From: owner-alloy-digest@smoe.org (alloy-digest) To: alloy-digest@smoe.org Subject: alloy-digest V12 #54 Reply-To: alloy@smoe.org Sender: owner-alloy-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-alloy-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk X-To-Unsubscribe: Send mail to "alloy-digest-request@smoe.org" X-To-Unsubscribe: with "unsubscribe" as the body. alloy-digest Monday, March 19 2007 Volume 12 : Number 054 Today's Subjects: ----------------- RE: Alloy: Redwood City reviews? Part 1 ["Mary A Brown" Subject: RE: Alloy: Redwood City reviews? Part 1 How was the gig? In a word, FANTASTIC! The Little Fox is just that. The venue only holds about 240 people so it was very intimate. Steve and I were 5th and 6th in line, waiting only briefly outside on a glorious sunny afternoon. It figures, all the other gigs we've attended we had to wait for extended periods of time in rainy and/or cold weather! Sadly, I didn't see the tour bus so I can't comment on the artwork. TMDR was scheduled to appear at 7 pm (with the time change they had to pull the drapes on the windows to darken the room!) and was only fashionably late by 20 minutes, another pleasant surprise. No trenchcoat this time. He would have been sweating madly since the outside temperature was in the 80s. Instead, he sported the usual black ensemble: button fly Levis, shoes with chunky soles, and a V neck, short-sleeved shirt with subtle horizontal stripes. Headphones with camera attached and goggles left resting on the forehead completed the look. Only one of the modified old electronic equipment pieces was in evidence. The show was divided into two parts. First was just Thomas solo, as most of you have experienced. He took a 15 minute break then brought out the Jazz Mafia. He began with the favorite Leipzig and though I had trouble tearing my eyes away from Thomas, I did notice that he showed some footage of mourning doves on the video screen which I thought was very cool. In response to Steve's request that the vocals be raised a bit, he countered that he would just sing louder. He seemed very relaxed at this gig and there was a lot of patter, much of it relevant to current events in TMDR's life. I giggled at his reference to the variety of people in the audience, referring to them as "Yahoos, Googlies, and the various nutters from the Internet." He felt like he had died and then gotten bigger than ever so if we had any messages for Nick Drake, he'd pass them along. He spoke about really being a 70s artist rather than an 80s one since he was doing his one man band tours then. We got the brief history lesson about synths and how that back then only recording studios and university music departments had them. The budding synthesists would lurk outside the door, hoping to sneak in and snatch a small board or some such thing to complete their rig. Apparently, the essential performance tool TMDR needed for his first, kit-built keyboard was a soldering iron! Thomas spoke of the two camps which sprang up in the music scene, one containing Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire and the like while the other consisted of the Human League and the more popular bands. He said he wasn't quite sure where he fit in, but seemed to be willing to throw his lot in with the cult figures. That's why we were seeing him in such a small place rather than Shoreline, one of the large, local outside venues. I'd be more inclined to put him on the opposite side! Submarines was next up and in his intro, Thomas offered up the tidbit that he nicked the name for the song from a book that was written about his uncle and the others who died in 1942. When TMDR described his uncle as the "Action Man" in contrast with his academic father, I kept imagining him as an action figure which could have ended up as a lost toy person! I found this song moving as always and enjoyed seeing the footage from "Live Wireless" again on the screen. It has evolved since I originally heard it over a year ago and I liked the addition of what sounded like seagulls near the end. At the closing note, Thomas turned to the photo of his uncle Stephen behind him and respectfully executed a salute. Thomas then related how he ended up in the US, a place which was foreign to him since he considered himself European. He was recording in Brussels when he was summoned to perform Science on TV, something he was happy to do since he was getting popularity here, unlike in Europe. He came back to the States several times afterwards and then we heard about the advice from his accountant that he should stay here awhile. Next he shared the Griffiths Park anecdote. But this time, we got more of the story of how Thomas and Kathleen met, i.e. that she was a blind date for a friend of his and that he never approved of this guy's choice of girlfriends. He visited his friend one night and saw this very beautiful, very clever, very witty girl and was delighted when the friend said the girl wasn't his type and asked for her phone number. This of course led into Suitcase. Apparently, Submarines and Suitcase were problematic songs since Steve snagged the set list from Darin and each of them had errors listed after them. Pretty cool to glimpse into the nuts and bolts of the music and know that everyone has computer problems, even Thomas! I'm worried about the Alloy space limit so I'll end here. Stay tuned. Europa ------------------------------ End of alloy-digest V12 #54 ***************************