Fields of Gaffney

guest post by Places Parallel reader, JR

Hey there.

So Maise and Iris are out of ideas, and they're dying to hear all about my holy-grail-that-is-Eric-Gaffney-performing-at-my-feet story, so I decided to set five minutes aside and whip a little something up to help them out. I'm nice like that.

If you've been paying attention, then you realize that I am a big fan of Eric Gaffney, the vastly more talented co-founder of Sebadoh - the other being the wildly overrated Lou Barlow, who is still pretty good, but not all that and a bag of chips...and who was kicked out of Dinosaur Jr by one J Mascis, who is totally dreamy and a living legend, and...where was I? Oh, right, Gaffney.

I won't drill down into the minutiae, but suffice to say that for nearly a year, Eric Gaffney and I went back and forth about him playing in my venue as a part of a new audience development initiative. I would pitch the idea, he would say no, they were no draw, no one knew who they were. I would write it off, only to hear from Gaffney two months later saying that his email address had been hijacked and that he was thinking now that it would be a good idea. Then he got into a drunken bicycle accident and had fractured like ten bones in his upper body and wasn't doing much but recuperating. When I had written him off completely, though, I suddenly received an email from him totally out of the blue, wondering about setting up a date. After all of the back and forth for more than six months, I was unsure about whether to make him a formal offer, but in the end I did and he accepted, and we had a show (it was a double bill with Edie Sedgwick).

There were some things about the show I would do differently if I had a chance for a do over, but really - that moment when Eric FUCKING Gaffney walked through the front doors of my theatre with his guitar case and asked my staff member "Where do I put this?", well...I really can't have asked for more than that. I had PMS and was pretty emotional and spent a large portion of the evening crying. Really. I was even walking around with a camera in one hand, a Kleenex in the other. JR is not afraid to show JR's emotions.

Now, for the real confession - I'm terrible at writing show reviews. When I'm there, I'm just there in the moment, and I tend to forget a lot of the details, and when it's a show at work, I'm paying a lot more attention to pretty much everything else happening. But through the magic of being JR, however, I was fortunate enough to get a recording of the entire event from the soundboard, and it's great. I promised not to share or swap it, though, so instead of songs, I give you the second best thing - stories! The FoG show was heavily punctuated by Eric's stories, and it was impossible to tell whether they were true or not, but that didn't diminish their amusing nature. (They also served to confirm the backstory that I had given him in my mind, that he is the indie rock version of Kramer. It's so totally true.) I've uploaded maybe half of them for your edification.

Before we get to the stories, though, let's take a peek at a few pictures, right?

The marquee outside my theatre; I caught Gaffney taking a picture of it on his cell phone (theatre name removed to protect the innocent).

Some staff (obscured so they won't steal the spotlight!), setting up the stage on the stage. This was a small event that took place entirely on the stage, as you'll see. We didn't use all those pesky theatre seats that you see...they were just a cool backdrop.

Eric Gaffney, looking up at the stage lights, perhaps wondering what would happen if one fell on his head during the performance. Did I mention that he was 45 minutes early for sound check?

Eric "Fields of" Gaffney on my stage within a stage. I know next to nothing about playing guitar, but he had something on this acoustic (a pickup?), that would allow him to switch it from acoustic to electric. He was actually getting some (intentional) feedback out of it, which was great. Overall, though, the performance was largely acoustic, with foot percussion (the drum in this pic is Edie Sedgwick's).

Eric Gaffney, telling one of the stories. The performance was lengthy, and as full of stories as it was of music. Most of his stories were amusing non-sequitirs. I bet you wish you were there.

This is sort of, visually, Eric Gaffney in a nutshell to me. There is something special about him; if I could read auras, I would probably see something good in his, and in this picture it's almost as if you CAN see his aura...he's just vibrating at a different frequency than other people.

Foot percussion. Yes, it's a tambourine, and he forgot his at home so we had to buy him one for the night. Since we bought it, it belonged to US not HIM, which meant that I totally swiped it after the show. I was going to take the set list, but went with the tambourine instead. I ended up with the set list, too, which came back with the recording of the night. Awww, yeah.

You might be asking, "JR, how come there is no picture of you and Eric Gaffney, both giving a thumbs up to the camera, or shaking hands like Elvis and Richard Nixon?" Well, kids, the reason for that is that it's not the nature of my relationship with him...yeah, I'm a total fan, but I wasn't in the role of fan that night, I was in work mode. We talked at the end of his set about the whole thing (and specifically about the size of the audience, how I wished it was more), and he was extremely supportive, wacky and totally cool. Exactly what you'd expect.

So, yeah, now you want to hear the stories? Enjoy.

John Cougar Mellencamp



Fields of Gaffney

Did you know that Gaffney's ex-wife is Peaches' manager?


Catharsis of Phlegm

How Kramer-like was this story? A friend named "MDR"? Remember Kramer's friend FDR, with the birthday wish?


Open D Is Tricky

Isn't it?


Or Whatever

Trucking songs!


Supposet-ly?

This one might be my favorite.


Dr. Gene Scott

Pretty sure he's talking about a televangelist (look it up on Wikipedia). This is particularly nuts out of context.


I Was Eating A Lot of Captain Crunch



Acoustic Shows

Again, Kramer..?


Lucky To Be Alive

He breaks it down right about here. (And seriously, he didn't remember it? Whoa.)


Ink Spots



Paper or Plastic

This is at the top of the show, when he whipped out the merch.


The Wolf

I like when he howls in this.


Okay, okay, I caved, and I'll include a tasting of the music that was a part of the night.

Locket Love clip (Ramones cover)


So, that's it. My dream came true.

blindoldfreak, Toronto, 020509

guest post by Places Parallel reader, Emerald

A week-long tour through Canada in the middle of February? “In what universe is this a good idea?” you might ask. Apparently, it made perfect sense to Alessandro Cortini (Modwheelmood, ex-Nine Inch Nails). Cortini is otherwise known as blindoldfreak: a man and his Buchla synthesizer.

As well fans know, he gave a lecture and performed at Concordia University in Montreal. Perhaps this is what led him to think that a Canadian mini-tour would be a good idea, but far be it from me to presume that I know what goes on in the man’s head.

The abundance of weeknight dates, as well as the distance, seemed to be prohibitive factors, and I’d resigned myself to being unable to go. I did entertain the idea briefly—I’m in Detroit, and Canada is only a bridge away—but decided in the end I just couldn’t hack it.

Until my Livejournal acquaintance Lacie, who lives on the other side of the state from me near the Indiana border, posted an entry stating her intention to haul herself and her sister Kristin to the Great White North to see everyone’s favorite Italian. This restored my hope, and I commented on the entry, stating my interest in joining her. She agreed to let me tag along, and we proceeded to plan. I also agreed to take CD and T-shirt orders from various acquaintances on nin.com and the unofficial Modwheelmood forum in an effort to spread the love.

It’s one thing to meet people from the Internet in real life, but quite another to meet them and THEN go road-tripping with them. Luckily, we all hit it off pretty much from the get-go and made good time driving through Michigan’s thumb. The only slight hitch in our harebrained scheme was when we crossed the Bluewater Bridge between Port Huron, MI and Sarnia, ON. Immigration, it turns out, wanted to have a little talk with us. It’d been a while since Lacie and Kristin were last in Canada, but my most recent trip was to Niagara Falls back in July. We were asked the same series of questions by three different officers, got our official slip stamped, and then we were allowed to go off on our merry way. The entire ordeal took up perhaps a half-hour of our time. We exchanged our greenbacks for Monopoly money and drove off into the Canadian wilderness.


After a quick pit stop in a little town called Delaware, we made it to Toronto with little trouble, marveling a bit at the sudden imposition of civilization after miles—er, kilometers of nothing and more nothing. We navigated through downtown traffic, got to the hotel, and freshened up before taking on the town. On the map , our hotel appeared to be a relatively short walk from the venue, the Drake Hotel. It was really a long, hard hike—perhaps ten city blocks at least. That’ll teach us to pay more attention to map scales.

Upon finding the venue, we decided to get something to eat that wasn’t crackers or Fruit Roll-Ups at a “Chinese-Canadian” restaurant about a block away. We still had a ton of time to kill after eating dinner, so we went to scope out the venue, only to find this embarrassing sight just outside:


We shrugged it off and entered, where we were directed by the woman at the door to kill time in the lounge until the doors opened at 8:00. We took up residence at the far end of the bar and fired up our collective Cortini-sense. (Fun fact about me: I can nurse a beer for an hour.) We saw a few guys who resembled him in one way or another, but they were all clever decoys. When Lacie and Kristin came to their second round, the waitress asked Kristin what she’d like, and Kristin paused a moment to think. The answer was quick in coming. See, after the Nine Inch Nails show in Grand Rapids back in November, Kristin started joking to Lacie that she’d like a “Cortini Martini.” The joke was too good to pass up, and so Kristin asked the bartender to mix up something martini-like but citrusy. The result is this, a crazy delicious mix of strawberry vodka, triple sec, and orange juice:


Around 7:30 or so, we decided we’d killed enough time and decided to check out the basement (also the location of the show). In the restroom, we got silly pictures of all of us helicoptering, in a homage to this pic. There I am, look at me go:


On the way out of the bathroom, I nearly got knocked over by a venue staffer opening a door. The guy explained to us that the door time had been pushed back to 9:00, and we were at a loss as to how to kill the extra time. After a short period of hemming and hawing (during which we eavesdropped on a conversation about the feud between nin.com, The Spiral, and Echoing the Sound), we left and went to the Starbucks down the street. After about 45 minutes hanging out there, chasing alcohol with caffeine, we went BACK to the venue, where we were herded into the lounge yet again by the same asshat staffer! Our Cortini-sense tingled yet again at the guy sitting behind us with headphones and a book (who does that in a bar?!), but we suspect I might have caught a glimpse of the real Cortini heading through the lobby on his way outside, phone in hand.

Finally, we were able to enter the venue. When they said it was a basement, they weren’t lying. We estimate that the headcount must’ve been around sixty or so. There was a proper stage as well as a makeshift stage set up in the middle of the floor, the highlight of which was two Buchlas (Buchlae?). Protip: The smaller of the two was Alessandro’s,


though the other one closely resembled the one featured in this video.

We immediately spotted Alessandro across the room setting up his merch and fought not to freak out too bad. There was a line of people waiting to talk to him and buy CDs and shirts, so we hung back and waited until after the first set to approach him. When I was able to hear myself think and the urge to lose my lo mein subsided, we walked over to him.

Allow me to preface the following remarks by saying that Alessandro Cortini is probably the sweetest man I’ve ever met, and unfailingly nice to everyone, as far as I could tell. He introduced himself to each of us by name with a handshake and a smile, regardless of the fact that we knew damn well who he was (in the words of Lacie, “We’re here to see you”). Lacie did most of the talking at first, asking about whether the cold had gotten to him and prompting him to explain that the Guelph show had been cancelled due to him falling ill. Kristin piped up at one point with a joke about what would happen if we messed with the Buchla’s patch cords, to which I replied, “Terrible things, terrible things,” in an effort to reassure Alessandro that nothing would happen to it, not on my watch at least. We asked about the CDs, but they were sold out (damn!), so we moved on to other business.

I handed him my copy of Modwheelmood’s Enemies & Immigrants with the opening line, "I'd like this signed for my friend [Rowan] in Scotland." She’d emailed him asking how to get a physical copy, and I went ahead and bought it for her off Amazon. I'd placed a Post-It note with her name written on it on the front. He took one look at it and said, "Oh yeah, she's the one who emailed me about getting a CD." He proceeded to explain that Buddyhead Records is basically sitting on boxes and boxes of MWM CDs which they apparently can't be bothered to send to him! I told him that I’d bought it in an effort to “expedite the process,” and he took it from me to sign, asking where would be best to do so. He ended up signing it in multiple places (he’s a lefty, for you trivia buffs out there), even taking the CD from me to write a little note to her in the liner notes: “I didn’t forget to send it to you!!”

Alessandro also signed my copy of Ghosts I-IV and got pictures with each of us. Lacie told me later that she feared I would pass out, because I apparently went white as a sheet. Judge for yourselves:


The last order of business was getting some T-shirts: “One more thing, and I swear to God I’ll leave you alone,” I promised. Those stocks were running a little low as well, so I contented myself to fill what orders I could. I handed him the money, and he saw us off with another grateful smile. I don’t know how I managed not to scoop him up and take him home.

There were two other performers before the blindoldfreak set: the first being a duo, the female half of which played an impressive but obtuse thing called “The Persephone,” and then the owner of the larger Buchla. None of the performers, Alessandro included, took the stage with any amount of fanfare, and it wasn’t until after the show that I got any indication of names and performance order. I noticed Alessandro hanging around in the crowd during both sets, getting pictures and video like any other appreciative fan.

And then it was his turn. Of all the performers, the blindoldfreak set was probably the most tuneful and concerned with musicality rather than just sound design. The show was billed as being in “quadraphonic sound,” and because I was standing between two speakers, I could feel as well as hear everything. There were no discernable songs—it was like one long song, but with transitions from one movement to the next.

It’s remarkable how much sound can come out of one machine. More remarkable still is the fact that with the turn of a knob or the press of a button, the entire mood of the room changed, and changed again. Videos, unfortunately, cannot do the experience justice. As much as I’d like to joke about how goofy the phrase “quadraphonic sound” seems, it truly added a whole new dimension to the performance. I didn’t really understand it until I moved around to get better pictures.

Also, gotta respect the dedication. He did the entire show while kneeling!


We left not long after the set, due to being profoundly tired. I wanted to say something to Alessandro as I left—after he left the stage, he was standing behind us, talking to some people. But I didn’t want to interrupt, and besides, we had a long walk ahead of us. I hope he saw my little wave in his general direction as I walked away.

We left Toronto the next morning, driving back through the Canadian bleak, but unable to shut up about how wonderful the previous night was.

You can check out more photos here and here courtesy of Em, Lacie, and Kristin. And be sure to check out Alessandro in action via some video Lacie was able to capture.

NIN's Ghosts III, Wherein JR Speaks the Truth

Okay, so Iris is all whining that Maise has deserted this place and with a whole new peachy keen NIN record in four parts that need IMMEDIATE ATTENTION and blah, blah, blah, and I’ve been railroaded into taking some time out of my already crazy busy schedule to do a review of the third movement of NIN’s Ghosts. So, as I routinely say to my boss, There ARE 24 hours in a day (why not use ‘em all?), and I set out to give it a listen and see what’s what. I’m even giving my thoughts in real time, so this review is also innovative.

This had better be good.

Reznor has something of a history of disappointing me lately.

Ghosts III – 19

• First of all, I’m not digging on the numbering system. I guess when you’ve got to turn something out as quickly as this, you don’t have time to: A. Come up with lyrics; B. Come up with song titles; C. Wait for the packaging ideas to come to you, so you just release it real cheap as a download.
• Soundtracky.
• Is this song ever going to get off the ground? I haven’t got all day. I can’t sit around and paint pictures with my mind AND make videos for this stuff for you, Trent. I already have a job. What happened to the artist being responsible for the art?

Ghosts III – 20

• I guess it’s cool that Reznor is such a fan of recycling that it includes not just plastics and newspapers, but past songs of his. “Closer”, anyone?
• This song is, like, begging for lyrics. Reznor is neglecting his own material.
• Feels like a long intro to something else.
• I like what it morphs into in the second half; more organic, less of the ball-less industrial-lite of the first half.
• The outro with piano sounds a lot like the softer parts of [With Teeth]. He must be sucking Al Gore’s dick with all of this recycling going on.

Ghosts III – 21

• Does nothing for me. Other than to make me think of Fields Of Gaffney’s “Xylophone.” So I guess that means he’s recycling other people’s stuff, too.

Ghosts III – 22

• Is that a didgeridoo?
• Trent does lite-jazz!
• I like the drum sound, though the actual drum riff sounds, shall we say, “familiar.”

Ghosts III – 23

• Finally, something that I can sink my teeth into, and that references NIN’s back catalog without sounding mired in it.
• Love the distortion. Finally.
• Okay, two thirds of the way through this song, and where is this going? Anywhere?

Ghosts III – 24

• Okay, something else that is starting out promising.
• Totally hearing the Human League influence in the keyboards.
• I think club DJs could get a lot of mileage out of this one.

Ghosts III – 25

• Tedious.

Ghosts III – 26

• zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Ghosts III – 27

• zzzzzzzzz….zzzzzzzzz….huh?….oh, nothing…….zzzzzzzzzz
• Well, part the underlying guitar line is reminiscent of Cheech & Chong’s “Earache My Eye”—can’t wait for that lawsuit!

I guess I would like listening to this stuff while doing yoga, or going for a walk or something. Except that I hate walking, and haven’t done a single yoga pose in three years.

This sounds, overall, like nothing more than more thought out than average demos, which seems to prove my point that this is why TR chose to release it as a download. It’s expensive to release a multi-disc “work” (and believe me, ladies and germs, I’m using the term “work” loosely), and there would probably be a backlash from people who felt ripped off. And well they should. But if you get a few dozen songs for five bucks, that makes it a little harder to complain.

In all honesty people, I don’t want it to be the case, but I think Trent is running out of ideas. Every song on here either sounds like something that he has already done or something that someone else has done. I’m not stupid enough to not realize that there aren’t really any original thoughts left in music, and it’s all about how people interpret their influences, but this is kinda like stealing Aunt Linda’s Famous Apple Pie recipe and passing it off as your own, just charging $1.50 a slice instead of $4.25. Just cause it’s a bargain and not total crap doesn’t make it good.

You know, if I wanted to carry the apple pie analogy a little further, this is not only like stealing the recipe and trying to pass it off as your own (…cough…Rachel Ray…ahem…cough…), it’s like also saying, “Well, you know, I thought maybe what you apple pie fans should do is go out and make your own ice cream to go on top of this pie. You can have a slice now, and eat it without anything on top of it, OR you can take the slice—did I mention it’s only $1.50 and that you can get it right through your computer?—and set it aside while you go to the store and get the cream, vanilla and rock salt, churn the ice cream, wait for it to set up, then scoop it out yourself and put it next to the pie I made. In fact, I’m going to have an ice cream making contest to see who comes up with the most interesting ice cream to go alongside my pie. So get churnin’!”

Yeah, it’s kind of A LOT like that.

Thanks for nothing, Reznor.

I’m sticking with GAFFNEY.

About the author: JR is known by many as the “hardest working woman in (non-profit) show biz,” a title that—along with herself—she takes very seriously. You can read more about her exploits and preferences at JR.”