Not Just the Ticket — #45, L7, May 22, 1992

Then-current album: Bricks Are Heavy

Opening act: …completely blanking on this one.

Back of ticket ad: Why yes KLSX is once again there. Eternally.

–

I can’t recall if I had mentioned it before but thinking about an L7 show, any L7 show, with this Ticketmaster color scheme as the visual association to hand is kinda ridiculous. Which is why I’ll use this YouTube clip from the very show in question of them doing “Packin’ a Rod” instead, which I found not two minutes before starting to write this:

So with that as a way to start thinking about things…

By now, if you’ve been following the whole series here, you’ll have read my previous thoughts on seeing L7 various times over the previous year and a half, as their reputation kept building, as they made the step to the majors, as they helped organize the Rock for Choice shows and organization, how they helped suddenly crystallize a sheer ‘ARRRGH’ with the state of things and a lot of the annoying people contributing to them in 1992. At least, for me, and for my somewhat limited way of looking at things.

I say limited not just because of my age and how I was understanding the world still and all, though that was a facet. I say that because of something that had happened a few weeks prior to this show — the verdict in the trial of the policemen accused of beating Rodney King and the results of it.

The Los Angeles riots were something that you could almost feel coming once the verdict came out — I was actually at KLA at the time and remember one of my fellow DJs pretty much predicting it was all about to go down. Within a few hours, that much was clear. But it was something that I sensed from a distance, via TV and its mediating influence, its own ability to shape events consciously or unconsciously, with its own built in biases. The closest I got to it, perched over in Westwood, safe in my apartment, was running into somebody a few days after it started who said he’d been caught up in it and had lost his wallet, needing a few bucks just to get by for a day or two. For all I know he was pulling the wool over my eyes, but I gave him some cash because it seemed like the least I could do.

Point was, of course, for all my simmering dissatisfaction and wanting something, anything, to give a bit, seeing it give that way helped make me realize how lucky I had it in general — a little perspective never hurts. Of course, recognizing that didn’t make the dissatisfaction go away, it just put it into a new context and provided a salient reminder that I was living in a city where I wasn’t going to need to worry about a militarized police force pulling some crap on me because of my genetic background and amount of melanin in my skin, for a start.

I’ll have more to say about the impact of those days in a future entry, but no doubt they were coloring my mind still at this point three weeks or so after the worst of it — it wasn’t like it was sitting completely on my head (otherwise I wouldn’t be quite so jocular with my memories of the Blur show preceding this one at the same venue), but as the presidential campaign crept forward and things started to take a different sort of shape with the entry of H. Ross Perot, as I found myself fully committed to moving to Orange County (Orange County! someplace I had barely been in and which everyone had told me to avoid!) for grad school, as everything seemed to accelerate to something different all around for me on a personal and a wider level, I probably was oscillating between wanting a little more chaos and a lot less in equal amounts. L7, at least, knew how to soundtrack the wishes for both, while always sounding like angry chaos was one of the best things around when it came to expressing irritation.

By this time Suzi Gardner had gotten over the terrible injury from earlier in the year when filming the “Pretend We’re Dead” video and was much more in fighting form, as per the video above, and so whoever I went with to this show — Steve M., Kris C., Jason B.? Perhaps? — and I were expecting to see that. I think part of me had to be excited as well to see L7 in…well, not THE biggest venue they’d played to that point, but the biggest for an event they were headlining and were doing not as a part of a larger benefit or bill. It was all them and it was a well-deserved sign that they were starting to click for a larger crowd in general. I was all amped up for something big, and I got it.

Yet this is another show where the memories are a big smear, a blur that doesn’t fully resolve, kind of like that video clip up above. For one thing, up to now I’ve been pretty good at remembering opening acts even when they weren’t listed on the ticket but I have NO idea who opened for this show. I keep clutching at straws a bit but nothing is fully sparking off, and there’s no immediate show listing I can find online to give me a further prompt. For a half second I thought it was the Nymphs, who I did see at the Palace once, but I remember now it was the Redd Kross show they opened for earlier that year I was thinking of. So there’s a total, total blank at work in mind on this one. I guess they weren’t all that memorable, whoever they were.

But L7 were memorable, not least because of the psuedo-Mafia guy who introduced them. Not sure entirely what his business was, might have been a friend of the band’s playing up an image, maybe he worked for the venue. Maybe he was just some guy. I just remember some dude with a suit and a hat coming out and going “Let’s hear it for LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL-777777777777777777777777!” He did that later around the time of the encore as well, and if nothing else he did get the crowd going pretty well.

This wasn’t the last time I was going to see L7 but it was the last time I would see them relatively up close — I wasn’t anywhere near the front of the stage this time, though. Having done that for Blur the week before and gotten legs and feet landing on my head for my pains, I reasoned the pit would be way worse for this show, not too surprisingly the case. I do remember feeling a little amused at seeing a couple of dudes in the pit acting like the very type of person the band were trashing in the song “Everglade,” which sounded great that night. “Pretend We’re Dead” was even more of a total anthem, and even an obscurer number like their cover of the Fiends’ “Packin’ a Rod,” as you can see above, was nothing less than full-on.

Two to one says that Donita or someone else in the band had some sharp, to the point things to say about the current state of the world, and of the city, at points throughout the show. It would have been only reflective of the time, and it would have been necessary and good to hear. There’s nothing like a pointed reminder, as noted.

Not Just the Ticket — #32, L7, February 20, 1992

Then-current album: Bricks Are Heavy, but not quite yet (the album was formally released two months later)

Opening act: the Lazy Cowgirls

Back of ticket ad: the California Lottery is, once more, my ticket to fun. And I don’t care.

–

Once more back to the blue design, I guess they were still working through the old stock here and there.

Meantime, a show that featured the most sedate appearance I ever saw of guitarist Suzi Gardner. But you’d be sedate too if a huge professional camera crane had just fallen on your head.

I’ve mentioned L7 a few times now in these recaps, as well as my initial encounter with their work — living in a city where touring bands were pretty much alway guaranteed to play is handy, but equally handy and arguably more important is being able to catch local bands out doing their job. L7 were of course very much an LA band in the best possible way, and given that we’re all about to be drowned in Runaways movie hype, if not already so, personally I’m all about spending some more time talking about their partial spiritual descendants.

But only partially (as both acts would be the first to say). It’s always a temptation to lump bands or performers together for reasons that don’t hold water, and I prefer to think of bands like the Runaways and L7 and many more besides more as LA bands than anything else, because that’s a reason that DOES hold water. As complex and multilingual as this city is, call it something about the atmosphere and the star industry and so much besides that can shape a band, a performer. L7 were classic outside-looking-in types that thought, “Man, FUCK it. We’ll do our own thing and make it work.” And that’s a common thing that shapes a lot of bands around here too.

I’d just seen L7 last time the previous month at the Rock for Choice show headlined by Fugazi, and in between that show and this one they were undergoing the usual ritual for any band newly on a major label with their first release on said label in the offing — the big lead video. In this case it was for what still remains for a lot of folks THE L7 song, “Pretend We’re Dead,” and great it is, though on that album alone I can think of a slew of others that rival or better it — as with any good band, there can always be a lot to pick from. Eleven years back, for instance, I said this:

But if there’s one big reason why this is still held close to my heart, it’s “Shitlist.” Trent Reznor knew as much when he made it a recurrent theme in the Natural Born Killers soundtrack, playing right when Juliette Lewis was…getting…pissed…OFF. When you’re stomping around, annoyed at the world and realizing that maybe just maybe things would be a lot better if a few people could be gathered in the right place and then forcibly removed from existence, “Shitlist” is the soundtrack. Donita Sparks gargles her words and snarls her hate and you just feel so cleansed as the crunch hits you and hits you again.

And again. But in Gardner’s case, it wasn’t a crunch that hit her but, as mentioned, a crane, as the camera was hovering over the band for a shot or two for the video. The beaning meant a concussion and being banged up, which led to a lot of worried stories in the local press (and elsewhere — while L7 had been mentioned here and there in Melody Maker, this was the year that coverage hit overdrive, and I still remember being bemused at reading news stories about them after they’d already been reported here a couple of weeks beforehand). Shows were postponed but others went forward, and this show at the Whisky was one of them.

Bricks Are Heavy still wasn’t out in full but the promos were starting to circulate, and I remember cranking a four-song promo CD I’d received via KLA for a few friends at my apartment (“Wargasm” and “Everglade” were the two immediate favorites, I think), so pretty much that swathe of us who were hyperfans were primed, ready, you name it, and while they had to have busted out a slew of the new songs at the Rock for Choice benefit, by default this would be the real winner because it was their show through and through, and the first time I’d actually see them headlining. Whatever usual whirlwind happened in the buildup to the show happened and next thing I knew I was at the Whisky again, looking down and over at the stage from the balcony seeing the appearance of…the Lazy Cowgirls?

Who I ended up liking. I wasn’t fully aware of the group’s already somewhat legendary/vaguely notorious history of garage-punk revival hellraising — not to mention being the catalyst for the founding of the Sympathy for the Record Industry label — so I just saw a bunch of guys onstage in leather blasting their way through a set of songs while their lead singer Pat Todd had at it. Todd’s the reason why I still remember their set so well, partially because he was one of those people who took the promise of punk that anyone could do it to heart. It wasn’t because Todd wasn’t a great stage performer — he very much was — but his short, stocky, balding looks were a seeming antithesis to the usual rock star perfections that had been dominating LA for some years, and it’s no surprise to me that they and L7 would be kindred spirits, even if in the simple terms of the booking agent at the venue. A crazy version of Little Richard’s “Lucille” sticks in the mind, which I remember Todd singing while sharing the microphone with a hyperfan in the audience. I don’t think many of my crew were totally up on the experience but hell, I had a good time — think I probably would if I ever saw them again.

And then of course L7. Now I’d seen some packed shows at the Whisky by this point but I think the energy of this one was top-notch, it was practically people on top of other people or hanging off the balcony. I stayed up in the balcony — not sure if I was on my own or if a few of us had congregated there for a better view — and had a pretty good view of the stage as the fearsome foursome rocked, mouthed off (and I mean that very much as praise) and, well, inspired. Somehow 1992 ended up being their moment, the luck of the draw being Butch Vig’s next high level production effort release after the one-two of Nevermind and Gish, and that show was a testament to it, and wouldn’t be the last show that year by any means. It’s a big blur in general, this night, beyond the crowds and the craziness but you could feel an energy that was starting to carry the band to greater heights.

While it was all happening on stage, Donita charging the mike and Dee slamming the drums and Jennifer throwing herself into it as she did…Suzi stood to the side, head down, and patiently played. It was the weirdest contrast and I think you could pretty easily tell that Suzi would much rather have been going nuts with the rest of them, but just couldn’t risk it, had to play it cool by default. We were all plenty happy to see her there and her playing remained top notch, but we were all going “Aw man” to ourselves at the same time. It wasn’t like she had been hurt forever or anything, but still, you know — walking wounded and all!

But that made her being there all that much cooler. L7, still there to rock no matter what. Great goddamn feeling it was, and, at a remove, still is.

Not Just the Ticket — #28, Fugazi headlining Rock for Choice, January 24, 1992

Then-current album: Steady Diet of Nothing

Opening acts: L7, Pearl Jam, Lunachicks plus Torture Chorus as MCs

Back of ticket ad: Once again, Domino’s, the ever-so-logical choice for a Rock for Choice attendee.

–

And back again to the blue color scheme, though its days were numbered. At least, in this iteration.

Your eyes are not deceiving you, BTW. That is Pearl Jam there, wedged into the bill. And the thing was, this wasn’t even the weirdest benefit show I’d attend this year.

But it was still…well, both weird and not weird. In a way it was a show of summaries, not least because it was me returning to the scene of an aural crime, or at least a case of misunderstanding on my part when I failed to realize it was Fugazi playing a full set on stage rather than being some anonymous but fantastic opening band. By this point I’d picked up everything they’d released so I wasn’t exactly going to be surprised anymore, and that might have had an impact on my thoughts on the show in the end. Still that was one part of things that show, and that year.

1992 was the first time I could vote in a presidential election, though I’d already voted in the 1990 midterm elections. It was still way early days yet but I was already figuring that I really, really wanted the GOP out of the White House, and though I’m not a member of and have never registered with any political party I was already sure that the last thing I wanted to see was a continuation of George H. W. Bush’s presidency. Hindsight is 20/20 in that his son turned out to be a damn sight worse, but regardless, a fair amount of my belief that year revolved around Supreme Court concerns, not unduly heightened by the whole Clarence Thomas hoohah the previous year. This had to have been kicking around my head during the first Rock for Choice show with Nirvana but by this time it was starting to be a little more front and center.

And that too was another way this concert felt a bit like a repeat — the first time through was the Hollywood Palace rather than the Palladium but once again L7, understandably, were on the bill given their role in kicking off that whole series of shows and benefits. The intensity of the overriding issue of the show had hardly gone away, if anything it was ratcheting up. But the shadows were a little darker in my head for other reasons as well — I can’t quite put my finger on what prompted it, and the paranoia only really kicked in a few weeks later, but I was gripped for about the first couple of months of the year there with a convinced sense of ecological doom, like things were going to go down more quickly than anyone might have guessed. It was pretty black for a while there, I remember, and I don’t think I spoke about it to anyone, but I found myself going through the motions at my library job more often than not. It probably helped reconfirm what I was already thinking politically, but I am glad I didn’t stay in that mindset — it wasn’t (and isn’t) that there’s no reason to be concerned, but it was essentially unhealthy, defeatist.

I probably went with the same crew of people that I had gone to the last Fugazi show with — Steve M., Kris C., etc. as well as Jason B. I’m pretty sure. Once again I parked myself on the open balcony to observe the proceedings, probably from pretty much the same place I’d seen Fugazi the previous time. Torture Chorus were the MCs except that nobody exactly knew who they were — they seemed to be the Sister Double Happiness of this bill, except that they weren’t, given their role as band introducers and what have you. In trying to rack my brains for more info I gave up and used Google — turns out according to an entry here they were, at least for a Japanese tour that year, a group of four, two musicians and two performers doing some sort of theater of the absurd thing. I can only remember the two performers in that I’m pretty sure it was just a duo on stage, they had slightly weird outfits and they did all sorts of rants and chants and made animation noises, or so it seemed. Maybe the other two were there too, hidden away offstage. Again, very vague, very strange memories, but it probably helped to lighten my mood a bit. Then again, maybe it just made my mood a little worse.

The Lunachicks were definitely first in terms of band performances, though, and they were pretty damned kickass. I have no idea if they were lost in the mists of history when it comes to looking back on loud and great female bands of the era, all I know is that they were from New York and kicked up a hell of a ruckus. Makes sense that L7 had ‘em on the bill, I’m sure they jumped at the chance. It’s another blurry show for me beyond those general impressions except one point where their drummer (I think?) came out and took the mike to sing this heavy as hell song called “Super Strong” which was brawling, bold, had attitude, pick a cliche. And it was big and positive too, it was something that made you want to sing along just like that.

Then more Torture Chorus and then…Pearl Jam. So herein a story. Seeing the two bands that rapidly became the two bands in the public eye when everyone was wondering what this alternagrungeSeattlerock thing from Seattle was, Nirvana three months before and Pearl Jam at this point, was a bit of an education in perception, I suppose, but also kinda fun just because in both cases it wasn’t ‘their’ show but part of something else, part of something theoretically bigger than themselves. By that time I’d heard Ten enough times to know that I liked the slow ballads more in the end but I figured the show would at least be entertaining, and it was — in this weird sense first and foremost: when I saw them all jumping around on stage and kicking up a fuss and doing what they did, my thought was “Huh…they remind me a lot of Jesus Jones.” But they did! Them and Ned’s Atomic Dustbin for that matter, all kinds of running around and leaping in the air and general hyperactivity.

But do I remember much more of their set? Not really. This wasn’t the last time I saw Pearl Jam so that might have something to do with it but there’s only one clear moment that stands out in my head, which I think captures Eddie Vedder’s slowly dawning sense that he was caught between warring impulses and would continue to be. It was during some instrumental breakdown of a song, and Eddie stood near the edge of the stage, saying something like how he knew Ian Mackaye wouldn’t approve — and he wasn’t saying this mockingly, a la David Lee Roth trashing the Clash, but with an edge of earnest concern and regret, likely caused by him knowing that Fugazi were, as they proved to be throughout their career, going to stick to their own particular ideals to the end. And then Eddie took a dive into the pit and crowdsurfed away for a while. Perhaps it’s nothing but laughable in retrospect, his concern over that action, and yet it does seem to capture that whole ‘should I really be doing this?’ sense that’s been an undercurrent in Vedder the whole time.

I wish I could say more about L7′s set but this is mostly blank to me, to my regret. There were going to be more shows from them that year that did stick in the mind so I’m not totally peeved about the gap here; still, I’d like to think I would have remembered something from such a fantastic band given every show I did catch. Fugazi I remember more clearly but somehow things weren’t as awesomely great as they had been the first time around. Again, I think a large part of that had to do with the surprise being lost — I was so clearly expecting a show to be as jawdropping great as that introduction that maybe this show couldn’t quite measure up in the memory. Still, “Give Me the Cure” stands out — I think that might be my favorite song of theirs in the end, just for the focus, the slow build, the amazing ending. If they did it that first time I don’t immediately remember it but they definitely did it this time and it was all I could have asked for.

I think Ian may have even said something about Eddie’s statement earlier but that could be a bit of projection on my part. It was a good show, maybe not a truly great one, but still one with moments, even if things were a little more dark and unsure for me in general than I would have wanted, and even though the show could never fully drive that away.

Not Just the Ticket — #24, Nirvana headlining Rock for Choice, October 25, 1991

Then-current album: Nevermind

Opening acts: Sister Double Happiness, L7, Hole

Back of ticket ad: …I think the irony of a Domino’s Pizza ad on the back of a Rock for Choice ticket had to have spoken for itself at the time.

–

And what to say. What to say.

Maybe I can start with this — I think it was good, appropriate, that the only time I saw Nirvana was for a benefit show, and for an issue that I felt strongly about (and still do). The question of fame and the charity impulse is one that I’ve wrestled with on an observational level for some time — I posted in detail about an example on here some time back — and given the various help-Haiti singles out there now, the question seems newly relevant in terms of music. I can’t but think that if this was ‘just’ a show my memories of it would be different, or at least colored differently.

The thrill of drawing some sort of line in the sand had its own appeal, of course. It’s part of the sense of attending a show like this, ‘showing your support.’ I had sported my “KEEP ABORTION LEGAL” button on my blue satchel that inevitably used for class (and would for many years to come, button always present on it), part of my unspoken-but-clear method of keeping my sentiments hopefully obvious and plainly spoken. At the same time, would I have come to the show to start with if Nirvana weren’t headlining?

The answer I think would have been a clear yes thanks to the band who organized the show and general campaign to start with, L7. As mentioned in my post on their show with the Butthole Surfers earlier that year, the paths of L7 and myself — as well as Nirvana and Hole, for that matter — had already crossed in a very indirect sense. L7 were massive favorites for a number of friends as well as me so when the show was announced, that was interest enough; the fact that Nirvana were headlining, well, that made it a no-brainer.

I had already heard them, about a year beforehand — I had missed any attention around their first album, it must have been in at KLA but either my being home that summer or my general interests being elsewhere meant it was mostly a blank spot. It wasn’t that Seattle (or Sub Pop) weren’t starting to fire off something in my brain as a ‘oh yeah, them’ factor — Soundgarden and Mother Love Bone and probably Mudhoney were all kicking around in my head by the end of 1989. But Nirvana, not a jot, until the “Sliver” single came out — I remember a review on the station copy talking about how great the band and song were, and I enjoyed it, though I think the whole sad-sack vibe of the song was…not comical, but made it feel more like a novelty single than I might have guessed. It was a sweetly sad story from childhood that captured the all-or-nothing feeling of such a situation very well, sounded good, that was about that.

In fact I’m not even sure I immediately connected that song or band with the song that everyone started telling me about breathlessly in early September 1991. I remember getting a few phone calls: “Have you HEARD this yet?” Honestly, I hadn’t. Nevermind wasn’t something I was anticipating, seeing Nirvana on tour wasn’t something I was planning. But I did finally get around to a listen, then eventually got the album, and yeah, there was something there.

Which sounds dismissive; it isn’t. I sure did love the album, played it a lot, knew every song, remembered going “Wait, what?” when “Endless Nameless” kicked in after the album had supposedly ended — seriously, I got up from where I was listening and went over to the stereo, I was that baffled. I don’t think I was sensing my world changing or the world changing or anything like that, not with that surprise track or with the album as a whole — but, damn, it sounded good, sounded great. Loud and catchy, and I liked the way that the lead guy just went ahead and, to quote my friend Kris C., “just dyed his hair girly colors.” I think I made some joke about how they were a glam band in the end.

So the Palace once more — pretty sure it was Steve M., Kris C. and Jason B. I went with, or some combination of folks like that. A week previously it had been Pigface with their industrial/rock/whatever and then us confronting the KROQ dance crowd; now it was…well, I guess as much the first clear signal of Alternative Nation as anything else, though Lollapalooza had already kicked that off earlier in the year. Not that I remember anything much about the crowd other than the fact it was as excited as all hell.

I think we came in there when Hole were already on stage or had just taken it — I had heard something about them a bit, Pretty on the Inside had come out but I didn’t know if I had heard anything off it yet, probably had read a Melody Maker story by Everett True or two at least. I remember approaching the stage from the side of the bar where the ever convenient water fountain was found; Kris at least was with me and I think both of were terribly amused to hear the one song — name totally escaping me — which was essentially “Dark Entries” by Bauhaus. To the point where I think we just started singing the words to that instead. But Courtney Love was pretty damned fierce and loud on stage, couldn’t knock that at all. The rest of the band — drawing a complete and total blank. But they were there.

The emcees of the evening were an unusual combination — Alex Winter, taking a break from Bill-and-Ted-dom, and Kim Gordon. Well meaning enough though I can’t say I remember any deathless words; still, doubtless they underscored the whole point of the evening as benefit. I think there were the occasional cries of ‘get the band on’ or the like — or just random cheering or noise — and that probably helped underscore my own continual qualms about benefit shows in practice. They would return throughout the evening in between sets, but it was all a blur.

L7 were L7 and they rocked. That was the whole point, of course — word was already out that a new album would be due early next year, though I don’t know if it had been confirmed that Butch Vig was the producer at that stage (hell of a score, though, given Nevermind, and the label was more than happy to play that up in the end). One thing they did do, which I remember making more than a little fun of Kris about, was their rewritten cover of “Used to Love Her” — turned into “Used to Love Him,” of course. Kris, you see, was one of the world’s biggest Guns’n'Roses fans, though I think her patience with them was starting to collapse (thanks to “Don’t Cry,” I believe). I think she only jabbed me in the ribs once or twice.

I do remember I had to have gone into the lobby for a bit after L7′s set because whenever I came back Sister Double Happiness were on stage…boring everybody. This still takes the cake as one of the biggest ‘who are you and why are you here?’ missteps I’ve ever seen at a concert lineup — which is a little unfair, given that Gary Floyd’s role as the frontman for the mighty Texas punk band the Dicks had long since given him a definite immortality. (Heck, the Butthole Surfers named one of their best songs after him.) But Sister Double Happiness had never been anything but well-meaning blues stodge to my ears and that’s exactly what we got, and I remember the crowd pretty much just standing there and politely applauding between songs, and that was about it.

I think our bunch were all rolling our eyes, checking out watches and pretty much figuring out where to stand for the headliners, which explains how I was able to sneak up to the front in my usual nook position wedged between the speakers and the end of the stage front. Kris would have been with, and I definitely remember one of the staffers at the Westwood Village Penny Lane record store there as well — great place, one of the couple of stores I haunted regularly during my UCLA years.

And then — and I don’t remember anything momentous about their announcement by the MCs or the like — Nirvana.

Ten years after the fact, I included a brief description of the show in my first NaNoWriMo effort:

He didn’t remember much about the show. He had tried to get up close to the stage, risking the tight crushing and oppressive heat and sweat of the pit, the inevitable bruises, just to see his apparent new heroes. Cobain just looked down the whole time, singing into the mike but otherwise not doing much; still everything was good enough…

Which is about right. Krist Novoselic did all the talking that evening, and as fits the reputation of a guy who has since gone on to make a name for himself as a local and national political activist, he took the mike at various points to discuss why the band were here playing this particular show, the importance of the issue and so forth — not between every song, I think, but often enough. Sometimes it was just a few words, sometimes more — at one point he passed the mike to someone up in the front, but I think whoever it was just shouted the band’s name semi-drunkenly. Dave Grohl just hid out behind his drums and played the hell out of them as he so likes to do.

Kurt Cobain just stood there. He played, he sang, but otherwise, like I said, he looked down or away pretty much the whole time. I don’t recall him saying a word to the audience at all.

He definitely didn’t want to be there. Simple as that.

Retrospection puts too much emphasis on things sometimes. Nevermind wasn’t a chart-topper yet, Kurt Cobain wasn’t fully shaped in the public eye as a media-shaped caricature, much less a departed one. His passing was still two and a half years away. Who knows exactly what was going on in his head at that moment but I don’t think it was anywhere near the state he eventually found himself in.

But he had clearly already hit a limit. Friends who had seen the band on earlier tours confirm that he was, or could be, far more animated then, enjoying club dates, chatting with the audience. It was already too big for him even at that stage that I saw him at, he was too tired, too uneasy, who knows. It was a good enough show and I have no regrets at all, and yet I do. It would have been nice to have a ‘happy’ show in my head for contrast, or just to know that he was performing without feeling any sort of pressure, however self-induced.

I never saw them again — there were opportunities on return visits to the area then and again, one last time with the In Utero tour playing at the Forum. My friend Eric R. who went said something that I’ve always enjoyed — “Most everyone who was there were these young girls out with one of their parents, and it was the kids who were the fans.” I enjoy it because I think Cobain might have liked that audience, entertaining a bunch of kids with a loud rock, if it were a different setting, something smaller, more carefree. Why shouldn’t music work that way, when it does, so very often?

I used to be angry with him for his suicide, then I pitied him, and now?

What to say.

Not Just the Ticket — #14, Butthole Surfers, May 17, 1991

Then-current album: Piouhgd

Opening acts: Redd Kross and L7

Back of ticket ad: Pirate Radio. I’m almost happy to see this one again after all the endless National ads. Almost.

–

Must have bought this at UCLA’s box office (even though it’s not for a UCLA show) given the switch back to typeset, the coated paper and the like. A little bit of a slight return.

So, two days after a show that, as part of Jesus Jones’ larger breakthrough, signaled a shift in the future for a wholly separate band, another such show, only even more directly and even more about the band in question, who once again weren’t performing on the bill. It all came down to something that happened over on the other balcony.

Not that I knew. How could I? I was off to this show for three wholly separate reasons that happened to be one reason, namely this amazingly killer lineup — Butthole Surfers headlining, Redd Kross middle of the bill, L7 kicking it all off at the start. I’m still a little in awe, and I was definitely incredibly thrilled then. I don’t think I felt anything about this show other than ‘oh hell yeah, this’ll be great.’

At this point in time as well I was starting to get into much more of a regular show groove. From months-at-a-time separation it was starting to come down to not merely every other month but almost every other week or, in this case, every other day. So there’s less of a sense of overwhelming anticipation each time, everything all jumbles up together — one show, another to come, time and again. I definitely remember that my friend Jason B. was part of the crowd that went because he headed out to the main floor of the Hollywood Palladium as soon as he got through the doors, either made a flying leap onto the floor or misjudged a step, and ended up spraining his ankle slightly for his pains.

The big attraction for him, and probably for a lot of us, was actually the opening act, who were sound-checking on stage as we all came in and were milling around with everyone else. L7 had become a firm favorite of mine ever since I’d reviewed the Smell the Glove EP on Sub Pop for KLA the year before — “Dude, wow, they rock!” or whatever the hell I thought to myself at the time. But they did, they sure as hell did — didn’t know anything about their first release on Epitaph but this EP looked stellar, sounded great, still does. So many great pissed-off and hilarious and pointed one liners, great gang shout choruses, pretty damn fun all around. And yeah, they happened to be a quartet of women musicians as well. Jason had seen them open for GWAR earlier and knew they were great, I was looking for my own confirmation of same.

Later shows would provide clearer memories but I can’t but imagine that they kicked down the damn door. All the more impressive given that the Palladium’s acoustics were and almost certainly still are a notorious, crazy mess. Slightly dim visions in my brain of a lot of hair being tossed around all over the place, throat-shredding screams and god knows what else — it wasn’t sprawling chaos except unintentionally, L7 were never about a mess for its own sake, they wanted to focus and destroy. No Bricks Are Heavy songs yet in the setlist I think but they would have slotted right on in.

L7 were also definitely the first all female band I’d seen on stage as well. I don’t know whether that was a dramatic moment in my head or not — in fact I only recognize it being the case in retrospect. I’d already seen bands where female musicians were the key driving forces of the group, Lush in particular, but this was a step beyond that still. Call it an unconscious education rather than a definite pledging of allegiance on my part, but even so it was a necessary step for me as a listener, as an audience member, something that had to happen so I could get certain stereotypes out of my head, or at least recognize them for what they were. You didn’t have to have a Y chromosome to crank up the amps and get really loud and mad, with a wicked but still sharp smile on one’s face. I probably just headbanged a bit, really.

Redd Kross, meanwhile, I had seen before without quite understanding who they were. I don’t ever really remember learning about them at all, it was more something I gathered by osmosis. But back in 1989, I was walking near the UCLA Student Center in Bruin Plaza, where bands often did noontime shows. I remember two long-haired guys — REALLY long-haired — kicking up a racket with their band, and while I was sorta appreciative I didn’t hang around. Not sure why, must have had to run to a class, but I did some asking around and my future apartment-mate Rick was I think who clued me in to who they were, at least by name. Not actually having grown up with KROQ, much less Rodney on the Roq, exactly why they were important escaped me a bit then. Two years on I was vaguely more aware and after having had a good time on the floor I retreated to the open audience balcony to watch the racket and see what was up.

Third Eye had either come out or was about to come out by then — amusingly, the inside art featured a photo from that very same UCLA noontime show — and while I couldn’t really get every last level of seventies jokes and references and so forth (they may have been pretty young then and all but I was barely conscious of anything beyond Star Wars by the end of that decade), I still enjoyed it as it stood. The hair was still long as hell but I do remember them doing “Linda Blair” and “Peach Kelli Pop” and otherwise thinking “Hey, pretty good.” Sometimes you learn by inches with a band.

And then the Buttholes. I have Musician magazine to thank for cluing me in to these guys’ existence — the same 1988 issue I picked up with what in retrospect was a crucial New Order interview also featured Hairway to Steven as its lead album review, which was something I doubt Rolling Stone would have even tried to think about doing at the time. My just out of high school self read about them liking strange noises and bodily functions and obscene drawings for song titles and penile replacement film projections and thought “What…I don’t…uh.” Probably. Three years on and college radio and knowing a lot of friends who liked them and actually listening to a lot of their albums and so forth, well, it does things to a person, so I thought I was prepared for whatever kinds of vile nonsense might be served up.

Turns out there wasn’t much vile nonsense at all, at least not on the level of genital slicing or whatever when it came to the backing films — I do vaguely remember a chopped-up overlay of what might have been a Chinese baseball team and a woman either screaming in pain or ecstasy or both, but the films themselves were inaudible because the band was ridiculously loud. The album they were touring behind, Piouhgd, isn’t one of their best — it’s them knowing they have a sound and essentially continuing with it, so Gibby Haynes mumbles and screams and otherwise does things through his vocal treatments, the rest of the band plods and roars along, it’s entertaining but not deathless, and I remember that about the show as well. Haynes stood to the side and seemed to mostly sing to the wings, but Paul Geary did a great high-speed lead vocal on “The Shah Sleeps on Lee Harvey’s Grave” for the encore, and the whole thing was an entertaining enough bout of confusion and hullabaloo. No idea if they did their Jesus and Mary Chain parody “Something” but if they did that would mean they did it on the same stage where I’d seen said band the year before, which would seem right.

Meanwhile, the other balcony. In a previous entry set at the Palladium (probably that JAMC show), I mentioned how one balcony was always kept open for the general public but the other was essentially the VIP lounge for guest list folks, band friends, industry types, whatever — mix and mingle and rock out. What I didn’t know at the time of the show was that over there — as came to light in a variety of stories in the next few years, and can also be read about here, Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love met each other for the second and what turned out to be the crucial time for their relationship and everything that followed. “Smells Like Teen Spirit” was still months away from release, nobody could guess the rollercoaster of the next three years.

But again, I can’t look back on that show and think “Wow, the unique atmosphere, rock history being made, I was there!” It’s nonsense to think that. It’s an interesting bit of trivia to be sure but I didn’t see it, none of my group would have seen it, none of us would have known what was going on. More than anything it’s a little weird, strange, but no more than that. It’s an accident of history that at a pretty okay overall show something else was going down.

Looking across the hall at the other balcony, I would have maybe just envied them the free drinks.