May 9, 2003 - Harry's - Northampton with The Ray Mason Band, The Paperbacks
MAX: I had a really good time at our show on Saturday with the Ray Mason Band and the Paperbacks. I arrived just before 9 and was amazed to see a decent crowd already settled in, mostly sitting down and waiting to see a show (rather than the usual bar magnet scene). I will generalize and describe the audience as older - meaning older than me - and not the standard Harry's concert-goer. Or maybe this *is* the scene and I just don't get out much. The Paperbacks put on an excellent set of edgy roots-pop. I would describe them as a cross between X and the Blood Oranges; nice male/female vocal interplay and songs that are simultaneously polished and ragged. Definitely a band I would seek out in the future. Does everyone reading this know Ed, the man with the laptop who has been lurking in the shadows at concerts locally for the past year or so? Next time you see him, say hi. He is almost single-handedly documenting much of the local scene for posterity, recording very good quality soundboard recordings of shows and burning copies for the bands. Whenever Ed is in the house I get nervous. I know the concert is going to be bootlegged (with our blessing) and all the flubs, awkward stage banter, out-of-tune guitars and missed cues will be etched in stone. But that's what makes a live performance fun and exciting... sitting on the fence between brilliance and chaos. So Ed was indeed recording Saturday's show and for some reason he made me more nervous than usual. It took a few songs before I had lost the initial jitters and could loosen up, maybe around "1,000 Times". I started the Translator cover in the wrong key *again*. I rolled my eyes and Ken laughed. After "Photobooth" it was time for our Massachusetts' debut of "Something European". I had been inspired watching 24 Hour Party People, and specifically Bez from the Happy Mondays. There is a scene where the band is playing live and the crowd is just kind of bobbing there heads, looking drab. Then Bez starts dancing with abandon and the crowd starts to perk up. Henning and I discussed it and we thought that SE would be a good song to try it on, since it's super funky and easy to dance to. I handed Hen the bass and picked up the orange fish maracas. After a verse I hopped off stage and started to move around the room, probably blushing madly in the process. But people seemed to like it and were encouraging. My favorite part of the song was entering the dance floor on the City Cafe side, which is basically a meat market playing hip hop. I kept dancing all nerdy with my maracas in the middle of a bunch of people trying their best to act as though they didn't notice - yet it was obvious I was making everyone really uncomfortable. Some laughed and I decided best not to risk getting the crap beat out of me. I made it back to the stage just as the song ended. After the show a kind woman told me I danced like she did "when I'm alone in my house". I appreciated that. The end of the set was fun and energetic, with Anya, Debbie and the bartender taking the cue and dancing at various points. I ended the night lying on the ground with my head balanced precariously on my glass of beer - I'm not sure how I managed not to knock it over. Must have been the lucky orange pants. HENNING: Max, that was Friday. When I arrived at Harry's, I was surprised to see the Paperbacks all set up and ready to start. I guess it really was a 9:30 show. You just never know, when anything is going to happen. Earlier in the week Lesa dn I crammed down a rushed crappy dinner so that we could make it to the Of Montreal and others show by 9:00 when it was slated to start, then we sat there for an hour and a half feeling queezy from rushed food and waiting for sound check after sound check to be finished. Eventually we just gave up and went home. So, I didn't expect to find a room already full of customers and a band just starting playign at 9:30. We were playing as a five piece tonight, and it seemed like a long time since we had done that. It felt really tight, except Campground Daughter which was a debut for this band and felt a little loose. Also loose was my bass playing on Something European. I was hoping that I would be able to deal with the extra string on Max's bass, but it really messed me up. I don't know the notes that I am playing in Something European, it is just a pattern to me and having a new string thrown into the mix kind of messed up the pattern. Oh well, everybody was, hopefully, too confused by what Max was doing to notice any bass flubs. Our four song power ending was great, somehow suddenly we turned everything up a notch in this band. I think it must have been the few show in a row with no keyboards or something. I like it, but I also like the quiet shows. Our flexibility in this regard is one of my favorite things about this band and we need to make sure we still have it. We still practice quietly, so it's not an issue. Word is that many folks in the crowd were singing along to our Translator cover. Time to put that one to bed. One Lady was dancing during One Lady Dancing and was quickly joined by Lisa which made two ladies dancing. I threw in a line somewhere alluding to that. Our Omnivore ending was super powerful, a la "All My Juices", with Brian doing his ultra fast tom drumming. I felt spent and exhausted when we were finished. That's a good thing. The Ray Mason Band was great as always. Hit after hit after hit. They're working on a new album again so they will now have a total of 400. TONY: Last Friday was strange in that the performance seemed secondary to the hanging-out, which is indeed unexpected with a rather introverted person like myself. Maybe it's because, even though we were second on the bill, we still seemed to go on early and finish early. Plus the set raced by. I stumbled all over Campground, an easy song to play. But I deceived myself that it was more difficult than it is and my fingers responded with second-guessing. Max and I shared a dual spotlight with European. Thankfully, Max entertained the crowd heartily so that they probably didn't notice so much my inability to play and sing that song at the same time. Henning was right there in the pocket with me, flubbing up the bass notes as I mumbled lyrics, sang off-key and kept losing the rhythm. The wah-wah pedal was placed on the left side of the mike stand so I crossed my legs so that my right foot could operate it. AND I was standing on my patchcord so I kept losing my balance. Bad, bad, nad. Nag, nag, nag. But Henry's right- the four-song medley came off well. Well, Ed was recording us so we'll see if that's really accurate. Anyway, I enjoyed the night grooving to Ray Mason- he's Northampton's Tom Petty- a million albums, each one with a handful of superfriendly rockpop hits that sound even better live. I love how Tom Shea plays guitar- completely versatile and fills in with all these delicious, catchy licks but never shows up the song or the vocals. He's a songwriter's guitarist. Steve and Frank are a tireless, swingin' rhythm section and Ray is a wise, wise man if only because he knows the value of the Lovin' Spoonful's overlooked canon. But I want to know- how has that little blue guitar lasted all these years the way Ray always bends the neck on it (to achieve a slight bend like you'd get from a whammy bar)? Incredulous, me. So with the RMB (ooh, that's too much like DMB- ugh) in the background, me, Max, Debbie and Anya racked 'em up. I hadn't played pool in over a year and probably have only played 10 times in the last 10 years but somehow with the first break, I knocked in 3 balls at once (two solid, one striped), then I proceeded to knock in about four in a row on that one turn. Things returned to my normal mediocrity thereafter, though Henning snapped a photo that makes me look like a ringer. To prove that I have it all wrong, pool sharks are supposed to START sucky and end strong; I had it the other way around. More fun followed at Jake's No-Frills Dining after Harry's closed. Hmmm, that's all, nothing else to say. Should be lots of pictures to tell the story.	Uncomfortable The New You Campground Daughter 1,000 Times Everywhere I'm Not (Translator) Photobooth Curtain Something European One Lady Dancing The Wichita Train Whistle Sings Something's Taking Over Thug Omnivore