who needs the sun when he goes away

I found myself in Boston once again. This time I had brought along a trav­eling com­panion, someone to act as a pho­tog­ra­pher and, per­haps, mit­i­gate (or at least doc­u­ment) the var­ious hor­rors that con­sis­tently befall me when­ever I attempt to do any­thing with my life besides huddle in a dark­ened room under a pile of blan­kets and cats. In a twist worthy of a Greek tragedy, the most ter­ri­fying moment of all occurred at the hands of this same person when he star­tled myself and the occu­pants of a nearby SUV by, appar­ently, being taken with a sudden notion of impro­vising a high-speed exit off the highway while fum­bling for a couple of bills for the toll. “Uh, maybe let me get the money,” I said, and so we survived.

But in actu­ality, this and the other var­ious brushes with death that occurred throughout the trip went unrecorded. In fact, we ended up filming a band. Hope I didn’t spoil the surprise.

On October 25, The Corin Tucker Band, as part of the tour pro­moting their record 1,000 Years, played the Par­adise Rock Club. Let me tell you, this club pos­sesses excel­lent columns. They appear to be made of some fine stone not unlike marble, cov­ered with an attrac­tive metal mesh. I couldn’t have asked for a better inan­i­mate object to lean against through the opening acts as I gath­ered myself to claim a spot at the stage the moment the main act appeared.

Which reminds me: the first opening act deserves what I might call an hon­or­able men­tion. I ini­tially gave Mrs. Dan­vers a rating of “pretty okay,” giving extra credit for having broken a string and played half their set with no guitar, and still sounding good. It was the next day that I real­ized their song was still stuck in my head and decided I needed to hear it again. I’ve lis­tened to it many times since and I’ll present it to you here, just so you can have the full “lis­tening to a band I’ve never heard of and won­dering where the main act is” live show experience.

Mrs. Dan­vers — “What Did I Do (You Always Looked Good In the Morning)”

The Corin Tucker Band con­sists of Corin Tucker (Sleater-Kinney), Sara Lund (Unwound, Hungry Ghost), and Seth Lor­inczi (The Golden Bears). They were joined on stage by Mike Clark (Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks) and Lorca Wood (also of Hungry Ghost). I wish to note that Mike Clark pre­sented a fright­ening visage: a strangely intense man in a tie who gave me the impres­sion that someone had hired a lawyer to play bass. Although most of the focus was of course on Corin Tucker, the whole band played excellently.

The Corin Tucker Band — “Half a World Away”

I’ve read a lot of com­ments online com­plaining that this band isn’t Sleater-Kinney. First of all, tell me that “Half a World Away” doesn’t sound like Sleater-Kinney. I can almost hear Carrie Brown­stein. But no, of course it’s not Sleater-Kinney. In an oft-quoted state­ment, Corin Tucker called this album “a middle-aged mom record” and yeah, you can def­i­nitely hear that. A lot of the songs don’t have much of an “edge,” and I guess any­body who was expecting a really rockin’ record might be dis­ap­pointed. But none of that is impor­tant. Take the band on its own and it’s clear that they’ve put together a great album that does exactly what it set out to do.

The Corin Tucker Band — “Doubt”

That’s not to say the record doesn’t have its louder bits. “Doubt” is a great track and hearing it played live was com­pletely amazing. That’s really about all I can say about it.

It’s tough to find live music when you live two to four hours away from any­thing. To travel that far for one band involves a careful bal­ance of spon­taneity and metic­u­lous plan­ning. “Leave nothing to chance!” was my con­stant refrain as we pre­pared for the trip. “Leave nothing to chance,” I said, as I plotted every inch of the route with Google Maps. “Leave nothing to chance,” I said, as I reminded my friend to bring his ID and, because it might get cold, his jacket. “Leave nothing to chance,” I said, as we cheer­fully left my car in the parking garage and walked for a good twenty min­utes before I remem­bered that I hadn’t grabbed the tickets. I recall freezing sud­denly at that moment, pat­ting my pockets awk­wardly, then begin­ning, “So, uh…” Turns out some­thing always gets left to chance, but at least I remem­bered them before we tried to enter the club. This mod­er­ately embar­rassing anec­dote, by the way, was the pay­ment my friend required before he would send the photos to me. Thanks, Troy.

Mrs. Dan­vers is a local Boston band and they exist pri­marily on their MySpace page. Their EP, What Did I Do, is on iTunes!

The Corin Tucker Band is on the good ol’ Kill Rock Stars label, and you can buy the new album, 1,000 Years, on the web­site. Unfor­tu­nately, the band’s touring seems to pretty much be over for now, unless you’re reading this in Japan, but keep an eye out in case they go for another round. The show is amazing.

And now, I’ll leave you with a Girl­pants world exclu­sive: Corin Tucker per­forming “Miles Away” at the Par­adise Rock Club in Boston on October 25, again cour­tesy of Troy. Enjoy!