Difiore, McRea, Nelson, McCurdy in my bad photoguzzi

Sacramento’s Cake played a special show at Avalon Nightclub in Santa Clara on March 14, 2011 and here is my review, in 5 easy pieces:

1.

The highlight for me were the songs from the first record including “Ruby Sees All” and “Haze of Love”. Will Cotter their long-time mixer and tour manager came out of retirement for this one-off and spotted us and got us into the meet-and-greet. Terry gave John McRea a hug and then I said “Hey, do I get a hug?” and John said “I didn’t realize you wanted a hug” and we did a man hug thing. Will also recalled that I once dressed as John at a Halloween show which meant I wore a Tilley hat and maybe carried a Vibra-slap. I bought a Vibra-slap in 1995 and used it as part of the introduction by m.c. of the band and Vince invited me to sit in on the first song and showed me the Vibra-slap pattern of that song (which I probably only did for the first few measures). Ten million cd sales later we are all still in it; in this photo, “birds fall from the window ledge” above them, it seems.

2.

Before Xan McCurdy replaced Greg Brown as lead guitar in Cake he was semi-famous (i.e. less famous than now) for being in The Loved Ones, with Bart Davenport, on Hightone Records, circa 1993. They played Palo Alto, pretty darn sure, thanks to Susan Warren’s Twilight Series, at Mitchell Park I recall, or maybe Rinconada Park Bowl. I caught them in Mountain View (at J.J’s?) and recall that Bart said that sometimes when they play that song “Better Do Right” which was on KFOG, people say “Who’s that by?” and he says “By us!” and people don’t believe him, or didn’t.

I ran into Xan in front of the Bottom during the time I was running for Palo Alto City Council, fall, 2009, and Terry was thrilled to meet a rock star. Xan said his mother, Ms. McCurdy, lived in Palo Alto so that they would consider my offer to come and play a benefit for music in the parks, freedom of assembly, ( and the Weiss campaign only up to the point that I would not have to file with the elections board: I claimed that I did not accept donations and spent less than $500 so I did not actually file with the board).  I recall leaving a voice mail for a McCurdy in the phone book explaining myself  and asking the machine for its or her vote.

So Xan is the dude above on the far right, the least blurry of the four (the new drummer and swell kind of guy Paulo Baldi is not in frame, but with him I had a nice chat). I notice, being a big Cake-head, or caked in Cake lore, that founding axe-man Greg Brown, who wrote their breakthrough hit “The Distance” re-appears on one track of recent cd. I also recall putting on at least two shows with his Deathray, the Cake spin-off band, that was notably once managed by former Gang of Four drummer Hugo Burnham.

In terms of history as prologue of Cake in the 408,  I recall catching the band at The Ajax in San Jo right when “Rock and Roll Lifestyle” got a little love from KOME — I was the one who heckled them by yelling  “PLAY YOUR COMMERCIAL RADIO SELL-OUT SONG!”. I recall catching them at The Brass Rail and Santa Clara University student center around that time.  My first time kinda hearing them it was a co-bill with either Dick Dale or Jonathan Richman at Slim’s and sold out so I heard a few songs through the glass door there a la the dude in “Round Midnight.”

I probably should not say this but the first time Cake played the Cubberley Center John after the show and after settlement asked me for fifty more bucks because he said his car wouldn’t start earlier that day and he had to rent a car to get down to Palo Alto from Sac and although the band was on Phil Walden’s famous Capricorn Records, band members were trying to live off of something like a $100 a week each draw or something that sounded sincere at the time.

3.

These are my actual text messages to Cake’s agent Bruce Solar who guested us and asked for a report; he was a little apprehensive about putting the band in a new room (althought I did meet the promoter Mike Beard and reported back that I thought he was doing a good job).

“Thanks for the show. So far so good. 800 people. 4th song. Set 1. Mark Weiss at Cake” 03/14/2011 08:59:01 PM I don’t have that fancy trendy type of texting; I don’t know if Bruce even reads his texts — we are both rather old school.

“They lost my name, but YOUR name parts the waters. MW” 03/14/2011 09:01:00 PM That’s  a song reference, if anyone is counting. From the first cd.

“Will Cotter spotted us and gave us after- passes. Mark” 03/14/2011 10:44:01 PM

4.

My fondest Cake memories all date to 1995-1998 or so. So I immediately like this little number:

5. John McCrea’s song that asks “how can you afford your rock and roll lifestyle?” does indeed cut close to home sometimes, but not always.  If the world were really my oyster I would update my passport, jump on a plane, (max my credit card), and follow Cake to the following exotic, “Old World” locales, July 1 – July 9, 2011: Athens, Istanbul, Zurich, Milan, Cologne and Liege, Belgium. In theory I could help the band in some way, like the merch table, and or deduct the expense and or blog about it. I think I did tell John that I thought he could run for California governor, that he has a pre-Schwarzenegger type of populism that would help us. So in these interesting times, I nominate John McCrea to be a special cultural envoy for us in those countries. I wouldn’t mind being the Jack Burden to his Willie Stark. Of course I would risk that by end of the tour they would dedicate “I’m So Sick of You” to me: