Valve – “Forever More”
Lucero – “San Francisco”
A breezy, booze-stained night at SXSW 2008. Free beers everywhere. Whiskey, too. A sloppy crowd of tattooed cowpunk types was piling into the backyard amphitheater at Red Eyed Fly. Seemed like the perfect storm for my first Lucero live experience. I was pumped.
We dropped anchor in front of a pool of 24 oz. Lone Star beers and plowed through a few of those suckers before Lucero hit the stage (later, the bass player would literally hit the stage). I was nice and numb by the time Ben Nichols and Co. stumbled in, but I’d soon witness a staggering debacle of drunken chaos that would make every booze-fueled embarrassment of my short life seem like child’s play.
Nichols made it through about two songs (and took three shots) before his voice gave out. He knew it was gone, so he didn’t bother trying to sing. Just cracked an “I’m guilty, but I don’t care” smile and shook his head at the rest of the band. They found his sorry condition equally hilarious, even as the guitarist swayed back and forth like a seesaw and drooled. Yeah, drooled. What a mess of a man. The bass player knew he was in a worthless state and had propped himself up against the back wall of the stage as a precaution. But he’d still stumble forward from time to time for no apparent reason. Eventually, he fell face down. Twice. The drummer was actually pretty solid and was clearly the only remotely sober one of the group. Nichols couldn’t sing, but he managed to to tell the crowd at least half a dozen times that he’d been “drinking since two in the afternoon.” And then he’d take another shot and light another cigarette. Completely shameless. The trainwreck was twice as entertaining as the few moments they actually hit stride, for better or worse.
Only took about three songs for us to proclaim Lucero the Drunkest Band of All Time. That’s a dubious distinction considering the folks I was with at the show. Until then, the Drunkest Band of All Time title was held by The Feds thanks to a show they put on a few years back that we all attended. It ended with a droning encore that included no actual songs but was highlighted by Matt Wright playing his guitar with the penis of a Bowling For Soup roadie who had wandered onstage.
We stumbled out of the venue midway through the Lucero set (but not until one of my comrades smoked some hash with an attorney in plain view of 500 people – ah, Austin) and saw the Ludo clan on the street. We mobbed them, and I mumbled some hogwash about Wilco to Tim Convy (fellow Wilco obsessive and Ludo Moog man). That’s pretty much the last thing I remember about the Lucero show, aside from hijacking my buddy’s Ford Contour and driving to Jack in the Box to order ten tacos at 4:30 a.m.
Thanks, Lucero. See you in Arkansas on May 1.
Fugazi – “Suggestion”
Smashing Pumpkins – “Luna”
Doves – “A House”
Head Automatica – “Please, Please, Please (Young Hollywood)”
Jesse Malin – “Lucinda”
Tom Waits – “So It Goes”
Glassjaw – “Trailer Park Jesus”
George Harrison – “Thanks for the Pepperoni”
Head Automatica – “Laughing at You”
Lots of Daryl Palumbo in the shuffle today…
Pete Yorn – “Just Another”
It’s 11:12 a.m. and I want metal. I get Pete Yorn instead. I get a Pete Yorn song I hate. Not wise to deprive a man of his metal, you pansy anti-metal iPod. Grow balls.
Josh Rouse – “Carolina”
Damnit to hell! I’m in no mood to listen to a song that begins: “Down in Tennessee / sits a girl alone.” I love this song, just can’t stomach it right now. But I’ll suffer through it; maybe I’ll calm down.
Damnit again: “In the Nashville sky / sits a diamond bright.” Fuck that nonsense. Next.
Jeff Buckley – “Back in N.Y.C.”
Singer-songwriter invasion 2008. Oh well. At least this song has some nuts to it.
The Thrills – “Saturday Night”
Attention all Affliction-shirt-wearing, Jagerbombing dudebros: “Broken beer bottles / thrown like American footballs / Hey, it’s just jocks high on hormones / Is this what they call hate on a Saturday night?” Yes, yes it is.
Social Distortion – “Ring of Fire”
Pearl Jam – “Glorified G”
AC/DC – “You Shook Me All Night Long”
Minus the Bear – “Pig War”
Mastodon – “Bladecatcher”
Finally. 1:40 p.m. is the best moment of the day thus far. Metal makes me happy when I’m stuck at the little gray desk in the big black tower.
AC/DC – “Back in Black”
Blue October – “You Make Me Smile”
Big Star – “In The Street”
The Jayhawks – “Smile”
Danny Grady – “Stay Gold”
Yet another D Grady song that’ll never see the light of day. Depressing. One of the best songs I’ve heard in the past year, and I’m one of a dozen people who has heard it. Not right.
Kill Radio – “Raised on Whip Cream”
Rose Hill Drive – “Off to the Games”
Little League Hero – “The Trick”
LLH’s last show ever is this weekend. I’ve been going to way too many “last shows” lately, it seems.
Starsailor – “At the End of a Show”
Okkervil River – “Missing Children”
Band of Horses – “Is There A Ghost”
Breakdown:
30 songs
2 during commute to work
26 at work
4 during commute home
There are four dead people (that I know of) in this playlist. Two died of cancer, one drowned in a river and the other drowned in booze. On that note, I’m off for a night of second-hand smoking, swimming and heavy drinking. A moron once told me the only way to beat death is at his own game. Apparently, I listened.
