Back on the ninth of June, I saw Phil Elvrum play his acoustic guitar in an apartment in downtown Ames. People left the place crying. I don't think anyone was near tears last Saturday at the Rapture/Shins show in Lawrence, but it was nearly as thrilling. Well, not so much thrilling as rock-the-fuck-out-ing, but quite moving all the same. Especially for me, seeing as how The Shins' first album got me through several lonely drives one summer.

Anyway, it was a hoot.

Quick link: I hope I never turn into this guy. I like the Times, but my addiction still hasn't quite cemented.

I overheard the most interesting (shouted) conversation on the bus tonight.

"I used to take uppers, then downers, then uppers, then downers until I got into that groove but OHHHH, let me tell you: opium works."

--A young, blond girl, seventeen or twenty, with two of her young, blond friends, freaking out, talking about how crazy her guy friends were, about how her young, blond friends thought she would be the only one who could handle this craaaaazy guy they knew. Standard stuff.

So later, they're talking about some depression screening a mutual friend went to. Telling each other what their personalities were like--"I'm sooooo extreme just happy and sad all the time"--when the first girl says,

"My personality is--I think I would get depressed, but I have a relationship with God?"

"Ohhhhhh," her friends chimed in unison.

"I have this relationship with God, so it makes me feel OK."

Let's see... there was this show last Friday:

MAKE BELIEVE
Apparently Tim Kinsella--formerly of Joan of Arc and a bunch of other bands--has a new band. (Someone told me after the show that Make Believe is the same as Joan of Arc with one line-up change.) They were loud... and... I don't really remember. I know Kinsella wore an army helmet, and the band closed with a cover of "For What It's Worth" by Buffalo Springfield that sounded like even more of a funeral dirge than usual.

TED LEO AND THE PHARMACISTS
All I can say is that they were very charismatic. Well, Ted Leo was very charismatic. The bassist looked pretty stoned. The drummer seemed pissed off. And the keyboard player just wasn't there... but everyone in the crowd had a good time. Ted Leo and the Pharmacists have a new EP including a cover of The Pogues' "Dirty Old Town," which I was hoping they would play sometime during their set Friday in the spirit of that famous Frank Lloyd Wright quotation--

"I doubt if there is anything in the world uglier than a Midwestern city."

--but I had no such luck. The band did play a double encore, though, despite the constant heckling from the crowd. Some of it was positive heckling, which the hecklers and Ted Leo had a nice discussion about... but most of it was just this guy being drunk. All in all, it was a fun night.

~

Also a fun night was the Friday before that... November the seventh, I suppose. Playing at the Indonesian restaurant/bar/nightclub/place in Campustown was...

CHARLIE
...some guy who left a message on my voicemail inviting me to come and watch him play. So I went and watched him play crazy, experimental music with nothing more than a multi-track delay pedal and a bunch of random instruments that may or may not have been in the toy bin at Goodwill last month. One composition involved the looped approximation of a swarm of bees, quickly building in intensity as Charlie bounced around on stage, paper triangle clutched to his bum. Another featured both beatboxing into the microphone and the beating of a box containing a microphone. Charlie only played--is that the right word?--for about half an hour, but left us mesmerized and wanting more.

STEPS
Apparently Ames has its own post-rock band now, consisting of a drummer and bass guitarist. Someone once explained to me that Steps' unique sound comes from a special bass guitar effects pedal, and that if that very expensive piece of gear ever broke, the band would be finished. So the pedal broke, and now Steps is going on hiatus. Their show of November the seventh was their last of the year, and even when operating on reduced gear, the duo was pretty solid. They need a broader range of material, to be certain, but they have the talent and the creativity to really... do whatever it is post-rock bands do, I suppose. Massage, perhaps, or engross. Chirm. Yes. Chirm is the right word.

~

Anyhoo, there's an update on what Rob's been listening to. That, and this band Jesse recommended to him called the Apparat Organ Quartet. If you haven't heard of them, you need to click on that link--DO IT RIGHT NOW--and download their song, "Romantika." It's vibra-tastic!

Iceland sure would be a swell place to live, wouldn't it? Besides the volcano, of course.

I'm still alive, I promise. Some news:

SPLIT RULING FOR CONGRESSMAN

A judge ruled that jurors in Representative Bill Janklow's coming trial in the death of a motorcyclist can hear testimony about a close call he had at the same intersection, but not about 3 accidents and 12 speeding tickets. Mr. Janklow, a former governor elected to Congress last year, is charged with manslaughter in the accident near Trent on Aug. 16. His trial is to start on Dec. 1. Judge Rodney Steele said the law did not allow testimony about Mr. Janklow's driving record, but did allow testimony by Jennifer Walters of Trent, who has said that in December 2002, Mr. Janklow nearly hit her family's pickup truck. (AP)
(published 11 November, 2003 in the New York Times)

Soon!