random rev

Sometimes I get informative email from fellow Mercury Rev fans but I can't really figure out where it'd fit on my website, so this is a page for random stuff..

From Jason [Jan 20, 2000]
some info for you if you want -- i saw the nyc band lotion (spin art records) perform a couple of years ago and during a particularly extended version of a song of theirs the singer started singing the chorus to 'car wash hair.' i think i was the only one who recognized it. after the show i asked their funny looking guitarist about it and he said they were trying to get fridmann to record their next record. (it never happend).
also, they've opened for dinosaur jr and some other band i can't remember right now (here in buffalo).

More Hijacking
From Cameron [Fri, 5 Nov 1999]
The idea is that this Saturday night, Mercury Rev guest program for over 2 hours their favourite videos, followed by their own and then some Flaming Lips.

http://www.abc.net.au/rage/playlist/archive/19991106.htm

Saturday 6 November 1999

12:27pm
Not Dark Yet - Bob Dylan Sony
Temptation - Tom Waits Universal (MCA)
What A Wonderful World - Louis Armstrong Festival
Emotional Rescue - The Rolling Stones Sony
My Generation - The Who Polydor
Whole Lotta Love - Led Zeppelin Warner
John, I'm Only Dancing - David Bowie EMI
The Cutter - Echo & The Bunnymen Warner
Some Candy Talking - The Jesus & Mary Chain Warner

1:00am
Wipeout Beat - Alan Vega Universal (MCA)
Can Your Pussy Do The Dog? - The Cramps Sony
I Wanna Be Sedated - The Ramones Festival
Don't Box Me In - Stan Ridgway Independent
Never Say Never - Romeo Void Sony
(I'm) Stranded - The Saints Festival
Heard It Through The Grapevine - Creedence Clearwater Revival Festival
Ballad Of The Skeletons - Allen Ginsberg Mercury

1:30am
Nobody Told Me - John Lennon Polydor
I Am The Walrus - The Beatles Virgin
Be My Baby - The Ronettes EMI
Paranoid Android - Radiohead EMI
Paranoid - Black Sabbath Sony
Peace Sells ... But Who's Buying? - Megadeth EMI
The Mercy Seat - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds Mushroom

2:00am
Junkyard - ft video "Pleasure Heads Must Burn" - The Birthday Party Festival
Public Image - P.I.L. Virgin
Ca Plane Pour Moi - Plastic Bertrand Polydor
Hammering The Cramps - Sparklehorse Mushroom
Push Tha' Little Daisies - Ween Mushroom
Blue Thunder - Galaxie 500 Festival
Bastards Of Young - The Replacements Warner
Silver Rocket - Sonic Youth BMG

2:30am
Venus In Furs - The Velvet Underground Warner
Numb - Portishead Polydor
Ohio River Boat Song - Palace Brothers Shock
My Family - Smog Shock
Everything's Fucked - The Dirty Three Shock
Change Your Mind - Neil Young Warner

3:00am
If It Makes You Happy - Sheryl Crow Polydor
Something For Joey - Mercury Rev Mushroom
Goddess On A Hiway - Mercury Rev V2
Opus 40 - Mercury Rev V2
Holes - Mercury Rev V2
Endlessly - Mercury Rev - Live on Studio 22 V2
Race For The Prize - The Flaming Lips Warner

3:30am
This Here Giraffe - The Flaming Lips Warner
Bad Days - The Flaming Lips Warner
Turn It On - The Flaming Lips Warner
She Don't Use Jelly - The Flaming Lips Warner

from aamdeux... (2/99)

if you're interested, the mercury rev songs that were broadcast on channel 4 tv over here when they played the NME brats show were:
holes
tonite it shows
opus 40.

i did miss one show (out of the four broadcast), but i dont know if MR were even on that particular one.

From Jacob... (2/99)

jonathan and grasshopper did a radio session for swedish radio channel p3 on feb 4
they played three songs. there was an interview also.

setlist for the radio session:

goddess on a hiway
caroline says (by lou reed)
holes

All songs were great.

their consert from odense in denmark was also broadcasted on swedish, danish and norwegian radio (it was some kind if scandinavian festival (well only on the radio that is) the last saturday. (jan 30), well it was really at 02.00 in the night, so i guess is really was sunday by that time... I think the actual consert took place thursday 28.

I was at their consert in stockholm on the 2nd btw... they were joined by howie geld for the last song in stockholm. kind of cool.

Big thanks to ammadeux for sending this in...

Mercury Rev hijack the XFM airwaves
Tue, 26 Jan 1999

tonite on xfm, from 8-9:45ish, grasshopper and jd hijacked the airwaves, playing the tunes that shaped them, and probably still continue to do so.

there wasnt much chat from them, like other bands have previously done, and their choice of tunes was eclectic, and ear-opening. this is definitely xfm's best show.

what they played was this:

1 Burt Williams - The Moon Shines on the Moonshine (1919?)
2 Chet Baker - Let's Get Lost
3 a tune from Walt Disney's "Song of the South" (currently banned in the USA)
4 Pat Hare - I'm Going To Murder My Baby (1954?)
5 Sunhouse - (Live, 1965?)[Sunhouse was sorta adlibbing for ages, and talkin about the blues]
6 Suicide - Frankie Teardrop
7 Billie Holliday - I'm A Fool To Want You (outake from the "Lady in Satin" sessions)
8 Lou Reed - Coney Island Baby
9 Mercury Rev - Girlfren ("Boces" version)
10 Robyn Hitchcock - Your Sleeping Night of Jesus
11 Richard Burton reading "The Little Prince"
12 Felt - Free (from "Me and the Monkey on the Moon")
13 Neil Young - On The Beach (from "On The Beach")
14 The Allman Brothers - Blue Sky
15 Bob Dylan and the Band - Forever Young
16 Burt Bacharach - Make It Easy On Yourself
17 The Jacobites - It'll End Up In Tears
18 Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band - Hot Head
19 Echo and the Bunnymen - Thorn of Crowns (from "Ocean Rain")
20 The Boston Pops Orchestra - Stardust

No doubt, you may want to know why "Girlfren" was chosen. Well, apart from mentioning in an interview that "Boces" was the album that could "clear their tourbus", JD said that this song was the best thing Mercury Rev have ever done. Whenever he's listened to it he's found it to be special.

Live review..

From aamdeux [22 Jan 1999]--
i saw their appearance on TFI Friday. They played "delta sun..." this is the first time i've seen them play it live, and it was....interesting. TFI is a crappy show in my opinion, and the rev seemed slightly bemused by the audience made up of anything but REV fans.

i did see the REV on thursday at the NME brats show too. it seemed like they were holding back in their performance. enjoyed it though, and would've liked it more if i hadnt have had a splitting headache.
the set:
1 goddess on a hiway
2 the funny bird
3 tonite it shows
4 frittering
5 holes
6 car wash hair
7 syringe mouth
8 into my arms (nice cave cover)
9 opus 40
10 chasing a bee
11 cortez the killer

yeah, only an hour...and no tugboat!!!

i did see the chemical brothers in the crowd, and loads of people from the XFM session too.

Here's a review of "THE SOUND REPUBLIC", Leicester Square, London (for an XFM session) Monday 18th January 1999
(big thanks to aamdeux for sending this in.)

1 Holes
2 Tonite It Shows
3 Goddess On A Hiway
4 Peaceful Night
5 Opus 40
6 Motion Pictures
7 He Was A Friend Of Mine
8 Silver Street
9 Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head

so, me and my 3 mates turned up at the sound republic yesterday, eagerly awaiting a free performance from mercury rev. the staff there couldnt be bothered to check for winner's names and the like, so they just herded everyone in saying "xfm winners? this way" basically ANYONE couldve turned up, winners or not.

the place was tiny, a dancey club with a small stage and lots of nooks and crannies. having such cool guests right in the heart of london was a strange occurences, but it was no stranger than when i saw smog in a church hall a measly 5 minutes from where i was now.

the band ambled onstage, said hello, and stepped into "holes." afterwards they told us how we'd hear two sets - one set consisting of some songs they wrote and the other set consisting of songs they like. "tonite it shows" followed which i didnt recognize from the electric intro to the song, but it was a good version. jd kept smirking and looking to his right to glance at grasshopper whenever he got into the tune. one thing became apparent at this point: that the rev have become more poppy rocky onstage. maybe it was the choice of tunes (maybe it was the XFM presence?) anyway, "goddess on a hiway" was next, and you could see heads bob to this one, well, mainly cos XFM have played it loads in the run up to this night, as well as on the weekend over christmas when they gave away 104 copies of "deserter's songs." one scary thing happened at the end of this song....a 'rawk' ending...erm, something that guns n' roses would've been proud of!! it seemed weird if you were well acquainted with the recorded version, but saying that, who cares, cos its a top song!! (little did i know what was instore...) so back to the days of 95, and we had the closer from "see you on the other side", "peaceful night." it was an even more bluesy version, slightly faster, and filled with mock gospel keyboards and a honky tonk feel, with grasshopper getting into it.

no pause to go into my fave tune of their new album - "opus 40." big bass drum pounded me for this one, and just where it finishes on the record, they jammed on an extension and came up with a Doors-y LA Woman feel of a groove, with grasshopper getting a change to wig out a little. this was to be the fastest and loudest moment they played all nite.

the 2nd set began after that. jd sat down and hooked up a wah-wah pedal to his guitar. with grasshopper on bass, and two keyboardists backing him, they played a faithful version of "motion pictures." he quizzed the audience to who had originally performed it. he even offered to buy a drink to the person who could name which record it came of (neil young's "on the beach"). this version reminded me of the way the softies play with one rhythm and one lead guitar (not the vocals of course)...maybe thats a far fetched comparison, but that was just the sound i thought of at that point.

next grasshopper switched to harmonica, and the whole band came back to perform a mellow cover of the tune i've heard the byrds do the most - "he was a friend of mine." it was nice. they should a release a version of it.

jd introduced the penultimate song as coming from an album that himself, grasshopper and david baker used to listen to when they lived together for six months before the house got tore down. it was a nikki sudden song called "silver street." when it started, it brought back echoes of early luna. actually, it did sound a lot like luna come to think if it now. this was also a nice cover.

and then to end it (JD: "lets do it! fuck it, we'll do it anyway!) "raindrops keep falling on my head" - ok it was raining outside (its always raining here!), but yeah, what a strange choice - a very mercury rev type of choice! it was performed tidily. that means i would've thought they'd be feedback and noise, effects and everything but there was grasshopper picking out the notes up and down his guitar, the drummer was onto his brushes, and it was like watching the mercury rev lounge band!! of course they couldnt do the ending - which was a great easy listening fade out, but yeah, it was a good night.

supposedly all of that session will be broadcast by XFM sometime.

i was told afterwards that they would have preferred to do everything acoustic, but some of it had to be "live" interpretations. anyhow, the rev will be back in london on thursday to headline the NME brats show. that i suspect, will be noisier, and hopefully they'll play all the greats.

that was "one with the rev" by a.a.m.deux

i didnt know it'd turn out that long!

epilogue...
XFM broadcast that session from last monday well today (22 Jan 99). it had no in-between song talk and had been edited down to 25 minutes, as they left out all the covers they did. this is what they played on the radio: holes, tonite it shows, goddess, peaceful night and opus 40.

Here's a review of the 9/27/98 show from the Chicago Sun-Times:

BY JIM DEROGATIS POP MUSIC CRITIC

Just as the Kinks aren't really the Kinks without both Ray and Dave Davies, the Jesus and Mary Chain minus one of the Reid brothers is but an echo of the noise fans know and love.
The long-running Scottish cult band pulled into the House of Blues Sunday night supporting its new album ``Munki,'' the strongest since 1989's ``Automatic.'' But the group was minus William Reid, master of the chaos guitar.
Two weeks ago at the Los Angeles House of Blues, the band cut short its set in the midst of a dramatic argument between the two Reids. William left the tour, leaving Jim standing alone at the microphone and the band sounding a bit anemic with only one (admittedly noisy) guitar.
Never the most passionate or animated act onstage, the group delivered a solid 15-song set of old and new favorites, climaxing with an epic ``Sidewalking.'' But the spark was missing, and only the encore really transcended the ordinary.
The Mary Chain was joined for those last two songs by guitarist Jonathan Donahue of openers Mercury Rev. He should have been invited to play the whole set. In fact, it was his band that should have been headlining.
The ever-fluctuating upstate New York combo appeared as a sextet on this tour, with two keyboards and a theremin helping to duplicate the topsy-turvy psychedelic orchestrations of its striking new album, ``Deserter's Songs.''
Donahue clearly bases his approach to music-making on what he learned from the Flaming Lips during a stint as their guitarist. His vocal style emulates Wayne Coyne, and his impressionistic lyrics are pure Lips.
Of course, few rock bands are as sonically ambitious as the Lips. So while it isn't 100 percent original, Mercury Rev still sounds pretty darn unique, and its new songs boast a level of craftsmanship that's been lacking on previous outings. Midway through the lush and dynamic seven-song set, the band did a surprising cover of Neil Young's moving ``Philadelphia.'' Its own songs did not pale in comparison, and lead guitarist Grasshopper emerged as a true psychedelic hero during several long rave-ups that were never less than hypnotic and gripping.

phila.pa 9/98 review by brian b

the rev were totally on point.opening with endlessly made the hair on my neck stand up.the guitars were a strumming the organs were tapping and other electronic wizardry was in effect.i had never seen mercury rev live before because of my age at the time.i thought i would never hear any of the old songs live but i was wrong/ oh whats this car wash hair. the horn section was replaced by grasshoppers waving telecaster.frittering was another oldie goldie as if this was not enough from the yerself is steam albulm.then it came like flash of light from heaven the last possible song i expected to hear :chasing a bee, yes and beautiful it was.other songs included my favorite boces tune,boys peel out,deserter's songs:holes,opus 40,endlessly.no songs were played from see you on the otherside-- let down! but hey what deo you expect for 45 minutes all in all this band is going to the top and as ron jeremy said years ago mercury being the band closest to the sun and rev reving we've got a real hot band here.i pray this band reaches the top. mercury rev could make this place a better place to live.by all means see this band live even if they are just an opening band it is worth the money.