NIK: LA Show

[Doug Pearson]

On Thu, 9 Mar 2000 19:28:52 EST, Chuck Rosenberg <Chuckrecs at AOL.COM> wrote:
>Then 5:15 came on ... By the time of the concert, I
>seriously had my doubts; Doug's friend Doug kept turning to me, saying
>"Spinal Tap". Exactly. Finnish pop-psyche style.

Somehow they reminded me of circa 1973 Who meets circa 1973 Genesis - sort
of prog-pop with enough arenarock/Spinal Tap-isms to indicate they *had* to
be a non-US/UK band.  No American band could pull that off non-ironically
these days.

>Nik came out during the last couple tunes to play sax.

I thought Nik was excellent on the tunes with 5:15.  And his own set
(backed by Farflung plus Len Del Rio and Doran Shelley of Pressurehed) was
great, although essentially the same set I've seen him to a few times
before by now (but I'm not complaining!).  My friend Doug is a bit of a
joker, and the "Spinal Tap" comment sounds *exactly* like something he'd
say.  He's not a spacerock fan and said he wasn't that impressed with Nik's
backing band (not his cuppa tea).  However, he really liked Nik and
definitely understood why so many of us regard him so highly as a
frontman/character/personality.  Although contrary to the opinion of most
folks on the list, he hated Nik's flute playing (admitting to an anti-flute
bias), but loved his sax playing, both with 5:15 and with the Space Ritual
band.

Always nice to see peoples' reaction to music that I know and love, but
they aren't familiar with.  We had a similar situation at Doug's house
while having a couple beers before the show when I put on Dead Moon's live
album that made Chuck start pouding his drinks down 'cause that's what REAL
rock&roll makes you wanna do ...

        -Doug
         ceres at sirius.com