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| February 4 , 2005 - The Elevens - Northampton, MA - with The Claudia Malibu and The Chandler Travis Philharmonic | |
| Henning Says: While cleaning off the crazy snow from my car a week ago or so, I managed to snap off my radio antenna. Doh! This meant that while I was driving to the Elevens on Friday night, I couldn't get the classic rock station to tune in. That meant that I had to psyche myself up for the show by listening to the Jazz Safari on Public Radio (the only station that comes in well). When I got to the Elevens, I found Tony reclining in one of the plush sofas in a dark corner of the room. I talked to him for a few second before I realized that he was sleeping. This kind of weird disconnectedness, talking to someone who was asleep and listening to jazz at the wrong time, was symptomatic of the whole night - which never felt like it actually kicked in. Things started about 20 minutes later than we expected and the room was starting to fill up as The Claudia Malibu played. They were great. I love the straight forward rockness of them. I love the VU grooves and the Kinksy sing-along songs. They are humble and understated and natural sounding. Awesome. Between sets, while we were getting our stuff set up, the first Who album was playing in the bar. That's the kind of thing I should have been hearing in my car. Our set started off with an unfortunate technical problem which I later figured out happened because the direct box that Dave's bass was plugged into was resting on top of the drum monitor which had so much kick drum and bass guitar running through it that it shook like mad each time Brian played a drum or Dave played a note. The shaking jostled the box which must have a had a slight loose connection in it. Sorry, was that sound engineer stuff boring? I just needed to write that out to see if it made sense. It did. Anyway, we fixed the crackling buzz-saw sound and went into the rest of the set. I had a hard time connecting with anything. At first all I could hear was my acoustic guitar then all I could hear was bass and cymbals. Later, Brian and Tony also both mentioned that they never felt connected. I think everything was just too loud onstage, which resulted in just an unidentifiable wash of noise. I heard from a number of people that it sounded good in the room, though, so that's good. We never really kicked in and got it right until our last two songs, unfortunately. I think the show was ok, it just didn't reach that level that we sometimes do. Dave Trenholm did a great, great job on bass. Thank you, Dave, from everyone. Special bonus
highlight: Playing Ari Vai's (and old Humbert standby) "Crabcakes".
That sounded excellent and it felt so natural playing it. Unfortunately, most of the crowd left before they finished. Brian turned to me at one point and said that his ears were exhausted. That's how I felt, too. Like I had been being battered with noise all night. I guess it was just too loud and harsh, especially after people started leaving. Fortunately, despite the dwindling crowd, Chandler Travis kept up the energy and played brilliantly. Thank you, to everybody who came to the show. The crowd was impressive and firendly. And a special thanks to those who picked up a CD or T-Shirt. You are delightful. Yee.
Tony Says: When I arrived at The Elevens at 8:30 PM on Friday night, only barkeep Bruce Tull and the soundman whose name I don't know were present so I plopped myself down on one of the couches by the dressing room, reclined and promptly fell right asleep. I' d been up and going since 5 AM teaching, running Hannah and Shelly to the airport (en route to Atlanta to check out the new niece) and then going to a dinner party for us "clinical" teachers- we're no longer "student teachers"- we have licenses but won't collect our Masters'eses until May. Henning was sweet enough to set up my equipment for me while I dozed. However, although I napped for 45 minutes or so, I just couldn't seem to call upon the right combo of je ne sais quois and joie de vive and wound up too laissez faire (pardon my Franch). Yes, for those of you fighting the freedom fight, that means I was low-energy. Bass temp Dave was understandably cautious (although he did a fantastic job) and Henning admits he was distracted by the fresh bass lines being applied to his chestnuts (sounds kinky, eh?) Brian seemed bash-happy and it was his zeal that eventually sparked me into life a handful of tunes from the conclusion of our set, which consisted of:
A funny thing has happened over the course of my last four shows. Twelve of my fellow clinical teachers have come to the last four shows, only they have been coming in different combinations and therefore have witnessed thoroughly different versions of what I do. Mary, Erica, Sarah, Liz & Cara came to the show at The Basement where SFTD played a stripped-down quiet set. Next in December, Henning and I played simply as a duo- no drums, more informally at The Red Cat Cafe where repeaters Liz & Cara were joined by Krysta and Nina. In January, I played my solo set (no SFTD songs, all Westcott originals) at Bishop's Lounge where Asia and Melanie joined Liz, Cara, Sarah, Erica and Krysta. And just when I could finally offer them a real rockfest version of SFTD at The Elevens, the attendees were Tammy, Mari and Kate, three gals who had seen none of the previous shows. Often, these folks have brought along sundry boyfriends, who to a man have left visibly bemused by this colleague of their girlfriend's. After Chandler's
set (which was spunky and fresh and groovy even without all the costumey
paraphernalia), I found myself speaking at length in the frosty 1
A.M. nighttime with the cross-dressing drummer who like myself is
also a Springfield native, although he graduated high school the year
I was born. Since he's been living at The Cape for twenty-odd years,
I informed him that the culture of Springfield has been depleted due
to events like the closing of Johnson's Bookstore downtown, as well
as The Paramount Theater, where I was lucky enough to catch The Replacements
on their last tour together. And then he told me about how he'd seen
The Velvet Underground there a handful of times in the late 60s. Imagine.
And I used to be jealous of Ray Neades for seeing Husker Du play at
The Pulaski Club in 1985. And here's a guy who's seen the original
V.U. several times. Brian
Says: Ah, the gig, the gig.
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