Music Against Brain Degeneration Revue

This is a "Reader's Digest" condensed version of RH's gig near here last week. In a nutshell: too short. 45 minutes, max. He opened with "Gene Hackman", which (fortunately) did a lot to get the crowd of early-20's and teens on his side. He did acoustic versions of "The Cheese Alarm", "I Am Not Me", "Arms of Love" and "Jewels for Sophia". This was followed by a solo electric set of "Autumn Is Your Last Chance" (an all-time fave of the writer) on a guitar that was so heavily flanged and stuttered that it seemed almost as if he was singing to a prerecorded tape -- I watched him pick the guitar, but the notes coming out of the amp were not even close to corresponding to his picking. An awesome effect, and highly disconcerting. He also did "Kingdom of Love" as well, which brought out quite a bit of applause from the teenagers. The show was ended with RH and three members of Pavement [disputed below - ed] (Steven Malkmus and two others) doing a really loud and destructive version of "Listening to the
Higsons"; it was actually very reminiscent of the sloppy version of "Rock 'N' Roll Toilet", except much much louder. Again, the only downside: way too short. Flaming Lips suck anyways. Toss them, give Cornelius an extra 20 minutes and give the rest to Robyn, I say. Whoops -- one other downside: only two varieties of T-shirt to choose from: the purple one with the green star, or the one with the strangely-coloured sleeve ends and collar that is so fancied by teenage 60s-retro-wannabes.

David Scales
One incorrect factual note in the preceding review:
"The show was ended with RH and three members of Pavement (Steven Malkmus and twoothers) doing a really loud and destructive version of "Listening to theHigsons"; it was actually very reminiscent of the sloppy version of"Rock 'N' Roll Toilet", except much much louder.This was actually *Sebadoh* (who also played a set that night) backing up Robyn.