Ypsilanti

I’m still buzzing over the show I checked out in Ypsilanti, MI a few weeks back. It was a benefit at the Eastern Michigan University for 826 Michigan featuring Dave Eggers, Stephen Malkmus, Julie Orringer, Davy Rothbart, the founder of FOUND magazine, Dan John Miller from Blanche and Cowboy Junkies. I had been wanting to catch Malkmus live since his days with Pavemement, but somehow always missed the opportunity. We were staying at the same hotel in Ann Arbor where I’d also bumped into Patrick Stewart who was in town for a Shakespear festival, weird. Who would have thought Michigan was such a star studded town?

All of the benefit performances were accoustic (except for Dan who had amazing stage presence and character, but his electric guitar was a bit loud) and even the Cowboy Junkies sounded fresh. I was afraid they would bore me, but they were so professional and their songs so well crafted you got the sense they’d found their place, even if they didn’t sound much different than when they first ruled the airways witht a cover of the Velvet Underground’s ‘Sweet Jane’.  There had been a great pace a nd rhythm to the evening, until Malkmus came on stage. He hadn’t shown up for sound check and it took him what seemed like 10 minutes to plug in a borrowed acoustic with “high action”, as he’d remarked, and a laptop whose function seemed only to serve as a tuner. It was all a bit odd and uncomfortable. There were about 500 of us in the audience nervously chuckling to fill the space-time. Malkmus didn’t seem rushed or worried, but I guess I was. He finally played a tune taking his cue from a paper plate set list which Julie Orringer beat me to at the end of the show. He played a rough, but amazing version of “We Dance” from Pavement’s WOWEE ZOWEE as well as a sweet, sloppy rendition of “Freeze the Saints” from his recent release with the Jicks called Face the Truth. I loved every second of Malkmus’ strange performance. It reminded me that songs are not precious little creations that must be reproduced accurately, but instead they are ever changing and open for interpretation.

After the show the entire cast ended up at a nearby pub where I chatted with Malkmus about the upcoming election. He was very passionate about the stem-cell debate going on in St. Louis and pissed about the ad war between conservative ball players coming out against the stem cell bill and Michael J. Fox’s commercial in favor of it. Our conversation drifted on to seperation of church and state and how much we hated republicans. He was wearing a Mets cap and I asked if that was his team and he responded that he couldn’t make up his mind between that and his LA cap. It was only a day after the World Series the Mets should have been at instead of the boring Cardinals. I ended the night drinking a beer and chatting with the many great people of Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti wondering when I’d be back.

Blanche : Superstition
Blanche : Another Lost Summer
Stephen Malkmus : (Do Not Feed the) Oyster
Stephen Malkmus : Us
Stephen Malkmus : The Hook
Stephen Malkmus : Baby C’mon
Stephen Malkmus : Jenny & the Ess-Dog