I Want This Life
October 17 - October 28
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10/17 ~ Jonathan Richman
Jonathan Richman is the king of the non-fungible music experience. Also the fakeout ending—crazy for him to still be pulling that shit at this point in life. Electric.
His show is fluid/unmoored, and about as bare bones as you can get. Fuck a sound guy—Jonathan’s got the mixing board up on stage with him. It’s just there sitting on the floor.
I’m obsessed with Tommy Larkin. Asher pointed out how prominently his name was featured on the marquee. He’s up there onstage, looking thoroughly asleep at the wheel. He wears blocky black sunglasses and barely touches the conga drums in front of him—he kind of just rhythmically rests his hands on them. He looks like he doesn’t give half a fuck, but presumably he’s up there taking it all in and just having the time of his life.
I think of Tommy as the ultra-Ringo: easy to write off as dead weight, but in reality, a professional vibe curator, and a powerful supporting character. When Jonathan cued him for a solo, he said, “Let’s see what Tommy’s doin on the drums over there.” Spoiler alert: Tommy wasn’t doing much.
Jonathan is as charismatic and socially inept as ever. He doesn’t use a guitar strap, and he has a cushion on the floor so he can kneel when he plays a solo. Jonathan’s dancing was always impressive. Now, we have to factor in that he’s more or less old as shit.
This will seem off topic, but I want to share. My uncle was in a band that toured with the Ramones. Here’s one of their gig flyers:
He lived in Boston near a Greek pizza shop. Sometimes he’d walk by it at 11 in the morning and see Jonathan in there playing songs on the juke box and dancing alone.
Jonathan Richman is a personal guitar hero of mine. He’s intuitive and emotive, while simultaneously being actually kinda shitty at the instrument.
In my Notes app, I tracked the structure of one song as follows:
Guitar
Shaker
Hips
Maraca
Hips
Guitar
Jingle bells
Hips
Every Jonathan Richman show is a unique artistic product. That’s because of the space he gives himself to riff/improvise, and the way he reimagines old songs. He plays the hits, while also telling you where he’s at in his life. Example: “That summer feeling is here again.” Jonathan’s performance reminded me that every experience we have is once in a lifetime, in a way, so we gotta do what we can to pay attention and take the moment in for all it’s worth.
Angel wrote about how Jonathan reimagined “Old World” in her newsletter. If you wanna subscribe, ask a punk.
I’m interested in your thoughts on these J. Richman lyrics I wrote down at the show:
We gotta suffer a little. Not a lot.
When we refuse to suffer,
When we refuse to feel,
It doesn’t go away.
Do you think you can cheat sorrow?
What’s your vibe on this? Sometimes I feel like distraction is an effective coping mechanism. Seems like redirecting our attention is one of the main things in our emotional tool belt.
Another quote that made it into my notes app at the show: “Vlad the impaler—that guy was effed.” No idea on the context. I’m reading it back to myself in Angel’s voice, but it mighta just been my own thought that I felt was worth writing down.
If any audience has ever sincerely wanted an encore, they were gathered in the opera house in Brooklyn on October 17, at 9:21 PM.
10/18 ~ Viagra Boys and Shame
Viagra Boys tested my dedication to posi vibes reporting. I don’t want to say negative things about bands on the internet. But Viagra Boys are big enough to play Brooklyn Steel, so I think they’ll be fine if I admit that I didn’t like them.
They did a few things that can kill my vibe if not handled with care:
Cowboy hats
Shirtlessness
Indoor sunglasses
Other moments I found objectionable:
The line, “Leave society / be a monkey”
The chant about being “slaves to the shrimp”
The singer’s narration of waking up after metamorphosing into a shrimp
The guy in short shorts playing saxophone and doing aerobics
Their song where the chorus is just chanting “sports” again and again
When the singer said, “I felt like an olive marinated in alcohol when I woke up today” and the bassist flicked his tongue in and out if his mouth a bunch of times really fast.
A couple things I liked:
The singer’s speaking voice
The sax solo that sounded like being attacked by seagulls
A moment where I wasn’t sure what to think:
The singer stroked his own nipples while singing, “I’m a big boy / I need a big girl / to keep it real.” That’s when another shirtless ‘big boy’ wearing sunglasses shimmied onto the stage. The two rubbed their bellies together and poured PBR into each other’s mouths.
Shame, on the other hand, was fire. Angry weirdo bowl cut energy. Deceptively groovy. They kinda play every instrument like a drum. Thank you to legend Jon Carlo for hooking me up with the list spot. The bassist wore gym shorts and ran back and forth across the stage, stopping only to sing an occasional line of backup vox.
We all went to the Drift afterward. Alicia and Julia introduced me to the drummer. A beautiful man with a hell of an accent. Forever jealous of people with accents.
Meanwhile, Jack was working door over at the Broadway. A guy who looked like Steve Bannon said he was on the list. Jack asked his name and it was James Murphy. Jack had a similar interaction with Vanessa Hudgens at Baby’s pre-pandemic.
10/19 ~ Malice K and May Rio
Did not realize this one would be all hands on deck. It very much was. Shouts out to Chanel Beads playing Purgatory the same night. Hope it was fire.
I bet I could have guessed 80% of the attendees. If you’d have just told me “write down everyone you can think of.” Because they were all there.
May Rio is elegant as all hell, and Kelsey is the guest vox MVP.
Malice shared that this was his second time ever playing a show completely sober. Shouts out to all the sober legends holding down the fort out there. Very admirable impressive and cool to see.
A fuckin good band. Malice K will be one of my top picks whenever they figure out a procedure to clone & implant vocal cords.
10/20 ~ The Hellp, The Dare (DJ), and Snow Strippers
by Tyler of Perfectly Imperfect
These are some of my favorite artists right now, but I almost went hermit-mode and stayed home. I was in a bit of a manic state planning the Perfectly Imperfect party and didn’t know anyone else going. But Joe Kerwin assured me over text, “Being alone at the gig is cool.” In the Uber over, though, Andrew Baker texted asking if I’d be there.
Snow Strippers played first. These two have massive cult star power. The sunglasses, weird dance moves, hypnotic lyrics, and deafeningly loud samples. I mean, c’mon. Insanely sick. And if you’ve read this newsletter before, you’ve read about The Dare’s DJ sets, so I’ll keep it short: Harrison killed it, as always. Legend.
I was standing with KJ, Curtis, and Natalie when a bizarre cast of characters pushed their way through the crowd. A short dude with a cigar, dark shades, and a leather jacket, followed by a tall buff man in a suit. Then The Hellp and an entourage of women.
Chandler played a massive rack of synths draped in an American flag. Noah had the audience glued to his every word. The floor took a beating from the mosh pit and felt like it might give way. But there are worse ways to die than falling two stories while “Height” plays in the background right?
It was a special night. Three of the most important genre-blending artists of today leaving it all on the stage as the J-train rides past the Market Hotel windows. The crowd was sweaty from dancing in leather jackets, and the air was dense from fog machines and cigarettes. A k-holing woman searched the floor with her phone’s flashlight for much of the show. Brooklyn is back baby.
10/21 ~ Like a Doll x Lowertown x Chloe MK x Sipper
When I showed up to Alphaville they were playing “Autonomy” on the street so I stayed outside for a min and had a personal dance party.
Sad to say / embarrassed to admit that I missed Like a Doll. Emma is such a legend and in 2018 they were the first person to show up to a show Jack and I played/hosted in our Air Bnb. Someone ended up puking in our bathroom.
Chloe MK is so fucking cool. Dreamy AF. Hazy melodies and whaling distortion.
Sipper plays sensitive and vaguely surfy pop songs. Calm vocals on top of jangly guitars and bouncy drums. Loved when Maraya Avi and Joey traded off singing and then merged into harmony.
Lowertown opened their set with unaccompanied guitar. Instead of strumming, Avsha just thumped the body of the guitar. Eva looked badass wearing the hollow-body super high up. Olive made me wish I knew how to scream. She said the gig was one of the most important nights of her life.
Recurring blog character Chris Danis was there but he was focused on getting himself hyped up for the Perfectly Imperfect party the next night. “Tomorrow, a portal’s gonna open up,” he said.
When Lowertown finished Jack and I booked it over to Jaime’s birthday party. I was hoping to catch Mek’s set so I could write about her. But their neighbors were throwing things at the party from their balcony and I got hit with a tomato.
Jack and I went back to Alphaville and lingered for a bit before walking over to Angel’s party at the Viper Room. Angel was not there. Very few people were. It was a massive industrial hall, and there was only one person dancing. There was a bigger crowd (still less than 15 people) in the smoking area outside. Jack and I had an unhinged meeting of the minds with Charlie Yates—a knock-down drag-out no-holds-barred ideas sesh. Mostly about Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends & Influence People.
10/22 ~ Perfectly Imperfect x Charlie Yates
The Superbowl of New York independent music.
It didn’t feel like the room really clicked with Lucy, which was honestly refreshing. Everyone I meet in NYC is Lucy-pilled, so I can lose sight of how weird his music is. For years I felt like the undisputed biggest Lucy fan in the room, and at this gig, I was back in the saddle. I love watching artists that are important to me win other people over. Lucy is the only poet I really believe in, and it’s important that his music can still be outside people’s comfort zone.
Frost Children went beast mode. Angel talk-sang about the commodification of transgression: “Last Night I dreamt a new Bob Dylan song / It was one he thought about but never got around to writing.” It sounded like the Sweater Song. At the end, Eden rolled their eyes back and looked like they were cumming and dying at the same time.
Harrison has interns now. I watched his set from the green room. Midway through, some young urban professionals rushed huge bags of balloons through the greenroom and frantically pushed them onto the stage.
Harrison had me hold his phone and Airpods during the set. He also gave me his vape. I was hitting it pretty liberally—felt lucky to have the fully curated Dare experience.
Jack and I ran into Chandler from The Hellp in the bathroom. He came in ready to talk and we definitely talked.
Cooper Jack and I pushed off in the direction of Market Hotel hoping to catch a bit of Girls With Guns, Theys with Knives, and Boys with Tinder Gold. We were turned away at 4:04 AM.
Jack slept on my floor and Cooper on the couch. When we got up in the morning, Cooper was nowhere to be found.
10/23 ~ Blood Orange
Meetka hooked it up big time w this +1. Throughout the night, I accumulated four different wristbands as we were ushered in through different layers of VIP access.
When Blood Orange played Baby’s in August, I worked VIP door. So I really couldn’t see anything. And I didn’t make it to Blood Orange x Harry Styles at MSG. So this was my first time really seeing the band.
Dev took the stage in headphones, two shirts, Umbro shorts, and running shoes. The band played ‘in the round.’ I’m not sure why that phrase makes me uncomfortable but it does, and I avoid saying it out loud. But I like the way the setup encourages performers to move around the stage and address different parts of the audience.
Dev had three bandmates. Two were just singers. For many of the songs, Dev wasn’t even singing lead. Some were written and fronted by his bandmates. Which is a cool way to stretch the meaning of the group.
Ian Isiah’s shoulder movement was unlike anything I’ve ever seen. I never imagined I’d find myself in the same room as someone with arms like that.
After the gig, when Dev left the venue and started walking, a fan called out, “Don’t be the dirtbag with the headphones.” Which I think everyone was surprised to hear. But then Dev stopped to talk and I guess it was just a meme reference or something but it was all fine.
I left Brooklyn Steel and met Jack at the Broadway. We ran into Charlie right after he put his name down for karaoke. Charlie gave us advice on booking parties, and we got the lowdown on when CC is actually scheduled to be demolished.
He talked about people missing what’s special about CC. “It’s not just a shitty venue,” he said. “Sometimes it feels like people think it’s like Baby’s or the Broadway, but just dirty.”
10/24 ~ Bex
I love having a night like this built into the week. A quiet chance to see friends you love and actually catch up. I got pizza and they played “Brain Freeze.”
10/27 ~ Home Sweet Home x Julia’s Poetry Reading
Went to Home Sweet Home. Tough line. Everyone just wants to be famous like the guy from The Dare.
Woulda been better off going to Julia’s reading. I hope it was killer : )
10/28 ~ Lowertown x Beabadoobee
On the 28th, Jack slept on an outdoor chair in the hallway outside his apartment. The kids upstairs from my apartment had a Halloween party. Avi was on boots-on-the-ground-reporting duty at Brooklyn Steel. Here’s his review:
It’s Friday evening and Sipper and I are stuffing forgotten objects into the hidden corners of our loft: blank baby tees, nerf bullets, mannequin arms, scattered ramen packets. We’re hours away from hosting the afterparty for the Lowertown / Beabadoobee show at Brooklyn Steel. One question hangs in the still air of our windowless living room—will Beabadoo-be at our party? We finish setting up the booth for Sipper’s DJ debut, powder our noses, and jet off on our bikes.
Lowertown shreds. Their set is tight and loud and full of life. It’s the start of Halloweekend, and Olive (vocals and guitar) is sporting a bloody smile, joker style. She commands the large stage and screams and exclaims and falls on her back. The 15-and-older Beahive are captivated.
“This one is scary,” she warns before the four piece busts into a fast and intricate grungy banger
Avsha (guitar and vocals) rocks back and forth with purpose as he plays twisted guitar lines and beautiful, crazy chord progressions in various alternate tunings. He looks cool af in a blazer and no shirt 🥵.
Eva (aka Birthday Girl) wears her black hollowbody Hagstrom bass high like a punk Beatle. Her infectious energy touches all who are lucky enough to glimpse it.
Joseph gives every inch of himself to raucously rocking the drums. He moves with the band and his style is full of fast fiery fills.
Really sick.
After their set I find myself sitting on the floor by the sound booth with Sipper, Chloe MK, Emma, Caroline, Mina, and Sean Henry. A security guard comes by and informs us we must stand. I look up and spot Momma high up in the VIP balcony.
Beabadoobee puts on a great show. Bea’s voice is beautiful, and the band is pro and locked in. Her infectious pop melodies ring out in the voices of the crowd. Their bassist is swaggy, she plays bass. Sweet to see a string section during the chill portion of the set, counterbalanced by some noisy rock moments that sprinkle on some spice.
In the end, we lose our party to an exclusive evening at James Murphy’s club, Nightmoves. We did not make the list. Back home, we watch Submarine, crack jokes, and eat crackers by our DJ-less booth
😁🤘