morst's PITOWN 2007 (pt 6)
Saturday, Sept 8, 2007
Once again, Gram Rabbit has its lovers and its detractors- too much, or not enough!?! To be honest, after the enduring strength and beauty of the Victor, Gerg, and Jonathan solo sets, I took the opportunity to cut out back to my room at the PiTown Motel and make a sandwich, and dump my camera's memory chip into my roommate's laptop so I could shoot some more, and continue to enjoy the shows. I knew Gram Rabbit had gone on pretty late- evidently they took a LONG time to set up which, unfortunately, ate up a bunch of time on the outdoor stage. I didn't get a photo of their set, but recorded the audio. Last year, I didn't make much of an effort to get their permission to post their sets on archive.org. I mailed ted quinn a copy of their disc for him to give to Jesika Von Rabbit, and never heard back that they thought it was worth posting, so that was that. If a band doesn't want to have their sets posted on archive.org, I tend to get the impression that they aren't worth listening to. I'm sure that's not exactly the case, but if they really cared about their sound, each show should at least be worth listening to, and they should attract enough recordists to get a bunch of shows out there, in any case, so that the poor performances are outnumbered by the good one, and there will be something nice for fans to hear. In the absence of a 2006 set worth listening to, I took my opportunity for a break, and, though I did record the 2007 Gram Rabbit set, I have not played it back more than about twice. If you're interested, get in touch, I can send you a CD of it, but I'm not convinced it will make much of a splash on your stereo, let alone your ears. They are a very visual group. Cute to look at, but not really my cup of tea musically. YMMV, as we say on the inter-webbie-thingy.
Cracker- Now this was the anticipated biggus giggus of the weekend. They had announced in the press that they would be playing the entire Kerosene Hat album in it's entirety, and they did it. Unfortunately, by the time Gram Rabbit set up, played, and broke down, there was only time for Cracker to play the set as advertised, and then one encore song- One Fine Day. Funny stuff with the crowd counting the "blank tracks" in between the main portion and the originally hidden tracks, but much too short of set to really be considered a favorite of mine. Honestly, it was a little anti-climactic, considering that I had just heard them play 9 hot tunes and THEN the entire album in Racine just a couple weeks before as a Pitown warmup. I know there were very few people at McAuliffes Pub in Racine who attended the Pitown gig, and vice versa, but ask Steve© or Rock what they thought of the two sets, and I'll wager that they will tell ya that Ker-RACINE Hat was the hotter one. But that's OK, cause both recordings sound great. My buddy Steve Propp made a matrix mix of the soundboard and audience recordings of both the Crampout set and the Racine one, and they're well worth listening to. I don't know, maybe the Pitown version was a little tighter, but something about seeing a band you love in a small bar with 150 people in attendance is really cool. Sure there was some funky circuit-breaker breaking at the Racine gig, but that was actually pretty cool, since the band's stage amps stayed on, and so did the power to the soundboard.
Pitown Cracker Setlist: Kerosene Hat intro, Low, Movie Star, Get Off This, Kerosene Hat, Take Me Down To The Infirmary, Nostalgia, Sweet Potato, Sick Of Goodbyes, I Want Everything, Lonesome Johnny Blues, Let's Go For A Ride, Loser, Eurotrash Girl, I Ride My Bike, One Fine Day
Did I mention that I made a sticker out of Steve©'s oil painting, with Steve©'s help? Check it out and print it out on some sticker stock!
After the Cracker set ended, Jason Molina took the indoor stage, and played a very special solo set, featuring his voice and his Les Paul, and on the final song, his special guest, the lovely Page Campbell, from Dark Meat.
Magnolia Electric's archival team has not yet posted my recording of their set, or the Molina solo set on archive.org, but if you are able to download a BitTorrent, I posted the MECo set here and the Molina set here. Jason's list was as follows:
Lonesome Valley, Twilight Come, One Thin Dime, What Comes After The Blues, Bowery, I've Been Riding With The Ghost, The Farewell Transmission
(2009 update - this IS on the archive now - Click Here or if you prefer the MP3's, Click Here)
Jason's final song, Farewell Transmission, was an eerie finale to the official Crampout for 2007-
The whole place is dark
Every light on this side of the town
Suddenly it all went down
Now we’ll all be brothers of the fossil fire of the sun
Now we will all be sisters of the fossil blood of the moon
Someone must have set us up
Now they’ll be working in the cold grey rock, in the hot mill steam… in the concrete
In the sirens and the silences now all the great set up hearts - all at once start to beat
After tonight if you don’t want us to be a secret out of the past
I will resurrect it, I’ll have a good go at it
I’ll streak his blood across my beak and dust my feathers with his ashes
I can feel his ghost breathing down my back
I will try and know whatever I try, I will be gone but not forever
The real truth about it is no one gets it right
The real truth about it is we’re all supposed to try
There ain’t no end to the sands I’ve been trying to cross
The real truth about it is my kind of life’s no better off
If I’ve got the maps or if I’m lost
The real truth about it is there ain’t no end to the desert I’ll cross
I’ve really known that all along
Mama here comes midnight with the dead moon in its jaws
Must be the big star about to fall
Long dark blues
Will o the wisp
The big star is falling
Through the static and distance
A farewell transmission
Listen
As I write this, I am listening to a MECo show from 2006 and just found out about the tragic and untimely death of Evan Farrell, who played bass guitar for MECo during the fall of 2007. Evan died in a house fire on December 23rd, 2007.
Coming soon- Porchstock IIIc featuring trombonical enhancements, the Hickman-Morst duo, as well as the landmark Sunday funday Fi-Stock at Lo-Fi Studios in lovely Loma Linda CA - home of the baby with the baboon heart!
Saturday, Sept 8, 2007
Once again, Gram Rabbit has its lovers and its detractors- too much, or not enough!?! To be honest, after the enduring strength and beauty of the Victor, Gerg, and Jonathan solo sets, I took the opportunity to cut out back to my room at the PiTown Motel and make a sandwich, and dump my camera's memory chip into my roommate's laptop so I could shoot some more, and continue to enjoy the shows. I knew Gram Rabbit had gone on pretty late- evidently they took a LONG time to set up which, unfortunately, ate up a bunch of time on the outdoor stage. I didn't get a photo of their set, but recorded the audio. Last year, I didn't make much of an effort to get their permission to post their sets on archive.org. I mailed ted quinn a copy of their disc for him to give to Jesika Von Rabbit, and never heard back that they thought it was worth posting, so that was that. If a band doesn't want to have their sets posted on archive.org, I tend to get the impression that they aren't worth listening to. I'm sure that's not exactly the case, but if they really cared about their sound, each show should at least be worth listening to, and they should attract enough recordists to get a bunch of shows out there, in any case, so that the poor performances are outnumbered by the good one, and there will be something nice for fans to hear. In the absence of a 2006 set worth listening to, I took my opportunity for a break, and, though I did record the 2007 Gram Rabbit set, I have not played it back more than about twice. If you're interested, get in touch, I can send you a CD of it, but I'm not convinced it will make much of a splash on your stereo, let alone your ears. They are a very visual group. Cute to look at, but not really my cup of tea musically. YMMV, as we say on the inter-webbie-thingy.
Cracker- Now this was the anticipated biggus giggus of the weekend. They had announced in the press that they would be playing the entire Kerosene Hat album in it's entirety, and they did it. Unfortunately, by the time Gram Rabbit set up, played, and broke down, there was only time for Cracker to play the set as advertised, and then one encore song- One Fine Day. Funny stuff with the crowd counting the "blank tracks" in between the main portion and the originally hidden tracks, but much too short of set to really be considered a favorite of mine. Honestly, it was a little anti-climactic, considering that I had just heard them play 9 hot tunes and THEN the entire album in Racine just a couple weeks before as a Pitown warmup. I know there were very few people at McAuliffes Pub in Racine who attended the Pitown gig, and vice versa, but ask Steve© or Rock what they thought of the two sets, and I'll wager that they will tell ya that Ker-RACINE Hat was the hotter one. But that's OK, cause both recordings sound great. My buddy Steve Propp made a matrix mix of the soundboard and audience recordings of both the Crampout set and the Racine one, and they're well worth listening to. I don't know, maybe the Pitown version was a little tighter, but something about seeing a band you love in a small bar with 150 people in attendance is really cool. Sure there was some funky circuit-breaker breaking at the Racine gig, but that was actually pretty cool, since the band's stage amps stayed on, and so did the power to the soundboard.
Pitown Cracker Setlist: Kerosene Hat intro, Low, Movie Star, Get Off This, Kerosene Hat, Take Me Down To The Infirmary, Nostalgia, Sweet Potato, Sick Of Goodbyes, I Want Everything, Lonesome Johnny Blues, Let's Go For A Ride, Loser, Eurotrash Girl, I Ride My Bike, One Fine Day
Did I mention that I made a sticker out of Steve©'s oil painting, with Steve©'s help? Check it out and print it out on some sticker stock!
After the Cracker set ended, Jason Molina took the indoor stage, and played a very special solo set, featuring his voice and his Les Paul, and on the final song, his special guest, the lovely Page Campbell, from Dark Meat.
Magnolia Electric's archival team has not yet posted my recording of their set, or the Molina solo set on archive.org, but if you are able to download a BitTorrent, I posted the MECo set here and the Molina set here. Jason's list was as follows:
Lonesome Valley, Twilight Come, One Thin Dime, What Comes After The Blues, Bowery, I've Been Riding With The Ghost, The Farewell Transmission
(2009 update - this IS on the archive now - Click Here or if you prefer the MP3's, Click Here)
Jason's final song, Farewell Transmission, was an eerie finale to the official Crampout for 2007-
The whole place is dark
Every light on this side of the town
Suddenly it all went down
Now we’ll all be brothers of the fossil fire of the sun
Now we will all be sisters of the fossil blood of the moon
Someone must have set us up
Now they’ll be working in the cold grey rock, in the hot mill steam… in the concrete
In the sirens and the silences now all the great set up hearts - all at once start to beat
After tonight if you don’t want us to be a secret out of the past
I will resurrect it, I’ll have a good go at it
I’ll streak his blood across my beak and dust my feathers with his ashes
I can feel his ghost breathing down my back
I will try and know whatever I try, I will be gone but not forever
The real truth about it is no one gets it right
The real truth about it is we’re all supposed to try
There ain’t no end to the sands I’ve been trying to cross
The real truth about it is my kind of life’s no better off
If I’ve got the maps or if I’m lost
The real truth about it is there ain’t no end to the desert I’ll cross
I’ve really known that all along
Mama here comes midnight with the dead moon in its jaws
Must be the big star about to fall
Long dark blues
Will o the wisp
The big star is falling
Through the static and distance
A farewell transmission
Listen
As I write this, I am listening to a MECo show from 2006 and just found out about the tragic and untimely death of Evan Farrell, who played bass guitar for MECo during the fall of 2007. Evan died in a house fire on December 23rd, 2007.
Coming soon- Porchstock IIIc featuring trombonical enhancements, the Hickman-Morst duo, as well as the landmark Sunday funday Fi-Stock at Lo-Fi Studios in lovely Loma Linda CA - home of the baby with the baboon heart!
Labels: Cracker, Dark Meat, Evan Farrell, Gram Rabbit, Jason Molina, McAuliffe's Pub, Page Campbell, Pappy and Harriet's, Pioneertown, Racine
posted by morst at 1/05/2008 12:09:00 AM -
1 Comments:
Nice blog. It's even better than your Myspace one. Great pics, too. I love that girl's pink dress.
Have a peaceful MLK Day.
Rebecca
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