There were reasons to visit NYC, there’s always reasons, even when you don’t know them yet. When I was looking for things to do for a trip that had been planned, I stumbled upon Total Bummer festival and the first night stood out as a can’t miss night with Flipper, Meat Puppets, Blonde Redhead and Dinosaur Jr all on one night. The second night had Julie and Jesus and the Mary Chain as well. I could tell the opening bands were great as well, as we walked in when Teen Mortgage was performing and had the iconic Flipper not been due to perform in about 10 minutes, I’m sure we would’ve stuck around for more of them.
What can be said that hasn’t been said already about Flipper? They’re one of the early punk bands who played very heavy riffs that somehow must’ve evolved into what people refer to as stoner rock today. The originated in San Francisco in 1979 and released their classic Generic album in 1982. I had previously seen Flipper in 2015 with David Yow on vocals. I have memories of listening to them and the Bad Brains mainly in the late 80’s and early 90’s with friends at a couple of record stores I worked at during the time. More recently the lineup had included original guitarist Ted Falconi along with Mike Watt (Minutemen fIREHOSE) on bass and vocals. The group has had many personel changes needless to say. This incarnation had Steve DePace as the only original member. That seemed to be just fine as Matt Korvette (Pissed Jeans) was joined by Jon Kelly (the Flood). This works out as fans are seemed pretty excited that any incarnation of the band is still bringing this music to the people. They certainly perform all of their great works, including The Light, The Sound, The Rhythm, The Noise, The Way of the World, Sex Bomb and Ha Ha Ha among others.
The Meat Puppets are another band of iconic status who joined the ranks on Saturday. They’re well know for their records II, Up on the Sun and Too High to Die. They started out on Gregg Ginn’s SST record label before hitting some fame doing some of their songs alongside Nirvana on the MTV Unplugged record as well as the single Backwater. The group went on somewhat of a hiatus from 1995-2007 when Cris Kirkwood rejoined the band with his brother Curt. For their most recent record, the original group is joined by Curt’s son Elmo Kirkwood on guitar. They originated from Phoenix, Az and have had a very eclectic sound that actually doesn’t sound like they would’ve originated on the heavily punk dominated SST label.
By the time they came onstage (also on the Ruins stage) the outdoor viewing area was getting so crowded there was almost no place to stand. It was one of those sets where just being there made you feel like you’d arrived and it didn’t matter as much where you were because you could witness this history. Their set contained songs like Lake of Fire, Backwater, Plateau, Up on the Sun, Seal Whales, as well as Sam from the 1990 release Forbidden Places and the song Nothing from the 1995 release No Joke! The only other time I’d seen the group was in Raleigh on the Too High to Die to Tour in 1994.
The group Blonde Redhead was formed in NYC in 1993. They’ve released 10 albums to date and have a unique approach to what some might call a formulaic sound. It’s formulaic in the sense that their sound seems largely rooted in improvised sounds and the fact that nobody quite sounds like them. The group evolved from improvisation. Just listen to their early records and discover this. Their name is from the 1970’s and early 80’s No Wave band DNA, Whatever the case may be, it’s definitely working for them as each new record draws the listener in and before I know it, I’m calling it their best record yet. This was the group in the lineup at Total Bummer of whom I’ve seen the most times with this being the 4th time, and while their set had great songs including For the Damaged Coda from Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons, Bipolar from Fake Can Be just as Good and Falling Man from Misery is a Butterfly as well as Snowman from their latest Sit Down for Dinner and 23 from the self titled record, they cut their set short apparently due to some allergies by singer Kazu Makino. For the 9 songs they played, it was pure fire.
The final group of the night was Dinosaur Jr., a group who have persevered and they deserve all of the acclaim the world can afford them for countless tours and albums. It’s been many years since I last saw them perform. on the Green Mind tour in 1992. That tour included Jesus and the Mary Chain (who ironically headlined the Total Bummer festival on Sunday night) along with My Bloody Valentine. So, Dinosaur Jr. has written many songs I hadn’t heard live before since then. That didn’t stop me from enjoying some of the early classics they performed such as Little Fury Things and a handfull of other classics from You’re Living all over Me, as well and Freak Scene from Bug and Mountain Man from their self titled debut. Another difference between 1992 and now is that Lou Barlow is back in the band. Lou is certainly an artist in his own right as he formed the Folk Implosion (remember the song Natural One?) and Sebadoh after leaving the band following the album Bug as well as the cover of the Cure song just like heaven, which they also performed on Saturday.
The festival was a great experience with two stages and great bands. I suppose other than getting the opportunity to revisit many memories I had in my younger days, one thing to be said about having previously seen all 4 bands of the great lineup means I didn’t feel overly invested in any of the bands, so I could just bounce around from band to band listening to great music that I love without feeling like I had to make it an experience for any one of those 4. As Matt Korvette told the crowd at one point “I don’t know why they call this the Total Bummer festival, because you get to see Flipper and that’s anything but a Total Bummer”.
