FREEEEDIOCY!
The section devoted to the retarded, giddy goofiness I work so hard to keep in check elsewhere!
Yours | Mine
I try not to overdo the idiot fandom too much, but it is not always easy. Here, I will let loose! Entries in reverse chronological order.
7/19/05 at The Living Room.
If ever a night started out inauspiciously for Freediocy, this was it. On the subway, one stop before I left, a crazy/high/both man started screaming at me that he was going to, among many other things, kill me and make a coat from my skin. LOVELY! Not original, since Thomas Harris has already told that story, but still just delightful. Needless to say I hightailed it out of there and alerted the conductor that there was someone aboard who was well beyond common, day-to-day insanity. But as somebody who is currently at stress capacity and didn't need this, I'd like to send an open letter to the universe: Dear universe, Anyway, this was not a good way to start the night. But with a friend, two scotch and sodas, and a laid-back Freedy concert, it all ended on the upside. Highlights: • A cover of The Band's "It Makes No Difference"; I'd never heard Freedy play this before. I hope it becomes a staple of the set He played his own songs, too, of course ("Let's get 'Bad Reputation' out of the way"), but it was a very cover-heavy set. (That's not a complaint; both kinds of shows are fun.) No big announcements from the stage about new material, and I didn't go ask after--my feeling is that I spent all my crazy points the moment I started a fan site, so I don't hassle him at shows.
All in all, a pleasant evening. I took a cab home. Freediocy rating: three Freedies. Considering the deficit the show had to overcome, I think the rating is warranted.
On August 16th (2002), Freedy played at Southpaw.
It was a good show, where it got better as it went along and technical
riddles were solved. A full band night with a solo acoustic rendition
of "Caroline" as one of the encores = good stuff. But the real
excitement was that the show was played about a block from where I live.
Fun within walking distance is rather a novelty, and one I am enjoying.
A club I can sometimes hear from my kitchen! Across the street from my
grocery store! A block from my hardware store! (Those
did not seem like great recommendations the next morning, when I was buying
replacement toilet tank parts, or when I was behind somebody with 40 items
in the express line. But at the time . . .) Having
paid my commuting
dues, I'm just amazed at how convenient things can be. Freediocy rating: What the
hell. Two Freedies. Anything that makes you even happier with a living
situation about which you had zero complaints deserves a two. 1/10/02 at Makor: Adair's Birthday (Observed).
On the verge of another milestone, I was taken to dinner and a Freedy
show to celebrate. No stupidity, nothing goofy. Just a fun show on an
unseasonably pleasant evening. The only drawback? I was a mere three days past getting
one Todd Rundgren song out of my head . . then Freedy played "I Saw
the Light." The curse has returned. And I'm afraid I won't be able
to get this song out of my head without replacing it with something even
stickier. This is a bad path to be on, folks. I could stop making those
all-important distinctions--infectious vs. diseased, pop vs. crap. If
this page is replaced with ranting praise of the Doobie Brothers or Styx,
you'll know what happened. UPDATE: I beat the curse
by the grace of an extremely catchy, good, and unirritating song from
Prince. All hail "I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man." On Friday, 9/28, I brought some of my friends to a
Freedy show at Maxwell's in Hoboken. Our theme for the night: Screw
Trauma! As snide as it sounds, it wasn't.
It was nice to have fun again. A great evening, more because my friends
are okay than because of anything to do with the performance, but the
show really did kick ass. Good crowd, no technical intrigue, great selection
of songs. Three out of my four favorite Freedy songs got played--I was
convinced that I was never going to hear "Caroline" live, and
am glad to have been proven wrong. Plus, when he asked for requests from
the crowd, my called-out suggestion of Matthew Sweet was taken up and
he played "I've Been Waiting." That approached being too cool.
To top it all off, a woman next to me told me to keep asking for songs
because I picked good ones. For some reason, that's about as cool as anything
else. Anyway, a great show at a very opportune time for one. I'm currently
debating whether this or Sleater-Kinney in May of 2000 was my favorite
concert ever. Freediocy rating: three Freedies,
I guess. Dunno. Not a lot of stupidity, just fun, so the scale doesn't
seem to apply. But I'll go with three as a nod to how much I enjoyed myself.
As alert visitors to the images
section know, I saw Freedy at South Street Seaport on August 9. A few
electrical difficulties, but quite a fun show regardless. Being near the
water even eased the hellmouth-style heat that had engulfed the city all
day, so really, things aligned themselves for good across the board. He
signed autographs afterward, so I got him to sign my promo copy of RBP.
(Don't worry, I'm not violating fan ethics. I did
have the commercial version, but not on me. And I wasn't going to buy
one at the show just to have him sign it, three copies of an album seeming
excessive even to me.) It served as a nice cap on an almost inexplicably
good day. No wince-worthy giddiness or true stupidity, but it was still
cool. For the handwriting analysis buffs in the audience,
a picture of the cd. Freediocy rating: two Freedies.
Kind of an anti-Freediotic entry. Went to see Freedy play
at the World Trade Center on July 11. He played really well, had some
very funny moments with co-bill Jill Sobule, and even grinned at the camera
as I was taking photos after and made a joke about some eyeball problems
he'd been having. So I should have had a great time. But . . . well, ever have a day where you find, at its end,
that you've been thinking almost exclusively in profanity? That kind of
day. No sleep, lots of jerkweeds to deal with on the phone all day, subway
stop out when I was trying to get to the show, had to take the abysmal
1-9 which made me late . . blech. Finally found a set of conditions a
Freedy concert can't cure. (Bear in mind one of his shows cured a flu
I had during the second week of winter final exams a few years back. I
thought if a show could cure that, it could cure anything non-terminal.
Turns out nothing is a match for insomnia, Bad People, and the MTA.) Freediocy rating: half a Freedy.
Okay, I went to go see Freedy at Makor
on June 28. A great show. Just him and his guitars, quiet audience at
tables, everyone knew the music, etc. But that is all about the actual
performance, which is only tangentially related to the phenomenon I call
Freediocy. The show did provide, however, my greatest Freediotic experience
to date. To describe that, I'm just going to paste in the email I sent
to a select three the next morning . . . From: Adair Iacono I got an accidental shout-out
at the Freedy show last night. He mentioned his official site and
said he "saw it described online as 'lackadaisically updated'". THAT'S
MY SITE!!! I SAID THAT!!! So, my glory: My shame: Still, kick ass!! And the show was sooooooo
good. To recapitulate: Anyway, I shook his hand afterward and told him I was the
lackadaisically updated girl. He didn't curse me out or pound me to oblivion,
so I'm going to guess that I haven't scarred the man. To accentuate the positive: Freediocy rating: Three and
half Freedies. I went to a Freedy show at Maxwell's
recently. This is a rather small venue, and there is no backstage. I'm
sure there's a place for the artists to get ready and whatever, but the
only way off of that stage is through the crowd. Because of this and because
I was in a good spot, Freedy walked right by me a ridiculous number of
times--off after the main set, on for the encore, off, back for another
encore, off, and then I passed him as I left. Each time past people were
slapping his back and putting their hands out to high five. He got pretty
well manhandled and didn't seem to like it, so I did not join in. I figure
that playing music for a living does not necessarily translate into a
desire to have strangers breach your personal space. He bumped me a few
times going past, but my conscience is clear. Also, one of the times he
walked past, he looked up as I was clapping instead of grabbing at him,
and he smiled at me. The point of this story? Well, there really isn't
one. But there are two details: 1. I TOUCHED FREEDY JOHNSTON! Without acting like a buttmonkey! 2. Freedy Johnston smiled at me! There, I feel better. Freediocy rating: Two Freedies.
More a-comin'!
Fuck off already.
Cordially,
Adair Iacono
• An abortive but fun take on "Suspicious Minds"; if you're familiar with the excellent Fine Young Cannibals version of the song, imagine that without horns. I'm linking to the lyrics so that, if Freedy ever wanders to this page, he will find what he needs to finish the song.
• A more impressive demonstration of memory by Steve Wynn (no, not the hotelier) who came on stage to play for a few songs, and sang a seamless "Positively 4th Street"
Date: 29 Jun 2001 11:29:53 -0700
To: zzzzzz@aquent.com, zzzzzz@gurl.com, zzzzzzzzzzzz@nyc.mediaedge.com
Subject:
Freedy has seen my fansite! My cup runneth over!
Out of a whole site which has as its mission the celebration of his
music, the part that really stuck with him was the one phrase in the
entire site that could possibly be construed as a negative comment
about him. My cup runneth not over, but stoppeth at the brim.
FREEDY QUOTED ME. And now I can never take
down the offending page, because it is the only one I can be sure he read
. . . so I'll just have to apologize here. Sorry Freedy!
Sorry Freedy's webmaster! I had no intention of insulting anybody
. . and, until google picked up my site, no notion that there was anybody
even reading anything I wrote here. Besides, I consider lackadaisical
updating at least two steps above average.
--my page is proving to be of some interest to Freedy fans in various
places (got an email from Brazil!), and on one occasion to Freedy himself
--despite having been out of college a year, and thus not having written
anything with the certainty that it will be read by a freakishly brilliant
professor, I can still make memorable word choices. My ludicrously expensive
education may not have been a total loss.