Mercury Lounge Mono Shows
PookieLuck
random snippets from emble:
>I can't
>give you tonight's set list exactly because the set list Pook promised to
>grab for me she grabbed and will now SELL FOR MONEY to a friend in her
>neighborhood. THE PAIN! THE BETRAYAL! AIEEE!
>
<snip>
well...geee...setlist?? what setlist??? i know nothing of a setlist..ya
sure it was me you were getting one from? ;o)...but anyways kids, i did
listen to my bootleg tape (which came out ok..needs a touch of work) but
here is last nights set list:
fast groove in E
devil went down to newport (same version as friday nite)
mr hughes
peep's court thingie (which was cool..but i liked joe's version friday
night better..)
dashiki lover
creepy
wiz
its fun to steal
distant antenna
backstabbing liar
poison
guitar was the case
imaginary friend
dedication
girls
night security
unsupervised
ENCORE:
first kiss
nyc (which is weird w/o linnell...)
ok..anyways..
> Joe something? did drums...
<snip>
JOE SOMETHING??? i don't think so!!! the man beating away on the drums
ever so grandly was the one and only dan hickey (who schmoozed for a pic
for me :) )! where'd ya come up with joe???
> I was a perfect "gentleman"(uggh!), even escorting
>Pook to Grand Central Station after the show, despite her complaining and
>her having welched on that set-list deal we had. >:8^)#
<snip>
i didn't complain that much :o)
ok..enough of that ...i'm sure i'll post a follow-up to this one :)
both nights were good...tho'saturday was a tad better...BUT flansy was
friendlier friday nite..he was cool about signing autographies and takin a
pic w/ me too :o)...saturday he signed my book (which was also signed by
all the members of Monopuff except the gals and brian w. of lincoln, who
actually caught my attention as opposed to the first time i saw them when
they opened for tmbg @ the webster) altho he was being slightly
dick-ish...but we can forgive him, right? :)
candy butchers totally rocked friday! you were spiralling were ok...altho
3 of them signed a setlist for me..and mike viola of the butchers signed
the set list too...but on the wrong side :( ah well..an autie is an autie
:) brian dewan was just too cool :) my first time seeing him and i dug it
totally :) now i can see why eveyone praises him :)
lincoln was cool..i raved about them above :)
hhmm..wha else..oh yah..i snagged a string from flansy's guitar :)
well, i think i'm done dragging on and on...i apologize to you if you've
gotten this far...i don't usually do the huge post thing so please, i'm
begging for forgiveness in advance :)
desperately needing sleep or a good cup o' joe,
amanda
pooki...@aol.com
this might be a website (tmbg pics, links, and bootleg trading..now
featuring pics from 9/5/97-tmbg @ the webster!) :)
:http://members.aol.com/PookieLuck/index.html
"i beat the wiz, i beat the shit out of him, i followed him for four days,
i beat the wiz"-flansy
PookieLuck
another little snippet from Emble:
>Oh, and I forgot to mention the thrill of watching PookieLuck help Dan
Hickey live up to his name in the corner after the show . . . I'm sure
she'll write all about him in her post.
<snip>
ha! you're just jealous! =D
no, no Emble isn't serious..altho' i did have a lil chat w/ dan after the
show when he signed my book..(see other post about the book..)..he's such a
sweetie! and a fellow lefty! :o)
-amanda
Emble
Oh, and I forgot to mention the thrill of watching PookieLuck help Dan
Hickey live up to his name in the corner after the show . . . I'm sure
she'll write all about him in her post.
/>:8^)#
Emble
Emble
I went to the Sept. 19th and Sept. 20th Mono Puff shows at New York City's
Mercury Lounge. Just got back. Last night wasn't that great, but tonight
the band and the crowd rocked adequately and I'm pleased, although I was
pushy getting him to sign the guitar pick after the show and I think I
pissed him off. Anyway.
Nice people work at the Mercury Lounge. They're strict about carding but
a wealth of ID including an 18-year-old passport, two copies of my birth
certificate, and a photo badge from work got me in even without a
goverment-issued identification card/ drivers licence.
I got to meet GoodOmenz(Liz) and PookieLuck(Amanda) and several other
TMBG fans from Webland. All, all, ALL of you are under 21! No offense,
but his is VERY demoralizing! I should be doing
twenty-something-going-on-dead (the dreaded 30) things and not teen
going-on-college things and that's the stone truth. Ah, life is hard for
the emotionally retarded! And when I'm gonna meet a woman who lists David
Byrne, Neil Gaiman and TMBG as her faves in an AOL member profile she has
to be over drinking age, goddammit! She can't look like girls I knew in
high school! This is not fair. Still, they were all very nice and Liz
baked excellent brownies for us all, and nobody got on my case about
politics and in my turn I was a perfect "gentleman"(uggh!), even escorting
Pook to Grand Central Station after the show, despite her complaining and
her having welched on that set-list deal we had. >:8^)#
Set list for the first night:
Dedication (Dedicated snippet)
Guitar was the Case
It's Fun to Steal
Creepy
Mr. Hughes
Backstabbing Liar
Poison Flowers
Distant Antennas
Night Security
Imaginary Friend
Dashiki Lover
Dedication/ GIRLS
The Devil Went Down To Newport (Totally remade)
Unsupervised, I Hit My Head
Tonight's set was these same songs, re-ordered, only with a little schtick
added from "the People's Court" (Justice Wopner blah blah), a short ditty
called "I beat the Wiz" ("I beat the Wiz - I beat the shit out of that guy
- I followed him for four days - I beat the Wiz") which Flans sang while DJ
Five Stars fumbled with albums between songs. Also tonight he did encores
(which he didn't do last night) which were both TMBG numbers "which started
out as Mono Puff songs" - to wit, "First Kiss" and Cub's "NYC." I can't
give you tonight's set list exactly because the set list Pook promised to
grab for me she grabbed and will now SELL FOR MONEY to a friend in her
neighborhood. THE PAIN! THE BETRAYAL! AIEEE!
Tonight I sang along from the audience so loud that Flans had to stop
Unsupervised to ask me personally to shut up. I was singing very good
harmony, but it was too loud and Flans couldn't hear himself, I guess, so
he asked me nicely to stop and did a brief monologue about me and gave me a
signed guitar pick for consolation, then re-started the number.
I asked Flans last night if the new album was all going to be rereleases
of Hello CD material (he introduced a lot of these songs as "new songs"
during yesterday's set) and the impression I got was, yeah. But I guess
there'll be "dashiki lover," "creepy," and "It's fun to steal" on it, so
I'm not crying. We heard what Flans said was the first live performance of
"It's Fun To Steal" - he was very happy with it, although it went a lot
better tonight than last night. Last night sucked, but they rocked tonight
- they pulled a lot of it together and they managed to rock pretty hard.
They were all in the same key and everything. Keyboardist Joe McGinty did
some good stuff last night, but tonight the real improvement was that he
wasn't getting in the way all the damned time. Less inspiring performance
but less uneven. Not bad overall. D.J. Five Stars was more noticeable
tonight and Flans' wife and another singer, going by the names "Sistah Puff
and Lady Puff," did serviceable monologues over "Distant Antennas" and
"Dedication/Girls," which is a canibalized "Dedicated" with the Flans
monololgue pulled out and some new pseudo-R&B tell-it-sister monologue put
in about how girls shouldn't do what the guys do because then they won't be
ladies - and it's unladylike to take revenge on guys who've dicked you over
and stuff like that. Ho hum. :Some guy - Joe something? did drums while
Steve Calhoon played somewhere across town, and Cragin did a fine job on
bass. John sang us a tenor version of Night Security and we heard about
the man who told John to always "Work Nights," inspiring that song. We
heard intros to several other "autobiographical" songs. John said "fuck" a
lot, most notably in a Homeric string of epithets attached to "forces of
bad" in "Devil." I've heard James Taylor do the same thing in his live
"Steamroller Blues" performances. Is this limited to WHITE guys aiming for
"soul?" John did not visibly respond when I piped (in admittedly poor
taste) "heeeeeelp meeeeee" over the intro to "Mr. Hughes Says" (another
"new" song). I realize that was inappropriate, but some acknowledgement of
my interp would have been nice. Ah, well . . . The odd line in that song
line turns out to actually BE "Tell the LOGO and the lid." Go figure.
Check with Pookie and GoodOmenz to see if their bootlegs came out okay.
I also got this suggestion for Mercury visitors:
During intermissions, run out and use the restroom at Katz's Deli down the
block. There's no line, and you can catch a quick beer (they don't card)
at a buck off the price.. Also they have neat Katz' T-shirts for only 12
dollars a pop. Nice "authentic" new york souveneirs - and they come in XXL,
so if you're too blimpy, like me, for the shirts the bands are selling, you
can always buy a Katz shirt for the bands to sign (although this week they
didn't have the XXL in white so I was SOL anyway. I'll have to content
myself with the pick (sigh . . . )
BTW: If you live near Washington DC and you're reading this before 8 pm
on 9/21, you've still got a few minutes/hours to get to the next Mono Puff
show. It's a strong lineup-go for it.
Now I need to skeedaddle and get some sleep.
She would poke at my coat and I would reply and kick at the ground and not
look in her
Emble
GoodOmenz
belatedly, i just need to add a couple of comments to the previous lovely
show reviews, namely that no one's mentioned exactly how much the monopuff
sound/"scene" has changed in a year and a half or 2 years or whatever (all
i remember is i was 15 last time i saw them) i offten use the word scene
jokingly, im not sure what im doing with it here. last time it was flans
on guitar with a 2 piece back up band. the funkiest they got was What
Bothers the Spaceman or maybe Distant Antenna.
THIS time fans were treated to a full 4 piece back up band of bass, drums,
keyboards and a supercool DJ (and the reason he's supercool is cuz he met
the band thru steve calhoon who will lamentably be absent again at
brownies, flans just isnt planning this well) and oh, lest we forget The
Puffettes!! Sister Puff (robin flans wife) and Lady Puff (kate, i dont
know her significane and lets sidestep the incestous stage names) were
simply facinating in that "look honey, its a car crash" kind of way... they
sang a song called Girls, they did choreographed dance moves. what more
needs to be said? all in all its a set worth seeing if you have the
chance. the drums and guitar version of first kiss was very nice but now
that i could clearly hear ALL the words its upsetting, i thought maybe she
left him at the end. ew, romance
Dashiki Lover gets my vote for runaway dance single of the year, just you
wait! and for any big joe mcginty (sp? hes the keyboardist) fans out
there he'll be appearing this saturday as part of the house band at the
Bottom Line raymond scott tribute! mr dewan will be there as well, playing
piano with jazz accordionist/john linnell clone will holshouser. it'll be
interesting, dunno if im up for it tho.
and oh, true to form the merc failed to card us pesky 17 year olds both
nights so everyone who didnt go cuz of age limits take a red marker, draw a
dot on your desk/wall and write "hit head here"
pookie, just hope you know your new Friend dan hickey is married... cyall
again in november!
~liz
"the day you trade you soul for a heart of stone is the greatest story
never told..." -flans, its fun 2 steal
"hello my name is Brian" -what brian wrote on my friends notebook which is
incidentaly named Frisky which he knew very well