THE CENTENNIAL

Another trip to the Hi-Dive this Saturday night, with three bands performing: Glowing Houses, American Tomahawk and The Centennial. I was there to see The Centennial whose leading member is Patrick Meese, who led the former band Meese. His wife Tiffany and brother Nathan and a bass player make up this new band.

This is what was written in advance of the show:

Earlier this year, Denver pop/rock band Meese--whom many anticipated were following the same path toward stardom as The Fray did a few years ago--made a rather surprising decision to disband and regroup, as a completely new band with a completely different sound. Dubbing themselves The Centennial, brothers Patrick and Nate Meese, along with Patrick's wife Tiffany, made their public debut at the Hi-Dive during last summer's Underground Music Showcase.

This Saturday night, November 27, The Centennial is returning to the Hi-Dive, their original launching pad, to celebrate the official release of a brand-new EP, aptly entitled Second Spring. Helping them celebrate the release will be American Tomahawk, Glowing House, and Tommy & the High Pilots.

The sound of The Centennial is a vast departure from the days of Meese. While Nate still covers the guitar, Patrick has left his previous slot on keyboards, leaving those duties to wife Tiffany while he sings lead from the drums. Gone also are the melodic pop hooks; this new sound is exploratory, experimental and reflective, a sound that is better heard than described. Familiar faces working from a totally new playbook.

http://www.examiner.com/local-music-in-denver/the-centennial-formerly-meese-releases-ep-this-weekend-at-hi-dive

Nothing special about the local band Glowing Houses. However, I did enjoy the second act, American Tomahawk.
This is what Westword wrote about them:
Adam Halferty has toured with 3OH!3 and played drums in a number of very recognizable bands over the years. American Tomahawk, however, Halferty's solo project, might make folks hope he never returns to the drum throne again. His latest album, Generalities, Contradictions and Future Criminals, which he recorded on his own, shows us not only his excellent production skills, but his prowess as a singer, guitarist and songwriter, as well. "Our Song Knife" opens the album on a subdued note with quietly strummed guitars before giving way to rich and layered choruses on songs like "Please" and "Sunshine People." With the fragility and yearning of Pedro the Lion's Control, Generalities swoons and bends through complex stop-and-start rhythms while Halferty seamlessly harmonizes with himself — something a drummer would be hard pressed to pull off, but something a true musician like Halferty comes close to perfecting.


Download American Tomahawk's show from this night here:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=O46H2AB1


The following pictures are from The Centennial's performance this evening. I was trying out a different camera and my verdict is that it failed.

Download The Centennial's show here:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=W9MGCD51

INTRODUCING THE RAMONES

I made the mistake of opening an email late in the afternoon on Friday, involving a subject I knew would fire me up in a negative way. And sure enough, that's what happened, leading me to stay in the office long after everyone else had left on this holiday weekend. I needed something to flush the thought from my mind. Tequila, music and a cigar would help me forget, at least temporarily.


First up was the Ramones, performing live in Utica NY on November 14, 1977. On that date I was only a couple hundred mile west of them, down interstate highway 90, attending SUNY Buffalo. At that time, music was far from my mind, something I'd listen to just for a distraction from studies. I believe I saw Meatloaf that year, one of my first concerts ever.

This show is an excellent soundboard recording, during which they perform 18 songs in less than 40 minutes. There are times during the show when they remind me of a punked out Beach Boys. This show took place shortly after they released Rocket to Russia, their third studio album, as was noted on stage this evening.


Wikipedia describes then as follows:

The Ramones were an American rock band that formed in Forest Hills, Queens, New York in 1974, often cited as the first punk rock group. Despite achieving only limited commercial success, the band was a major influence on the punk rock movement both in the United States and the United Kingdom.

All of the band members adopted pseudonyms ending with the surname "Ramone", though none of them were actually related. They performed 2,263 concerts, touring virtually nonstop for 22 years. In 1996, after a tour with the Lollapalooza music festival, the band played a farewell show and disbanded. By a little more than eight years after the breakup, the band's three founding members—lead singer Joey Ramone, guitarist Johnny Ramone, and bassist Dee Dee Ramone—had all died.

Download it here:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=O832Q8MX

What I was really waiting for this Friday night was Public Image Limited, their show at the Top Rank Suite in Brighton, UK on November 2, 1983. A great sounding recording. "Stop gobbing you cheap little turd" exclaims John Lydon after their first number, something he'd say countless times over the years to get the audience to stop spitting at him, a habit that came out of their Sex Pistols days. Elsewhere during the show he taunts the audience and tries to make them boo loudly. He has real stage presence!

Download it here:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=FDFZ240D

SID AND KURT MAKE THEIR EXIT

I was invited to attend a meeting in Orlando, Florida this past week, joining my colleagues from other states to talk about solving problems with a particular business sector that we are required to deal with. It was a great opportunity to learn what others do to solve problems similar to those I have to deal with on a regular basis.

Monday was spent traveling, two days of meetings, a third day attending a field trip and then returning Friday morning, in time to spend half a day in the office. The field trip was to Cape Canaveral to visit some of the launch pad complexes and other facilities that had severe environmental problems. This was a fun part of the trip in that we visited some historic locations that figured prominently in the "space race" back in the 1960's.


Hotels rise skyward
Glow in the halogen light
Palm trees silhouette


Grassy roadside ditch
Puddle reflects street light's glare
A frogs sudden splash


Lit and occupied
Stacked rooms cast their yellowed light
Everyone's alone


Gray on solid black
Moon breaks through fast moving clouds
Two cranes flying by


Tangle of forest
Gives way to their fantasy
Fueled by the dollars


Once it was so wild
Cut, cleared, leveled, blades biting deep
Stuccoed towers rise


Ponce de Leon's dream
Fountain of eternal youth
A land's sudden death


Politicians gather
Their feuding over power
People left to die

I finished reading Jon Savage's England's Dreaming: Anarchy, Sex Pistols, Punk Rock, and Beyond sitting in my hotel room in Florida. A great read, so much so that I was very disappointed when I reached its end. It shed light on an interesting musical era that I knew little about how it all fit together, the events and performers. In an effort to keep the excitement going, I chose to listen to a live recording of the Sex Pistols this Saturday night. The show chosen was their last performance together on January 14, 1978, ending their very short, turbulent existence. A great performance that kept me dancing the whole time.

Wikipedia describes the show as follows:

Live at Winterland 1978 is a live album by Sex Pistols, first released in its entirety in 1997. The last two songs were released in 1980 by Island Records on their two-disc TROUBLEMAKERS, bookending the compilation.

This is the Sex Pistols last ever concert (before reunion in 1996), recorded in San Francisco at the Winterland Ballroom. After what would seem like closing with Anarchy in the UK, Johnny Rotten came back on stage with his bandmates already playing "No Fun", said "You'll get one number and one number only cuz I'm a lazy bastard. This is 'No Fun'."

At the end of "No Fun", Rotten says one of his more infamous quotes, with the end of the band upon him, "Ahaha, ever get the feeling you've been cheated? Good night!"

Dropped in the maelstrom

So totally unprepared

Drowning in fame's glare

Rough exterior

Posing for the audience

Forgotten boy inside

Somethings wrong with them

Genius on the precipice

Coming to an end

A little over one year later on February 2, 1979 show, the bands bass player, Sid Vicious (born John Simon Ritchie), died of a heroin overdose. Jon Savage's book was enlightening with regard to Sid's personality, emphasizing how a young man was swept up in the events of the times, choosing to live up to his nickname for the sake of the bands public image.

Wikipedia describes that fateful event as follows:

On the evening of 1 February 1979, a small gathering to celebrate Sid's having made bail (he was arrested for a fight in a bar, already out on bail for the death of his girlfriend Nancy Spurgeon in October of 1977, mysteriously stabbed to death while Sid slept off his heroin trip in the apartment) was held at the home of his new girlfriend, Michele Robinson, with whom he had started dating the day he got out of Bellevue Hospital the previous October. Vicious was clean, having been detoxed from heroin during his time at Rikers Island. However, at the dinner gathering, his mother had some heroin delivered, against the wishes of Sid's girlfriend. The person who delivered it, Peter Kodick, came and stayed for a while. Vicious overdosed later that night. Everyone who was there that night worked together to get him up and walking around in order to revive him. Much later that night, Sid and his girlfriend fell asleep together. Vicious was discovered dead late the next morning. An autopsy confirmed that Vicious died from an accumulation of fluid in the lungs that was consistent with heroin overdose. A syringe, spoon, and heroin residue were discovered near the body. It was theorised that he had taken too much of the nearly 100%-pure heroin to shoot up the third dose himself. After his recent overdose, he should have been unconscious all night.

A few days after Vicious' cremation, his mother found a suicide note in the pocket of his jacket:

We had a death pact, and I have to keep my end of the bargain. Please bury me next to my baby in my leather jacket, jeans and motorcycle boots. Goodbye..

Nancy was buried in a Jewish cemetery and Vicious, who was not Jewish, could not be buried with her. Vicious' mother scattered his ashes over Nancy's grave.

Download the show here:

http://www.mediafire.com/?3vsjj9alpry

Next up this evening was Nirvana, their live show on February 22, 1994 in Rome, Italy. Another excellent recording, both in terms of sound quality and the bands performance. I chose this show because it was one of the last they were to perform together before Kurt Cobain was also to die from a heroin overdose. Great set list with Kurt giving it his all.

Kurt says this about bootleggers after Polly:

"I think I see a guy with a cassettaphone out there. But we all know that people who bootleg shows or sell bootleg T-shirts, their all a bunch of pedophiles, they support murder in the third world, they torture children. That's a reason not to support bootleggers."

Wikipedia describes the events of Kurt Cobain's death as follows:

On 8 April 1994, Cobain's body was discovered at his Lake Washington home by an electrician who had arrived to install a security system. Apart from a minor amount of blood coming out of Cobain's ear, the electrician reported seeing no visible signs of trauma, and initially believed that Cobain was asleep until he saw the shotgun pointing at his chin. A suicide note was found, addressed to Cobain's childhood imaginary friend "Boddah", that said, paraphrasing, "I haven't felt the excitement of listening to as well as creating music, along with really writing . . . for too many years now". A high concentration of heroin and traces of Valium were also found in his body. Cobain's body had been lying there for days; the coroner's report estimated Cobain to have died on 5 April 1994.

Download the show here:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=IJYDAOO5