This is a bad deal, because Wall Of Voodoo is playing The Pier in Raleigh's Cameron Village shopping center. I'd recently fallen in love with their "Call Of The West" album (it's still a favorite), all my friends had, and we were dying to see these guys.
So I'm packing crap in my dormroom, listening to the NC State radio station. The DJ comes on with this lame question and the promise of a pair of tickets to the first caller with the answer. He begins to play their cover of "Ring Of Fire" and asks who did the original version.
I won the tickets.
We got there early, I remember. At some point, I sat on the floor--actually on a skanked-out piece of carpet brimming with who-knows-how-old spilled beer--leaving my Levis and white Chuck Taylors with stains my mom never got out.
But what a show.
Wall Of Voodoo may be the perfect marriage of pop music and the avant garde. Sorry, Sonic Youth. With their cheesy drum machines, 80s synthesizers and reverbed guitar, they were like nothing I'd ever heard. Still aren't. All this is given some meat by Stan Ridgway's lyrics and delivery. They made two albums (the first was "Dark Continent), and Stan left. It made sense, they'd nailed it on "Call Of The West." What would you do for a followup?
Luckily, what they did next was they toured for it. A lot. Fuelled by the MTV-derived success of "Mexican Radio." And there I was with my free ticket, my best friend James and my beer-stained Chucks.
Okay, now it's 25 years later. Stan's made a string of excellent solo records. And now he's touring, and promising to do some stuff off "Call Of The West" as a 25-year tribute kinda thing. James is coming down from NYC for it.
The Pier is now boarded up, its underground entrance sealed up.
I'm in charge of the tickets again--paying this time. After all, I have a job and a degree and stuff now.
And in a time when not much musically excites me, I'm so stoked for this thing I could scream. It's the 31st. And I'll tell you all about it.
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