Ironic Twist
seeking irony, because sarcasm clashes with my outfit
Friday, July 15, 2005 :::
Lots of stuff going on around town tonight: VHS or Beta at Black Cat. The sold out Bravery show at the 9:30 Club. Ms. holiday girl is guest DJing at Asylum. It's damn humid outside, but don't let that stop you.
Like DCSOB, I don't have much experience with tribute bands. I think I've been conditioned to be weary of them, but since I was familiar with the musicians involved in last night's show, I didn't feel like I was taking much of a risk. Both Athens 82 (or is it 83?) and Mac Attack were great entertainment. They didn't just convincingly play the songs -- they put on terrific shows: imitating mannerisms, having on-stage break-ups and engaging the audience. Speaking of the audience, it was a great one. The club got respectably full, with lots of local musicians in the audience, supporting their friends. During Mac Attack, I was standing next to Washingon Social Club's Martin Royle as he was dancing and cheering his ass off. During both bands' sets, there were lots of people dancing, and not just swaying in one place but actually dancing around. At the end of Mac Attack's set, people were stomping so hard that it felt like the floor might collapse. I realized that although I don't ever listen to Fleetwood Mac on purpose, I knew pretty much every song. Thanks, radio and TV ads.
Athens 82 (or 83):
Mac Attack photos did not come out well because it got more crowded and I didn't want to push through to the front.
Johnny Depp is constructing a cannon so that he can shoot Hunter S. Thompson's ashes into the sky. Yeah, really. I read it on IMDb:
Johnny Depp is busy constructing a special cannon so he can blast his late pal Hunter S. Thompson's ashes into the sky. The cremated remains of the Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas writer, who was a huge fan of explosives, will be shot into the air over his Woody Creek, Colorado, home next month. And Depp, who has hired a Hollywood events planner to oversee the ceremony, now reveals that he'll be shooting his pal's remains from a cannon he's helping to construct. He says, "We're gonna give it our best shot, as it were. Hunter's last wish to have his remains fired out of a 150 foot cannon. That's the weird thing, you have to build the cannon. You have to actually design and engineer and build a canon for Hunter." And after seeing all of the planning involved in granting Thompson's last wish, Depp admits he'd like to make it exit slightly more low key. He adds, "I might go a little more subtle. Maybe put into the eye of the Statue Of Liberty, or something."
Speaking of Johnny Depp, one of my goals for this weekend is to check out Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. And speaking of Tim Burton, I saw a preview for Corpse Bride the other day, and I can't wait for it to come out this fall.
Thursday, July 14, 2005 :::
Tonight's Athens 83/Mac Attack show is getting tons of press! An Express blurb, a Nightlife Agenda pick, two mentions in today's Got Plans? discussion plus plenty of bloggerlove. And there I was, thinking it would just be me and other friends-of-the-bands. My apologies to the bands for underestimating their appeal. I'm looking forward to watching Mike rock the unibrow in front of a full house.
I prepared a Bastille Day set to queue up after midnight, but didn't stay long enough. It was packed when I got there because of some beer/oyster event going on, but a lot of people stayed around after iPod Jukebox started, in addition to the 20 or so people who signed up. Eventually it thinned out a bit and the air conditioning kicked in, but by then the crowd and the heat had made me spaced out and tired. I'm looking forward to seeing the setlists, because I remember really liking the first few sets in particular.
The dogs in this flyer freak me out (goes back to 1998 and a bedouin tent), but here it is, the next bluestate flyer:
Wednesday, July 13, 2005 :::
Update on Friday's VHS or Beta show: openers Controller.Controller and DJ Bob Mould both cancelled. They've been replaced with two locals: Edie Sedgwick and DJ junebullet, one of the first ladies.
This post made me take out the iPod and play "The Melting Moon" a few times. No co-workers walked by while I danced in my chair. I suppose that's a good thing.
Tonight: Leave work at a reasonable time, dammit. Go to the gym. Go home and do sweet, sweet nothing, which will include watching Anchorman on my accidental HBO.
Thursday: At DC 9, members of The Hard Tomorrows and Beauty Pill play early R.E.M songs as Athens 83 and members of The Carlsonics and Washington Social Club play Fleetwood Mac songs as Mac Attack.
You have until 11:59 p.m. on Thursday to win CDs or concert tickets from bluestate.
I can't guarantee that my first setlist is in order, but the second one should be pretty close.
I didn't get to play as many new songs as I wanted because our CD player wasn't reading the CD-R to which I burned a bunch of the songs. Most of these were songs that either aren't released just yet or are Scandinavian imports I haven't mail-ordered yet. You'll get to hear them next week at Saint-Ex instead (save the date: we're spinning July 19). As a result of the CD-R issue, I ended up playing a lot more of the just-in-case vinyl I brought with me, like three songs off of Eat to the Beat because I love Blondie and because I got a request for "Atomic." I also played "Material Girl" off of the Like a Virgin LP with which my brother gifted me earlier that day. He also got me Billy Idol's Rebel Yell LP, but I'm saving that for another time.
In case I didn't tell everyone in person Saturday night, thanks for showing up! We had a really great crowd of bloggers, friends without blogs, DJs, local bands, walk-ins and Mousetrap overflow. It made me quite happy that people danced to the newer songs I mixed in with Hot Hot Heat, ABBA and The Ramones. My favorite new dance song to play might just be the Steve Dub mix of Rinôçérôse's "Bitch," and The Sunshine's "Sabotage" sounded hot coming out of the club's speakers. Although it wasn't packed at first, between 12:30 or 1:00 all of a sudden people started pouring in and... most surprisingly, doing a whole lot of dancing. Maybe the dancing was enhanced by the fact that during the last song I played that night (I dusted off Eve's "Let Me Blow Ya Mind" to follow Gwen Stefani's "Rich Girl") a fuse blew, and there were almost no lights illuminating the entire backstage area, so people thought they could get away with dancing as crazily as they wanted. Not good for the Black Cat staff trying to keep track of people's hand stamps, but good for us. Eventually they turned on some emergency lamps, but people kept dancing until the management finally cut us off at 2:00 a.m. I really wish we could go longer on Saturday night, because people rarely really start dancing before midnight, but even Mousetrap gets shut down by 2:15, so we can't complain.
I did a lot of dancing and even more drinking and as a result spent most of yesterday spending quality time with the couch and TV -- finally watched Some Kind of Monster, the Metallica documentary, which I thoroughly enjoyed, especially since the night before I'd briefly talked to Rishi about The Hard Tomorrows' progress with their upcoming album. Band dynamics are so damn interesting.
Anyway, your mission today is to go to the setlist post, download "Sabotage" and rock out in your office or cubicle or wherever you are. Also, if you want to check out the non-dance-mix version of "Bitch," check out this Fluxblog post. Two fantastic songs to energize your Monday.
You can never enter too many contests or own too many pairs of shoes. Go win some Coldplay stuff from Kludge Magazine and a Kill Rock Stars prize pack from bluestate.
01/05: Taint and Bliss present INFAMY, 9:30 Club
01/10: Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton, 9:30 Club
01/19: Benjy Ferree, Meredith Bragg and the Terminals, Greenland, Black Cat 01/24: Hej Hej, Cafe Saint-Ex
