Blog-A-Tude

May 2012

Fri, 01 Jun 2012 13:05:00 GMT

Remembering Adam Yauch

Growing up, in my mind, I was the fourth Beastie Boy. I mirrored myself after them, I grew up in synch with the release of each of their albums, had every shirt, sticker and bootleg you could shake a stick at and scraped and saved to make it to every show within a 250 mile radius. Eventually I think I just internalized the music and the message so much that it became part of who I was as a person. When I heard about Yauch passing, I felt the loss as if it were a family member and I marinated on that for a few days. Yauch's words played such a big part in helping me to create myself, that his death created a loss, a void

Marilyn Manson/The Pretty Reckless - The Palladium - May 11th - Dallas, TX

Here's what happened:

Nothing was working out down to the tiniest detail - I get to Will Call to discover that my ticket is not there.

April 2012

Tue, 01 May 2012 14:15:00 GMT

Apr 5th
The Toadies @ Rockin Rodeo (Denton, TX)

April 7th
The House Harkonnen/The Phuss @ Lola's (Fort Worth)

April 10th
At The Drive-in @ Trees

April 11th
Steel Panther @ HOB (Dallas)

Apr 13th
House Harkonnen @ Curtain Club

Apr 21st
The Ting Tings @ Granada Theatre (Dallas)
Record Store Day @ Good Records
w/ The Ting Tings - 3pm
Switchfoot - 5pm

The Honey Brothers @ Fair Park - 1:45pm
@ Liquid Lounge - 1130:pm

Apr 23rd
Korn @ The Palladium (Dallas)

April 29th
Sage Francis @ Trees

SXSW 2012 Prequel - Warm ups in Dallas w/Questlove, Wildstreet, C.O.C. & the Do4it Showcase at NX35

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 10:05:00 GMT

March is always one of the busiest months for me - I usually spend the entire month in Texas - for my birthday, and then several weeks in Austin for SXSW, but in the last couple years also tacked on to that schedule is NX35 in Denton, that is growing each year and is serving as kinda of tailgate party before the big game, that and with all the pickup dates from bands that are not actually on tour but just going to Austin for SXSW and play a few stray gigs along the way to usually pay for the trip.

NX35 Festival - Day 3 - The Do For It Records Showcase - March 10th - Denton, TX

This festival, run by Chris Flemmons from the Baptist Generals has shown immense growth over the few years he's been doing it, and shown exponential growth with each year - it just keep getting bigger and bigger, but not so much that it loses its charm.
This year was no exception, as the festival booked even bigger bands and attracted even bigger crowds. One of the weirdest memories I have of any musical adventure period was last year at this thing, with a particularly strange night with Kid Koala.
My problem this year was that for all that growth, I just really wasn't interested that much in the bands they chose, and it was plagued with bad weather this year that made the daily trips out to Denton unlikely for me.
So I picked just one day of the four to go and its not a coincidence that it was for the Do For It Records showcase, headlined by Trickykid alumni, The House Harkonnen.
The other bands were acts on the label that I've been wanting to check out as well, and not having to move from venue to venue like I would be doing next week in Austin, it was perfect to go to one venue, stay out of the rain and just see all the bands I want to see in one place. So by that rationale, I didn't really experience the festival as much as simply going to an HK show with bands I wanted to see opening.
I had just seen The Phuss for the first time the previous week, I'd been hearing about them from the HK guys and a few other sources. My buddy Todd who plays in the Toadies produced their LP and Stuart Sikes who did all the White Stripes records, mixed it.
And the live show I saw was scorching, so I got their early as they were the first band so I could see them again as I wanted to check out every act at the showcase.

I had tipped some friends off to get their early too after seeing the Phuss the previous week to tell them they had it going on. My friend Patrick, who just suffered a family tragedy, I wasn't sure was coming, but I was glad he did so I could take his mind off of it.
He was as impressed as I was, and though the show wasn't quite as hot as last week's they still killed.

Up next was the Spectacle, another band I've been trying to see that's all part of that family.

They were good and totally legit, however I don't quite go for that type of oft-growling vocal style, and their over-all image is somewhat intimidating.

Up next was Shaolin Death Squad (who were scheduled to play one of of our showcases last year at SXSW) who was probably the most challenging for the crowd. They def have that bizarre Mr. Bungle influence to their sound as well as their image.

I thought they looked awesome and was into the show, but they did play for a bit too long for something that inaccessible and feeling the crowd getting antsy, made me get antsy.
And though the room was full when they were on, it seemed like everyone was awaiting the House Harkonnen, however when HK finally took the stage, just a bit after 1am, the place had cleared considerably, and the crowd of 200+ seemed to be down to less than 100. Maybe they were up against some huge headliner somewhere else, I don't know. Didn't stop them from playing a brief, but face-melting 40 min set that absolutely scorched.

I tell anyone that will listen and then some that won't that this is the best kept secret in the country - they are stupid good and devastating live.

So the night was getting a bit late, now close to 2am and I still had to drive back from Denton, with a million things to do to prepare for Austin and a few other things. I look forward to seeing what they have up their sleeve for this festival next year.

Questlove - Club Allure - March 11th - Dallas, TX

Now I was a bit apprehensive about this as Club Allure, is not in the safest of neighborhoods, but I'm not concerned with such things, and wanted to see my man Questo get down. In Brooklyn, every Thursday he throws a party called the Bowl Train - at the Brooklyn Bowl so is a blast.
I had hung with my bff Chris and his wife earlier that day and was trying to convince them to come, but Monday morning comes early for people with children so I soldiered on alone.
Thank goodness I was on the guest list because what they were asking for cover was ridiculous for a DJ set no matter how good it was. The atmosphere of the place is what I expected - velvet rope trendy and enforced dress codes and valet parking.
It was sad to see that though people were moving to the groove, alot of what he was laying down was lost on the crowd that only seemed to recognize snippets of major hits from the 90s, but when he hit with the Meters or a Clyde Stubblefield drum track under a Gloria Jones vocal, it seemed too mature for this crowd.

Didn't bother me none, I had a great time dancing and had a great conversation with Questo after the show.

Corrosion of Conformity - Trees - March 12th - Dallas, TX

A brief history lesson of C.O.C. - For the first ten years of their existence their were a three-piece (sometimes four) punk juggernaut with a blistering sound and a downright frightening image. In the early 1990's they acquired new member Pepper Keenan, who not only took over on vocals but on the later albums, his taste/persona seemed to take over the whole band. His first record with them, Blind turned them into a straight up Heavy Metal band and then with the next three (and finally commercial success) they became this southern fried, blues-y Pantera-ish entity that made them completely unrecognizable from the former years, especially after drummer Reed Mullin left the band.
If I was being truthful, even though the purest will condemn this, when I want to listen to C.O.C. its those three southern rock albums I like the best, and probably haven't purposely listened to those early records since I first heard them as a kid.
Well for this tour, Pepper Keenan is absent, (actually in the band Down with Pantera member Phil Anselmo) - Reed Mullin is back, C.O.C. are once again a three piece, just released a new album that's a complete return to its punk rock roots and this tour they will be playing that stuff and only that stuff to celebrate its full-circle return.
I walked in right as they were starting -

This didn't feel like some half-baked reunion or an example of diminishing returns, but a testament to immense talent and the elusive endowment of their staying power. They kicked serious ass. I thought I would miss Keenan more than I did, but in fact Mike Dean as I learned is actually a better front man and can engage the crowd better.
Towards the end of their set, a drunkish fratboy came up to me excited having just arrived, asking me of they had played Albatross yet, their one singular hit from the height of the Pepper Keenan era.
Clearly uninformed of the intent of what this tour is all about, while simultaneously appearing as the kind of fan that only knows the band's biggest hit - this kid was lost. I tried to explain to him that they are not playing this stuff on this tour but his intoxication level prevented him from seeing the big picture. It did not prevent, in fact seemed to encourage his need to make me his new best friend and he literally pinned me to the wall with conversation that I couldn't get away from. Nice kid, he was there with some other dudes in a completely unknown band who's name escapes me from Florida on their way to Austin for SXSW on some first-time excitement shit.

Setlist:

Bottom Feeder
Psychic Vampire
Loss for Words
Mad World
Consumed
Seven Days
Your Tomorrow
The Doom
Vote With a Bullet
The Moneychangers
Deliverance
Rat City
Holier

Encore:

Hungry Child
Leeches
Technocracy

Wildstreet - The Ranch - March 13th - Arlington, TX

You would think that with all I had hanging over my head and leaving for Austin first thing in the morning that I wouldn't have pulled a four-night stretch before the five-night stretch, but such is life.
Trickykid alumni Wildstreet were playing a warm-up date before also heading to Austin for SXSW and wanted to speak with them and make sure everything was in order for them.
Now I must disclaim, that I did NOT book this show, and its lack of legitimacy is a part of the dysfunction that seems to haunt this band.
If I have my way, you are gonna see alot more from this band, doing more high-profile appearances in the near future.
Though I appreciate the work ethic, the band seems to take a gig literally anywhere - and again I love the we-play-anywhere-anytime vibe, that shit won't be practical for long, so we are in talks right now to extend our relationship to keep them from disastrous gigs like this.

They have a strong network of about a dozen people locally that support them - book the show, give them a place to stay and sometime make up the members of the opening bands, and I don't blame them for taking them up on their hospitality but what happens is - they play a place like this - that is NOT a recognized music venue, in fact, it was most recently an all-nude strip club and still had that vibe lingering.
The only people that were there were the original dozen supporters, because no one knew about the show and it was promoted about as well as a case of herpes. It might as well have been a private performance.
It was still good to see them, and the local gang and with this done, now we were all set for Austin.

Be sure to check out the SXSW posts!

SXSW 2012 -The Final Day - The Cult w/ Rooney Mara, Erykah Badu gets weird & ASAP Rocky riot at VICE

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 05:55:00 GMT

Ok, so last day of the festival, and it felt so great as on the last day I could just relax - Not only did I not have one thing to be responsible for, but this might be the first time that has ever happened in the 15 years I've been attending this festival. Last year was the polar opposite - the final day was showday and everyday before that, the responsibilities accumulated.

Ok, so what to do today? - Well Matt and I didn't get to sleep till close to 6am - Today was St. Patrick's Day & tradition states that on Saturday that I have brunch Rachael Ray style at her annual party - however with a start time of 10:30am I feared that I wouldn't get there till after all the food was gone. Matt's plan was to have brunch with his girlfriend Stephanie before going to work - this also gave me a chance to meet her for the first time. She was lovely and really nice and about 74 months pregnant - part of the big news that ol' Matty layed on me all at once the other day at lunch.
I took advantage of the empty house and took a nice long shower - adjusting to the fact that I was at my own pace for the first time - then headed over to Stubb's for Rachael Ray's Party:

DAY 4 - March 17th

The party was set to end at 4pm, and I didn't get there till almost 2pm so I missed the act that I wanted to see - Ray's husband is in a band called the Cringe that we toured with three years ago and today Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top was gonna join them for a few songs and I really wanted to see that. The main attraction for this event of course is the food - which was really good and still in large supply.
Brisket sliders and potato salad as well as free Blue Moon beer to drink and a perfect day in the sun.

While in the super long line to eat I did get to hear a few tracks from recent Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, Jimmy Cliff. He brought that cool Reggae shit to the stage and had everybody singing with his famous cover of Johnny Nash's I Can See Clearly Now.

After he finishes, everyone turns around to face a make-shift stage they had erected in the back facing the main stage where Theophilus London was starting his set almost immediately -

Some friends of mine from Brooklyn were playing in his band and some of the first real street mix-tapes I heard when I first moved to Brooklyn in 2006 - A very original take on hip-hop - young, energetic and clever and bringing a killer backing band is super legit - this kid is gonna and deserves to be huge - check out his new LP - Timez Are Weird These Days.

While I was eating, I was sitting around this table in the back and I said hello to Ray's husband John - who introduces me to these guys eating with him. They all looked like your cool uncle, or the hosts of some show on TruTV with their abundance of hair gel and goatees.
Very nice guys and actually really enjoyed speaking with them at length - no idea who they were -

Well, know the last act of the day, Train, a band that I'm completely unfamiliar with takes the stage to enormous applause - and its THOSE DUDES -
I feel totally out of the loop as everyone here seemed to adore this band, and not only did I not know who they were, I didn't know they were even in a band when I was talking with them.
Well since I liked them as people I was hoping to like their band - but that would have required me being the Saint - because they were fucking terrible - As in embarrassingly so - Miss Ray didn't seem to mind as she joined them for a song.

The crowd didn't seem to care - especially with the cringe-inducing double cover of Journey's Don't Stop Believing - and the ill-advised take on Led Zeppelin's Ramble On.
Now I don't want to sound like a snob here, because the kind of people the hate on the people that are into this stuff, annoy me just as much with their pretensions - but this was the kinda of crowd that would appreciate hearing that Journey cover as something to sing along to, instead of puking in the bushes like I was. I know that the people of Austin would prefer that you identify them with the weird, Bohemian culture, but their are just as many fratty, trendy, fake tan douchbags in this town as any college town in America.
They played two songs that I actually knew, I just didn't know who sang them - Drops of Jupiter and Hey Soul Sister - and I thought oh this is THAT band.
Before leaving the stage the singer mentioned that this April, Train will serve as the official Rachael Ray Show house band. "We've never done that and there's only one person we'd do it for and that's Rachael Ray." - That entire last sentence should sum up everything that was wrong around me. Except that I did manage to convert two more non-believers to the new VH LP - My work here was done.

After I left there, the next thing I wanted to see was conveniently across the street at Club Deville for the Legendary Roots Crew -
I thought their might be a bit of a line, but again it was a complete shitshow with lines snaking all over the place and it appeared that the entire festival was there. I had wanted to see Bob Mould from Husker Du who played much earlier -
No one seems to know what's going on and again I stood in the wrong line for way too long. I see Questo getting walked in and prepping so I finally discover that the guest list is at the side door around the corner. I can't stress this enough, at this festival unless you are a band's guest list - that badge or wristband is most likely worthless.
I get over there and and people are rabid, like bum rushing the door, even a couple of girls went for broke and just ran in only to be escorted out a few minutes later. All this for that? - Nothing against the Roots but I thought my own shit was ridiculous last night at Jack White, but this just didn't make any sense.
I'm on the list - but still have to wait and the right as they take the stage I'm admitted in:

They showed in stunning aplomb why their usage of their role on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon has yielded such an immense upswing in popularity for them. The band took hip-hop and rendered it with the organic quality of an expert-class live band. The group performed a few of their own songs, How I Got Over before flexing their musical muscles in some highly stylized cover songs. The Roots dropped in bits of Guns N’ Roses’ Sweet Child of Mine and Led Zeppelin’s Immigrant Song. - Second Zep cover I've heard in an hour from two very different bands - with very different results.
The band did an inspiring rendition of Jungle Boogie and gave props to DJ Jazzy Jeff, by bringing him on stage to join with Questo and Frankie Knuckles for an improv drum solo. Awesome -

The next item on the agenda is one that took me down a strange winding road - Come to think of it, I've been down quite a few of these this week - but shit is about to get real weird.

To get out of the 6th st. insanity and to see more of the city (though I've seen it a thousand times) - the most appealing thing for the next few hours was to cross the river to Auditorium Shores for tonight's big performance from the Cult - not to mention it was totally free, and big enough venue to hold half the city, though with the way things were going, I'm almost half-expected to have to be on the band's list as well - which I sorta was as I had an All Access pass, another incentive for going.
Now - to get over there - its not that much of a hike, but I was on 10th and Red River so I had about 20 blocks to go but I had heard that their was a shuttle that would take you over there leaving from the Convention Center. Though I don't play that badge game, I usually try to visit the CC at least once every festival - don't ask me why but I just do.
When I find the shuttle pick-up apparently I had just missed it and the next one was not for another 45 mins but I saw another shuttle that was headed to the Film Festival that was going to pass by right by there so I thought maybe I could charm the driver into dropping me off there after they dropped everyone else off.
The Film Festival just happened to be in the same shopping center as the Randy Palmer's gym where we had our infamous showcase last year - just the site of it filled me with equal pride/disgust.
My charm worked and the nice lady obliged me and dropped me off in front of Auditorium Shores for the show.

Their were two opening acts, only one I was even remotely curious to see and that was the first one, Shiny Toy Guns -
Ohhhh how many times in NYC circa 2006-2007 did every third request while I was DJ'n was for their song Le Disko.
Just typing that I'm instantly back at Luke & Leroy's for a notorious weekly party called Rated X.
I actually like the song, it was perfect at the time - a real sleazy late-night sexy dance jam for kids to make out to on the dance floor.
But for them to pull this off as real live band with instrumentation, in the brightness of 6pm and outdoors no less, I wasn't sure what to expect. However, Carah Faye Charnow, the hottie with the sultry voice that fronted the band back in the day but had since been replaced twice, was now back in the band and she looked fantastic:

She seemed a little unsure of herself at time, but was really sexy, and she tried really hard, but it just doesn't seem to come natural for her. so it gave the gig a high-school talent show feel.

The next band is something of an anomaly to me - Bright Light Social Hour, just the name causes testicle-recoil - It just sounds fucking lame or like everything else right now that has that lazy cute factor, like those fuckers that sing that Pumped Up Kicks song (who I will bludgeon with an inch of their lives if I ever get my hands on them) -
However, my good friend Randy, who is very ballsy, adores BLSH and practically insisted (via text) that I see them.
Hey I wasn't going anywhere anyway (and this is the only way I would have ever seen an entire set by them) and now I could satisfy Randy and not have to attend any future gigs while I just sat and watch the place fill up with girls in bikinis while they played.

If I could cherry-pick everything I loathe (beards,bikes, Bohemia) about Austin without any of things I love (the food, the girls, the Sword) -
Bright Light Social Hour would be the ultimate representation. One of the most over-the-top derivative things I've seen in awhile.

Finally it was time for the Cult - they weren't letting anyone backstage during the show, and more on why later.
However, I still have no explanation for this turnout, this was amazing! something close to 20k people came! This has to be one of the biggest headlining shows this band has done in America in 15 years.
Sure the show was free, but they played in the freaking parking lot at Waterloo yesterday for free too, and their official showcase was in a shoebox next to the old Emo's - what's going on here?
Regardless I'm glad, it really made the show -

They have really faltered in the last few years and now they were here promoting that their gonna release a new LP for the first time in five years. They were in pretty good shape and sounded really decent and driven. The last few times I've seen them have been dreadful, but I love them so much its a little irresistible to not go when they were playing a show like this while I'm in town.
In my freshman year at college, I saw them play one of the best shows I've still ever seen in my life and the residual value from that show keeps me coming back.
Though some key members are back in the band and everyone looked and sounded great and probably the best I've seen them in 15 years - one thing that has remained and will never change is that singer Ian Astbury has the absolute worst between-song banter in the history of performing. You would think that after all this time he would have this down by now, but he consistently comes off as your drunk uncle embarrassing you with some inappropriate speech at your wedding.
The band still kicked ass though and the new songs sounded really good - however the only thing anyone will remember from this show was something very silly, but added spontaneity to the evening was Astbury bringing up Matthew McConaughey to play (unmiked) bongos on a couple of songs.

Besides the obvious this was silly for a number of reasons - they just let him pound away unmiked so not to interfere with the song, also though it was 10pm he kept his dark Aviator Shades on the whole time like a creep, and when his image was shown on the big screens sidestages, it drew the largest applause. Ok, I get it, it was a way to include him and make the evening special, its not like I hate fun.

SET LIST:

Lil’ Devil
Honey From A Knife
Horse Nation
Lucifer
Embers
Nirvana
Wildflower
The Wolf
Spiritwalker
Phoenix
Fire Woman
For the Love of the Animals

Encore:

She Sells Sanctuary
Love Removal Machine

Now as I hate to make fun of the starfuckers in the crowd and then turn into one myself, the thing that I will remember most is this:
As I'm backstage talking to some of my friends and a few of the guys in the Cult, I see this staggeringly gorgeous creature walking by me, back and forth several times. Besides her freakish good looks she just seemed like a normal festival-goer - She was even wearing a SXSW badge around her neck like everyone else. She seemed like she was looking for something and I definitely wanted to talk to her so I approached her and she asked me if I had a lighter, which I did.
As I'm pulling the lighter out I glance at her badge and it reads: ROONEY MARA
No fucking way - now I'm the one drooling (as if I wasn't already) -
Bill Murray? sure, Matthew McConaughey? expected - but the fucking Girl with the Dragon Tattoo?? This was not in the plans and I was kinda shitting myself. This was perfect timing too because I (and perhaps the world) will never be in love with her again as much as I am right now and I wasn't meeting her in 10 years at some Comic-Con with a folding table between us.
I had just seen the movie - I didn't' know shit about it other than its the book my friends who don't read are reading this year.
Though the racy scenes in the film of her are not gratuitous, I don't think that you are supposed to see her as such a babe for the story's sake - but let me tell you something, every time she was on screen my heart kinda jumped a little and in person she looked flawless.
I managed to not make a dork out of myself and spoke with her briefly and another actor, Gerard Butler.
She was the one that actually gave me the explanation of why I couldn't come backstage during the show -
They were actually shooting coverage and improvised scenes for an upcoming Terrence Malick film with the members of the Cult!
Nothing to do with the Dragon Tatoo series - another film she's gonna be in, apparently her character goes to see the Cult in concert etc.
McConaughey was being McConaughey so I let him be - and I would normally never do this but I knew that nobody would believe me - so when this other guy asked to get a pic of Mara, McConaughey, and singer Ian Astbury, when he left I got a shot. They asked if I wanted to be in it, but I wasn't gonna douche-out that hard:

So I left there feeling pretty good, a great show with an unexpected ending, what a freaking day already eh? Ok now I had to get back on the shuttle and get back into the thick of it. Matt was now off work and was wanting me to pick him up, but I again I was on the shuttle several miles from my car so we agreed to meet at the next party which was the Red Bull Three Style block party that we both were greatly looking forward to - a truly free party with a killer lineup that would be hassle free -
I'm the first to arrive and this party is so massive that it literally takes up one entire city block giving a new meaning to block party - and even with all that room, guess what? They were not letting anyone else it - It made ZERO FUCKING SENSE
This is one of my favorite parties every year and it's always zero hassle. The main act Matt and I wanted to see was DJ Jazzy Jeff and thanks to it being outdoors and on an incline I could the show from outside, about as good as I could inside, however how humiliating.

He was done before Matt arrived - who was kinda losing his cool with the event and trying to arrange a spot to meet me.
He eventually gave up all together, complaining that the lack of coordination was causing him to miss out on guzzling free drinks at the Belmont.
I eventually made my way in to this fucking place as the Crystal Method was starting their set:

They were the same as they every were, forgettable but fun, and this crowd needed some fun right about now.
This would be extended as after their set a dude a came out to introduce a special guest that he accompanied with a fun story - The guest turned out to be a blissed out set from my man Questo from the Roots:

I felt like it was Thurs and I was back in Brooklyn at the Bowl Train party he throws weekly. He did just what he does best, play shit you wished you owned, from Slum Village and J Dilla joints you only hope to hear again one day.

The place started to jump and get a little restless in anticipation for Erykah Badu who was debuting her new act tonight, a group with the unfortunate play off the word cannabis - The Cannabanoids.
I couldn't be more tired of the hip-hop/weed synergy - I don't think even Cypress Hill raps about marijuana anymore.
However, I am a huge fan of hers and like everyone here was excited to see what she had up her sleeve.

The band takes the stage, which consists of just a bunch of producers taking their place behind their laptops or samplers, as she makes an entry only she is capable of. However this momentum was totally squandered by the most irritating intro tape ever -
This intro loop with its accompanying video footage would introduce each member and the joke was that they each had so many a.k.a's - Ok this a bit a funny, but they would spend seriously like 2-3 mins on each member and their were like NINE OF THEM!!
That means that the crowd had to wait seriously another 15-20 mins while being assaulted by this thing.

The concept as she explained it, or more accurately boasted, was this whole thing was an improvised "jam" meant to show off the individual as well collective talents of the group - all plugged into one brain so to speak - Badu even had a prop of a brain to illustrate this. However the results were pretty disastrous and totally weird even for her. This might work at a really intimate venue on a late Tuesday, but this was Saturday night, St. Patrick's Day, in a giant open-air festival on the final day of the festival, everyone has reached their limit and the only thing that's keep them going is a party - so to subject them to some strange vanity project was a bit naive I thought. Badu could tell too, as with each jam came another collective sigh that people had climbed the fence to see this and were disappointed. Several times she asked "What's up? Yall not feeling this?" - Sorry Erykah but no.

It was almost midnight and I wanted to stick around for Z-Trip and had heard that Nas was gonna make an appearance, but for the first time this festival, I was just plain bored, by myself and tired of standing on the pavement. Their was one business associate that I still hadn't met up with this trip and tonight being the last night and now close to midnight, I should probably makes some plans like now to do so right?
No sooner had I thought that, she text me to come hang and see one of her artists - we have been texting all week, but she can be a little unpredictable in my experience so I hadn't been willing to make much effort but now, this was perfect. She gives me the address, I'm about 6 blocks away so I head on over.
When I get to the address she gave me, it was some abandoned building, but it was across from the Pure Volume Party and I thought, "not this shit again?" - So I text her to ask, and she realizes that she has given me the wrong address - ok, shit happens, so I know I go to the RIGHT address, 3 more blocks away, that I BELIEVE is the address, and when I get there, it is but her artist had already finished, and then she notifies me via text, that also had already split - WTF?? you invite me over, give me shit directions and then leave before I get there??
She explained that they had to head to the performer's next gig and that we could meet over there and that she would leave my name at the door - Ok fair enough, and this next gig was at the infamous festival-closing Vice Party -
For those that don't know, since 1998 when I first started attending this festival, their is always the ultimate party that ends the festival on the last day - it used to be the Spin Magazine Party, that was held in some remote place every year that you weren't told until the day of the party. I remember seeing the Flaming Lips in an abandoned used car dealership at 3am standing next to Tom Waits and Jeanane Garafolo.
For the last couple of years its been (appropriately) the Vice Party - always the young gunslingers associated with violence (last year it was Off! and Odd Future) free booze and the ultimate in bragging rights for those that give two shits about such a thing. It's primarily like I mentioned before, the last party, and everyone, regardless of who's playing wants to say that they made it to the finish line.

Quite frankly for me, I could give two shits, the party starts at 1am and is supposedly going till 7am - God fucking help us.
Kelly had made it out and she was with Matt over at Scoot Inn, that was conveniently one city block from the Vice Party, so I got invites for all of us and decided to go out with a fucking bang.

Unbelievable I found parking rather easy but that is where my good luck ran out. Kelly and Matt where gonna meet me when their show was over, but what greeted me at the venue was a shitshow, to end all shitshows - the perfect summation of the vibe,dysfunction and all of my aggravations with the festival this year, and just current youth culture at large.
Remember how I keep mentioning that if you were not on a band's list you weren't getting into anything this year - at this fucking thing their were actual performers having trouble accessing the building.
The people out front were not getting in period, thankfully I had an ace in the hole (or so I thought) at the side door where the artists' were entering to use my invites.
I get over there and let me tell you something - what transpired was one of the most vulgar displays of social hierarchy from the grossest generation ever to exist - it was like Lord of the Flies on Hipster Island brought to you by Iphone and Isanyoneup.com - these fucking soul-less vampires were ready to eat each other for entry. Because what it meant to these bloodsuckers wasn't the booze or the bands that I'm sure they had barely heard of if it all, it meant the inner sanctum for those that care about such things - with all the Facebook and Twitter and just constant self-promotion of their inane thoughts and postings of 10 clothes changes a day, it meant they had won the attention whore contest motherfucker and fuck her if she don't like it.

I get up to the door and its such chaos that I can't even get out if I changed my mind, and if I was alone, I would have just gone home, but I didn't wanna disappoint Kelly and Matt who were expecting me, in fact Matt was downright harassing me via text, and I wanted to keep my business meeting.
People were actually fighting to get in and revolting by just jumping over the check-in table causing a fire-hazard crush blocking the door to get in.
It could have been a reformed Talking Heads playing inside and wouldn't have subjected myself to this based on the verbiage alone:
"I know so -and-so - do you know who I am bitch? - my daddy OWNS this building - why don't you follow me on Twitter?" - etc.
My buddy Nate could see me from the inside and offered a suggestion of a bribe to gain entry - if only I could get to someone even to negotiate that without getting killed.
So I text the business associate that invited me who had been giving me the run around earlier and here is where shit gets beyond weird:
She comes to the door, sees me, smiles, acknowledges me, but is now scanning the crowd again - I yell to her if she has any suggestions in a humouros manner, she ignores me. OK, I get her attention again while she's looking around, and annoyed she curtly states that she can't get me in to this party, as if she had completely forgotten inviting me in the first place - WTF??
Seconds later, while we are facing each other she texts me that "She doesn't see me" - huh?
I hold up my phone to her and say "ummm...I'm right here...." - for which again even more curtly she states - "I can't get you into this party!" - is this chick crazy?
So I hold up my phone to show her that she had just text me, and say "Oh yeah? well you just sent me this text looking for me" -
She looks back at her phone - realizing her mistake and without apologizing or even fucking ACKNOWLEDGING ME she walks back inside leaving me to rot with a sea of American Apparel employees.
A glutton for punishment, I couldn't resist texting her if she had been texting the wrong person all night, or hell maybe all fucking week!

Finally I gain entry, my man A-Trak was also stuck outside and he squeezed me in - Matt had pulled some Matt shit and got in so all we had to do now was find each other.
I arrived just in time to see A$AP Rocky and his crew of 12 or so bringing their punk-inspired ruckus to the crowd. But, as the clocked edged closer to 3 a.m., shit was starting to turn nasty.
As the group, who encourage that stage diving shit, was in the middle of its set, an overeager crowd surfer grabbed one of the A$AP Mob’s doo-rags, causing the group to stop the show until it was safely returned. Unsurprisingly, the audience, themselves St. Patrick’s Day drunk and exhausted, didn't’t take well to alot of inane berating the group was laying down and began throwing beer at the performers.

While A$AP pleaded for a truce so that they can get back to partying, another free beer made its way to the stage, prompting a warning: If one more drink that was not water was thrown, there would be “a beatdown.”
As soon as the words exited his mouth, a foamy beverage struck several members of the crew, and that’s when all hell broke loose. Quickly, the entire stage was vacated, and fists, bodies and blood were splattered across the floor.
You can see a brief video here -

The whole thing took five minutes tops, but left several audience members injured, and soon the police and security cleared the venue — four hours before the party was due to end.

I didn't want anyone to get hurt naturally and was hoping my friends were ok, but if this means we can get the fuck out of here now, than I would have stolen that mothefuckers bandanna and started all kinds of shit an hour ago.
The place is in total chaos as the police are making everyone evacuate - I head for the exit and take to finding my friends once I'm outside, which looks like a battle zone as I'm seeing people hurt and nursing bloody head wounds.
As with last year’s Death From Above 1979 riot, SXSW 2012 ended with a striking display of violence.

I tell them to meet me on the side, and we finally meet up - Kelly looks like a million and one dollars in this strapless mini-dress, a ray of light at the exact moment I needed it.
Fuck it, now I wanted to dance with her so let's find another party?

As we were walking to my car, I hear someone calling my name, and its my old buddy Eric Castillo, a fine DJ from Houston, who the last time I saw, ironically was last year at the Vice Party.
I tell him that we are headed (once again) to the ol' faithful, the Pure Volume Party - and he and his friend join our little posse.
When we get there, and it was now 3:30am, the party was already over and apparently for similar reasons as the Vice Party.
Man, people are really fried this year -
Ok, last ditch hope is a few blocks away is the Hype Hotel - where we had our showcase on Wed - where it all began - how fitting to come full circle and the end the festival here.
We get there and of course they are not letting anyone else in, but the promoter sees me and waves us in and is generous to give us all drink tickets as well.
Alls well that ends well

See ya next year (maybe)....

Photos -

Roy Turner
Michael Plata
Jan Janner
Oscar Amos
Destiny Mata

SXSW 2012 - Pt III - Spin Magazine Party, Third Man Records showcase and the return of Blackalicious

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 11:00:00 GMT

Ok so after finally getting everyone to go to sleep at 7am I attempted to sleep myself that often interrupted and returning from a bathroom visit, I discover that Whitney's sister's boyfriend has stolen my blanket, who was sleeping on the couch opposite of me.
I finally get to sleep but only after less than 3hrs, Matt is standing over me asking me to take him to work and to get Kelly home.

Though their were no expectations, Kelly and I hadn't seen each other in 12 years and I'm sure we wanted to look our best as one wants to do when not seeing a friend in a long time. Since boyfriend dude stole my blanket, I was actually wearing a gay white bathrobe I had stole from a W hotel while on tour with Ween. Though she was walk-of-shaming it in last night's clothes and no makeup, Kelly has been blessed with the gift of natural beauty and in her sleeveless t-shirt and skin tight pants, she is still hotter than you.

We get Matt to work, and laughed like not a day had passed all the way to her house. Though under these odd circumstances and only a few mins to catch up, it was great to see her and we made some tentative plans for all of us to try to get together again later tonight.

Day 3 - March 16th

I start the day with doing my last DJ set of the festival - an afternoon gig at the Hype Hotel where we had our showcase on Wed.

Nothing special or anything juicy to report, just a regular afternoon gig, between the bands loading on and off the stage.

After I'm done there, I head over to Stubb's for the annual Spin Magazine Party, one of the events I look forward to every year. In its current formation (and has been for years) it's held on Friday afternoon at Stubb's and usually has the shit I wanna see going on.
This year was no exception - I get there in time to catch the last few songs from Best Coast -

They are tragically hip and not my usual flair but I thought they were really good and have been wanting to see them and I really liked the new songs they played.

Up next was one of the shows I've been really looking forward to, Santigold -

Though I had just seen her yesterday, she only did two numbers and in the confines of douchebag hell aka the MTVu Woodie Awards -
She was in vivid form, dressed in a colorful print t-shirt and wearing sunglasses and a crown, Santigold looked delighted at the size and enthusiasm of the crowd. She was flanked by a pair of dancers/backup singers who wore shades and kept their faces expressionless while twirling parasols, dragging Santigold around the stage and sometimes literally kicking up their heels.

Her live band, dressed in white and wearing skull caps that gave them the appearance of having plastic flat-top hairstyles, was augmented by recorded tracks that she sang along to.

She has a new album coming out finally - Master of My Make-Believe and the new songs were a mix of electronic sounds and live instrumentation: a heavy bottom-end club rhythm.
One thing I like about her so much is how pleasant she seems - She's always smiling, genuinely appreciative, and actually quite funny with between song quips, I would go see her again in a heartbeat and look forward to the new record.

Warning: - This next portion is going to require quite a bit of explaining, so I would free your bladder of its contents before continuing -

Their is a line that goes something like "People will amaze you with what they are capable of, once they abandon dignity" -
Let me be clear - I abandoned ALL dignity to see this show and I'm not ashamed. Well maybe just a little.

6:30 pm

Though its early and I was buzzed and dehydrated within an inch of my life - I left Stubb's to go find the venue for tonight's Third Man Records Showcase - It was not hard to find as all I had to look for was the Third Man Rolling Record Store - a giant yellow ambulance - that doubles as a mobile record store a la fireworks stand.

For those that do not know, the label and all its quirky ambition is lead by Jack White, and to know me is to know that Mr. White is my religion and my lord and savior. Though I was on the guest list and he wasn't going on till 11pm, I wasn't taking any chances.
Doors were supposed to open at 7pm and it already looked like the apocalypse outside - I'm not kidding between the customers buying records to the baffling three line system of badges, wristbands, and guest lists/etc it looked like the entire festival was here trying to get in. I started to fear for the other acts, that suddenly the rest of the city was a ghost town and when Eminem and 50 Cent arrive at their showcase to an empty house, the festival organizers have to answer to drawn guns that they made the mistake of scheduling them opposite of the great one.

So after spending waaaay too much money on records and running them to my car I get back to my place in line and here is where shit is going to get really confusing -
When I return the organizers decided to unite two of the lines and so the one I'm in is now expected to snake around to the other one retaining its same formation to varying degrees of success. While in line I meet some pretty cool people - who proved that while holding my place in line while I ran to get smokes.
I was talking to this girl who had come all the way from Denver with her husband just to see this - I was impressed but she started weirding me out with alot of talk about Jack White chat rooms and message boards and couldn't even get out the sentence "Do you think we will get in?" without starting to cry. Ok - so I guess I'm not his biggest fan.
This dude in front of her notices that I do not have a badge or a wristband (because all that shit is a total scam) and it appears you need clearance from the FBI just to talk to the door guy, and asks how I plan to get in, when I tell him that I am on the guest list. He informs me that the guest list line is where they just had us snake from - So I return and ask the security guy that told us to do the initial snaking if this was the guest list area, which was directly being the record store truck, now totally roped off with an air of seclusion.

He lets me under the ropes and I'm not in this little area that again is hidden between the record store truck and the wall of the venue.
Also this venue, The Stage on 6th looked really cool and I'm sure it was no coincidence that Jack had picked this place to play.
Very country with Willie Nelson murals on the wall - but it didn't help the crush or control of the crowd because their were several open air windows that allowed you to see directly in without ever entering the place, and everyone on the other side of truck was jockeying for position.

As I enter this weird roped off area on the sidewalk for guest list people, for a about one full minute I'm the only one there, before two people come out with the lists - one female - one male.
We are gonna call the male Brad, and the female Nadia - I approach Nadia because a) she's cute - b) Brad had this real Abercrombie & Fitch snobby thing happening as he was being totally shitty with the first guest that approached him - giving her the bad news and in no uncertain terms telling her to return from the direction from which she came.
Nadia was really friendly, I told her my name, she checked me off her list and told me to stand against this wall with a line that was forming of other people she had checked off her list.
Ok cool - now we just have to wait to go in - I start to relax and have a cigarette. And we wait and wait and wait - I realize that I've been in these series of lines for an hour and a half.

8:00 pm

To makes matters even more infuriating as its totally unclear what we are waiting on to be told we can leave our little queue and go in, the entire time Brad and Nadia are greeting people they clearly know and/or were expecting and without even looking at the list wave them on through. To illustrate the military like approach this event in order to gain access (from our area) either Brad or Nadia had to give the nod for you to two security guards who then had to walk you to two SXSW officiates who would suit you up and then you go in.
Fucking ridiculous. Over the course of more waiting, one by one between Nadia and Brad they have told everyone but me oddly to leave, as in not go in, but leave this area and go back from whence you came, but Nadia told me to stay - but still not the go ahead to go in. What the fuck is going on?

9:00pm

I start to get a whiff of what's up when I overhear a conversation between Brad and a gentlemen we will call Patrick -
Patrick is easy to spot as a member of the organization as Jack White always has his roadies/staffers not in the usual jeans and wifebeaters but dressed similar to him - in 3-piece suits and bowler hats - I'm sure they are wonderfully comfortable to do heavy lifting in.
He's outside complaining/co-miserating to Brad about the first band that is currently on that apparently isn't a part of the showcase, as they are going over their time - Obviously unimpressed with the band's lack of status, Patrick establishes himself instantly as a right asshole as he cuts them into pieces and is threating to pull them off stage if they play one more note.
Where this conversation become informative to my situation is that Brad and Patrick, obviously working on the same team. Brad says to Patrick "Hey while I got you here, I wanted to tell you that we have alot of people coming up to us who are on Reggie Watt's list, and we still don't have his" -
Patrick who is completely unsympathetic to this, and apparently Mr. Watts isn't one of the acts at his charge, Patrick declares his only concerns are those pertaining to the acts he's responsible for and makes a cruel joke at the expense of any poor bastard who just happens to be on Reggie Watt's guest list, as he alludes to whom might be responsible for its dismissal.

This information is crucial to me because I'm on Reggie Watts' list!!!! - The puzzle is coming together now as I suspect Nadia knows this and doesn't want to tell me yet, just have me hang out till the list arrives or in the case that all of her guests have arrived than only then will she permit my entry. I have an existential crisis that I've made decisions that has landed me on a sidewalk for hours awaiting the go ahead from some 90 lb unpaid intern to tell me that I can go have fun.

For a good stretch its just Brad, Nadia and I, sans for the occasional hopeful who has entered our little space to petition the guest list only to be given the bad news and directions to return back under the rope. During this time, I try to make conversation and appear cool while smoking. Not in an ass-kissy way, but definitely in a display that showed me as being patient, appreciative and the furthest thing from harassing. Nadia is avoiding me like I have the 10th Plague, conversation with Brad is not much easier - I learn in our few brief exchanges that (he claims) to work as part of the team that manages Jack White.

I'm still leaning against the wall, trying not to draw his ire, when he is clearly tired of my presence - when behind the other side of the rope, suddenly Same appears with 12 of his friends he's hoping that I can get into the show, shouting my name loudly. Bad timing Sam, and I'm normally very patient with him, but I just had to look at him and shrug him off, but he's insistent - Bad timing Sam.
This gets Brad's attention and so he walks up to me - and unbeknown to me he had no idea why I've been standing here for so long - and here is where I could have pulled a fast one -and I might have if I had understood the hierarchy a little better at that moment.
Brad says to me "Hey I know Nadia already checked you off her list, so what's the deal? , you waiting for someone? -
Right then I could have lied my ass off and said, "Yeah, I was, but I'm tired of waiting so I'm just gonna go ahead on go on in now" - And in hindsight I could have with no problem - but my need to be honest, actually alerted him to my situation!
I didn't wanna be sheisty, or suffer the embarrassment of Nadia saying "Wait a minute he's not clear to go in yet" - and I didn't wanna be there under some false shit, so as I'm trying to explain that Nadia checked me off the list but for reasons that are unclear she told me to wait, to this already established asshole, here comes Sam, sensing my conversation with Brad was his only chance for entry ambushes me, and that was all Brad needed to tell me that I needed to wait on the other side of the rope with everyone else and he escorts Sam and I back to the land of the rejects, after all that waiting. Thanks Sam haha

As I'm trying to explain to Sam that I am busy and we would have to talk later, he's trying to introduce me to his friends. I don't want to be impolite but this could quickly turn into a case of disqualification by association, by occupying this little space with an agenda unbecoming of its intent. So as I'm trying to escape this, I actually see Reggie Watts come out and hand a couple of passes to some people in front of me that were stranded for the same reasons as I. By the time I got Sam and his friends on their way, Watts was too far out of reach, and yelling out to him and jumping up and down and waving my arms like an air traffic controller that has to piss real bad was one final indignity that I was not going to suffer. Bad timing Sammy.

9:30pm

Out of desperation and my limit of humiliation had been reached and wanted to salvage my investment, I make my move.
I see a tall, buff gentlemen in his late 40's come out periodically that thanks to my powers of observation is clearly the boss to Brad and Nadia, who seems totally cool. Isn't it always the case that those who are actually the boss are usually pretty relaxed, where as those that are pretending to be the boss are the uptight assholes that wanna push people around. I can always detect these parasites like a fart in a car. Still on the other side of the ropes I can tell my new found brethren are dead and have no chance of getting in, and I'm about to break away from the pack.
The older gentlemen we will call Martin - I get Martin's attention, still in a dignified manner and articulate to him, who I am, what I do and what the situation is. He perks right up and whispers to me what I already know, that the Reggie Watts list turned into a fiasco.
He also tells me that Third Man had 650 people on their guest list - for a venue that holds 700. And that's what they never tell you -
Their are literally at least a thousand people trying to get into this thing and they would never admit that they were only going to let 50 people that are not on the guest list, and all of those will surely be badges. I wanted to go tell the people with wristbands to enjoy themselves elsewhere and never buy one of these again. If you want to get into anything at this festival, more often than not, you have to be on a band's guest list - those badges and wristbands are not worth the paper they are printed on.
Martin was totally cool, familiar with my company and assured me that he would get me in - he just asked me to be patient. Not to rock the boat but I felt compelled to tell him that I'd been waiting for quite awhile. I didn't want to embarrass myself by telling him just how long I had actually been waiting, and feared that it could potentially dissuade him from wanting to help me.
I decide to roll a cigarette and if Martin doesn't return by the time I'm finished smoking I'll have to raise the white flag.
He returns almost immediately, though making a beeline for me he is looking at everything but me, but when we make eye contact, it appears that him memory was triggered or I'm just reading way too much into it.
Martin walks right up to me, but now the rapport is very different, but he is there to deliver good news:
"I'm going to go ahead and walk you in, since its gonna be quite awhile before they start letting people in again" -
Fucking victory - but he seems put out by me now for some reason, like the security guards let him in on how long I'd been there, or he was just taking on the cadence that comes when someone wants to remind you that they are helping you - whatever.
He lifts the rope inviting me, seems super annoyed by my cigarette, tells me to put it out and to follow him - he secures my entry - I thank him intensely and make a genuine offer to repay the favor - he yeah yeahs me, seemingly simply satisfied that I was now in his debt.
Whatever the case, I was crossing the threshold, passing the security guards that seemed to be actually rooting for me at this point, and now I was in - fucking victory - Total wait time: 3 hrs 15 mins

Ok so now I'm scanning the scene and realize just how small this place is - Its perfect for this - I see that their is a permanent stage inside that is small, in the corner and the one I"m praying that he is going to play on (I'm sure the people outside were praying for this as well) - Their was another temporary erected tent/stage in the open air large courtyard in the back. Reggie Watts is winding down on the front stage and I catch the end of his act:

He was really funny as always and now I had some to time to roam the grounds in the back. I was amazed at just how NOT sardines-like it was in here and was grateful for that. I go outside and I spot someone that I know to be a part of this production, because I would see her periodically come outside to check on/chat with Nadia during my life-sucking wait.
She sees me and smiles, clearly recognizing me from before - she's friendly, introduces herself - we will call her Laura - and makes an earnest, non-sarcastic platitude of my entry. We are chatting and both being charming when she informs me of her contribution to this soirée, one for which she was eager to announce, was that of publicist. Not ot mention but at one of the most prestigious boutique firms in the biz - Nasty Little Man
Some of you may know this little factoid - the Beastie Boys have an album called Hello Nasty, and what its referencing is their publicity firm - Nasty Little Man and in 1998, NLM had 200 active clients and were so busy that when they would answer the phone, they would just say "Hello, Nasty" -
Ok, so I've got Laura so charmed that when suddenly we are approached by the president of the fucking company, who is one of the kings of NYC, that she eagerly introduces me to him - who we will call Steve -
A nice introduction is made, however with a slightly inaccurate mention of my position for which I quickly recant for her. Now I wasn't falling all over this guy, but in my experience in NYC, often my politeness and Southern manners are often mistaken for eagerness or even sometimes weakness. So, with my genuine enthusiasm for meeting Steve as well as the self-imposed demotion of my status, she seemed to regret the whole thing before I had even finished saying "Pleased to meet you" - Ok.
She bails, leaving Steve and I alone - I make informative strides at conversation and he is polite and responds, but he offers little else to the point where after the fourth exchange, though he is never rude, that this is a one-sided conversation and he is showing zero interest in me and this is not a conversation but a Q & A with the dude from Nasty Little Man - Ok.
I follow up with suggesting that I need a drink and would he like one as well - This he seemed impressed by but also declined as it appeared that he feared that by accepting my offer would mean he would be stuck with me for the rest of the night.
I get a beer from just a few feet away but taking the hint I don't return to the land of Hello Nasty.

Ok, so how about some music? In the back tent, the all-female band the Black Belles were setting up, who were all dressed up like the Wicked Witch of the West - The band is lead by Olivia Jean - If you saw any of the shows Jack White did with Wanda Jackson she was that smoking hot bass player, they were also on an episode of The Colbert Report.
Cool look and with a heavy sound I was looking forward to seeing them, but I'm afraid to say that I was very underwhelmed. The sound in that tent was horrendous but I'm not sure I can let them off that easy. I was watching in the back, so I thought I would snap a quick picture, when my hands hadn't even been fully lowered before this junkyard dog of a security guy aggressively grabbed my arm, and threatened to toss me if I didn't delete the pic right then and there - More on this in a bit

I was obviously super excited to be there but the vibe of this whole thing, not to mention the sting of what had taken place in my three hours outside was just not what I had in mind, and I'm sure I'm projecting idealism here, but not what I would think Jack White would want it to be either.
I know that actor John C. Reilly is going to perform next on the smaller indoor stage so I go in there to check it out. What a weird dude and one of my favorite actors -

You might remember he played a farceful character, Dewey Cox in the movie by the same name and actually went on tour as that character so I knew he was an actual performer but I didn't know what he would be performing besides the two singles he did for Third Man. It was some really slow and very quiet bluegrass music that was not very entertaining. He did start things off with a joke that befits him: "Knock knock - (crowd) Who's there? - See mop - See mop who (crowd) - Ha! I just got everyone to say see my poo -

Up next on that same stage was Jack White's (most recent) ex-wife Karen Elson - have you ever seen a guy get along better with his ex-wife's than Jack White?

She was really good, I really liked her voice, she sounded alot like Loretta Lynn and she is also really beautiful.

Ok we were now getting down to the moment of truth (or so we thought) - After Elson, we all knew it was now time for the main event and the man of the hour would soon be taking the stage. (Editor's Note: I had not seen his appearance on Saturday Night Live yet, and it seemed that most others in attendance had not either as the speculation of just what he was going to do was completely in the air)

The whole place, indoor and outdoor began to make that nervous lunge forward to the tiny indoor stage in the corner. I have to say that what looked the apocalypse happening outside and no one else getting in, it really wasn't that tight inside and in some places actually roomy. So I was happy in that regard that it really wasn't that uncomfortable, I was about to find my discomfort elsewhere.

On the way to the indoor stage, I passed Nadia who was now inside the venue, to let her know that I finally made it in and to thank her for her patience (when perhaps maybe it should have been her thanking me for how infinite mine appeared) - She wanted nothing to do with me and seemed resentful that I went over her head to solve the problem. Whatever.

Ok, so I make my way to about the halfway mark, about 10 feet from the stage, still being mindful that I'm taller than most here to not get too close. You would think that after all the waiting I had done tonight that I could withstand anything. The wait at the Department of Motor Vehicles would seem like a moving sidewalk compared to what I've been through tonight but oh no -

As I mentioned earlier, now matter how impractical, Mr. White has his stagehands dressed alike in probably the most restrictive formal wear imaginable, and maybe that was the culprit, but it took six fucking guys to set up a simple 3-piece drum set, one guitar and two mics over a fucking hour to strike that fucking stage. The people around me were insufferable and this one dude to my left I could already was gonna be a real problem. By the time Mr. White finally took the stage, I was murderous.

Patrick, the patriarch asshole from before finally takes the stage to make the formal introduction - Remember about me attempting to snap a photo of the Black Belles earlier? - Well Patrick actually said something profound and not only cool but made me feel a bit of a hypocrite, but not really :) - He declared that no photography would be allowed - period -and the penalty would be your personal removal. It was his explanation for this that I cheered - He said that they wanted to play to the people, not a wall of cellphones - that your memories should live in your memory not on Facebook, and it would be prettier than some shitty Iphone picture - a total indictment of our current culture that is paralyzed by their goddamn cellphone - an indictment that I support completely - This was their statement - All right Patrick, your not so bad.

At long last - you could hear the cheers coming from outside as he entered the building at walked up to the stage, flanked by six females, all dressed in white, that were reminiscent of the sirens from Homer's Odyssey.

Dressed very Grand Old Opry he gets right to business and starts the set with the White Stripes' Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground and the place and I completely explode - There was the vibe that anything could happen, what was he gonna play??

He followed that with a couple of quiet new songs from upcoming solo record, before returning the Stripes' catalog with Hotel Yorba - One problem, my prophecy about the gentlemen to my left was coming true immediately, hell we were all excited but this guy's reaction, was that of a guy watching Black Sabbath in 1975, and mimicking Ozzy's non-stop, two-fisted long-stroke to the sky - however with such wild abandon in such a tight space, this presented a problem - fueling this was, I don't know what this guy was on, but he wasn't just excited, he was like rabid, crazy - even kinda scary. He keep elbowing people with these thrusts, some even to the face without a care in the world, and perhaps not out of rudeness, but just out of the fact that he was so fucked up he was completely unaware.
Well with that elbow now constantly being a distraction and grazing my cheek a couple of times, and that he was screaming so loud maniacal to this quiet music that making him aware was now my duty.
Right before Hotel Yorba - I got his attention, which was not easy, he either proved my theory that he was in a world all of his own, or he knew exactly what he was doing and thought if he ignored me he wouldn't have to answer for it. I finally grabbed him and said: "Hey brother, I want you to have a good time but when your arms are constantly in my face and I can't see and your hitting people" -
He just nodded and went right back to what he was doing, with the full support of couple of other assholes behind him.
This proceeded and he actually hit the guy with his elbow in the face several times and when the guy told him to knock it off he just kept going. I spent the next two songs dodging this guy's elbow and when he finally hit me with it, fueled by the baffling aggravation of the evening's proceedings, I grabbed him a second time and said this: "Motherfucker they will drag me out of here in handcuffs before that fucking arm hits my face again!!" -
He moves over a couple of feet, but he's right back at it doing it to somebody else, so when they move he find himself right next to me once more, and god help us if Mr. White plays a song this dude knows because then the screaming and elbow flying really takes off.
Here I am, 10 feet from Jack White, my hero, actually hoping that he doesn't play any familiar songs because of this and the two dudes behind us let the guy know that I start any shit that its gonna the three of them against me.
Fuck this - this isn't worth it - I came here to enjoy this, so I surrendered my up close position to retreat to the back, where I discover it was roomy, and I could actually hear and see better. I hadn't been in my new comfortable space for one entire song before he declares that they are gonna take a short break - What? - A short break? After all this waiting? - Again I hadn't seen SNL so I wasn't privy to his plan.

Female Set -

Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground (White Stripes song)
Missing Pieces
Sixteen Saltines
Hotel Yorba (White Stripes song)
Love Interruption
Weep Themselves to Sleep
You Know That I Know
Freedom At 21
Hypocritical Kiss
I'm Slowly Turning Into You (White Stripes song)

I go out to the patio for a welcome sit-down and a smoke, still pretty furious, but pretty jacked about how good the set was, but still a bit quiet with new songs that I don't know -and sure that's what we are here for.

I go the bathroom and when I come out I see Jack White - he points to the Van Halen belt-buckle I'm wearing, he doesn't give me the nod or even a smile, but still a clear acknowledgment of approval , hey enough for me, then he starts talking to John C. Reilly as Bill Murray comes walking up to them. Bill Murray sightings at SXSW are becoming less rare these days and it seems he shows up every year and gives everyone a good story to tell.

Surreal just the same - I'm standing behind this but I'm not gonna approach anybody - I see David Fricke from Rolling Stone Magazine, one of the world's authorities on music walking up with rock royalty, Scott Asheton, the drummer for the Stooges. He I speak with and he's actually happy for the recognition and we have a nice talk. I notice that Jack has left, and Fricke knows Reilly and Murray, so we sorta combine our conversations.
I'm getting a kick out of this when suddenly, Jack returns from behind us, now dressed in all black, is all business and strides back to the stage with an urgency that was downright scary (and totally awesome) - He came to play, and this time he brought an all male backing group with him, grabbed his custom guitar and tore right into the Stripes' My Doorbell.

Talking to Fricke paid off cause now the four of us are heading side-stage and I can't fucking believe what's happening. He fires up my favorite song, Hello Operator like he's picking a fight in an alley - just ferocious - and it only builds from there. It was like I wrote the set-list - what followed was a mind-boggling career spanning set that included songs from every entity practically that he has been a part of, I was beside myself. It was so strange to hear these White Stripes songs with a full-band and they sounded massive.

This went from being one of the most aggravating evenings ever, to like seriously one of the best nights of my life - everyone felt it, strangers in disbelief were talking to me and each other about how this was like the greatest thing they had ever seen.
How does he take it farther? - I know that's like the cool indie-rock thing to do to ignore your hit song if you have one, but Jack White is not concerned with that bullshit, but it still seemed a little out of the question if he would do Seven Nation Army -
He starts the song with a slight different instrumentation but when it starts to build and everyone starts to recognize it, as dramatic as it sounds it created a unification of everyone actually singing the bass riff that lifted me off the ground. He walks to the outdoor window and leads the thousands that had gathered outside in a sing-along that you could hear inside even over the amps -

Suddenly hot bartenders are Coyote Ugly-ing their way on top of the bar, even Bill Murray gets in on the action and is dancing on top of the bar, the whole place just shook and when he led us through the sing-along I'm not ashamed to tell you that I was actually crying.
It was a beautiful moment, and a crescendo to a magical evening that I'm still in disbelief that I was fortunate to witness.
To end the set, he cooled the crowd off with another sing-along - the perfect coda of Leadbelly's Goodnight Irene - the perfect touch of class to a stupefying set of raw power - Strangers were hugging me and everyone else in gratitude and in song.
An absolute perfect moment - I grew an inch taller.

Male Set -

My Doorbell (White Stripes song)
Hello Operator (White Stripes song)
I Cut Like A Buffalo (Dead Weather song)
Two Against One (Rome song)
The Hardest Button to Button (White Stripes song)
Steady, As She Goes (The Raconteurs song)
Top Yourself (The Raconteurs song)
Ball and Biscuit (White Stripes song)
Seven Nation Army (White Stripes song)
Goodnight Irene (Leadbelly cover)

As I exited the venue stunned, one of the security guards saw me and grabbed me and said: "Oh my gawd, you finally made it in, we saw you passing back and forth for three hours, congratulations mate!" (he was British) -
If their was one caviot it would be that the second biggest thing I was anticipating this festival was sadly happening right now at the same time. I told Matt to meet me at the Beauty Bar at 12:30am for the return of Blackalicious, one of my all-time faves who haven't performed in close to seven years. We both love hip-hop and this was a group we agree on and I wanted us to have a fun night.
However it was now 1am, and I had no idea Jack White was gonna go so late, but obviously I wasn't about to leave.
And in fact, from the cloud I was floating on, I didn't even rush over there - it could have been Prince playing and I'm not sure I would be in a hurry.
I get over there, and of course they are not letting anyone else in - However with Matt's former employment of this establishment this may be a non-issue, Matt's already inside, but more importantly Matt is really drunk, so we have some mix-up of where to meet, but my man comes though and secures my entry. Their is a show happening in the back where we enter, but Blackalicious is playing in the front.
After a few distractions we finally enter the front room, and I can see why they were not letting anyone else in, this was a screaming fire hazard and you couldn't move.
That is unless you are Matt and are really drunk and in a fighting mood (I wasn't, I was blissful) but Matt insisted and I appreciated that he wanted me to have the best seat, so with him leading the way - we get to the front.

The sound was horrendous, the heat was stifling, lead MC Gift of Gab was actually sitting down for some of the set and we only got to hear the last two songs; Deception and Chemical Calisthenics - but hey we did it - I wish they hadn't run concurrently but after what I had just seen, I didn't have a care in the world.

Soon it was 2am and I could have called it a night right then, but Matt was in party mode and we only had been hanging for less than an hour, so I took him over to the Pure Volume Party that I was at last night with Sam.

Now, when Matt is intoxicated, he doesn't start large fires, but hundreds of little ones that he seems to light the second I've stomped out the previous one, so it can feel more like babysitting sometimes. He was in a full-on first-time-in-a-limo mode on the way to the party. We enjoy the irony of two 30 something white dudes blasting Whitney Houston songs as we drove down the main stretch but Matt is on fire, he actually spent more time with his body half-outside the car than inside all the way there. Drawing the attention of this Suge Knight looking dude in the Escalade next to us and his crew, next thing I know a cd of this dude rapping comes sailing into the car.
Between his fire-starting with literally every single person we come into contact with on the way there, his shouting dangerous driving instructions and half-baked parking ideas, and the public urination, by the time we get there he had worn me out.

Its the same shit-show as last night, but I had learned that even the VIP pass I had been given was worthless, if you are not on the band's guest list you are not getting into anything at this festival this year. While Matt was plotting some serious underhandedness, I hatched a plan - I told him to go online and look up who was the last band that was playing. He found that it was some horrible rap-rock thing called Doomtree - aha! Now I know what to do, I walked up the keeper of the gate, said the right name, dropped the dime on Doomtree and into the party we sail.

Its after 3am so we suck down a few free drinks and we go outside to chill and for me to have a smoke. Matt actually whored himself out for me bless him to a gay man for a smoke for me cause I had smoked my last one walking in.
While outside we meet these two Lebanese girls who are really hot - Matt is talking to the sober one who is not having it, while the buzzed one is talking to me and asks if I want to come to check out the band with her. Sober one puts the kibosh on this as well and Matt and I stroll back in for another round and to check out this stupid band.
Matt is again in let's-go-to-the-very-front-because-I-can mode so we are right in the middle of any potential moshing, when I look down and see that the buzzed one is standing right in front of me.
Doomtree starts their set and the free booze and the late hour make the moshing downright scary -

Let me disclaim that I'm not being gender specific here, or that girls can't handle themselves or need a man's protection in this type of environment - but the minute this shit started, buzzed girl was getting fucking thrashed - you could tell she had no idea what to expect and she was getting potentially hurt and I would have done this for anyone I saw in danger regardless of our previous flirty rapport.
Shit is super out of control, I'm getting my ass kicked while trying to guard here, some dude knocks her drink out of her hand and it spills all over this pretty dress she was wearing, so I just put my arms around her tiny frame and literally lifted her up and carried her out of there. Before I can set her down, she rewards me with an unexpected, but very nice and dramatic kiss. Chivalry is not dead motherfuckers.

I hang with her a bit more when her friend sees us and tells her they are leaving - She asks for my phone, put hers number in it and tells me to meet her at the Nylon Party tomorrow - good times.

I find Matt and let me tell you something this long and weird day was not going to end without one more random, bizarre weird thing happening. Since its SXSW, you are bombarded at every turn with the non-stop of promotion of every thing you can think of and wouldn't think of. Its like an endless row of kiosks at the mall.
One of the sponsors of this event had a booth set up - I was just following Matt and when we arrive at the booth, his interest becomes clear - the brand ambassadors for this particular product were some of the hottest girls I saw all weekend - and dressed on the periphery of slutty/exotic -
This other girl, a jaw-dropping red-head is just doing her job by getting my attention, and using her sexuality to talk to me about the wares for which her and her perfection have been hired to peddle.
This is where shit gets real weird - the product at hand is called Masque - what is that you ask? does it imply to cover or disguise?
As it was explained to me, its something you ingest orally (marketed primarily to females) to make the end-result of fellatio more digestible. Excuse me?
Ok fine, but really Masque is nothing more than one of those breath strip things that you could say is useful for anything. Total bullshit.
I don't call her out on this per say, but what I do offer is not to prolong the conversation so that I may enjoy being near her like my drunken compatriot, and probably everyone else she has spoken to this week, but I actually had shit to say.
She (conveniently) told me that swallowing isn't something that she naturally prefers, but is willing to do so with someone for who she has an invested interest, so this makes her the perfect demographic for this product - how nice.
But when I retort, she loses her training and we actually have an honest conversation -
My retort was that I don't want anyone doing anything to me that they don't wanna, not into obligation - so if in the heat of the moment a girl had to pause to put on some training wheels to finish the job, that sounds like the least sexy thing I've heard of - I wasn't aggressive, and I articulated this point by turning it around to her by asking what if before someone was about to pleasure you, they had to ingest something first because they find what your body naturally produces to be repulsive.

So it is not lost on me, that I'm having a bristling conversation about extracting the taste of semen with a beautiful stranger at 4am - Good times.

Can this night get any stranger? - I suppose so - On the way home, I'm concerned with Matt's wild half-out-of-the-car thing attracting the attention of the police when it falls that we go to McDonald's for a late night snack.
When we pull up to the drive-thru (the one by Guadalupe across from Taco Cabana) a voice comes over that sounds not unlike Cheech Marin's and with no formal salutation, makes it clear that its "breakfast and cash only" - hmmmmm
Do I want to eat something that is being prepared by Bill & Ted at 5am, who are clearly running some scam?
I assure Matt of my suspicions by the proof that their will be no receipt of this purchase.
When its our turn to get to get to the window, a billow of pot smoke pours out like we had just opened Spicolli's van, he has no idea what we ordered (because naturally he didn't ring it up so that their would be no trace of the transaction) - We repeat our order - we pay - we watch him try to figure the change by counting on his fingers, no receipt as predicted and we finally drive home.
Listen up motherfuckers, I'm about to be a whistle-blower,a snitch, I'm coming for you - if my order isn't free the next time I come thru, I'm taking you punks down.

Stay tuned for Part IV - The Final Day of SXSW....

Photos -

Roy Turner
Jo McCaughey

SXSW 2012 PT II - MTVu Woodie Awards - Girl Talk's crazy Nike Party, Tenacious D & more

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 11:55:00 GMT

Ok, so after just a few hours sleep, it was time to get back out there. This is how it goes during SXSW - no sleep, steady diet of booze and BBQ, few showers, lots of walking and impulsive behavior.
First thing on the agenda was taking Matt to work but he had some errands he needed me to take him on first, so I thought we would grab lunch as well. Matt is all about the Thai food and I wanted to show some gratitude for his hospitality.
Over lunch he completely fucked my head up by dropping some personal bombs on me that were nuclear. I left there stunned after dropping him off and headed on take on the day -

Day 2 - March 15th

So after a few meetings and other loose ends I went over to the site where they were holding this year's MTVu Woodie Awards -
I went last year, and it was a total red-carpet, star-studded affair with big names like the Foo Fighters etc. This year was going to be a little different as it was going to be outdoors and preceded by a little mini-festival called the Woodie Fest that was open to the public.
Not as elite and guarded as last year seemed more like the Grammys, so I was happy that it was going to be a more relaxed fair.
I get over there first for Woodie Fest to see ASAP Rocky -

It really seems like hip-hop mixtapes are the new indie-rock - Because the only press that picks up on them are the blogosphere and its readership is made up of usually white, 30-something nerdy obsessives - and at the Hip-Hop shows I saw this week that's what made up mostly its entire audience - those people think that being in on something first is currency and since street lingo seems to change weekly, being on the ground floor of breaking hip-hop artists is tailor-made for this demographic. ASAP Rocky is perfect example of this, and to a lesser extent the act that followed - Machine Gun Kelly

Not bad but def more hype than skill -

The entire environment surrounding this event is drenched in douchebaggery - Their are amazing hot girls every where I look, but its those really hot girls that seem to date the worst dudes, with shitty tattoos - The obnoxious hipster set in colorful clothing, the fratty drunken shirtless dudes and their female counterparts, and I - the lone wolf walking alone amongst them in an hopelessly corporate parade of absurd proportions.
Who am I to complain? They really knew how to pander to this crowd - My wristband came with attached drink tickets - far too many for one person, and for THIS one person - Their were endless "lounges" hosted by a global entity -
For example, one could stroll along and visit the Reeses Lounge and help themselves to an endless supply of chocolate -
Go next door for the free BBQ and booze, and then walk down to the Good Humor booth for free dessert -

All of this and now the awards show is beginning that is hosted by one of those Jersey Shore dudes -
Again, who am I to complain? The girls are hot and everything in site is free, but their is a looming feeling that I completely do not belong here.
After some dubious awards are given to people that I have never heard of or have no interest in, my mood does turn cheery (free beer & BBQ does that to a man) with the anticipation of seeing Santigold -

She only did two numbers, but I think she is fantastic and I'm really looking forward to her show at the Spin Party tomorrow.
The actor/comedian dude Donald Glover from that show Community has a band called Childish Gambino that I saw at Fun Fun Fun Fest the last time I was in Austin last Fall, that were actually really good and they were supposed to perform next but apparently Glover fractured his foot and they had to cancel.
Instead we got another white-mediocre-over-hyped rapper,Mac Miller, who also won a bunch of these silly awards (if only contrivity and manufactured good were rewarded....wait...they are!)

Last but not least was probably the most unnecessary - They saved the biggest clown shoe for last, and is their really anybody with a more punchable face than Steve Aoki? - The lameness of his grand entrance of streaming above the crowd in an inflatable raft was completely lost on everyone here - He might as well of just had his limo parked onstage -

And for the next 20 mins or so he did his Aoki thing with huge gestures and insufferable mixes while Lil Jon and some dude in a colorful jacket he will one day regret wearing on television, pandered to the crowd as if they were selling hot dogs at a ball game.
I at least found some like-minded people as we had a mini-pot going guessing the amount Mr. Aoki was paid for 20 mins of his services for this thing - We dropped it as it was too depressing to think about.

Suddenly, a giant cake is produced for reasons that are unclear, I don't know if or whose birthday it was or the occasion, but it did also produce perhaps one of the most irritating photos I've ever seen that makes my case solid -

However, I am so super happy to report that seconds after this little look at what a walking party I am pose - fortune smiled down on us all as Aoki lost his footing and fell off the stage with cake in tow, head-first as he actually pie-to-the-face himself. He was not injured so I can make fun of him. A fitting end to a super cheesy event.

So now I head from there over to this little joint called Haven, to see the mighty Tenacious D - Oddly enough, the only other time I have ever seen them live (and had not a clue who they were at the time like most people) was also here at SXSW, 12 freaking years ago.
I remember we went to see the Delta 72 and Modest Mouse, and after the Mouse had played, suddenly these two fat dudes come out and all 5k people at Austin Music Hall started freaking out and knew who these guys were (except us) - This was a bit before Jack Black's film career took off.
I'm sorry to say that I missed openers Riverboat Gamblers - One of the best live bands you will ever see - Their singer Mike is an old friend and we used to work at the same record store several lifetimes ago.
But out comes the D and the place explodes -

Now, as funny and entertaining I find Jack Black and I do find some of their songs fun, I don't count myself as a member of the tribe. That over-the-top sorta comedy has never done it for me - I have never found Jim Carrey or Will Ferrel funny in the least, though I'm sure they are both really funny men. They do it in a way that can entertain me for a bit, but its like being at a GWAR show, I can get excited, but after having blood squirted on me the 4th time, I'm usually over it.

I was scheduled to meet up with some suits after this for some drinks and where we were meeting caused me to pass by the Girl Talk party. I honestly also don't give a fuck about Girl Talk or his annoying fanbase, but that motherfucker does throw one hell of a party, and I figured at SXSW it would probably be worth checking out. I also know that every person under 25 in a 10 mile radius would be trying to get in, and when I walked by the line, that was certainly confirmed.

I meet with the corporate folks and as we are about to wrap, I mentioned something about the ridiculous line at Girl Talk, (not realizing that I was talking to the sponsors of the event) cause they mentioned they were heading over there. That's when they told me they were sponsors and asked me if I wanted to join them. Ok sure -

This is the essence of this conference - one minute I'm having drinks discussing sponsorship opportunities, the next I'm in a hollowed out Spaghetti Warehouse watching an unfathomably popular mash-up DJ, turning the place out like its Mardi Gras/NYE/4th of July combined, with free booze, covered in confetti, with the room all losing their shit.

I don't go for the exclusivity shit, but the vibe in here totally had that, "The parents are gone for the weekend, just how much trouble can we get into till they get back?" - sort of thing, and that def fueled the evening.
Let met tell you a bit about the girls serving the drinks - I don't know if they were just volunteers or those sexy brand ambassadors making a few bucks between classes, but these girls were to die for. Their was as much of a party going on because of their fun attitude behind the bar as on stage - They were just pouring out of the bottle into everyone's cups dancing as much as the patrons and they were wearing like practically nothing - Perfect bodies in the tiniest booty shorts and tube tops.
This was a great party and I'm really glad I came.

I couldn't get any reception while I was in there, my hosts were long gone before I was so when I got outside for a smoke I had a ton of messages. I had tipped Matt off about Lil Wayne tickets (again he likes that gangster shit) - but after we were gonna try and meet up with a mutual friend of ours, Kelly, whom I've not seen since I last saw Tenacious D.

Around that same time, my buddy Sam who is from Austin but now lives in Los Angeles and who I sometimes stay with when I'm out there, was just a few blocks away and was having trouble getting into the Pure Volume Party and asked for my help.
I was close by and we hadn't seen each other in over a year so I decided to swing by there. I was hoping to see Kelly but they were going to the Lamar bridge and though I don't live here, even I know that shit gets busted in like 15mins, so I stuck with the sure thing once Sam and I were into the party to hang with an old friend.
It was a good time - good to see Sam, I ran into my friend Rabbit who plays with Spank Rock and we hung out for a bit. Their was free booze and hot girls everywhere -
My friends Cristi and Jessica from NYC who are sisters have a band after their last name, Zambri and we were able to catch them at the end -

It's that cool, electronic shit that's all the rage in Brooklyn and they are kinda it girls on the scene so it makes sense. I hadn't seen them with this new lineup and it sounds way better. I thought they were really good.

Finally 4am comes and Sam and I walk the 10 blocks back to my car and I get him to his parent's house which I discover is just around the corner from Matt, so that was a welcome convenience at 430am.

When I get back to Matt's - the party is in full-swing, except no Matt or Kelly as I hadn't heard from either of them. Now I had just met Whitney's sister and her boyfriend the night before and charmed their pants off - I had heard about some rumblings about some discord between Whitney and her sister that took place a few days before I got there, that resulted in fighting, the cops being called and eventually waking Whitney up from a drunken stupor on a picnic table about 100 yards from the apartment - rough scene, not my bag at all - but tonight it was all harmonious, and these dudes can get wild in that way that's superfun but flirts with being out of control.

They were happy to see me when I arrived and were trying to get me to take shots of vodka at 5am (Whitney doesn't get off work from her food-truck gig until 3am) I entertained them with some stories, gave into one shot, and made the boyfriend a fucking believer about the new Van Halen album which was alot of fun - He had only heard the barfy single and we totally bonded as I could see his face light up that he got as I played riff after mind-blowing riff. They were very complimentary to me and I appreciated it, but like I said earlier, it was flirting with disaster and almost there so, though it wasn't my house, I pulled the plug, especially when it finally occurred to them to tell me that Matt and Kelly were there, asleep in the next room this whole time and it was now close to 7am.

Stay tuned for Day 3!!

Photos -

Roy Turner
Zachary Strain
Nate "Igor" Smith
Adam Sweeney
Karla Esquivel
John Davisson

SXSW 2012 - Pt I - TrickyKid Showcase, Fiona Apple, The Sword meet Anthony Bourdain & more

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 11:25:00 GMT

Hello? Can you believe it? Instead of having to wait for 8 months which is about 7 and half months after you no longer care to hear the tale of this year's SXSW? I decided to just let it rip and will play catch up in reverse with everything else. Currently I'm still on July 2011 in blog terms and again, by the time I get to it, who will care? Also, I have alot on my mind about this year's SXSW and just really wanted to get to it while it was still really fresh in my mind.
I won't bore you with the usual disclaimers of what SXSW is and why I go and what I do for a living, if you are reading this you already know all of that and if you don't than you soon will.

I will give you the most basic of rundowns: SXSW is a 3 week festival covering Interactive Media - Film and Music with a entire week dedicated to each field, some usually overlapping - that takes place in Austin, TX in March - that completely takes over the town a la Mardi Gras that falls during Spring Break, that will showcase thousands of bands attended by 10s of thousands of registrants.
ok? OK -

Day 1 - March 14th

I learned alot last year about throwing a showcase - I learned alot about what to do and what NOT to do. For all the success and press we got out of that little shindig last year, clearly ALOT of mistakes were made and I wanted to correct as many of those mistakes or do my best not to repeat them this year. Sadly, this translated into severe compromise and I can't say that even though most mistakes were avoided, I'm not as proud of this year's showcase as I was last years: Namely with the compromise, we just put on just another ordinary showcase that was identical as anyone else's.
Did the bands play well and was the room full of people in the first hour? Yes and Yes
Did I get paid and already secure sponsorship for next year? Yes and Yes
Did anybody really give a shit and will anybody remember it? No and No

I had people coming up to me the entire festival asking me if I was "that dude that threw that boxing ring thing last year" constantly - Easily 10x as many people that were actually there - That's something that I'm very proud of - I wanted to do something different - Something people would remember and knowing that I accomplished that makes me happy -
This year I just didn't have the time to take on that kind of responsibility and again I wanted to avoid alot of the pitfalls and headaches of last year so, I let someone else:
Get the venue -
Secure the sponsorships -
Basically everything except book the bands and MC the event and a few other things -

This year, Hype Machine became a destination known as (naturally) The Hype Hotel - and they were having Day and Night parties, sponsored by Taco Bell and a million other fucking corporate bullshitters. All they wanted was someone to brand each party and provide the entertainment, so we partnered with them and our showcase was a Day Party that was a part of this whole theme.
I was a little embarrassed as the invites they sent out were pseudo room-keys - get it? Fucking gay -
But one stroke of genius was to have it on the FIRST day of the festival - that was a wise choice on my part and one if I have the moxie to pull this off again is one I will repeat - Last year, what balls we had to have it on the last Sat with all that competition, not to mention, I woke up everyday with anxiety of its anticipation.
This year I was done by 7pm the first day and the rest of the festival was easy breezy, sans a few meetings and two DJ appearances.
Here is the poster and some pics from the show -

Blitzen Trapper

DJ TrickyKid

All in all I do have to call the event successful, because I succeeded in doing exactly what I came to do. I did my job, the room was packed, the powers that be are happy etc. However, I just wanted to do something that I would personally want to attend. Last year, even if I wasn't involved, THAT was a party I would not miss period. This year, if I wasn't paid to be there, I would have skipped it entirely, so what's your definition of successful?

After that I ran over to Stubb's to try to catch Fiona Apple. I've never seen her like most people, due to her neurosis that keeps her from touring, or even speaking properly has eluded most people from seeing her perform. I get a hero's welcome when I go to Stubb's, so thankfully their was no line or any other indignity suffered (I would save that for the rest of the week) -

I get in and go right up to the side of the stage that my friends and kind staff of Stubb's afforded me.

Very grateful too, as like I said, not only had I not ever seen her, this was one of the most anticipated shows of the festival with a total shitshow outside trying to get in. She has another show tomorrow but this was her first show outside of Los Angeles in five years and would be playing new music for the first time in over seven (though I did hear later that at the second show she added her cover of Across the Universe)
I was most certainly looking forward to hearing some new tunes, but since I've never got to see any of her material live before I was hoping to hear a few tracks off her 2nd LP When The Pawn - It holds a special place for me as it always transports me back to a special time.
I got my wish and I got in early, it was almost like she was making up for not touring that record as the first four songs were from that LP.

She still looks really good, and she sounded good too, but at times her intensity just over rode everything and she would shout the verses or change them up completely to account for her sudden thrusts of anger. I had always wondered how legit all this was, cause admittedly it can be a bit much. Like how much of this is manufactured and I gotta tell you that being this close to it, made me a believer.
I'm not saying that it wasn't ridiculous that she required two handlers to get her on and off stage - who she kept looking over to for approval/reassurance. Or how they would have to come out and remind her to drink the tea on her piano, or when she would look lost to offer her a towel. It was all a bit much, but her elusiveness has reached such legendary heights over the years that it was thrill just to even see her, let alone this close and see her perform. The new songs were really good too.

Setlist:

Fast as You Can
On the Bound
Paper Bag
A Mistake
Anything We Want (New Song)
Valentine (New Song)
Sleep to Dream
Extraordinary Machine
Every Single Night (New Song)
Carrion
Criminal

After she finished, I stuck around to see Sharon Van Etten, another songstress that I was recently turned on to. Her stuff was a little quiet for the cavernous Stubb's as well as first day excitement, but she got a great reception from the crowd and I thought she sounded great.

After that, I walked around Stubb's to meet up with my friend Lena - A talented artist and a total babe - She's a great writer and has a new musical project that she will be debuting later this year - you can check that out here -

We talked a caught up a bit but then she was leaving so I grabbed another beer and while waiting for Dan Deacon to start his set.
Though I am not even remotely Deacon's demographic - nerdy-teenage-smartass hipsters in bright clothing - He has always been entertaining in the few times I've seen him perform.
Deacon is also likable for his slacker appearance - He's overweight, balding and the last person you would think could lead 2k people in a dance freak-out, so his improbability gives him that underdog factor.
However he is also from D.C./Maryland and has that zero bullshit quality as well - Without being dickish he exchanged words with the stage hands that were growing impatient with his setup time and his equipment failure. At one point he even said into the mic, "We got it, and you don't need to speak to us like we are children" - later for which he apologized on the mic for and even lead the crowd to show appreciation for the crew who I think took it as sarcasm but it still seemed genuine to me.

Its unclear to me exactly what Deacon is performing, as it seems like he just hitting a bunch of sound effect with a propulsive dance looped beat. This time he had a full band with him, but other than Maestro, I'm not sure what his contributions actually are.
Known for snarky impromptu, he then started a parlor game among the 2k in attendance and created a giant dance circle while he was giving direction via a megaphone. Good times -

And now for something totally different, I left there to go over to the building that used to be called Emo's to see the Sword. A local Austin band that has reached global success, especially with a high-[profile tour as the opening slot for Metallica recently.
Trickykid alumni Never Got Caught along with Clutch toured with them as well,so I've gotten friendly with them over the years as well as they have become one of my favorite bands. So I was excited when they invited me over to their showcase.
I get there, and suddenly I see a familiar face onstage while they are getting setup - Their is a camera crew filming this for a show and its host - Anthony Bourdain who's career is a constant reference at my mother and sister's homes. I even took them to see him on his tour last year.

The guys in the Sword were so busy with all of this, I didn't even have the chance to really even let them know that I was here, or express my gratitude for their invitation.
In what seemed like a millenia to get properly sound-checked, the bass player knew he was holding up the party, and finally threw his hands up after shouts of "Goddamn, it doesn't have to be perfect" started emitting from the crowd- and got the show started.

They were fucking deadly as always and they played like 8 new songs. The newer stuff sounded more straight up rock which is direction that I'm happy that they are increasingly headed in. Starting with Black Sabbath's Children of the Grave and ending with their hit Freya that's also become a staple of Guitar Hero - with all new stuff in between.

Ok, wanna get even heavier? - Where could this night take us now, How about across the street where Corrosion of Conformity were playing a dive bar for $5.00? - Perfect.

A brief history lesson of C.O.C. - For the first ten years of their existence their were a three-piece (sometimes four) punk juggernaut with a blistering sound and a downright frightening image. They were ones of the bands when you were younger that you actually feared.
In the early 1990's they acquired new member Pepper Keenan, who not only took over on vocals but on the later albums, his taste/persona seemed to take over the would band. His first record with them, Blind turned them into a straight up Heavy Metal band and then with the next three (and finally commercial success) they became this southern fried, blues-y Pantera-ish entity that made them completely unrecognizable from the former years, especially after drummer Reed Mullin left the band.
For most people this was their first time hearing the band and thought they were like this new Southern Rock band, which you can imagine completely alienated, their former punk rock faithful.
If I was being truthful, even though the purest will condemn this, when I want to listen to C.O.C. its those three southern rock albums I like the best, and probably haven't purposely listened to those early records since I first heard them as a kid.
Well for this tour, Pepper Keenan is absent, (actually in the band Down with Pantera member Phil Anselmo) - Reed Mullin is back, C.O.C. are once again a three piece, just released a new album that's a complete return to its punk rock roots and this tour they will be playing that stuff and only that stuff to celebrate its full-circle return.

Though the sound in this place is dismal, they still kicked severe ass - Though I totally miss Pepper, I can't deny that Mike Dean is actually better suited as a front man than him. He's more engaging, more menacing, and has the between song banter down flat, something that Keenan has always suffered with. I saw the show in Dallas a few days prior and both of these shows were just brutal and way exceeded my expectations.

Setlist:

Bottom Feeder
Psychic Vampire
Loss for Words
Vote With a Bullet
Mad World
Consumed
Seven Days
Your Tomorrow
The Doom
The Snake Has No Head
The Moneychangers
Deliverance
Rat City
Holier
Hungry Child
Leeches
Technocracy

What else is left? How much further can this night go? - Now I had to go get my car and head over to Lustre Pearl (which was easier said than done) to end this first night with Mobb Deep.

Killer Mike is one big freaking dude, I was also their to meet up with my buddy Matt, who I would be staying with on this trip. My man loves that gangster shit, and now that it was almost 2am and we hadn't seen each other in a year, I got a drunken hero's welcome haha.

We left there to get some late-night drive thru before heading to his place. I hadn't seen his new place since he moved in and their I was introduced to his roommates' sister and her boyfriend as well as the couch I would be living on for the next week.

Stay tuned for more.....

Photos -

Roy Turner
Eric Danton
Chris Ellis

March 2012

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 14:20:00 GMT

March 1st
Motorhead cancels

March 2nd
Saul Williams @ Sons of Herman Hall (Dallas)
The House Harkonnen @ La Grange

March 3rd
Henry Rollins @ PAC (University of North Texas) (Denton, TX)

March 5th
Bartender's Ball @ ??? (Dallas)

Jan-Feb 2012

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 16:15:00 GMT

Jan 28th
Sasha Grey @ Mcfadden's

Feb 4th
Shepherd Fairey

Feb 9th
Fan Halen @ HOb Dallas

Feb 11th
Anvil @ Trees (Dallas)
Whitney Houston

Feb 15th (wed)
Mike Doughty @ HOB Dallas

Feb 18th (Sat)
Ryan & Meghan's Engagement Party @ 1907 Avonia Drive (Grapevine,TX)

Feb 25th (Sat)
The Phuss @ Lola's

Dec 2011 Return of Scratch Acid & Man or Astroman +the best Christmas ever & Lights All Night 4 NYE!

Sat, 31 Dec 2011 17:00:00 GMT

What a long strange trip this was

Dec 8th (Thurs)
Scratch Acid/Baboon @ Trees
Origin Magazine's Launch Party @ Crow Collection of Asian Art 2010 Flora St. 8pm (Dallas)
w/ DJ Spooky

Dec 9th (Fri)
Redefine @ Trees

Dec 10th (Sat)
Red Leather @ Hat Trick's (Lewisville)

Dec 17th (Sat)
Man...or Astroman? @ Sons of Hermann Hall (Dallas)
Family in Grapevine

What It's a Wonderful Life means to me - Merry Christmas 2011

Sat, 24 Dec 2011 03:35:00 GMT

There are two major rites of passage associated with the Christmas season, both of which involve the initiation into the world of adult cynicism. The first, of course, is the day you find out (SPOILER ALERT!) that there is no Santa Claus, (though I imagine 4-year-olds are digging up that info on their iPads these days.) Less remarked upon, however, is the second: Your sudden realization, late in an annual viewing of It’s A Wonderful Life, that this venerable holiday classic isn’t as heartwarming and life-affirming as its joyous ending insists, but rather one of the grimmest, most despairing portraits of middle-class compromise ever produced by Hollywood. Some folks never have this revelation, and for others it’s long deferred; arguably, you need to have given up on some cherished dreams of your own. Once the veil is lifted, though, there’s no returning to the carefree days of Buffalo Gals and lassoed moons.
In particular, I’ve learned to leave the room at my Mom's house during the scene in which George Bailey returns home, having discovered that Uncle Billy (Thomas Mitchell) has mislaid the cash receipts for their savings and loan business—a total of $8,000, (which amounts to nearly $100,000 today.) Potentially disastrous as this is, it’s really just the last straw in a lifelong series of frustrations and disappointments, and George proceeds to lose it in a way so credibly harrowing that it’s painful to watch—especially given the actor who’s playing him. Alfred Hitchcock and Anthony Mann usually get the credit for unleashing the seething anger beneath Jimmy Stewart’s folksy persona, but Frank Capra got there first, creating an abrupt patriarchal nightmare that cuts far deeper. If you can get through this clip without at least being on the verge of tears, regardless of how many times you’ve seen it before, then you have no pulse.

The one scene in particular that always gets me is George and Mary get married. As they are leaving town for their honeymoon, they witness a run on the bank that leaves the Building and Loan in danger of collapse. The couple quell the panic by using the $2,000 earmarked for their honeymoon to satisfy the depositors' immediate needs. To explain the situation George, in simultaneous despair and clarity says "Can't you see whats happening here?, Potter isn't selling, he's buying" - Once you have experienced this scene,
you’ll be wrecked by it forever after.

Thankfully, the scene opens right on Janie hammering out Hark! The Herald Angels Sing on the family piano, providing a convenient musical cue for me to flee. There’s something inexpressibly depressing about this clumsy refrain being repeated over and over for the entire duration of the scene (until George finally snaps and insists that she stop); you can hear it clearly even when we’re upstairs in Zuzu’s room. Janie knows all the correct notes but can’t play them at the correct tempo, and the close-but-no-cigar effect serves to unconsciously remind George of the many times that he’s almost achieved his goals, only to be foiled by awful timing. Plus, it’s just kind of maddening, even for someone not having the worst day of his entire crummy life. Certainly this is the moment in the film when the title seems most painfully ironic.

What’s extraordinarily rich and deeply moving about both the construction of the scene and Stewart’s performance, though, is that George doesn’t simply flip a switch and turn into a raging tyrant. Instead, he veers back and forth between bitterness and tenderness throughout, as his genuine love for his family does battle with his growing sense of self-pity. The first thing he does upon arriving home is respond brusquely to Mary’s innocuous questions about the Christmas wreath and his hat and coat; the second thing he does is hug Tommy so tight it’s a wonder he doesn’t break the poor kid’s ribs. Literally one minute later he peevishly asks, “Why do we have to have all these kids?!”—a heartbreaking question, but one that’s sandwiched between his concern about Zuzu’s health and his loving, whispered exchange with her upstairs.

And finally—after trashing the room, apologizing sincerely for his abusive behavior, and then instantly transforming that apology into further abuse (“Janie, go on, I told you to practice. Now go on, play!”), George escapes, heading out to throw himself off a bridge and be rescued by an angel. Obviously, the whole point of It’s A Wonderful Life is that the title isn’t ironic—Clarence shows George how much he’s meant to everybody in Bedford Falls, and the movie concludes with unbridled optimism and good cheer. And this is only one great scene in a movie full of them. You could come back to this movie and write up the ear-slapping scene, the George and Mary on the phone scene, the naked Mary in the bushes scene, George telling off Potter, Potter telling off George after the money comes up missing, the final scene.... It goes on and on. The single greatest movie ever made about the American dream.

The Trickykid Top 15 LPs of 2011

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 05:40:00 GMT

Ok so every year around this time, people start making their Best of list(s) which can be entertaining or completely unneccesary depending. I like to have fun with it and its a bit of a thrill to look back and see what provided my soundtrack for the year. I disclaim that these are/are not arguably the best records to have come out this year (and some were even released late 2010) but these are the albums that shaped my 2011: I had to expand to a Top 15 as an indication that it was a very good year for music.

1) Anthrax/Worship Music



2) The Pretty Reckless/Light Me Up



3) Beastie Boys/ Hot Sauce Committee Part 2



4) Bjork - Biophilia



5) The Death Set/ Michel Poiccard



6) IAMX/Volatile Times



7) Motorhead/The World is Yours



8) Danger Mouse & Daniele Luppi/Rome



9) Juliana Hatfield/There Is Always Another Girl



10) Saul Williams/Volcanic Sunlight



11) Tres Mts/Three Mountains



12) Foo Fighters/Wasting Light



13) Steel Panther/Balls Out



14) The Roots/Undun



15) Joe Lally/Why Should I Get Used to it



Best Show I Saw In 2011 -

The Big Four - Metallica/Slayer/Megadeth/Antrhax

                           - Empire Polo Fields - Indio, California - April 23rd




                      - Yankee Stadium - The Bronx, NY - September 14th

Nov 2011 - Fun Fun Fun Fest in Austin w/ Slayer, Henry Rollins, Public Enemy & Kool Keith

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 16:50:00 GMT

One of the most aggrivating days ever

Nov 18th
Melt Banana @ The Prophet Bar

Fun Fun Fun Fest

Oct 2011 - The Rangers return to the World Series + Anthony Bourdain live & The Pretty Reckless

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 14:45:00 GMT

THis was fun shit

Oct 11th (Tues)
Smackdown @ AA Arena (Dallas)

Oct 12th (Wed)
The Supersuckers @ Lola's

Oct 15th (Sat)
AlCs Game 6
Dallas Observer Fest @ Deep Ellum (Dallas)
w/ Main Stage (doors at 4 p.m.)
4:30 p.m. - Sarah Jaffe

6 p.m. - Centro-matic

7:30 p.m. - Old 97's

9 p.m. - Toadies

The Bone (downstairs)

12 a.m. - Rhymin' & Stealin'

Oct 16th (Sun)
Judas Priest @ Allen Event Center (Dallas)

Oct 19th (Wed)
The Pretty Reckless @ The Palladium (Dallas)

OCt 27th (Thurs)
Anthony Bourdain @ Majestic Theatre 8pm

Oct 28th
Anthrax/Testament @ Southside Music Hall (Dallas)
The House Harkonnen (as Pantera) @ Hailey's

Oct 2011-4 nights of Portishead + ATP Festival w/ Public Enemy & the return of the Ultramagnetic MCs

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 14:40:00 GMT

This was also the greatest shit ever

Oct 1-2nd
ATP w/ Portishead @ Asbury Park, NJ

Oct 3rd
Shellac @ The Bell House (Brooklyn)

Oct 4-5th
Portishead @ Hammerstein Ballroom (NYC)

Sept 2011 Pt II NYC/Boston-Scenes from Occupy Wall St & reunion fever w/Tree,The Raincoats & Kyuss!

Mon, 03 Oct 2011 13:45:00 GMT

The Raincoats - Warsaw - September 16th - Brooklyn, NY

Fun night ran into Peaches etc

Touring behind a new release of their 1981 sophomore record Odyshape, The Raincoats continue to be one of the most famously re-issued bands in rock. Kurt Cobain once used his 90s mega-star clout to get their records out on DGC, but they slipped out of print shortly thereafter (his suicide put a crimp in his patronage, maybe?). In the file-sharing era that’s hardly an impediment to gaining new fans, though. Drawing a crowd of nearly four digits, the once-obscure act seems finally entrenched in the rock canon as groundbreaking heroes. And what a thrill it was to hear singular songs like “The Void” played live. It’s still striking how original these songs sound, wobbling to and fro, equally likely to explode into abstract Cherokee whoops, or simple punk hooks. Violinist Vicky Aspinall hid from view in the wings at times, ecstatically leaping out to heighten the surprise impact of big string catharses. Ana da Silva wrangled white noise out of unidentifiable metal box, playing its sides with a xylophone mallet. Gina Birch forgot how to play a song on guitar once or twice, only to come back triumphant after a quick huddle, launching into an overshadowed gem like 1996 comeback single “Don’t Be Mean”. At one point, when da Silva’s guitar strap unhooked, a dude from the audience braved a manhandling from beefy security guards to leap onstage to fix it. College kids moshed frantically when “Fairytale in the Supermarket” opened the encore. They never did “Lola”, a Kinks’ song that they might not feel ownership of but, on account of their unraveling, revelatory cover version, probably should. They played everything else, though. They even dusted off Odyshape’s closer, “Go Away”, a song they claimed hadn’t been played in 30 years. It’s successful completion lead to actual on-stage hops of glee. Beaming behind the mic or grinning up at it, the goodwill in the room was pretty overwhelming.

Had to go get money - embarassed etc

NRML Festival w/ Tree - Boston Commons - September 17th - Boston, MA

Big show weird vibe etc.

The Boston Freedom Rally is an annual event held on the third Saturday in September, it is traditionally the second largest annual gathering demanding marijuana law reform in the United States, after the Seattle Hempfest. It is organized by the Massachusetts Cannabis Reform Coalition (MASS CANN), the Massachusetts state affiliate of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws also known as MASS CANN/NORML.

Boston Common is America's oldest public ground and the place where rights to free speech and assembly were first established. Since 1992 MASS CANN/NORML's Freedom Rally has been held on Boston Common.

Pic of Tree

More weirdness

(later that night) Tree - Middle East (downstairs) - September 17th - Cambridge, MA

Weird vibe etc

Pic of Tree

Wish I was dead etc..

Kyuss Lives/The Sword - Terminal 5 - September 23rd - NYC

not going wasn't an option - opening band was deeafening

Pic of openers

The sword kicked ass

A long time coming etc

More cool kyuss shit etc - burning angel trash party after - aria rae etc

The Roots on the Intrepid/Bowl train w/ Ali Shaheed - Sept 29th

What a crazy night! CMJ showed up and there was easily 1,000 people lined up to see DJ Vice, the Hold Steady and the Roots rock the Intrepid. We were beginning to think we’d need one of the helicopters up on the flight deck just to make it to the stage, but after some finagling, we made it past the gate. The free event sponsored by Pandora and State Farm went down on the deck of the aircraft carrier, with drink tents on top and food trucks down on the pier. Those in attendance were given red light up shutter shades, making the deck look like a hive of glowing fire ants from above.

Up on deck, DJ Vice was already spinning. The DJ booth was fronted by 12 glowing bars, like a battlement, projecting all kinds of weird stuff: explosions, city skylines, white and black bars. The things could even sync with the beat and light up in time. Partygoers sipped their five dollar cups of wine as secret service-looking dudes watched and waited for someone to get just a little too close to the edge of the ship. Good thing there’s a guardrail on deck.

The Hold Steady didn’t take off until 8:00 on account of rain. Once the stage was cleared of protective equipment (garbage bags, duct tape) the dudes lit the candle and blasted into their set. Frontman Craig Finn was in true form that night, flapping his arms around as if trying to achieve liftoff. The set did soar, and the crowd fed off of all the fists, waves and fingers Finn was chucking at them. Lead guitarist Tad Kubler strapped on his double-necked Gibson EDS-1275 toward the end and let rip. We’ve never seen fingers so fast. Properly primed, the audience was ready for rock of a different breed.

Blurts from a sousaphone (think wearable tuba) heralded the coming of the Roots. Damon “Tuba Gooding Jr.” Bryson burst on stage brandishing his sousaphone so violently we half-expected something to pop out of it. Brassy bass notes backing up Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson’s drums wafted out of the beast of an instrument, as Black Thought launched into “How I Got Over.” The MC asked, “Can I get some help?!”—the answer from the audience was an overwhelming yes. The energy was well-divided among the Roots, compared with Finn taking on the collective weight of the Hold Steady. There was plenty of movement, with synchronized dancing and Bryson at one point waded into the crowd, going from front to back, the bell of his sousaphone poking above a sea of heads.

The curse of Primus returns & The David Byrne exibit/Questo at Yotel Hotel - Sept 30th

The Occupy Wall Street Movement

September 17, 2011The Occupy Wall Street protests begin, with around 1,000 people marching up and down Wall Street. They ultimately settle in nearby Zuccotti Park.

The first few times I went down to Zuccotti Park, I came away with mixed feelings. I loved the energy and was amazed by the obvious organic appeal of the movement, the way it was growing on its own. But my initial impression was that it would not be taken very seriously by the Citibanks and Goldman Sachs of the world. Modern finance is a giant mechanical parasite that only an expert surgeon can remove. Yell and scream all you want, but the and financial Frankensteins are the only ones who know how to turn the machine off.

That's what I was thinking during the first few weeks of the protests. But I began to see another angle. Occupy Wall Street was always about something much bigger than a movement against big banks and modern finance. It's about providing a forum for people to show how tired they are not just of Wall Street, but everything. This is a visceral, impassioned, deep-seated rejection of the entire direction of our society, a refusal to take even one more step forward into the shallow commercial abyss of phoniness, short-term calculation, withered idealism and intellectual bankruptcy that American mass society has become. If there is such a thing as going on strike from one's own culture, this is it. And by being so broad in scope and so elemental in its motivation, it's flown over the heads of many on both the right and the left.

I msyelf wasted no time in cannon-blasting the movement - I thoght they were just a bunch of dirty hippies who should get a job and stop chewing up Mike Bloomberg's police overtime budget with their urban sleepovers. Just like they did a half-century ago, when the debate over the Vietnam War somehow stopped being about why we were brutally murdering millions of innocent Indochinese civilians and instead became a referendum on bralessness and long hair and flower-child rhetoric.

At the same time its hard to see the hyprocisy and joiner mentality of some of these protesters. These Starbucks-sipping, Levi's-clad, iPhone-clutching protesters denouncing corporate America even as they weep for Steve Jobs, corporate titan, billionaire eight times over, are certainly hard to take seiroiulsly.
On the other side of the political spectrum, there were scads of progressive pundits like me who wrung our hands with worry that OWS was playing right into the hands of all these corporate assholes. Viewed through the prism of our desire to make near-term, within-the-system changes, it was hard to see how skirmishing with cops in New York would help foreclosed-upon middle-class families in Jacksonville and San Diego.
What both sides missed is that OWS is tired of all of this. They don't care what we think they're about, or should be about. They just want something different.

We're all born wanting the freedom to imagine a better and more beautiful future. But modern America has become a place so drearily confining and predictable that it chokes the life out of that built-in desire. Everything from our pop culture to our economy to our politics feels oppressive and unresponsive. We see 10 million commercials a day, and every day is the same life-killing chase for money, money and more money; the only thing that changes from minute to minute is that every tick of the clock brings with it another space-age vendor dreaming up some new way to try to sell you something or reach into your pocket. The relentless sameness of the two-party political system is beginning to feel like a Jacob's Ladder nightmare with no end; we're entering another turn on the four-year merry-go-round, and the thought of having to try to get excited about yet another minor quadrennial shift in the direction of one or the other pole of alienating corporate full-of-shitness is enough to make anyone want to smash his own hand flat with a hammer.

That, to me, is what Occupy Wall Street is addressing. People don't know exactly what they want, but as one friend of mine put it, they know one thing: FUCK THIS SHIT! We want something different: a different life, with different values, or at least a chance at different values.

There was a lot of snickering in media circles, even by me, when I heard the protesters talking about how Liberty Square was offering a model for a new society, with free food and health care and so on. Obviously, a bunch of kids taking donations and giving away free food is not a long-term model for a new economic system.

But now, I get it. People want to go someplace for at least five minutes where no one is trying to bleed you or sell you something. It may not be a real model for anything, but it's at least a place where people are free to dream of some other way for human beings to get along, beyond auctioned "democracy," tyrannical commerce and the bottom line.

We're a nation that was built on a thousand different utopian ideas, from the Shakers to the Mormons to New Harmony, Indiana. It was possible, once, for communities to experiment with everything from free love to an end to private property. But nowadays even the palest federalism is swiftly crushed. If your state tries to place tariffs on companies doing business with some notorious human-rights-violator state – like Massachusetts did, when it sought to bar state contracts to firms doing business with Myanmar – the decision will be overturned by some distant global bureaucracy like the WTO. Even if 40 million Californians vote tomorrow to allow themselves to smoke a joint, the federal government will never permit it. And the economy is run almost entirely by an unaccountable oligarchy in Lower Manhattan that absolutely will not sanction any innovations in banking or debt forgiveness or anything else that might lessen its predatory influence.

And here's one more thing I was wrong about: I originally was very uncomfortable with the way the protesters were focusing on the NYPD as symbols of the system. After all, I thought, these are just working-class guys from the Bronx and Staten Island who have never seen the inside of a Wall Street investment firm, much less had anything to do with the corruption of our financial system.

But I was wrong. The police in their own way are symbols of the problem. All over the country, thousands of armed cops have been deployed to stand around and surveil and even assault the polite crowds of Occupy protesters. This deployment of law-enforcement resources already dwarfs the amount of money and manpower that the government "committed" to fighting crime and corruption during the financial crisis. One OWS protester steps in the wrong place, and she immediately has police roping her off like wayward cattle. But in the skyscrapers above the protests, anything goes.

This is a profound statement about who law enforcement works for in this country. What happened on Wall Street over the past decade was an unparalleled crime wave. Yet at most, maybe 1,500 federal agents were policing that beat – and that little group of financial cops barely made any cases at all. Yet when thousands of ordinary people hit the streets with the express purpose of obeying the law and demonstrating their patriotism through peaceful protest, the police response is immediate and massive. There have already been hundreds of arrests, which is hundreds more than we ever saw during the years when Wall Street bankers were stealing billions of dollars from retirees and mutual-fund holders and carpenters unions through the mass sales of fraudulent mortgage-backed securities.

It's not that the cops outside the protests are doing wrong, per se, by patrolling the parks and sidewalks. It's that they should be somewhere else. They should be heading up into those skyscrapers and going through the file cabinets to figure out who stole what, and from whom. They should be helping people get their money back. Instead, they're out on the street, helping the Blankfeins of the world avoid having to answer to the people they ripped off.

People want out of this fiendish system, rigged to inexorably circumvent every hope we have for a more balanced world. They want major changes. I think I understand now that this is what the Occupy movement is all about. It's about dropping out, if only for a moment, and trying something new, the same way that the civil rights movement of the 1960s strived to create a "beloved community" free of racial segregation. Eventually the Occupy movement will need to be specific about how it wants to change the world. But for right now, it just needs to grow. And if it wants to sleep on the streets for a while and not structure itself into a traditional campaign of grassroots organizing, it should. It doesn't need to tell the world what it wants. It is succeeding, for now, just by being something different.

Sept 2011-NYC Adventures w/Secret Chiefs 3-Grace Potter-Foo Fighters & the craziest Vice Party ever!

Sun, 02 Oct 2011 12:50:00 GMT

Ok here comes the whirlwind - Between the Metal Masters Classic and secret warmup Anthrax show and the big show at Yankee Stadium (see the Big Four entry) - a few other drops of awesome went down in between - and continued just about every day for the rest of the month, to become one of the most active months all year.

The Secret Chiefs 3 - Le Poisson Rouge - September 13th - NYC

So after last night's Metal Master's Classic, I had day in between before taking on the big day with the Big Four at Yankee Stadium the next day. So now on to something completely different - One thing I enjoy is the incestuous nature of the scene of musicians that surround Mike Patton and Mr. Bungle and it just seems to be ever expanding. That notion is very exciting as there seems to always be new good music coming from it. One of these groups is Secret Chiefs 3 that I've never got to see live.
Secret Chiefs 3 is the vehicle of ex–Mr. Bungle guitarist Trey Spruance. The band performs proggy fantasias that draw on Bollywood-esque melodies, metallic bludgeon and surf rock.
Speaking of musical incest - Secret Chiefs 3 has always been a general name for seven different bands, each representing a different aspect of Spruance's musical and philosophical interests. The seven bands are:
The Electromagnetic Azoth
UR
Ishraqiyun
Traditionalists
Holy Vehm
FORMS
NT Fan

The albums Book of Horizons (2004) and Satellite Supersonic Vol. 1 (2010) were conceived as compilation albums featuring the satellite bands under their own names.
It’s interesting that an American (an “enemy” of the Iranian state?) is able to put a modern touch to very deep classical Persian music that young listeners can connect to, a feat that no Persian has done yet.

The current touring lineup features April Centrone , a local NYC musician/artist who is extremely talented and a total babe.

The inspiration for the music of the Secret Chiefs 3, as well as what reactions he receives, as an Eastern Orthodox Christian playing Arabic, Persian, and Muslim influenced music made for a very interesting night. The show was very dark and its players looked menacing almost scary. It had that same feel everytime I saw Mr.Bungle where I felt challenged and almost frightened by it all.
I swore I would never come back to this club after I had been here for the Japan Benefits back in March for how the staff treated me, but
I can't argue with a venue that consistently books solid acts that I never get to see anywhere.

Vice Party w/ DFA 1979, Rick Ross & more - Bank Building - September 15th - Brooklyn, NY

This was some craaaazzzy shit - where to begin? - Other than when I arrived in Flatbush across from the Target that I used to shop at when I lived in Cobble Hill to see that bank building across the street that is an architectural wonder (the bank has long since closed) was going to be the site of tonight's soirée. How typically untypical (or is it the other way around) of Vice and hell Brooklyn for the matter to have a party here - it fits the unlikeliness that is the source of all that for which this scene stands for and expects.
I arrive to a TOTAL shitshow outside as you can imagine - its a free party and everyone thinks they are important and self-entitlement is in the water supply here so you had ridiculous looking hipsters bum-rushing the entrances and wrist-band pickup touting their Twitter fame like buyers and sellers on the floor of the NY Stock Exchange. How did I get here?

After weathering the storm I make my way in to One Hanson Place, a beautiful byzantine-roman styled building formerly known as Williamsburg Savings Bank and its like the party you always wanted to be at that you saw in 80's films but as an adult know that those were just Hollywood constructs, come to life. It was Animal House and that party in Weird Science in a bank - for real.

People are running all over the place, I half expected to run into Tom Hanks and the crew from Bachelor Party (but later I did see Johnny Knoxville and,Spike Jonze) but in actuality the first person I do run into is Seth from Les Savy Fav. The odd thing is that though they are one of my all time fave bands and I have been to dozens of their shows and partied with them as many times I didn't recognize him, he just seemed like the first, most approachable person I saw that I could ask where everyone was getting the booze from. I ask him and he goes "Hey! wait a minute! I know you, your from Texas!" - I still didn't know it was him, I was just happy for the friendly face and recognition and so I quiz him on how we know each other and then he tells me and I felt like a total dumbass - He had a great line in his own great brand of delivery: "Dude the minute I saw you I go, THAT dude is from Texas, I'm sure of it!" - Awesome dude, he not only showed me where the booze was, he took me there.
Thanks Seth -

To unpack things a little: The party was, in fact, a celebration of maturation for the Vice squad — no more viceland.com, no more VBS.tv. Instead those properties live under the single roof of the apparently hard-earned (and costly) web address Vice.com. And for that feat, Vice called out a bunch of DJs anchored by A-Trak, and a few bands.
Tanlines, the reconstituted Death From Above 1979, and Rick Ross for an open bar and free concert.

A second stage in the basement--located inside a room-sized vault, with giant metallic doors at its entrance--featured acts like Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Anamanaguchi, Hanni El Khatib, Total Slacker and the Men. A-Trak was supposed to play, but canceled after the sudden passing of his friend DJ Mehdi.

Tanlines kicked off the upstairs with songs that were aided by the high-vaulted ceilings and the reverb-heavy acoustics.

After them here comes the sonic terror of the recently reunited, Death from Above 1979. Their songs already sound blown out and distorted on record, and the live show sacrifices any remaining fidelity for raw power. It threatened to shatter the bank teller windows into the crowd.

Rick Ross took the stage around 1am, after a brief intro set from Maybach Music Group rapper Stalley. This guy is a total fraud - he stole his look, image and hell even his name for Freeway Rick Ross - the notorious drug dealer that historically is credited for introducing crack cocaine to the masses in the Bronx in the early 1980s.
This is this dude's heroes or who he wants to emulate? - No thanks and I thought he sucked too - he totally fits that hipster-ready hip-hop thing that really annoys me.

The amount of people upstairs was comfortable and not-overpacked; the downstairs, then, could be described as sadly under-attended. One of the most pleasant surprise for me was Anamanaguchi.

The Men closed the night with a post-2am set for the stragglers that hadn't yet succumbed to the hazards of the open bar. On my way downstairs I passed a handful of people doubled over, getting carried out by the EMTs. Downstairs wasn't much safer: at one point, a mic stand went flying into the crowd landing squarely on someone's head (hope you're alright dude).

I unceremoniously disappeared, concluding a weird but essentially wonderful evening in Brooklyn.

DJ Spooky (Book of Ice lecture) - NY Academy of Sciences - September 19th - NYC

DJ Spooky (a.k.a. Paul Miller) is someone who's career I've long followed, often attempted to emulate, and a rare few times been able to call myself one of his contemporaries. From first seeing him open for Stereolab in Dallas over 15 years ago to whatever his latest project is - It's always interesting, ambitious, and highly intellectual. My goal is to follow the same path as DJ/Producer combined with writings and teachings as well as public speaking. He does all that and now can officially call him self a scientist instead of just boastfully "dropping some science". He just published a book about his adventures in Antarctica and was giving a lecture about his findings and experiences at the NY Academy of Sciences to give it the ultimate credibility. Located in a gorgeous building across the street from the Ground Zero memorial, just a week after recognizing the 10 year anniversary of the tragedy, high above the city to give it an even more formal vibe.

Miller, a musician and performance artist, has traveled to both the Arctic and Antarctic looking for inspiration. Almost four years ago, he went to Antarctica, and as a result, he created the Terra Nova project, which included Sinfonia Antarctica, a multimedia performance in which he said he seeks to recreate a landscape, interpret data as sound — a process known as data sonification — and create an emotional portrait. His accompanying book, The Book of Ice, a project he undertook with help from physicist Brian Greene, has a similar focus.

Accompanied by a violin, a viola and a cello played by members of the Telos Ensemble, Miller used his tablet computer to overlay beats and samples, snippets of recorded music, onto the live strings. Video of snow-covered mountain peaks, kaleidoscope-like patterns and other images accompanied the music on two projector screens.

He discussed and played five pieces with diverse inspirations and connections to climate change that were sometimes difficult to parse based on his presentation.

The opener, called Arctic Rhythms, had been written near the North Pole during a trip Miller took to the Arctic in 2010, while he was trying to figure out the "radical difference" between the planet's northern and southern extremes.
A second piece, Ice Sonification, was a hypnotic ode to the mathematics of ice. For the book and the composition, he collaborated with sonification expert Robert Alexander and came up with ways of basically rendering the molecular structure of ice into algorithms, changing the algorithms into tones.
Since Antarctica is the only place on Earth with no government, it inspired him to create posters in many languages for an imaginary revolution, declaring "Manifesto for a People's Republic of Antarctica."
A discussion on communicating the science of climate change, moderated by journalist and blogger Andrew Revkin, followed the performance.

Personally I liked the idea of presenting climate change as sound, but felt the execution needed work. I'm not sure they have the narrative for it, because it doesn't seem to have one cohesive argument.
While these interpretations might be effective, I feel like it's a little bit too complicated , and not sure they would work for others who hadn't already accepted its reality.

And let me say this: Though I've already gushed over Paul and how much I admire his work, and yes he's always been nothing but cool with me all the times we have met, he has an arrogance that's not exactly obnoxious nor is it subtle. Its further exacerbated by it seems like he feels that you aren't expecting this to come from a black man, but its equally mixed with a not all blacks are thugs, some of us are scholars - chip on his shoulder. And just about everything he says he delivers with a your mind must be blown about now smirk that can be hard to take sometimes. But look at all that he has accomplished all these years and you can't take that away.

Afterward their was a "surprise" reception afterwords, meaning that it wasn't mentioned and was presented as a surprise at the end of the lecture. I enjoy being a fish out of water and sometimes I resent it. Regardless of either scenario, I'm always mischievous and had some fun with some of the attendees at the reception.
This was a high-brow event attended by academics in every field from all over the country, but their were also scrubs like me that managed to snag an invite and since birds of feather, I found myself at the scrubs table.
I was a relentless smartass - fueled by my contempt of all things Whole Foods culture. The people around me were so high on pseudo-intellectualism and the yoga classes they couldn't stop talking about, that I positioned myself as the most unredeemable person I could think of via some improv roleplay. One dude was amused by me, these other two gals not so much and one I think was gonna have me thrown out if the reception hadn't of ended before she got around to it.

Sept 22nd - DJ Spooky Book event/Bowl Train later than night

In spite of my skepticisms about the linear argument he presented a few day earlier at the NY Science Academy, I was still entertained and thought it might be fun to see it again in a much different (and informal) setting, not to mention it was being held at Rand Mcnally which is one of my fave bookstores in the city. I love this part of town, where I can walk from Other Music to Housing Works and then Rand and then eat at one of the outdoor cafés, and that's exactly what I did today which helped secure my attendance.

The attendance was obviously much lower and I'm sure the promotion was much lighter, as about 25 people including me sat in on the lecture downstairs. Post lecture he was interviewed by L Magazine who also conducted a brief Q&A. We spoke briefly and had a nice little chat after. I still have my reservations however but you can't argue with his ambition.
Left there to go to one of my fave parties in all of the 5 boroughs, The Bowl Train - which I have written about many times - which is my man Questo from the Roots setting up shop at the Brooklyn Bowl to realize his very own version of Soul Train - its always funky and a total blast.

Grace Potter & The Nocturnals - Central Park Summerstage - September 24th - NYC

Back in Feb 2011, I first met Grace Potter and not only her band but specifically her crew and namely Ben, her Tour Manager - who treated me like freaking royalty. I'm not kidding, I've never experienced that type of hospitality from anyone (sometimes not even from the bands I work with haha) - It was just so nice to meet such genuine people who are a part of something real. They seem like a real family, band and crew as one, unlike the dysfunctional miscreants I travel with. And though I do appreciate the music and Grace is a killer performer, I felt like I was more motivated to go the show to see friends, namely Ben.

And who doesn't wanna go to any concert in this beautiful venue in the heart of Central Park at the beginning of Fall? I hadn't been here since Ween played here almost a year ago (when soundcheck was disrupted by...um...Madonna...who was directing a movie nearby and came over to say that the noise was getting in the way of the shoot).

I get there, and same hospitality ensues - and this isn't about how many free drinks I can squeeze out of the deal, it's about respect, the same that I show others and it feels good when you receive it in return. Their are laminates waiting for me at Will Call as I find a table backstage I see Ben, who is busy naturally, but takes a second to come over to greet me. He rules.

He gets the band onstage, and then comes over to make sure I'm okay, and then walks me into this special trailer setup just for hospitality - they are big on treating people right I tell you that.
It even got surreal as we are both cracking up laughing at all the stuff to choose from, which even included her own brand of chocolate bars - an odd mix of chocolate and chili peppers - and I shit you not, in a mason jar was actual MOONSHINE that he said Willie Nelson had given them - how fucking cool is that?

He dares me to have a swig, but chili/chocolate candy was as far as I would dare - I walk to the side to catch the show on a perfect night.

She is so rad, with a Tina Turner vibe and killer legs to match as the band kicks ass behind her. The gorgeous New York City night went perfectly with the psychedelically lit stage. Nirvana seemed to be on everyone's mind as the last few days the coming 20 year anniversary of Nevermind was reported everywhere. Jon Stewart was doing a special and how was this gonna be acknowledged at the Foo Fighters show in a few days? Without saying anything, clearly they were feeling it too as they band goes into a gorgeous cover of Come As You Are.

Setlist:

Stop The Bus
Only Love
That Phone
Goodbye Kiss
Oasis
Apologies
Low Road
Ragged Company
Ah Mary
Tiny Light
Come As You Are (Nirvana cover)
Colors
2:22
Why Don't You Love Me (Beyoncé cover)
Paris (Ooh La La)

Encore:

White Rabbit (Jefferson Airplane cover)
Nothing But The Water I
Nothing But The Water II
Tush (ZZ Top cover)
Medicine

An awesome show, and after I hung for a bit but of course I had to let Ben do his job. I invited him to meet me at a party in Brooklyn later, and he said the band was gonna be in town all week doing some recording and press so I left him to his gig and headed out to Brooklyn.

(later that night) Rob Swift - Legion Bar - September 24th - Brooklyn, NY

After leaving Central Park and the Grace Potter crew, I headed back to Brooklyn but a few stops past Williamsburg that I had never been to, to check out one of my fave turntablist and inspirations, Rob Swift.

What a complete and utter waste of time this was. The place was in a really shitty neighborhood across from a scary strip mall and the place itself was a piece of shit. I walk in not to see Swift about to bless some turntables per usual, but sitting down in the corner DJ'n from his Ipad. Brown.

Now I don't know Rob and I didn't' speak with him but why advertise this? Clearly he needs the money to take total shit gigs like this and I'm sure the bar wanted to advertise to get people like me in there and maybe he was obligated to announce the show as I heard it from him, but this shit only serves to make his stock go down. I came all the way out here and wanted to leave the second I arrived. I was so happy Ben and the Nocturnal dudes were too tired to come out, I would have been so super embarrassed by this.

Shitty thing as well as that I found out after the fact that this place is kinda like homebase for him. He's done a ton of residencies/record release parties etc. Hell, he may even own the place - its the only logical thing that makes sense. I don't mean to knock him and certainly want to support his efforts because he is so the real deal, but I would be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed on this night.

The Foo Fighters - The Meadowlands - September 26th - East Rutherford, NJ

So I had been in touch with my buddy Ben who Tour Manages Grace Potter and we were trying to get together to do something before they left town. I invited him out to see the Foo Fighters tonight but he had to cancel last second so I made the trip out to the Meadowlands alone. Now I like Dave Grohl and just about everything that he has been a part of has touched me in some way and if he's involved its probably on my radar. That doesn't change to fact that I honestly really don't give two shits about the Foos barely past their first record. Now their most recent one, Wasting Light is certainly an interesting project, that reunited him with Butch Vig who produced Nirvana's legendary Nevermind LP and I saw them burn the house down in Austin during SXSW after a screening of a really terrific documentary called Back and Forth. This new record is easily the heaviest thing they have released since 1995, but again it still doesn't really speak to me nor helps me forgive the baffling mediocrity of their output of the last 10 years.
But also like most people, how can you just not like Dave Grohl? Also in NYC sometimes the trip to the show can be just as exciting, so since I had free tickets I was all in.
I did that thing where you take the bus from Port Authority out to the Meadowlands for a whopping $5.00 and people are bringing sacks of beer onboard - a total party.
I get there and get my ticket from Will Call and head in, in time to catch the opening act, Rise Against.

Now you talk about a genre of music that I truly don't care about it would be the one that this band sorta leads. but I had a minor interest because the guitarist in the band that joined just a few years ago is Zach Blair, a Dallas musician that I'm friendly with but don't really know, but should as we have both been around for a very long time.
Zach and his brother used to be in local favorites Hagfish and his brother Donnie I know who now plays in the Toadies.
They all played well, its just not my thing at all.

Ok so during the break, a situation started presenting itself - I was on the house floor pretty close to the front but resting on the retaining wall stage left. I noticed this 40-ish hippy girl starting to lose her grip. I noticed her before and saw her downing cups of wine and it was clear she was also alone. Well I know how wine can kick my ass and she was getting hers royally. Well chivalry be damned, I couldn't help myself so when she started to go, I helped her up and asked if she needed anything when she sorta collapses in my arms. People now think I know her and are looking at me like "Why can't your girl keep it together?" - In a rare act of awareness for the Northeast, this nice younger girl that was part of the production saw what was going down and rushed over and offered me a bottle of water to give to her. This seemed to get her back to somewhat normal.

Building up tension, the opening clanging chords of Bridge Burning All at once, the building full of Foo fans shouted first line "These are my famous last WOORDDDDS!!".

Acknowledging that they are celebrating a special anniversary, (again as I had mentioned for Nevermind) Grohl brought his Nirvana out Krist Novoselic to the stage to play accordion on These Days. Needless to say, fans freaked as soon as he walked out, thrilled to see the two together in a live setting again. Adding some humor to the sentimental moment, Grohl added "Krist Novoselic is like the Eddie Van Halen of the accordion."

The show was fun and well paces and I appreciated being there and this was obviously a special night for them, but the vibe was more like seeing Def Leppard than anything of real substance. At one point Grohl walked down this long I'm-the-singer-ramp where he was playing to the people in the very back. I'm sure they appreciated it and it was a cool thing to do for them, but it just felt so arena-rock and scripted that their was nothing I could really say I took from it.

Drunk girl was in and out of her stupor for the whole show and though it was not my problem I couldn't help but make it my problem, that's just the kinda dude I am. When the show ended she seemed more lucid that she had the whole night so I was confident that she could make it home ok and she was taking one of the buses I was but I wanted to make myself scarce. Especially when she started freaking out that her phone had been stolen and I think me making a hasty departure made her think I had taken it. Oh New Jersey.

Setlist:

Bridge Burning
Rope
The Pretender
My Hero
Learn to Fly
White Limo
Arlandria
Breakout
Cold Day in the Sun
Stacked Actors
Walk
Monkey Wrench
Let It Die
These Days (w/ Krist Novoselic)
I Should Have Known
This is a Call
In the Flesh? (Pink Floyd cover)
All My Life

Encore:

Long Road to Ruin (Dave Solo Acoustic)
Best of You (Dave Solo Acoustic)
Times Like These (Dave Solo Acoustic/Full Band Electric)
Dear Rosemary
Breakdown (Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers cover)
Skin and Bones
Everlong

I had an aftershow pass but I couldn't stay long cause I had to catch the bus back to the city. I saw Zach and said hello briefly and even got to speak briefly with Grohl before heading for my bus.

When I got back to the city I was still pretty wired so I stopped off at Angels & Kings to have a drink. I had heard that Jessie Lee, one of the Burning Angel girls who's birthday party at Webster Hall I went to a few days ago was having a little something here because tonight was her actual birthday.

I don't really know any of them, my buddy Nate is friends with all of them, I just thought it would be a fun night with hot chicks. Their were a total of 5 people there including me and I still didn't talk to any of them except for Joanna for a bit.

Photos -

Roy Turner
Kris Arnold
Stephen Slaybaugh
Roselyn Fortuna
Nate "Igor" Smith
Joe Perez
Henry Adebonojo

Sept 2011 - NYC Adventures - The Big Four (East Coast) play Yankee Stadium + Metal Masters Classic 2

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 14:35:00 GMT

one of the greates datyes eer

Sept 12th
Metal Master's Clinic @ Best Buy Theatre 5pm 1515 Broadway, West 44th Street
Anthrax @ Best Buy Theatre (NYC) 7pm

Sept 14th
Anthrax Pre Party @ Hard Rock at Yankee Stadium 12 noon
The Big Four @ Yankee Stadium (The Bronx)
Anthrax Signing @ Hard Rock at Yankee Stadium 5pm

Aug 2011 - Lost weekend w/ Martin Lawrence, 311, DJ'n w/ Sasha Grey & The WM3 are finally released!

Fri, 02 Sep 2011 02:10:00 GMT

This was a weird month, if by weird a mean a bit slow - Maybe it wasn't, maybe it just seemed that way after literally non-stop for the past 7 months - Let's recap for a sec shall we?
Jan/Feb was spent in Los Angeles without a second to breathe with activity and craziness every single day.
Mar - Was spent in Austin for SXSW - the usual insanity ensues -
Apr - It's back to Los Angeles and what can I say? The month of my dreams -A week with Prince, the Revolver Awards, The Big Four at Coachella, the ASCAP Expo and a week at the Hollywood Roosevelt.
May - Was busy, but brown
June - Equally non-stop
July - If you read the last entry you know it was also bananas for the whole month in NYC

Ok so August was come down time, I wanted to spend some time in Texas. My sisters and my mom's birthday's are all a week apart in July/Aug so I usually go home around this time anyway.
Pretty slow, but a much needed rest.

Martin Lawrence - Winstar Casino - August 12th - Thacketville, OK

So if you are like me, relaxing doesn't come natural or easy so sometime you even need a rest from the rest -
I had the idea to take Erin up to the Winstar Casino which is just across the Oklahoma border and only a little over an hour from DFW.
I had been several times with friends and I figured it would be a quick fun trip and we could even come back that same night.
My motivation to choose this night to do it was to finally see Martin Lawrence in concert.

He hasn't done stand-up comedy for six years until this tour, and I had never seen him - I'm a huge fan of standup comedy and have actively tried to see all of my faves and have been fortunate enough to see quite a few, but his reclusiveness has made it difficult to do (not quite as bad as Eddie Murphy's who I have resigned that I will never see).
So we were excited and I'm not trying to sound cheap here, and since we were at a casino I knew we would be paying casino prices but I couldn't believe it that tickets were $100 a piece and they were in the very back. What did the people up front pay? I mean we were waaayy in the back, but we said fuck it, we were here and we had a good time. I don't know if it was a hundred dollars funny, but it was pretty damn funny.
He was on the whole night, only stopping briefly to gulp down enough water to continue his fast-paced show.
The night started with opening comedian Melanie Camacho, who riffed on being single, finding a man, the recession and quite a few words on sex.
To introduce Lawrence, a lengthy video montage showed him doing standup and performing on his TV series Martin
Then he took the stage to much hooting and hollering.

“Y'all came out to see me?” Lawrence said. “Much love! Thank you very much. I love to make people laugh. That's what I do.”

He started off with rants on Tiger Woods, sex addiction, the Shake Weight and how the country has changed enough for us to have a black president.
Then he mentioned how America needs to do better with education because Asian countries are doing so much better.

“They're beating us in science and math and the only thing our kids are learning how to do is the Dougie,” Lawrence said, referencing the street dance made popular by the song Teach Me How To Dougie.

Lawrence is charming because he seems like a regular guy. He knows he's a goof and laughs at his own jokes. Plus, he keeps the topics palatable, such as tattoos, piercings, boxing, relationships and plenty about sex.
He also joked about entertainment, especially his distaste for reality TV.

“You know who started reality TV? OJ (Simpson) started that,” Lawrence said, mentioning that Simpson should have laid low after being acquitted of murder.
He went on to poke fun at celebrity competition shows.

“You catch me on ‘Dancing With The Stars,' my career's over,” he said. “I ain't going on ‘Dancing With The Stars.'”

With that joke he showed off his physical comedy skills, dancing and twirling around. The whole night, he barely stayed still. Most of the time, he acted out whatever he was joking about, made sound effects and did funny voices.
Another example was when he joked about getting older and gaining weight.

“You know you're getting big when you go from walking to sliding,” he said as he slowly glided across the stage.

It was very cool to see that Hollywood didn't strip him of his talent. I've seen other former standups that have hit it big be not nearly as funny.

311, Sublime (w/ Rome) - Starplex Amphitheater - Aug 13th - Dallas, TX

You know its summer when your seeing 311 outdoors, no matter how much time has passed I still usually catch them once a year. I can't help it their shows are still so much fun, and they remind of me of a much simpler time. I also became good friends with their manager a couple of summers ago and their bass player P-Nut is a total Ween fanatic and comes to all the shows. I put him, their manager and Tim the guitar player on the list for Ween the last time we were in Los Angeles and their manager wanted to pay me back by inviting me out to this show.
I knew that this would make Erin happy because the openers were Sublime who were touring with some new singer dude called Rome. One of the things her and I would butt heads over the most, is she is super into shit like Sublime, Phish, Jam band whatever. Now, musically I'm not a snob, but culturally their isn't anything I hate more than that shit. About 10 years ago Phish covered Ween's Rose Are Free and ever since then all those fucking dirty hippies high on nitrous have been on their nuts. She's no dirty hippie but it is how we met haha
Joining us was my main man Chris, my bff of 25 years and I can't hear a 311 song without thinking of him and all the good times we have had with them as the soundtrack way back when the band first started and I was excited that he was joining us. We get to Will Call to claim our stuff and the 311 organization was generous to hook us up with tickets up front and backstage passes. Erin lives for this shit, so when both their faces lit up when I handed them their passes, it was so great to enjoy this with them as fans.

It was still light out when Sublime came on so the Summer vibe in full effect and seeing how happy she was and the good seats made their set at the most somewhat bearable.

I don't hate fun and seeing how happy people were singing those two songs I hear everytime I get into any car was fine.

After a brief set change it was now nightfall and 311's turn to get down. Now I'll admit I haven't really got into one of their records in a really long time. The last one was probably Evolver around 2003, the last time Chris and I went to see them together before last year.
They had just put out a brand new one called Universal Pulse that only has 9 songs on it. I hadn't heard it but Chris had. His review? "meh".

Their is just something that happens when Chris and I are together, suddenly everything is funny and everyone is an extra in our movie. Sometimes we don't even say anything and just start laughing. Our friendship is magic and I'm so grateful to have a friend like him and have for 25 years now. This band was our lives in high school and we used to dissect everything about them so it was so super funny to hear him playfully giving them some criticism when they would play something that compromised the momentum of the show.
I go to so many shows by myself and alot of those times are by choice, but its nights like this that this would have been a completely different experience if I was here by myself. Instead, the three of us laughed and danced all night, good times.

Setlist:

Beautiful Disaster
Prisoner
Sick Tight
Sunset In July
Come Original
Time Bomb
Homebrew
Beyond The Gray Sky
Trouble
Applied Science
All Mixed Up
Give Me a Call
Jackpot
Do You Right
Amber
Nutsymptom
Flowing
Wild Nights
Feels So Good
Down

Encore:

Omaha Stylee
Creatures (For A While)

After the show we went over to the area to wait to be let in to the aftershow backstage with our passes. I didn't wanna tell them their's no such thing as Santa, but also didn't want them to be disappointed. See, when people get those little sticky passes, they think "Holy shit, I'm backstage, I'm gonna drink with the band and maybe join them onstage and then party on their bus!" - (and some girls achieve this regardless of which pass they were given) However for the most part, the only people that have All Access passes are naturally those that are working or performing at the event or the occasional wife of a performer or manager, but you have to somehow be a part of the show. Those little sticky after-show passes usually lead to disappointment for most, as what usually takes place is that you are herded into to some green room, far from the band's dressing rooms, lucky if their is even free water, let alone booze. They will send in usually one member of the band (bands usually hate this shit so I have seen them draw straws) most likely the least famous member who enjoys whatever attention he can get. He will come in, sign shit and take pics for a half hour (while the other members are at the real party doing lines off the champagne-covered breasts of local strippers) and then your escorted out. Fucking lame, but these two never get to do shit like this so I wasn't gonna ruin their excitement with a heavy does of reality.
The last time I saw them in NYC, we were hanging on P-Nut's bus till the wee hours, but tonight it was gonna be one of these deals.

Finally we are escorted back there, about 15 people and we wait in this little tent that I recognize as the mess hall when we were here for the Warped Tour. The hospitality began and ended with bottles of warm water. After about 20 mins or so, one of the singers, Doug Martinez comes in and the place jumps a little. Theirs this one little dude that brought like the 11 other people besides us that you can tell that he's been telling these people since he's known them that he's friends with Doug. They are all standing in a circle listening to Doug and this guy talk, and this guy is acting like Doug is his long lost brother and Doug is graciously playing along. I see them do this dance that I have seen so many fucking times over the years in the business that it makes me wanna puke. He knew him just enough to get back here, but dude if this was like a member of your family the way you are acting, you would be having this conversation in the dressing room, not in the aftershow tent for losers.
Doug finally breaks free and starts heading toward us and Erin and Chris jump, this was super exciting to them and I wasn't going to blow it. He was only coming our way because the three of us were the only other people there he hadn't greeted.
He introduces himself to us and I ask him about P-Nut but I felt foolish saying P-Nut and all the times I've been around him I've called him by his real name, Aaron, as that is what he introduced himself to me as, as it seemed he felt foolish when meeting some Ween-folk for the first time if he had said P-Nut. So what I actually said was "Hey man is Aaron around?" - In hindsight this was probably a mistake, because his reply was one of "Ok I get it pal, your so in the know that you know his REAL name, and your such good friends that you get to call him by it,that's why your in the loser tent right?" - He was thinking the same thing about me, as I was about the dude that was given him the long lost friend routine earlier. What he really said was "Umm..wait?...you mean P-Nut?" -
I nodded and mentioned the Ween-related nature of our friendship, and he didn't get that either, and then said "Wait?..umm..did you say Ween?" - I nodded again and then he offered to text him (but I'm pretty certain he mimed it) and then he told me something I already knew which was they had just had their own festival in Florida and had invited Ween to play. Since Ween would have just been there a few weeks prior they and the promoter turned it down among other reasons.
So optimistically he looks at me says "Yeah so who knows? maybe we will get to do a show with them at some point?" - to which I smiled, nodded and then shook my head blank-faced and said "Not a chance sir"
It's true but I meant it as good-natured ribbing and he took it as such by doing that "Oooohhhh shit!" thing and giving me a knowing look that he knew it was true as well and the reasons why. This was still not enough to separate us from the herd as he excused himself to go hang with a few local riggers that he seemed to know.
Chris and Erin not quite ready to leave the scene and were hopeful that he actually did text P-Nut and we would soon be out of here and on to some real shit. I didn't want to squash the vibe by revealing my suspicions that he didn't text anybody, until it started to become embarrassing that we were still there. I thought the right thing to do was to let him know that we were leaving and I know Erin and Chris were on-board with this. He was polite but seemed more relived that we were leaving. Whatever dude, we had a good time just the same.

Sasha Grey (DJ set) - Lizard Lounge - August 14th - Dallas, TX

Ok so the next night was something that I was greatly anticipating. Erin had been wanting to see me DJ but I didn't dare tell her about this gig because her jealousy would have compromised the event for me and I wasn't going to risk that after practically begging the owner of the Lizard Lounge to let me do this gig with one of the hottest and most amazing women in the history of the world.

She's an actress, writer, photographer, musician and former adult film star. Sasha Grey made her Hollywood breakthrough performance as the star of Steven Soderbergh’s 2009 motion picture The Girlfriend Experience. Sasha has continued to solidify her talents through various mainstream acting roles. At The New Museum in New York city, she took on the character of “Molly Millions” for a stage performance of Brody Condon’s Case, a reading of William Gibson’s Neuromancer. She also guest starred as herself on Entourage as my dude Adrien Grenier's girlfriend.

Musically, Sasha has contributed vocals on albums for Current 93 and Lee “Scratch” Perry. Her band, aTelecine, released A Vigilant Car Park in 2009 and is releasing a second full-length album this Fall. Sasha’s photography book Neu Sex released came out last year.

I had met her twice before, once at an informal gathering at a club while hanging with Adrian and Ari in Los Angeles, and the second time at the book release for Neu Sex earlier this year at Housing Works in NYC. Both times, she was amazingly cool and radiant beyond words.
She's as smart as you have heard and at 22, I was amazed at her knowledge of soul music. Both times I was successful in making her laugh considerably so I can check that one off the list.

Still we don't really know each other and when I heard that she was doing a DJ tour I thought "I have to do a gig with her!" - I knew it would be virtually impossible in LA or NYC so when I heard that we were gonna be in Dallas at the same time, I jumped on it and got the gig.

Just like last time, we had an easy rapport and got along great. I've heard people say they think of her as icy but in my experience she was always fun and eager to laugh - and do I even need to say anything about impossibly attractive she is?

She's also a really good DJ, and is into some really cool stuff. She likes alot of German industrial stuff like Einstuerzende Neubauten and Kraftwerk and really weird goth art-school shit like Genesis P Orridge and Brion Gysin, but her mix was creative and inspired and I liked it alot. You can listen to some of it right here -

There were a few dudes standing around that had no interest in dancing and perhaps this was their first time seeing the insides of a dance club but were here to gawk at Sasha, but just like at the book release party, their were so many girls here that love and admire her.

All in all, a really fun night and I was happy to get the gig and laugh and joke and talk music with someone that I admire.

The West Memphis Three are finally released -

In a jaw dropping move after weeks of negotiations on August 19, 2011, Echols, Baldwin and Misskelley were thankfully and at long last released from prison as part of an Alford plea deal, a rare legal mechanism in which "no contest" pleas are entered but innocence is nevertheless maintained. An Alford plea concedes that prosecutors have sufficient evidence to secure a conviction but reserves the right to assert innocence. Stephen Braga, a prominent attorney with Ropes & Gray who took up Echols’s defense on a pro bono basis beginning in 2009, negotiated the plea agreement with prosecutors.Under the deal, Judge David Laser vacated the previous convictions, including the capital murder convictions for Echols and Baldwin, and ordered a new trial. Each man then entered an Alford plea to lesser charges of first and second degree murder while verbally stating their innocence. Judge Laser then sentenced them to time served, a total of 18 years and 78 days, and they were given a Suspended Imposition of Sentence for 10 years. If they re-offend they can be sent back to prison for 21 years.

The Alford plea deal meant that the hearing ordered by the Arkansas Supreme Court in November 2010, scheduled for December 2011 before Judge Laser, became unnecessary. Factors cited by prosecutor Scott Ellington for agreeing to the plea deal included the fact that two of the victims' families have joined forces with the defense, the mother of a witness who testified about Echols's confession has questioned her daughter's truthfulness, and the State Crime Lab employee who collected fiber evidence at the Echols and Baldwin homes after their arrests has died. As part of the plea deal, they can not pursue civil action against the state for wrongful imprisonment.
Screwed to the very end.

I have followed this case since it first made national headlines while I myself was still in High School. I related to it not as just because I was a long haired metal kid at that same time, but when the first of a trilogy of documentaries came out about the case called Paradise Lost - Other than the shock of the crime and the aggravation of seeing three teenagers being put away for life without one trace of any physical evidence, it was clear that it was their rebellious image and strangling poverty within the context of a small-minded Mid-Western city against the backdrop of the climate at the time. Where ludicrous cries of devil worship played the patsy across the country whenever any kid showed some individuality within his personal image. In a community where such things as individuality are none appreciated - the whole thing was so sensational that the press couldn't resist dubbing it Satanic Panic.
I was at the perfect age, lived in a town that eerily mirrored theirs, suffering the same baffling poverty, and in-spite of my perfect grades in school, was a total outcast with my long hair and interest in Heavy Metal.
Thank God nothing like this happened in my town, and I'm not speaking for own sake,as I'm just simply happy that no one suffered the brutality that the victims of this crime did where I lived - but if it had, I often shudder thinking that it would have been my house that they would have first knocked on and because we were poor and I was into Slayer and though they naturally would have had no physical evidence, that I and other people like me at the time around the country could have potentially spent the rest of their lives in jail for simply supplying fear to the ignorant.

sorry this ended on such a downer, I'll leave you with a few more shots of Sasha getting down -

Photos -

Roy Turner
Joel Prince
Staci Core

July 2011-NYC Adventures-4th of July Cruise-Fuerza Bruta- & the return of Soundgarden & Cibo Matto!

Tue, 02 Aug 2011 06:25:00 GMT

The summer time is the best time to be in NYC - and in the United States, it's where I wanna be on the 4th of July. For all my travels and commutes between NYC/Dallas/LA I always try to make sure I'm home in Brooklyn for the 4th and to have a bit of the Summer here.
The following is an excerpt from an eventful summer.

Shells - Trash Bar - July 3rd - Brooklyn, NY

I had just got home the night before and Erin came back with me to NYC for the first time. She has been here before but not since we had started dating. To illustrate the differences in our resources, she had been here about a half a dozen times, but somehow managed to not ever have to employ the subway, nor had she ever been to Brooklyn. It was time to talk this gal for a walk on the wild side.
My buddy Nate, has some friends back in Austin that were needing some help booking a tour, so he connected us. Great band called Shells, and we were happy to have them. I ended up booking the whole tour, but had yet to actually see them perform - so this would be my first time - and her first trip to Brooklyn.

Great band and great dudes who put on a nice show. Not the biggest crowd in the world, but for a completely unknown band from out of town, not too shabby. We hung with the guys for a short time outside before calling it a night.

Fourth of July Cruise - July 4th - New York, NY

The Fourth of July is my favorite time to be in NYC - I don't care if I'm on tour, or what else is going on in my life, I make sure that I'm home in Brooklyn for the 4th - NYC is so freaking great in the Summer time anyway, but the 4th just seems to exemplify all that I love about this great city, when the rest of the year seems to illuminate all that I loathe about it haha.
Since I'm such a loner, usually when I make my 4th plans that usually involve some cockamamie idea that I would never subject anyone else to - but the 4th is not really something that is meant to be enjoyed alone. This year Erin was with me and I wasn't gonna drag her thru fighting crowds, etc on 12th Ave and also wanted to do something special. The solution came from an idea I had when Clutch did a couple of cruise shows this year - I thought, it would be great to actually be in the harbor directly under the fireworks, instead of fighting for a glimpse on dry land. Not to mention, now that I was planning for two, it would be romantic adventure and something we would remember. I told Erin of my plan and she was on board (see what I did there?) -
We get to the dock on the East River at 23rd st and it looks like the Fall of Saigon - total chaos - Their are 30 boats leaving at 30 different times, and their are 30 different confusing lines - the staff on hand knows no more than the patrons - the staff are openly impatient and abusive to the passengers trying to figure where to go because it is so super-unorganized.
It was Erin's tenacity that actually got things figured out and we got out of the wrong line and then onto the dock.

Their were three boats and we didn't know which one was ours, but when I heard one of them playing my fave Stones' song Can You Hear Me Knocking? - I knew that was our boat.
We board and the excitement begins - this was one of those all-inclusive deals that came with dinner and an open bar - we couldn't take much advantage of that because I'm not really a big drinker and Erin isn't supposed to be drinking at all - but I had a couple of beers on an empty stomach and got buzzed super-fast when I didn't want to be.
Finally we set sail and their is a great vibe among the whole crew - everyone is super friendly, theirs a dance floor on the top deck and the DJ is kicking ass spinning all of my fave shit.
It's a 4-hour cruise from 7pm-11pm with the fireworks at 9pm - It started on the East Side and made its way down thru the bottom of the island and over to the Hudson River where the fireworks emanate from. Along the way passing at a very scenic pace of all the important landmarks - including the Statue of Liberty -

I felt like a bit of a tourist, but that didn't bother me at all - I know people that have lived here their whole lives and have never seen it or been to the Empire State Building because you tend to take things like this for granted when you live here.
The view was stunning and it was great to see the sun set on this boat as the night brought the fireworks -

Loving that feeling of coming up with an idea on the fly and brings things into your life even greater than you would have anticipated - This was one of the best 4th I've ever had. We danced until the boat docked back at the place of origin and left there on a wonderful high.

July 5th

The next day, still high from the boat experience on the 4th - I wanted to show Erin certain parts of the city that she hasn't seen. She has been her quite a few days before we started dating - but again at a completely different capacity than my low-budget hustle.
We spent the day with an extended trip thru my fave parts of Central Park that I wanted to show her and she had never seen the Great Lawn so we had a relaxing day doing that followed by some shopping in SoHo -

While there, I needed to pick up a few things at the Apple Store and while we were in there, their was an announcement that they were gonna have a performance on the 2nd Floor as they often do. We get up there to check it out and its Diego Garcia from the band Elephant, doing a solo acoustic performance for some solo cd he's got coming out.
Though it was a welcome break to sit after all the walking we had done and I enjoyed turning her on to the spontaneity of the performance, he totally sucks - He sucked then and he sucks now - The only time I ever saw Elephant was during SXSW about 6 years where they were literally blown off stage by the Sword. However, I was enjoying how much he was sucking -

As we are leaving their I take a sec to check Twitter and one of the few times I'm glad I did, as my man Questo had just tweeted something wonderful - I had been reading for weeks about a powerhouse documentary on A Tribe Called Quest that Michael Rappaport had made called Beats, Rhymes and Life - The name of the 4th Tribe LP - that was gonna be premiering this week = Questlove just tweeted that he bought up every ticket at my old haunt the Sunshine Theater in the LES to ensure that it would be a sell out -
From Questo:

"Come on down to the Sunshine tonight for the @ATCQ doc at 9pm - this one's on me"

I tell Erin about it and we have to haul ass to get over there, but thankfully we were not far - Not only were we gonna get to see the movie for free, but at the Sunshine on the night it premieres and when we get there, sho nuff, theirs Questo standing out front handing out the tickets - Just one of those great NYC moments that I live for -

Tribe’s influence in hip-hop is undeniable. The band aggressively integrated deep-cut jazz samples and rhythms in new ways, broadening hip-hop’s sonic palette. The overwhelming vibe of the first half of this film, is, appropriately, that of a great house party, as Rapaport queues up your favorite mid-nineties cuts. He well conveys the innovation of that first album, 1990’s People’s Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm — the excitement that led to the band’s then-huge-for-hip-hop advance ($350,000) and questionable fashion choices.

And all of that, including the formation of the supergroup Native Tongues Posse (which united De La Soul, Queen Latifah, the Jungle Brothers, and others) and the run-up to 1991’s beloved The Low End Theory, not to mention the great vintage concert footage, ultimately gets buried by Rapaport’s decision to focus on the act’s underwhelming nostalgia-act afterlife.

As band rivalries go, this is slim pickings. Phife Dawg plays the shrill, clownish Robin to his longtime friend Q-Tip’s calm, perfectionist Batman. Stoic, dapper Ali Muhammad and off-on member Jarobi White are never more than bemusedly caught between the two. Phife gets off some good lines, but by battle-rap standards, the disses are hardly heavy. Here’s the basics: Phife says Q-Tip is a fame-hungry front man who shouldn't’t have broken up the band in 1998. Q-Tip says he doesn't’t know why Phife’s always creating so much friction, when all he’s ever tried to do is make good music. There’s one aborted scuffle in the film, and more than enough petulant whining by Phife, who gets the lion’s share of screen time, likely because he was the most willing to talk smack — and because his diabetes poses a very real threat to his health. It’s that rare music doc that leaves you craving more music.

The final act dwells on Tribe’s breakup-reunite-breakup cycle, from 1998 to 2010, which is actually quite simple: Tribe Called Quest broke up in 1998 because they didn't’t like each other and Q-Tip wanted to go solo. They got back together to cash in. Simple. There’s nothing wrong with that.

Fuerza Bruta - Daryl Roth Theater - July 7th - NYC

Erin sure was full of surprises when she visited this time, and this night might have been her coup de grace of all surprises. We had a nice relaxing dinner in Union Square (see below) after last night when were supposed to originally attend this show, and were running all over the place just to arrive too late and had to reschedule for tonight. I still knew nothing of what to expect, except not for nothing does the title, Fuerza Bruta translates to "Brute Force".

This was incredible - The kind of thing you imagine you would only see in NYC - One of those plays where as an audience you move and participate as group with the performers. The ticket comes with a pre-show reception with free drinks in the lobby to get everyone loose, but again I had no idea - loose but what for?

I thought it was a play but I knew once we were inside that I was in for some type of eccentric, performance art/rave party freakout. She had seen the creators other piece De La Guarda and was very excited - I still did not know what to expect.

The show starts with a central defining image, repeated numerous times, is that of a well-dressed businessman running in place on a giant elevated treadmill. Despite powerful blasts of wind and walls that appear out of nowhere, he soldiers on - even as shots are fired and other figures drop all around him.

A procession of memorable set pieces quickly follows. A man clings to the underside of a suspended water tank, mirroring the quick movements of the woman swimming above him. A giant aluminum curtain swiftly surrounds the audience, with two female performers speedily running on it high above our heads.

Most stunningly, and the most impressive is a massive shallow pool made of clear Mylar that gradually descends from the ceiling until it's close enough to touch.

In it are female performers in only their underwear who splash and slide around alluringly in the water, like frisky mermaids in a big goldfish bowl with only an inch of Mylar separating a close interaction with the audience members.

The next and final piece, was now back to man on treadmill - and where my participation climaxed (whether I liked it or not)
This figure lives to walk again, however, past bits of furniture tossed on the treadmill by assistants, past other performers who zip by and topple off, and through a series of cardboard walls that disintegrate as he smashes into them. One of these pieces reflects at lighting speed at my face, knocks my glasses off and slices the end of nose as blood starts streaking down my face.

I suppose you could say he represents the indomitable human will in opposition to the destructive influences of our assaultive world. You could also say that PacMan is a profound digital meditation on the human capacity for greed. But why would you? The show does not aspire to create meaning but to goose the senses through a series of mind-freak spectacles of variable originality and technical sophistication, that ultimately I found to be thrilling and very entertaining.

(later that night) Questlove's Bowl Train - Brooklyn Bowl - July 7th - Brooklyn, NY

And we just still kept rocking - soaking wet and covered in my own blood from the show, we said fuck it and took advantage of being in Union Square, grabbed the L train out to see one of my fave performers do one of my fave weekly parties.
Every Thurs night Questo from the Roots, turns the Brooklyn Bowl, which is an actual bowling alley, into the Bowl Train - a dance tribute a la Soul Train with gems from his personal record collection while classic episodes of the show (also from his collection) play on giant screens. The venue also doubles as a live music venue and they have shows here all the time, but this shit is soooooo fun.

Exhausted, what else could we do - we dined like Kings & Queens, went to a performance art, my face looked like I had been in a fight and we danced the night away. Perfect evening.

Soundgarden - Prudential Center - July 8th - Newark, NJ

Ok so how do we top last night? It's nights like last night that remind you of why you live in NYC - Ok so not only had Erin never ridden the subway or been to Brooklyn, she had never been to New Jersey. Not that this is a bucket list requirement (or even an endorsement) in fact I might even suggest that she had it right by not ever going, but life is in the doing so I was looking for an excuse to get us out there, if not for nothing so she can say that she did it, and to see the different trains like the PATH & the other Light Rails. When I heard about the Soundgarden reunion, I was excited and just the thing to get us out there, especially off the momentum of last night.

The picked a gross and rainy day to reunite, but I had fun showing her all the trains and where I used to live in Jersey City etc. We finally make it over to the arena and get our tickets that ended up being insanely good, we were practically on the stage:

That's the openers Cohhed and Cambria, who she liked but really are not my thing - I saw them several times a few years ago when Clutch did a tour with them, but just was never converted. (Editor's Note: - Like literally the next night, the bass player from this band goes off the freaking deep end by casually robbing a Walgreen's pharmacy of their drugs between soundcheck and showtime)

Something really funny (to some) happened while we were waiting for Soundgarden - I have such a low tolerance for alcohol and we had grabbed a beer before the opening band - one of these gut-busting large beers they sell at arenas - I hadn't eaten anything, and even though that's a bad sign, even beyond that for some reason I was just fucking blind drunk from this one beer. I had to get something in my stomach before Soundgarden came on - but you can imagine what my choices were being in a sports arena.

We go to concessions and she suggests we split some nachos as they seemed like the only doable thing on the menu - but these were no ordinary nachos of the stale chips and cheez whiz variety - they had some ridiculous name and came with like everything, and normally they are pretty stingy with that stuff but this kid was literally asking me to say "when" as he seemed to be getting off on building this monstrosity - I was so drunk and laughing hysterically at the absurdity of this that I couldn't help but egg him on to pile it higher -
Then, he uncovers the pan that contains the CHILI - I swear it was something out of a Mel Brooks film - the stuff was literally gurgling.
It looked downright coagulant as this thick slime was snorting like a wild bull - before Erin could scream "noooooooooo" I was screaming laughing telling him "more! more!, more!" - So we left there with like this 5lb mass of grease and oooze. I was laughing so hard all the way back to our seats that I literally dropped this thing several times.
When we got back to our seats, with this steaming pile of shit between my legs, it was like I had let out the biggest fart in the world - strangers were openly complaining and asking unbidden outloud of "where the fuck is that smell coming from??" - I nearly pissed myself laughing.

Ok so Soundgarden -
Being a 30-something, Soundgarden is one of those bands that hit right when I was in my musical prime. Gone were the days of being spoon-fed what the radio told me I wanted to listen to. College, and the diverse people I met there, introduced me to bands that would truly form my musical taste for the rest of my life. Soundgarden was one of those bands.

It has been 14 years since Soundgarden toured together and now they were back with the same lineup, but no new record as of yet, but did play a couple of new songs.
I always loved this band, but one thing that I did start to remember early in the show was how noisy and out of tune their shows always seemed, and not in that chaotic fun way, but in a way that often compromised the entire show.
Fourteen years later that is one thing that has not changed and maybe that's on purpose, but it just had that same something that prevented it from being a great show.

That's not to say that it wasn't a good show - and again our seats were fucking dynamite and the setlist was more than I could have hoped for with so much stuff from Louder Than Love - that I was certain we wouldn't hear, and returned with a lengthy five-song encore that killed -

Setlist:

Searching With My Good Eye Closed
Spoonman
Gun
Black Rain
Hands All Over
Jesus Christ Pose
Blow Up the Outside World
My Wave
The Day I Tried to Live
Ugly Truth
Fell on Black Days
Get on the Snake
Rusty Cage
Outshined
Superunknown
Burden in My Hand
Black Hole Sun
Beyond the Wheel

Encore:

Room a Thousand Years Wide
Face Pollution
4th of July
Like Suicide
Slaves & Bulldozers

Erin said she didn't care too much for the show and that's probably because of the noisy thing - the silly vibe was still abound as we walked back to the PATH train - so the story wouldn't be complete if I didn't mention this -
This was the midnight train so the is the last train you can take to the city without having to go all the way out to Hoboken first - so everyone wants to get on this train - so from the time we boarded until the time we departed was close to a half an hour of torturous waiting with nowhere to sit, exhausted from the show and wet from the rain - when something so stupid and silly happened that might not sound funny unless you were there under those conditions - but being there - out of sheer break in the monantany - it was hilarious.
Here's what happened: This group of dudes that were hopelessly Jersey and frat-boy drunk and amped from the show were talking openly about the kind of stuff that you can imagine interests this type of group - like as if they were the only ones on the train, creating a weird vibe. This was led by the loudest and most outspoken Jersey citizen, ever to exist - grossly overweight and clad head to toe in denim and sports attire. He's so loud and obnoxious that the only mileage I'm getting out of this is that Erin is smiling at me because she knows she's getting the real Jersey experience we had discussed - but this guy is getting nearly out of control.
When right as he's about to vent his frustrations about the delay of the train - it finally starts to move which makes most of the train go silent. That's when he delivered this little gem: In the most over-the-top Jersiest of accents, sung to the tune of Camptown Races - he unleashes with "This train takes it up the ass, do-da, do-da!!" - The last thing we wanted to do was encourage him but we looked at each other and exploded into laughter, that sent the rest of the train into the same domino effect. This was far more entertaining and memorable than the show, maybe we should have never got off the train?

Celebrate Brooklyn Festival w/ Raekwon - Prospect Park - July 9th - Brooklyn, NY

The Prospect Park Bandshell is probably the best place to catch a hip-hop show in the New York City summer. Yes, you're going to have to stand in a line that stretches beyond the park's BBQs and jugglers to get a metal detector wand waved in front of you, but well worth it.

Raekwon's hourlong headlining set, however, made no concessions to anybody—
The night went essentially like this: one verse, one chorus, annoying explosion sound, flighty banter—repeat approximately 22 times in a mere hour His DJ dropped manic fragments of old-school rap songs as Rae blurred past his 90-second rhyme sprees, burning through song after song after song—new ones, old ones, shit off Immobility that you totally forgot existed, he had even more that he wanted to do until he was cut off by the 10:30 curfew.

At one point, he asked the crowd if they liked where hip-hop was going, which was received with a resounding "boooooo." Thankfully, he assured us all, "Rae ain't going nowhere. Rae right here with a new pair of sneakers."

Set list:

C.R.E.A.M.
Can It Be All So Simple?
Da Mystery Of Chessboxin'
Glaciers Of Ice
Ice Cream
Surgical Gloves
Gihad
Criminology
Verbal Intercourse
Shimmy Shimmy Ya
Your Beef Is Mine
Heaven & Hell
Rainy Dayz
10 Bricks
About Me
Yae Yo
Broken Safety
Rock N Roll
Wu-Tang Clan Ain't Nuthing Ta Fuck Wit
Shaolin Vs. Wu-Tang
Incarcerated Scarfaces
Triumph

A great relaxing day in the sun - I had been telling her about the park, and showed her aroundand we walked around and ate at one of the great sidewalk cafés' in the neighborhood.
Since Brooklyn was the theme of the day, I suggested we check out this party in Brooklyn, Nancoteque that I've hearing so much about.
We managed to have a good time, but I wouldn't go back. Got raked over the coals by the door-chick and it just wasn't what they were advertising and all in all pretty lame.

Cibo Matto - Brooklyn Bowl - July 12th - Brooklyn, NY

One of the best nights of my life, we had just come from eating at the Dressler, which was one of the best meals/experiences of her being here, and I couldn't begin to exaggerate my anticipation for this show. I've been waiting so long for this.
I was fortunate to see a pair of "soft" reunions within days of each other earlier this year to benefit the relief efforts in Japan after a devastating earthquake, where they quickly assembled a played 3-4 songs as a part of a revue. But tonight was going to be the real deal and I didn't get to see Cibo Matto back in the day, and in the 12 years since they broke up, I think I've listen to their music every single day, I'm an obsessed crazy fan of theirs and I love it.
I wasn't the only one excited, the air was tense with excitement and though Erin didn't know anything about them previously other than what I had been schooling her on, she's real good about feeding off of and supporting my excitement.
While Miho Hitori addressed the showgoers, it was apparent that these folks were already keyed in and ready to have a good time.

They began their set with Beef Jerky as the audience and I sang along with every word and truly began to groove out. I was fully losing it the whole time and especially when I heard the opening notes to Sugar Water. Miho’s voice was instantly hypnotic as the sway and bounce of the track dripped effortlessly throughout the performance. The sweetly alluring performance of Moonchild with Miho’s vocals backed by surprise guest Sean Lennon.

Miho and Yuka performed two new songs as well, Tenth Floor Ghost Girl and Check-In. Considering that both tracks are indicative of the future of Cibo Matto and their new sound, they were surprisingly quite modern without the loss of the duo’s edge, which is exciting about their upcoming album. After almost an hour of play, they attempted to close out their set only to return for an encore after a most raucous and spirited bout of applause and cheers - and Miho is still so freaking hot.

Setlist:

Beef Jerky
Le Pain Perdu
Sugar Water
Spoon
BBQ
Moonchild (with Sean Lennon)
Tenth Floor Ghost Girl
Sci-Fi Wasabi
Check In
Birthday Cake

Encore:

Blue Train
Know Your Chicken

The Food - (and other hijinks)

I could write an entire blog just on the food we ate while she Erin was here. For a 98 lb. little gal, she love to eat, or as she puts it:
" I don't wanna eat, I wanna dine" - and I have never eaten/dined better in my life. She knows the city so touristy things were not really of much interest to her which was a relief, and most of our adventures besides entertaining ourselves at night was seeking new exciting places to eat, it was like our own extended episode of No Reservations - and for my money their isn't anyplace better in the world to do that than in NYC. Some places she had been before and wanted to revisit/take me - here are some of the highlights from our food porn:

Molyvos - Greek - 871 Seventh Avenue (btwn 55th & 56th Streets)

Right across from Carnegie Hall, the only reason we stopped there was we were hungry from exploring Central Park and frankly it looked cool. We actually went back a second time, just to have dessert and wine. They have this orange & chocolate dessert
called Sokolatina that was to die for and a brand of Mezzo a dessert wine that if it was illegal I would have broke the law to score more, unforgettable.

Il Mulino - Italian - 86 W. 3rd St.

A block from Washington Square Park where I used to go and play chess with the old men there. It's a private dining spot for the wealthy and a present to me. She had been here before with her parents and wanted to take me. I've probably walked by this place a million times and you wouldn't know anything was there, until you walk in and if you grew up poor like me, you have never even seen anything like this, let alone experience it.
You may have heard people talk about the authenticity but this was like being in Italy, their were four people straight out
of The GodFather tending to our every need at every second all working in tandem. The kind of place where their is no prices listed for the items on the menu - if you need to ask, you don't belong in here. Definitely not anyplace I've ever seen the inside of before and let me tell you, you get what you pay for. The experience was close to three hours of course after course and glasses of guapo. Divine.

Dressler - Fine Dining - 149 Broadway (Williamsburg)

Again, I can't say enough about the meals we had on this trip, these were some of the best dining experiences I've ever had, and the night at this place was another perfect evening. Located a half a block from the Williamsburg Bridge, before dinner we walked down to the waterfront to take in the view.
This place was hip without being pretentious or losing its elegance, I loved it. Erin ordered us both this mimosa type drink that was named after a Prince song (if I remember I think it was Raspberry Beret, but I don't remember it being that obvious) - The scallops were to die for and just the overall feel of the place was unforgettable.
An odd side note - the female hostess that night, who was also very friendly looked exactly like this girl that I feel in love with and dated and had one perfect summer with almost 14 years ago, who I haven't seen since
No, not like what she might look like now, no like as in a weird spacetime continuum freakout where I was looking at her as she was then, but only here and now. Because of this oddity, I couldn't take my eyes off of her and we were seated adjacent to her post so it was unavoidable/irresistible so I told Erin the story because a) I think its a fun story - but also b) I think I owed her an explanation as to why I was looking at this girl while we were having a nice dinner. Thankfully she liked the story.

Blue Fish - Seafood - Union Square

I've spent most of my time in NYC going in and out of Union Square and seeking refuge in its park. Their's even a park bench their with my name carved into it. So I've walked past this joint, a few times as well, and it didn't look like anything more than a high-end seafood joint. To know me is to know that I live for seafood and I prefer the mom & pop shops when it comes to seafood over a fine dining experience, but this place blew us away. We were eating here right before we walked over to see Fuerza Bruta - and the dinner half of this dinner & a show date made for one of the best nights ever, and then the show just took it over the top even more.
It's hard to impress me with seafood, but it was so fresh and the presentation and ambiance here is amazing.

Café Metro - Sandwich Shop - All over NYC

You maybe wondering why I would include such a non-descript, hopelessly corporate little chain amongst these other giants of cuisine, but something did happen that is of worth. Just as a snack we stopped in here and I grabbed us a couple of sandwiches. The one I ordered was a smoked salmon & avocado on pumpernickel - let me be clear - I must have been eating this thing with my eyes closed and in a trance-like state, because in this culture where no one talks to anyone, to elderly ladies approached us as I was we were eating on a bench around the corner and asked what I was eating because I looked like I was having a religious experience. I was -

Duke's - Deli - 560 3rd Ave

Can't seem to get out of this neighborhood - not a bad place to be. Again why am I including a deli? Well something of not happened here, but not necessarily to do with the food. She had good memories of this place on past trips and wanted to revisit to actually made a few trips here while she was here. Almost always very late at night - we had been in the previous two nights so they were getting used to us and not minding having to make a sandwich in the middle of the night when everything is already put up.
Well we were walking there and I see this asshole that looks like Johnny Fairplay harassing the shit out of this street vendor - its close to 4am - so much so that he really starts wrecking shit and throwing entire bottles of condiments at the vendor and just started trashing everything on the cart and walks away like a tough guy. It was none of our business and we should probably act more like apathetic New Yorkers in times like these instead of the southern vigilantes that we are, but I like that about myself. Since we saw it and the vendor left his cart unattended to find a police officer, by proximity we felt compunction to watch the cart for him.
He didn't return for a bit so we went to the next corner to another vendor and told him what happened and would he mind watching that dude's cart - what he said was so racist and pissed me off - the first thing he said was "I bet it was a black guy eh?"
I reprimanded him and then he no longer cared -whatever - around this time the victim returns with the police and we walk up to offer our account - and wouldn't you know it - this guy is up to no good, trying to say that Fairplay, though the asshole that he was, actually robbed him which he did not do and was trying to get us to corroborate his story.
Ok fuck all of you, your all racist liars and we are hungry - so we go to Duke's and the impossible passive gentlemen making the sandwiches is used to our faces as I smile and he starts getting out the stuff to make me the same thing he has made me the three previous evenings. While he's doing it - a cartoonish stereotypical scenario plays out - as this little prick who looked like a cross between Pauly Shore and Har Mar Superstar comes swaggering in with this 6 ft tall supermodel that towered over him.
He starts quizzing/contesting my sandwich-maker friend who just nods nervously, so I speak up for him and tell the Wease that he indeed makes a hell of a sandwich.
Wanting to impress his potentially hired date - he starts challenging him and makes boastful degrading suggestions to time how long it will take etc, by extending a "Ok hotshot, how about I time you?, I'll give you two minutes to make my sandwich" - looking back at the girl for approval and laughing.
Clearly still annoyed at the vendor scenario from before and wanting to project some venom - I got right in his face and said "How about I give you just one minute to get the fuck out of here?"
Sandwich guy disappears behind the counter - Erin sees what's going on from afar - theirs a beat and then Devito takes off with Bambi, tail firmly between his short ass legs.

Photos -

Roy Turner