Manic Fantasy Setlist October 3, 2009
Posted by coqfosters in All your life.Tags: checklist, life, music, shows
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Inevitably, you resign yourself to the fact that you’ll never see one of your favourite ever bands and then 10 years later – when you’ve completely written it off – the chance comes, you snap up the tickets, and it happens.
It’s crazy to think about, but ever since I was 15 I wanted to see the Manics live. Most logical folks will question their posturing and ridiculous attitude and legacy but in an age where there are no bands with any degree or modicum of substance, I’m glad I can at least say that this (along with one or two others of the time) was a band worth clinging to, a band you could BELIEVE IN. Those bands don’t exist anymore. But I’ll touch on that in a later entry at another time.
Like most people, when I started going to shows you really didn’t know what you were going to get. Now, setlists are immediately posted online from every show on the tour and you know more or less what you’re in for. Ignoring that, and the logic that dictates you’ll get more songs from certain albums than others, and the songs that always get played, I decided to construct a fantasy setlist – 2-3 tracks from each of the 9 albums. I’d love to see other folks do this for bands they feel passionate about as well so feel free to send them along.
These are the tracks I’d want to see on Wednesday, if I were running the show:
Non album singles
Motown Junk – ferocious raw energy in 3 minutes, perfect punk attitude.
The Masses Against The Classes – ferocious raw energy, 10 years later: ‘I’m tired of giving a reason, when we’re the only thing left to believe in…’ and how.
Generation Terrorists
Motorcycle Emptiness – The culmination of pop music’s obsession with the 6 minute power ballad… if it were a ballad. And that guitar just takes you somewhere else.
You Love Us – Just the prospect of a band playing this song to a frothing (not anymore, we’re all too old) crowd of people is tantalising.
Tennessee – ‘Media sells a trace of hate’ - never more resonant than now
Gold Against The Soul
Sleepflower – A little over the top and polished on record, might be great in a raw live environment.
La Tristesse Durera – Classic.
The Holy Bible
Faster – Again, the sheer force of the energy in this one is immense. Used to play this on my bass until my fingers bled.
Of Walking Abortion – They played this at the Millennium gig and Nicky said the bar must have sold a record number of pints during this one, but I love it! The bass drives it, but the ridiculous guitar riff makes that youngster Bellamy look like an amateur.
Everything Must Go
A Design For Life – You have to include it.
The Girl Who Wanted To Be God – Can’t imagine this gets many live airings but everything about this song is fantastic and perfect.
Enola/Alone – ‘I’ll take a picture of you to remember how good you looked…’ drenched in nostalgia.
This Is My Truth…
Ready For Drowning – One of the most underrated tracks of its time.
If You Tolerate This… – Somewhat of a wayward anthem which in a way is a metaphor for much of the catalogue.
Tsunami – Another quiet/loud one with a huge chorus. If only they ever actually played it with the sitar!
Know Your Enemy
Found That Soul – Can’t believe Let Robeson Sing gets more airings than this, straight ahead back to basics rock.
Freedom of Speech… – Particularly relevant (if slightly obtuse) in this country.
Lifeblood
To Repel Ghosts – Seems like the only way this should be listened to is in a very dark room with flashing lights out of booming speakers.
1985 – One of the most underrated album lead-off tracks.
Solitude Sometimes Is – If only for the xylophone.
Send Away The Tigers
Send Away The Tigers – Somewhere, Slash is trying to figure out how he didn’t get to that riff first. Can’t wait to see this.
The Second Great Depression – If only because Indian Summer is essentially A Design For Life Part Deux.
Journal For Plague Lovers
Journal For Plague Lovers – Don’t think this will be one of the new ones to get played, such a shame. Great chorus.
All Is Vanity – See above.
This Joke Sport Severed – Probably their most epic, string laden, beautiful track since the Everything Must Go era.
Coldwater Canyon April 1, 2009
Posted by coqfosters in All your life, Music business.Tags: checklist, life, los angeles, music, work
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I forgot what it felt like to swear in traffic, to race through a yellow, to commute in anything newer than an R44. So in that sense, Sunset Blvd in the morning has given me a new lease on life. Turning the corner onto Vine with the Capitol tower in the foreground has been an incredible feeling. Walking over the stars of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and more on the walk of fame has been bizarre. And walking into the tower has been remarkable, one of those things that most folks who work there might take for granted.
This is what getting into the business was supposed to be about, that old school record label feeling, the platinum plaques, the studios, the history. LA as a whole is a special but barely tolerable mess, but the tower is the jewel in the crown, a true landmark – one of few universally recognisable landmarks after the Hollywood sign itself.
I have problems doing the ‘tourist’ thing. I only came out here if I could get them to let me work, and I’m not really fussed about doing the things people need to do. Maybe it’s a New York thing, you live in the best city in the country and you start to think that nothing else matters. Driving across America last year taught me otherwise. There’s something special about LA, but the things you have to tolerate and manage in LA are the things that you never think about in New York. And I’m not a beach person.
But I love a good drive. Especially on secluded, winding roads. For all of the money I spent on getting a car out here, I haven’t been able to really drive on any street at any time that didn’t have any degree of traffic. It hadn’t really been enjoyable. So I ran a few errands in town and then headed out for the hills. That’s when you realise: it isn’t so much the things in the city that make the city special, it’s the things this city represents: stardom and seclusion, the ability to buy yourself a palace far above everyone and with a view of everything. To live a life where you’ll be seen more in a week than most people will in their lifetime, and then be able to bury yourself away in the side of a mountain on a street that bends like a contortionist on Robaxin. And some of them are probably on Robaxin.
So I drove up, away from Hollywood and Beverly Hills, to see those things, to get out on the open road, up Mulholland Drive and Coldwater Canyon and other streets which have had films named after them and if they haven’t, doubtlessly will in future. Simply marvellous: Stopping at scenic stopovers high above the smog, where you can see for miles. Getting lost and not knowing which way is which. Having to be careful to make the hairpin turn and not fall off the side of the mountain.
I may not ever get the stereotypical experience but I always want to get the memorable ones. Stopping at absolutely classic diners in Hollywood off the beaten path, ending up in a plainly bizarre used record store on Ventura Blvd in Studio City, keeping calm on the 101 with the new Gomez record, watching the sun set over Dana Point: all things to remember this trip by. The harsh realities of the greatest city await, but before I go back we might try and have a few more nights of unexpected, if memorable, moments.
Operation Goldsmiths February 24, 2009
Posted by coqfosters in All your life.Tags: checklist, life
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“It’s insane. I have the most amazing family.”
Zac is an incredible storyteller. Over a half hour story about his admittedly amazing family, I’m instantly reminded why I came back to Michigan for the long weekend. Why spend Valentine’s Day with only one person you love, when you can spend it with 10?
Zac is going on about what everyone in his family does and the stuff his grandpa invents at the age of 87 and you can’t help but be impressed. He’s impressed, that’s why it’s ok to be impressed and not feel bad about your own family. What about my own family? They’re all lovely folks but outside of my nuclear family I don’t really have many real relationships with them. It’s my own fault – I’m bad at staying in touch and I hate reunions.
It’s kind of trite to say ‘my friends are my family.’ I know this because even though it is true, your circle of friends is this ever evolving beast and from being dropped off at each one’s house over the weekend by another friend who doesn’t talk to them anymore, I felt like a kid whose 4 parents had divorced and was living some kind of fucked up joint custody nightmare. And similarly, it’s love that tore them apart.
From being far enough out of the picture, I’ve learned to appreciate every second of my time with these people. I’ve tried hard to maintain these relationships, far harder than I probably ever have with most of my family. It’s been worth it so far, but someday I will feel guilty about this.
In the end I flew in because I care more about Zac and Jon and their band than I do about many things in life. It almost doesn’t make sense. If I can lend my ears and my voice for a night or so to help them on the road to being more successful and being able to make even better music, then it’s more than worth my investment. It’s crazy to believe in something so much, to come back here and tell everyone you know about it and not have them care. Maybe it’s better that this band is (outside of the Midwest) largely my own secret. But on the other hand you want to keep fighting because there is all of this potential for so much great things. That I can get reports from friends in Indiana and Kentucky about the latest shows and have people calling me on their phone in Ann Arbor mid song and go over to friends’ houses and hear them playing the record that I introduced them to… it makes me immensely proud. When you work like I do from 9-5 on some of the stuff I have, you realise that there is substance there and that is worth every second of helping and fighting for.
But Zac’s stories – which I won’t share here – were worth the trip alone. Somewhere along the way these guys became great friends who I miss. I miss them as much as I miss my other friends who can’t get it together enough to speak to each other anymore, whose love and relationships and pettiness tore them apart from each other. Who couldn’t look at the big picture. Or maybe we all just drift apart, as I would have if I had half as much of something worth fighting for in The Best City In The World™ as I did back home.
Let us keep things in perspective. The great thing about coming to NYC is that once you beat New York, you can fearlessly go anywhere. The next step will undoubtedly be the hardest. I promised myself I would move to England by 30 and it’s time to start making that dream a reality. The first step is putting together the plan – a lesson I learned from my own grandfather. This is Operation Goldsmiths: a project that has been years in the making, and after seeing my friends and family consolidate their relationships with their significant others and the things in their lives that make them happy, one that has never been more important.
I love these people so much and the most important thing for me to do right now is to move even further away. Still, it’s what I’ll do to start creating my own fantastic stories again…
The Gloves Are Off October 5, 2008
Posted by coqfosters in All your life, Music business, NYC.Tags: checklist, life, music, new york, work
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Growing up is all about figuring out where you stand. I felt like I found it harder than most folks, because I got tired of what I was being fed in the media a bit quicker than anyone I knew. It seemed like in high school you liked Nirvana and Nine Inch Nails or you liked Biggie and Pac, or you liked DMB and Phish, or if you had particularly unfortunate taste, ICP and Limp Bizkit… and that was pretty much that.
But I liked Blur and Pulp. And everything that spirals from there. Eventually I read in the NME that you can’t really love a band until you see them live. Out of defensiveness I contended that point – and I still will – but experience has shown that when you see a band you really love, it’s a special moment. Friends would go and see shows (shows I should have seen but didn’t care about at the time), and I would wonder if I would ever get to see MY bands perform. But they never came to Michigan.
Eventually you get to the point where you can borrow the car and drive to Detroit or Chicago. Surely everyone had to come to Detroit or Chicago. But even then, after high school or during college if I was lucky enough to get away, you’d see your band in a 500-1000 capacity venue. And while it was intimate, it wasn’t always right for the music… and certainly not for thinking you were a part of something BIG. I wanted to be a part of something magical.
Last night I went to see Hot Chip at Terminal 5. When I was younger I would want to be the first one in the door so I could stand right down the front and be as close as possible to my heroes. These days my line of work affords me the luxury of VIP passes so I can get the best view in the house and not come away from every show with banged up ribs. It’s amazing how your priorities change the older you get. Anyhow I digress – as I was standing on the balcony looking over the 2,500+ crowd on the floor, I was amazed at the reception, the energy, the fervour for such a niche artist. Here in New York, on this night, with this artist, was what I always wanted to experience growing up. It’s what I never thought I could be a part of, what I never thought I would see: one of MY bands, playing to a more than receptive audience, everyone’s hands in the air, everyone dancing. Part of me felt ashamed for not being right in there amongst it all.
The music was immense. I’ve only had a handful of concert experiences like it, ever. I said to someone at the show, they’re the only band of this generation that can touch what Pop Will Eat Itself was trying to do in the early 90s, before they went industrial, when they were a fun loving pop band of ugly guys doing wacky instrumentation and crazy antics, and drew a hardcore devoted following as a result. Hot Chip are one of those bands too, where everything is so bizarre, so out there, but yet so pop and so accessible and so human that it can’t fail to move you. It was tribal. Everyone in the room was part of this incredible experience, everyone walked away happy, everyone was moved.
I’ve been starting to realise the older you get, the more you think about the opportunities you missed when you were younger, how important it is to live with immediacy, to try and accomplish as much as possible. Terminal 5 is a long way from the shitty venues I grew up with, and being able to look around and seeing so many great friends couldn’t have been further from the old days of begging people to go with me to those shitty venues. The event was a proper celebration we all shared, but privately, and perhaps most importantly, another ambition realised. One I hadn’t thought about for years.
Nesoteric June 29, 2008
Posted by coqfosters in NYC.Tags: books, checklist, film, food, lfc, new york, walking
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Today was brilliant. It’s one of those days where you accomplish nothing you really set out to accomplish, everything you planned goes wrong and as a result of this, you get to experience a bunch of other things you hadn’t intended that are all actually quite fantastic.
Meant to head down to IFC Center for the Asian Film Festival, but unfortunately the film I wanted to see was sold out. Hastily made, cancelled, and remade plans with Vicarhelmet for something later that night. Picked up some Beard Papa and ended up walking through a fantastic street market on Bleecker Street – great for people watching. It spontaneously started pissing down which sent everyone scattering like mad. Made my way up to the Adidas store on Houston to pick up the new Liverpool kit before dropping into the LES to check out a few of those ever so trendy lifestyle shops and a slice at Rosario’s.
At this point it turned into an absolute torrential downpour and with no uptown trains running in the vicinity I was sort of caught in no man’s land. Had to run from scaffold to scaffold, ducking under awnings every step of the way so as not to be completely soaked through my t-shirt (no umbrella – never carry one). About this time I spotted a cozy little caff – Le French Diner. Walked in and there’s French talk radio on, which the owner – apparently called Zucco – quickly shifts over to some tastefully trendy French radio station playing what I guess I’d call urban pop classics. Orchard Street was absolutely deserted and once I got settled in, it started properly gnashing it down outside. I can’t remember the last time it stormed like that here. Zucco whipped up the biggest “grand mocha” I’ve ever seen and I had a relaxing afternoon, digging into the latest Wired, listening to the track Basement Jaxx sampled on Red Alert and watching the rain come down. One would have thought for a second they were in the 18th arrondissement…
Eventually made my way back to Broadway, a spot of – mercifully – stress free shopping in Soho as the rain must have scared off the tourists. Hit the R up to Union Square for a round of bargain hunting down the Strand. Picked up a great piece from the Taschen collection on East German design as well as a bit of a heftier read on the art and architecture of Basel and Zürich. There’s something really quite inspiring about Swiss and German design but I feel I’m going to have to actually apply myself to create before I start to come off all Nathan Barley, swanning about town with no particular motivation or end product.
Eventually met up with Vicarhelmet for a nice stroll through Chelsea before heading up to hell Times Square for a quick run in to the Virgin Megastore. It all came back to France when I spotted Lamorisse’s The Red Balloon digitally restored on DVD in the bargain racks. A total classic and having watched White Mane last week it’s one of those things I’m quite happy to own.
Finally, walked up to Columbus Circle, grabbing dinner on the way and started thinking about Aqueduct Racetrack and how I’ve never seen horse racing and actually, might quite like to check it out. I appreciate how pretentious most of this must sound to the casual observer but there’s something really quite satisfying about getting to a stage where you more accurately reflect your interests. There comes a point where I’ve been fortunate enough to actualise some ambitions. I hope I will be able to keep track of many more such actualisations in this journal in future.
