Shows/2003-02-14b

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Fan Recaps and Comments:

Selfcallednowhere:

JL: Thanks for spending this special holiday with us. It might seem inappropriate to come to a show on this day, but we're gonna try and make it special.
JF: We're gonna be performing complex love songs. Non-love songs.
JF: Y'know, this is a very different kind of show, and not just because we're sitting down for the very first time in our careers, but also, we've never done this whole completely acoustic unplugged thing before. We usually have a drummer and at least one extremely talented lead guitar player with us backing us up. But y'know, we figured--y'know, it's time to change it up. We've been playing for twenty years and we wanted to get back to our mellower folk roots that we never really had.
JF: I don't know if you heard the warnings about the whole duct tape thing, but it's exciting to know as a musician that suddenly we have a cultural edge. Y'know--of course, it's the apocalypse and everything, but still, y'know, ya just take those breaks where you can find 'em when you're a musician. I'm just surprised that they didn't just say, y'know, "Put a plastic bag over your head." Seemed like it would sort of, y'know, save on the plastic. This next song is another extraordinarily depressing number. Oh, this song...I'm jumping ahead, I'm jumping ahead.
JL: The rest of the songs are depressing.
JF: We're counting down--just one more song until the incredibly depressing numbers. This song actually is off our children's album, and it's actually going to be made into a picture book for kids this fall coming out on Simon and Schuster, and the song is called Bed Bed Bed Bed Bed.
JF: People talk--y'know, there's sort of like a modern thing about bad hair days, but for me, right now...my hair has never looked more like a wig. And that's exciting for me. I mean, check it out. If somebody told you I had hair plugs, you'd be like, "Well, yeh. It's totally fake." And I sort of don't know what to do on those days because, uh, I'm rather proud of my full head of hair, but the fact that it looks like hairplugs. So this next song is another experiment in self-loathing off our Lincoln album.
JF: Y'know, we've done a lot of shows over the years, and one of the strangest things about shows like this where you can actually hear people talking and stuff like that is that there are often strange self-selected individuals who decide that the show is all about them. We played at a place in Milwaukee called The Mine Shaft where there was a guy who gave us the finger for the entire show. And he was standing--this was kind of like a miniature hardcore club, it only held like, y'know, 50 people. The strange thing about the show was that--y'know, this was the '80's, and the people who ran the club were like, "Jerry Harrison's gonna be here tonight." And so we're like, "Oh. Cool." And then I'm sort of aware that Jerry Harrison's over there, and there's this guy giving me the finger for the entire show just right over there. But this was not the first time that we've gotten the finger for the entire show. Because we played at Bedrock in Williamsburg back in the '80's--back when Williamsburg was cool. And there was a guy there who gave us the finger for the entire show. Earlier tonight there was this guy doing this sort of raspberry thing over there that was just--just brings back fond memories of the Mine Shaft and Bedrock. So we're lovin' this crowd, this rasberry-free crowd we've gathered here tonight. This special Valentine's Day night.
JF: The really, like, the ultimate--like, you'll never understand what it is to tour in the United States...The guy who gave us the bird at The Mine Shaft, at the end of the show he was the only guy who bought a t-shirt. So, like, we're actually doing, like, "Buy our t-shirts!" thing, he came over and he was just like, "You guys rock pretty hard."
JL: He came out to the van after the show. And we were like, "Oh shit. Here comes that guy."
JF: He was like, "You got that extra-large?"
Guy in audience: So you're not gonna sell many today, then.
JF: I don't know. We're selling t-shirts. We've got plenty of brand-new--
JL: There's still plenty of time to give us the finger.
JF: This next song is a special long-distance dedication to my friends over at the Loser's Lounge tonight. This song was written for them, before they, uh...before all my rowdy friends settled down, ladies and gentlemen. *to Dan Miller* Are you playing that Heart song again?
JL: He's playing Journey.
JF: Dan Miller has an encyclopedic knowledge of bad music.
*They all play the beginning of some Journey song and Flans sings a bit.*
JF: John, technically, the last show, I think we actually fucked this song up a little bit. So...This next song is a Mike Nesmith song, from the Monkees. *cheering* The tiniest of "whoo" 's for Mike Nesmith...I think the thing is, we gotta--we shouldn't do it *too* slow.
JL: Too slow. We started out too slow. Yehyehyeh.
JF: There are all these long notes that I cannot sustain. And I don't want to give in to that whole refund thing.
JL: Right. Don't even bring it up in front of the crowd. Give them ideas. About getting a refund.
JF: "Yeh, I saw that show. Fuck those guys." So um yes, just don't play it too slow. *JL starts playing* Yeh, sort of--somewhere between Mark Russell and Garrison Keillor.
*They play What Am I Doing Hangin' Round*
JF: Mr. Garrison Keillor, Mr. Mark Russell.
JL: We tried it really fast, and it exactly sounded like one of those Mark Russell political comedy what the hell is that guy doing on TV...
JF: The red-white-and-blue piano. You know what we're talking about. Y'know, pledge time only comes around once a year, that's when they play those Mark Russell specials. And you just gotta wonder--who likes that guy? ...I'm digressing once again.
JL: Let's talk about Garrison Keillor.
JF: John does an incredible, wicked Garrison Keillor impression.
JL: Nonono. *cheering*
JF: The show doesn't work that way. It's all about delivering disappointment.
JL: It's not about what you want.
JF: It's about what we're not willing to give you. But y'know ladies and gentlemen, what Valentine's Day song would be complete without the next song, Mammal.
JF: John, I don't know what you've been doing recently, but I've been watching a shitload of TV.
JL: And your conclusion?
JF: Awesome. Totally awesome. The freakiest thing of all--I got this Roadrunner thing, which is like, y'know--it's cheap. It starts at like $180 a month. The next year it'll be like $700. But you feel like you can't live without it, so it's cool. Cos y'know, you get the Inter--the AOL thing like really fast. But the best thing about it is the VH-1 Classics. Which, I don't know which--it's channel 136. Now, you people are thinking like, "VH-1? Doesn't that equal 'suck'?" But actually, the great thing about this VH-1 Classics, it plays the best of the '60's, the '70's, and some of the '80's. It's really good. And this next song, although not featured on VH-1 Classics, reminds me of how much I love VH-1 Classics.
JL: People think you're kidding, but you're serious, you really like it.
JF: I'm not kidding. It's pretty much locked on 136. I know there's, like, interesting foreign language networks on 135 and 137 from when I accidentally punch it in the wrong way. 136. It's worth the $180-$700 a month. That it costs. Of course, viewing digital cable would not be complete without the TV that is this big. And when the HBO ad for Keith Richards comes on, well of course a few tears are shed, but it's worth it.
JL: The kids start crying. Hey, y'know, I actually saw a, um, I saw, like, some Hullabaloo or something version of this--
JF: That's the kind of thing that they play on VH-1 Classics. That's the kind of entertainment satisfaction you're looking at.
JL: The thing that was weird about it--
JF: When you lay down the $180-$700 a month.
JL: The thing is--the weird thing is that, like, the arrangement of this song is, like--I don't know, is it Quincy Jones?--it's like one of these huge-sounding arrangements. This is the song that we're about to play, that Leslie Gore popularized--
JF: You get much more than that John, you get the kind of technical support that only Warner--Time Warner can give you. The guy comes into your house, and he plugs in the cable thing with the big white cord, like super*crazy*ugly, like you're like, "Don't put it there! Please!" He's like, "Gotta be here. *sawing crunching sort of noise* Gotta be here." Like, "No no no no!" It's like--and then, and then there's like--"All right, where's your computer, where's your computer?" He goes over here and he takes this here off, "Ok, ok, wait wait wait, ok, wait, you don't have Ethernet. I'm out!" And then he leaves without telling you your password. So you gotta go to Customer Service on 14th Street. Which is pretty much like a weekend on Riker's Island. But back to the Hullabaloo, John.
JL: Nonono, I lost my train of thought. Let's play the song.
JF: Nonono, now I feel bad. I stepped on your story.
JL: Nononono.
JF: You were watching Hullabaloo, and there's like this crazy production--
JL: The thing that was weird is the song sounds great, the sound of it, and Leslie Gore looked incredibly uncomfortable lip-synching to this, and it kind of made me--I can't get that out of my head now when I listen to it, that she doesn't look as happy as I feel listening to the song.
JF: She's like a person trapped in a person's body.
JL: Yes. That's the weird thing about it. Usually like checking out the film, the vintage film, but not this time. Anyway, here's our--this is our inferior but still ok rendition.
JF: Ladies and gentlemen, we've gotta get back on stage here Mr. Dan Miller--I don't know if he can hear the sound of my voice from his apartment, but Dan, if you're here, or even if just a friend of yours who has a cell phone is here to call you, please, come back to the stage!
JF: Marty Beller on the acoustic drums! Ladies and gentlemen, we're entering the, uh, portion of the show we like to call...I've never performed sitting down before, so the whole repertoire of mic moves is extremely limited.
JL: Y'know, I went to the, uh--I went to the movies recently and I saw Marty Beller's name in the credits, and it was like I was so completely...I actually said really loud in the theater, "I know that guy!" And then I was like..."Jesus christ."
JF: Marty Beller also was [something]. No, what movie--what movie were you in? Confessions of a Dangerous Mind?
JL: You can enjoy his work.
JF: He plays Chuck Barris as well, but the important thing is he's...
(After Mink Car)
JL: See, that *feels* like a Valentine's song.
JF: But at its emotional center, it's really not a love song.
JL: Sort of a Hallotine's Day. Or a...maybe a Valloween...you would think.
JF: Ladies and gentlemen. It's time for the slow songs. The slow songs that we call the end of the [something] show. That's right, everybody hates 'em. But the theme of the show is disappointment, ladies and gentlemen.
JF: We wanna thank you again all for coming out to the show, we wanna invite you back to later shows, we wanna thank all the people to stand while we got to enjoy the luxury of sitting down for the first time in our career. Thank you for being in the back. I have no idea how uncomfortable it is there, but it's a little bit less uncomfortable than the people who are sitting behind you.
JL: I have that funny feeling of sitting on the subway when there's people, y'know, standing. Like, "I should really give you my seat, but...had a hard day at work..." And I can't explain that. Anyway...here's another song from our kids' record.
JF: No, wait, we should thank our crew, John.
JL: Oh yehyeh, yeh. I was gonna do that during the song...no I wasn't.
(Before Cyclops)
JF: I guess it's not really Peter Noone that it's in the style of.
JL: Nonono.
JF: I think it's probably more--I don't know, some drunk English guy.
JL: No, you see, I--we played it the first set, y'know, we sort of introduced it as Peter Noone. Then it was like the full rock band, it was more...I thought it was more like one of those Who songs that Keith Moon sings? Know what I'm talkin' about? *sings part of Bell Boy* I dunno.
JF: I'm just [something--latching? lushing?] on that John Langford, the guy from the Mekons, I saw him performing, and at the end of the show, he was like, "If there's anybody here from a magazine or a radio station who can help us...fuck you!" It was like this incredible beautiful synthesis of this entire thing. So, uh, what're we doing here...
Guy in audience: Ana Ng!
Other guy in audience: They'll Need a Crane!
First guy: ANA NG!
Woman in the audience: Shut up!
JF: I hear you, but I'm trying to ignore you.