bryter Later rip off cover.

More drinks were had as we waited for the stage to be set for Sunn O))). A huuuuuge stack of amps formed a wall along the back of the stage. It wasn’t a truly record-breaking rig, but as big as I’ve ever seen. Meanwhile a man rudely tried to shove himself in front of me in the queue for the bar. He succeeded in getting served before me. He asked the woman at the bar if he could recycle his plastic pint glass. She said no she would give him a fresh one. I controlled my anger at this man, and I thought about what I expected from the Sunn O))) gig. I thought it would be some super heavy rock (”much slower, heavier” x 100) with the band wearing black cowls. That’s all I thought.

A digression

Two days previously, on Saturday, I had managed to stay on at this year’s Nightmare Before Xmas ATP festival in order to see the band Om. Thoroughly bored as I killed time waiting for Om to come on at midnight or so, I watched French Connection in the freezing cinema and then made my way to the centre stage for the show. Om are two of the guys from well-regarded stoner band Sleep. I first heard Om in Isabel’s car driving up to the Roundhouse to play the London Hallucination City show. After listening to the first 5 minutes of their 20 minutes plus first track on Variations, I said isn’t it amazing how a bass can just carry the whole sound of a band. She said that’s all there is, just bass and drums. I’d never heard that before. I’ve been listening to Variations on a Theme and the new one Pilgrimage ever since and I love it. They just find this great sound, this groove and roll with it. [I’ve since heard Pink Floyd’s “Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun” on Ummagumma and that’s pretty much the vibe.]

So seeing them live was a treat. The drummer was a great solid workman-like player, and the sound of the Rickenbacker bass was lovely. I won’t forget the sound I experienced when the bass player stepped on his distortion pedal. I have never heard such a loud and ferocious sound come from a band before - it was not like the usual saturated noise spray that gets emitted by loud/noise bands - this was tightly controlled and fucking loud. I was watching the drummer pounding away at those drums but I could not hear a single beat. As I watched them play during the non-distorted sections I heard how this is actually so close to Funkadelic, it just swings in a different way. Apparently Steve Albini produced Pilgrimage. Check em out.

So anyway I thought Sunn O))) would just be crushing noise. I was so wrong about them. I saw them walk onstage in their cowls amid a lot of dry ice just as expected, but there were quite a few of them, maybe 6 of them. One of them started playing trombone (such a silly instrument…). And the sound built up as the trombone was discarded - keyboards, one, two maybe three guitars, a standup bass, maybe another electric bass. How many is that, six? It was a long drone, echoing and not really identifiable. I thought: this is like watching the ring wraiths from Lord of the Rings playing in a rock band, this is exactly what it would be like. I wonder if they were actually inspired by watching LOTR. I mean, the ring wraiths were probably the most memorable thing about LOTR, just embodying some extreme and undying darkness. Fear and suffering incarnate.

Then the next thing I knew, a figure had come onstage and was standing up front as the singer - with the microphone. I was straining my eyes to try to see what exactly it was - what is that thing - a pagan Christ figure? Surrounded by dry ice, sometimes completely obscured in the mist, this figure with a head bandaged and wreathed with a sort of twig crown, the upper body covered in sack cloth with only the singing hand free, the other arm bound like in a straight jacket, the singing hand ornamented with a twig, and the merest stain of blood on the sackcloth. An extraordinary sight! The figure - man? - looked like he was singing, but I could never be sure what his contribution was to the sound. Was he breathily croaking some terrible demonic curse at us? At himself?

What struck me about Sunn O))) was that they were so dark - and there was so much pain there, without a shred of irony that I could see. Are there really people out there more tormented than me? Strangely, this gig hit me the same day as I read the first half of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and received a DVD with David Lynch’s Rabbits sitcom on it. A huge triple whammy of weirdly moving and engaging darkness.

Birthday number 21 happened in St Petersburg, Russia. Snowing all day. Went for lunch and drinks at the Grand Hotel Europe, our little oasis of Western Europe in Russia whence our mail would be forwarded and where we could change our currency into roubles. Increasingly, it also became a place to eat luxury burgers and drink cocktails on our student credit cards, which is exactly what a few of us did that lunchtime. “Charge it” became our drunken rallying cry (and I’m still paying for it heh heh). The party broke up in the afternoon and, armed with a cigarette packet full of pre-rolled spliffs, I wandered alone and sentimental onto what now looks like it’s called the Mikhailovsky Park,although I was sure it was called the equivalent of Champs Elysee, next to the Millionaires Row. Anyway, I got wasted there in the middle of a snowstorm. Yes, here it was the Champs Elysee - aka Field of Mars. That’s where it was, with the eternal flame still going under snowfall. The sound of a lot of snow falling around you is incredible. Cool, amazing to see it again.

My memory fades after that. I believe we met again at the hotel or some other haunt and blasted on through the evening.

1) Pharoah Sanders - Tauhid
2) Iggy and The Stooges - Raw Power
3) David Bowie - Hunky Dory
4) Neil Young - Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
5) Royal Trux - Cats and Dogs
6) Miles Davis - Kind Of Blue
8) Sonic Youth - Evol

I think this would be a great start to a CD collection, especially for teenagers living in the countryside.

The premise of this blog was to write about music that I love, but it’s just got to the point where I’m stuck because I’ve got nothing to write about. I guess it’s all so obvious isn’t it. I’m going to see Sonic Youth this coming Friday and Saturday play their Daydream Nation show at The Roundhouse. But part of me knows it is just going to be an attempt to recapture that time, that music scene, and my late teenage years. It’s time to move on. I can no longer expect anyone to come up with a decent rock show. I’ve got to do it. And that’s a huge pressure.

Punk really did break didn’t it. We need a new voice. We need words that are powerful, we need a voice that is powerful, and we need music that is too. All in one great band.

It’s a social thing too. All my life I’ve been to most gigs on my own, because very few of my friends like the kind of music that I want to check out. I remember the last UTR show I saw at the Luminaire. It was the loneliest thing. How do I meet the people I want to meet? It’s like i know the milieu I want to be in is out there, but how do make contact? It’s so strange. The terrible isolation…

As all of this was hitting me and Soren (who gamely agreed to accompany me) on the first evening, we awaited the appearance of Iggy and the Stooges. I shouted out what I felt: “Come on Iggy, save us from this fucking hell-hole”. And you know what? Five minutes later he came out with Ron Asheton and Ron’s bro on drums and Mike Watt on bass – and he did just that. He fucking saved us with rock n roll. Watching him, I understood what the big deal about Iggy is. He understood the situation – that the place was a nightmare and that quite a few people were having a nightmare dealing with the Butlins vibe – and he gave us his performance to make us feel better. He responded to us. And as an audience member I felt like he was really there, creating something in that moment. Not just playing a gig for his own benefit. I saw his enlightened nature in its glory. And Mike Watt was so on the case as well. Totally absolutely working his bass with everything he’s got. What a great guy. The only strange thing about that show was that they didn’t play anything from Raw Power, which has to be their best record. But my guess is they will be playing that whole record as an ATP-created tour in the future, as they did with Funhouse recently.

Sonic Youth came on next. Soren and I stood right up at the front, just in front of Lee Ranaldo. Their set list was beyond expectation: including 3 from SISTER (Schizophrenia, Catholic Block and – wow what a favourite – PCH) and Shaking Hell with Thurston on bass to end with. My overall impression was that they had tightened up their sound quality and perhaps simplified some of the arrangements to make them work more smoothly. They seemed very pro. And then I realised that through all these years - while I have been exploring every dark corner of Confusion is Sex over and over again, while I got into jungle and speed garage and left them behind for years, through all of those years from the mid 90s onwards, while I was getting married and then divorced, changing countries and lives, shit man so much has happened! – they have been playing their songs night after night, tour after tour. I would feel sorry for them, if I wasn’t already green with envy for what they have achieved.

It was great to see Dinosaur Jr again on the second day – I had never seen them before as the original trio line-up with Lou Barlow, and it was such a fucking thrill to hear them play legendary songs like The Lung - but it was at a high price: I missed MV + EE and The Bummer Road, a psychedelic rural New England rock band that have been honing their thing in obscurity and who now look like they were one of the most interesting bands on the bill, a band with a little balance … Think Rural Trux. That was one of the problems with having 3 rooms of music and 6000 people trying to get in and out of these venues. Also, for the popular bands you had to arrive for the set before to ensure you would be able to get in. Which also meant that to be able to see Dinosaur Jr we had to endure 75 minutes of fucking Gang of Four, the band that spawned the horrible spate of punky guitars with disco drums that is still upon us. Everyone else loved them too. That’s one band that is definitely on the wrong side of the fucking Venn diagram.

Sun City Girls were great: funny in their cabaret way, inventive with bits of free improv but then perfectly played Latin rock and jazz, and hilarious lyrics. What a great band. And the other really enjoyable band was The Melvins. Great big juicy riffs, and apparently their recent album after all these years is possibly their best.
Major Stars disappointed majorly, Comets on Fire looked good, but having just come out of the Dinosaur gig I could not hear them at all, my ears were just blasted. Notekillers were boring. All of the noise bands were boring

Final points:
Were there any nice girls there? I saw one during Comets on Fire’s show.
Would I go again? Probably

Why no Glenn Branca?