2013-04-07 Cat's Cradle (Carrboro)
Setlist
Recording
Banter
- This is a song about when you say, have mercy on the sick, and on the aged, and on the bereft, but what about the Diaz brothers? (The Diaz Brothers)
- The funny thing about a hometown show is that you stop by your house, and it takes you out of Rock Person Mode and into Person At His House Mode. Less glamorous mode, a much realer mode. So Brandon, without whom I could not function, says, hang on, you know, we didn't bring the piano bench. Could you bring it. From your house. Yeah, I got it, I'll do that. So I did that and I put it in my car. And it's out there right now. [laughter] I'm sitting on a drum stool. This is a song about how I am going to stab you in the eye with a foreign object. (Foreign Object)
- When I wrote that song [Get Lonely], it was before they started putting a bunch of stuff in all the empty buildings in downtown Durham. And it's a cold day, like, wow, it looks pretty lonely and desperate down here. [unintelligble off mic but it was funny apparently]. (Get Lonely)
- This was on 'Full Force Galesburg'. [unintelligible] I don't know what I thought I was working on then, but now I understand that this is a record about transitions and about moving from one place to another, and feeling uprooted and adrift in both great and weird ways. (Song for the Julian Calendar)
- I would not have picked this to be the song that a fight would have broken out during in Savannah, Georgia, but that's... I'm only telling you that becuase you're my neighbors, I don't want you going woo and going, ah, I better pick a fight during that one to keep the tradition. Not all traditions are good. I'm hoping that's a one off tradition. It was the weirdest thing because this is a slow piano ballad about, you know, people who are gone, who I loved, and uh, lost track of. And, you know, getting into my zone there, and I remember Quinn, I remember Irene, no one knows what happened to Irene, and I open my eyes and there's a guy takin' a fist to the jaw. Well. That's what happened in Savannah. (Steal Smoked Fish)
- This is a song about a wrestler named Luna Vachon, who was the daughter of Mad Dog Butcher Vachon, and who lost track of herself. (Luna)
- I didn't do a check to see if I know the lyrics - I put it on the setlist, we were talking about doing that one, oh, let's do that one, 'cause you talk about doing one and if you don't get it done in the first five or six nights of tour, it just goes away. Aw man, we were gonna do that one, we didn't do that one. [crowd calls to do it anyway] Yes, you can say that, but when I forget lyrics, I can't really just improv. Ya know, I can't just - I'll just say some stuff about the mummy. It'll be cool, right? You can't just drag the mummy in. You have to have a basic precept of fiction and poetry, if you're gonna bring the mummy in, you have to have a reason. Some compelling reason for the mummy to come on stage. He can't just wander - if he does this, your professors - they say "once again, John, you brought the mummy." Well he's what the story's really all about - no. (Never Quite Free)
- There has been some question lately about where the Mountain Goats stand on the question of the wolves. We are for them. (Up the Wolves)
- In the hours when comfort eludes us, on the days when we feel sure that the Most High has abandoned us, his or her mighty face from us, on those days, when the light cannot be found, you know because you looked for it. Not where it was. I left it right there. Someone took it! Where'd they put it? On the days when these questions awaken and torment us, game shows touch our lives. (Game Shows Touch Our Lives)
- JD: We haven’t been playing this one too much for fear of passing out.... I wanna take one out so I can hear, but at the same time you’re supposed to protect your ears.... Nah, I gotta protect them, this one’s as loud as a motherfucker.
Audience: Live hard, die young!
JD: Yeah, it’s a little too late for that, man.
Peter: Easy for you to say.
Wurster: [drums in agreement]
JD: I have news for you: sometimes, sometimes it turns out the slogan you didn't know you were living by was: 'live hard, live long.' The slogan begins to stretch: 'live hard, live long, feel pain, go on...wake up, keep going, keep going, keep going. [cheering] Grow old, keep going, outlive all friends, last man alive, unending desert, so many stars, limitless, endless stars, throne standing alone in the desert, and yourself quite old. This is about none of that business. I just sort of got distracted for a minute by the undeniable fact of my own, uh, you know, eternal insignificance. This is a song about a wrestler whose whole deal is like, people aren’t sure whether he's actually gonna legit eat your face or not. That kind of wrestler is the ones like: No, I think that guy’s really out of his mind. I don’t think that guy really cares.' And these other wrestlers, you can see them, like, takin' a, taking a bump but they’re not actually getting hit because they’re pretty and they want to protect themselves. But you see the occasional wrestler, no, he doesn't give a fuck. He's here to get hurt because he intends to die young. That's in his plan, right, is that at some point he will die and he won't be very old and that will be the end of all that and he won’t care anymore, so why not just go ahead and take a couple of real bumps right now? (Werewolf Gimmick)
- This song is about a fierce battle that took place one day down there at Duke Hospital. (Animal Mask)
- There was a rasslin' card at the Olympic Auditorium in 1980, I think. So in these days, wrestling had been sliding in southern California. It had been really huge in the early 70s, they had sold out the Colosseum, where the raiders played until [Al Davis?] couldn't get more money, and they [unintelligible]. You know that story about the scorpion that wants to get acrossa river, and the frog says, I can swim, but you'll sting me, and the scorpion says, nah, I won't, I just need to go over there. And the frog says, yeah, but I know a lot of you guys you're always stinging frogs. That's what you do. He says, yeah, that's true man, but I'm taking you at your word. I won't sting you, I just need to go over there to the other side of the water, but I can't swim. Frog says, yeah, alright, scorpion gets on the back of the frog and the frog swims across the river, and the scorpion goes with his tail [JD taps the guitar or something]. You have killed me! We're both gonna drown! And the scorpion says, I am sorry, it is in my nature to sting frogs. That's Al Davis (?) with the Raiders. He doesn't mean any harm, he's just a bad person. One of the villains of southern California. But we also had our heroes, particularly the Guerrero family. (The Legend of Chavo Guerrero)
- I know the main thing, the way you're supposed to go is like, you play a mix of songs, then you come to the encore, and you do the ones that everybody knows. We played two from the new album so far....I'm gonna go ahead and play another one. [woo!] It is a dance number. I don't mean to harangue you, but when I say it's a dance number in some of these other towns, there's only a couple people who dance, and they were gonna dance anyway. I should like to see all of us dance. [inaudible] except for the guitar. So my dance is a little restrained tonight. The rest of you are not so encumbered. (Blood Capsules)
- [piano noises] Ok, I'm actually going to play this song. I wasn't going to, but I thought to for a second there. [piano] I do know it! This is a song about my home life. You probably aren't liable to hear it at any other show besides this one. If you're filming or recording, I'd like you to stop. If you're next to somebody who's doing that, I'd like you to take their device away. I will defend you. I know there's certain people who are like, ah fuck man, I gotta get my device where my neighbor won't see it. It has a light. Just knock it the fuck out of their hands. This stays in North Carolina. [cheering and acquiescence by this taper]
- [no children shaped noises] We were gonna do one everybody knows, but instead we're gonna do one not everybody knows first. (The Ballad of Bull Ramos)
- Matt Douglas on the horns and guitars and keyboards. [woo! drumming!] Peter Hughes on the bass guitar. [bass drumming and woos!] ON the drums, the only man who can recite an entire Gangrene track listing from top to bottom, Jon Wurster [woo! bass noises]. And I'm Kenneth G, popular alto saxophonist. [slow vamp] Actually, there's a song I should very much like to hear Kenneth G try to hang with. That would reach new audiences, which is what they're always telling you you gotta do. Find new friends. Send this one to Kenneth, man. Play the hell out of that alto sax. He'd really sell that song. You will hear in elevators. And at weddings. [collective ohhhhhhh, whistling] You'll haer it when you're on hold with Time Warner Cable. Kenny G just wailing away on No Children. (No Children)