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My man Alex posted some thoughts about the long foretold (but seldom believed) closing of Mississippi Nights. You can read the many comments, and if you haven’t you should do so and add your own. I put together the list I’ve got of the shows I’ve seen there. I don’t think it’s complete (missing a bunch of Zhivegas shows I’m sure), but here is a detailed list, below is a general list.

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Date Of Gig The Band (Headliner/Opener)
June 1, 1992 Arc Angels/Sass Jordan
April 23, 1993 Helmet/The Jesus Lizard/Therapy?
November 2, 1995 Deep Blue Something/Adam’s Farm
November 22, 1995 Better Than Ezra/Dah-Veed
December 16, 1995 New World Spirits/Rolling Honey
April 18, 1996 Dog’s Eye View/Semisonic
May 3, 1996 Elizabeth Einstein/Rick Recht/ Ninekiller
July 26, 1996 Clutch/Orange 9mm/Fu Manchu/Core
August 28, 1996 King’s X/Galactic Cowboys
August 29, 1996 Sponge/Poe/Super 8
December 1, 1996 Henry Rollins
December 21, 1996 Elizabeth Einstein/AOK
December 26, 1996 The Urge/NIL8
January 11, 1997 Elizabeth Einstein/Colony/Ninekiller
March 27, 1997 Fiona Apple/Morcheeba
September 10, 1997 K’s Choice/Protein
November 12, 1997 Paula Cole/Jen Trynin
November 29, 1997 Dr. Zhivegas
December 13, 1997 Sarah Cloud
January 24, 1998 Son Of Starchild/Vargas Swing
May 5, 1998 Agents of Good Roots
June 26, 1998 Big Bad Voodoo Daddy
October 25, 1998 Henry Rollins
November 28, 1998 Dr Zhivegas
December 10, 1998 River Of Toys (Barenaked Ladies/Edwin McCain/Robynn Ragland)
December 18, 1999 Fantomas
June 20, 2002 Ben Folds/Neil Hannon
October 11, 2005 Les Claypool & His Fancy Band/ Drums & Tuba
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Lastly, a song that They Might Be Giants wrote about our favourite venue.

If they were to perform together you’d probably find one of my kidney’s on e-bay to get to that gig.

Even though it’s almost the end of the day as I write this, today is Bowie’s 60th birthday. He’s been laying reasonably low for the past year or more and and didn’t do an album this year. He’s shown up at a David Gilmour show to sing the Syd Barret tune ‘Arnold Layne’ and the rock radio classic Comfortably Numb (sadly only the former is available) and fall of ’05 he played at Fashion Rocks (whatever that is) with the Arcade Fire backing him (a purchase I highly recommend).

Anywhoo, for his 50th birthday (you guessed it, 10 years ago) he held a sweet gig at Madison Square Garden with folks like Lou Reed, Billy Corgan, Sonic Youth, Foo Fighters, Robert Smith of The Cure, and Frank Black of the Pixies performing a song or two with him and his band. Frank Black performs Fashion (from the album Scary Monsters & Super Creeps) while his bass player (now) of 10+ years, Gail Ann Dorsey takes the Freddy Mercury part on Under Pressure.

I could go on for quite a bit about Bowie, but the Wikipedia article is pretty comprehensive (and far more of an expert than I). I didn’t get into Bowie outside of his radio hits until I saw him play with Nine Inch Nails in October 1995 (discussed in my 4th podcast) but every 6 months or so I scope out a new record and analyze it to pieces.

The second part of this post is from Pearl Jam.

On this day in 1995 they bought themselves some satellite time, made up a clever name (Self Pollution Radio), holed up in a warehouse, and invited some of their homies down to play. I was glued to the radio and to the cassette deck that made me sweat every 45 minutes while I hoped the song or conversation would end before hearing the guillotine click of the tape running out. Here is the complete list of folks, but I’ve got a few songs to share.

Pearl Jam – Satan’s Bed (originally on Vitalogy, a song about models, or the fashion industry. Something like that. Some fun trivia is that Dave Abbruzzese, PJ’s drummer at the time (and my favourite) was having his tonsils, appendix, or some orther obsolete gland removed the day this was recorded for the album and his drum tech played on it).

Pearl Jam – Indifference. The studio version closes out Vs., and fittingly closes the last live performance of the broadcast.

Soundgarden – Fell On Black Days. A bit different from the version that made it’s a way onto Superunknown.

Mad Season – Lifeless Dead might be the most interesting of the lot. The group consisted of Mike McCready of Pearl Jam who met the bassist (don’t remember) in rehab, called Layne Staley when they got back to Seattle, picked up a couple of other guys, and did a record together. This was recorded a couple of months before the album was released (River Of Deceit was the big song).

I hope you enjoyed!