The Loud Family Tour 1998:

All photos on this page by Janet Ingraham Dwyer. Click for extra-large versions. Set list by The Loud Family.

From: Janet Ingraham Dwyer
Subject: [loud-fans] Goo Gu Bumps: the Cleveland show, part 1 (no spoilers yet)

Just back home from Cleveland and it's sooo late, I'm too tired to sleep and too charged up to want to anyway, so I'll be staying up till it's time for Andy to wake up for work, ensure that *that* happens (we're reeeally sleepy) and then take the day off and close my eyes.

A widely underappreciated city, Columbus boasts many advantages including its strategic location between St. Louis and Cleveland. We were graced with an overnight visit by the Loud Family on Sunday, for them a clearly welcome break from a fairly demanding patch o'tour, with time to catch up on sleep, phone calls, laundry, liquids etc., and for us a tickley happy delerium -- y'know, wow, it's *them*, and yet, wow, it's our friends. I was nervous all evening Sunday, pacing the not-so-big front porch and scanning the horizon for California minivans, and finally our little caravan hits Como Avenue, makes a pair of neighborly driveway-u-turns and dumps a slightly bleary-eyed set of Alison, Kenny, Gil and Scott out onto our sunny evening. We took some time to exhale, orient, and just say hello before heading along to the Blue Danube, one of Columbus' finer fried-food-n-beer emporia with the added charm of being open till 2 on Sundays.

Last July's North Market Diner party, be advised that Scott's bad-luck streak with Columbus restaurants continues: at the 'Dube our waiter had to return to the table and inform him they were out of lentil soup, so he ordered vegetable instead, and a minute later the poor waiter reappeared - they'd just run out of that too. Scott ordered bean soup, and we figured if that was also gone the waiter'd probably run to the grocery and get a can of Campbell's rather than face the embarrassment. Today, at the bagel place, the rest of us had good-n-tucked in when Scott decided to check on his order and found it had been lost.

Discounting a few bank and Kinko's hassles, the stopover was uneventful, relaxing, and, for Andy and me, a genuine thrill. We heard some good stories and interesting details (favorite: Scott overhears a young boy tell his mom "I want hair like _that_...so I can be scary too!"), chatted, laughed, got to sleep pretty late. Monday, Alison, Gil and I hit a local thrift shop (fun but unfruitful) while Scott and Kenny did their laundry - I gather they had change cause they made it back in mere hours, then sat about while Scott strummed a few numbers in preparation for (oops, vague spoiler!) possible future use. "Some Grand Vision" has never been a favorite of mine, but hearing and watching Scott, Kenny and Alison sitting comfortable in the living room soaring the chorus has forced an instant reassessment... gawsh, what a treat!

So blah blah blah, lunch, packing etc... these guys are the nicest houseguests you'd want - so appreciative and ready to compliment, and loath to leave dirty footprints - I caught Alison doing the dishes after breakfast, and the office futon (yep, a futon in every room) was all folded up and everything tucked away, like Kenny'd never been there, by noon. They gave me nothing to do after they left, no fussing about picking up towels - just time for enjoying the recent past, the infectiousness of Alison's vivacity and the mellow sitting out on the porch with Gil and a variety of cats.

I probably should've taken a nap before we followed the Louds' trail north to Cleveland, but could I really have, y'know? Andy and I scooted up I-71 in mid-evening, an easy, dull 2.5 hour trek. Following Kenny's well-intentioned directions we ended up getting up to Cleveland Heights on an interminable stoplight-infested thoroughfare along transitional neighborhoods, highlighted by a big tent revival and a hair salon called Goo Gu Bumps. Honest as honest can be. Cleveland Heights, when we finally got there, turns out to boast a nice retail / eatery / nightlife stretch that I make a note to go explore at more leisure someday. We parked and headed into the Grog Shop, a weird little hole-in-the-wall intentionally done up to look like a peeling mess. Capacity not much more than 100. The Clash and the Sex Pistols yelled through the speakers and we saw signs advertising coming shows by Modern English and the Plastics. Where and when are we anyway?? Gil greeted us just inside the front door and we soon spotted the others, and set to trying to identify loud-fans while waiting for the first band to begin. In particular, I had a little game of "Spot Betsy" going in my head and I'm proud to say my most likely Betsy turned out to be THE Betsy, though I didn't know that till after the show. We also spied a good-looking young man in a J-shirt who, of course, *must* be one of ours and turns out to be Jer - Doug Way and Mark K. are also in attendance...

Interesting item about this show: it drew loud-fans from hours away in four directions: we showed from Columbus, Betsy and Doug from Ann Arbor, Jer from Windsor, ON (I hope I remember correctly), and Mark from Madison (well, he is on vacation in the area, but still...) and, in Pudman's absence, no known listmembers from the Cleveland area. A good little handful of knowledgable, appreciative locals all the same. The crowd was little - about 40 through the LF set - but very responsive and good at applauding loudly.

Now I'm getting out of sequence - too late, too sleepy. The first band, Jonah, who were unfortunately listed at Johan on the flyer, played a competent set of lengthy aural massages that reminded Andy of Spacemen 3. They featured a girl (I use the term advisedly - they were quite young) singer who sang about two of the seven or so numbers, very sweetly if indecipherably, and just stood in the middle of the stage with her hands in her back pockets otherwise, swaying on occasion. She looked engaged enough, but I wish she'd come up with something to *do*. The music didn't lend itself to tambourine or maracas, so she could've jumped out into the audience and hugged everyone one by one, or something. The second band, 13th Floor, also appeared to be highly young. They played a sort of insistent pop, best I can gather (I was outside for most of their set), and were also no disaster - but we were ready for the Loud Family by now, dammit!

(this is getting huge so I'll send it out in two parts - delete at will!)

Janet

From: Janet Ingraham Dwyer
Subject: [loud-fans] Goo Gu Bumps: Cleveland part 2 (lotsa SPOILERS now!)

(this is part two, mind)

I'd been feeling shy and didn't approach Jer earlier, but he came to us before the LF set and introduced himself, and we chatted and busied ourselves around the merchandise booth (and what NICE merchandise, at great prices too!) while the Louds got set up. Doug stopped and introduced himself also, but we didn't get so much talking in before showtime...

OKAY, SUBSTANTIAL SPOILERS FOLLOW. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.

It's been easy rambling incessently up till now - but as for the show itself, the reports that've come in already say most of what I experienced so eloquently... wotta hell, though, it's only 5:30, and if' you've read this far you're a genuine trooper and deserve to hear something about the show...

This being Cleveland, Scott opens with "I hear people from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame are here tonight and they're going to make a decision about us." And then:

Track #9 - I was hoping to figure out the lyrics, rats.

"Not Because You Can" - as Bradley would say, wow yow zow! What an arresting way to start the set - both by virtue of the awesome song itself, but also for its vintage. The opening bars cast a net round the whole audience, happy captives for the rest of the night. What a treat for these long-suffering GT fans.

"Businessmen" - "This is the troublingly-titled 'Businessmen are Okay'" Here we start to see the Alison-dance, a welcome addition to the visual and emotive Loud Family experience. That woman is _so_ much fun! And reinforces my idea that DfD is one of the great *dance* albums of the year.

"Mozart Sonatas" - I think I've read a few people praise the live rendition of this new-wave fave, and yah it _is_ great, but I think it comes across better via the studio. Still, big rave-up, beautifully brief.

"Sword Swallower" - we *love* this unexpected new arrangement. Not recognizing the intro, I figured this was the big mystery cover and suddenly, it resolved into "Funky Sword Swallower" Twitch!

Track #5 / Track #11 - I can reconstruct all this only cause we grabbed a set list off the stage - the set list used to be the preferred souvenir, almost better than an autograph. These in-between tracks suddenly become little, intricate *songs* in the live setting, not just bridges or whatever I take them to be when hearing DfD. It's cool. Incidentally, on that set list they're identified as "'Lions' post", "'Mozart' post", etc., not "Track #5". As Betsy kindly offered when I was having trouble, later, figuring out change for a twenty at the merch booth, it's just too late in the evening for math.

"Deee-pression" - I was too busy shakin' my happy tail to form an opinion about this.

"Room for One More, Honey" - this after "Deee-pression" had me ecstatic in one direction, and then the quite-different ecstasy of the following two songs...

"Where They Go Back to School" - I imagine that, if we did that "favorite GT/LF songs" survey again, this might show up way near the top of the list. It has a real gut-wrenching familiarity for so many of us, the intricate pleasure of picking at our wounds. It was beautiful, on stage, Scott starting out solo and Kenny and Alison just flowing toward their mikes when it's time. And in the audience, two women started up something like an interpretive dance.

"Way Too Helpful" - although I'm now a big fan of "Some Grand Vision", I still maintain that this song does everything with soaring, precarious poise that the earlier song may have been reaching toward. It is damn near perfect.

"Sodium Laureth Sulfate" - before starting the song proper, Scott yelled out some nutty things about the button on his trousers and, well, I don't recall. It was raised-eyebrow-style hilarious - is this part of the act or some random noise generator he picked up special for this show?

"Track #15 / "Crypto-Sicko" - Alison is dancing a lot again; she is such a treat to watch. Call me hidebound, but I like track #15 _after_ "Crypto-Sicko" better. Didn't ruin the experience for me, though.

"I'm Not Really a Spring" - Y'know, this is a really cool song. Did I mention yet that Kenny and Gil are the true goods? Folks have been liberally praising the musicianship and cohesion of this outfit and I can only add that you guys know whereof you speak.

"Good, There Are No Lions in the Street" - Alison introduces this as "our goth song" amd Scott replies, "Bela Lugosi's dead". Well, I can swear that Scott is smiling right at us as he sings the last couple lines. Andy gets really emotional here. At the end, some guy in the audience yells out something about a cosmic convergence.

"When You Sleep" - wow, interesting selection, nicely interpreted. Someone in the audience is *very* excited about this song, and joins the interpretive dancers with an inimitable chaos of body movements.

Track #13 / "Spot the Setup" - tonight's supermodel was Liz Phair again, and Andy almost fell over at the "I didn't picture the audience naked" part (I'd been trying to shield him from what spoilers I'd known, with much success) and I've only seen the Louds twice so I'm far from tired of hearing this live.

And that was it - we yelled for a while but no encores followed, for whatever reason (it was approaching 2:00 by now, maybe closedown time). This was our opportunity to meet and chat with our wonderful fellow loud-fans, Betsy, Doug, Jer and Mark, who are all probably pretty weary of my monopolizing this topic by now. We sold some t-shirts and goodies (including - I was so pleased - several copies of Alison's cd) and talked with the band some more, and gave them big hugs for the road and well-wishes, and bounced to our car and took that loooong drive back. I hope Jer's in safe now too - he was driving back tonight as well. Anyone waiting on the upcoming tour dates - well, you cheated, reading all this scribble, but you'll have none the less magnificent experience. The handful of times I've been privileged to watch Scott on stage over the past 14 years have every one been outright magic, and this is the most magical group of colleagues he has, playing with him now. Very sweet people too. Very.

And now it's daybreak and time for me to reclaim the sleep I've given away. Thanks all for your indulgence; I can force myself to be terse when alert, but now is no such time.

peace,
Janet

From: "Betsy Lescosky"
Subject: [loud-fans] the cleveland experience

Janet did such a wonderful job reporting the evening's events, there is not much left for me to say. However...here are a few random notes, nothing too major, and no spoilers that I can see.

>Now I'm getting out of sequence - too late, too sleepy. The first band, Jonah, who were unfortunately listed at
>Johan on the flyer, played a competent set of lengthy aural massages that reminded Andy of Spacemen 3. They
>featured a girl (I use the term advisedly - they were quite young) singer who sang about two of the seven or so
>numbers, very sweetly if indecipherably, and just stood in the middle of the stage with her hands in her back
>pockets otherwise, swaying on occasion. She looked engaged enough, but I wish she'd come up with something
>to *do*. The music didn't lend itself to tambourine or maracas, so she could've jumped out into the audience and
>hugged everyone one by one, or something.

I thought this band had tons of potential to do a really cool wacked out space rock thing, but they just didn't push it far enough. I felt sorry for the young lady Janet mentioned. She looked bored (stoned?) to me, and the tattoo on her back was cool enough (a big dragonfly kind of thing) but all I could think was that the one on her arm - a big solid-looking block with some text or something in it, not anywhere near as cool as the dragonfly- will be a problem for her in ten years when she wants to get it removed. I must be getting old... As far as opening bands go, I thought they were good, although I wish they had utilized that poor girl more.

>The second band, 13th Floor, also appeared to be highly young. They played a sort of insistent pop, best I can
>gather (I was outside for most of their set), and were also no disaster - but we were ready for the Loud Family by
>now, dammit!

Now, these guys were the opening act I was anticipating. Kind of a boring, Replacements-like ripoff band, a three piece "power trio", as I suspect they would be described as in a review. Doug wondered if they had ever heard of the 13th Floor Elevators, and we guessed probably not. The crowd was really not responding to them at all, and the singer started getting more and more pissed off. By the end of their set, he couldn't have cared less about what we thought of them. I'm just curious why he thought the Louds were from Chicago.

>This being Cleveland, Scott opens with "I hear people from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame are here tonight and
>they're going to make a decision about us."

If only.

On a side note... Apparently I was supposed to go to the R&R Hall of Fame. Several people I work with seemed indignant that I would drive to Cleveland to see a band they had never heard of yet not go to the Hall of Fame. Sure, I'll admit to watching my share of VH1, but that might be going a little too far even for me.

After the show, Doug and I went over to the Loud Family Product Table and chatted with Janet, Andy and Alison. Very cool people! I wish that I had been able to talk to some of the other attendees, but it's always really difficult for me to talk to people in bars (too much noise!). Alison is certainly a bundle of energy!! We got a tshirt and a bumpersticker for $11 - a bargain, to be sure.

We also said hello to Gil, and chatted briefly with Scott on our way out (didn't see Kenny anywhere). Like a moron, I blathered on about how excited I was to hear some of the older songs. I'm sure he was thinking, "Great, I have a new band and a new record, and she liked hearing that old stuff. Just the response I was looking for."

I'll do better next time,

--betsy

From: "jer fairall"
Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Goo Gu Bumps: Cleveland part 2 (lotsa SPOILERS now!)

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD

>Track #5 / Track #11 - I can reconstruct all this only cause we grabbed a set list off the stage - the set list used
>to be the preferred souvenir, almost better than an autograph. These in-between tracks suddenly become little,
>intricate *songs* in the live setting, not just bridges or whatever I take them to be when hearing DfD. It's cool.
>Incidentally, on that set list they're identified as "'Lions' post", "'Mozart' post", etc., not

I thought it was really interesting that they played some of the little song fragments in concert. I wasn't expecting them to do anything with them live, even though, as I've said earlier, I consider them to be more than just album filler, but I was pleasently surprised when they did and how well they incorporated them.

>"Sodium Laureth Sulfate" - before starting the song proper, Scott yelled out some nutty things about the
>button on his trousers and, well, I don't recall. It was raised-eyebrow-style hilarious - is this part of the act or
>some random noise generator he picked up special for this show?

I died laughing at this as soon as I recognized it as a reference to one of the Stones live albums (Got Live if You Want it? Get Yer Ya Ya's Out? Flashpoint?). There's a bit of between song banter on one of those where Mick says something about buttons flying off of his trousers and I assume that it was his accent that Scott was trying to do, although I thought it sounded more like Noel Gallager's :-)

>This was our opportunity to meet and chat with our wonderful fellow loud-fans, Betsy, Doug, Jer and Mark, who are
>all probably pretty weary of my monopolizing this topic by now. We sold some t-shirts and goodies (including - I
>was so pleased - several copies of Alison's cd)

I picked up the t-shirt (very cool, btw), Alison's CD (more on that in a future post since I haven't listened to it enough yet to discuss it) and the bumper sticker.

>I hope Jer's in safe now too - he was driving back tonight as well.

I got home about 4:15 am and was far too tired to post anything, especially a fully detailed report (yours was excellent though and far better than I could've done). I had a great time though. This was my first LF show, my first time ever meeting Scott (whose every bit as nice as everyone says he is) and my first time talking to any Loud Fans (and one former Loud Fan, whose name I didn't get) in person.

Jer

From: Doug Way
Subject: [loud-fans] Cleveland again

On Fri, 31 Jul 1998, Jon Gabriel wrote:

>For the two encore numbers, the crowd requested "Take Me Down (To Halloo)" which Scott didn't quite
>remember the words to, and then "Don't Respond, She Can Tell," which was, again, BRILLIANT.

Geez, it sounds like the show we saw in Cleveland was one of the only ones without any encores. That makes two in a row, too, since there were no encores at the Detroit show on the IBC tour. (can't be too surprised about that one, a dozen people can only make so much noise...) Maybe next time we'll have to see the LF in Chicago, encores aplenty there from what I hear.

Since I never got around to posting anything about the Cleveland show... Betsy & I had a good time meeting the fellow loud-fans who were there. I remember introducing myself to Janet (I still haven't met many loud-fans in person) who was back by the concession booth before the show. We both wondered who the guy was in the "j" shirt (turned out to be Jer Fairell, who we talked to later). Also chatted with the effervescent Alison, Andy Dwyer (& I'm sure I'm forgetting a couple of others) by the booth after the show.

(minor spoilers)

So yeah, no encores. Still a great show, though. Highlights for me included the opener "Not Because You Can", which I thought actually sounded better than the studio version. The keyboards were up pretty loud, giving it a rather new-wave feel during the instrumental part... very nice! Made me appreciate the cool guitar vs. keyboard melody going on.

Another surprise was how well they pulled off "Way Too Helpful" live, as others have mentioned. Especially how Scott can sing so darned *high*, being in the middle of a tour and all. Don't underestimate the band's ability to pull off the young-adult-hurt-feeling-athon song (as the genre seems to be known) in a live setting... I can only hope that they'll try "Chokehold Princess" at some point, probably my favorite YAHFA of Scott's.

The My Bloody Valentine cover was pretty tasty, too. (Forgot the name of it. BTW, does anyone know the MBV song "I Believe" from the "Feed Me With Your Kiss" ep? Probably the most Scott-like of their songs... I was secretly hoping that would be the MBV cover.) Anyway, as I think someone else mentioned, some totally wasted guy started flailing spastically around the dance floor during this one. I wasn't sure if he recognized the tune, or if he was just psychotic. I figured it was the latter, but then after the show I actually heard him singing the keyboard line from the song, so perhaps not!

Also, during the show Janet & Andy were standing not far in front of us, so I did get to see most of Janet's legendary alphabet tattoo. (She was wearing a smallish dress, being summertime and all.) I'd be hard pressed to think of a cooler tattoo. Now if it were only the same font as the big Game Theory "G" (Times Roman Italic? I forget)...

- Doug Way

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