Live Performances
"Bicycle" — Live At The Galaxy Theater (2000)
This was one of a series of shows with Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, just after The Autumns returned from recording a new album in London with Simon Raymonde of Cocteau Twins. Some funny memories about this show. Matthew had a stalker who had flown from Texas and was hiding in a closet backstage. The Cure had just announced they were considering The Autumns as the opening act for their upcoming world tour. And being Red House Painters fans, there was excitement in the air that Mark Kozelek had been attending these recent shows, which was soon deflated by the discovery he was mostly just there to hit on a mutual friend. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club were signed to Virgin Records at one of these concerts.
Matthew Kelly: Vocals, Guitar
Frank Koroshec: Guitar
Zinskie: Bass
Steve Elkins: DrumsThe Autumns In The Studio (2001)
Rare footage of The Autumns in the recording studio with electronics genius and experimental instrument builder Jon Sonnenberg. Jon was often joining the band onstage during this period performing homemade musical instruments, including a mannequin head with patch cables for hair. The cables were connected to a variety of sound devices which were instantly triggered when touched, including analog synthesizers, record players, a talking parrot, an electrocuted tap dancer, or whatever else his imagination conjured. The head enabled him to play them all at once, rhythmically, as his fingers danced across the patch-cable-hair hanging down like bangs over its forehead.
You could write a book on what Jon did in his spare time any average month. I'd walk into Jon’s hermetic laboratory of a bedroom to inevitably find him sawing a piano into pieces for some mutated electro-acoustic instrument he was building. In the first few weeks of knowing Jon, I watched him construct a fully functioning light-powered synthesizer out of garbage he found in the trash, a transparent heart-shaped remote control so he could make eight of his electronic inventions harmonize “Happy Birthday” to a friend, and even playable replicas of Hans Reichel’s daxophones. He rarely used an instrument more than once, as he was already on to the next invention. The need for a machete and a guide to find his bed through the web of electrical cables crisscrossing his room, often left Jon with no space but the hardwood floor to sleep surrounded by the birds of his creation.