I never saw Helium live in the flesh (the best band that we've managed to delude into playing out here in the past 10 years is Shellac, which was mondo-surreal to see), but I own several Helium boots, and Bruce is right on the money regarding Helium being a shit band live. It disappoints me so much that I don't even bother searching down helium bootlegs on Soulseek and whatnot.
The first time I was exposed to Helium was back in the old MTV "120 Minutes" days...it must have been when Pirate Prude first came out. I totally remember it like it was yesterday...Thurston Moore was hosting the show, and they played "XXX". Mary instantly became my first serious indie-rock crush (though I had a disturbing "thing" for Kristen Hersh a few years earlier).
I'm glad Thurston was pretentious enough to mention the fact that that Mary used to be in Autoclave. I love that Autoclave record a lot.