CJ, Frequency, 12/16/2011

The night after the Mr. Roberts gig, we played a benefit for Dane101. The lineup went like this:
5:15pm The Shabelles
6:00pm Bob Koch
6:40pm Bes Monde
7:30pm Prize giveaway
8:00pm Crackity Jones (Pixies Tribute band)
9:00pm Nick Brown
9:30pm Caustic
10:10pm Naked Girls Reading
10:45pm The German Art Students
11:40pm Prize giveaway
11:50pm Murder of Crowes (Black Crowes Tribute band)
12:30am Tiger Clutch

I was sick. I had taken the day off of work...pretty sure the entire band had the day off in fact. EH played the Shabelles kit (it was tiny and fancy) and I played through Tiger Clutch's bass amp head (it was loud and vibratory). I was in weird shadow on stage and couldn't see the dots on my bass neck...which I guess that I rely on more than I thought I did. I missed the same measure in Wave...don't know what that's about. Flubbed Mr Grieves, but doubt it was obvious. The rest was ok I guess. I had meant to do the Kim Deal banter from the Doolittle shows...but spaced most of it largely due to my cold. I did think to embarrass EH a bit before La La Love You though. Silver went well for the second time...I think RS was severely delaying coming in with the harmony, giving me plenty of time to nail the note. We'll probably never play the song again. We're taking time off until Jan 4th, but we discussed next tunes to learn and it'll be Bird Dream, D= RxT, and Blown Away. I cranked them all out today and will have them committed to memory in no time. Had good talks these last couple of days. I am thankful again for the boys and hope this ride continues on a while.

Best audience comment of the night: "I wasn't so sure about about coming to see a Pixies cover band. I didn't know what it was gonna sound like. But it sounds like the Pixies." Nice.

Also, a woman came up to me in the middle of the show to tell me that there was a piece of lint on one of my bass strings. I left it there just to spite her because it was such a ridiculous thing to interrupt someone on stage about.

Setlist:
Debaser
Tame
Wave
I Bleed
Here Comes
Dead
Monkey
Mr G
Crackity
La La Love
No 13
There Goes
Hey
Silver
Gouge

Here's the pre-show interview I did with Dane101:
Dane101: How did you come up with the name of your band?

Dar from Crackity Jones: We did a web search to see what other Pixies tribute bands had called themselves. Most of the obvious ones, like Nimrod’s Son, had been taken. We were trying not to duplicate. We wanted a song/album title or lyric. We looked at the list of songs and Crackity Jones was on it as a candidate that it seemed like no one had used yet. The song starts off “Jose Jones told me alone his story. He got friends like Paco Picopiedra.” I think Paco Picopiedra means Fred Flintstone…but we coopted it as our stage names. So we play under the names Jose Jones, Paco, Pico, and Piedra. Once that fell into place we had to go with Crackity Jones. Also “CJ” looks like a backwards “P” so it ended up making a nice play on the Pixies flying P logo…but that was just a happy accident.


Who is in your band and what are their backgrounds?

Dar: Well, as mentioned… Jose Jones, Paco, Pico, and Piedra. Jose, Paco, and Pico have been playing in bands together for over 15 years and all went to college together in Minnesota. Most recently, before Crackity Jones, they were The Escapists. Jose and Piedra also currently play in The Drain and The Seven Stone Weaklings.


If your band was a snack, what snack would it be and why?

Dar: Arby’s for sure. Because our practice space is near Arby’s and we regularly abuse our bodies there.


What was your favorite gig you played in Dane County and why?

Dar: That’s a hard one. Before Crackity Jones I think that all of us had grown accustomed to people just not giving a shit about our music. You would bust your ass to prepare for and play a show and no one would show up except your close friends. But pretty immediately when we started playing out as Crackity Jones the whole attitude was totally different. I remember at our second show ever at High Noon people sang along to “Where Is My Mind.” This wave of “oooo” hit us. That had never happened to me, or to any of us, I think before. It was surreal. People just love this music. We’ve had a great time at all of our shows, but I have to say that Mickey’s is like a second home to us. Liz has given us great opportunities there to play huge setlists and the crowd is always amazing.


What other bands/musicians/artists are you interested in checking out at the Fundraiser?

Dar: Tiger Clutch or German Art Students probably, though the whole lineup is awesome really.


Why have you decided to play this fundraiser for free? Is it simply for the free food?

Dar: Wait...there's free food? Is it Arby's? But seriously...we like to play this music. Simple as that. And we haven’t played the Frequency since our first gig in April 2010. We played all of Surfer Rosa at that first show. This time we return to play all of Doolittle. It comes full circle a bit.


You are preparing a special treat and playing the whole album "Doolittle." What do you like about that album so much?

Dar: To be honest I think that Surfer Rosa and Come on Pilgrim probably started off as bigger favorites of most of ours. Doolittle is just so popular in general that we’ve had to learn all the songs off of it over the last year and a half (except "Silver," which we’ll debut at this show). We’d never bothered to play them together before though. The return to the Frequency seemed like a great opportunity to do it. And plus, if playing the whole album is good enough for the real Pixies than who are we to turn up our noses? It is a truly great album for sure.


Do you have a youtube link we can post?

Dar: Our entire second show was filmed and is out there (as well as other performances here and there), but I think something more recent is probably a better representation of our evolution. Here’s a link to “Dead” from “Filth” at the Inferno this past spring.