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| Thursday, March 24, 2005 12:08 PM |
| Catching Up |
 by Fëanor |
- From the latest Get Your War On:
My wife and I made our living wills last night. Mine says that if I fall into a persistent vegetative state, and Tom DeLay comes within a hundred miles of me, I am to turn into a zombie and rip his fucking head off. They can't prosecute the undead for manslaughter, can they? I think I want that clause in my living will, too.
- That concert I went to Monday night at the TLA was pretty cool. It was Slint, whom you have probably never heard of. As you'll see from that link, they really only have two albums. They're a weird indie rock band with a very unique sound. The vocals tend to be quiet, quavering, and whispery, while the music tends to be loud, complex, melodic, and full of mystery and a sense of impending doom, even when the lyrics just tell some story of adolescent fear and/or desire, as they often do. I like them quite a bit, and apparently they only tour once in a blue moon, so I decided to go ahead and take my chance to see them. They're awkward and quiet on stage, rarely looking at or talking to the audience, and taking long, silent pauses in between songs to retune their instruments. The set wasn't that long, and when the last song was over, the house lights went up immediately. This makes sense--they don't exactly have a large catalogue of songs! Although they did play some new stuff--or at least stuff that I'd never heard before.
Slint was also REALLY LOUD. This was, in fact, possibly the loudest show I've ever been to. I say this as a man who listens to Guitar Wolf, and who has seen Guitar Wolf live. But maybe the incredible, stomach-churning, ear-crushing volume had to do less with the band themselves and more with my proximity to them. I got much closer to the stage and the giant amps than I usually do. This was because I arrived early to the show (after a tasty and amusing dinner experience at the '50s-themed restaurant, Johnny Rockets), and when the opening band came on (more on them anon), pretty much nobody was in the audience, so I decided I might as well walk up closer to the stage and get a look at these guys. I ended up staying there for the whole concert, even though it did eventually get crowded by the time Slint came on.
But regardless of the reason, LOUD. I thought seriously multiple times that I should have brought some cotton balls to put in my ears and protect what's left of my hearing.
But on the upside, they sounded really good, and it was generally a fun time. I still hate being crowded into a tight space with a lot of people, most of whom are smoking (whenever I get home from a concert, I have to take a shower and throw all of my clothes in the laundry), but whatever.
As usual, I tried to guess ahead of time what kind of folks would be in the audience, and as usual I guessed wrong. I assumed the place would be full of really weird-looking men, most of them older, but it turned out to be a bunch of young people of mixed gender. I should have learned by now that the people who go to live shows are pretty much always going to be a mix of young people of either sex--unless it's a Yanni concert or something.
The opening band--The Icy Demons--was actually pretty good for a change. They were an odd group of folks--a bassist who played stand-up bass and bass guitar and sang lead, a lead guitarist, a cellist, a xylophone-playing guy (xylophonist?), a drummer, and a keyboardist. I thought it was kind of different and interesting that the bassist was the lead singer. Their sound was also pretty unique. A lot of them ended up singing at one time or another, but none of them were particularly good singers. They seemed to be going for a kind of deliberately slightly out of tune singing style. As you'll probably guess from the line-up, they were focused mainly on percussion, bass, and groovy beats. The drummer was fantastic, and really into the music. He jumped around and let his eyes roll up into his head a lot.
- From the bad names for celebrity children department, via Salon's Fix: "Korn frontman Jonathan Davis and his wife, Deven, have named their newborn baby boy Pirate." Yeah, that kid's going to love you. Pirate. Jesus. Lots of people are going to be wondering aloud what should be done with a drunken Pirate when that kid gets to college.
- Last night was mouserobot's surprise birthday party, and boy was he surprised. As he says on his own live journal there, like a deer in the headlights. We met at an Indian restaurant and had quite an excellent meal. A good time was had by all. At some point, some folks there, for some reason, decided we should begin combining the word "spy" with various other words to create new exciting hybrid words, and new exciting hybrid professions. It was then suggested that poppy should from now on go by the term "spybrarian." Hee hee.
Anyways, wish I could have hung around to go bowling with y'all, but maybe next time. Happy birthday, mouserobot!
- But what's up next for me, you ask? Well, let me tell you:
- Tonight I'm seeing another condo--hopefully it will be THE ONE (you know, like Keanu Reeves, except...in condo form), but we'll see.
- Tomorrow night, we finally actually start that RPG campaign I've been talking about. I'm pretty excited. I have to remember to transfer the data about my character onto TrackerNeil's handy character sheet before then.
- On Saturday, poppy, Steak Knife, Aerenchyma, and I (and possibly our friend Kevin) are going to have some dinner at a Thai place and then head off to the Philadelphia Museum of Art to see the Dali exhibit there. I've been dying to see this exhibit since I heard that it was coming here last year, so I'm pretty excited.
- Sunday is Easter, which means a great big Easter lunch/dinner (dunch? linner?) at my cousin's house. Should be tasty and not too painful.
- And coming up soon (April 7-20) is the Philadelphia Film Festival! I've already picked up my All Access Pass and am working my way slowly through the schedule, putting together my usual detailed spreadsheet. I'll probably post the list somewhere around here when I'm finally done.
- I hope this ridiculously long entry makes up a little for my lack of blogging in the recent past. Later.
P.S. On Johnny Rockets (the restaurant I went to before the concert): they have many strange and interesting customs there. They let you choose your straw from a fancy straw container mechanism. They draw a smiley face with ketchup on a plate for you. And their birthday tradition in particular made me feel very, very bad for the people who work there. What they do is, they play "Stayin' Alive" (which is decidedly out of the time period for a '50s themed restaurant, but we'll let that pass) and flash the lights on and off a bit, and all the waiters have to come over and do a long, complicated dance. And they have to do this for pretty much the entire length of the song. When the music came on, my waiter was taking my order. He stopped, put his pad down and said, "Excuse me, I'll be right back." I thought he was going to go tell them to turn the music down, because it was really loud. Then I realized, with growing amusement and horror, what was really going on.
P.P.S. Btw, I highly recommend bringing along a Game Boy Advance SP (loaded up with a good game, of course) the next time you go out to a restaurant and/or concert alone. It makes the time fly by. I also got much further in the Final Fantasy I part of my Final Fantasy I & II game. It's interesting to come back to the grand-daddy of all RPG games and see how this all got started. A lot of the jokes in Kingdom of Loathing make a lot more sense to me now, too.
I also seriously can't believe how far we've come with games. The GBASP is basically a hand-held Super Nintendo, and Final Fantasy I & II is two full-length games, with extra content, on a tiny tiny cartridge that I could lose in the watch pocket of my jeans. I've been playing the first one now for like 8 hours, and I'm not even sure I'm half way through. And now the kids will have their PSPs and their DSs and I don't know what all. It's exciting times we live in, my friends.
P.P.P.S. That ought to hold those bastards. |
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