Maxwell's Closes Its Doors Tonight

Keep Supporting Live Music in NJ

Tears at a Condo Fucks show. Five encores from The Feelies. The entire club on the stage with The Everymen. Screaming Females winning new fans. Titus Andronicus performing Local Business in its entirety along with new songs from LP4. The members of Shellshag hugging on that stage one, last time. Ted Leo performing covers by The Velvet Underground, Rush, and Pink Floyd. Real Estate performing their unheard new album and two songs with Glenn Mercer of The Feelies.

I've accumulated years' worth of musical memories over the last six weeks. Thank you to all the bands. Thank you to CoolMom for putting up with all of my late nights. Thank you to all of the CoolDad Music readers who have made July 2013, by far, the biggest month in the history of this blog.

And thank you to Maxwell's.

You're all allowed to mourn the loss of this New Jersey institution today. After today, though, get out there. Support your favorite bands by buying their music and going to their shows. New Jersey has way too much going for it musically for this to be any kind of real ending.

Jersey City. New Brunswick. Asbury Park.

Someplace will step up. Go make yourself some new memories.

The Last Weeks of Maxwell's
Part 1: Condo Fucks / Yo La Tengo
Part 2: The Feelies
Part 3: The Everymen / Life Eaters / Black Wine / Brooklyn What
Part 4: Titus Andronicus / Screaming Females
Part 5: Ted Leo / Shellshag
Part 6: Real Estate / Cassie Ramone

The Last Weeks of Maxwell's, Part 5: Ted Leo / Shellshag, 7/21/13

Click, Click, Click and the Moment's Gone

Last night was my last scheduled trip to Maxwell's (I showed amazing restraint when the two Mission of Burma shows were announced for today). I talked with my friend about it as we rode in the car up to the show. While we agreed that losing Maxwell's is definitely a big loss for music around here, we also agreed that it's all part of a natural evolution.

Like Mike V of The Everymen said in an interview with me a few weeks ago, things might feel worse if Maxwell's were being forced to close. That's not how things are happening, though. Todd Abramson and his partners have made the choice that it's time to leave, and I'm not sure that they're wrong. So I'm not shedding any tears. And there were no tears from the performers or the crowd on what will likely prove to be my last night at the space.

We arrived just as Shellshag were preparing to take the stage. Had I decided to come a little earlier, I probably could have staked out a better spot; but something about this night had me stressing a lot less about those types of things. One of the things I love about Shellshag is how obvious it is that they love what they're doing. That's evident on this year's Shellshag Forever, and it really comes through in their performance.

The duo -- facing each other on stage with John "Shellhead" Driver on guitar and Jennifer Shagawat on drums -- played a set heavy on songs from their new record with all of the exuberance that they showed during their record release show a few months ago. King Mike of Screaming Females, who'd played an afternoon set that same day, was right in the middle of things once again, fist pumping and singing along for the entire set. Shellshag closed with their cover of "Just Like Heaven," built their tower of instruments, and thanked Maxwell's for thirty years. There were no tears, no emotional goodbyes, only smiles.

Ted Leo took the stage at around 10PM and drew from a setlist 26 songs strong (I think he may have played closer to 30). This would be a solo set without The Pharmacists. As the evening progressed, it felt appropriate to be closing things out with Ted Leo. Yo La Tengo and the Feelies are older than I am. The Everymen, Titus Andronicus, and Screaming Females are younger. Ted Leo is almost exactly my age. He peppered his set with covers, most of which I remembered from my own youth.

The two-hour set covered Leo's entire discography, from 1999's tej leo(?), Rx / pharmacists to the songs he's currently working on with Aimee Mann for their #BOTH project. Leo is a charismatic performer and engaged the crowd all night with stories of his early band days (when an audience member at ABC No Rio told him, "Fuck tune! Just play punk!") and his days as a student in Catholic school ("Really, Teddy? A song called 'Angelfuck?' Take it home."). He spoke about the Game Theory show he missed at Maxwell's in 1987, and he also does a pretty good Paul Stanley impression.

The crowd did a great job of singing along with favorites like "A Bottle of Buckie," "Where Have All the Rude Boys Gone," "Me and Mia," "Under the Hedge," "Timorous Me," and "One Polaroid a Day." For "Bottled In Cork," Leo grabbed an acoustic guitar, stepped away from the mic, and led a full-crowd sing-a-long, campfire style.

Leo included covers of songs by Rush ("The Spirit of Radio"), The Misfits (yes, "Angelfuck"), The Velvet Underground ("What Goes On"), Pink Floyd ("Goodbye Blue Sky"), Game Theory ("Erica's Word"), and Bruce Springsteen ("I'm Goin' Down"). He closed out the evening performing Blondie's "Union City Blue" as an encore.

Leo was joking and smiling throughout the set, getting laughs from the crowd, and having a good time himself. At one point, while reminiscing about Maxwell's, his voice cracked a little. He was quick to point out, though, "I'm not crying. I'm choking." There wasn't any crying last night, and it felt just right.

So this is it for this series. It's been fun. There are still several shows on the Maxwell's docket for the next 10 days. Most are sold out, but I hope you get / got a chance to say goodbye in your own way. Don't cry. Just keep supporting the music that you love, and maybe someplace will appear to take the place of Maxwell's.

I didn't have the best vantage point in the house, but I managed to get a few shots to commemorate the evening.

Members of The Everymen Reflect on Maxwell's (VIDEO)

"Losing Our Second Home"

Mike V, Catherine Herrick, Jake Fiedler, Tom Barrett, and Joe Centeno of The Everymen took some time prior to their final set at Maxwell's to share some of their thoughts on the closing of a venue that, for several members of the New Jersey band, has felt like a second home. They shared some memories, some thoughts on what the closing of Maxwell's means for local bands like theirs, and what's coming up for The Everymen, including a trip to North Carolina's Hopscotch Festival to play with Pissed Jeans.

This is the very first video I've done for CoolDad Music; and I can't thank Mike, Catherine, Jake, Tom, and Joe enough for being so generous with their time in indulging an inexperienced videographer / interviewer on such an important night for them.

And I'm gonna go ahead and say that whatever rookie mistakes I made were really just calculated attempts to achieve a whole DIY aesthetic. Yeah, let's go with that.

After watching the video, you can check out my review of the evening.

The Last Weeks of Maxwell's, Parts 3 & 4 on the Way

With a Swim Meet In Between

I'll be hauling myself back up to Hoboken both this Friday (with CoolMom in tow) and next Monday for two more shows at Maxwell's.

Tomorrow night we'll be seeing The Everymen, Life Eaters, Black Wine, and Brooklyn What. As of right this second, tickets are still available for that show; and it promises to be an emotional evening. The bill features four, great, tri-state area bands playing their last scheduled sets at the venue.

On Saturday and Sunday, CoolDaughter #1 has a swim meet at Princeton that starts at 7:05 AM each day. I'll be dragging myself out of bed just a few hours after getting back from Hoboken; so if you can sleep in, you really have no excuse for not coming to the show.

Then on Monday, I'll once again be seeing Titus Andronicus. The Glen Rock band has a worldwide following, of course; but their hearts are here in New Jersey. This won't be their last set at Maxwell's, as they added a third (now sold out) date on the 16th; but it will be my last chance to see a band there that has evolved into one of my true favorites.

The last show I'm scheduled to attend at Maxwell's (Part 5) comes less than a week later, when I head in for, maybe, the final time to catch Ted Leo.

Things are happening at a breakneck pace as we wind our way down to the end of the month, when Maxwell's is scheduled to close its doors for the final time. There's talk of a block party with a DJ as the final event. While it won't be the same experience as a packed, dark, and sweaty show in the back room; I think it's a nice idea that will let more than the 200 people who can usually squeeze inside come and say goodbye.

Come find me at one of these shows. I'll (hopefully) be the guy way up front taking pics with his point and shoot.

The Last Weeks of Maxwell's, Part 2: The Feelies, 7/6/2013

Crazy Rhythms

People love music in different ways. For many, a favorite song is a part of life, a marker for an event or a feeling. Favorite tunes soundtrack almost every moment: the last half-mile of the town 5K, the drive to the voting booth on Election Day, romantic times with a significant other, an imaginary takedown of someone who's done them wrong. Music is important, revered.

For others, music is something less cerebral. It's more physical, more primal. It grabs them. It shakes them and fills them with joy. It makes them move uncontrollably. They may not even know the particular song, but they love it in the moment.

I know I'm much more the first type, but I like to feel that I've got elements of the second in me. Last night at Maxwell's, I saw both.

The Feelies were playing the last of their three-night, July 4th weekend stand at the Hoboken spot. Maxwell's was bursting long before the band's scheduled 9pm start time. The Feelies -- the bespectacled trio of Glenn Mercer, Bill Million, and Brenda Sauter up front, percussionist Dave Weckerman and drummer Stan Demeski in the back -- took the stage just after 9. Throughout about four hours consisting of two full sets and five encores during which the band were joined by members of Speed the Plough and the mayor of Haledon, NJ, I got the feeling that The Feelies and most of their fans are the kind of people for whom music holds significant meaning.

They played songs from their entire discography, including the jagged, spastic sounds of their debut Crazy Rhythms ("Fa Cé-La," "Crazy Rhythms") and the more melodic and expansive sounds of the Peter Buck-produced The Good Earth ("The High Road") and their most recent album Here Before. They peppered the main sets with covers like The Velvet Undergound's "Who Loves the Sun," an excellent rendition of Patti Smith's "Dancing Barefoot," and The Beatles' "Ticket to Ride." The encores were heavy on covers.

The Feelies performed songs by The Rolling Stones ("Get Off of My Cloud," "Paint It Black"), The Stooges ("I Wanna Be Your Dog"), R.E.M. ("Shaking Through"), The Beatles ("She Said" and, of course, "Everybody's Got Something to Hide"), The Velvet Underground (show closer "After Hours"), and probably more that I've either forgotten or couldn't recognize.

Were each of the covers fantastic renditions of the originals? No, not in every case. But each selection held meaning for the band and for the crowd. The Stones and The Beatles are obvious influences on The Feelies' own sound. The band are long-time friends with R.E.M. having met them through Maxwell's, even opening for them on a tour. The influence of The Velvet Underground on The Feelies is well-documented and can be heard in Mercer's vocal delivery. The selection of "After Hours" to close the band's final show at Maxwell's ("If you close the door / the night can last forever") was poignant.

But this is where we get into the importance of that other type of music lover. In these last weeks of an establishment that's meant so much to so many people and to American indie rock, we run the risk of becoming overly reverent. The band themselves weren't guilty of this. When a cockroach ran across the stage towards the end of the show, Demeski shouted, "We're never playing here again!"

A young woman next to me was dancing, screaming, and pumping her fist along with every song during the early portion of the first set. "Wooooo! Rock and roll!!!" A couple of times, I swear I saw Brenda or Bill smile in her direction.

Another person in the crowd had finally had enough, though.

"You're ruining this for people. Just chill out and listen to the music."

She kept it up for a few more songs, then she excused herself to go to the restroom. She never came back; and the rest of us stood there, for the most part, bobbing our heads, mouthing the lyrics.

It was a great show and a great experience -- a wonderful ending to the run of another of Maxwell's "house bands" at the venue. I think it's important to remember, though, that Maxwell's is a rock and roll club. They've put on rock and roll shows for about 35 years. If you attend a show there in the coming weeks, try to remember that you're not at church. Let loose, have a blast, and give the place the send off it deserves.

Feelies' Final Maxwell's Show Tomorrow

Part 2 of "The Last Weeks of Maxwell's" to Follow

CoolMom (I hope) and I will be heading into Hoboken tomorrow night to catch The Feelies' sold out, last-ever scheduled performance at Maxwell's. It should be another emotional evening.

Every time I listen to The Feelies, I remember sitting in my dorm room at NYU, reading the 1991 comparison that Robert Christgau did for The Village Voice between The Feelies and their more successful contemporaries, R.E.M. I did a Google search this afternoon and found it re-printed at Christgau's site.

"The crucial difference, as I complained at the time, was corn quotient--the Feelies disguised the folk-rock romanticism that R.E.M. reveled in. Its textures thick with lyrical underbrush, its vocals soaring past drawl into the sonic haze, R.E.M. was the most luxuriantly Southern of the Athens bands; from their Passaic County fastness, the Feelies imbued nerdy suburban goofiness with spare downtown cool, rocking out all the while. And in 1986 there was no question which aesthetic was more suitable, more satisfying, more powerful. For me, anyway. In 1986. The Feelies'."

That "nerdy suburban goofiness with spare downtown cool" could kind of describe Maxwell's as well.

If you're going to the show, come find me. I'll buy you a beverage and we can drink a toast to the place.

The Last Weeks of Maxwell's, Part 1: Condo F*cks / Yo La Tengo, 6/15/13

This Is Where I Belong

"This band does not exist without this club." That was Ira Kaplan / Kid Condo in the final moments of a double bill that saw both Yo La Tengo's final performance at Maxwell's as well as the realization of The Condo Fucks' career-long dream to headline the back room. A last minute edition to the bill following a cancellation by the Pastels, Yo La Tengo took advantage of probably their first opening slot at Maxwell's in decades to focus on the quieter, more melancholy portions of their catalog. The Condo Fucks provided a contrast, making the most of their first and only Maxwell's headlining set by turning in an ear-splitting performance of garage rock covers.

WFMU's Gaylord acted as the evening's emcee and made reference to Yo La Tengo's long history as Maxwell's de facto house band, recalling an early performance by their pre-YLT incarnation as A Worrying Thing. Guitarist Ira Kaplan pointed out that the band's first performance at the club as Yo La Tengo took place in 1984. Then, armed with the acoustic guitar he would use for the entire set, Kaplan, along with drummer Georgia Hubley and bassist James McNew, opened with "Big Day Coming" from 1993's Painful.

The band acknowledged Maxwell's co-owner Todd Abramson several times, at one point noting that he may be the only show promoter in America still calling himself a "booker" instead of a "curator." Yo La Tengo, said Kaplan, had moved with the times. No more would they use a "set list." Instead, they'd work from a "libretto."

The night's libretto pulled songs from the entirety of Yo La Tengo's discography, including what will likely be James McNew's only performance of "3 Blocks from Grove Street" from 1987's New Wave Hot Dogs, "Speeding Motorcycle," and the acoustic, Georgia Hubley-sung version of "Tom Courtenay." The songs from this year's Fade, an album that deals with aging and the passage of time, -- "The Point of It," "I'll Be Around," and set-closer "Ohm" -- took on a subtle power given the context of the evening.

At the end of the set, the band climbed down from the stage and made that walk, as Yo La Tengo, through the Maxwell's crowd for the final time.

At about 8:15, The Condo Fucks -- guitarist Kid Condo, drummer Georgia Condo, and bassist James McNew -- took their positions on stage. Gaylord returned and provided a bit of the band's history, noting their rise from the streets of New London, CT to the headlining slot at the New Jersey rock institution.

"1! 2! 3! 4!" counted off Kid Condo, and the squall of his electric guitar sent a few folks to the bar, buck in hand, to grab some ear plugs. The set, comprised totally of covers, included selections from the band's 2009 Fuckbook (don't  Google that one) along with searing renditions of obscure cuts run through the filter of garage and psych-rock. James McNew took lead vocals on Fuckbook cuts like The Electric Eels' "Accident" and Slade's "Gudbuy T'Jane." Georgia Condo managed most of the lyrics to the Troggs' "With a Girl Like You," but missing a few words just added to The Condo Fucks' overall wonderfully ragged feel.

The Connecticut trio left it all on the stage, but managed to come out for one more song. Ira / Kid Condo picked up the acoustic one last time, and the band delivered a cover of The Kinks' "This is Where I Belong" that set more than a few eyes watering.

There are six weeks worth of shows left on the Maxwell's schedule. Many of those will be truly great and just as emotional as last night. But a big Maxwell's chapter closed last night. Yo La Tengo will never play there again. At least The Condo Fucks finally got their big shot.

Maxwell's Is Closing

The End of a Very Short Era for Me

I'm not going to sit here and pretend that Maxwell's was a big part of my youth or young adult years. A good chunk of my prime, nightlife-consuming years actually happened very far away from New Jersey in Seattle. CoolMom and I didn't have an important, early bonding experience at Maxwell's. That actually took place during a Paul Westerberg concert at the Fastlane in Asbury Park. It wasn't until later that same year that CoolMom and I took in a Yo La Tengo set at Maxwell's.

The place still had an effect on me, though. All of those Yo La Tengo records that I grew to love during my years in Seattle, record labels Bar/None, Matador and, eventually, Merge, the entire network of indie rock clubs nation-wide -- they can all trace some part of their lineage to that back room in Hoboken. More recently, at the risk of sounding like I'm overstating things a little, Maxwell's played a big part in kind of saving me.

A little while back, a friend of mine asked, "So what's with going to so many shows and buying, like, every single album that comes out?" I told him that I'd been kind of lost. I was really bored and really unhappy with many parts of my life that weren't CoolMom or the cooldaughters. It wasn't until I started my "second job," with CoolMom's full support and understanding (she really gets me, that woman), that everything started to brighten.

I've always loved rock music, and they always tell you to do what you love, right? I threw myself full-bore into CoolDad Music and started consuming as much music as possible so I'd have something to write. That meant listening to as much music and going to as many live shows as I could. Maxwell's, then, became a large part of my rotation.

Now, we're only talking about a year here; and I am a 40-something, suburban husband and father of two. Hoboken's like an hour away from me, so I think it's been only three shows at Maxwell's in the last year. But each was fantastic. I got to see a road-seasoned Titus Andronicus on, basically, their home turf. That same friend and I saw Jersey rock heroes The Everymen along with The So So Glos on a cold Sunday night just before The So So Glos began blowing up. And I will remember the joy of the Don Giovanni Records-hosted record release show for Shellshag for a very, very long time.

At each of those shows, I got to speak with people who are making music that's important to me, shake their hands, tell them how much I enjoy what they're doing, offer to buy them a beer. After each of those shows, I came home and wrote about my experience. My own form of personal therapy.

Now, it's closing. With the exception of a couple of shows prior to going off to grad school (I wanna say that I also saw The Cavedogs there sometime around 1990-91), my relationship with the place really just started. Over the next 55 or so days, I should be there a few more times. If you're planning to see Condo Fucks, The Feelies, The Everymen, Titus Andronicus, or the farewell show, come say hi. I'll buy you a beverage, and we can toast one of the most important spaces that American indie rock has ever seen. And we'll toast the fact that it was right here, right here in New Jersey.

Shellshag Record Release Show at Maxwell's, April 20th, 2013

Shellshag, Screaming Females, Swearin', Hilly Eye, Great Thunder

The lovely woman who would become CoolMom and I spent a bit of the early 90s living in Hoboken. As I looked for parking last night, the excellent self-titled debut from Swearin’ coming through my car’s speakers, I was thinking about all of the music -- Built to Spill, Dinosaur Jr., Sebadoh, Yo La Tengo, Pavement, Liz Phair -- that we used to listen to back then. I’d headed in to go to Maxwell’s for Shellshag’s record release show for Shellshag Forever.

It was almost as if the show’s lineup had been created specifically for me. Every single band on the bill was responsible for one of my favorite albums from the last year and a half. The common thread linking all of the bands, in addition to some type of association with Shellshag's label Don Giovanni Records, was a debt to the music from the time I spent in Hoboken.

Great Thunder opened the evening. The project of Katie Crutchfield (a.k.a. “Ol’ Waxie”) and Swearin’s / Waxahatchee’s Keith Spencer, last night they also featured Swearin’s Allison Crutchfield on drums and Radiator Hospital’s Sam Cook-Parrott on bass. The band played selections from both last year’s Sounds of Great Thunder and their new Strange Kicks EP (both are available as “name your price downloads” from Great Thunder’s Bandcamp page).

Unsurprisingly, Great Thunder’s sound is similar to Waxahatchee’s though with a heavier tilt toward the rock end of things. The set was great, and if “K and K” want Great Thunder to get as big as Waxahatchee, they just have to go for it.

Hilly Eye, who’s Reasons to Live is still a contender for my Albums of the Year list, were up next. The duo of Amy Klein (guitar) and Catherine Tung (drums) feature less of a traditionally pop sound than the other bands that were on the bill. Klein’s swirling guitar loops and haunting vocals, and Tung’s intricate drumming filled the small space on cuts like “Jersey City,” “Animal,” and “Amnesia” with a noise that still does owe a great deal to 1990s lo-fi.

Swearin’ were next to perform. Listening to their self-titled debut as I drove to Hoboken reminded me what a great record the band put out last year; and I, honestly, can’t recommend it highly enough. Allison Crutchfield and Keith Spencer were back on stage, this time with Kyle Gilbride (guitar/vocals) and Jeff Bolt (drums). They opened with the Gilbride-sung “Here to Hear” from that debut LP, and I’m still not able to get Gilbride’s vocal similarity to Built to Spill’s Doug Martsch out of my head. Other songs from the record, including the Crutchfield-fronted album standouts “Kenosha” and “Just” along with the more punk-influenced “Kill ‘em with Kindess” and a new song, injected some serious energy into a crowd that had grown in anticipation of what was coming next.

What came next was New Brunswick’s Screaming Females. By this time, Maxwell’s was packed, wild cheers going up at the sight of Marissa Paternoster, in her trademark Wednesday Addams frock, simply helping to prepare the stage.

The set that followed was an incendiary example that Paternoster and Screaming Females are back at full strength. Bassist King Mike and drummer Jarrett D. provided the foundation for Paternoster’s Mascis / Martsch / Corgan-influenced guitar heroics. Even in its toned-down Maxwell’s version, the audience response to songs like “It All Means Nothing,” “Rotten Apple,” and “Expire” was ferocious, beer and sweat flying. When she wasn’t taking the entire mic into her mouth while wailing a lyric, Paternoster was turning her face ceiling-ward, eyes rolled up into her head while she amazed everyone with her fretwork.

Like each of the bands before, Screaming Females thanked Shellshag for including them on the celebration. This time though, Screaming Females advised their fans to stay for the finale, telling them they’d “regret it forever” if they left. Let's just say that there was significantly more room to move around by the time Shellshag took the stage.

I, personally, was happy for the additional space; and it didn’t detract from the energy of Shellshag’s set one bit. The lighted mic contraption featured on the album cover of Shellshag Forever came to center-stage. John “Shellhead” Driver and Jennifer Shagawat took their positions on either side and exuberantly performed Shellshag Forever in its entirety. Screaming Females’ King Mike was in the audience, right up front singing every lyric.

When Shellshag completed their twenty-seven minute lo-fi masterpiece, they brought Screaming Females back on stage to perform “Green Vapors,” which the bands co-wrote and recorded for Screaming Females’ Chalk Tape cassette / digital EP. The rest of the set included earlier Shellshag cuts, including the excellent “Resilient Bastard” and a cover of The Cure’s (to me, though, it’s always Dinosaur Jr.’s) “Just Like Heaven.”

As the band built a tower from Shag’s drum kit, topped by Shell’s guitar, to close the main set, chants of “Ten more songs!” went up from the crowd. The band acquiesced and went into Liz Phair’s “Fuck and Run” from her twenty year old debut masterpiece. It was appropriate, I thought, as I found myself taken back to the sound of Exile In Guyville throughout the evening.

Shellshag built their show-ending tower a second and final time. They embraced. They kissed. They climbed down from the stage and embraced several fans.

It was a triumphant night for Shellshag and all of the bands on the bill. Even the guy who brought his own tambourine, triangle, and maracas to play along throughout the night couldn’t put a damper on things. For me, it was a chance to see a bill bursting with bands whose work I’ve enjoyed immensely over the last year. To see those bands, who have managed to create some modern classics by re-interpreting the sounds of early indie rock, at one of the cradles of indie rock music was an experience I won’t soon forget.

So So Glos / Everymen Review at SIMGE

Regional Pride

Despite what Lou Barlow thinks of regional pride, I'm often guilty of it. Last night presented an excellent opportunity for me to revel in geographic connections as The So So Glos (Bay Ridge, Brooklyn-born, just like me) and The Everymen (pride of the Jersey Shore) joined forces at Maxwell's in Hoboken last night.

I wrote a review of the show, which you can find over at Speak Into My Good Eye.

As my friend and I chatted with Alex Levine of The So So Glos on the way out, he was quick to point out that there are plenty of lousy people in great places and vice versa. I agree whole-heartedly, but it's still fun to talk to someone you don't really know about the places and experiences that you have in common.

Titus Andronicus Returned to the Elysian Fields

Titus Andronicus / Ceremony at Maxwell's, Hoboken, NJ, December 1st, 2012

I've always liked Lou Barlow's honesty.  Over the years, he's been very candid about his feelings following his ouster from Dinosaur Jr. by J Mascis.  He hasn't been afraid to opine on the post-Barlow 1990's output of Dinosaur Jr., and he's been honest about the difficulty and awkwardness that's accompanied the band's very successful reunion.

During the Sentridoh portion of Sebadoh's show a few months ago, Barlow commented on his early years growing up in Massachusetts.  A cheer rose up from the crowd, and Barlow took the opportunity to let the crowd know of his disdain for regional pride.  He said he thought it was ridiculous.  To an extent, I agreed.  I've always been suspicious of anything that feeds human beings' natural tendency toward clannishness and tribalism.  And what's the point, really, of a reflexive fist pump at the mention of Boston, Brooklyn, or New Jersey?  In another sense, though, I think regional pride can unify people from different places -- as in, "This is how we do it where I'm from in New Jersey / the East Coast / the United States of America."

I had a choice last night.  I could see a galaxy of my heroes -- J Mascis, Frank Black, Johnny Marr, Kim Gordon, and yes, Lou Barlow -- perform, in its entirety, one of the albums that has been most important to me over the last two decades; or I could see a bunch of guys from New Jersey who have been at it for around five or six years.  I mean no disrespect to Lou Barlow and Dinosaur Jr., both of whom I basically worship; but it was really no contest.  Going into Manhattan versus going to Hoboken, the intimate Maxwell's versus the cavernous Terminal 5 -- those were factors.  I have to confess, though, that I think there was a bit of regional pride at work as well.  CoolMom even sucked it up and joined me for what was going to be a very late show.

We walked into Maxwell's just as openers, Ceremony, were getting ready for their set.  Maxwell's holds an important place not only in New Jersey music history, but also in American history.  Its front door sits adjacent to where third base used to be on Elysian Fields, the site of the first-ever organized baseball game.  I hadn't been in the place since CoolMom and I lived in Hoboken almost twenty years ago, and I'd forgotten just how small the performance space really is.  The tight space and its low ceiling gave the feeling that we were sharing the room with Ceremony rather than simply watching the show.  The band did a great, crushingly loud, virtually non-stop set that opened with current single "Hysteria" and closed with "Sick" from 2010's Rohnert Park.  Surprisingly, the Maxwell's crowd remained pretty calm throughout, even when lead singer Ross Farrar climbed down from the stage into the crowd.

A nice thing about Maxwell's:  at the bar between sets, I was able to compliment Ceremony drummer Jake Cassarotti on an excellent performance and exchange a quick pre-performance hello with Patrick Stickles of Titus Andronicus.

Titus Andronicus took the stage at about 11:30 and opened, as they did at The Stone Pony earlier in the year, with a cover of "The Boys Are Back in Town."  The effects of playing and touring together as a band for nine months were evident as the quintet sounded even better than they did back at that show in March.  They played selections from each of the three Titus Andronicus LP's, the now energetic crowd wildly singing along with lines like, "You will always be a loser!" "Your life is over!" "Built to last!" and "The enemy is everywhere!"  Drummer Eric Harm's father, Steven, joined the band to play harmonica on Local Business cut "Tried to Quit Smoking," and Patrick Stickles pointed out that Titus Andronicus are a "family affair."  As the band closed out the set with "Four Score and Seven" from The Monitor, the tight quarters and the hometown crowd made last night feel like Titus Andronicus had a family of a few hundred.

Titus Andronicus have said of this tour, "PUNK IS BACK."  Their music, however, is as influenced by traditional rock and roll, especially on Local Business, as by punk.  Stickles dedicated the Rolling Stones-ish "(I Am The) Electric Man" to his father, noting that his dad enjoys old-time rock and roll.  The band also did a cover of The Contours' "Do You Love Me?"  And I love that the rock guitar solo is a standard part of the Titus Andronicus arsenal.

The Dinosaur Jr. You're Living All Over Me anniversary celebration at Terminal 5 sounds like it was a fantastic night as well.  I'm sticking by my choice, though.  As much as I love J, Lou, Murph, Frank, Johnny, and Kim, I had to show up for my home state and support a couple of great local businesses.

Non-Christmas Songs That Mention Christmas

Spotify Playlist

My blog three-fourths of a year comes full circle tonight as CoolMom and I head out to see Titus Andronicus at another iconic New Jersey venue, Maxwell's in Hoboken.  That reminded me of a playlist I started putting together last December, "Songs That Mention Christmas But Aren't Christmas Songs," which contains Titus Andronicus sing-a-long masterpiece "No Future Part Three:  Escape From No Future."

You will always be a loser.  And that's ok.

Happy December.