2.28.2007

2.27.07 Jello Biafra @ The Living Room, Providence: Ray's Guitar Broke

I somehow made it to the year 2007 without seeing a JB spoken word performance.

Firstly, I'd like to point out that the Living Room is a complete dump. I guess I never really noticed it before. Not like I care, because you should see my apartment. But it's possibly the biggest shithole live music venue around. The sound sucks, too. It is, however, comfy and laid back and I like it.

Secondly, I love the Dead Kennedys. Perhaps I am too old for that sort of thing, but I still love them. You know those sun visor CD holders? Mine always has at least one DK CD in it. So since I never had the opprtunity to see them live back in the day because I was busy working for Prudential, this was a treat. The closest thing to etc.

Thirdly, it went down pretty much as I expected it to, which is again not a criticism. You do what you do and you do it well. George Bush, Iraq, junk mail, voter registration, Haliburton, MySpace, the Supreme Court, Wal-Mart, all of it. Insert expected viewpoints here.

Finally, the performance pretty much reinforced what I tell myself whenever I wonder why I bother doing all the weird stuff I do, and that is: Doing Something Is Always Better Than Doing Nothing.

PS I heard several gasps when Jello dared to assault Tom Brady... one Brady fan said to me, 'How would you like it if he said that about Mike Lowell?' Well, that is moot, my friend, because Mike Lowell's character is unassailable. Facial!

4 comments:

Jere said...

K and I also saw Jello, the night before in Northampton, I will be blogging about it tonight.

"Doing Something Is Always Better Than Doing Nothing." One of the points I brought up to K in the car afterwards that I also really liked.

At ours, he also said the Tom Brady thing. And here ya go--he did say a Sox player, too. It was during the (classic) "maximum wage" bit. He said, 'then [all these rich people] and Manny Ramirez, could do good.' Like, if they gave money back to people who have none. And, yeah, I was kind of like, Hey, Manny's cool. But it's true, none of these dudes should make this kind of money. (In ours, he called Brady a "pretty boy right winger."

He did like 3 hours, then "break," then an hour more. Did you get that, too? Did you have hecklers? We had hecklers and walkouts in liberal Northampton. Terrible job, those people!

Oh, and did Jello point out that "Jeff from Disaster Strikes is here" at your show?

I should go tonight to see Jello again at Knitting Factory here in NYC, but, ya know, I just saw him. And from what you say, it sounds like it'll be the same show (with "Derek Jeter" replacing "Tom Brady.")

Anonymous said...

I didn't see the show. I bet it was good. I am a fan of of spoken word. In fact I have a spoken word blog.

Jenks said...

Jello mentioned Northampton a couple of times. He said he got into it with some guy who left in a huff with his young daughter.

There weren't really any hecklers. Maybe one guy who shouted random things like, "WHAT CAN WE DO!?" but that's all.

Ian Mackaye may have said it best with, "At least I'm fucking trying!" in MT's 'In My Eyes'. At least, I think that was the song.

Jere said...

And follows it up with "What the fuck have you done?" with a really cool "ck" sound in "fuck."

Wow, one of our walkouts got a mention the next night!