Hella Hella Hella Nervous Nervous Nervous

Friday night, i went to see Laura Veirs. I'd fallen in love with her last album Year of Meteors in January and regrettably, it was too late for my best of 2005 list. So, I was so excited to see she was playing at SXSW. That was a really good show, full band and all. Karl Blau played with her. He's a terribly prolific artist/guitarist who puts out a CD every month. but, I digress...last night, she was on her own. It was intimate and adorable. There's just something about a clean, cool voice being looped to back itself. Do yourself a favor and go see her if you have the chance.

I was also lucky enough to ask her a couple of fluff questions. It was fun/nerve-racking nonetheless.

What are you listening to right now?
We bought French tapes, so we're trying to learn French...and Palisades. They're a band from Olympia, WA.

Do you drive, and do you play any road games?
Yeah, we take turns. As for games, we play...like you say James Vanderslice and I say Eels because the next band's name has to begin with the last letter of the one before.

What's your favorite road-handy snack?
Mostly we stop at restaurants for food, but I like the Bubblicious with a liquid center.

What book are you reading right now?
Reading or writing?

Oh, uh...reading
It's called Nine Gates. It's about poetry.

Thanks again!
Thanks for coming.

She was very sweet to go along with it all. Sorry for the paraphrasing. I wish I'd thought ahead and brought my minidisc to record it.

::Laura Veirs-Galaxies::

I did see her writing in a book or something before the show, so maybe she's going to publish some writings?! Wishful thinking, I'm sure.

She also has one of the cutest/cooolest setlists I've seen:

Mark E. Smith Carnage

Who I won't have to see more than once is The Fall. I saw them the night before on the same stage, and it was a train wreck. They did open the show with a fun bit of video of legendary performers (Queen, Prince, Jackson 5, etc) that had kind of been chopped and screwed. That was cool. The roadie warned people to stay off the stage "for their own good," and I can get behind that. Mark E. Smith was impaired. Sure he's old, but the way he was stumbling around the stage was awful.

Antics included: stepping on band members' toes, taking the mic out of the bass drum a few times, knocking over the tom, knocking over the guitarist's beer, somehow managing to twist up 3 mics, their stands, and their cords, wrapping himself up in said cords...and he doesn't move around enough to warrant that, turning up/down every knob on every member's amps/instruments.

::The Fall-Blindness (Alternate Mix)::

I just felt like I had to have my hands out ready to catch him in case he tumbled off stage. Alcohol is bad. Drugs are bad. Mmmkay.

(Michael here, I found this website that "translates" anything you write into Mark E. Smith's own language. Pretty amusing. You might notice the person posting this is "CC" which happens to be my sister, who'll be writing on here time to time.)