Bloodless Coup

Clem Snide and End of Love

Last night, after seeing a speech by Seymour Hersh, I went to an old-time neighborhood drinking establishment. You can imagine my surprise that Eef Barzalay opened the door for me to go in, and you can imagine my further surpise to find out I was walking into a free Clem Snide show in what would seem an extremely unlikely location. But as surprises go, it was one I was very happy to fall into. They were tremendously entertaining, playing both their own music (beautifully of course), covers (of, among others, Johnny Cash, CCR, Nico, even Christina Aguilera), and inviting people in the audience to come up and sing (so we were also treated to renditions of "I'm on Fire" and "Take on Me"). All in all it was a great show, perhaps livelier and louder than one would have expected, and it led me to pick up their latest album, End of Love. It is, predictably, great stuff - lovely music and very fine lyrics.