Beck plays songs for Eric and his friends...

Eric thinks you want a way-too-long post about last weekend's adventures. Okay.. I mean, you're the one asking for it...
My weekend began strong, stayed strong, and ended strong.

Friday Night, Greg K and I went to dinner, then to the El Rey theater, where Luna put on one helluva show. I’d seen two of the guys from Luna open up for Beck when he played New York’s Town Hall during his mini-Mutations tour. Maybe it was the funny smoke in the air, maybe it was because someone needed to “rock the Shabbat”… Whatever the reason, Luna put on one of the greatest shows I’ve seen in awhile. For a goodbye tour, the concert was a lot more upbeat than expected. The crowd was full of pretty girls, pretty boys, hipsters, and dorks.
Play by play: Greg and I eat chicken for dinner. We get to the theater. Out comes the opening act: Midnight Movies. Los Movies de Midnight are a trio. Two dudes on guitar (is there no bassist or was one of the guitars really a bass guitar? My memory and disinterest of details affords you/me with no answer) and a girl on drums and vocals. Drums are front and center as she sings the songs. What do they sound like? Sorta futuristic-arcadefireish with her Nico-esque voice making it something very unique… The songs sometimes don’t have clear choruses to my ears. “Strange Design” is the track I’ve been listening to most. “Mirage” is my favorite, though. The crowd went cuckoo-for-cocoa-puffs over it. Greg and I both enjoyed Midnight Movies. Greg bought the CD. Having listened to the CD, I can say the CD is different than what they do live which is rude raw rock. On CD, the songs have a cleaner prettier sound. Don’t know which I enjoyed more. On stage, the lead singer had a very modest demeanor that earned my heart. She was ruling the stage, and when she talked, it was just to say, “are you guys excited for Luna?”. Midnight Movies is an L.A. band that captures the empty late nights of Los Angeles well. A California of orange fluorescent glow and traffic jams; not of surfboards and convertibles.
Luna came out and sang song after song after song. They did their cover of Serge Gainsbourg’s “Bonnie and Clyde”. I’ve considered learning French just so I understood Serge Gainsbourg songs. I’ve also considered learning Brazilian for the same reason with Caetano Veloso (His 1968 album has “Alegria, Alegria”, a track that might be the best song I’ve ever heard. Then again, Brian’s (we’re on a first name basis ever since he talked to me in a dream) “Don’t Talk, Put Your Head On My Shoulder” is still fuckin’ gold. While we’re off the subject but discussing Beach Boys, Check out the Smiley Smile/Wild Honey 2-albums on a CD. Wild Honey has a song called “Aren’t You Glad” that makes me more than glad. Look, Listen, Vibrate, Smile, y’all!)
I can’t say I’m super-familiar with Luna’s music. I own Romantica and don’t think it’s great. But this concert really made me want to give them a chance. ‘Cause in concert, these songs sounded wonderful. A lot of their songs sound the same, but then again, a lot of R.E.M. songs sound exactly the same but I like them. A drunk girl bumped up against me and Greg a lot while she was dancing/collapsing-sideways. There was another girl who looked the girl from the muppet band (Janice) but with a fedora. There’s a lot of Janice-lookalikes in California. Going to a concert not knowing the songs always seems to put me at a disadvantage. It’s nice to go to a concert and hear music you know from albums/mp3’s created anew for an audience. Anyway, I had a good time, even if I didn’t know a lot of the songs. Greg drove me home. P.S. The bar at the El Rey ran out of Miller High Life. This made me happy. All Schlitz aside, Milwaukee IS famous.

Saturday, I woke up tired. Alex and I jumped in the car to drive 8 blocks. (Yeah, Los Angeles!) We went to Eat Well on Sunset for Brunch with Alex’s high school friend, Jason. Good to see Jason.

Later on Saturday, my favorite rock star had a show (thanks to FAB for giving me the very very very appreciated heads-up). If you don’t have patience, here’s my quick write-up of the show:
The sound mix was off at first, but some of the songs sounded amazing. "Girl"and whichever one was "Nazarene" on the leak sounded great to me. Also, for those not there: "Guess" was a great version of "Guess I'm Doing Fine". My ears are buzzing. Gotta start wearing earplugs to shows 'cause my hearing's only getting worse. The drummer was excellent tonight and the keyboardist was very good, 'though for background vocals, his mic was turned up too high. And they turned down the bass a little which helped. Great to see Beck playing live. The new songs fucking rock. It's been too long since a Beck tour. Looking forward to this summer immensely. The opener was Har Mar Superstar, who is a really fun (and funny) one-trick pony. The crowd treated Har Mar very very nicely. More tomorrow... It was also fucking cool to see Beck in such a small venue. I wore my old Beck t-shirt with a rainbow on it (I think from '94).

Long write-up:



Greg K. and I stood in line for hours during the afternoon to get tickets to a secret (‘though at that point on Saturday not-so-secret) BECK show. At around 4pm, Greg and I started the line. The line stretched down the street and around the corner. When the guy from the club 1650 came out to announce the 4-ticket limit, I couldn’t help but recognize his resemblance to Rick Bayless, a cook who has a show on PBS and I believe on the Food Network as well. Anyway, seeing a Rick Bayless lookalike did not make my day. No, it was the excitement of seeing my favorite musician of all time play a set of all new music. Greg and I told stories to each other of our youth. Some guy in line said he heard the opening act likes to perform in his underwear (at that point, I had a feeling the opener was Har Mar. In retrospect, I would’ve liked to have told Greg so he would have been impressed when Har Mar Superstar turned out to be the opener. At 5:40pm, Greg and I each bought two tickets (a total of 4 for the non-math majors out there in the audience) so that E-Mags and A-Scards could join us for some rock. At 6pm, Greg and I ate Thai. By 7:35pm, we were in line to get into the show. In full dork mode,We debated with some guy about what the greatest Beck album is. E-Mags and A-Scards showed up. At 8:20 pm, the doors opened. We walked in, and stood for over an hour. Even though a dj was playing an awesome set, nobody really danced. Lots of good hip hop (Sadly no nuggets) including some Jurassic 5 I haven’t heard before. Everyone was eager for Beck. Before 10, the opening act came out. Indeed, Har Mar Superstar. He had recordings of instrumentals backing him up. Let me describe Har Mar. He’s short, with long hair (bald on top) and a lazy physique. He undresses as he sings to the crowd. He kept his pants on Saturday Night. Har Mar sings soul songs really well and raps really well. Unfortunately, it comes across as a one-trick somewhat humorous way-too-ironic pony at times. However, he got the crowd going and between songs would remind the audience how amazing he was. “I’m fucking awesome. Gimme some applause.” He got sweaty, kissed girls in the audience, and had a great time doing his act. A-Scards’s jaw was dropped for most of it. She thought she was there to see Beck and didn’t realize getting to see Har Mar’s hairy back was part of the deal. Har Mar dances pretty well and with a lot of energy. At one point, he made the most vulgar gesture I’ve seen anywhere in a long time. He reached down the front of his pants with his hand, then pulled his hand out and proceeded to flick out sweat, I presume, at the audience. I laughed, but the hardest laugh of the weekend came on Sunday. The setup for Beck took awhile. (Can’t they tune guitars before they let the audience in?). Beck and his new band took the stage. I haven’t seen Beck in concert since 2003. What was the night to bring? Here’s the setlist:

SETLIST/Play-by-Play:
1. E-Pro – E-Pro is the first single off the new album. Beck was playing his guitar on this. I don’t know why, but his guitar (the black Silvertone with the RUSH sticker on it) sounded gnarly & raw. The bass was too loud in the mix. I’d heard the song before and I like it. It’s a great song to lift weights to, by the way.
2. Not on the setlist, but thought it should be mentioned, Beck performed “Que Onda Guero” at some point during the set. This is a cool fucking song. Beck raps in half-spanish, half-english and it’s good cheer-up medicine.
Black Tambourine- Black Tambourine is going to be the second single off “Guero”. The tambourine wasn’t close enough to the mic at times. Other than that, it was good.
Scarecrow - Fine.
Guess I'm Doing Fine – A song from “Sea Change”, it sounded beautiful. Sound mix got a lot better during this song. Also, Beck’s acoustic for this sounded so pretty, it made me mucho happy.
Girl – Holy Shit, if the lyrics weren't so frightening, this song would be a single. The “hey’s” which were so/too loud in the leaked version sounded great live. It sounds a lot like “Electric Music and the Summer People” an older Beck song (from the Odelay B-side area, but also re-recorded as a B-Side during Mutations (it’s on the Cold Brains single, which is fucking amazing from stop to finish. “One of these Days” and “Diamond in the Sleaze” are fantastic retro songs that are amongst my top 25 beck songs. I’ll list the top 25 on here sometime. “New Pollution” and “Tropicalia” are probably the two most notable omissions) “Girl” is a little retro love song that's just as much about hate... check out the lyrics at whiskeyclone.net/ghost for an idea of what I mean... such an upbeat song about sadness... wonder if this song is really about the catharsis of creating "Sea Change".
We Dance Alone – I hadn’t heard this song before. I guess it’ll be a b-side. Cold mechanical rock, as I remember.
Rental Car – Silliest Beck sample on this song since “Mellow Gold”. Couldn’t help but dance to the sample, which is a “la la la” song also sampled in the movie “Fight Club”. People enjoyed this song.
Emergency Exit - previously titled “Nazarene” on the leaked album tracks, this song is gorgeous drenched with Faulkernesque imagery, not to mention religious overtones I enjoy.
Broken Drum – Sounds good.
Hell Yes – “Hell Yes” for some reason felt low on energy and that Beck was trying to be laid-back cool, but it just came across as tired.
Knock Out – I’d never heard this before. It should be on the album. It is a great Beck rapping song. And the chorus felt cool. At least, I hope it’s a B-Side.
Remain – Don’t remember this song much.
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Get Real Paid – Didn’t sound like the “Midnite Vultures” version. The keyboardist sang his part of the song into a vocoder, so it sounded like Beck had a robot echoing his voice.

Photos of the Spectacularness at : this website

Anyway, the sound mix got better as the night went on. Couldn’t tell how into the crowd was into the new music. Interested to look at the lyrics and see what sort of religious allusions are being made in some of these songs. Greg, E-Mags, and A-Scards really enjoyed the show which made me happy. I wish I could describe more about how and why the show was so wonderful. Maybe I'll come back and edit the post with more info so you can know what it's like to stand in a small room and listen to your favorite musician play spectacular all-new songs with his all-new band. Thumbs up.

SUNDAY
I joined Alex, E-Mags, M-Lawrs, Mo, and Johannes in a drive to the desert to help out on Alex’s film shoot. Little did I know that we’d be hiking up into little mountains of rock. Little did I know it was going to be 39 degrees when we got there. Despite the cold, it was a great day. At lunch, Alex made everyone turkey avocado sandwiches. They were wonderful. The scenery was beautiful and it was great to get out of Los Angeles for the day. Lots of young kids riding around on 4-wheelers/ATV’s. While eating lunch, a pack of ATV’s went by. About a minute later, an ATV pulls up slowly and follows the group of ATV’s into the hill. Seeing this ATV so far back from the pack, elicited an insane amount of laughter from me. Maybe I could relate to the sadness of being in last place. In any case, there was something endearingly pathetic about the kid on an ATV who could just get abandoned by the group who he couldn’t keep up with. At first, I’m just smiling when the kid pulls up on his ATV, but then I make eye contact with Mo, and the laughter starts. I felt bad, like I was laughing at last-place-rider, but not too bad, ‘cause it felt good to laugh until I cried.

Sunday Night – E-Mags and I sat in a restaurant/bar in Glendale and watched the superbowl. Paul McCartney was super. Feel bad for Philadelphia. Well, at least they have the Mutter museum. And the cheesesteak. (By the way, I won’t argue Pat’s vs. Geno’s. Tony Luke’s all the way, in my opinion (And yes, word is that Tony Lukes is coming to New York. Apparently there’s a dearth of heart attacks in the tri-state area). What a great fucking weekend. 2 wonderful concerts, a day in the desert, and 3 dollar margaritas during the Superbowl. Over and out, Eric

It’s Tuesday now. At 1pm, I head off for an interview with a temp agency, which would be a good way to make some money while I keep trying to find my way into my desired career path…