Live: Bob Mould with Cymbals Eat Guitars @ Williamsburg Waterfront 9.7.12

This show was curiously under the radar, despite it being in a pretty huge spot and sponsored by Lacoste. I showed up towards the end of the Cymbals Eat Guitars set and saw as much as I would have liked of their kinda sorta ok Brit flavored rock. Kudos to them for scoring the gig, but it was even more of a pleasure to roll into a not especially fully space and cut straight to the rock chase.

Bob has been simultaneously touring behind his new record Silver Age and commemorating the 20th Anniversary of the release of the first Sugar record Copper Blue. This set, and a few others featured Copper Blue in its entirety. A beautiful late Summer night combined with the new record being damn good and Bob having worked a fair amount of Husker Du tracks into the set in recent years, capped with Lacoste footing the bill, it made for one of the better shows this year.

The other two guys on the tour, that being Ironman Jon Wurster on drums and bassist Jason Narducy have comprised the Mould rhythm section for a while now, and it is pretty impossible to fault our Bob for choosing either. I'd say its his best band since the Maimone/Fier era by a long shot. The old and new material was/is great, and there was the added nerd bonus of Craig Finn coming out during the encore to shout his way through Something I Learned Today, a moment captured below and captioned in typical brilliant fashion by our dear Mr. Wurster, "And then this man came on stage and started yelling "I was into Bob Mould before any of you!"

All in all, a great night, especially given the price.
Get The Silver Age and/or the 3cd remaster of Copper Blue here from your friends at Merge.

R

Jon Wurster Tour Diaries up now at Magnet

Hey Kids:

Noted drummer/humoredian Jon Wurster has been publishing some tour diaries concerning his most recent gig backing A.C. Newman on his solo tour. Not surprisingly, they are pretty awesome.

Check them out here.

R

Superchunk - The Clambakes #4: Sur La Bouche Live In Montreal 1993

Bizarrely enough, Superchunk - The Clambakes #4: Sur La Bouche Live In Montreal 1993 is the only the second installment of love for the Sweet Chunky Goodness at JS-NYC. Ever odder, it's another live release. This is the fourth installment of The Superchunk Clambakes series. Previous installments contained rarities and improv material, but Vol. 4 documents a ripping live set from Montreal; one that marks the early days of the current Superchunk lineup. As the Francophiles in our midst may have already ascertained, it's a show from the On The Mouth tour. 

The band is in fine fettle and tight as all get out. You can hear that they've been on the road for a couple weeks. Listening to the two recent live releases from the Chunk, it's pretty funny how absolutely identical the band is sonically and personality-wise. Granted they are tighter here than on the Cradle Show but Jim is still a smart-ass and Mac still has the exact droll stage manner on this '93 recording that you'll hear at the rare Chunk live shows in this millennium. It so good, and only really serves to remind us all how remarkably boring and/or shitty most bands are today. It's not rocket surgery, kids: Good songs, catchy guitar, Jon Wurster. It's easy enough to get your own slant on the first two, and you might even be able to get the third if you play your cards right. If he'll play with Marah, as long as the Chunk are on blocks it's not out of the realm of possibility that he'd play with your shitty band. And speaking of shitty bands, here's a forum topic: Gaslight Anthem are the new Marah. The corollaries are scary. Don't get it twisted: that is not in any way a good thing, but you know Asslight want Steve Earle to do their next record.

But I digress. The Clambakes #4 is being released solely in the digital format, which kinda sucks. I'm not looking for gatefold vinyl, but I think we all would have paid more for packaging. The set La Bouche is nineteen tunes, with most of the stuff you'd expect to hear in 1993: Package Thief, On The Mouth, Cadmium. No Slack Motherfucker, but I think we've all heard enough of that tune in the set over the last ten or fifteen years.  You can get Sur La Bouche Live In Montreal from the Merge Digital Store for a mere $8.99 in the mp3 format. If your audiophilic ways necessitate lossless FLAC , it'll cost you $11.49. I haven't heard the decoded FLAC version, but lets not gild any fucking lilies, shall we? Fire up the ol' downloader and get this. Regardless of your audio leanings the set list is great, Superchunk are great, and it's cheap; plus safe money is on it being better than anything currently on Pitchfork's front page. Buy this shit and turn it up loud. 

R