Last week was hell for me. And when I say hell, I mean that it was a getting-kicked-in-the-crotch horrible with a side of smelly shit. Yea, real bad.

(As for why, let’s just say the debilitating state of the newspaper industry hit home, turning me from a vibrant and happy arts reporter to a full-of-piss-and-vinegar-rage cops reporter).

But I pushed on and, in the end, found that the right mixture of ice cream, Chinese food and indie rock is the right recipe to turn a shitty, soul-sucking, debilitating week completely around.

Step one: eat an obscene amount of ice cream at the Jimmy Fund Scooper Bowl, an event that combines the unbridled joy of a buffet with the creamy taste of dairy. For $8, we went nuts, trying flavors like “Cheesecake Brownie,” “Birthday Cake,” “Imagined Whirl Peace” and “Mint Chocolate.”

From there, we headed to Chinatown and, after gorging on fried calamari and fried rice (yea, i beat the shit out of my stomach), it was time for the ladyfriend to return to the apartment, leaving me and the sis to venture out to the show.

(BTW: The most disturbing part of eating in Chinatown? Waiting for the men’s bathroom and seeing an elderly woman emerge from it. Worse than that? She didn’t flush).

Local band You Can Be a Wesley was performing when we got to Great Scott in Allston, inspiring us to head straight to the bar. The band was decent, though at times I felt their lyrics were completely comprised of sounds like “waaaaahhhhhhhhaaaww” and “aaaaaahhhhhhhhrrrrraaa.” It was endearing at first. Then annoying.

After Wesley was done, they said Grand Archives would be up next, which surprised me since I was expecting to see Sera Cahoone, who is on Subpop (like GA) to hit the stage next. We found out later she was sick and couldn’t perform that night.

Instead, we got the impossibly thin Mat Brooke (seriously, his legs look like ski poles) and company taking the stage and launching right into the music that, for the past year or so, have sent music bloggers into hyperventilating hysterics (I’m one of them).

Brooke looked possessed when he sang and tilted his head back during the high notes, which made his eyes look even wider. At times, he looked like a mix of Cat Stevens, Torgo from “Manos: Hands of Fate” and my old college roommate when he was drunk and stuck in the bathtub.

When he sang, his entire body stayed relatively still while his left leg vigorously kept the beat, so much so that it seemed to have a life of its own.

As the music played, every bad and negative thought in my mind melted away and I was left with an overall feeling of carefree wonder, as if the Grand Archives somehow mystically made me feel better about the stupid industry I chose for a profession (yay journalism).

In short, the Grand Archives saved my life that night.

But the best part was sharing that feeling with the band. GA was genuinely surprised at the response they got in Boston, with Brooke saying “This is, by far, the biggest crowd we’ve ever had. Thanks so much. Really.”

And then when the shouts and screams got louder, a small smile crept up on his bearded face, causing him to look up and reveal (for a brief moment) a glimpse of joy in his eyes.

The show was amazing. If you know their music, you know there’s hardly a bad song in their catalog (despite only having an EP and one album). One highlight was “The Crime Window,” a natural sing-a-long song that had the crowd stomping their feet and screaming.

But the big surprise was hearing “Torn Blue Foam Couch.” I never realized how much this song rocked. The quiet opening gave way to Brooke and company pounding on their respective instruments as the crowd howled in excitement.

Grand Archives - Torn Blue Foam Couch

Brooke then announced the band would play a “cheesy cover song” and proceeded to do “Another Saturday Night.”

SIS: “Hey! I know this song!” (she’s notorious for knowing songs and messing up lyrics)
ME: “Me too! I love this song! But wait…it’s not cheesy…is it?”

Grand Archives - Another Saturday Night

At that point I didn’t care anymore. The entire room was singing along and it felt that the good indie-rock feeling everyone created had a chance to make it to the streets.

I thought I made a mistake. I was surrounded by women. Hot women dressed in tight jeans and knee-high heel boots, all achingly awaiting for the Australian wonder twins that make up The Kin to hit the stage. Already, I felt completely out of my element.

Initially, I was drawn to the show because of the band’s commitment to charity:water, an organization dedicated to building clean water wells in places like Africa. The Kin’s specific well was for a community in Kenya, and was to cost $35,000.

During their shows, they sell $20 bottles of water with all of the money going to the charity. According to the charity:water, $20 can give one person safe water for 20 years.

So, since I made a New Year’s resolution to stop being a dick, I bought one (though there’s something weird about drinking water from a charity that aims to bring water to people who don’t have it).

Still, after seeing the twins come up on stage, I was tempted to leave and not witness all the eye-fucking that was going on between the patrons and the group.

Then something happened. The brothers left the stage and pulled their charm onto the main floor, asking the crowd to form a circle around them. They performed a couple of songs, one of which was the political “Abraham.” It started with someone yelling for the rest of the bar to “shut up!”

The Kin - Abraham (live at TT the Bears)

For a moment, the wall between audience and performer was broken and suddenly we were all drunken friends, singing along with these two Aussies as if it were a house party and someone had found a guitar in the corner. The Kin performed in the dark, away from the spotlight, mics, and speakers of the stage.

It got to the point the everyone in the circle began singing the chorus towards the end.

After a couple more songs, the boys returned to the stage where the eye-fucking got completely out of control, with the women crowding towards the front (there were even some dudes there).

But the impromptu and intimate performance in the midst of the audience was enough to convince me that this was a group to see more of. They played most of their songs from last year’s “Rise and Fall,” and promised a new album was coming this summer.

Sure, this is a group that makes music ripe for those “emotional” moments on television dramas, but there was something inspiring about breaking down that wall, bringing the concert experience to the audience and bringing music fans together as one rowdy bunch in the middle of dive bar.

It ended as most good parties do, with another sing-a-long, this time to Prince’s “When Doves Cry,” with the brothers again in the middle of an audience-made circle.

An open note to the opening band…

Girl in a Coma,

I showed up late to your set and caught, I think, the last two songs. My bad. I’m usually better at getting to t places on time but, well, it was a Wednesday night and, at the time, I was more interested in running back home to play Call of Duty 3 to beat the shit out of some Germans in World War II.

But I got into your set. And it wasn’t because i enjoy all-girl groups that rawk or the fact that I was in the mood to hear something loud and primal. It was the way your lead singer’s eyes seemed to almost pop out of her skull. That was truly engaging and I had to inch closer to the stage to see if it would happen.

And even though it didn’t, it was fun to watch and see some of the male members of the audience cower in the back.

So thanks Girl in a Coma. You got me in the mood to break things. Bless you.

Thanks to Mike from graysky.org for the pic

The night before Easter, I worshipped at the alter of rock and offered up all the money in my pocket for cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon and a $20 t-shirt.

This show was special for me because I would be popping a concert cherry. This was the first time the Drive-By Truckers and I would be at a concert together and, like many first times, I was ready for a bevy of emotions: anxiousness, excitement, and screaming (yes, that’s an emotion).

I can tell you how awesome it was seeing the band members pass a bottle of Jack Daniels or how it was inspiring seeing a variety of dancing in the pit from the young to the old. Or even how they played some of my favorite songs off their new album Brighter Than Creation’s Dark. But that would fail to encompass exactly what I experienced. Think of it as unbridled joy. It’s the same feeling you got when you first saw porn or when you discovered ice cream came in more flavors than vanilla or chocolate (or that you were “good enough” to eat Häagen-Dazs ice cream…I have weird friends).

All the stories you’ve heard are true. They’re fantastic live. Patterson Hood has a gnarly beard. Mike Cooley is laid-back and has no regard for Boston’s “No Smoking” indoors rule. Shonna Tucker will flirt with the audience (once she has JD inside of her).

But the one thing I didn’t expect to find at the concert was one tear to fall from my eye. It happened at the end of the show, when Hood launched into the back story about the song “18 Wheels of Love.” I could just lay it all out, nice and slow for ya’ll to read…but it’s so much better to hear Hood tell it.

18 Wheels Story

Immediately following this, the band launched into the song with cheers erupting from the crowd. I ain’t gonna lie. I got choked up for Chester and raised my umpteenth can of PBR for the man. Here’s the song in all its glory.

18 Wheels of Love

And for all the old-school DBT fans out there, they played one of the best songs from Pizza Deliverance.

Bulldozers and Dirt

More songs from the show are after the jump…along with a version of “Home Field Advantage” with a trashed Shonna at the helm.
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Sometimes, I like my day job. It affords me various opportunities to steal pens, sleep at a desk and talk to PR people about an event I could care less about. And occasionally, it gives me the opportunity to interview bands I love, like the Drive-By Truckers. They’re actually coming to Boston this Saturday (March 22) and I’ll be seeing them live for the first time (and I’ve been a fan since “Decoration Day“).

Anyway, towards the end of the interview, I asked Hood about what it was like for him and the band on stage and, if a crowd isn’t feeling them for whatever reason, how does he get them back into it. This is what he said.

Stay tuned for live tracks from the DBT concert I went to over the weekend. Quick review: It rawked and was fully of whiskey.