NOTE: All photos are copyright of Dean Keim 2025
90’s alt rockers Shudder To Think played an extremely intimate show at Nightclub 101 in the East Village of NYC toa celebrate the release of a brand new 7-inch called Thirst Walk, their first new music as a band since 1998. In honor of this slow-building comeback, they’ve embarked their first tour in over a decade, playing similarly tiny venues starting in Boston, then hitting DC, and finally performing two rock raging shows in a night here in NYC; the early show at Club 101, then a late show down the street at the also very small Mercury Lounge. After this mini-East Coast excursion, they are moving on to the West Coast for some more gigs but I get the feeling that they are going to move up to a much larger reunion tour, and perhaps even release a full album.
The venue Nightclub 101 is a born-again entity, located at the spot that was formerly the Pyramid Club, which has been rocking the LES since the late 70’s with lots of concerts by famous artists from the Beastie Boys to Sonic Youth. It is probably most famously known for being the location of Nirvana’s very first NYC gig. They had become known more recently for all night dance parties and artsy openings, but a few years back it was renovated and reopened as Bakers Falls. Now Nick Bodor has taken Baker Falls and split off to its own spot and this location became the humorously titled Nightclub 101.
Opening the show was a truly unexpected treat with supergroup Zwei Null Zwei taking the stage. This electro-heavy experimental Brooklyn outfit is comprised of some former DC scene icons like keyboardist and synth man Eli Janney of Girls Against Boys, drummer James Canty of Nation of Ulysses, The Make-Up, and Ted Leo + Pharmacists, =guitarist Sohrab Habibion that many may know from SAVAK, and bassist and singer Geoff Sanoff of Edsel. I was rather surprised by how hard they rocked on stage as their studio material seems so heavily krautrock influenced and intensely heady but, on stage, these guys really just seemed rocked it in an old school punk sort of way. This really got the juices flowing for the Shudder while the electronic side that bled out on some of their longer jams had me aptly hypnotized, a real killer combination for a good live band.
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Shudder To Think now has three of their “classic” members back in the lineup, one that defined the early 90’s period, giving us epic albums like Funeral At The Movies, Get Your Goat, and Pony Express Record. This magic team is fronted by Craig Weldren, the only founding member, but the lineup also possesses the perfect power of axe player Nathan Larson and drummer Adam Wade. The two younger guys in the troop are Jherek Bischoff and Clint Walsh, backing up the band on bass and guitar and clearly having the talent to keep up with the old pros. There was also lots of celebrity sightings at the show including actor Paul Rudd, who is a big music freak but also starred in Wet Hot American Summer, scored by Weldren. Nina Persson from The Cardigans was also sighted and, since she’s married to Nathan, I guess that shouldn’t be too surprising. I think I also saw Kerri Kenney from The State who I do believe was involved with Larson. They opened with the powerhouse “Hit Liquor,” blew the lid off with hits like “Red House,” “Gang of $”, and finished off with the biggest earworm hit “X-French Tee Shirt.” The set was stuffed with their classics and a couple new songs, but I was left wanting more. I guess I’ll have to wait for their next swing through in a larger reunion push but I hope I don’t have to wait too long.
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