One down, nine to go

Ten shows in ten days.

I should say that I didn't do a lot of advance planning on this project, in terms of lining up tickets for show buddies, so I'm winging it a little bit. 

Here's a tentative list of shows:
9/30: Raveonettes.
10/1: Team Spirit.
10/2. LVL Up, Mitski.
10/3: Sunset Guns.
10/4: Screaming Females. 
10/5 Afghan Whigs.
10/6: Bear Hands. 
10/7: Charli XCX. 
10/8: The Blow.
10/9: Judas Priest
10/10: Muffs. 

I'd originally planned to see Ariel Pink on Thursday, and King Tuff next Wednesday, but both shows are sold out. It's looking like tickets for Afghan Whigs are getting scarce, and Charli XCX might follow suit, so this is subject to change.

First up, Raveonettes. $25 at Music Hall of Williamsburg.

(I got shitty photos, because I just used my phone and didn't want to be one of those assholes who was snapping shots the whole time instead of enjoying the show).

This was a great show. It's the second time I've seen the Raveonettes, and I was glad to get some last-minute confirmations from friends who wanted to come along. Thanks Derrick, Jackie, and Ryan for getting me started on the right foot!

I got held up on the subway between Union Square and Bedford Avenue, then stopped to join Jackie and Ryan for a drink near the venue, so I missed most of the opening act, Coves. We caught four of their  songs, enough to appreciate the huge sound from just a single guitarist, and to see the singer play tambourine with a drumstick and wave her her floppy sleeves around like a deranged druid, and to her her declare, "this is our last song, like, uh, yeah" as the guitar kicked in to cut off her ramblings.

When the Raveonettes came on, Jackie pointed out that we were in a generally old crowd, which surprised me a bit, but allowed Jackie and Derrick  to commiserate over recent experiences in which they'd been the oldster in a crowd of young 'uns.

To be totally honest, things didn't get off to a great start for me. When the show started, I ended up stuck behind an obnoxious guy with a flock of seagulls hair cut who swayed around and occasionally hit me with the jacket he had draped over his shoulder. The lights, against the smoke machine-fueled haze, burst bright and fast, and I turned to Jackie and said "I think I'm going to have a seizure." Sune looked drunk and barely seemed to pay attention to the melody he was singing. The band relied heavily on a backing track that included bass, synths and drums (although there was a drummer on stage), and at some points didn't look like they were playing guitar.

But I pushed my way up ahead of my jacket-swinging antagonist and started to fall in love all over again. The lights calmed down somewhat (although at one point near the end of the set I found myself blinking in time with the music to avoid the brightest flashes), the backing track became less obtrusive, and Sune's voice gained momentum, and the whole thing coalesced into the delirious fuzz of distorted guitars, retro-rock beats and sugary harmonies that these guys do so well. They played a bunch from their latest album, which was released at the end of July, so I was glad I was able to listen to that on Youtube throughout the workday. But they also played a bunch of their older stuff, and a three song set of Love in a Trashcan, Chain Gang of Love, and Attack of the Ghost Riders brought down the house (in particular, Love in a Trashcan, which kicked of the mini-retro set, seemed, well, huger, than I'd ever heard it before).

Sune to be seems a pretty awkward frontman for a guy who's a goddamn musical genius, almost whispering "Thank youuuu" at the end of songs, and at one point looking sheepish, gawky and self-conscious while dancing during a musical breakdown. Someone in the crowd threw him a green baseball cap, which hit him in the chest and dropped to the floor. He picked it up, looked confused for a minute and then put it on, a grin slowly spreading on his face. And then he picked his guitar back up and proceeded to kick some more ass with a new solo.

They skipped a lot of my old favorites, like Last Dance, Boys Who Rape (Should All Be Destroyed), Ignite, and Blitzed, but hey, that happens.

And then it was over. One down, nine to go.

You Are Old, Father William

"You are old, father William," the young man said,
    "And your hair has become very white;
  And yet you incessantly stand on your head —
    Do you think, at your age, it is right?"

  "In my youth," father William replied to his son,
    "I feared it would injure the brain;
  But now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,
    Why, I do it again and again."

-- Lewis Carrol, from Alice in Wonderland.

Ten rock concerts, in ten days.  Alone or with friends, bands you like or bands you've never heard of, shitfaced on whisky or sitting in sober contemplation. Ten rock concerts in ten days, that's the plan.

I've been back in New York for four and a half years, but I haven't really been making time for the things that I love about New York, the things that drew me back here after small-town stops in Kingston, NY and in Martos,  Spain.  

A big part of what I love about New York is the rock 'n roll spirit that suffuses the city.  Over dinner recently, my friend's mom tried to argue that Washington, D.C. was a better place to live than NYC, because it has more museums and better museums for free.  I was willing to concede that (although I pointed out that the Met is free if you want it to be), but debating museums missed the point, for me.  You can keep the Smithsonian; I prefer museums that have been lived in, like the grimy bathrooms at CBGB (well, I guess not THAT particular museum).

The beautiful thing about New York, I told her, is that you can see an awesome show any day of the goddamn week. And so a challenge formed in my brain - I'll see a week of shows.  

My thirtieth birthday is coming up, and as with many milestones, it has prompted some self-reflection. I've spent the latter part of my twenties sucked into a job that was planned as a two-year stopover, losing friends one by one as they left the city, dutifully putting third of my paycheck towards my staggering student loan burden, generally acting like a boring, responsible person. 

And I'm getting to notice my age.  Somewhere in the back of mind mind, I'd expected to take some extravagant risks, drugs or a military career, maybe, that would guarantee an early exit before I turned into an actual "person of advanced age."  But recent evidence suggests that that will not be my fate - I've played it safe, and am settling into the life of slow decay that most of us are destined for. 

I play beer-league softball in the summer,  running for the first time in months, and my legs took days to recover. From beer-league softball! My occasional insomnia leaves me barely able to function on some days, and hangovers and heartburn are, apparently, now a thing.  My father died last year, and although he lived to 83, seeing him broken down renewed my fear not just of death, which I've wrestled with since I was a small child who prayed for the souls of all the ants I unwitting stepped on on my way to school, but of the inevitable decline of mind and body that precede that final oblivion. 

In short:  I am old, Father William, and I want to prove to myself that I still have time to stand on my head (figuratively speaking).

So I'm warding off my neuroses with a black magic cocktail of reverb-soaked vocals, distorted guitar  and drums that hit hard like the Hammer of Thor. I'll probably also see the Blow. 

Like any black magic ritual, this one needs strict rules, and a bit of sacrifice that puts it out of reach for the casually-committed among us.  A show every day, without break, without fail, without concern for companionship or the impact on my wallet. And because a week seemed just a little, well, weak, I went for a nice, round number, 10, to match the nice, round 30 of my impending birthday. 

Tonight, I start with the Raveonettes, whose "Last Dance" is the most sugary, danceable ode to suicidal overdose I've ever heard. Tonight, Rocktober starts a day early.