1990s Ticket Stubs @digitizingalbums - Tumblr Blog

Stub no. 52 December 31, 1998: Luna, The Knitting Factory, New York City I never knew its first location in SoHo, and I haven’t been to its new namesake in Brooklyn. But at its subterranean TriBeCa location, the Knitting Factory was a pleasing network of small rooms with good acoustics, positioned on various levels and half-levels and connected by stairs and catwalks: a club that might have been designed by M.C. Escher. This visit to the Knitting Factory was my first New Year’s Eve as a New York City resident. Luna by now was as familiar and comfortable as worn-in boots, and a ticket to see them was a free pass from that awful ritualized New Year’s Eve pressure to do something unforgettable. At the moment all the plastic horns and noisemakers sounded a few miles north in Times Square, Luna’s members quietly paused their song, put their guitars down and shared a brief swig of Champagne before settling back into their downtown groove: the last sound I heard in 1998 and the first I heard in 1999. I’m sorry this labyrinthine space is no longer, but at least I got to see Luna return from retirement in 2015. • This year, I posted a bunch of old concert ticket stubs on their anniversaries. This is the last day of the year, so this is the last stub in the series. Thanks for indulging me on this nostalgia trip. The rest of the stubs are posted at http://digitizingalbums.tumblr.com/.]

Stub no. 51 December 28, 1992: Robyn Hitchcock, 9:30 club, Washington, D.C. The 9:30’s original F Street room was too small to hold more than a couple hundred fans at once, which became increasingly problematic in the 1990s as its programming format became more popular and profitable. I remember one message on its phone hotline, taped by an obviously exasperated employee in kindergarten sing-song: “Today’s word is ‘sold out’! ‘Sold out’ means there are no…more…tickets…available! For example! Tonight’s show, featuring the Pixies…is …‘sold out’!…” For those who could could get in, it was the most intimate rock joint in town. Right from the start that night, Hitchcock stepped off his surreal planet to thumb his nose at the white-hot nightclub across the street: “Good evening, and welcome to not Fifth Column.” Maybe he was acknowledging his continuing steady drift outside the orbit of prominence—or at least outside the D.C. scene’s encroaching future of Thievery Corporation, mixologists, and a larger 9:30 club that opened up several years later in a defrocked church, a mile and a half up 9th Street NW. [Next stub appears on December 31. The rest are posted at http://digitizingalbums.tumblr.com/.]

Stub no. 50 December 18, 1991: Lloyd Cole with Forster & McLennan and The Judybats, The Citadel, Washington, D.C. A roller rink isn’t the coziest venue for live music, but it had a festive air that night. Everyone was home from college, so I caught this one with Jeff, Tracy, Debbie Wassertzug, Rob Sondik and Josh Weinberg. Robert Forster and Grant McLennan were up first, racing through a half-hour set of Go-Betweens songs before yielding the stage to a generic, ephemeral “alternative” band I haven’t thought about since. Cole was supporting “Don’t Get Weird on Me, Babe,” which for whatever reason was being promoted as having one traditional “rock” side and one dramatic, lushly produced “cool” side. I never would have heard this division if it hadn’t been spelled out for me; I listened again recently, and I still don’t buy into the idea. At any rate, Cole played a lot of the album that night, giving the rock side more love. Of the album’s alleged “cool” side, only the spooky, sinister “Butterfly” made that night’s set list; Cole still plays that one in his live shows. [Next stub appears on December 28. The rest are posted at http://digitizingalbums.tumblr.com/.]

Stub no. 49 November 29, 1991: Billy Bragg and the Red Stars with Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy and Barry Crimmins, Riviera, Chicago Senior year. Night after Thanksgiving. Chicago. Pete Coviello. John Doerr. T-shirts. Pamphlets. Literature. Leftie activist harangues masquerading as stand-up. Sheet metal. Circular saw. Sparks in rhythmic arcs. Michael Franti. “California Über Alles.” Walk-on music. Metallica, “Enter Sandman.” Billy Bragg and the Red Stars. “You Woke Up My Neighbourhood.” The heckler-spotting guitar. Three fans chanting. “I!—I!—I-R-A!” Crowd going quiet. Bragg coolly shutting them up. “Yeah, try chanting that at one of our gigs in England.” Crowd cheering. “Thanks for coming to see us even though the Red Hot Willy-Waggers are playing just up the road.” Encore. Everyone piled back onstage. “We’d thought about sending you off with ‘The Internationale’ or ‘The Red Flag.’ But we decided to get you to dance your arse off.” Deee-Lite’s “Groove is in the Heart.” Ten minutes long. A solo for everyone in the Red Stars and the Disposable Heroes. And even, alas, the leftie activist stand-up comic. [Next stub appears on December 18. The rest are posted at http://digitizingalbums.tumblr.com/.]

Stub no. 48

November 27, 1990: The Waterboys, The Vic, Chicago

No sooner had the skinny Irish kid asked me for my name, shouting over the Waterboys onstage, than he’d turned around and introduced me to six of his friends—and then announced with enthusiasm that I’d be doing the reel with them. Not that he’d asked me, or explained what he meant. But suddenly I found myself yanked off my feet, suspended between two strangers in the ring with arms over shoulders as the Vic whirled around us to the gleeful strains of “And a Bang on the Ear.” After starting off in the gloomy U2–Simple Minds–Alarm terrain, the Waterboys had settled comfortably into their Phase II, adopting a full-on Celtic revival, far more Chieftains than Pogues. I’d missed the “Fisherman’s Blues” tour, but I’d heard all about it: instead of the traditional mosh pit rooted in place, an entire theaterful of fans had swirled around the room together. It must have been amazing to watch from the balcony or the stage. Luckily, they did their next album in the same vein, and I was glad I got to experience a repeat of this mad teacup ride. Especially fun with a bunch of strangers from Ireland. [Next stub appears on November 29. The rest are posted at http://digitizingalbums.tumblr.com/.]

Stub no. 47 November 11, 1984: Culture Club, Capital Centre, Landover, Maryland For several years in the mid-’80s, my Dad accidentally racked up an impressive scorecard of era-specific concerts as his kids’ intrepid chaperone. Duran Duran, Thompson Twins, O.M.D., Eurythmics, Howard Jones—I know he saw Michael Jackson at RFK Stadium, and he may have seen Prince. Rumor had it Capital Centre hosted a lounge hidden away somewhere for parents who couldn't deal, but I have the sneaking suspicion Dad actually enjoyed himself. I joined him and Tracy for this one as a last-minute sub for a friend of Tracy’s who was too sick to go. Much of the spectacle was in the audience: I walked by one guy who looked like a carpet installer sporting a Boy George braid and bowler, not to mention a giddy wall-to-wall grin. In the seats in front of us, a party of several young black couples grooved and sang every word of all the hits, louder and better than the tiny guy onstage in the fluorescent costume. Culture Club put on a good show, but their fans were worth the face value. And Dad, I don't even need to ask you if you loved this one. [Next stub appears on November 21. The rest are posted at http://digitizingalbums.tumblr.com/.]

Stub no. 46 November 10, 1994: The Blue Aeroplanes, Double Door, Chicago One of the stranger bands I’ve followed over the years was this constantly rotating group from Bristol, England, who played eccentric, melancholy rock with one significant brand differentiator. (Well, maybe two.) The Blue Aeroplanes’ center of gravity was Gerard Langley, a dour latter-day Beatnik who talk-sang his anxious, sarcastic poetry (“Pick a card, any card…wrong!”) over ringing guitars. The band released a number of covers—Velvet Underground, Kinks, Smithereens…Sylvia Plath—but it’s maybe best known for its apoplectic reading of Paul Simon’s “Boy in the Bubble.” I saw them perform that one as an encore in this set at the Double Door, where I’d dragged Neal Pollack, who didn’t seem to be hearing what I’d heard until there was a bright light and a shattering of shop windows. This was the only time I ever got to see the Aeroplanes play, and it was enough to reveal the band’s secret weapon: Wojtek Dmochowski, credited on every album as “dancer.” I’d always wondered how this guy justified his seemingly layoff-proof spot in the lineup. Well, I got schooled. He stole the show. Gerard and Wojtek: my apologies for ever doubting. [Next stub appears on November 11. The rest are posted at http://digitizingalbums.tumblr.com/.]

Stub no. 45 November 4, 1998: The Apples in Stereo, Mercury Lounge, New York City When I occasionally put on The Apples in Stereo’s 1997 album “Tone Soul Evolution,” I inevitably remember my earliest months in New York City, especially the one-bedroom parlor-floor apartment I rented on a park block in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. ($885 a month, since you asked.) The place had rich cathedral acoustics—14-foot ceilings will do that—and I spent a lot of time in ’98 with “Evolution,” an album of bright, singalong psychedelia and nape-tingling “Pet Sounds” harmonies. The Apples were suitably goofy, crowded together on the Mercury’s small stage, looking like a set of adorably mismatched cartoon characters of varying shapes and sizes; in person, out in the bar after the show, they were sweet and silly. The next few albums took them deeper into conceptual science-fiction territory. By the time I saw them again more than a decade later, when my friend Grant Widmer and his duo Generationals opened for them at the Bowery Ballroom, I’m sad to say I’d drifted out of the Apples’ orbit. [Next stub appears on November 10. The rest are posted at http://digitizingalbums.tumblr.com/.]

Stub no. 44 November 3, 1994: Superchunk with The Wedding Present and Butterglory, Metro, Chicago “Hrm…this’s’called ‘Go-Go Dancer.’” When I cheered my irrelevant approval, a couple layers from the stage, David Gedge furrowed his brow. “Hrm…annit goes out to this guy,” he continued in his Geordie mumble, waving his palm at me and chuckling: “…’s’the only one’er knowsersong…” I saw The Wedding Present on my own that night, and while I wasn’t stewing over any injustice of their playing in the supporting slot, I really wasn’t there to see Superchunk. That is, not until I repaired to the balcony, where I could make an easier exit if sufficiently bored. I shouldn’t have worried. Just five minutes into the set of caffeinated Carolina punk, I could see what the fuss was about. From that distance, the moshing downstairs seemed celebratory, not violent, and Mac MacCaughan achieved impressive hangtime in stovepipe jeans and Doc Marten boots (if memory serves). I didn’t know the set list at all, but I’m pretty sure they had the good sense to end on a “Precision Auto” freakout. One year and one day later, I went with Deborah Wassertzug to see them again at the same venue, on purpose this time. But we were still absorbing the shocking news we’d learned half an hour before the show, of Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination. That show wasn’t so enjoyable. [Next stub appears on November 4. The rest are posted at http://digitizingalbums.tumblr.com/.]

Stub no. 43 October 30, 1997: Tindersticks with Elliott Smith, Metro, Chicago The eeriness descended right on time for Halloween. Has the mystery behind Elliott Smith's 2003 suicide-or-murder ever been solved? Either way, he had a spectral presence in life, all pale skin and wispy voice, looking like he’d just awakened from a trance to discover he was standing onstage, clutching a guitar. That night, he wasn't feeling well, complaining to us about having to pay a doctor that morning to diagnose the illness he already knew he had. His scruffy sensitivity made an odd counterpoint to the elegant noir of Tindersticks, who hailed from Nottingham but dressed and played as though they'd stayed awake all night after a Spanish funeral, getting drunk in a catacomb. Onstage, Stuart Staples and his rumpled, louche conspirators settled their cinematic score as they chain-smoked expensive hand-rolled cigarettes. I've been privileged to see Tindersticks several times over the years—once with a full string section, at St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn—and they’ve evolved and endured; I hope they tour again to support their upcoming album. But this was the only time I’ve caught them sharing a bill with a living ghost. [Next stub appears on November 3. The rest are posted at http://digitizingalbums.tumblr.com/.]

Stub no. 42 October 18, 1988: The Smithereens with Paul Kelly and the Messengers, Cahn Auditorium, Evanston, Illinois A Smithereens–Paul Kelly bill made perfect sense on paper. But they sit at opposite ends of one spectrum: lyrics. The Jersey boys could skate by on charm as they sang “top, top…top of the pops” 96 times in a row, but Kelly's country-pub rock drew legitimate songwriting comparisons not just to Dylan and Springsteen but Raymond Carver, for his equally bleak and economical narratives. (One of Kelly’s most aching songs is his retelling of Carver’s “So Much Water, So Close to Home,” sung from the wife's point of view.) That night, the Smithereens did their thing, throwing in a decent “Spinal Tap” Stonehenge joke and playing “Listen to the Flower People” for good measure. But this was the night I learned about Paul Kelly and the Messengers (or, in their native Australia, the Coloured Girls). A dozen albums into my Kelly collection later, my favorite remains “Gossip,” from 1987, a 24-song cycle of Sydney's seamy side. It was one of the first five CDs I ever bought, and I still check in all the time—much more often, I confess, than I do with Carver. [Next stub appears on October 30. The rest are posted at http://digitizingalbums.tumblr.com/.]

Stub no. 41 October 15, 1988: Billy Bragg with Michelle Shocked, Weddings Parties Anything, and Mancotal, Riviera, Chicago This one was a marathon. I was a month into freshman year, and Bragg offered a great excuse for Josh Weinberg, Heidi Villhauer, Alexis Steinkamp and me to get ourselves off campus and into the city for an evening—a very long evening. Being new at this sort of thing, I still considered opening acts key to the experience, and over the years, Bragg has usually hosted artists I’ve been glad to have seen. But still. By the time we'd heard him sing his ode to “soccer, socialism, safe sex…and Shirley," we were stifling yawns, and not out of boredom. We'd already heard Mancotal, which 27 years later remains the only Nicaraguan rock band I've ever seen; Weddings Parties Anything, playing darkly funny country rock from the Australian Outback; and Michelle Shocked, whose protest folk was evidently an equal draw for many in the audience. Leave it to that charming Cockney rebel to make sure our filthy capitalist tickets (face value: $15) were good for many, many minutes’ worth of workers' playtime. [Next stub appears on October 18. The rest are posted at http://digitizingalbums.tumblr.com/.]

Stub no. 40 October 14, 1995: Oasis, Orpheum Theatre, Boston Oasis had cemented its place in the firmament by the time Tracy and I caught them in Boston, supporting “(What’s the Story) Morning Glory?” The Brothers Gallagher manufactured a reliable stream of internecine battles that made for hugely entertaining Fleet Street fish’n’chips wrap—as did the brothers’ less psychologically fraught skirmishes with Blur, their public-schooled arch-enemies. In this latter-day Beatles-v.-Stones horse race, Blur wrote better songs, but Oasis was a hell of a lot more fun to watch and listen to. At the Orpheum, I recall a bit of subtle fraternal squabbling before Liam sulked and wandered offstage, leaving Noel to feature himself in a short solo acoustic set. I'm not sure if he actually played “Rock’n’Roll Star” unaccompanied on a rhythm guitar, but in my mind, my dreams are real. Early one Sunday afternoon a few years later, when I walked past Noel and Liam on Mercer Street in Manhattan, the brothers were nearly teary-eyed with laughter over some shared joke, arms thrown helplessly over each other's shoulders, and I admit it was really nice to witness them that way. [Next stub appears on October 15. The rest are posted at http://digitizingalbums.tumblr.com/.]

Stub no. 39 October 6, 1995: Luna with Mercury Rev, Metro, Chicago My first time seeing Luna almost didn’t happen. I didn’t have a ticket, so Todd Gordon and I shivered outside on Clark Street, holding staring contests with scalpers and waiting for their prices to slide. With Mercury Rev already onstage, we settled closer to face value than our broker wanted to go. (It worked out just right: all three of us got ripped off.) But there was a highlight awaiting us during the encore. As Luna gently brushed its way through “Walk on the Wild Side,” Dean Wareham produced a kazoo from his pocket to handle the sax solo, stifling laughter all the way through. I haven’t seen Wareham acknowledge his Lou Reed influence with such plain self-effacement in the dozen-odd times I’ve seen Luna play over the following decade before they called it quits. Tomorrow night, I’ll catch their newly reunited lineup at the Bowery Ballroom, 20 years and one day since my scalped ticket bought me a walk on the mild side. [Next stub appears on October 14. The rest are posted at http://digitizingalbums.tumblr.com/.]

Stub no. 38 October 2, 1991: The Pogues, Riviera, Chicago The Pogues again, but the storyline had changed. Between the day we bought our tickets and the night they showed up to play, the band had sacked Shane MacGowan and replaced him with their producer, Joe Strummer, whose gravity and myth were sufficient to compensate for MacGowan’s outsized personality. In the organized madness, Melissa Bigner, Neal Pollack and I eventually had to excuse ourselves from the mosh pit, where oxygen had become too scarce. I never got to see The Clash, but I have seen Strummer roar through a hurdy-gurdy “London Calling.” They also took a turn through “Honky Tonk Woman” before Strummer introduced the band, and then himself, with a raspy growl: “My name’s Winston Churchill.” It’s an enduring mystery of my life that Strummer, a vegetarian marathon runner, should succumb to a heart ailment at 50, while the shambolic MacGowan, a living rebuke to Strummer’s intensity and prolific work ethic, continues somehow to stagger forward through time. [Next stub appears on October 6. The rest are posted at http://digitizingalbums.tumblr.com/.]

Stub no. 37 September 28, 1996: Sebadoh, Vic Theatre, Chicago Chicago in the 1990s supported two nominally indie rock stations, each terrible in its own way. The hometown favorite was (and remains) 93XRT, a predictable, self-congratulatory concern whose goofy DJs spun a color-by-numbers playlist based not on nervy discovery but what felt like focus-grouped reassurance. Then came a challenger: Q101, the local outlet of a national network of Qs specializing in the most aggressively pedestrian and ephemeral “alternative” rock of that decade. (A third, staticky station, “The Bear,” sat somewhere at the cheap end of the FM dial; it was better, apparently, but I could never find it.) When Sebadoh played the Vic, a Q101 personality made the unnecessary introductions to the audience. After she got booed, she handled it with impressive cool: “Okay, you hate me, but you love Sebadoh, so give it up!” During the set, as fans finally tore the vinyl Q101 banner off the balcony, Lou Barlow protested from the stage with a shrug of stoned indifference—“Heyyyy…that ain’t right…” He reminded me of Gene Wilder’s Willy Wonka, reacting as the bratty Augustus Gloop gets sucked into Wonka’s chocolate waterworks: “Stop, don’t, come back.” [Next stub appears on October 2. The rest are posted at http://digitizingalbums.tumblr.com/.]

Stub no. 36 September 24, 1989: The Pogues, Vic Theatre, Chicago We couldn't have kicked off sophomore year with a wilder back-to-school party: Neal Pollack, Todd Gordon, Jeff Beasley, Eric Salus—there must have been 10 of us making the pilgrimage from Evanston, getting ourselves vacuum-packed at the front of the Vic to watch the Pogues push their mandolins, bodhráns and tin whistles into the upper reaches of the speedometer. Shane MacGowan, full of alcoholic and psychedelic mischief in blackout shades and bombed-out grin, wandered the stage, pawing at the occasional keyboard before getting shooed back to remember his microphone duties as their hideous trash-can Sinatra. The Pogues were at the height of their artistry and musicianship; in their Joycean black suits, the others were stern and synchronized as pallbearers, veering dangerously close to something like professionalism. Indeed, we’d soon know that the other Pogues, the ones with kids and mortgages, were quickly wearying of MacGowan’s erratic shenanigans. But that night, clasped together in life’s swirling, swearing, drunken reel, players and fans and MacGowan all joined together to take our unholy communion. [Next stub appears on September 28. The rest are posted at http://digitizingalbums.tumblr.com/.]

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