I just had to go out and do something that might resemble fun in Manhattan. I've been cooped up pretty well at my friends' apartments, not having a lot of money to blow on fun things and goings out.
So I went to the Bowery Ballroom last night to see Tift Merritt. Not that I think I'm a big fan, but her name is familiar from Nashville. Jay Joyce, a producer/songwriter/guitarist extraordinare I worked for had written some songs with her, and I had to call her once to get the publishing info. Now that I think of it, I don't think she ever called me back. Well, I wasn't real excited with her show, and I left a couple songs in. But one of the opening bands was called The Damnwells. And they rocked pretty hard. Highly recommended. I would buy their record for my big brother, whose the most critical of connoisseurs of middle American rock 'n' roll.
Here's what Rolling Stone had to say:
Based in Brooklyn, the Damnwells are about as far from the Midwest as they can be, yet their emotional pop-rock is sonically rustbelt -- where the husks of empty factories look almost pretty in the fading light. With spare Americana instrumentation added here and there to an organic guitar-bass-drums sound, the Damnwells brood in the no longer-imaginary place where Pete Yorn, the Goo Goo Dolls and drummer Steven Terry's old band, Whiskeytown, all hang out. Bastards of the Beat opens with a propulsive, sloppy barroom rocker with a vocal hook that's pure drunken Westerberg. Later the Damnwells steer toward Replacements-worthy goose-bump pop with singer-songwriter frontman Alex Dezen sounding delicately wounded and utterly real throughout. Throbbing psychedelic guitar opens "Sleepsinging" -- a haunting indictment of music business sharks, "Electric Harmony" sets a Beatlesque melody to a wistful waltz, and the dark "Star/Fool" out-pretties Petty's "Last Dance With Mary Jane" with plenty of dramatic white space and the chilling repeated threat/promise "I'm coming back for you."
TODD SPENCER
(April 5, 2004)
10/02/2004
9/29/2004
Meant To Live.
Switchfoot are my friends. They will be on Letterman tonight. I couldn't get tickets to the show. I couldn't find a way to get hold of Jon. They don't know I'm here!!
The band and I met over the telephone right after I graduated from college in Nashville in 1997. They were talking about a management situation with the artist manager for whom I worked. (I'm glad they didn't go with him.) I moved to Northern California shortly thereafter and the record label I was working with hosted a concert tour for which they opened. The sound guys treated the band quite badly. I nearly offered to take over the sound board myself. I've run sound for Sixpence None the Richer! Anyway, it's standard, at least in the Christian market, for a tour's opening acts to get lesser sound quality than the headliner. I guess couldn't have helped them with that.
Nevertheless, we'd finally met in person and when I moved to So. Cal., I phoned them up. I spent a day off of work wandering the San Diego Zoo and then went to the Foreman's house nearby where Jon played me a demo of "Amy's Song." (It showed up on their second album.) I ate dinner with the fam. And Jon and I went swing dancing at a Cherry Poppin' Daddies concert at Belmont Park. Lots of fun!
Not too long after that I moved back to Indiana. They toured with my friends Five Iron Frenzy and I drove near and far to see all my pals. In fact, we started getting a real kick out of my showing up at a new, random place to say "HI!" I interviewed Jon and wrote a story for 7ball Magazine about A New Way To Be Human and then went back to Nashville again when I worked for their record label. (I wonder if they think I'm a stalker...) In fact, while I was at that label, I went out with a nice young man who I'd met in California though he lived in Nashville. He said he'd not asked me out before because so-and-so said I was dating somebody from the band Switchfoot.
I panicked.
I told my boss I was panicked. And he laughed.
I e-mailed Jon and apologized and said, though I didn't mind the rumor, I hadn't started it. He was cool about it. I don't think he'd even heard it. He was about to marry my friend Sarah's younger sister Emily, and what kind of girl would I be to let that stuff get around!?
The band and I met over the telephone right after I graduated from college in Nashville in 1997. They were talking about a management situation with the artist manager for whom I worked. (I'm glad they didn't go with him.) I moved to Northern California shortly thereafter and the record label I was working with hosted a concert tour for which they opened. The sound guys treated the band quite badly. I nearly offered to take over the sound board myself. I've run sound for Sixpence None the Richer! Anyway, it's standard, at least in the Christian market, for a tour's opening acts to get lesser sound quality than the headliner. I guess couldn't have helped them with that.
Nevertheless, we'd finally met in person and when I moved to So. Cal., I phoned them up. I spent a day off of work wandering the San Diego Zoo and then went to the Foreman's house nearby where Jon played me a demo of "Amy's Song." (It showed up on their second album.) I ate dinner with the fam. And Jon and I went swing dancing at a Cherry Poppin' Daddies concert at Belmont Park. Lots of fun!
Not too long after that I moved back to Indiana. They toured with my friends Five Iron Frenzy and I drove near and far to see all my pals. In fact, we started getting a real kick out of my showing up at a new, random place to say "HI!" I interviewed Jon and wrote a story for 7ball Magazine about A New Way To Be Human and then went back to Nashville again when I worked for their record label. (I wonder if they think I'm a stalker...) In fact, while I was at that label, I went out with a nice young man who I'd met in California though he lived in Nashville. He said he'd not asked me out before because so-and-so said I was dating somebody from the band Switchfoot.
I panicked.
I told my boss I was panicked. And he laughed.
I e-mailed Jon and apologized and said, though I didn't mind the rumor, I hadn't started it. He was cool about it. I don't think he'd even heard it. He was about to marry my friend Sarah's younger sister Emily, and what kind of girl would I be to let that stuff get around!?
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