Martin’s Blog

I haven’t been to a gig for a while due mainly to my laziness and the lack of acts I’ve heard of visiting Tucson. But tonight Owen Ashworth (alias Casiotone for the Painfully Alone) was in town. So I gathered a friend of mine who wears rather indie-looking glasses and headed over to Solar Culture – an art gallery cum music venue.

CFTPA in a red jacket

The rest of the evening in dotpoints:
- when we got there shortly after the opening time of 9pm the guy taking the money at the door had no change (the tickets were $7 each). But thankfully after about 4 minutes of standing in the entrance someone turned up with some.
- the gallery had lots of wacky art on the wall, including what seemed to be a painting of a woman in sexual congress with a swordfish.
- the first act (later revealed to be the brother of the main act) played one 20 minute song; lyricless, just a wall of ambient electronic sound. Not really my style.
- By the time CFTPA started his set, the crowd had swelled to about 30 people. But what they lacked in number they made up for in large glasses and ironic t-shirts.
- Casiotone informed us that he had had a migraine that day but would solidier on. He did give a fairly sedate set so perhaps it affected him a little.
- The set was split between songs off the new album and crowd requests for old stuff. The crowd managed to create a somewhat embarrassing situation by requesting about four songs that have almost exactly the same tune and drum machine backing, just different lyrics.
- When Hot Boys was requested, it was explained (possibly jokingly) that playing that song would be a copyright violation.
- Some song characters were switched around: Holly Hobby and Bobby Malone became Hobby Bobby and Holly Malone respectively. You’d probably go mad singing the same lyrics every day for a month so fair enough.
-When Love Connection was requested, Owen said that the new deal with that song was that he would play it but only if someone else would sing it. So two young girls sitting down the front got up on stage. They were passable singers but I was just impressed that they remembered the lyrics.
- The gig ended at about 11:00, no encore. Just how I like it – short and sweet.

Or ‘A conversation I had with a student of mine that I ran into at a Polyphonic Spree concert last night’

Me: Notices student. Thinks: “What would be weirder? Talking to him now or making a comment about it in class on Monday…”
Him: Notices me. “Hey man.”
Me: “Hey. What’s up?”
Him: “You excited to see the spree tonight?”
Me: “Yeah, I haven’t seen them before. It should be good”
Me: “So what did you think of the first band?”
Him: “They played well, but they’re not really the kind of music I like.”
Me: “Yeah. I thought their lead singer was a jerk.”
(Silence)
Him: “So, what’s this test gonna be like on Tuesday? Hard?”
Me: “A little less difficult than the last one I think. But not by much.”
Him: “It’s mainly review for me this course – I took calculus last year.”
Me: “Yeah. It’s an interesting course in that most people who take it have already taken an equivalent course. But it’s taught at a fairly high level – if you pass it then you do really know how to do college algebra.”
Him: “Yeah. You teach good… well.”
Me: “Oh. Thanks.”
(Silence)
Him: “I’m gonna go back and hang with my buds now.”
Me: “Alright. See ya.”

After the concert I run into him on the way out.

Both of us: “That was fucking awesome.”