The Jams Were Kicked Out And Then The Jams Kicked Back

     This past weekend was a flurry of activity that has left me dehydrated, exhausted, suffering from a head cold/fever and yet again, questioning how I've allowed things to play out the way that they have.  There was so much going on that, sadly, I had to pass on the Eyehategod/Obsessed show.

     It all started on Friday with the MC50 show at Mr. Smalls.  The MC50 is a band that, MC5 guitarist, Wayne Kramer put together for the 50^th anniversary of the band.  He enlisted Brendan Canty of Fugazi on drums, Kim Thayil from Sound Garden on guitar, Billy Gould from Faith No More on bass and Marcus Durant from Zen Guerrilla on vocals.

     The night got off to a rough start due to the severely undercooked black bean burger that I was served.   I spent the next three days wondering what the thing was going to do to me.  Luckily, the burger didn't make a hard left and knock me on my ass.  Looks like I'll be going back to the veggie wrap from now on.

     The usual front of house engineer wasn't working so there was not as much attention to detail put into the mix.  It didn't help things all that much that the singer from one of the opening acts seemingly didn't know that she needed to actually sing into the microphone and not microphone adjacent.

     Then Wayne Kramer walked on stage.  As many times as I have listened to Kick Out The Jams, I thought I knew what I was getting myself into.  There was no preparing for the audio airstrike that he called in when he started playing.  I had to put my jaw in my back pocket because I was tired of it being on the floor.  Wayne would have been in great form for someone in their thirties let alone being a septuagenarian.  No wonder he put together a band full of heavyweights.  I don't think anyone else would have been able to keep up with him.  All of the songs had a driving chunkiness to them that served them well in a live setting.

     Saturday began with a journey to Spring Hill Brewing for a record fair that was put together by Mike from Mind Cure Records.  I came up with Russian bootleg pressings of the first two Stooges records.  They sound like hell since they were pressed from copies of copies but they sure do look cool with the Cyrillic writing on the covers.

     I came across Submachine’s Now That I Have Given Up Hope, I Feel Much Better on green vinyl. I had been waiting to cross paths with another copy of that record for quite some time.  The copy I bought years ago was pressed on recycled vinyl and there are bits of center label pressed into the grooves which can be hazardous to turntable needles.

     Other finds included an early pressing of Damaged by Black Flag and a pressing of The Velvet Underground And Nico from the mid-80s that was signed by drummer Moe Tucker.  There were a lot of other records that I would have liked to have brought home but I came to my senses when I realized that I was about to buy different pressings of a handful of records that I already owned so I decided against buying even more records that I already owned.  Look at me showing restraint in my old age.

     I almost missed out on The Stooges and Funhouse bootlegs because someone else got to them before I did.  Fortunately, I had picked up a copy of Houdini from the Melvins that he wanted so a compromise was struck and we traded.  It just so happened that he was as big of a Melvins fan as I was a Stooges fan so we both lucked out.

     After a stop at Sushi Fuku on S. Craig St., I was off to the Carnegie Lecture Hall to see Henry Rollins and his travel slideshow.   Instead of his usual spoken word, the travel slideshow is a presentation of photos he has taken from journeys to every corner of the world.  It's still an entertaining and inspiring two and a half hour show.  There were pictures and stories from the Middle East, North Korea, Siberia and Africa.

     The final photo was a picture taken by Spot, Black Flag's former sound engineer.  It was taken in the rehearsal room during Henry's audition to join the band and captured one of the moments that forever altered the course of his life.

     The problem I have with shows such as that, or a really good punk show, is that I always end up having some sort of existential crisis which usually begins on my way back to the car.  I start double guessing every decision I have ever made to that point and wondering what would have happened if I hadn't gone the day job route.

     The panic and the anxiety were relieved in no way whatsoever by my Sunday activities of grocery shopping, laundry, yard work and defrosting the freezer in the basement. What a low impact existence I have.