I’m fast approaching something defining in 2005. The fringes seem to be absolutely electric these days, but whatever is doing it is too far away for me to see yet. But the ripple effects are starting to show it. My New Year’s transition seems to be the first thing effected. As far as yearly changeovers go, this one was by far the smoothest I can recall in a long time — maybe since High School. I got to take in great music and celebrate two nights in a row and be part of the New Year energy the city was generating.

Anyway, step back to Friday night. My only plans were to clean and do some freelance work, then catch a show when good friend David IM’ed asking if I wanted to go check out a comic act with David Cross and Toddy Barry hosting it? Great plan if you ask me, especially when he says he’s taking care of the ticket and I can still fit in the other show since it was such a late start. Count me in.

Cross & Barry’s little troupe show was called Tinkle, held over at Pianos. There was a video opening shown of the group members leaving out there list along with tortilla chips and half and half for Santa. It ended with an X-Box, an iPod and one of the guys being anally raped by Santa. Sure as hell didn’t see that coming. They’re funny, in that endearingly sick way.

Around the midway point of their show they called for a special musical guest to come out and join them on stage. That band was Wilco, who was performing the next night at MSG for 18,000 screaming fans or so. The room we were in looked like it could fit 150 or so at most — 200 if you used one of those Tokyo subway pushers. And me, about four rows back from the stage.

Quite the pleasant surprise. They did a cover of the Captain & Tennille song “Love Will Keep Us Together” along with two others, but that opener was hard to top and it fit the mood of the show. Certainly a strange first experience with the band. More pictures and details of the whole event can be found on Gothamist and BrooklynVegan.

I cut out of the show a little early to head to my other planned appearance of the night, Rana down at Tribecca Rock Club. Show started at 11 and they played two sets, so the whole affair didn’t end until after 3 am. Good thing I had off the next day and could stick around for the whole thing, because every minute of it was worth the experience.

They kicked through a good mix of new, old and older material. Personal high points were “Loves It Automatic”, “Skin and Bone” and a song I had never heard live, “Ray Charles Player Piano”. There were guests abounding on stage and in the crowd as well, notably Saxophonist Stuart Bogie from Antibalas and Warren Haynes of Gov’t Mule fame. Stuart came up and played on a few songs, including a burning rendition of “My One Dear Son” while Warren was in the crowd for a while (having played earlier in the night himself over at the Beacon).

The next night started with a dinner with good friend Denis and his new girlfriend before sliding over to Irving Plaza for the New Year’s Eve festivities.

The first act out the gate was Peelander-Z, their act self-described as “Japanese Action Comic Punk”. The members came out dressed in weird costumes and the use of large flash cards were used to help bridge the language barrier. The music was loud, fast and hard and churned up a few unexpected mosh pits along the way. The experience was completely surreal.

And then it went from surreal to plain freakish. The band members started recruiting replacements from the crowd in mid-song and then had the audience part a lane down their middle. Their goal: to create a human bowling lane. And guess who got video of the whole debacle? The playing was good, but the crowd interaction was beyond belief and I think they won over a lot of people by the end of their set.

Next to hit the stage was Buckethead, a man who’s work I’m familiar with via his collaborations with Les Claypool — crashing Primus’ set at OzzFest ’99 and his more recent playing with Colonel Claypool’s Bucket of Bernie Brains. To see him play on his own was certainly intriguing. He would have loops and drum machines going for the background while he flew inside the constructs with his guitar work. And his on-stage persona was on par with his playing. He has this mask wearing, robotic kung-fu guitar freak thing down cold.

Finally came the headlining act, Particle. The first act to come out not wearing and costumes, but they remembered to bring lots of their electro-funk style. They jammed through covers of The Doors “Break on Through” and the Chemical Brother’s “Denmark” along with their own stable of tunes, including an incendiary version of “The Elevator” that damn near killed me.

This was only Particle show number two for me, and I pick one hell of one to go to. The music was infinitely danceable and the crowd was just insane. Then came the New Years countdown with Buckethead returning to bang each number on a gong that had set up stage right. The balloon drop and subsequent hysteria that surrounded that moment was grand indeed.

In between sets there was an appearance by some of the participants in Kaiju Big Battel, which is basically pro-wrestling with people wearing japanese styled monster costumes. Dust bunnies fighting cans of chicken soup and plantains giving out gifts. Yup, totally on par with all the other histrionics on the night.

I booked sometime in the middle of set two to continue my New Year’s revelry. Good friend David was heading into Manhattan with a small posse for an apartment party in SoHo and I tagged along.

Just to look at the apartment made my mouth water and my eyes tear up — the ultimate urbanite’s dream. I drooled for that which I could not afford and I cried for the fact you could fit four or five of my apartments into this one. Soak in the richness of the situation, and the open call on alcohol. The crowd, the conflicts, the setting — there some book material ideas flowing from that place. Between miscommunication, beer muscles and some stranger tagging some cars across the street there was almost a confrontation, but too many heads were still level to allow that to happen. Thankfully I was nowhere near being involved with any of the causes. After a while of apartment drinking we headed off to a local bar to continue the night. Got a chance to talk with new acquaintance Rob and generally enjoy the night.

Eventually I headed off for home, finally hitting my pillow sometime around 7:30 am feeling content and drained. I could very well have stayed in a comatose state until Monday morning and work but surprisingly I was quite active: getting my bills paid, cleaning my apartment, organizing files, etc. Chalk it up to wanting 2005 to be a step above the year it’s replacing.

Now lets see how long I can keep the act up. ^_^

RANA setlist, courtesy of eswain93 on rana YahooGroups:

Tribeca Rock Club, New York, NY 12/30/04

I: Charm Bracelet, New Juice, I Waste It, Loves It Automatic, Livin’ Was
Easy, For Some Time, Whenever You Can, Skin and Bone, So Long Edgewood*, Girl U
Want, I’m Comin’ Correct

II: Thank You For Sending Me An Angel -> Baby’s Got a New Bike**, Phillippe
Petit, Good Book*** -> Bloodshed^, My One Dear Son^ -> We Will Not Be Lovers^@,
Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You, I’m Not Orfeo, Sad and Lonesome, Mandy
Moore^^ -> Ray Charles Player Piano^^^, I Wanna Rock#, So Long Shadow, Some
Kind of Girl, Vampire Blues##, Carbombed Again###, Not So Mopso%, Poop
Georgette III%%

E: Corrina%%%, One Good Eye, Silver Not Gold -> Ring in the Sand, intro ->
Backstage Pass

Leroy Justice opened. The second set was billed as a post-Gov’t Mule party,
and Warren Haynes was in the audience.

* – slowed down almost to the point of stopping at one point; followed by a
“countdown to New Year’s Eve”
** – with “Smile” tease
*** – with “Heartbreaker” tease
^ – with Stewart from Antibalas on saxophone
@ – with Matt on tambourine
^^ – with “Remember My Address” tease
^^^ – with “Smile” and “Poop Georgette III” teases
# – with rearranged beginning and Scott playing the guitar solo behind his
back
## – with Noah Chernin on lead vocals, and Noah and Matt on tambourine at
various points; stretched out unlike previous versions
### – dedicated to Mike Sarno and crew, including the altered lyric “’cause
good ol’ Sarno’s coming back to town”
% – with Led Zeppelin teases (The Ocean, Heartbreaker, Moby Dick)
%% – began with “Poop Jazz Fits Gerald” intro before moving into PG3
%%% – without Scott

Tags: Personal

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