From: owner-rockford-files-digest@smoe.org (The Rockford Files) To: rockford-files-digest@smoe.org Subject: The Rockford Files V2 #126 Reply-To: rockford-files@smoe.org Sender: owner-rockford-files-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-rockford-files-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk The Rockford Files Thursday, April 15 1999 Volume 02 : Number 126 Today's Fjordian Filings: -------------------------------------- A great concert (Ben Lee and Rufus Wainwright)(LONG)(part 1) a very great concert part 2 waiting in the bushes... It even sounds like a real country. Re: waiting in the bushes... George show: More Excerpts of my book "memoirs" by George Thompson ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 14 Apr 1999 09:43:50 -0700 From: Stacy Lynn Subject: A great concert (Ben Lee and Rufus Wainwright)(LONG)(part 1) Please excuse the cross posting, but I think that people on all the lists will find something of interest or relevance to this post. If I mention something or seomthing that you aren't sure about, just figure its for people on another list. =-) I just got back from a fantastic concert up in Phoenix. It was a concert experience certainly unparalled by any other and rivaled perhaps by only the Ben Folds Five concert at Club Rio on February 9, 1998. In one of my most spontaneous acts ever, I drove up to Phoenix to see Ben Lee and Rufus Wainwright preform. Ben Lee, for the unititiated is this FANTASTIC singer/songwriter from Australia. Very poppy music, plays the guitar, great stuff. When he was a kid, he wanted to be Evan Dando, and I think he still idolizes The Lemonheads and Liz Phair... Rufus Wainwright, for those of you who aren't familiar, is the son of folk singer Loudon Wainwright III. He plays the piano and sings, some of it sort of pop-ish, but with something else entirely. He was in a Gap commercial around Christmastime where he sang a song called something like "What are you're plans for New Years Eve" Anyway.... The concert! So yesterday I was sick, and I stayed at my parents house, and then came back here in the afternoon. Around 6:30 or so, my friend sends me a message on AIM (he goes to the UA with me) saying "oh did I tell you about the Ben Lee concert?" Of course he hadn't... "oops, I think its tommorow, I was supposed to tell you sooner but I forgot." So I looked up the info on the net, called the venue, etc... The problem is I had to work today. Well, I was sick yesterday, so why not be sick today? So I had it all planned out. The truth of the matter, I still am sick, so calling in sick wasn't a lie, but, well, I just did something else while being sick I guess you could say.... And I didn't even know if my car (82 Volvo DL) would make it up ok... I'd put it on the freeway before, but the odometer doesn't work anymore, there are misc leaks here and there in the engine, no AC or heat, it sort of makes funky noises when you go up a hill... etc.... Lisa (from the Jellylist) emailed me, and we agreed to meet up for the show, have some dinner before hand... Today, I call into work, get the tickets, get everyting all set, and when my friend Eric was done with classes, we went to Phoenix. The car made it up surprizingly well. I was impressed! We got there, had dinner in Tempe with Lisa, had a great time, and then walked to the venue. It started a bit late, but eventually we got in, and I (being the 5'2 girl that I am) was going to be front and center for this one. Apparently a couple high school girls who had been standing behind me in line heard me talking about Rufus, Ben Folds Five, and other bands, and they thought I was pretty cool, so they came up to me and started talking. Then I saw a friend of mine from here at the University, and she brought her friend Oliver. We talked for a bit, and then Ben Lee took the stage. He was oh, 2 feet away from me. And they played and it was soo great. Oliver asked me how old Ben Lee was, and I said "Oh, he's right around our age, like 20" A couple songs into the set, Ben asked for 5 shots of Jagermeister. Oliver yells out "Hey! You're underage!" And Ben gave him a dirty look... it was kinda funny... So I'm rocking out to the show... its so obvious how much Ben loves the music, he does a shot or two of the jager, and he had actually gotten 10 shots, so he asks the crowd if anyone wanted any. Oliver being the idiot that he is said "sure!" and took a glass. Now, Oliver is underage. And the security was on him like *that* (insert finger snapping). So he was kicked out, and apparently, told the securty that Ben was ALSO underage! Nice going there, Oliver... Durring the set, in the middle of a song, when ben saw what happened he said "oh fuck, did I just give a drink to someone who was underage? Oh man, I'm really sorry... Can we call him?" It was very humourous. The show went on a little bit before one of Ben's backup's instrument died. Then Ben did this AWESOME thing where he went down into the crowd. Now, this was not a crowd, but rather an very intimate setting of maybe 10 -20 people. He plopped the mic not one foot away from me and did the rest of his set from there. INCREDIBLE. absolutely incredible. At one point, he sorta slipped on some spilled jager and fell into me. I couldn't believe how close he was to me. It was like he was playing just for me. I loved it. Ben played lots of stuff off his 1st album (albeit updated a bit) and lots of stuff off his newest (check it out, its amazing), and then lots of new/unreleased/or covers I didn't recognize. 2 covers that I do recognize was Skulls by the lemonheads (told you he had an evan dando fixation.. he sang about how he wanted to be him when he was just a kid) and a Liz Phair tune. to be continued.... If the path of least resistance is all you ever take Well at least you've been consistant And for that, I've baked you a cake. --Jason Falkner "Author Unknown" Stacy Lynn stacyf@u.arizona.edu http://www.u.arizona.edu/~stacyf icq: 7641939 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Apr 1999 09:49:18 -0700 From: Stacy Lynn Subject: a very great concert part 2 continued from part 1... So while they were getting ready for Rufus, I find out what happened to Oliver. Now while it wasn't my fault at all that Ben Lee's tour got in trouble about Ben being underage, indirectly it was cuz I told Oliver how old Ben was! Now that tour won't be able to go back to that venue, and besides, it just looks really bad for the radiostation (my friend Emily and Oliver were both from the station too.) Emily and I talked to Ben really briefly, and he felt terrible about what he did to Oliver... So he takes Emily backstage with him, and they call Oliver, and Ben apologizes, but then Emily told him that Oliver told on Ben, and Ben got all mad and wanted to call him back and yell at him. =-) Around this time, I was mingling, and Ginger, Sandi, and Jason, I *totally* see how you guys met at a concert and hit it off like that. I started talking to this guy who seemed cool, turns out he goes to the UA, loves all the same stuff as me, waaaay cool. So we hung out the rest of the show. Scored a phone number and he works at a local venue, and so he said he'll put me on the guestlist whenever I want. Rock on with my bad self. =-) Rufus takes the stage. Now I had heard a couple different things about his shows. 1st off, he puts on a damn good show. And he did not disappoint. All the great stuff off the album, plus plenty of new tunes. He had a great showmanship, great with the audience, personable, wonderful. Another thing I had heard was that he was very gay. This was true too. But the 3rd thing I heard was that he is incredibly sexy, and ohmigod, that is the truth. Don't know what it is, can't quite place it, but there really is something. Maybe its the way he sings, the way he feels... I don't know. Amazing, amazing show. I got Mike, that guy I met, to stay for it, he hadn't heard of him before, and I convinced him to stay, and he was much impressed. After the amazingly brilliant performance by Rufus, I found his tour manager, and asked to talk to Rufus. So I got to. =-) I got my cd signed as well as a tour poster I took off the wall. Rufus was incredibly nice, genial, friendly, amicable, down-to-earth, and just plain great. They are releasing his album in france with 4 bonus tracks, so keep a lookout in the import section, all you Rufus fans... All in all, it was an amazing night. If you would have told me a mere 24 hours before I left for the show that I would have an experience anything like this, I would have laughed in your face. But it was certainly one of the best concerts ever that I have been to. It was my first time for a Rufus concert, and my 2nd with Ben Lee... I had met Ben Lee once before, but I wish I had more time to talk to him this time, I have *so much* I could have asked him. Well, I got once great concert story to tell, and a couple autographs, and a couple tshirts... I made a couple new friends... God I love concerts. btw, I picked up 2 new CDs while in Phoenix... They Might Be Giants "The Sun" EP and Jude's 1st independent release. I'm trusting you all know about the TMBG one, but Jude recently was signed to a major label and the album "No One Is Really Beautiful" is the wonderous creation of that... This album I just bought has a couple live tracks, a bunch of stuff I hadn't heard before, as well as different versions of a couple songs off his major label debut. This is a bit more unproduced, and I mean that in a VERY GOOD way. You can really hear his voice and guitar skills. Its an amazing album and an amazing find if you are lucky enough. I almost like it better than the major label album upon my intitial listen. Its singer-songwriter acoustic pop, maybe similar to Elliot Smith, though not as depressing as his eariler stuff... Highly reccomend it. Anyway, I've rambled on long enough, more than you cared to hear, although I figure there had to be one or 2 of you on each list who cared. Thats it for now. (A Very Elated) Stacy If the path of least resistance is all you ever take Well at least you've been consistant And for that, I've baked you a cake. --Jason Falkner "Author Unknown" Stacy Lynn stacyf@u.arizona.edu http://www.u.arizona.edu/~stacyf icq: 7641939 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Apr 1999 17:01:38 EDT From: Vwbugn5890@aol.com Subject: waiting in the bushes... having lurked for quite awhile now, i too have decided to honor Eric's request and have abandoned my rather stable position of stalking and have returned to the more time-consuming position of posting first of all, happy belated birthday to jordan. second...i got into the Wash U summer program! people on the message board already know this, but i'm extremely excited so i feel the need to tell everyone :) as a result of this news, i am convinced that my summer is going to kick ass. well, hope you all are having a lovely week. i think i'll go back to the bushes and lurk now. shan "Well...does he like butter tarts?" ~ Len ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Apr 1999 17:46:40 EDT From: Eriklyons1@aol.com Subject: It even sounds like a real country. You might think I had been lurking. You might think I had been shunning. You might think. Well, I have been in Yemen. I am happy to see Brittney Spears tops the tour list on pollstar. I listened to an interview w/Eninininigniningiiimgiimgini (the artist who sings My name is:) and isn't he white? He sounds like he is from the hood. He ended every sentence with, "know what I mean?" And Cruze (the DJ) bit every time, "yeah, yeah." Must be tough, being a rock/rap star. Happy (belated) bday to my good friend, Jordan. Hope you scored. matthew, I bought an Orlimar, 9 degrees D, and I score well. South Park is on tonight. yum. don't miss. Courtney, congrats on the GM job. That is just plain solid. like a rock. very cool. Newer bands I like: mercury rev and I purchased REM tix, but they won't be w/them for the leg of the tour I will see. but, wait...WILCO woll be the opener, so I won't need to fret before the main act starts. Last time I saw them, Driver 8 tour. Think I was stoned. Maybe not. I bumped into Spence in Yemen. We had a very spirited conversation and I haven't seen him since. I think he said he was so drunk at the airport he boarded the wrong plane. But he wasn't too upset as I noticed he was clutching a HGTV AMex corp. card. Someone said there is a piano-driven rock band playing in Chicago in less than 3 weeks. I better check if I have tickets. Someone told me it is sold out. Or did they say the band sold out? Or is that just one of the most wonderful conversations we ever had when blessed the bandwidth of the magical armpit. well, it is off to another swell sounding country for a couple months. you guys behave, because as you know, I don't monitor this wild and crazy and zany list. yo. shouts out to my homies. homeys? homes. eric. matthew. spencer. katy. kristin. jordan. courtney. anne. markus. taves (man, talk about your zany!) *smile* and yo, everyone else. oh, and tina. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Apr 1999 17:09:13 -0500 From: Clayton Smith Subject: Re: waiting in the bushes... At 05:01 PM 4/14/99 EDT, you wrote: >having lurked for quite awhile now, i too have decided to honor Eric's >request and have abandoned my rather stable position of stalking and have >returned to the more time-consuming position of posting > >first of all, happy belated birthday to jordan. > >second...i got into the Wash U summer program! people on the message board >already know this, but i'm extremely excited so i feel the need to tell >everyone :) as a result of this news, i am convinced that my summer is going >to kick ass. > >well, hope you all are having a lovely week. i think i'll go back to the >bushes and lurk now. > >shan >"Well...does he like butter tarts?" ~ Len > > Hi, im not stalking anyone! (well maybe Spencer, but thats because he doesnt post. Im hypocritical because Spencer is THE man. THE man.) Plus, Shan quoted Len and now she rocks. Bye. Clayton ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Apr 1999 23:26:59 EDT From: Pianogtar@aol.com Subject: George show: More Excerpts of my book "memoirs" by George Thompson Ok so there were some parts that wasn't all that funny or Jlc or bff or anything else but what the hell Here goes another shot at it.... Chapter 2: Damn the Mailman! "So everyone on the Rockford-files were talking about how they got the new copy of CMJ with the cool looking comic book photo of Ben folds five on it, I have the subscription but the mailman is too slow to bring it to my house. So inbetween my break at Winn Hell I drive over to Barnes and Nobles, get myself a frappacinno, and then look in the magazines. There it is, not in my mailbox but on the newstand. I thought, pondered, then said what the hell, and bought it. Listened to Army and life will get better from there." Chapter 3 "Feeling so Damn Cheesy" : "Ok so I drive over to circuit city tonight, thinking hey I might get that Lit cd for only $7.99 but the big 80's struck me again. There it was, Men at Work's greatest hits, and it was only $9.99. Damn what am I to do but to buy it. I mean who could it be now knocking at my door. Really I am going to a land down under buying this cd but I don't care, I just hope my condition improves before I decide to go and overkill it." Ok, dig in, goodnight. George HFG and LFA. ------------------------------ End of The Rockford Files V2 #126 *********************************