DC to Louisville

I'm passing along a transmission for the blowfishers from my husband Troy
who did the road trip thing and met the sad freaks. i only wish i could
have been there too, but it was on a "school night" and we're in the middle
of buying a house, so I had to be the grownup and stay home.
Joyce

THE GOLDHEART MOUNTAINTOP KINGS OF ROCK DIRECTORY:

DISCLAIMER: Bruce and Blowfishers please forgive me for getting
extremely mystical and detailed, but this road trip was just an optimum rock
experience. I'm actually Troy Holland, I've hijacked Joyce Jones's computer
for this transmission.

My good buddy John and I took a roadtrip from Washingtion, DC, to
Louisville for GBV--notable for a freaked out lunch in Front Royal, VA. I convinced my
friend to resist restaurant chain oppression: "Yo dude, fuck Wendy's! that
Dave Thomas guy is just a Republican fund raiser!" We wound up at The Knotty
Pine Diner, where we both wished we'd gone to Wendy's. It was filled
entirely with grim mountain folk dissing Clinton: "IT'S WORSE THAN HOOVER!
I TELL YA!..THAN HOOVER!" My "Grilled Chicken Breast Sandwich....$1.85" was
actually a store-bought Tyson's chicken patty, fried extra-chewy. In the
booth next to us, a shriveled old woman smoked a cigar. Then we drove on,
amazed by the Appalachian Mountains. At least I was (I'm from Florida originally) any change in terrain stupefies me. In West Virginia, at dusk, after hours of great scenery we rounded a curve, and
there engulfing a town of church steeples and small houses was this massive
Dupont chemical refinery. Our brains had been lulled into nature mode,
observing budding slopes, deep valleys and lush vistas. Suddenly in this
valley there were glowing industrial super-structures of cooling pipes and
incinerator stacks belching huge fireballs. WE FREAKED. In the near-darkness
it looked like Blade Runner, or the "Hell" panel in Bosch's "Garden of
Earthly Delights." And I SWEAR I'm not making this up, our boombox was
playing +Do the Earth+ +-Blowfishers, I shit ye not.
Cut to Louisville, Thursday April 25th, 7:15 pm: John and I pull into the
Phoenix Hill
Tavern parking lot. Hell yes we're early. I've got my copy of +Benefit for
Winos+ and as we get out of the car the adrenaline flows. The soundcheck is
in progress. The club doors are wide open and the Boys are kickin' out
"Over the Neptune/Mesh Gear Fox." We're some of the first arrivals and as we
walk towards the sound of my favorite GBV song, the bouncers see us coming
and shut the doors. But within minutes we're talking to this guy who gives
us some UBUS promo-posters. I ask if he's with Matador, and he says "I'm the
promoter of the show." We tell him about our trip and HE LETS US IN THE
CLUB! As we walk in Bob and the Boys are working on "#2 in the Model Home
Series" Bob's check-check-checking the microphone
and Tobin's talking to Mitch about a different way of doing the mournful
guitar line near the end. I'M FREAKING most definitely. The place is like a
western saloon, big, with lots of dark-wood railing, gigantic ceiling fans
n' shit. It's just us, a few employees, the promoter, 2 associates of the
band, and GBV! They do a very casual take of +O.I.R.S.+ After awhile Mitch
comes nearby and we get to meet him. This was pretty scary for me. But as
Blowfishers have already heard, the friendliness of these guys is getting as
legendary as their music. After hearing of our trip Mitch said, "I wish we'd
known you guys were coming, we could've put you on the guest list" then he
signed my album and said "Get the other guys, they'll sign too." So we did.
Upon hearing we were from D.C., Bob asked if we had come for the Derby. We
said we were there for GBV. He smiled, stuck out his hand and said, "Dude,
give me some skin!" He signed the album "Thanks for making the pilgrimage to
Louisville." Since my friend John and myself are both graphic
artist/illustrators we talked to Tobin about his previous career as an
illustrator, and some of his paintings that I'd run across in an
American Showcase Illustration Journal. They were fully realized, very
skilled oil paintings. One was an image of businessmen with light-bulb
heads, and the other was a nearly photo-real painting of an old diner. I
told Tobin that when I'd first seen these, I wasn't sure if they were by THE
Tobin Sprout until I noticed an Ohio State Lottery sign in the diner's
window. While the others left to get ready for the show, we talked to Kevin.
He told us cool stuff about the Albini sessions: about jokingly warning
Albini that if he was an asshole to just get it out in the open. And that
Albini had invited Jim O'Rourke of Gastr del sol & Faust fame to one
session. It was O'Rourke who applied the cool screeching sounds on the UK
version of UBUS'S "He's the Uncle." Then Kevin left and it wasn't too many
beers before V-3 came on and totally rocked. Jim Shepard's stuff is darker
than GBV and might be difficult for some to get into, but the new album
"Photograph Burns" definitely smokes. On "Adam Twelve" they laid down these
fast, thrash-punk chords that quickly jump-cut into Zepploid, Page-style
riffs. They followed with +Son of Sam Donaldson+ the brilliant B-side of the
"American Face" single whose lyrics partly are: "You bought into everything
that seemed hip to the masses/ Beatle Boots, Sub Pop, X-Ray glasses/ Your
Uncle Ray raped your cousin Fanny/ You never got over it/ It even killed
your Granny." While this was going on I saw this guy nearby who looked
familiar. I quickly realized this dude was none other than Bob Nastanovich
of Pavement! Since I was getting hero worship down pretty well I had to say
something. What I said was that I really appreciated Pavement's set at last
summer's Lolla-Pathetic in Charles Town, West Virginia,
where Pavement was pelted with mud by a relatively small, but completely
unchecked group of mud covered jack-offs. Pavement had to stop after about 6
songs, and Scott Kannenberg had mooned the mud-slingers. Nastanovich
chuckled at the memory. I asked when something new was coming out and he
said that himself, Steve Malkmus, and David Berman had gone into the studio
briefly for a new Silver Jews record, but had decided they needed more
songs. He said Pavement was set to record this June and July, with the goal
of releasing something in November.

Shortly after this GBV came on and just ROCKED. They opened with "Wished
I Was a Giant." By now I was way too ludicrous to note exact song order, but
they did alot of UBUS, of which Burning Flag Birthday Suit, Big Boring
Wedding, Man Called Aerodynamics, and Lord of Overstock particularly rocked.
Non-Absorbing, Johnny Appleseed and Melted Pat sounded great too. Bob
continued his habit of joking about local celebrities: "Hey where the fuck
is Will Oldham!?" and told the soundman "Mr soundman could you please raise
my mike, after all we're Guided by Voices, not Guided by Guitars." On
Lethargy, Bob lay on the floor and Mitch sang vocals with added howls at the
end for extra effect. But the wackiest shit was that some of
the Louisville crowd was into flinging beer bottle caps. I've never seen
this little ritual
(of affection?) before. Anyhow bottle caps are flying and I think it was
Motor Away when BING! one nails Bob right on the bridge the nose. I don't
actually see the impact, but I see Bob touch his nose, look at the blood on
his fingertip, point at the guy and give him a thumbs up and a silly smile.
A couple of minutes later he says, "I've been told I have a scab on my
nose......that's cool, that rocks." GBV plays for what seems close to 2
hours. Great versions of Echos Myron, Over the Neptune, and Weed King flow
into each other as I yell myself hoarse and idiotically drum on Tobin's
floor monitor. It's probably the best show I've ever seen, worth every hour
of drive time, every mile. The next day as we leave we're looking for a
place to eat, I'm feeling the 8 beers from the night before. We pass some
place called "Ramsi's Cafe on the World." John says, "let's eat there." I
say, "Dude, I'm hungover and you're gonna make me eat a Middle Eastern
lunch?" He insists, "You don't know what's on the menu." So I resign myself
to further nausea and we U-turn back towards the place. But I luck out
because a large white van has just veered off the street and crashed
directly into the Ramsi's, shattering plate glass windows onto lunch-goers
who are out on the sidewalk still holding napkins. Nobody appears seriously
hurt. We eat chicken sandwiches down the street.
So much reported,
Troy Holland