The Scene That Celebrates Itself

When I headed down to the Nashville Cream 2nd Anniversary bash at the Mercy Lounge on Saturday night, I was curious how the evening's theme was going to come off. The idea of local bands covering other local bands was clever, but you had to wonder if it'd come off like a private joke that most of the crowd weren't in on. But what could have turned into a reminder of the local rock scene's perceived insular nature ended up just being one hell of a good time. Even if those who weren't familiar with the oeuvre of the area bands that got covered were treated to an incredibly fun show.

Highlights included Stories That Live kicking off the festivities with Superdrag's "Keep It Close To Me," The Privates doing a killer take on Hotpipes' "Where Is The Shore?" that almost surpassed the original, and The Carter Administration paying tribute to Apollo Up with a ferocious version "Walking The Plank." But the absolute high point of the evening though had to belong to Cortney Tidwell, who dug a bit deeper into the past and did a gorgeous take of Johnny Cash's "I Still Miss Someone" that featured harmonies from Festival's Alexis Powell. Between the relaxed and almost too brief sets from all four bands, the utterly decadent dessert table, and the dollar Yazoo drafts, it made for a pretty swell birthday party.

Also, it's kind of bizarre seeing things you wrote on the interweb plastered on the walls at a bar months later. Reading the excerpts from comment threads that the Scene's staff has postered all over the Mercy was like reliving the unproductive afternoons of countless workdays gone by.

Apollo Up - "Walking The Plank" (mp3) from Chariots Of Fire

I'm A Believer

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band
Sommet Center, Nashville, TN
Thursday, August 21, 2008

It's hard to talk about a Bruce Springsteen show without saying things that haven't already been said a thousand times before. His concerts really do resemble an evangelical revival as much as a rock show. There are sermons, testifying, laying on of hands and even borderline speaking in tongues. You'd think with all the hyperbole that has been written about The Boss over the years, the actual event couldn't possibly live up to the hype. Well, it does. Everything you've ever heard about an E Street Band show is true... in fact, mere words don't even begin to do it justice.

I've got to admit, for the first few songs Thursday night I had my doubts. Don't get me wrong, it was good, but I just wasn't feeling the magic that everyone who had ever seen him live before had told me to expect. But five songs into the set, he went off script and began grabbing posters from the audience on which people had written requests. He spread them out in front of Max Weinberg's drum kit and began choosing the setlist from the floor, starting with "Good Rockin' Tonight," a song they hadn't played in almost twenty years. From that point on the energy in the room changed, and for just shy of three hours, it was non-stop fire and brimstone rock and roll. People who came expecting a greatest hits show might not have got what they wanted, but you certainly couldn't have walked away from the evening disappointed.

It's hard to pick out highlights from a night that was so incredible, but several songs were so amazing that they literally gave me goosebumps, chief among them an incendiary take on "Youngstown" that featured one of the most impressive guitar solos I've ever seen, courtesy of Nils Lofgren. Even a song like "The Rising," which I'd never more than merely liked before, seemed almost overwhelmingly emotional. He also paid tribute to some fallen greats, singing a verse of "I Walk The Line" as an intro to "I'm On Fire," and later celebrating Joe Strummer's birthday with a rousing take of "I Fought The Law." By the time the last notes of "Dancing In The Dark" had faded and the band exited the stage for good, I was torn between feeling exhausted from the experience and not wanting the night to ever end. It wasn't just one of the best concerts I've ever seen (top three definitely), it was one of the most amazing experiences of my life period.

Johnny Cash - "I'm On Fire" (mp3) from Badlands
Portastatic - "Growin' Up" (mp3) from Autumn Was A Lark

More photos from the show are available here, and the complete setlist can been seen here.

Anniversary Song

Tomorrow is Page 300's two year anniversary. I'm not going to wax nostalgic like I did last year, but I figured it was a good excuse for a birthday themed Monday morning b-side. You might assume listening to this song that it's from the Replacement's end of the road, mellowed out All Shook Down era, but it actually dates back to 1987 . It sat unreleased until the All For Nothing/Nothing For All compilation in 1997, and it's being dusted off again for the reissue of Pleased To Meet Me that Rhino is putting out on September 23. All four of the band's Warner Brothers albums are being re-released that day, with a generous helping of b-sides, demos, outtakes and alternate versions.

The Replacements - "Birthday Gal" (mp3)

Sound From The Ground

When the members of Venus Hum started scattering to the four winds a couple years ago (the band is now split between Nashville, Cincinnati and New York), I figured it was probably the beginning of the end for my favorite electronic popsters. Luckily it appears that my fears were unfounded. The band is currently writing and recording songs for a "super secret project," and while the project might be covert enough that they can't tell us what it is, it's not keeping them from blogging about it. In addition to updates on their progress, they're also posting videos of the proceedings, giving us a sneak peak at both the new material and their creative process.

Venus Hum - "Fighting For Love" (mp3) from Songs For Superheroes

Hardcore UFOs

Sometimes I think I am the least clued in music blogger on the planet. Take today for example...

This morning I was lamenting that my personal concert calender is looking the slimest it has all year. I've got Bruce Springsteen coming up next week, but after that there really wasn't a whole lot I was really super excited about until October, when The Wedding Present are in the vicinity (and I still haven't decided where I'm going to see them... Atlanta, Birmingham, and Philadelphia are all possibilities). So as I often do when I want to see what's new and exciting in the Nashville concert universe, I hit up Out The Other to check out Janet's concert sidebar. And there at the bottom was a listing that set my little heart aflutter... Robert Pollard is touring again, and he'll be at the Mercy Lounge on October 18. And here is the part that made me feel clueless... he has a new band, Boston Spaceships.

Now most Guided By Voices faithful know that Uncle Bob forming a new band isn't exactly a rare occurrence; a lot of his solo albums/side projects/collaborations come out under about a billion different names. But this time the band is more, uh... band-y. It even has more than two band members... former GBV bassist Chris Slusarenko and Decemberists drummer John Moen round out the trio. Their debut album, Brown Submarines, will be out on September 9, but you can preorder it now, along with the limited edition vinyl single "You Satisfy Me." And based on the two mp3s that are available so far, it's sounds like it's going to be the grooviest, poppiest, most awesome shit he's laid down since he retired the GBV banner. Feel free to start getting excited.

Boston Spaceships - "Winston's Atomic Bird" (mp3)
Boston Spaceships - "Go For The Exit" (mp3)

In The Wake Of Poseidon

Two years ago I headed down to the Exit/In on a Sunday night to see Ted Leo and the Pharmacists. I'm one of those people who always like to get there in time to see the opening acts, because I've discovered some great bands that way. Unfortunately the club had recently made the switch from running on rock o'clock to actually being punctual, and I didn't get the memo. So when I walked in the door a little over an hour after the advertised start time, I had missed the first band (Les Aus) completely, and The Duke Spirit were already two thirds of the way through their set. Despite the fact that I only caught their last three songs, I was absolutely blown away. Almost as soon as the last notes of their final song faded away, I headed for the merch table to buy their CD. Evidently I wasn't the only one who was impressed, because the line was already about ten deep (apparently this kind of reaction isn't limited to Nashville).

Cuts Across The Land has stayed in heavy rotation around my place ever since then, and it ended being one of my favorite albums of 2006. As the article in this week's Scene points out, the band draws heavily from late 60's psychedelia and the early 90's alternative scene, yet I'm hard pressed to come up with a comparison of who they sound like. They're just... well, awesome. Earlier this year they released their second album Neptune, a sea-themed record that matches the energy of their debut, but with a refined sense of songwriting and slightly lusher production.

After only seeing an abbreviated set the first time I saw them, in April of this year I made a trek up to Lexington to see them open for Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, and so far it's been my favorite show of the year. The band is utterly fantastic, but singer Leila Moss really steals the show. She commands the stage in a way that few front people can, and afterword you feel like there should be a picture of her in the dictionary next to the word "cool." They've become one of my absolute favorite bands, so I was giddy last month when I found out that they'll be returning to Nashville this weekend.

They'll be playing 3rd & Lindsley this Sunday, August 10, as part of WRLT's Nashville Sunday Night concert series. Plex Plex opens, and the show starts at 8 pm. And unlike the Exit/In, they really mean 8 pm, so get there early. If you don't live in Nashville, you can listen to the live broadcast of the show at lightning100.com.

The Duke Spirit - "The Step And The Walk" (mp3) from Neptune
The Duke Spirit - "This Ship Was Built To Last (Live)" (mp3)

Californication

The Wedding Present - El Rey

Almost as soon as the details about The Wedding Present's latest album were released earlier this year, people began referring to it at David Gedge's "L.A. album," as if it's some artistic right of passage that every traveling troubadour goes through. But apart from the titles of a couple of songs and the Tinsel Town references of "Spiderman On Hollywood," El Rey is no more an L.A. album than Take Fountain (the band's previous record) was a Seattle album. The songs explore the same subjects Gedge has addressed throughout his career... love and lust, relationships and breakups, flirtations and affairs, all told in such conversational detail that the lyrics would border on creepy if they weren't so brilliant. The re-pairing of the band with producer Steve Albini has definitely resulted in a slightly darker, more urgent sounding record, but with with more hints of sly humor than Gedge has shown since the early days of Cinerama. Although fans who expected the aggressiveness of 1991's Seamonsters might be disappointed, people who rejoice in witty tales for the lovelorn will love it.

The Wedding Present - "Don't Take Me Home Until I'm Drunk" (mp3)

The Weddoes will be doing a month's worth of North American dates starting in mid-September. Hit up their myspace page for details.

Bingo Hand Job

I had meant to post this song last month when I was doing the acoustic b-sides series, but due to vacation and being preoccupied with other things, I didn't. So I'm extending the series by a week. R.E.M. knocked out this impromptu version of Suzanne Vega's "Tom's Diner" during an acoustic show at the Borderline in London with Billy Bragg in March of 1991. Some of the references are a bit dated now, but still pretty damn funny. Originally released on the Near Wild Heaven single, it saw a wider release later that year on the Tom's Album compilation. For that project, it was retitled "Tom's ?" and credited to Bingo Hand Job.

R.E.M. - "Tom's Diner" (mp3)

photo by Wally Gobetz