Watch our senior booze hound Hannah Archambault wander aimlessly through shows/awkward predicaments in New York City. Now available in regular installments!
Volume 1
feat. Pere Ubu, Low, 1990s
I thought about pre-gaming my pre-game with a pre-happy hour happy hour, but instead I just ate two cupcakes. At Knitting Factory that night, I missed what probably would have been my Pere Ubu highlight, “Final Solution”, because I was looking for free drinks from Zach. A girl’s got to have priorities, and drink tickets are basically on top.
David Thomas still crows and yawps in about the same way as always. It was both disconcerting and hilarious to see a post-punk legend with a junior high orchestra-style music stand in front of him. At one point he got about ten seconds in to the song, forgot what he was singing and said “You’d think after 32 years of singing this song I’d remember the words”, to which I thought “After 32 years of the kinds of drugs you’ve been doing, I’m surprised you know enough words to put that sentence together”. He’s looking pretty rough, too. The next day one of the friends I brought sent me this with the text “it’s the lead singer from Pere Ubu!”:
He was pretty pissy for some of it, due to bass amp issues. They stopped in the middle of the set for to try and fix it, but continued on with a lesser amp, or something, for the rest of the show. Then, predictably, I stuck around, chatted with band dudes, got trashed in the Tap Bar with the staff, ate Pakistani food across the street, went home, and wanted to die for a couple hours the next day.
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I wasn’t PLANNING on going to a show on Wednesday. But my friend had a +1 for “Scotland Rocks” with Nicole Atkins and the Sea, 1990s and Sons and Daughters, and he didn’t know who else to take (dude knows his way to a girl’s heart).
I’d heard a few songs by 1990s, and liked them, but these kids just rocked the fuck out. Two of them had previously been in the Yummy Fur (explained by my friend and confirmed by Wikipedia), a band that also boasted the lead singer and the drummer of Franz Ferdinand at some point. (Maybe this is why they got signed so fast. Either that, or they’re catchy and cute and fun.) I turned around at one point and my usually hateful College Radio friend was grinning like an idiot. He didn’t even try and hide it.
At one point the lead singer said “Shit, we’ve run out of whiskey. At least we’ve got this soft stuff up here!” and drank a Red Stripe. I was pretty sure at this point I wanted to marry at least one person in the band.
A little later he said “I know that this show is to try and convince you all to come to Scotland, but, uh, if I lived here, I’d never going to fucking Glasgow. But I am contractually obligated to tell you to. So you should all come! All of you! Everyone in the room! You can all stay with me!”, which I’d really, really like to do.
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I almost skipped Low on Friday night, because I started drinking Bloody Marys at 5:15. Four bloodies in, I pulled my shit together and stumbled (seriously) up to Webster. Thank god I got a seat. That’s really all I can say. It was fine. SLOWW… like the album,
So I bailed out of there at like 9:40 and went over to Union Pool to see Clockcleaner and the 1990s (again). Two initial points here: A) everyone I knew was there and B) I was wasted. Clockcleaner were totally fun, but my main thought was “Man, I could totally have a conversation about LOTR with this dude [from Clockcleaner] ”. Turns out I was wrong, as I learned later when he and I had a… confrontation on a bench standing outside.
Here are the text messages I sent myself during the 1990s set, verbatim: “6 string bass”, “Scaredof the tph don't even got1”, “Long instrumemntal dqumners face singing crowd”. I’m pretty sure the bassist uses a 6 string bass, I liked the song “Scared of the Telephone” and the drummer made a great face during the long instrumental section for one song where the crowd was singing. I don’t actually REMEMBER any of this, of course.
I DO remember having a very nice chat with the drummer later, and promising him I’d go to Daddy’s to hang out with him. I didn’t. I was too drunk and no one would go with me. Somehow I did manage to stay at Union Pool until like 5 AM though. Or so I’m told.
