On Wednesday, May 21st, the news leaked via the web and radio: Green Day, under the alias Foxboro Hot Tubs, were to play the inside stage at Emo’s on May 22nd.
People started lining up for tickets ($20, available only at the door) at four in the morning and waited all day in a dumpster-studded alley in almost 100 degree heat. The 320 person venue sold out almost instantly. The sound check was zealously guarded. There was no guest list. Even an eight year-old fan was turned away. The show was early (started at 8pm, over well before midnight), and sadly to some, was not all ages. Austinites said they had not seen Emo’s on such lockdown since Johnny Cash played there during SXSW in 1994 to a crowd of 200 people.
Okay, so the true identity of Foxboro Hot Tubs wasn’t too much of a mystery–it’s out there on their Wikipedia page: they launched in 2007, and band members include Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt, Tre Cool, Jason White, Jason Freese and Kevin Preston. Their album Stop Drop and Roll (which has no biographical information or pics of the musicians) is available now, although more casual listeners may think they aren’t listening to Green Day at all, due in large part to FHT’s ’60s garage rock aesthetic. Their MySpace page already has over 22 thousand friends, so apparently some Green Day fans are paying attention.
FHT fan Josh Massie, 20, hung around Emo’s after the show to try and get his poster–made by Austin screenprinter Billy Bishop–signed by the band. He drove five hours to see the show and waited for 20 hours for his ticket. Massie works for FYE and got the album when it came out on May 20th.
Massie said, “I was aware Foxboro Hot Tubs were Green Day. They have the same energy, just under a different guise. They always bring it.”
The band played the album in its entirety, then did a set of ’60s garage covers. According to Massie, “The place went crazy when they played ‘Blood, Sex and Booze’.”
Foxboro Hot Tubs’ remaining tour dates:
May 25 2008 The Brick House - Phoenix, AZ
May 26 2008 Belly Up Tavern - Solana Beach, CA
May 27 2008 The Roxy - West Hollywood, CA
May 28 2008 Alex’s Bar - Long Beach, CA
It’s not as unlikely as it ought to be: the #3 slot on the Billboard album charts–dominated in recent months by Disney soundtracks and NOW That’s What I Call Music collections–is held by a scraggly, upbeat, politely humorous folk duo from New Zealand. It’s the same duo who was virtually unknown on American soil this time last year, and who, six months ago, was potentially looking at an abrupt end to its cult cable television series. Yet here are recent Grammy winners Flight of the Conchords, the comedy duo of Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement, celebrating the first of two sold-out nights at NYC’s legendary Town Hall.
The popularity of the Conchords really isn’t all too difficult to map. Playing hapless, itinerant musicians under their real names, the two engage in a celebration of deadpan responses to both comic mismanagement and small, accidental joys; a staged uncertainty in the shadows of the all-too-real uncertainty that current American culture faces with each passing day. Yet they still find it within them to be able to break into songs that channel Prince, Beck, the Pet Shop Boys and Serge Gainsbourg, and which reflect their art, their passion, and their problems. Occasionally these songs allow them to break character from the hapless goofs they portray, and it’s in these moments that they make the deepest connections with their audience. The fact that they’re attractive, successful guys riding a growing tide of mass acceptance doesn’t hurt, either. They’re becoming the most successful musical comedy act since the Smothers Brothers, operating at a level of success they’ve earned, seemingly, by validating our concerns through outsized reappraisals.
Television (and to a more likely extent, the Internet) is how U.S. audiences first caught wind of Flight of the Conchords. Most of the songs from their HBO series have been released, sans backstory, on a self-titled album released recently on Sub Pop, an unexpected success that represents the highest chart appearance of a comedy album since Steve Martin’s A Wild and Crazy Guy hit #2 upon its release thirty years ago. Stripped of the series’ backstory, it’s merely a collection of mild, pleasant, quirky folk-pop, but one which has struck a chord with a growing audience, as evidenced by the 1400 people who turned out for the show, who were so eager to see the two onstage they would have offered up a standing ovation had McKenzie dropped his guitar pick.
Favoring an ascetic stage set of two chairs, a couple of acoustic guitars, small synthesizers, and a few mics, the duo skillfully worked their way through almost 90 minutes of material, padding out a near-complete performance of their repertoire with prepared anecdotes, banter with the boisterous, fratty crowd, and a handful of new songs. The mannered veneer of early between-song jokes soon wore off as shouts of “I LOVE YOU BRET!” and “I LOVE YOU JERMAINE!” rang out at every possible moment. These, of course, led to requests, and predictably to “Freebird,” which Clement acknowledged the only way he could: an amateur attempt at playing the Lynyrd Skynyrd chestnut, over and over again throughout the set, just stopping short of humiliating the genius who shouted it out. Displays like those were perhaps the most refreshing aspect of their performance, the gradual unveiling of duo’s real-life personalities rising out of their meek, unassuming counterparts on television, as it bluntly sold the growing divide between their comic virtuosity and prepared material. This behavior struck me as somewhat refreshing–and struck home the point that we might have been seeing a live performance not long for the medium; a prickly temperament that, by set’s end, framed an act that’s beginning to reveal a potential dissatisfaction with its public image.
Shoegaze fans, rejoice: My Bloody Valentine are coming back to the U.S. for what may be the most proper concert fest: All Tomorrow’s Parties, September 19th-21st, in lovely Monticello, New York, on the grounds of Kutshers Country Club. Can you think of a better place to roll around freaking out listening to looped feedback than a golf course?
If My Bloody Valentine alone aren’t enough to lure you to a weekend in the country (imagine the foliage!), read the rest of lineup, designed to make any indie rock fan who cut their teeth in the ’90s cream their figurative jeans: Shellac (Steve Albini), Mogwai, Polvo, Fuck Buttons, Autolux, the Drones, Low, Wooden Shjips, Edan, and Thee Silver Mount Zion Orchestra are slated to perform sets.
And how many times have you wished you could hear your favorite band play your favorite album in sequence, live? There will be plenty of that, too. Built to Spill will perform Perfect From Now On; Tortoise will re-enact Millions Now Living Will Never Die; the Meat Puppets will thrash out Meat Puppets II; and Thurston Moore will break Psychic Hearts.
Tickets go sale today (April 25) at atpfestival.com.