Come's first gig ever?

Reviewing the reissue of Come's extraordinary debut, Eleven:Eleven I stumbled across this video of what may have been the first Come gig ever. (It's from 1991).

Now let's all think for a moment where we were in 1991. (Me, NYC, just starting my freelance business and newly married, no Sean yet, but still a pretty decent marathoner.)



Have a lovely weekend. It's supposed to rain here, pretty much nonstop.

Come again?

Matador is reissuing 11:11, the debut album from Come, a searingly powerful piece of work, described very ably by David Sprague in the band's Trouserpress entry:

Eleven: Eleven is very much a guitar tour de force, drenched as it is in the sweaty fluids that come forth when the six-strings of Zedek (a veteran of Boston's Dangerous Birds and New York's Live Skull) and Chris Brokaw (who served concurrently as Codeine's drummer until 1993) rub against each other. The guitarists seldom settle into standard lead/rhythm roles; rather, they hydroplane in roughly parallel arcs over the steadfast rhythms laid down by drummer Arthur Johnson (formerly a member of spazz-punk ensemble the Bar-B-Q Killers) and bassist Sean O'Brien (who played with the Kilkenny Cats). On tracks like "Brand New Vein" and "Submerge," the atmosphere verges on the oppressive, the air heavy and blue-black with a pharmacological ennui that only abates on the double-barreled windup of "Fast Piss Blues" and a cover of the Stones' "I Got the Blues."

Come has been playing a few shows (and has a tour planned). Here's video from a 2011 reunion show.



And dates, mostly Europe and very large American cities on both coasts (with Chicago in the middle).
5/17-19 Orange Blossom Special Festival Beverungen DM
5/20 Bitterzoet Amsterdam NL
5/22 The Ruby Lounge Manchester UK
5/23 Dingwalls London, UK
5/24 Instant Chavires, Paris FR
5/26 Primavera Sound Festival, Barcelona ES
5/27 Le Romandie Lausanne, Switzerland
5/28 Jubez Karlsruhe, Germany
5/30 Locomotiv, Bologna IT
5/31 Kino, Ebensee AT
6/01 Pilot, Prague CZ
6/02 Festaal Kruezberg, Berlin DE
6/19 Bootleg Theater Los Angeles CA
6/20 The Independent San Francisco CA
6/21 Mississippi Studios Portland OR
6/22 The Crocodile Seattle WA
6/27 The Sinclair Cambridge, MA
6/28 Bowery Ballroom New York NY
7/12 Empty Bottle Chicago, IL

Thalia...back with a fury

This is unusual, three days, three reviews at Dusted...the last is the new one from Thalia Zedek, Via. 

Thalia Zedek
Via
Thrill Jockey

Thalia Zedek’s solo career has, to date, been a more muted affair than her full-band dalliances with Uzi, Live Skull and Come, surrounding her sandpapered, survivor’s rasp with piano, drums and, particularly, David Michael Curry’s wild, emotionally charged violin-playing. Then with 2008’s Liars and Prayers, the no-wave icon began turning up the volume, her ravaged voice surfing over roiling tides of dissonant guitar. In Via, she continues her journey back into rock abandon, beginning in the relative clarity of first single, “Walk Away,” and ending up in the maelstrom breakdown of closer “Want You To Know.”

 

Zedek worked with two drummers this time, first with Daniel Coughlin, a long-time fixture on her solo work and also Come’s old drummer, and later, Dave Bryson who is best known for his work with Son Volt. The rest of her band is familiar – Curry on violin and Mel Lederson on piano. Zedek herself plays guitar and sings, as usual.

 

I’m not sure you can attribute the shift toward more chaotic, untrammeled rock and roll to a mid-album switch in drummers, so let’s lay it at Zedek’s feet. She, after all, spends most of the album singing about the past’s long reach, its way of reappearing suddenly as long-dormant relationships re-animate, or its surprising power to shape people, events and emotions. It’s not much of a jump to imagine her backward look leading to the heavy guitars, the irregular rhythms, the pummeling overload of her 1980s and ’90s work. Zedek’s past is not a light or easy thing, either personally or musically, and neither is Via.

 More

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In other news, I finally gave up and joined Facebook.  I'm still not sure how the whole thing works, but my profile page is here, and I'm pretty easy about friending people. 

The other thing that happened yesterday was pretty great.  Sean got into another BFA acting program, this one at CCPA/Roosevelt, which is a very legitimate, Chicago-based, theater-centric program...certainly a vindication of the whole audition-school adventure that we embarked on after he got rejected from Northwestern.  I hope we'll have enough money for it.  I hope we don't have to sell the house.  But that's two performance-based programs that want him based on his acting ability...and a lot more positive response than he's gotten for his academics.  (Which are not bad.  4.4 weighted GPA, 5th in his class, 2020 SATs...but not good enough.) 

I can't believe what this society does to its kids.  It's criminal. 

Another best-of list

Blurt (the old Harp) put out its year end list yesterday, and, I have to say, it's way more in line with my 2008 than any other aggregated list I've seen. I had some input into it...but then I had some input into the PopMatters list, which has not a single one of my top-ten picks in its top 60.

But Blurt has singled out a bunch of my favorites -- not just Alejandro, but Thalia Zedek and the Gutter Twins.

So, wow, I feel like a part of something for once, instead of a lone kook in the desert.

Here's the list.
http://www.blurt-online.com/features/view/240/