As part of the official B&W 80's nostalgia weekend, we present a shot of Camper Van Beethoven at the Old Town School festival.
Also seen and heard this weekend:
Thursday: Attended Cocokat's performance at a gallery in the meat-packing district. This has nothing to do with '80s nostalgia, except it caused me to reflect that instead of going to see friends' bands in basements, we now are the kind of people who go to see friends in art galleries. I'm not sure how this happened. C. sang jazz standards over slide projections of birds in the wild. She has a lovely voice, which (as one who can't carry a tune in a basket) fills me with wonder. There's a bit of context for the performance on her site under the July 13 entry. I wish the gallery had given us this as part of the program, as we didn't really have any context and so, I fear, lost part of the intent.
Friday: Saw X at the uber-corporate House of Blues, a venue I've never enjoyed. (See E.'s notes on this as well.) Back in the sunset days of WQAX, K. and I used to do a late-night radio show which inevitably included an X song. Deep down, there was a little piece of both of us that secretly wanted to be Exene. K. got to live that out a bit, but my rock & roll dreams were confined to my vintage dress collection.
Saturday: CVB in the park. What a sight to see middleaged dads swinging their toddlers and singing along to "I was a dumbshit, and I was a fuckup" during "Wasted." I was surprised at how many songs I recognized and how many words I remembered. Until they brought out their laptops and electronic beats for the "Tusk" cover, it was like the '80s never went away. A friend pointed out that these kinds of tours aren't really any different from the revival tours of '60s acts flocked to by Baby Boomers (and others). It may be true then that inevitably we become what we despise.
Posted at July 13, 2003 05:46 PMnow it is you with the situationism!
I had the "parent sings unlikely song to child" experience at the Sex Pistols reunion show here a few years ago.
Posted by: mike on July 13, 2003 11:46 PMhahahahahha
just had to laugh at the image conjured up by mike's comment above.
Yes, we have reached the gallery performance level of maturity, eh?
I'm glad it helped for you to read what I posted about the performance. Actually, it was intentional that none of that was readily available at the show, so that everyone in attendance could draw their own conclusions and respond to the event in their own way. Rather than announcing to everyone, "this is a performance about *blank*." Anyone who inquired further of the gallery staff would have received the same information I posted on my blog, though.
I'm so glad you both were there, it meant a lot to me!!
I'm so jealous that you saw X this weekend...I always wanted to be Exene for a day, or forever, too.
I remember dancing to CVB in Bloomington at.....was it Jake's?? The nostalgia bug bites me, too.
QAX....*sigh* the nostalgia here is too much for me right now! And I'm already so emotional that the AL beat the NL at the last minute in tonight's All-Star game. I must lie down now.
Re background material: Well, that is an interesting approach, but I am not sure if not having the information enhanced my experience. Lots of the useful context (photos taken by someone's grandfather, your choice of songs, etc.) was not intuitively apparent, and so I, at least, was a bit puzzled. Or maybe I just don't like birds. ;) But this is nit picking, and not really worth worrying about regarding what was otherwise a very nice evening.
Posted by: Anne on July 16, 2003 09:00 AM