Also included: Part 7 of The Book of Fables.
To Bo Venom.
What makes a great rock and roll show? We all know when we’ve seen a great show, but trying to convey that feeling to someone who wasn’t there usually comes across in a way similar to that cop in the Lenny Bruce trial testifying from notes he took while watching the comedian do his act. The cop could read Lenny Bruce’s words and describe his actions, but he could not convey the comedy. For the comedy you had to be there. Same thing with good live rock and roll – you just have to be there.
After having seen the Meat Puppets touring behind Up On The Sun, I had the chance to go backstage, but I couldn’t get my feet up the three steps to the backstage area mainly because I had a very real feeling that Curt Kirkwood was at least 15 feet tall. Watching Sonic Youth, during their Daydream Nation tour, bring the audience to the edge of a riot and then calm us back down only to bring us to the brink of a riot again to calm us down again and so on, I felt that Thurston Moore knew exactly what I was thinking before I thought it. Containing my nausea in a bathroom full of vomiting men while the Butthole Surfers let out their aural attack on hordes of stage diving maniacs, I was sure that they were playing notes only my intestines could hear. If you saw these bands playing at their rock and roll best, you probably just went, yeah, in recognition and remembrance and smiled to your insides with that good feeling you get after a great rock and roll show, even if its been years. On the other hand, if you never saw these bands live then you are either annoyed or feeling left out or at best you are trying to remember some other great live band you saw so that you too can get that good live rock and roll feeling.
So why write about great live shows then? There may be a few reasons, but the one that interests me is so we can understand what it is that makes a great rock and roll show.
The Spinns (photo by Jodi Donkel)
The Spinns were a great rock and roll band. However, they released only a few records (a couple of seven inch records and one full length CD), and although the records are a lot of fun and also excellent representations of contemporary garage rock, I will mainly remember The Spinns as one of the greatest live bands I’ve ever seen. The Spinns are now broken up, which is a shame because hanging out with them as a group was always guaranteed fun and good times trouble and I will always miss those days. But I will also miss their live shows. And what made their live shows so great? The songs themselves were fairly traditional 60s revivalist garage rock, but when The Spinns took the stage they communicated a volatility and commitment that pushed their songs beyond a simple homage to the 60s and into the underlying rock and roll on which they were built.
I will give you one example of one of their shows, which also lives in my memory as one of the best shows I’ve ever seen. It was a house party, a packed house party. Rob Spinn’s bass playing in The Spinns was somewhat reminiscent of the jug player in the 13th Floor Elevators, moving in circles like a slowly building tornado. Meanwhile Josh Spinn’s drumming pounded a pure rock and roll beat like a locomotive trying to plow thru Rob’s tornado bass. Meanwhile, Todd Spinn’s guitar and vocals are belting out chords and phrases, and his tall standing figure is holding that moment when train and tornado meet and screaming, rock and roll! So with this encouragement the packed crowed inside the house immediately started jumping. And then the floor of the house started to give way under everyone’s feet, and The Spinns kept playing. Then the floor separated from the baseboards and the support beams broke, and they kept playing. Then the top of Todd’s head could be seen rising and falling as if he was bouncing on a trampoline in the middle of the crowd, and they kept playing. When it was obvious that the floor was going to give under the pressure of a hundred people bouncing uncontrollably, they kept playing. Rob, his long hair covering his face and Josh his hands splattering blood in all directions, held their heads down concentrating on keeping the locomotive inside the tornado as the whole floor went up and down with the beat and Todd kept pounding those guitar chords and saying, yeah! It felt like the whole house was going to explode in all directions and only The Spinns continued playing was keeping everything together. But they did stop playing, and by some miracle of rock and roll the floor never did fully collapse. It might have been a disappointment for those bent on disaster, but that was The Spinns, volatile, constantly teetering on the edge of disaster but holding it all together thanks to the solid foundation of rock and roll.
And here’s part 7 of The Book of Fables:
THE BURDENS
The Burdens are one of the premier rock and roll bands around today, but like most rock and roll bands, they had humble beginnings in their mama’s basement. But that was such a long time ago that they themselves don’t remember, much in the same way most of us don’t remember being born. There was only one person in the whole wide world that remembered what they were like back then, but we’ll get to her later. Because what made them great as a rock and roll band back then doesn’t apply to them now in their superstar celebrity status.
Even though I know that since you’ve made it this far reading this stories, you are probably more interested in hearing about the humble beginnings of The Burdens than hearing about their present legal issues, I must first mention a few things about the current state of affairs since it’s been everywhere in the news for the past few weeks and does have some relevance to our story.
As you know The Burdens are suing The Composing Family for stealing their true hit song. The Composing Family has been collecting more money from that true hit song than from all the rest of their catalog put together. The Burdens, however, claim that they wrote that song years and years ago before they even had a record contract or anyone knew their favorite colors, and they have filed suit against the Composing Family. The Composing Family, as you might remember, stole the song (or borrowed it, as they say amongst themselves) from the Motionless Busker. And upon first being served with the lawsuit they attempted to find the Motionless Busker in order to buy the song rights from him. However, even though the whole family spread thin throughout the world looking for the Motionless Busker, they could not find him. The Motionless Busker, of course, hadn’t moved and continued to play as he did before, but the Composing Family somehow couldn’t find him.
Faced with this setback the Composing Family tried to settle with The Burdens, but The Burdens wanted to go to court and refused the settlement offer. Several weeks into the trial, however, it has become obvious that The Burdens’ evidence that they wrote the song is not as solid as they themselves appeared to believe. The only piece of evidence The Burdens have is an ancient reel of magnetized tape which couldn’t even be played until an audiologist was found that owned a piece of equipment that could play the tape. But when the magnetic reel was played in court, even after repeated listenings it wasn’t obvious that it was the same song, and it wasn’t obvious that it was The Burdens playing on the recording.
The media immediately took sides and the public debate began simultaneously with the legal debate happening in the courtrooms. At present there has been no resolution on the issue and the case seems like it will go on indefinitely. Particularly since both sides have now taken to play concerts together during which they will both play the song during their set. The concerts are sold out across the world and that, combined with the multiple media appearances of both sides, has slowly built an industry out of the issue. Tru Hit Song, Inc is now a multi-million dollar conglomerate whose board of directors is composed of members from both The Burdens and The Composing Family. The objective of the corporation would seem to be to extend the legal battle over the song as much as possible. Meanwhile the two sides meet weekly to celebrate their good fortune and drink cocktails. And, even though the ratings for the crossfire debates over who wrote the song, along with the legal analysis shows focusing on the latest courtroom developments have been the highest rated in history, it seems that no one really wants to find out who wrote the song.
But The Burdens want to find the writer. They knew they hadn’t written the song, and they hoped that all the media attention would find the one they believed had written it. Many years ago The Burdens called themselves The Carefree, as they were starting their band. One day, they met a young girl that came to their practice space and interrupted their horrid aimless meandering jam with a loud, Please stop that horrid aimless meandering jam! Then she asked to borrow one of their guitars and immediately started playing the song that has now become the center of all this controversy. The song lasted all of two minutes, but when she was done The Carefree were now The Burdens, as they immediately realized that the girl was right, that her song was rock and roll, and that they could never come up with something so powerful. They asked her to play it again and they played along with her and they felt good and they recorded it on their old magnetic tape recorder. But when they asked the girl to show them another song, she said she didn’t know any other songs and left. The Burdens then listened to the tape over and over and wrote a bunch of songs based on that one. And they became rich and famous playing rock and roll and were generally known as one of the original rock and roll bands.
At first they made some attempts to find the girl, but after a little while, a very little while actually, they forgot all about her and her song and the magnetic tape was stored away in a box in some basement and forgotten. Until many years later while watching a movie in their private home theater they heard the Composing Family’s true hit song and it stuck in their heads like it did to everyone else. But they were sure they’d heard it before, and after months of trying to figure out where, they realized that it was the same song that girl had played such a long time ago and on which they had based their whole sound. And they were filled with joy thinking they had found her. So they looked in all the basements of all their houses until they found the old magnetic reel and they immediately knew that, yes, that was the song. And at that very moment as they held the magnetic reel against the tiny dusty basement window, they realized that they had now truly become The Burdens and they understood their load. And in that instant of understanding all their success, fame, and fortune melted away thru the cracks of the basement floor to become a river of molten lava that followed them under the earth, everywhere they went, making the soles of their feet constantly hot and bothersome. And then the disappiontment in finding out that the girl had nothing to do with the Composing Family almost brought about their total collapse, until they thought of the lawsuit. The lawsuit brought renewed fame and fortune to The Burdens and made their hot feet bearable. But where was the girl?
As you’ve probably guessed by now the girl with the song is The Teenager, the center of the universe, and she remembers what The Burdens were like back then, but she doesn’t care, she has other interests, that don’t include the trials of the rich and famous. But wait, you might say, that timeline doesn’t make sense, how could she be The Teenager if it was such a long time ago?
Moral: Time is not always what it seems.
I’m one of those frustrated by having missed out on a lot of these shows… especially the Butthole Surfers in their prime, though I’m not sure if I could’ve taken some of the more graphic surgery films I’ve heard they used to show. But whatever, it would’ve been a unique and memorable experience, and that’s what I think life is all about. I also missed out on Sonic Youth, though it took me years to get into them at all in the first place, and I’m still probably not as huge of a fan as most that are into them. I’ve seen some really good shows, no doubt, but those truly transcendent rock and roll moments are few and far between.
One memory I do treasure was seeing the Mike Gunn at, I believe, Epsteins. I think it was Epsteins; it might have been somewhere else, but it was some club I didn’t normally go to, I know that. Anyway, they were still a quartet at the time, and admittedly I was incredibly stoned, but I recall they played so intensely and so loudly and I was so stoned that the guitar overtones convinced me that there HAD to be a keyboard playing, or a third guitarist, or something… I looked and looked, and of course none was there; it was just the four of them, but I stood there absolutely dazed by the fact that they were rocking my face so hard that I could hear another guitar or a keyboard. I think years later when I joined Linus and started moving over to playing more guitar, this moment was kind of an inspiration for me, because even though I couldn’t see the other instrument, it still sounded really cool.
You focus on something in part seven which should hold little interest to me but you put a good twist on it and make it entertaining.
I wonder if all bands aren’t based on one nameless song. Or maybe one song that doesn’t repeat itself for a thousand years.
This blog reminds me of the case of MIKE BATT versus JOHN CAGE. Batt, who is primarily known for his involvment with the UK children’s show THE WOMBLES, was sued by a Cage Trust for allegedly stealing Cage’s 4’33″ song of silence and covering it on his own album without the proper credit going to Cage as composer. Apparently, Batt’s version is called ONE MINUTE OF SILENCE…Batt settled up with an undisclosed sum of around 6 figures. After the trial, Batt offered this li’l gem: “Mine is a much better silent piece. I have been able to say in one minute what Cage could only say in four minutes and 33 seconds.”
Kilian, that longplayer is a great find, finally a constant (that is not constant). I dig it when crazy ideas are also real.
And speaking of crazy, Matthew, that quote just made me laugh out loud and feel really good about humanity for some reason. I love stuff like that. My silence is better than yours. Perfect.
what a great Spinns story. they’ve been on my shopping list for awhile…think i’ll move them closer to the top of that list.
i laughed out loud, too! silence is so ridiculous.
speaking of ridiculous silence and musical performances – during last night’s performance by The Charms, the lead singer did a particularly long and unnecessarily showy vocal crescendo. just before it’s climactic conclusion, there was a break in the song. i guess this is where the audience is supposed to erupt in clapping and whistles and hooting and hollering. but there was DEAD silence. and instead of just forging ahead with the song the band clung to that silence for a full 2 bars hoping against all hope that at least one person would ‘whoop!’. THE ROAR OF SILENCE WAS DEAFENING!! just thinking about it now makes my stomach turn and -literally- laugh out loud.
it goes without saying that The Charms put on a terrible show. and when put in context, what seemed to be a promising pop single turned out to be the lacklaster cap of a lackluster band. maybe it’s plays out in Jersey, but the Houston crowd last night was in such consensus that if we were America, we could’ve impeached the president.
Thats a funny story about the charms. reminds me of a dry nod show where at the end of a song it was so quiet that we could hear this guy in the back quietly say to his friend, “they suck.” it was fucking histerical.