Monday, May 16, 2016

And So You See...Ennui!



Had a very long, exhausting weekend.

Regular posting -- including that video round-up I've been threatening (running on Wednesday -- swear to the Flying Spaghetti Monster!!!) -- resumes tomorrow.
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8 comments:

Mark said...

On April 21, 2016 at The Cutting Room in Manhattan, I went to see Terry Reid (and his backing band, The Cosmic American Derelicts), who was (and were) of course, wonderful. Seated stage right in the front of the club was a heckler who apparently thought that Reid had to respond to every comment and song request he (the heckler) made. After a few polite attempts to tell the guy to shut the fuck up, Reid pointed his guitar at the joker and threatened to "Lilli Von Shtupp" him if he didn't zipper his food hole.

Noticed David Johnansen and Steven Van Zandt in the audience.

5/16/2016 1:56 PM
steve simels said...

I hate you.
:-)

5/16/2016 3:54 PM
Anonymous said...

Mark: Great story. Atmospheric place. Good backing band. Hope that diarrhea mouth didn't entirely ruin the show. I know the type and would have escorted him out at gunpoint.

Did they have the tables and chairs set up or was it standing room? Did CAD play an opening set? Did Reid do either "Don't Worry Baby" or "Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying"? Was it a short set or a marathon? Questions, questions.

Reid used to play a lot out west, more recently in the desert. I've seen him do shows that go almost four hours if he's comfortable and it's low-key enough. Many famous, and more obscure, musicians have sat in with him at these shows. Always enjoyable.

But he was never more adorable than he was in 1968 at the Whisky before his hair got too long. What a cutey! Time has not been kind to him in the looks department. But, in many respects, he's a better, though perhaps less powerful, singer than he was way back when. I've got a small connection with him through David Lindley. It drives him nuts when I call him "Uncle Terry." Thankfully, time's been kinder to me. In a Dorian Gray meets "Knock On Wood" way :-). He's got some great stories.

Anyway if you have a setlist of that Cutting Room show, I'd be interested in what he played. Hopefully a mix of his entire career. Not a surprise that famous musicians were in the crowd. Besides, he doesn't come to NYC that often, right? Hope he was good for you. Sometimes he's off his game.

VR - Don't fuck with me if I'm tapin' or you'll face Nancy's Boots, the Black Hand's Stiletto and Yancy's Derringer:-) Get yer fwiggin' feet off the stage.

5/16/2016 4:10 PM
steve simels said...

VR -- he plays NYC once a year or so.
We saw him at an even smaller joint in town in 2014. He was great, obviously.

5/16/2016 4:34 PM
Anonymous said...

That's what I figured. Once, and sometimes twice, passin' thru New York per year. He sorta camped out West for a few sustained periods in the past few decades. Handfuls of intimate gigs. Plus the jams at various locations. Any memorable numbers that stick out from your show? Speak Now Or ...

VR - Hopefully he didn't do the syrupy one about his daughter. I had a word with him about that one when he played the Teaszer late 1990's. The gig he did there with Mick Taylor, Brian Auger, Jackie Lomax, John Entwistle and Soco Richardson made the head spin. Tape was a-rollin' and the plimsouls were rockin'.

5/16/2016 7:44 PM
steve simels said...

He did a lot of country songs, actually.

BTW, I don't know if you ever saw this piece about Terry, but it's probably the thing I'm proudest of since I've been blogging.

http://powerpop.blogspot.com/2007/10/view-from-bridge.html


Apologies if I've already inflicted it on you.

5/16/2016 9:55 PM
Anonymous said...

Steve: Did he have backing? a band? pedal steel? Did he do the Nat King Cole catalog? Hank Williams?:-)

I've seen that post, perhaps in a re-post. As I've said before, I was a regular at those Joint shows. Amazing fun.

First time I heard Waterloo Sunset, I heard it on the radio in Hawaii. My dad had extended biz there and he took me and Sandy along. He got us our own room on the top floor at the Reef overlooking Diamond Head. We had a Lear-Jet portable 8 Track that we took with us everywhere. Mid-summer 1967 we were playing the shit out of West Coast Pop Art, Sgt. Pepper, Moby Grape, Flowers and bought the Hendrix debut on the Island. The room service dude heard what kind of music we were playing and quickly returned to hawk some killer pakalolo. Our first ever Kona Gold. There were a few other firsts on that trip as well.

Waterloo Sunset was still being played in the Inland Empire when we returned. But it strikes me as really strange that the tune was never even a minor hit in the USA. It didn't even bubble under. How is that possible?

VR - glad Ray changed the name from "Liverpool Sunset"

5/16/2016 11:44 PM
Mark said...

@VR

No opening set by the band. He DID do DON'T WORRY BABY solo (and beautifully, and you can hear a similar version of Reid doing the song on his 2012 CD, LIVE IN LONDON AT RONNIE SCOTT'S -- recorded in 2010 -- which, by the way, captures Reid as he sounds today), a Nat Cole standard, and a Hank Williams song. And there was some pedal steel this time around.

I missed Reid last year in Manhattan, and yes, the Cutting Room was set up with tables and chairs this time around, and the place has a fine sound system, and even Reid commented on that, but saw him play at a tiny club near where I live in Brooklyn in 2011 with no more than 25 other fans of a certain age. $12 ticket fee, and others at the show realized that we were up close and personal with a near-God. At that time he played acoustic with an accompanying guitarist, whom to my eyes was the same guy playing lead in Manhattan at the Cutting Room last month. Great storyteller. GREAT storyteller, that Reid.

Can't recommend the LIVE IN LONDON album enough. You can listen to it on Spotify. And speaking of WATERLOO SUNSET, have either of you or anyone else heard the Day Ravies, an Australian indie band that sounds like an updated Martha And The Muffins? LIMINAL SOUNDS (2015) is my type o' music.

5/17/2016 7:54 AM

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