I think I’m in love with Julie Doiron from Eric’s Trip. And Frances McKee from the Vaselines. And that guy from Pissed Jeans.

The first thing I really saw at SP20 TK was Doiron joining the Constantines to sing their cover of the Elevators’ “Why I Didn’t Like Autumn ’93” (“I got a girl problem / I got a drug problem”). I was far away on the lawn, but I made sure to get right up front for Eric’s Trip.

^{Eric’s Trip}

Eric’s Trip are a band that I was always vaguely aware of but never really got into. I was a kid when they were active. I remember that Sloan did a cover of their song “Smother” on that DGC Rarities Vol 1 compilation that everyone had (it’s in a used bin near you right now). Recently, though, when interviewing him for a piece on the Microphones, Phil Elverum told me that he got a lot of his ideas from Eric’s Trip, and that they were one of his favorite bands when he was growing up. That, to me, was as good an endorsement as Nirvana covering the Vaselines was for that band. I saw Julie Doiron play a few songs with Mount Eerie when they last played the Vera, and I’ve since been acquainting myself with some old Eric’s Trip and Julie Doiron songs, the latter thanks to a mix cd from a friend (thanks). So I was really looking forward to seeing them for the first time.

First, some sights from the crowd: a trio of high school or junior high kids wearing home-made, sharpied “Hell’s Heaven”/L7 and “Screaming Life” t-shirts; the world’s two biggest jack asses sitting on picnic blanket front and center in the crowd, right where the “pit” would be, laden with a cooler, food, a paperback, and an US Weekly magazine.

Anyway, Eric’s Trip: Genial Canadian longhairs. Doiron hid behind long hair and bangs that covered her eyes, so that all you could really see was her smile, and their first song had a lyric that sounded like something about “hair in my eyes.” The guitarist on the right kept looking at her kind of sideways over his microphone on parts they were both singing, grinning a little. They’d been playing some shows up the West Coast of Canada, they said, so they were in good shape, playing their songs with only one brief false start, but the downside was that Doiron’s voice was going out. “I think I’ve got a polyp,” she said. “My friend had a polyp.”

^{Eric’s Trip}

Polyp or no, Doiron’s voice sounded fine, if occasionally strained thin. The main singer/guitarist (Rick White?) sings on most of the songs, too, so that evened things out.

He introduced the one song by saying, “This is a song of Julie’s.”
“Actually, it’s not,” she corrected.
“Oh, yeah. It’s a song I wrote about Julie.” (I think the song was “Happens All the Time.”)

I know they played “Anytime You Want,” “Follow,” “December ’93,” “Smother,” all of which sounded incredible, all fuzzy and poppy and sweet and not a little unlike Superchunk.

^{Pissed Jeans}

Pissed Jeans have to be one of the most exciting active acts on Sub Pop’s roster. They’re kind of perfect for the anniversary festival, too, as their dark, industrial-grade rock somehow both recalls the label’s past while still being sounding totally fresh. Mudhoney would later play a pretty killer set on this same stage, but at the time, it felt like Pissed Jeans probably offered the best approximation of what it might have been like to see that band 20 years ago.

First of all, the gentlemen of Pissed Jeans seem like a bunch of crack-up smart-asses, especially the singer, who kicked off the band’s set by saying, “I’m glad we all agree that the best time for crazy and wild rock’n’roll is the late afternoon.” Some of his other more inspired antics: blowing a “snot rocket” using the mic to plug up his other nostril, sticking a towel in his asscrack (which was frequently visible being squeezed out of his cheap Mondays jeans), later soaking up a beer with that same towel and wringing it into his mouth, and ramming a “drumstick” ice cream cone into his bandmate’s bass, then placing the ice cream atop his mic to have a lick.

^{Pissed Jeans}

It’s nice that the band has a sence of humor, because otherwise their songs would seem brutally misanthropic and mean. Their singer screams and sneers and moans, the rhythm section pounds and wobbles, and their guitarist—a big, ex-hardcore looking guy who makes his guitar look like a kids toy—alternately shreds fast and lets his guitar hang there, ringing out feedback for long stretches. The only song I recognized was the slower, gloomier “I Don’t Need Smoke to Make Myself Disappear,” but even the songs I didn’t know were a blast. Also, Pissed Jeans had the first mosh pit of the late afternoon, first just a couple punks and one meathead, but soon erupting into a couple dozen people. It was cute. No stage diving or crowd surfing, though.

^{The Vaselines}

The Vaselines! I would’ve paid $30 and driven out to Marrymoor just for this band alone. I spent their entire set grinning from ear to ear, pogoing and pivoting as much as the crowd would allow. Eugene Kelly looks like a nice old man, gray haired, black clad, and respectable. Frances McKee looks rather a lot younger than he does. The guys from Belle & Sebastian are adorable as always.

The set up while Mudhoney dragged out their last songs on the neighboring stage, and, as soon as the sound was switchted over to them, launched into “Son of a Gun” without a word. It was a deliriously giddy moment, and the feeling hung on for their whole set.

The band’s “private humor” was a little bit less slapstick/prop-oriented than that of Pissed Jeans, but it was also routinely hilarious. Mckee, after the first song, promised a “smut free show,” to which Kelly deadpanned, “ this is about Frances’ pussy” (or, a friend disputes, “about Frances eating pussy”), before launching into “Monsterpuss.” He introduced “Jesus Don’t Want Me For a Sunbeam” saying, “This song is about this guy called Jesus, he was kind of the David Blaine of his day, he got into some trouble.” Mckee explained that the reason it’s been so long since they’ve played is that she had been sold into white slavery for 20 years; “I just couldn’t pay the rent,” says Kelly, adding, “We don’t have shirts for sale, but it’s $20 to dry hump Frances after the show.” Later, observing that the crowd looks tired, Mckee wagers it’s dry humping, not heat stroke. Later she complains that the reunion tour is “like being on tour with the Dads”: “The don’t let me drink, they don’t let me get any action.” She later says,” I’m actually a virgin” to huge (weird) cheers, continuing, “A festival virgin. I though there were supposed to be lots of topless women. How about some topless men?” Kelly says, “This next song is an old folk song they play a lot in the schools,” before playing their cover of Divine’s “You Think You’re a Man.” Listening to their records, or just remembering them, it’s easy to get swept up in the idea of the Vaselines as twee, sweet indie popper, but they’re a lot funnier and raunchier than all that. It’s a nice balance.

^{The Vaselines}

Humor aside, the Vaselines sound simply gorgeous. An extra guitarist, bass player, and drummer, at least two of them snagged from B&S, fill out the songs without turning them into showy cover versions. (It occurs to me, during “Jesus Don’t Want Me For a Sunbeam,” that some of the younger kids here might just think these guys were hired to play some Nirvana covers, and the thought makes me kind of happy.) The band brought out a guy to play a squeaky little bike horn for the chorus of the ecstatic “Molly’s Lips.” There was a feedback-soaked harmonica on “Dying For It.” They played “The Day I was a Horse,” “Rory Rides Me Raw,” and Oliver Twisted.” I seriously didn’t stop grinning the entire time. It was just perfect.