Things fall apart: Service interruptus on the internet hookups. And the Deadly Snakes have broken up. Sad, but inevitable. Their comments on the split remind me of all those times I watched a great band play to no one, and realizing they probably never would play to a packed house except in a town of their friends.

The Deadly Snakes — Sink Like Stones

The Deadly Snakes – Closed Casket

(both from their best, Ode to Joy)

I previously posted another great track from them here. It sucks to holler into the void sometimes. What with all the other crap selling out venues. So no, I will not be posting I’m From Barcelona tracks. I’m through with glockenspiel including, chorus-sized bands practicing 70s soft rock.

We nonetheless bump shoulders with Sisyphus again: the Sadies will be one of the better live shows you’ll experience — clean shaven, well-dressed standouts in a long line of t-shirted, Riker-bearded hipster boys working out their slim music-class talent in the service of the Artistic Statement. But these Sadies have skillz, chops honed by working as a backing band whenever the money was good: Batshit soul maniac Andre Williams. Neko ‘Parton noir’ Case. Jon Mekon Langford. The Sadies career template, whether they know it or not, might follow that of their Canadian countrymen the Band, who worked behind a special whomever (Hawkins, Dylan) before they realized their skillz allowed them to play in most pop styles, from country to soul to rockabilly to rock, and therefore sometimes forge something new.

On albums recorded in studios, the Sadies have always been interesting and haven’t always been stunning, but the live show remained consistent, like a sun to mutable planets. They were the dynamite behind Neko Case, the night I first witnessed them, to the extent that Ms. Case was able to cede the middle of her concert to the Sadies for three songs of their own without a single complaint from the Case faithful assembled. They were holy shit good. Second time we met, they opened to a politely surprised crowd gathering before sundown in Prospect Park; the headliner, the New Pornographers, were duly upstaged. Note to fledgling band: no headliner-respecting opener should ever cover Boots Randolph‘s “Yackety Sax,” aka the theme from The Benny Hill Show.

We mouth foam, therefore, over their new In Concert Vol 1 & 2, despite not yet hearing all of it, because we know. We know. Why be so curious?

The Sadies – Why Be So Curious? (From In Concert)

The Sadies – It’s Nothing to Me (Harry Johnson cover; from Pure Diamond Gold)

The Sadies – Oak Ridges (from the amazing Stories Often Told)

The Sadies – The Curdled Journey (from Favourite Colors)

PS — An update from the Files of Unintentionally Hilarious T-shirts:
Location: Brooklyn, 4th Avenue.
Who: elderly, southeast-Asian (possibly) looking woman
Wearing: green shirt
Font: Verdana, white
Message: “I Like Going 100% NATURAL.”