Note: This post is for everyone, but it was written especially for my fellow fanatics at the Forum on Twilight Hours' website. For videos endorsed by the band, I'd refer you here, here, and here. Enjoy. Please click on any photo in this blog to see a full-sized version of that photo.
We made great time to Dodge City, arriving in under six hours. This allowed us a good night’s sleep. I was excited the next morning because where Dodge City was once a rootin’ tootin’ cow poke’s paradise, it is now more or less part of Mexico owing to its huge immigrant population. I love Mexico and Mexicans. I was very excited to go out for a real Mexican breakfast in a restaurant filled only with Mexicans. There are many such places in Dodge City, and it did not take us long to find a likely place which would not look out of place in Juárez or Chihuahua:
My breakfast, huevos divorciados (“divorced” eggs, so called for the two different salsas) was decent but not outstanding. The beans were lukewarm with unmelted cheese on top. They served chips and salsa for breakfast, which appealed to my curiosity, but sadly, I was not impressed with the product. The atmosphere was great, though, with my wish to be the only non-Mexicans in the restaurant fulfilled. I was a bit disappointed that the waitress spoke clear English, however. Huevos divorciados:
Apart from the “Olde West” look of the downtown area, the rest of Dodge City looks and more like Mexico these days. This change has occurred in the past ten years, or so. When I first started passing through this part of Kansas 15 years ago, there wasn’t a Mexican in sight. Now, extended sections look more and more like Mexico. Here’s a picture of a tire place, complete with hanging tire painted with the word “desponchado,” i.e. the standard Mexican symbol for “flat tires fixed here.” “Desponchado” is not really a word, but it means, “unpunched,” in the sense that your flat tire will be reverted to its original state before a hole was punched into it. A picture:
We left Las Vegas at 4:50 p.m. on Friday, February 5th. We left 10 minutes earlier than planned with a journey of 355 miles and five notable towns between us and our destination for the evening, Dodge City, KS. The “notable” towns on my list are Springer, NM, Clayton, NM, Boise City, OK, Elkhart, KS, and Hugoton, KS. Hugoton, the largest of the five comes in at around 3500 inhabitants. On our day of travel, the prevailing winds made it also the smelliest, on account of some nearby feedlots. The point is that our route was across some of the most depopulated stretches of highway in the lower 48. The run from Springer to Clayton, NM is 87 miles. There is one gas pump between these two towns, but I have never seen it open for business. It’s a long ways.
All of these towns are dying cattle towns, although there has been something of a resurrection in recent years as a tidal wave of Mexicans have moved in to take over jobs that nobody else wants to do. Actually, “resurrection” is a good choice of words, since most of these towns are located along the western limits of the Bible Belt. I find it ironic that the “second coming” for these towns consists of a horde of Central Americans unweaving the fabric that is the legend of the Old West.
In the town of Clayton, we encountered a billboard that is common across the country that surrounds the Texas panhandle. It’s for a steakhouse in Amarillo that offers a free 72 ounce steak. Just make sure that you read the fine print before you commit yourself to it:
All of these towns are dying cattle towns, although there has been something of a resurrection in recent years as a tidal wave of Mexicans have moved in to take over jobs that nobody else wants to do. Actually, “resurrection” is a good choice of words, since most of these towns are located along the western limits of the Bible Belt. I find it ironic that the “second coming” for these towns consists of a horde of Central Americans unweaving the fabric that is the legend of the Old West.
In the town of Clayton, we encountered a billboard that is common across the country that surrounds the Texas panhandle. It’s for a steakhouse in Amarillo that offers a free 72 ounce steak. Just make sure that you read the fine print before you commit yourself to it:
We made great time to Dodge City, arriving in under six hours. This allowed us a good night’s sleep. I was excited the next morning because where Dodge City was once a rootin’ tootin’ cow poke’s paradise, it is now more or less part of Mexico owing to its huge immigrant population. I love Mexico and Mexicans. I was very excited to go out for a real Mexican breakfast in a restaurant filled only with Mexicans. There are many such places in Dodge City, and it did not take us long to find a likely place which would not look out of place in Juárez or Chihuahua:
My breakfast, huevos divorciados (“divorced” eggs, so called for the two different salsas) was decent but not outstanding. The beans were lukewarm with unmelted cheese on top. They served chips and salsa for breakfast, which appealed to my curiosity, but sadly, I was not impressed with the product. The atmosphere was great, though, with my wish to be the only non-Mexicans in the restaurant fulfilled. I was a bit disappointed that the waitress spoke clear English, however. Huevos divorciados:
Apart from the “Olde West” look of the downtown area, the rest of Dodge City looks and more like Mexico these days. This change has occurred in the past ten years, or so. When I first started passing through this part of Kansas 15 years ago, there wasn’t a Mexican in sight. Now, extended sections look more and more like Mexico. Here’s a picture of a tire place, complete with hanging tire painted with the word “desponchado,” i.e. the standard Mexican symbol for “flat tires fixed here.” “Desponchado” is not really a word, but it means, “unpunched,” in the sense that your flat tire will be reverted to its original state before a hole was punched into it. A picture:
What else is in Dodge City? Well, it is famous for its “Boot Hill” where cowhands were buried if they did not survive the long cattle drive up from Texas. The Boot Hill in Dodge City is not that interesting anymore. Nobody is actually buried there. There are many Boot Hills in the West. The one I know best is in Ogallala, NE. In contrast to that of Dodge City, in Ogallala you can see real graves. Here's photo of the less interesting Dodge City Boot Hill:
Also in Dodge City: A funky gunslinger statue:
Also in Dodge City: A funky gunslinger statue:
Also in Dodge City: The Kansas Teacher Hall of Fame. Oh boy!
Also just outside of Dodge City: The place where your hamburgers come from:
Kansas is my least favorite state to drive across. Say what you will about Iowa and Nebraska, but this is the worst:
Upon leaving Dodge City, we made a dash across Kansas. We stopped briefly at Clinton Lake State Park outside of Lawrence to give Floyd and Spook a chance to have a run. After that, we had a little time to kill and because we had not yet driven enough, we tacked on another 60 miles roundtrip to go to Gates Bar-B-Q in Kansas City. Back when I used to drive more frequently en route to Iowa or Chicago, I used pass my whole day driving across Kansas in anticipation of going to Gates:
This was my first sampling of Gates BBQ in years. It’s still very good. Their sauce used to be my favorite, but I must now say that it no longer stands up to my memory of it. It's good, just not as great as I recall. The fries and coleslaw were top notch. The ribs were very flavorful. Excellent beer (Boulevard):
After Gates, we raced back to Lawrence and reconnoitered the club and walked around a bit. We entered the club promptly at 8:00 p.m. to pay our cover, get our “drinks OK” bracelets, and get a sense for what sort of crowd we might be dealing with. Since it was clear that there was not going to be a stampede for the front of the stage, we immediately left to go walk around. A pair of fans behind us beseeched us to be sure that we saw the phenomenal opening act. I tried to smile politely despite my only passing interest in the opening act, Another Holiday. It was only later during the show when one of these fans approached me again to clarify that they had been mistaken about which act was opening. They were TTH fans just like us and had wanted us be sure to see them!
We saw some of the music shops that Matt mentioned, but they were closed when arrived. We too saw the Asian dude playing his shamisen on Massachusetts St. Mostly, though we were killing time. The bars did not look appealing with their hordes of drunken Jayhawks basketball fans. Most of the shops were closed. We ended up at a coffee shop before we finally returned for the club.
The opening act, Another Holiday, it turns out, was in fact pretty good (their website here). They need to maybe work on their charisma and stage presence, but the music was decent synth pop with a lot of 80s influences, I’d say. The singer had a Karen O richness to her voice. There were a couple of multi-instumentalists in the band bouncing from bass to trumpet to percussion to keyboards to trombone. They did, in fact, use a cake pan as a drum to good effect. I was particularly impressed with the arrangements of their music. Each person clearly played a distinct part that added to the whole. I see so many bands where people just pound out chords without giving much thought to the arrangement. I think that this is one factor that separates the wheat from the chaff. We have previous discussed the issue of the many awful warm-up acts that have opened for Trip/Semi/MW/DW over the years. In this particular case, when John got up and complimented the opening act, I had the distinct sense that his praise was genuine. Another Holiday:
Kansas is my least favorite state to drive across. Say what you will about Iowa and Nebraska, but this is the worst:
Upon leaving Dodge City, we made a dash across Kansas. We stopped briefly at Clinton Lake State Park outside of Lawrence to give Floyd and Spook a chance to have a run. After that, we had a little time to kill and because we had not yet driven enough, we tacked on another 60 miles roundtrip to go to Gates Bar-B-Q in Kansas City. Back when I used to drive more frequently en route to Iowa or Chicago, I used pass my whole day driving across Kansas in anticipation of going to Gates:
This was my first sampling of Gates BBQ in years. It’s still very good. Their sauce used to be my favorite, but I must now say that it no longer stands up to my memory of it. It's good, just not as great as I recall. The fries and coleslaw were top notch. The ribs were very flavorful. Excellent beer (Boulevard):
After Gates, we raced back to Lawrence and reconnoitered the club and walked around a bit. We entered the club promptly at 8:00 p.m. to pay our cover, get our “drinks OK” bracelets, and get a sense for what sort of crowd we might be dealing with. Since it was clear that there was not going to be a stampede for the front of the stage, we immediately left to go walk around. A pair of fans behind us beseeched us to be sure that we saw the phenomenal opening act. I tried to smile politely despite my only passing interest in the opening act, Another Holiday. It was only later during the show when one of these fans approached me again to clarify that they had been mistaken about which act was opening. They were TTH fans just like us and had wanted us be sure to see them!
We saw some of the music shops that Matt mentioned, but they were closed when arrived. We too saw the Asian dude playing his shamisen on Massachusetts St. Mostly, though we were killing time. The bars did not look appealing with their hordes of drunken Jayhawks basketball fans. Most of the shops were closed. We ended up at a coffee shop before we finally returned for the club.
The opening act, Another Holiday, it turns out, was in fact pretty good (their website here). They need to maybe work on their charisma and stage presence, but the music was decent synth pop with a lot of 80s influences, I’d say. The singer had a Karen O richness to her voice. There were a couple of multi-instumentalists in the band bouncing from bass to trumpet to percussion to keyboards to trombone. They did, in fact, use a cake pan as a drum to good effect. I was particularly impressed with the arrangements of their music. Each person clearly played a distinct part that added to the whole. I see so many bands where people just pound out chords without giving much thought to the arrangement. I think that this is one factor that separates the wheat from the chaff. We have previous discussed the issue of the many awful warm-up acts that have opened for Trip/Semi/MW/DW over the years. In this particular case, when John got up and complimented the opening act, I had the distinct sense that his praise was genuine. Another Holiday:
Finally. The Twilight Hours.
The show was at the Bottleneck in Lawrence, KS. My sense is that Lawrence has long served as a home-away-from-home for these guys. It was noted during this show that this was the site of the unveiling of the legendary blue vinyl Across the Universe LPs by an A&M rep (“back when they still liked us,” as John said during the show). The youtube record supports this notion. Check out this excellent rendition of “Fool of the Wicked Kind” which was recorded at the Bottleneck. I’ve also stumbled into high quality, professional sound/video excerpts of Toolmaster recorded at this club. Where is the rest of the video from these shows?
I am one of those who is not so interested in style. I’m more of a gear geek. There it was: a Les Paul up next to Matt’s acoustic guitar. Would this mean we’d be seeing some rocking out? Excellent!
The set:
My Return and Yes were both solid and right on.
Dreams—as previously noted on TTH Forum, the arrangement has evolved and improved since the CD came out. It was really delicious.
Never Mine To Lose—This is one of my favorites on the CD and the performance was excellent. The line “We were rusty from the start; there were scratches in the groove” is one of Matt’s all time best lines—right up there with “rise into the blue above the highway” In this performance, I’d especially point to Jacques’ guitar solo. He’s taken Matt’s “homage to Trip Shakespeare” outro solo and quoted from it, but also converted it to his own style. Over the course of the night, his guitar playing was really a huge highlight.
Alone—Matt put on the Les Paul! Excellent! I didn’t think that “Alone” worked when I saw them at the Nomad in April. Sure the sound was bad, but it just didn’t soar like it did when I first heard it at the TS/Semi reunion shows at First Avenue several years back (that song was the highlight of those shows IMHO). Now, however, it seems to be returning to its former glory. I particularly liked the guitar/keyboard duet intro between Matt and Dave. This was the one moment of the show where Dave’s contributions were upfront. I’m a solid fan of the official Stereo Night version, but this version, with this exquisite intro is even better. Nice.
To Love Somebody—I spent the 70s and 80s listening almost exclusively to guitar hero bands like Led Zeppelin, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, the Rolling Stones, etc. The Bee Gees were not on my radar at all. Were I to hear them on the radio, I would tune them out instantly either literally or mentally. The result is that I’ve never heard this song, at least not as far as I can recall. Were it not for the reviews from Omaha from the previous night, I probably wouldn’t have known the title nor would I have known it was a Bee Gees song. I asked Lisa if she knew the song, and of course, she did. As I looked around during the song, many others were singing along. This is all proof that I have lived in a box, off and on, throughout my life. Happily, I’ve come to appreciate such things, this song included.
Forgot Me Now—As previously noted in descriptions of the Omaha show, the guitar histrionics were a new and exciting enhancement to this track.
Soundwaves—I’m no longer confused when Matt sings about being “down.”
Stay Together—I need some more listens to this one to comment.
At some point in the middle of the show, John whispered some suggestion into Matt’s ear. Whatever it was, Matt was emphatically against the idea. Was John suggesting some old nugget from the past? Who knows?
Descender!—More electric guitar rocking out!
Telephone—Thanks to the video on the Current, I know this one pretty well. There was a brief guitar duel between Matt and Jacques at the end, but it never seemed to catch fire. We must cultivate this, because the world needs more guitar jams.
Queen of Tomorrow—A straight up version to end the set.
Encores:
Call Me Up—My camera has a high capacity flash card and can take video. It couldn’t hurt, I thought, to see how it does, so I recorded this song from start to finish. Hearing this song again reinforces my belief that this is one of the future great songs. I loved the early incarnations and I now love the new version. I miss the “Caaaalll meeeee up, have mercy” part of the old version, but the new replacement for this part is just as good (“Call me, you will find me up. I will race to find the phone”). The video is decent. The sound is not perfect, of course, and the video is pixilated. The mic couldn’t handle the low lows of John’s bass and the vocals were lost in the louder passages of the song, but it’s all there. The guitar solo is off the charts and clear as a bell. You can see Jacques smile at the end of it, because he knows that he just nailed it. Actually, the pixilated video of Jacques has a very cool arty low-rez look to it. Take a look here. I’ll leave it posted unless I get a “cease and desist” letter from the copyright owners.
Troublemaker—Ah yes, the new version. I like it. I’ve liked the old versions, but I think this one is better. I think there is even more melody than previous versions. Matt’s ongoing musings about college romances is curious to me, but hey, it’s a good song. I got my heart broken more than once in college, so I can relate (Matt--if you're out there--keep'em coming. You're the Hank Williams of the College Romance Genre). On a related note, there has been some discussion about where TTH should be playing to get some exposure. The Bottleneck, of course, is a quintessential college music bar. I’m not saying that they shouldn’t be focusing on such places, but I have serious doubts about them breaking through as a hip new college music act. The college scene is just not their demographic. Your basic TTH forum member is their demographic, and with a few exceptions, most of us are well beyond college age. It doesn’t help that the 40+ crowd is a tough nut to crack due to babies and jobs and cemented minds. I find myself thinking about acts like Greg Brown or Lucinda Williams or Neko Case. Sure, there are college students who are into rootsy songwriter music, but most of the fans of these acts are firmly in the middle-aged demographic. It seems to me that part of these acts’ success has been their relentless touring in places that would attract their demographic. In the world of Iowa City (which I still know from a distance), this would mean not playing at the Picador (formerly Gabe’s Oasis) and instead shifting over to the Mill Restaurant. The crowds would be older and smaller, but it would be the right demographic. I also find myself thinking about A Prairie Home Companion. How does a well-known, veteran independent Minneapolis act get onto this show? Once again, it’s the right demographic and national exposure. I’m sure it would be a hit for Garrison Keillor’s audience and he could have the ego boost of showcasing his “discovery” in the same way that he did with Greg Brown. I also find myself wondering why neither Dan Wilson nor the New Standards have ever been on his show. Strange.
Stay With You—The show ends with Matt saying they’ll do one more. It was not yet midnight. We demanded two more, but they refused. Omaha ends up with two more songs than us. I am jealous.
Banter. There was not a lot of banter in the show. They probably did the first five or six songs before saying much of anything. When the time finally came, John was explaining the merits of the red vinyl LP. Somehow—and I’m sorry but I don’t exactly recall how it came up—they decided that Matt needed to lick each red LP to enhance the value of each disk. There was some discussion of licking a red lollipop during the process, but this was scrapped because the sugary residue left on the disks would interfere with playback. I wish I’d had the common sense to record some video of the banter.
The sound was decent at the show. There were still a fair amount of yakkers in the crowd, but nothing nearly so irritating as the first gigs at the Nomad. Like usual, I wanted more vocals, which tended to get washed out when the band swelled to high volumes. The guitars and bass were always clear, and Jacques’ solos were always sharp and way out in front. Jacques’ playing has really started to take on more and more of an essential role in the band. We couldn’t hear as much from Dave, though he clearly filled out the sound both on keyboards as well as vocals. Steve’s drumming was right on and tasteful but never brought forward nor featured.
The Crowd. The crowd size was reasonable based on my opinion of where this band should be at this point. I would guess that there was maybe 100-150 people in the bar, though some were there to play pool rather than for the music. It was definitely not packed. But why should it be packed at this point? Trip Shakespeare and Semisonic are long gone and their historic college town fan base has moved on as well. These guys are essentially starting over but with the advantage that they know the ropes and have many contacts in the business. I think that the model for success requires long-term, steady commitment to spreading their music through countless small live shows where their target demographic will have a chance to see them. I think that with this approach, their fan base will gradually grow not unlike that of the success that The New Standards have achieved over the past few years. Aside from this approach, their other hope for success would be winning the music lottery of sorts—i.e. meeting the right guy at the right time or getting some all-star producer or getting “discovered” by some influential person. The probability of these things increases as you do more and more small shows. Stereo Night is really great and stands up on its own, but these guys still shine brightest when seen live. It all makes sense once you have seen them.
Comparison with the Nomad. I was present at the first TTH show at the Nomad last April (my review of that show here). Needless to say, I was not blown away by that show. In fact, I am glad that I did not drag my Minneapolis cousin out for that show. I’m sure she would’ve asked herself, “Why on earth has he been so excited about these guys for all these years?” It was clear that the first shows were woodshedding, just trying to get it together. Aside from the abysmal sound and ambiance, the band clearly had not gelled at all. It was all very tentative especially from Jacques, Steve, and Dave. Things are different now. It’s a band with each member filling a vital role. Aside from Matt and John, Jacques seems to get most of the spotlight on account of his incendiary solos, but Dave and Steve are adding equally necessary components to make it whole. Things are looking really good to me.
Flash photography. There were many fans in the room taking pictures, but nobody used a flash. I’m sure that flashes are annoying for the performers, but the lack of a flash prevents decent pix. Most of mine were significantly underexposed and had to be substantially tweaked after-the-fact to make them viewable.
Chatting with the band. After the show ended, we immediately left the show. The band was available to chat with fans, but I’ve never been one to want to do so. It all seems so awkward to me. Besides, we still had to drive two hours west to Salina for the night. However, we did have to hit the toilet before we left. Jacques in there freeing the beers he drank during the show. Now this really is an awkward situation! How do you chat up one of the stars while you’re concentrating on aiming your urine into a urinal so as not to have backsplash? I couldn’t do it, but one of my fellow fans was in there with who was not so taciturn as I. Praise was followed by a request to post some video on Facebook. Jacques very graciously accepted the praise and was cool about the video.
Driving home. The 10-hour drive home on Sunday, my 45th birthday, was long. We’d already experienced the excitement of western Kansas on Saturday. We did have some more disappointing Mexican food in Dodge City. This batch was worse than breakfast the previous day. We were especially put off by the cloves in the tomato salsa, which was just weird. But aside from our unhappy lunch, we mostly drove and drove. We wanted to get home to root for Saints in the Superbowl. Spook and Lisa took care of some of the driving while I read Bill Bryson’s “A Walk in the Woods” out loud to them:
Overall, we ended up driving 1400 miles in 50 hours, an average of 28 mph including all stops for food, gas, motels, dog walks, and the show. Our weather on the way home was good up until the last three hours when we hit a little snow and fog which slowed us down. On three separate occasions, we drove past herds of 15-20 antelope grazing in the grass a few feet off of the road on the wrong side of the fence. Luckily, none were waiting for us like ghosts in the fog in the middle of the road.
And every now and then, Methuselah himself, ancient Floyder would gaze ahead through rheumy eyes to make sure all was well:
The show was at the Bottleneck in Lawrence, KS. My sense is that Lawrence has long served as a home-away-from-home for these guys. It was noted during this show that this was the site of the unveiling of the legendary blue vinyl Across the Universe LPs by an A&M rep (“back when they still liked us,” as John said during the show). The youtube record supports this notion. Check out this excellent rendition of “Fool of the Wicked Kind” which was recorded at the Bottleneck. I’ve also stumbled into high quality, professional sound/video excerpts of Toolmaster recorded at this club. Where is the rest of the video from these shows?
I am one of those who is not so interested in style. I’m more of a gear geek. There it was: a Les Paul up next to Matt’s acoustic guitar. Would this mean we’d be seeing some rocking out? Excellent!
The set:
My Return and Yes were both solid and right on.
Dreams—as previously noted on TTH Forum, the arrangement has evolved and improved since the CD came out. It was really delicious.
Never Mine To Lose—This is one of my favorites on the CD and the performance was excellent. The line “We were rusty from the start; there were scratches in the groove” is one of Matt’s all time best lines—right up there with “rise into the blue above the highway” In this performance, I’d especially point to Jacques’ guitar solo. He’s taken Matt’s “homage to Trip Shakespeare” outro solo and quoted from it, but also converted it to his own style. Over the course of the night, his guitar playing was really a huge highlight.
Alone—Matt put on the Les Paul! Excellent! I didn’t think that “Alone” worked when I saw them at the Nomad in April. Sure the sound was bad, but it just didn’t soar like it did when I first heard it at the TS/Semi reunion shows at First Avenue several years back (that song was the highlight of those shows IMHO). Now, however, it seems to be returning to its former glory. I particularly liked the guitar/keyboard duet intro between Matt and Dave. This was the one moment of the show where Dave’s contributions were upfront. I’m a solid fan of the official Stereo Night version, but this version, with this exquisite intro is even better. Nice.
To Love Somebody—I spent the 70s and 80s listening almost exclusively to guitar hero bands like Led Zeppelin, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, the Rolling Stones, etc. The Bee Gees were not on my radar at all. Were I to hear them on the radio, I would tune them out instantly either literally or mentally. The result is that I’ve never heard this song, at least not as far as I can recall. Were it not for the reviews from Omaha from the previous night, I probably wouldn’t have known the title nor would I have known it was a Bee Gees song. I asked Lisa if she knew the song, and of course, she did. As I looked around during the song, many others were singing along. This is all proof that I have lived in a box, off and on, throughout my life. Happily, I’ve come to appreciate such things, this song included.
Forgot Me Now—As previously noted in descriptions of the Omaha show, the guitar histrionics were a new and exciting enhancement to this track.
Soundwaves—I’m no longer confused when Matt sings about being “down.”
Stay Together—I need some more listens to this one to comment.
At some point in the middle of the show, John whispered some suggestion into Matt’s ear. Whatever it was, Matt was emphatically against the idea. Was John suggesting some old nugget from the past? Who knows?
Descender!—More electric guitar rocking out!
Telephone—Thanks to the video on the Current, I know this one pretty well. There was a brief guitar duel between Matt and Jacques at the end, but it never seemed to catch fire. We must cultivate this, because the world needs more guitar jams.
Queen of Tomorrow—A straight up version to end the set.
Encores:
Call Me Up—My camera has a high capacity flash card and can take video. It couldn’t hurt, I thought, to see how it does, so I recorded this song from start to finish. Hearing this song again reinforces my belief that this is one of the future great songs. I loved the early incarnations and I now love the new version. I miss the “Caaaalll meeeee up, have mercy” part of the old version, but the new replacement for this part is just as good (“Call me, you will find me up. I will race to find the phone”). The video is decent. The sound is not perfect, of course, and the video is pixilated. The mic couldn’t handle the low lows of John’s bass and the vocals were lost in the louder passages of the song, but it’s all there. The guitar solo is off the charts and clear as a bell. You can see Jacques smile at the end of it, because he knows that he just nailed it. Actually, the pixilated video of Jacques has a very cool arty low-rez look to it. Take a look here. I’ll leave it posted unless I get a “cease and desist” letter from the copyright owners.
Troublemaker—Ah yes, the new version. I like it. I’ve liked the old versions, but I think this one is better. I think there is even more melody than previous versions. Matt’s ongoing musings about college romances is curious to me, but hey, it’s a good song. I got my heart broken more than once in college, so I can relate (Matt--if you're out there--keep'em coming. You're the Hank Williams of the College Romance Genre). On a related note, there has been some discussion about where TTH should be playing to get some exposure. The Bottleneck, of course, is a quintessential college music bar. I’m not saying that they shouldn’t be focusing on such places, but I have serious doubts about them breaking through as a hip new college music act. The college scene is just not their demographic. Your basic TTH forum member is their demographic, and with a few exceptions, most of us are well beyond college age. It doesn’t help that the 40+ crowd is a tough nut to crack due to babies and jobs and cemented minds. I find myself thinking about acts like Greg Brown or Lucinda Williams or Neko Case. Sure, there are college students who are into rootsy songwriter music, but most of the fans of these acts are firmly in the middle-aged demographic. It seems to me that part of these acts’ success has been their relentless touring in places that would attract their demographic. In the world of Iowa City (which I still know from a distance), this would mean not playing at the Picador (formerly Gabe’s Oasis) and instead shifting over to the Mill Restaurant. The crowds would be older and smaller, but it would be the right demographic. I also find myself thinking about A Prairie Home Companion. How does a well-known, veteran independent Minneapolis act get onto this show? Once again, it’s the right demographic and national exposure. I’m sure it would be a hit for Garrison Keillor’s audience and he could have the ego boost of showcasing his “discovery” in the same way that he did with Greg Brown. I also find myself wondering why neither Dan Wilson nor the New Standards have ever been on his show. Strange.
Stay With You—The show ends with Matt saying they’ll do one more. It was not yet midnight. We demanded two more, but they refused. Omaha ends up with two more songs than us. I am jealous.
Banter. There was not a lot of banter in the show. They probably did the first five or six songs before saying much of anything. When the time finally came, John was explaining the merits of the red vinyl LP. Somehow—and I’m sorry but I don’t exactly recall how it came up—they decided that Matt needed to lick each red LP to enhance the value of each disk. There was some discussion of licking a red lollipop during the process, but this was scrapped because the sugary residue left on the disks would interfere with playback. I wish I’d had the common sense to record some video of the banter.
The sound was decent at the show. There were still a fair amount of yakkers in the crowd, but nothing nearly so irritating as the first gigs at the Nomad. Like usual, I wanted more vocals, which tended to get washed out when the band swelled to high volumes. The guitars and bass were always clear, and Jacques’ solos were always sharp and way out in front. Jacques’ playing has really started to take on more and more of an essential role in the band. We couldn’t hear as much from Dave, though he clearly filled out the sound both on keyboards as well as vocals. Steve’s drumming was right on and tasteful but never brought forward nor featured.
The Crowd. The crowd size was reasonable based on my opinion of where this band should be at this point. I would guess that there was maybe 100-150 people in the bar, though some were there to play pool rather than for the music. It was definitely not packed. But why should it be packed at this point? Trip Shakespeare and Semisonic are long gone and their historic college town fan base has moved on as well. These guys are essentially starting over but with the advantage that they know the ropes and have many contacts in the business. I think that the model for success requires long-term, steady commitment to spreading their music through countless small live shows where their target demographic will have a chance to see them. I think that with this approach, their fan base will gradually grow not unlike that of the success that The New Standards have achieved over the past few years. Aside from this approach, their other hope for success would be winning the music lottery of sorts—i.e. meeting the right guy at the right time or getting some all-star producer or getting “discovered” by some influential person. The probability of these things increases as you do more and more small shows. Stereo Night is really great and stands up on its own, but these guys still shine brightest when seen live. It all makes sense once you have seen them.
Comparison with the Nomad. I was present at the first TTH show at the Nomad last April (my review of that show here). Needless to say, I was not blown away by that show. In fact, I am glad that I did not drag my Minneapolis cousin out for that show. I’m sure she would’ve asked herself, “Why on earth has he been so excited about these guys for all these years?” It was clear that the first shows were woodshedding, just trying to get it together. Aside from the abysmal sound and ambiance, the band clearly had not gelled at all. It was all very tentative especially from Jacques, Steve, and Dave. Things are different now. It’s a band with each member filling a vital role. Aside from Matt and John, Jacques seems to get most of the spotlight on account of his incendiary solos, but Dave and Steve are adding equally necessary components to make it whole. Things are looking really good to me.
Flash photography. There were many fans in the room taking pictures, but nobody used a flash. I’m sure that flashes are annoying for the performers, but the lack of a flash prevents decent pix. Most of mine were significantly underexposed and had to be substantially tweaked after-the-fact to make them viewable.
Chatting with the band. After the show ended, we immediately left the show. The band was available to chat with fans, but I’ve never been one to want to do so. It all seems so awkward to me. Besides, we still had to drive two hours west to Salina for the night. However, we did have to hit the toilet before we left. Jacques in there freeing the beers he drank during the show. Now this really is an awkward situation! How do you chat up one of the stars while you’re concentrating on aiming your urine into a urinal so as not to have backsplash? I couldn’t do it, but one of my fellow fans was in there with who was not so taciturn as I. Praise was followed by a request to post some video on Facebook. Jacques very graciously accepted the praise and was cool about the video.
Driving home. The 10-hour drive home on Sunday, my 45th birthday, was long. We’d already experienced the excitement of western Kansas on Saturday. We did have some more disappointing Mexican food in Dodge City. This batch was worse than breakfast the previous day. We were especially put off by the cloves in the tomato salsa, which was just weird. But aside from our unhappy lunch, we mostly drove and drove. We wanted to get home to root for Saints in the Superbowl. Spook and Lisa took care of some of the driving while I read Bill Bryson’s “A Walk in the Woods” out loud to them:
Overall, we ended up driving 1400 miles in 50 hours, an average of 28 mph including all stops for food, gas, motels, dog walks, and the show. Our weather on the way home was good up until the last three hours when we hit a little snow and fog which slowed us down. On three separate occasions, we drove past herds of 15-20 antelope grazing in the grass a few feet off of the road on the wrong side of the fence. Luckily, none were waiting for us like ghosts in the fog in the middle of the road.
And every now and then, Methuselah himself, ancient Floyder would gaze ahead through rheumy eyes to make sure all was well:
