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a trip to Cle

There was a perfect storm of rock shows and my birthday, so when I heard about the Mirrors reunion, and the Boris/Torche/Nachtmystium bill that was naturally skipping St. Louis, my wife found a cheap-enough flight ($168) and insisted I buy it right then while I could. Southwest has a liberal cancellation policy, I wouldn't need a car or hotel, so I went along with the plan and I'm fucking glad I did.

I landed midafternoon last Wednesday and took the rapid from the 'port to W. 25th, had a Dortmunder and tasty fried chicken sandwich at the West Side Market Cafe as my friend wrapped up her shopping. Then to Bier Markt, not open yet, fuck, so Great Lakes. Had their Holy Moses witbier, a little better than meh. No smoking in Cleveland? Fuck me. That's one good thing about living in a mostly red state like Missouri, it takes longer for this bullshit to happen. And then there is a downside. Or four. Like not having places where you can get Chimay, St. Bernardus, Piraat, Kwak (most ridiculous beer glass, ever), et al on tap.

Settled for just a single Old Rasputin, as a night of rock was yet ahead. $6 or $7 a glass, but two or three times the alcohol content of most of the beers at your local market. Leverage, economies of scale, these are good things.

No other photos, I hate carrying shit around. Nachtmystium were fucking badass, though the sound didn't do them much justice. To be fair it's hard to mix metal where speed and high stage volumes are integral components, and the minor keys and chromatics don't lend themselves to clarity in the live setting - they just vibrate differently than major chords. Most of the set was from Instinct: Decay, an album I got to know very well in the last year and some, so I was able to compensate when one of the guitars' melody lines was buried. Assassins is a very different album, but so far I'm digging it. Torche brought it and were probably the winners of the evening for most of the crowd. I've been waiting a long time to experience the bomb strings live and was not disappointed. Boris I've seen before under better circumstances, I think their visual component is important....gotta see the drummer going spazz. Guest Michio Kurihara supplied several brain-melting leads that captured my attention, I've always heard some Eddie Hazel in him in a most pleasing way, but after a bit I was well into my cups and talking was more fun than rocking. And you can't smoke at the bar. At the rock show.

I need to quicken this up, got other shit to do so I'll try to be brief. Caught The Hold Steady's encore at the Beachland. It's great to see a band well into their stride and riding a wave of ever increasing popularity and still having a good time. There is an electricity at shows like that that can't be denied, it reminds me of when GBV first started playing out in '93. I like THS more than I dislike them, so I can see both sides, but it warms my heart that for once there's a band on the rise that deserves the title "rock band." Which is to say I'll take them over your Arcade Wolf Collective drama troupe any day of the fucking week. Mirrors, Saturday, wow. I figured it would be good, but not this good. Jamie Klimek can go outside with the best of them and he was in fine form, every bit as good as when I last saw him play in the late 80s. With the exception of Mike Weldon on drums, this was a 70s Mirrors lineup (Klimek, Crook, Bell, Marotta) and they played only material from that era. Fucking great, heard all my favorite jams. Another highlight was getting a burn of roughs of the next This Moment in Black History album. I liked the last one, but this one, Public Square, is on a whole new level, jamming high-energy rock and skronk into a punk sandwich with a healthy dose of Cle irreverence, badass all the way. I salute you.

That Steelyard Commons development flipped my lid HARD.

the myspace player

I changed the songs on the myspace because I was bugged by the concept of individual tracks. Instead I put up all of side one (songs = Fake Your Own Death, I Will Comment, The Cut-Out Bin, Dream Along, and "You're Obviously the One") as a continuous track, though I had to split it into two parts because of myspace file size limits. We worked a long time to make an Album, so just having Songs didn't feel right. We've Only Tasted the Wine is still up, and I added Fuck Your Self-Esteem because it is so kick ass - aside from the maracas and the short outro guitar solo, this is a live recording.

lazy

Yep. Want more? Here. Spoiler alert: that link reveals the back cover of the LP booklet.

We'll be playing in Chicago, Cleveland and St. Louis in September. The fall is a busy time of year for some of us. Right now more shows in '09 sounds good, but who knows. I'm not crazy about performing, until I'm doing it, then I like it plenty. Otherwise I have to remind myself of that or it just sounds like a drag. But it's been a long time and it will be good to see friends, meet people and hang.