in the immortal words of alexander flurie: that was INSANE!!!

okay, i'll dispense with the exclamation marks from here on (or try to), so let them be implicit. the travails of getting there (we arrived two hours later than intended, due to a combination end-of-turkey-weekend traffic, a slow slow gas station, a tiny confusation in mapquest's directs, and the physical impossibilities of finding a parking spot on hoboken's picturesque but carlined thoroughfares) were rewarded hundredsfold after we arrived at maxwells. ben had ben waiting forever by the time we arrived (but i'll let him tell you that part.) despite the delay, the nice people there gave us a table, food, and cocktails (pink, blue, white, brown) so fast that we didn't miss a thing.

openers the fleshtones were ripping into their full-throttle retro-rawk (shades of jonathan richman, etc.), both on stage and in the middle of the audience, complete with pink elephant hawaiian shirt. then "musicologist niles cubbinson" or something who demonstrated our utter lack of musical knowledge by means of spyro gyra and fingersnapping, and declared that "in a lot of ways music was the real heroes of [sept. 11th.] this was the third night of hannukah by the way.

go tengo go and they took the stage just like you'd imagine (they were out in the hallway the whole time, and we had thought of asking them before if we could park where their outback was. they have the same car as my dad.) you figure eight shows, 16 tracks on ichthbao and 13 on atntiio, so they'd do about two from each a night. i'd say we got more than our fair share of sweet ones: "everyday" (opener, a bit fast but still pretty), "shadows," "american band" (flurie says it's 'his song, rosserooni!'), "crying of lot g" (georgia looked like she was about to cry), and, best, my favorite ylt song ever.

also great: a manic, beat-esque, actually physically painful rendition "false alarm." two unplaceable jewish rock'n'roll covers with the singer from the fleshtones. extended set-closing percussion jam on sun ra's "nuclear war" chanting, with the comic back (pencil moustache, slicked back hair, leisure suit, ruffled shirt) to "play" timbales and chant in "spanish." "kiss your ass" "kiss your ass" "goodbye goodbye" "goodbye goodbye" "i lost my ass" "so long ass" ("too-dle-oo").

and then, the encore: Ray Davies (Ray Davies, people) joined the band for three vintage kinks numbers, closing with "till the end of the day." if you don't know how unbelievably amazing that was, i can't explain it now. maybe ben put it best, walking back to the parking garage: "even, whats-his-name…er, sleatter-kinney [the post-show music] sounded lame for a few seconds after that. nothing can compare to ray davies being backed by yo la tengo." (a bad paraphrase, there should probably be a few "fucking"s in there.) anyway. whoooo! i can't do this in typeface now.

i feel bad for brigid, alyssa, bobby, matt, elena, joel, and especially rae, who inexplicably left before the show started.

i'm a bit tired, residually from the weekend as much as last night [friday was interesting: jesse josie julian morgan nick and i were at nick's until nearly 4am, way past my bedtime, talking about RA/resident relations (ahem), seventeen's "coolest colleges" list, definitions of rape, n.y. rock, and i don't know what else.] but luckily, unless everyone else in the world, i have an eminently manageable workload again this week. i really don't know what i've done to deserve this.

the way that i feel when you laugh
is like laughing
the way that i feel when you cry
is so bad