A million years ago, at the start of the summer, I played some records over at the Belgian-themed bar here, the Red Monk, with friends Bob Nastanovich and the Maytags' Dustin Smith. Bob and I are spinning again tonight, this time with Annalibera's Anna Gebhardt, so I figured I may as well go back and try to reconstruct what my phone's Notes app tells me I played. Scroll down for a Spotify recreation, which sadly lacks Lydia Loveless's Kesha cover and, of course, Prince.
Oh yeah, also hitched with Bob to Omaha to see GY!BE (and opener Xylouris White!)...
On Saturday, January 30, Bob Nastanovich and his pal Charlie Ezell spun a few records with me at the Red Monk here in downtown Des Moines. It has been a whirlwind since then: Voting in my first-ever Iowa caucuses and starting a new job, to name a couple of things. But as far as I know Bob and I will be playing records again this Saturday night, with the superb Dustin Smith, frontman for the Maytags. So I figured I might as well revisit my notes and document what I played in between Bob and Charles's selections that night. Looking at the list now, I'm pleased with how it works as a 15-track compilation capturing whatever whims I had for my record bag that night:
New years are bittersweet things, and especially so when they bring about the live reunion of a beloved, still unjustly little-known band of friends. My first night as an Iowa resident, in 2009, I saw a mind-blowingly terrific set by a local group called the Poison Control Center, and it ended with Des Moines transplant Bob Nastanovich taking the stage to lead a spirited cover of his band Pavement's early-'90s song "Two States." On December 31 — two critically acclaimed albums, hundreds of live gigs, various real-life changes and a painfully long hiatus later — PCC played again at the same place where I had gone on to see them so many times, and again Bob joined them for "Two States." Except this time, Bob and I were also DJing for what, if my amateurish one-man blog is to be believed, was our fifth New Year's Eve set together. Pals we've seen the band with over the years have, like PCC's members, moved away. Venue booker Ladd Askland's brother Stone, who himself now lives halfway across the country as a student at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, led one of the opening sets with his punk-ish band Quick Piss; Iowan-via-Nashville Arin Eaton and her group Karen Meat nailed their road-honed, costume-filled set (including songs from Karen Meat & the Computer). Bob and I spun our records before, in between and after. Vaudeville Mews has at least another year on its lease in the now-burgeoning downtown neighborhood. We entered 2016 with what felt like the best evening of music that Bob and I have ever played side by side, and a spirit of gratitude for our friends who could be there as well as a recognition that, even sprawled across a continent, we're forever connected by nights like these. If you're reading this, you probably know the feeling.
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