Richard Lloyd & the Sufi Monkey Trio/Ottley!/The Moderate - Velvet Lounge - April 21 2009

The Moderate - Four young guys who I was thinking were making some nice moves in search of an identity. While still true, they grew on me with some nice songs. Still a bit scattered, but a nice job and plenty of time to gig and practice and keep developing into a strong unit. There is more right than wrong in getting a set like this as an opener.

Ottley! - A three piece, female singer, guitarist and drummer that are a cult supergroup from DC. The singer and guitarist were in the Slickee Boys way back in the day and the drummer was in numerous bands including Nils Lofgren's Grin. The style is close the classic revved up garage rock that the Slickee Boys did so well. Excellent set by a great band well worth seeing at any time.

Richard Lloyd - Oh my, how do I tackle this one. At the beginning, Lloyd treats us to a surly chat with the sound man as he (correctly) points out that this is a line check and not a sound check and to just move it along. He then launches into Television's Friction and some more recognizable cuts, ultimately varying the material with Hendrix covers and other more recent originals. He tells the digital camera lady to turn it off because he had a new song to play without a copyright yet. Yes, the forty people in attendance were all set to steal original Richard Lloyd songs in 2009. Actually he was friends with the woman recording so it wasn't as bad as it sounds. Lloyd had other rambling semi-hazy comments throughout the night and many were amusing. His guitar playing was strong and exceeded my expectations. He does dabble with the new Rocket from the Tombs so I shouldn't be too surprised. The drummer was Billy Ficca also from television. I saw Verlaine a couple years back with Television's bass player, so I have unofficially seen Television (even saw Richard Hell back in the days I could have really seen Television). As Lloyd said, he's paying for his past sins, but it's a pretty small investment from the audience and worth the money for sure.

Quote of the Night - Gads, too many to do, but I'll choose the one from Ottley's drummer describing their namesake... "He said that this was the first obituary I have been in where I wasn't dead".