The ol’ eardrums are “listening forward” to the week-point-five beginning next Wednesday with a mix of outright ecstatic anticipation and utter terror. Here’s my lineup:
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Oct. the 12th: Boris.
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Oct. the 16th: Frank Turner & The Sleeping Souls.1
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Oct. the 20th: School Of Rock Seattle2 / The Felice Brothers.
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Oct. the 21st: Built To Spill.3
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Oct. the 22nd: The Fastbacks / Mudhoney / Thee Emergency.
The Felices probably won’t be too loud; and while School Of Rock are performing a “grunge” set, they are, after all, teenaged kids. But everything else here should be ear-splittingly fabulous.
Yes, by the way, I do own a set o’ earplugs. They’re even somewhat fancy, designed specially for concert-listening: reduce the decibellage, but don’t muffle the sound. They work well enough, and I certainly don’t shy at wearing them for opening acts. Alas, the earplug experience just can’t match the nekkid-ear live rock and/or roll, so they needs must be removed for the headliners.4
Not usually an issue, in point of fact. But with so many super-loud gigs crammed into such a short space of time, it could get a bit harrowing. Well, the earplugs will be in tow, at any rate.
Looking ahead to November, I daresay that, should the ears survive October, my time has finally come to witness the great Richard Thompson in person. So many times he’s rolled through town, and so many times I’ve balked5 at the $50 ticket-price Sir Richard commands (er, has he been knighted yet?). But, lo and behold, it’s only $30 – and hopefully a bit less than that via craigslist. Incredibly stoked!
Wild Flag are also on the November horizon. While I’m rather despondent that Corin’s having formed her own band, and Carrie’s and Janet’s having formed their own band seems to indicate that the Sleater-Kinney “hiatus” is indeed a permanent break; can’t deny that I’m looking forward to seeing Carrie and Janet in action again. (Can’t deny, neither, that I loved Corin’s record…too bad she never toured Hawaii the Big Island.)
Here ends the most music-hipster/-geek post in this blog’s history. If it ever had any readers aside from my mom, it probably won’t now. (And it surely won’t given the friggin’ footnotes which follow below. But, hey, if you’re gonna be a geek, may as well go the whole nine yards, eh?)
1: Have been meaning, for quite some time, to write about his new album, England Keep My Bones; as well as the handful of other obsessions currently dominating my music device. Can never seem to find the time, however. Suffice to say that the new album is a freaking masterpiece; and that if y’ wanna see ’em live, get tix now, as every show to-date has sold out!
2: If you’ve not seen the documentary Rock School, which helped spawned the various satellite Schools Of Rock modeled after the original, in Philadelphia, all I can say is: run, don’t walk, to the nearest library, bittorrent client, or rental establishment! Do not, repeat not, however, make the mistake of attempting to screen the horrifically unwatchable Richard Linklater fictionalisation (titled, confusingly enough, School Of Rock).
3: Their only U.S. performance this year!
4: I did, once, keep ’em in even for the headline act, a few years ago, noting the stacks and oceans of amplification equipment being rolled onstage for Dinosaur, Jr.. Took them out mid-set for, ah, about two-thirds of one second before determining that there are just some places to which human ears were not meant to venture.
5: Kind of ironic, truth be told, as apart from Robyn Hitchcock and Wilco, Sir Richard is the artist by whom I own the most bootlegs. Granted, it’s a pretty distant third; and granted too that I’ve only seen Wilco in person twice. But still, given my avowed passion for the Richard Thompson live experience, one would have thought…