Modest Mouse- Charlottesville

A friend and I made the trip to the Charlottesville Pavilion last night to see Modest Mouse. It was my first time at the Pavilion, and I was impressed. It is a open air amphitheater, but the vast majority of seating is covered by a raised canopy. All seats were general admission, except a slender row of “box seats” in the middle, which consisted of tables with four chairs. Most of the box seats were empty, which was a waste. We were directly behind the box seats. It was a great night for a show; a cool breeze playing games with the smoke from the back of the stage and the lights was blowing left to right through the theater .

The Dirty Dozen Brass Band from New Orleans opened the show with a mix of funky New Orleans style jazz. They put on an energetic show and were great musicians, but I couldn’t help think how much better it would be to see them in a club pack full of inebriated people full of love and a desire to dance. They even played a funky version of “When the Saints go Marching in,” which should have invoked a mass Sunday sing along, but didn’t. I’m not familiar with their music, but the highlight for me was a funky blues number during which the trombone player sang about having a fat woman who loved him all night long. Her hips were “deep and wide” like the river, and he had to swim across to get to the other side. All the while the rest of the band is chanting, “Don’t tell nobody.” I’ve read that the band recorded a rendition of Marvin Gaye’s entire What’s Going On album in response to Hurricane Katrina. They played a body moving version of the title track.

In between bands, I made a trip to the bathroom to get rid of the one beer I drank. I have to say it was the nicest bathroom I’ve been to at an amphitheater. The line moved very fast. I’ve always had a fear of urinals. We won’t go into the Freudian meanings in that, but I had to go so bad I didn’t care that there was an extremely tall guy next to me, and the dividing wall meant nothing to him.

I got back to my seat in time to see the arrival of a mid-forties woman with a much younger man in the box directly in front of my friend. She was wearing a thin white sun skirt (my knowledge of fashion vocabulary is limited). I’m not sure if she didn’t check it before she left the house or if she intended it, but her thong was a much whiter, brighter, and visible shade than her skirt. At the end of the show, my friend said he felt like he owed her some money.

About the time my friend audibly and cheerfully pondered whether women wear bras in Charlottesville, a young lady in her late teens or early twenties passed on her way to the pit. She wore a extremely thin open-backed shirt, and it was very obvious she wasn’t wearing a bra because the headlights were on high beam. She was also wearing an equally thin sun skirt, and it was equally obvious that she was wearing no “dra’rs,” as we like to say in the country. She appeared to be on something- ecstasy perhaps? As she passed the old man who was walking the aisles selling bottled water, he rubbernecked to get a second glance, raised his eyebrows, and shook his head. I’m sure she made some young men in the pit very happy last night. Ahh, to be young.

A long siren signaled that Modest Mouse was making their way to the stage. They exploded into “Dance Hall,” which sent violent undulations through the crowd. The band blasted from song to song with no banter. At one point Johnny Marr, former guitar player for the Smiths who joined MM in 2006, introduced the band and the return of The Dirty Dozen Brass Band for “The Good Times are Killing Me,” the horn intro from Good News…, and “This Devil’s Workday.”

The set list included a mix of songs from early to newer albums. I was happy to hear songs from my favorite album, The Moon and Antarctica. A couple surprises were “Wild Pack of Family Dogs” and “Paper Thin Walls.” Lead singer Isaac Brock donned his electric banjo for several songs, including the aforementioned “This Devil’s Workday,” which was a treat. They rocked several songs from the more polished new album- “Invisible,” “Education,” “Missed the Boat,” “Fire it Up,” and the popular “Dashboard.” Even though the album is heavily produced, the band’s live sound is closer to it’s loud and chaotic independent roots. One of the highlights from the Good News… album was “Satin in a Coffin,” which Brock sang/barked with conviction.

Sadly, in the age of Mp3s I don’t know the names of all the songs, in particular the faster, older songs. After the break the band came back for an encore and treated the crowd to the hit “Float On,” which prompted the typical stadium rock sing-a-long. It was nice. It was a nice night. I would have liked to to have heard “Tiny Cities Made of Ashes,” “Little Motel,” or “Parting of the Sensory,” but I can’t complain with the show they gave us. The band played hard, and they were sincere with their thanks at the end of the night.

Ferlinghetti and throwing books away

The school library went through the stacks and decided to throw away what is considered great books by universal artistic standards to make way for more of what is considered good books by American consumerism standards. I’m not complaining because I get a lot of free books.

One I picked up is Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s A Coney Island of the Mind. For laymen, Ferlinghetti, along with Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, is one of the quintessential Beat generation poets. Although I read a lot of Kerouac in my late teens and loved it, I never got around to Ferlinghetti. It is a thin volume, and the first section is the title’s namesake. He explains that these poems represent “…a kind of circus of the soul.” It is surreal with images of nature, city, absurdity, sex, drunkenness, and beauty with which he questions existence and the poet’s role.

The second section is a collection of poems he improvised for experimental jazz accompaniment. The third section is a collection of poems from his first book, which he decided to reprint in his second book. Why? I’m not sure.

Overall, it’s a good find with several memorable poems and images.

Here’s one that is often anthologized:

Constantly risking absurdity

and death

whenever he performs

above the heads

of his audience

the poet like an acrobat

climbs on rime

to a high wire of his own making

and balancing on eyebeams

above a sea of faces

paces his way

to the other side of the day

performing entrechats

and sleight-of-foot tricks

and other high theatrics

and all without mistaking

any thing

for what it may not be

For he’s the super realist

who must perforce perceive

taut truth

before the taking of each stance or step

in his supposed advance

toward that still higher perch

where Beauty stands and waits

with gravity

to start her death-defying leap

And he

a little charleychaplin man

who may or may not catch

her fair eternal form

spreadeagled in the empty air

of existence

Here’s another that is not often anthologized:

See

it was like this when

we waltz into this place

a couple of Papish cats

is doing an Aztec two-step

And I says

Dad let’s cut

but then this dame

comes up behind me see

and says

You and me could really exist

Wow I says

Only the next day

she has bad teeth

and really hates

poetry

Control - Ian Curtis

I didn’t listen to Joy Division, but I have a new appreciation for their music after seeing this bio pic about singer Ian Curtis. I’m also looking forward to seeing the new documentary about the band.

The film is great even if you have never listened to the band. It takes place in Britain in the late 70s and early 1980 as the post punk scene is burgeoning. It follows Ian and the band as they develop a sound and begin to grow a following. Throughout the movie, Ian, who is a little different than everyone else, grows more distant from those around him as the pressures of family and band increase. His lyrics are poetic and dark, and his stage presence has that unique possessed feeling you get from the great performers. He becomes epileptic, which increases his emotional distance and depression. It’s filmed in beautiful black and white, which reflects the town they lived in and wanted to escape from, as well as his depression. Speaking of the town, Ian says in the film, “Every thing’s gray.”