Repulsion

The li’l woman and I made a rare trip up to Boulder on Friday to catch Dinosaur Jr. I’ve never been a huge fan, but I do like them and even saw them once before during their “major label” era. They have the original lineup together for this tour, and I was glad we went – they put on a pretty good show. J. Mascis, always a pretty odd looking guy, looks even stranger nowadays as his long hair is almost all white. What was kind of funny was how the people who were up front kept complaining that they couldn’t hear the vocals. J. and bassist Lou Barlow both pointed out that the vocals were coming out of the PA speakers hanging to the sides, and these people were standing in front of huge guitar stacks (three for the guitar, two for the bass), so they shouldn’t really expect to hear any vocals! Warming up was a metal band from Montreal called Priestess. Not really my thing, but they were good at what they did – they even had a drum solo! What cracked me up was that they looked like typical metal dudes, and probably wanted people to think that they’re badass. But let’s face facts – these guys are from Canada, so my guess is that they’re all really polite. You’re not fooling anyone guys!

On Saturday I made it over to Bender’s Tavern to catch the Boss Martians, a power pop band from Seattle. I saw them quite a few times over the years when I was living there, but back then they were doing a totally different thing – they were a mostly instrumental surf band. At some point, leader Evan got out of his retro bag and started writing pop tunes, and I did see them once before after they’d made this transformation. Still, that was a few years ago, and they’ve really improved since I last saw them. Their performance was full of energy, and the songs were a lot of fun. I think the keyboardist is the only other original member, I recognized the bassist who was an old acquaintance from punk band The Valentine Killers. The opening band was Sans Sobriety, a local act with t-shirts that promised “150% Metal, Punk, and Hardcore.” After a few seconds, I was 200% sure I wasn’t going to enjoy them, and promptly headed to the bar to wait out their set.

If you dig rock documentaries I highly recommend New York Doll, which just came out on DVD. It’s the story of Arthur “Killer” Kane, who was the bassist in the short lived (but incredibly influential) New York Dolls. In the years since they had broken up Kane lived in an alcoholic daze in Los Angeles, and even survived a strange suicide attempt. Hitting rock bottom, he converted to Mormonism and found peace, eventually working for the church in their family records library. Despite his new sober and very quiet life, every day he wished that he could reunite with the Dolls. This chance came when Morrissey extended an invite for the three surviving members to reunite for a performance at the Royal Albert Hall. Fellow church members took up a collection for Arthur to get his bass out of the pawn shop, and he traveled to New York for rehearsals. The show in London is triumphant, and the look on Arthur’s face during the performance footage is priceless – equal parts shock and surprise, with a fair bit of stage fright mixed in. The man is finally living his dream, and when you get down to it that’s what New York Doll is really about – that even your wildest dreams can sometimes come true. Sadly, Arthur Kane passed away from leukemia less than a month after the concert. It’s a moving tale, and if you aren’t touched after watching this film then you’d better have your heart checked – it may not be working properly.