COLUMNS
Talk Show 1: with Tod Goldberg, Pagan Kennedy, Rick Moody, and Elizabeth Searle
/ Jaime Clarke
08.01.07
TALK SHOW
Hosted by Jaime Clarke
Topic: First Concert
Guests:
Tod Goldberg is the author of the novels Living Dead Girl, Fake Liar Cheat, and the short story collection Simplify.
Pagan Kennedy is the author of eight books, among them the novels Spinsters, The Exes, and Confessions of a Memory Eater, as well as the short story collection, Stripping. Her most recent book is The First Man-Made Man.
Rick Moody's most recent book is Right Livelihoods.
Elizabeth Searle is the author of three books of fiction: Celebrities In Disgrace, a novella and short story collection; A Four Sided Bed, a novel; and the short story collection My Body To You. She is also the librettist for Tonya and Nancy: The Opera.
––what was your first concert?
TG: My first concert was either Donna Summer or Air Supply – neither of whom I’d consider myself a huge fan of, but, as I recall, the tickets to both were free courtesy of the newspaper my mother worked for. My sister Linda tells me that it was Donna Summer. My brother Lee tells me it was Air Supply. In any case, I was nine and really, really drunk and had been snorting coke off and on for, like, ten years, so the memories of both sort of meld into each other. What I remember about both shows was the shrieking diva in the middle of a stage, which is no help at all, I know. And since we had the exact same seats for both shows, it’s even more confusing.
PK: I can't quite remember whether my first concert was Tull, Floyd or Heart, but I'm going to say Heart simply because that's the one that was most memorable. Why? Because I learned a valuable life lesson: If you're female, you should never drink a six of Miller and then go see a chick-oriented hair band. I arrived at the Capital Center in Largo, Md., so full of beer that I thought I was about to pee blood. (By the way, the Capital Center would later be immortalized by my friend Jeff Krulik in underground cult film "Heavy Metal Parking Lot.") So we found our seats down front, and I tried to ignore the bleeting of my bladder, but before the warm-up band was done, I had no choice but to head to the bathroom. There I found a line of women going out the door and all the way down to the Capital Center popcorn stand. Heart fans, I learned, had big hair. Giant cotton-candy like tufts of black and blonde ringlets. And they had to maintain that hair, so they lined up eagerly to get to the mirrors and the stalls, where they could spritz and spray and primp. I spent the whole concert waiting in line for a toilet.
RM: Frank Zappa/Mothers of Invention, the Palladium, NYC, Halloween, 1975. At least I think it was 1975. It might have been 1976.
ES: Elton John.
Hosted by Jaime Clarke
Topic: First Concert
Guests:
Tod Goldberg is the author of the novels Living Dead Girl, Fake Liar Cheat, and the short story collection Simplify.
Pagan Kennedy is the author of eight books, among them the novels Spinsters, The Exes, and Confessions of a Memory Eater, as well as the short story collection, Stripping. Her most recent book is The First Man-Made Man.
Rick Moody's most recent book is Right Livelihoods.
Elizabeth Searle is the author of three books of fiction: Celebrities In Disgrace, a novella and short story collection; A Four Sided Bed, a novel; and the short story collection My Body To You. She is also the librettist for Tonya and Nancy: The Opera.
––what was your first concert?
TG: My first concert was either Donna Summer or Air Supply – neither of whom I’d consider myself a huge fan of, but, as I recall, the tickets to both were free courtesy of the newspaper my mother worked for. My sister Linda tells me that it was Donna Summer. My brother Lee tells me it was Air Supply. In any case, I was nine and really, really drunk and had been snorting coke off and on for, like, ten years, so the memories of both sort of meld into each other. What I remember about both shows was the shrieking diva in the middle of a stage, which is no help at all, I know. And since we had the exact same seats for both shows, it’s even more confusing.
PK: I can't quite remember whether my first concert was Tull, Floyd or Heart, but I'm going to say Heart simply because that's the one that was most memorable. Why? Because I learned a valuable life lesson: If you're female, you should never drink a six of Miller and then go see a chick-oriented hair band. I arrived at the Capital Center in Largo, Md., so full of beer that I thought I was about to pee blood. (By the way, the Capital Center would later be immortalized by my friend Jeff Krulik in underground cult film "Heavy Metal Parking Lot.") So we found our seats down front, and I tried to ignore the bleeting of my bladder, but before the warm-up band was done, I had no choice but to head to the bathroom. There I found a line of women going out the door and all the way down to the Capital Center popcorn stand. Heart fans, I learned, had big hair. Giant cotton-candy like tufts of black and blonde ringlets. And they had to maintain that hair, so they lined up eagerly to get to the mirrors and the stalls, where they could spritz and spray and primp. I spent the whole concert waiting in line for a toilet.
RM: Frank Zappa/Mothers of Invention, the Palladium, NYC, Halloween, 1975. At least I think it was 1975. It might have been 1976.
ES: Elton John.