concert memoirs pt. 21 - the godfathers, robyn hitchcock & the egyptians & the church

The Godfathers w/The Nils

3/28/88 First Avenue w/John Ticket Price: $6.00

“This damn nation! Frustration!”

An excellent song that I first heard during a Club Degenerate night at First Avenue. Great guitar. Nice and angry.

They put on a good show. They were very tight and very rockin’. Their lead singer was full of the tough guy attitude. He pulled it off, though I would say that it came close to seeming a bit put on.

They did an excellent cover of The Sex Pistols’ God Save the Queen.

What do I remember of the opening band The Nils? Nil.

Robyn Hitchcock & the Egyptians
4/11/88 First Avenue w/John Ticket Price: Unknown

Robyn sang, Robyn blinked, Robyn told amusing anecdotes. Robyn was great.

The Church w/54-40
6/21/88 First Avenue w/John Ticket Price: $12.00

The night before this show, The Church played at the Guthrie Theater. I couldn’t afford to go to both shows, but John could. John always had more money than me. Always. I mean, twelve bucks to see them at First Avenue was a bit on the spendy side. I was working at Wendy’s and John was working for the county, so he was making way more money than I was.

The show at the Guthrie was used to film the video for their song Reptile. They started filming early. The idea was they would film early with an audience then head off and 54-40 would play. After that, The Church would come back out and play their set.

As it turned out, the filming took so long that 54-40 had to be bumped. So, John didn’t get to see one of the best bands that Canada ever produced. He would have to wait until the next night.

When you watch the video for Reptile on the YouTube, you now know that it was filmed at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. The old theater, they recently built a new one in downtown Minneapolis.

John and I headed out to First Avenue the next night to see both bands. Again, at First Avenue we could get a closer look at the bands then was possible at the Guthrie. 54-40 came out and entertained us with their leftist, socialist, antigun, pro-Sandinista songs. Politics aside, they were really good.

The Church took the stage in promotion of their latest album, Starfish. Incidentally, it’s my opinion that that was their last decent effort. Something happened to them after that. They seemed to lose their touch. They would have a good song here and there, but no good cohesive album effort.

So, anyway...

I always enjoyed watched Marty Wilson-Piper play. He had the most rock star attitude of the band. While watching him, I saw how he achieved that cool effect on their song Destination, the opening track on Starfish. He would turn the volume down on his guitar, strum a chord and then turn the volume up. He did this three or so times very quickly at the proper point of the song.

The Church was also the first band I’d ever seen that used a certain device on their guitar to achieve a particular sound. Instead of strumming, Marty and Peter would hold some sort of something to the strings while fingering the frets. My guess is that the device must have vibrated the strings. The Church did such neat things back then.

This was the last really good show John and I would see of them.

concert memoirs pt. 20 - hunters & collectors, echo & the bunnymen, new order, gene loves jezebel, game theory & naked rayun

Hunters & Collectors
5/31/87 First Avenue w/John Ticket Price: $5.00

I didn’t know this Australian band well, but John really liked them. I enjoyed the show very much. I’ve got to say this band definitely wore their hearts on their sleeves. They played some of the most heartfelt music I’ve ever heard at a concert. Not the best vocalist, but he was dedicated to getting his point across. They also had a big sound with meaty bass lines and a hot horn section.

These next three entries do not have ticket stubs. What I have is a back of an ATM receipt on which I had written the basic show information. You know it goes back a few years because there are no ads on the back. Why I did this for only these three shows, I have no idea.

Echo & the Bunnymen, New Order & Gene Loves Jezebel
8/13/87 Northrop Auditorium w/John Ticket Price: Unknown

As far as I can remember, this was the only show I had seen at the Northrop Auditorium located on the University of Minnesota campus. I seem to recall seeing a show at the Coffman Union on campus which was a popular venue for the punk bands, but I can’t remember what act we saw.

Anyway, the Northrop show was a mega show with three pretty good bands. Any of which could have headlined at First Avenue. And, of course, I don’t remember much about the show. Hmm. It’s weird how this happens, because I can assure I was stone sober.

What comes to mind is going to the U of M campus, noting the braveness of the campus squirrels (so used to people being around) and hanging out on the steps waiting to head in for the show.

Of the show, I remember the lead singer of Gene Loves Jezebel prancing around and hanging on the other band members.

I can also picture the New Order bass player with his legs apart and bass hanging low. So low it was nearly hitting the floor. I thought it was so cool that he played that way. He was also the most animated member of New Order.

Nothing comes about Echo & the Bunnymen.

Game Theory w/27 Various & Swingin’ Uncle Jimmy
1/15/88 7th Street Entry w/John Ticket Price: Unknown

Ed Ackerson was a bit of an icon of the local music scene whose first band was The Dig. The Dig was a mod band that was part of the brief mod revival thing. He went on to form 27 Various and, then, Polara. All three bands had a different sound. All were very interesting.

So, this night it was 27 Various. They had a kind of Sonic Youth discord sound going.

Later, Game Theory was doing their jangly, pretentious, catchy, alterna-pop show, when Scott Miller (the bandleader) slowed things down to talk to the crowd. He wanted to thank the opening acts for playing.

He mentioned something interesting about 27 Various. He said that he didn’t quite dig their sound at first. He thought that they sounded out of tune, but then he started to catch onto what they were doing. And he dug it.


Naked Raygun
3/5/88 7th Street Entry w/John Ticket Price: Unknown

Ahhh, Naked Raygun in the Entry. What could be better? This band never disappointed us. And this was another outstanding show. It was also the last time we would ever see them.

Naked Raygun should have been bigger than they were. They could have been bigger than Nirvana. Well, enough hyperbole.

The highlight of this night was seeing John at the front of the low set Entry stage, his arm flung over some hefty fellow’s shoulder (no, we didn’t know him), that fellow with his arm across John’s shoulder, their other arms held aloft, shaking their fists and heads, all while bopping up and down. This was an unbelievable sight. It was absolutely uncharacteristic of the normally stoic and standoffish John. Especially when he is sober, which he was.

Such was the power of Naked Raygun. God damn! I miss them.

concert memoirs pt. 19 - husker du

Husker Du w/Peter Case
3/30/87 First Avenue w/John & Bob Ticket Price: $8.50

This is the last time John and I would be seeing Husker Du in concert. However, it was the first (and only) time for my older brother, Bob. John and I were unimpressed.

The show was in promotion of their latest release, Warehouse: Songs and Stories. It would be their last studio release and I found it somewhat disappointing. It’s hard to pinpoint, but I think it was that the cleaner the production became the thinner their sound became. Still I like much of the album, but I did take to calling it Warehouse: Songs and Storage. Ha ha ha, oh, stop me!

So the show...

We pretty much ignored former Plimsouls member, Peter Case. I had no idea who he was. I didn’t know he was in The Plimsouls. I didn’t know who The Plimsouls were at the time. Whatever.

So, out came Husker Du and it wasn’t long before we could sense something wrong in the air that night. The band just didn’t seem into it. Their sound was very good. Very clear. Very clean. But they lacked energy.

It didn’t help that they played the new album, in its entirety, in order. They only broke it up twice. Once to play a very slowed down version of Flexible Flyer and later to play what I think was a cover.

The audience grew restless very quickly and then many became angry. John was very angry. He and Steve, a fellow First Avenue regular we referred to as Iggy Pop Guy (medium length story), were standing together shaking their fists, giving the finger and its verbal equivalent, telling the band to make an effort. I was less vocal, but just as annoyed.

I’m not opposed to a band playing an album in that way, IF it’s a theme album, such as the rock operas of The Who. As far as I can tell, Warehouse is not a theme album. And doing their show in that manner took all sense of spontaneity away.

They were merely going through the motions. They were tired of being a band by that point and it showed.

My brother, who hadn’t seen them before, enjoyed the show. He didn’t get to experience the high energy and intensity and fun as we had.

Sometime after the show, I fellow we knew in those days, Jimmy the Punk, admonished us for being so angry at the Huskers. We needed to accept what the artists are trying to do. Well, I thought they were trying to piss us off.

Husker Du would not last much longer and we would never see them play again. It’s too bad it ended that way. But we still saw them when they were great.

As we were leaving First Avenue that night, we were making our way back to John's car parked in the cheap parking lot tucked behind the disco, just across 8th St. on 1st Ave. We were heading across 8th, John in front, then me, with Bob last, when a car came careening from 1st Ave. onto 8th. Right toward us. We all stopped. At the last second, the car widened it’s turn, went up onto the curb, knocked down a no parking sign, pulled back onto 8th St. and went on its way. The whole event was over in an instant.

We returned to making our way back to the car. John told us as he stood, frozen, watching the car heading right at him, he thought to himself, “If they don’t turn, they’re going to hit me.”

They turned. No harm done. Except to the sign. And the guy’s bumper. And suspension.

concert memoirs pt. 18 - game theory, the woodentops, peter murphy & chameleons uk

Game Theory w/The Jayhawks

10/19/86 First Avenue w/John Ticket Price: Unknown

Nothing. I’ve got nothing here.

The Woodentops w/Trip Shakespeare & New Marines
11/5/86 First Avenue w/John Ticket Price: $6.00

I don’t recall anything of the open acts, but I did like Trip Shakespeare a lot. I’m pretty sure I saw their first ever show in the 7th Street Entry, but I’ll write about that at another time.

The Woodentops put on a good show with their fast, jumpy style of acoustic alternative/pop music. Very high energy. The crowd was jumping and some fellow kept yelling, “Frenetic! Frenetic!”

I kept thinking, “Ok, pal, nice word. Very descriptive. Now shut-up!”

A highlight moment was when the lead singer hopped down to the floor and sang and danced his way through the audience.

“Frenetic!”

“Man! Seriously, shut-up!”

Peter Murphy
2/24/87 First Avenue w/John Ticket Price: $5.00

Five bucks to see Peter Murphy, not bad.

At the time, I was more of a fan of his solo material than of Tones on Tail or Love & Rockets (the bands the other former members of Bauhaus were in). Don’t get me wrong though because I liked them all. It’s just that Peter Murphy’s stuff seemed more lush and musical (whatever that means) while TOT and L&R was more striped down and dark.

The show itself has few memories. I don’t recall if he played any Bauhaus songs, although I’d say probably not. I might have more memories of the show if he had.

What stands out are images of him dancing about, doing his Gothic thing. And it seems as though he was lit by a very bright white light from underneath.

Chameleons UK w/The Mighty Lemon Drops
3/11/87 First Avenue w/John Ticket Price: Unknown

Both John and I liked The Mighty Lemon Drops, but, if you know their stuff, you gotta admit they sound an awful lot like Echo & the Bunnymen. (Also a good band that has a strong Doors influence. We like Echo & the Bunnymen even with their similarity to that extremely overrated band.)

Anyway, as I said the Lemon Drops sounded very much like Echo and John felt compelled to point that out. Once or twice between songs, John would call out, “Rescue!” Which, if you don’t know, is a song by Echo off their great album, Crocodiles.

I don’t think the band appreciated it, but John and I thought it was funny. It wasn’t that we weren’t enjoying their set, we were. It was just that it was funny. At least John didn’t yell, “Freebird!”

Speaking of birds (brilliant segue, Jim!), when The Chameleons were onstage, Birdy (lead vocal/bass) took to berating a couple of the more uncouth members of the audience. I can picture a couple dudes holding up their beers and whooping or something. (I never understood the holding up of the beer. Was it a salute? Was it an offer to the band? Was it to show what lousy taste in beer they have?)

I can’t remember exactly what Birdy said, but it was along the lines of... “Look at the moronic frat boys drinking Bud and looking for a fight.”

So, the band played great. They were promoting my favorite of their albums, Strange Times. They have other good albums but Strange Times holds together beautifully from beginning to end. I especially remember the lead guitarist stepping up front while playing the excellent lead in to the fantastic song, Swamp Thing.

Good show.