Linda wants to see Jon Whitney spin new wave videos at Rivergods, so we do!
Linda wants to go see local art-trash-rock-combo Neptune at Great Scott’s, so we do!
The front end of the evening is lovely, Jon spins videos that are well remembered (“Everybody Wants to Rule the World” – Tears for Fears) and also terribly obscu
re (“Dr. Mabuse” – Propaganda). I protest when Linda tries to make us leave during Duran Duran’s “Girls on Film” as a guy at the bar and I have bonded over our secret affection for this video, one which I recall so clearly being banned from MTV for its obscenity, though as I watch it now I can’t imagine why. Showing ladies bare bottoms? Oh how far we’ve fallen.But we do escape, run across town and in a matter of moments have entered Great Scott’s door hoping Neptune will play soon. But no, it is not to be. We have arrived during the set of Tristan Da Cunha who are apparently having a record release party tonight. They are math-rock or as a random fellow at the bar complains “too much like some jazzy Berklee band trying to impress us with their key and time signature changes”. Our eyes mutually roll, I buy Linda a drink. We wait. I figure next will be Neptune, it is nearly midnight on a Thursday, but then the same gent points out no, there are 6 bands on this bill. But why? But why?
Next up is Martin Gordon. “Who is Martin Gordon?” I find myself asking just in time to have my question answered by a 3-minute long PowerPoint presentation projected onto a large screen hanging from the stage ceiling. Come to find out, Martin Gordon has done a wide array of things, but for my money his biggest achievement has been being the bass player on Sparks’ “Kimono My House” album.
“This is his first gig in America!” the excited voice over tells us
“The first time anyone has heard his songs in the US!”
“Here he is!”
“Martin Gordon!”
And he is!
Terrible!
And he should be!
So much better!
Gordon’s band is a group of fellows I’d guess are in their mid-forties, and their music for some reason makes me think of The Yachts. I know that’s obscure, so please fill in your own early 80’s small time euro-guitar band that had maybe one hit here. Or alternately think very early XTC, but imagine them if they sucked. Because the thing that’s really annoying me about Martin Gordon’s set is I should love this music because it’s based on the kind of power pop I will always have a lasting affection for, but Martin Gordon and his band are terrible, terrible songwriters, and behave as if they have never heard of that verse chorus verse thing. It isn’t long before we I are on the pavement outside the nightclub along with about 75% of the other nightclub patrons not smoking, but merely waiting for the torture to be over.
It’s 1 AM now, we’re tired, but we’ve come to see Neptune and damn it we’re going to see them, and after a strangely overlong, awkward and otherwise inexplicable baton twirling performance by local twirler Laurel Sparks, we finally do.
In the future it is easy to imagine that all music will sound like Neptune. It will be cruel, sterile, hostile, cacophonous, upsetting, nailbiting, wonderful, gorgeous, breathtaking; or at least that’s what I like to believe. I’ve been going to see Neptune for more than a decade and I never tire of it. The band has always been led by Jason, who welds many of the band’s instruments from scrap metal into things that resemble but hardly sound like guitars, and though lineups fluctuated for sometime, the current trio, with Dan drumming and Mark playing just about anything he can get his hands on seem to have stuck. Together the three burn white hot, propelled by Dan’s insane rhythms and while the other two add layer upon layer of gorgeous noise resulting in music that sounds like a rock and roll garbage truck convention, and I mean that in the best possible way. Neptune’s fans are crazy in love with them, dancing and jumping so hard that the floor beneath my feet shakes and threatens to give way and plummet us all into the basement. It’s too exciting for a school night. It’s too exciting for 1:30AM. I am too old and have to go home. But was the pain worth the pleasure tonight? Yes. God yes. Happy birthday Linda, you got what you wanted.
1 comment:
What's that? I can't *hear* you.. My ears have been blown out by NEPTUNE!!! But it rocked. And I had a superfine birthday, all thanks to you. And Jon Whitney. And Jason's wonderfully welded instruments. And some top shelf vodka. Not necessarily in that order.
Hmmmmm, wonder if that baton twirler will be available on YOUR birthday...
All best,
Linda
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