Tag: Ben Kweller

The lasting appeal of PJ Harvey’s staredown is undeniable.

Bo Diddley may have written tonight’s opening cover, and Spoon may be the one actually performing it, but the spirit of Billy Childish, whose version earworms its way through my head every year or so, is quite strong on the shambling, end-of-the-rehearsal vibe heard here. To the listeners voicing strong opinions about the adorably shrill kids’ story that runs at the top of The Final Hour — your notes have been passed on to Management.

I haven’t decided if Bully is a great name or a terrible name, but it certainly fits their melodic bludgeoning.

“You missed the white crocodile,” the chipa vendor told them. The mycologist and the munitions expert gave the expected sounds of disappointment, the same as any tourist drawn to Paraguay’s Ojo de Mar would. One of them spread a blanket by the lake side while the other one got busy with entering the passcodes and unlatching the efficient-looking metal case they had extracted from the moped. Opening it once the blanket was ready, they began taking out the 3D-printed pieces from the foam molding with quick, efficient movements as the Easy Star All-Stars blared out a David Bowie song from the vendor’s portable radio.

It’s hard to to live up to a name like Young Fresh Fellows when you’ve been at it for almost 40 years, but good time rock and roll never goes out of style.

Double Date With Death are loud and Canadian, and they don’t care if you don’t understand their French howling. They have a double date to get to.

It was a peaceful suburban street, and they had taken great care to select a vehicle that would not stand out when parked along its sidewalks, a gold Taurus wagon. The very familiar nature of the setting — the shading trees, the mottled but well-kept asphalt, the toys scattered on lawns — made it feel like one of the most exotic places they’d been to in a while. The cartographer checked the coordinates on the fancy device strapped to their wrist, but any web search could have found them Brewster, New York. The ethnomusicologist leaned against the mailbox, labeled “Marie”, and scanned the canopy of the tremendous spreading oak planted square in the middle of the lawn, eyes peeled for that squirrel.