Thursday, July 05, 2007

If you like watching musicians sweat, LCD Soundsystem has got to be the best touring band out there right now, pore for pore. Saturday night, they leveled an equally sweaty crowd at Brooklyns Studio B, the warehouse-shaped industrial fun barn in Greenpoint. The LCD live experience continues to amaze, turning the punk-disco songs on Sound of Silver into full-blooded, fire-breathing electrofunk monsters. Singer/cowbeller/evil genius James Murphy, Moog wizard Nancy Whang, bass stud Phil Skarich, Hot Chips Alan Doyle on guitar, Les Savy Favs Pat Mahoney on drums " they attack Daft Punk Is Playing At My House and North American Scum with a ferocity that makes the studio versions sound mellow, with nary a laptop or latte in sight.

Saturday night, they turned All My Friends into a passionately gargantuan epic on the scale of David Bowies Heroes, except with even sadder lyrics. (Alas, despite some wishful-thinking rumors, Franz Ferdinands Alex Kapranos, a part-time Greenpoint resident, did not show up onstage to sing it, but Franz Ferdinands stunning cover is a highlight of the upcoming All My Friends single release.) Sound of Silver is easily my most-played album of the year so far, but live, LCD never fail to surprise. They it seem so simple and so obvious, throwing away complex effects other bands work so hard to achieve.

Murphy introduced Yeah with the none-too-shocking confession that hed started drinking a little early that evening. If we stay onstage, at least one of the band is gonna vomit, Murphy explained. I know that sounds punk as fuck, but if youve ever vomited onstage you know it sucks. So after we play this song, were going away, but this is not an encore. Its a non-vomit break. Clap or dont clap, we dont care " were coming back. Then they played Yeah, and damn if Murphy didnt vomit onstage in the middle of playing his timbales solo! Or so it looked from my perch " maybe he just spat up a little? Anyway, it was punk as fuck. Not the vomit so much, but the way the primal rush of Yeah built up into a cover of Paperclip Peoples Detroit-techno hymn Throw, with Murphys boozy falsetto reverberating through the room as the buzzing and hissing synths echoed Machines 1979 disco epic There But For The Grace Of God Go I. Then they ran offstage to hurl.

The three-song encore was Someone Great, the song I will be playing the rest of my life whenever I want to remember the spring of 2007, which I will. It crunched into their thrashed-out cover of Joy Divisions No Love Lost. When LCD started doing this song live, it made me sad because they were no longer ending shows with their always-amazing cover of Harry Nilssons Jump Into The Fire. Except at every LCD show, it becomes more clear that Jump Into the Fire and No Love Lost are the same song, complete with the same drum solo. I love how the rest of the band all crowds around during that drum solo to watch Pat Mahoneys hands to see if he can pull it off. Saturday night, he did, and I stared at his hands too. They were sweaty.

Over the weekend, most rookie has their heads spinning, coming to a new system with new coaches and more to learn than there was time to digest it.

But two of the teams draft picks " sixth-round CB Mike Richardson and seventh-round C/G Mike Elgin " came in with a bit of a leg up. Richardson played for Charlie Weis , Bill Belichicks old OC, at Notre Dame, while Elgin played for Kirk Ferentz , Belichicks offensive line coach in Cleveland, at Iowa.

The caveat here is that neither of those two played in a system that will directly shorten the learning curve in Foxboro. Richardson was under since-disposed Irish DC and former Cincinnati Bearcat head coach Rick Minter , and Elgin worked for Hawkeye OC Ken OKeefe , who was a head coach at Allegheny and Fordham before coming on board with Ferentz in 1999.

There are, however, stylistic similarities that could be seen by the rookies right away.

Theyre both gonna shoot you straight, said Richardson, in comparing Weis to Belichick. (Weis) is gonna be straight with you with everything and thats a good quality in a coach, because youre never second guessing anything. You always know what to expect.

Elgin reserved judgment at such an early juncture, but did say he got some advice from Ferentz when he was drafted into Belichicks program. And it centered on the fact that all rookies, first-rounders and undrafted free agents alike, are now all on common ground in certain ways.

Basically, he just said that I havent done anything at this level, Elgin said. So I have to come in here, I have to start with a clean slate and prove everything. I havent done anything at this level.

Another similarity Richardson found was in expectations. After 2005, Weis first season in South Bend, the coachs credo was that 10-3 isnt good enough.

So the new Patriot knows well enough to expect the bar to be pretty high in New England.

(Weis) expected a lot of things from us, he said. He expected us to do the right thing. And if you didnt do the right thing, or you were repeating mistakes, he was gonna get on you about it, as well he should. You want the best performers on the field, and you want your players to perform well.

Thats what Im looking forward to doing now, just learning the process, learning the different aspects of the team, and hopefully down the line I can make some contributions.

The biggest thing drawn from these two was that the process-oriented nature each one of these coaches has. So the two kids, each of whom worked out well in their first weekend, came in with that knowledge " specifically that each step is important, and even a little one like the one just taken needs to be approached with a serious mind.

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