Weezer Cruise over, back to reality – a recap (Day 2 of 4)

As I noted yesterday, during the first day the Weezer Cruise, I left my camera for the most part in the cabin to  enjoy the cruise as a pure spectator experience (Weezer Cruise over, back to reality – a recap [Day 1 of 4]). The next day the camera came out to document a few o../2012/01/26/weezer-cruise-over-back-to-reality-a-recap-day-1-of-4/f the many great indie bands and musicians on board this unique four-night cruise.

The first band we saw that afternoon, at 4 p.m. was Boom Bip (pictured above), which needs a new name like the Sea Eats the Sky or Kaleidoscopic Soundscapes (kaleidoscopic images unfolded on the giant screen overhead as the band performed on the Lido Deck). The trio of musicians produced an extraordinary din of post rock grooves that recalled everything from Neu! to Explosions in the Sky. They began just as we sat down to have lunch behind the stage. I was looking out at the ocean, and I could not help but notice the waves out there reminded me of the cover art to Ride’s album Nowhere. Maybe it was the music, an odd sound to hear on a Carnival cruise ship, if there ever was one. For a trio of musicians, they had an awesome, grand sound that still had a nice driving, drone-rock quality. Nothing less than entrancing… if you listened to it. It was instrumental but mighty. I would later meet and chat with the band’s founder, Bryan Charles Hollon (pictured above on the keyboards). He was pleased that I had noted the references to Krautrock masters in the music, like Neu!, as well as the all-around post rock vibe of the band, which also recalled Mogwai. Turns out Mogwai has remixed their stuff:

Hollon also said he is longtime friends with Stuart Braithwaite, one of Mogwai’s guitarists. Of course, it would turn out Boom Bip are better known outside of the US and have a long catalog to show for it (mainly available in the UK on Lex Records). They were the only band I did not know before going on the cruise that also won me over as a fan. Unfortunately, a need for rest and a prejudice to over-indulge in the bands I already knew meant I missed getting to know other bands with respectful attendance. Over the course of the cruise I only got tastes of Keepaway and Sleeper Agent that showed potential, but not enough to pass serious judgement. But both sounded worthy of seeking out recordings (and I purchased a cool Sleeper Agent T-shirt on board). But I definitely hope to catch up with Boom Bip in the future.

Next show after Boom Bip on the Lido deck, at 5:30 in the afternoon, was the Wavves. We just chilled for a moment on deck chairs and then the show started right on time following a very precise sound check with the band. All the shows we saw throughout the cruise started like clockwork and sound was never an issue, except maybe at the artists’ discretion (Dinosaur Jr. was loud on purpose). I only witnessed one problem with buzz shrieking from an amp during Sebadoh’s last show, on the final night of the cruise, but even then, on-stage, frontman Lou Barlow gave props to the sound throughout the cruise. I’ve never seen so many shows, one after another, run on time with great sound. It certainly seemed the show’s producers, Sixthman, knew what they were doing. Also, though the bands were certainly of the anti-establishment ilk, they showed great professionalism when it came to logistics.

That said, Wavves gave a show worthy of the punk rockers they are. Frontman Nathan Williams started the show by showing gratitude to a mysterious character named Willers. He told the crowd about the difficult day before, as he said, he had took in too much mescaline. Willers apparently came to his rescue and brought him to his cabin, leaving him a note that said “Your cat looks just like mine” and his Twitter account info. Here’s a video of that show, with Williams still asking for Willers before the band tore into “Idiot” and “I Wanna Meet Dave Grohl”:

It was a fun concert with great attitude, yet the band remained affable and connected with the audience. Williams dedicated a song to a little kid (one of the few on board) and expressed appreciation to a man who yelled out “I enjoy your music!”

“Thank you, I’ll take that. That’s very nice,” Williams said, acknowledging the man with odd, mock sincerity.

Drummer Jacob Cooper at one point seemed so annoyed by all the banter between songs, he yelled at bassist Stephen Pope to “shut up,” as he seemed eager to tap out the next song. Here is an image of the band blowing their dirty beach rock jams out to sea:

That evening also marked the first Lou Barlow solo performance. It was a nice, low-key show at the Criterion Lounge, toward the back of the ship, which seemed to have already begun when we got there, even after we skipped out on the Wavves early. About halfway through his show, Barlow began asking how much time he had left, as he basically improvised the set list and even took requests. At one point Barlow expressed regret for not having his ukulele, something he referenced in my first interview with him before the cruise (Sebadoh’s Lou Barlow talks beginning with ‘Weed Forestin’ [soon to be reissued on LP]: an Indie Ethos Exclusive [Part 1 of 2]). Not only is the uke an appropriate instrument for a cruise, but it would have facilitated some selections from Weed Forestin. But the requests rolled in nicely, and he did a creative version of his one big hit single, “Natural One” (from one of his many side projects, the Folk Implosion). He ended the show with “Day Kitty” which, as he set up in the introduction to the song, revealed a lot about his life, love of cats and children. It was a fun, revealing show at the end, and the audience offered hushed attention, for the most part. Here he is taking on a Dinosaur Jr. song, early in the set:

After the show, it was off to dinner with more people: John from Atlanta and a couple from the Boston area wearing good ugly sweaters. The guy wore a printed Tupac sweater and the gal some hideous purple flower-print thing decorated by sporadic fake amethyst gem stones. Great efforts indeed. I had left my “ugly” sweater in the cabin, expressing I could not believe it was the Ugly Sweater Night already. It’s the second evening, and the Weezer cruise already felt as though it was passing fast.

During this dinner we stayed for the entire meal, all the way through to desert (heck, it was lobster night), but that meant missing bands. In the Criterion Lounge the Nervous Wreckords played a full set and Ozma had begun its set, which would bleed into Yuck’s show at the Criterion. Yuck were one of the star attractions of the cruise for us, so we had to catch them on the first night. They brought on the hypnotic white noise, which has the unfortunate effect of sometimes making one feel sleepy (it did not help that we had full stomachs), and we were sitting in the back at a cocktail table, watching everyone sway to and fro. It seemed a more choppy night at sea than usual. Max Bloom, one of the guitarists, asked for seasickness pills on stage, but the band made it through their set. The floor was cleared to make way for standing room, and it was too crowded to even get a good snapshot, much less make a video, so I offer a later picture of Bloom with the band outside on the Lido Deck.

As the band packed up their gear much of the audience straggled to chat. It was a pretty packed show. Seeing as this was the night of the first Weezer show of Pinkerton and B-Sides at the Palladium Lounge (we found that we had a pair of those randomly distributed “golden tickets” at check-in but chose Yuck over the headliners). There must have been other fans of Yuck like us who skipped Weezer to see them. As the band packed up, I went down to the cabin to grab the now out-of-print first edition Yuck record, which I had brought with me so they could sign it. They were all friendly but pretty aloof. I did speak with singer/guitarist Daniel Blumberg a bit. He praised the Silver Jews as an influence, but he also seemed tired of talking about his band, seeing as 2011 was a breakout year for the band on many a critic’s list (check out this “Rolling Stone” article). He was actually more interested in talking about his little known passion for cinema (turns out he is a big fan of the Decalogue by Krzysztof Kieslowski). Seeing as he signed my record on a cruise ship, here’s the appropriate note he wrote on the back of the record as we chatted:

Here’s the front after the rest of the band signed it (Blumberg also did the cover art, by the way. He was amused when I told him it wound up on “Billboard”s “10 Worst Album Covers of 2011“):

Then it was just back to the cabin, where I considered seeing Sebadoh, but, man, had the crowd grown rowdy. My wife told me that while I had been upstairs meeting the members of Yuck, some guy was knocking on cabins in the nude to use a phone. She heard yelling outside like “Dude, you’re naked!” and “Bro, I was just trying to get laid! She took my beer! I paid $8 for that beer, and I chased after her, and I look down, and I’m naked. She took my beer, and now I’m not even going to get laid!” That was a good enough note to end the day on. Still, more action-packed nights lay ahead… (continued in “Weezer Cruise over, back to reality – a recap [Day 3 of 4]”).

—Hans Morgenstern