stoogeaphilia black dog post mortem
we played at the black dog on thursday. had maybe 50-60 ppl in the house (as predicted by pablo and the hemphill 7 frontman joe vano). we made about 20 bucks a man; my bar tab was $40. we got two more dates out of it (see the stoogeaphilia myspace thingy for details). i was higher than i've ever been onstage (on the natch, over 'n' above any other substances that mighta been ingested), and i've been doing this for a real long time. we got in the _trance state_, yo. in other words, a real good night.
it started out with clouds o' feedback (a recurring theme of the evening), and ended with all three string players (steffin ratliff, matt hembree, me) rolling around on the floor in front of feedback-shrieking amplifiers. steffin played with us for the first time ever at practice on monday. in between our first tentative foray onto the evening stage at the wreck room a month ago, his lvl of involvement progressed from, "i donwanna insinuate myself into yr band, just hang out 'n' play some music" to "just pick the songs you're comfortable with and play on those" all the way to "dude, you're playing on _every song_ -- no discussion." steffin's such an instinctively great musician he can think of things to play that weren't on the 'riginal rekkids but compliment the mistakes we learned so laboriously quite well. and his gtr makes the sound _big_ and _powerful_ in a way it didn't before he came, particularly during solo time. he only takes a coupla those himself -- he's a melodist, at heart, not the kinda cat to make yards of spaghetti onstage, and that's fine. he _completes_ us.
matt hembree is the same kind of musical craftsman that steffin is, but in stoogeaphilia, he gets to go _off_ and play the fool in ways that've previously only been hinted at in certain goodwin performances. that is to say, he gets completely _immersed_ in the spirit o' the music to the point at which he totally loses himself, and things get _interesting_, as they did when he 'n' i went to the floor in a somewhat premeditated bit of stage biz during "tv eye." the whole episode was s'posed to last 16 bars but wound up going on for 24 to 32 before matt came back from wherever he was. "i opened my eyes," he said, "and realized i was still playing." greatness. before we even started, he was holding his bass up like a viking's halberd and i _knew_ it was gonna be a good set. at the top of the second set (which i deliberately planned to open with the two songs i figured we were most likely to trainwreck on, with the idea that what came after would be so cosmic that ppl wouldn't remember the tankage later on), he already had his shirt off, and looked like he couldn't wait to get on the ground. "if we ever come up with a third set," he said later, "watch out, 'cos the pants are gonna _have_ to come off -- not 'cos i'm an _exhibitionist_ or anything, i just donwanna be _bound up_ that way." you've been warned.
it occurred to me afterwards that in the past five nights, i'd seen jon teague play his ass off four times: sunday night with his own band, the great tyrant; monday night with us at the me-thinks' rehearsal space in haltom city (which we've come to think of as "the music nazi club," where we gather to eat big joe's pizza, drank beer, trade burned cd-r's of obscuro jams and talk story, as well as play music); wednesday night at the wreck room's invitational jam; and then on the stoogeaphilia gig itself. besides being a versatile, powerful, and creative drummer, jon's got great arrangement ideas, too -- the dual-gtr feedback meltdown at the end of "little doll" that ended the second set was his suggestion, f'rinstance.
if ray liberio tried to act like iggy, then stoogeaphilia would suck, but he doesn't -- he just sings his ass off and is himself. understand the black dog's p.a. wasn't really equal to the task of getting ray's voxxx up above two gtrs 'n' a bass that don't really have "quiet" settings, but next time out at the dog, we plan to use jon's p.a., and at the rose marine theater on may 28th, wreck room wizard o' sound andre edmonson has graciously consented to operate the rose's new sound system on our behalf. ray's his own worst critic, and has always tried to mix down his own voxxx on me-thinks recordings, but his bandmates will and marlin have always overruled him, and we plan to do the same -- they're too good to bury. at the black dog, matt 'n' steffin were pretty much limited to hearing each other and jon, which is fine, because they have _the lock_ anyway; myself, i couldn't really hear much besides jon 'n' ray with _just_ a li'l bit of matt, which is also fine, 'cos i mainly cue off of the voxxx 'n' drums anyway.
i've been playing a little of what nels cline would call "amp du jour" of late, between using marlin's marshall (thanks bud) at stoogeaphilia prac and will's dr. z at fredfest (ditto). for the black dog, it was obvious that my roland cube 60 "amplet" was not gonna be adequate, so matt (bless him) generously allowed me to borrow his peavey classic 50, which i was pleasantly surprised to discover has a lot more balls 'n' midrange than, say, a fender twin, and actually has a pretty crunchy clean sound sans f/x (altho i still employed a big muff, courtesy of the great tyrant's tommy atkins, to supply the requisite over-the-top fuzz factor most of the time).
as incongruous a group of individuals as stoogeaphilia might appear to be, i've never been in another band where the members were so in synch, musically 'n', um, _philosophically_. in our heads, musos of a certain bent try and make every band we're in a li'l utopia when it starts, only to become embittered later on when it doesn't meet our expectations. can't really see that happening with thisun -- we're already talking about what to do once we exhaust the stooge repertoire (and as jon teague points out, the rubric "stoogeaphilia" covers a whole lotta law, as their influence has been so ubiquitous). all i know is, i've been waiting 35 yrs to play this music (which the cats in the rekkid store always usedta laugh at me for liking back in the day). for now, it's wish fulfillment at its best -- like seeing ron asheton play these songs with mike watt 'n' j. mascis ca. y2k, and again with scott morgan's powertrane and deniz tek in ann arbor, 2002. may it always be so.
prolly the high point o' the night for me was after we'd finished, when i was standing talking to ray 'n' matt when the dead kennedys' "california uber alles" came on the jukebox. they both immediately started screaming the lyrics in each other's faces; ray even had all of jello biafra's vocal inflections down. matt told a story about seeing the dk's at a deli in knoxville, tn, he usedta frequent back in his college days. his roommate got knocked out cold by a stage diver, so matt dragged his inert form out of the room to keep him from getting trampled, then ran back inside to see the rest of the show. the next day, ray said he couldn't remember hearing the song or the conversation. perfect.
it started out with clouds o' feedback (a recurring theme of the evening), and ended with all three string players (steffin ratliff, matt hembree, me) rolling around on the floor in front of feedback-shrieking amplifiers. steffin played with us for the first time ever at practice on monday. in between our first tentative foray onto the evening stage at the wreck room a month ago, his lvl of involvement progressed from, "i donwanna insinuate myself into yr band, just hang out 'n' play some music" to "just pick the songs you're comfortable with and play on those" all the way to "dude, you're playing on _every song_ -- no discussion." steffin's such an instinctively great musician he can think of things to play that weren't on the 'riginal rekkids but compliment the mistakes we learned so laboriously quite well. and his gtr makes the sound _big_ and _powerful_ in a way it didn't before he came, particularly during solo time. he only takes a coupla those himself -- he's a melodist, at heart, not the kinda cat to make yards of spaghetti onstage, and that's fine. he _completes_ us.
matt hembree is the same kind of musical craftsman that steffin is, but in stoogeaphilia, he gets to go _off_ and play the fool in ways that've previously only been hinted at in certain goodwin performances. that is to say, he gets completely _immersed_ in the spirit o' the music to the point at which he totally loses himself, and things get _interesting_, as they did when he 'n' i went to the floor in a somewhat premeditated bit of stage biz during "tv eye." the whole episode was s'posed to last 16 bars but wound up going on for 24 to 32 before matt came back from wherever he was. "i opened my eyes," he said, "and realized i was still playing." greatness. before we even started, he was holding his bass up like a viking's halberd and i _knew_ it was gonna be a good set. at the top of the second set (which i deliberately planned to open with the two songs i figured we were most likely to trainwreck on, with the idea that what came after would be so cosmic that ppl wouldn't remember the tankage later on), he already had his shirt off, and looked like he couldn't wait to get on the ground. "if we ever come up with a third set," he said later, "watch out, 'cos the pants are gonna _have_ to come off -- not 'cos i'm an _exhibitionist_ or anything, i just donwanna be _bound up_ that way." you've been warned.
it occurred to me afterwards that in the past five nights, i'd seen jon teague play his ass off four times: sunday night with his own band, the great tyrant; monday night with us at the me-thinks' rehearsal space in haltom city (which we've come to think of as "the music nazi club," where we gather to eat big joe's pizza, drank beer, trade burned cd-r's of obscuro jams and talk story, as well as play music); wednesday night at the wreck room's invitational jam; and then on the stoogeaphilia gig itself. besides being a versatile, powerful, and creative drummer, jon's got great arrangement ideas, too -- the dual-gtr feedback meltdown at the end of "little doll" that ended the second set was his suggestion, f'rinstance.
if ray liberio tried to act like iggy, then stoogeaphilia would suck, but he doesn't -- he just sings his ass off and is himself. understand the black dog's p.a. wasn't really equal to the task of getting ray's voxxx up above two gtrs 'n' a bass that don't really have "quiet" settings, but next time out at the dog, we plan to use jon's p.a., and at the rose marine theater on may 28th, wreck room wizard o' sound andre edmonson has graciously consented to operate the rose's new sound system on our behalf. ray's his own worst critic, and has always tried to mix down his own voxxx on me-thinks recordings, but his bandmates will and marlin have always overruled him, and we plan to do the same -- they're too good to bury. at the black dog, matt 'n' steffin were pretty much limited to hearing each other and jon, which is fine, because they have _the lock_ anyway; myself, i couldn't really hear much besides jon 'n' ray with _just_ a li'l bit of matt, which is also fine, 'cos i mainly cue off of the voxxx 'n' drums anyway.
i've been playing a little of what nels cline would call "amp du jour" of late, between using marlin's marshall (thanks bud) at stoogeaphilia prac and will's dr. z at fredfest (ditto). for the black dog, it was obvious that my roland cube 60 "amplet" was not gonna be adequate, so matt (bless him) generously allowed me to borrow his peavey classic 50, which i was pleasantly surprised to discover has a lot more balls 'n' midrange than, say, a fender twin, and actually has a pretty crunchy clean sound sans f/x (altho i still employed a big muff, courtesy of the great tyrant's tommy atkins, to supply the requisite over-the-top fuzz factor most of the time).
as incongruous a group of individuals as stoogeaphilia might appear to be, i've never been in another band where the members were so in synch, musically 'n', um, _philosophically_. in our heads, musos of a certain bent try and make every band we're in a li'l utopia when it starts, only to become embittered later on when it doesn't meet our expectations. can't really see that happening with thisun -- we're already talking about what to do once we exhaust the stooge repertoire (and as jon teague points out, the rubric "stoogeaphilia" covers a whole lotta law, as their influence has been so ubiquitous). all i know is, i've been waiting 35 yrs to play this music (which the cats in the rekkid store always usedta laugh at me for liking back in the day). for now, it's wish fulfillment at its best -- like seeing ron asheton play these songs with mike watt 'n' j. mascis ca. y2k, and again with scott morgan's powertrane and deniz tek in ann arbor, 2002. may it always be so.
prolly the high point o' the night for me was after we'd finished, when i was standing talking to ray 'n' matt when the dead kennedys' "california uber alles" came on the jukebox. they both immediately started screaming the lyrics in each other's faces; ray even had all of jello biafra's vocal inflections down. matt told a story about seeing the dk's at a deli in knoxville, tn, he usedta frequent back in his college days. his roommate got knocked out cold by a stage diver, so matt dragged his inert form out of the room to keep him from getting trampled, then ran back inside to see the rest of the show. the next day, ray said he couldn't remember hearing the song or the conversation. perfect.
posted by stashdauber at 9:22 AM
3 Comments:
Just for grins, here's some pics from the night:
http://www.katboy.com/2006_05_18BlackDog/index.html
nice ken. it always makes me happy to hear it when people get so amped doing the things they love. hope this wild ride provides a real cool time (couldn't resist that) for you as long as it lasts. cheers.
was listening to matt's minidisc recording o' the event last night for the third or fourth time and realized that over the closing feedback apocalypse, ray was singing "we will have a real cool time tonight." (we'd opened with "real cool time" as a kind of _statement of intent_.) ray's circle-closing adlib makes this _my perfect gig of all tiiiiiime_. not to make too much of this or anything.
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