Sucking in the 00's
Welcome to my NAP office. What you see here are the tools of the trade: Some music, some beer, and an nigh eight year old G4 still purring away on OS10.3. I'm still slightly recovering from an impromptu show at Rudyard's the other night. When some wuss band from California called the Soda-Pop Kids canceled their show because of a little tropical storm (the babies!!!), a post went up on Hands Up Houston that Something Fierce was jumping in to fill in a slot! Thursday just happened to fall on my once a month "get my ass whupped by work" day. So guess what I thought when I read that post? If you guessed "Hell yeah, I'm in." you'd be correct.Not surprisingly when I arrived it was a thin crowd. The crowd may not have been big but I'd rather hang out with a small quality posse anyhow. What's the Bill Hicks line? "I'd rather play to a few brains that have a bunch of asses in th seats." or something like that.
Alarma - I declare you bad ass!Intentional badness is one thing but jumping up on stage when you've been a band for two weeks takes some serious cojones. Maybe Alarma figured they'd just be playing to their friends in a glorified rehearsal so why the hell sweat it. Whatever the case they sucked. And I don't mean suck like they were awful. I mean they sucked in all the good ways. The drummer sporting a bad-ass haircut that would have landed her a role in any good John Hughes film played with the confidence of Helen Wiggins on Philosophy of the World and the singer had lyrics taped on the microphone and would declare randomly "Sorry, our first real show is a month from now." In short they were a train wreck of missed chord changes and forgotten lyrics. But here is the thing, it didn't matter! In fact, it was really fun. Nobody was making fun of them but were kind of cheering them on and laughing with them. I see so many great bands with great songs and musicianship that I almost forgot what it sounded like to play in a garage in Nassau Bay or the awful shit we used to do at The Pik-n-Pak. Yeah, anyone can suck - the trick is to have fun and not give a shit. Alarma kind of did that the other night. And I know that when they actually get it together my reaction is going to be very much like Scott Grimm's when I formed Bongtooth just after Schlong Weasel "You fucked it up by actually learning how to play songs right." So kudos to the sloppy and the ill-prepared. That shit is PUNK!
Something Fierce - Mainlining Rock and Roll
The main reason I came down was to hear Something Fierce - the new split 7" is pretty sweet and I hadn't seen them in a year or so. The crowd of maybe a bakers dozen stood in front as Something Fierce blazed through it's brand of poppy punk brilliance. It was sweet no frills rock and roll. Sometimes you feel like a big ass can of flattened 5ths and 7/8 time and other times you just want fast 1-4-5 major chord progressions with catchy harmonies. Thursday night I was jonesin for my rock straight-up and Something Fierce delivered. Dig this shitty video of the performance.
Uhm, the sound is blow out and it's daaaark.
Piss off, all you have to know is it's fast and driving rock and roll. Drop your booge shit and grab a beer! That's all you have to do!
Moncacles - I say to thee...
Sorry, y'all were cool for the two songs I heard but it was late and I headed downstairs for a last beer and a little quality chill time with friends. Hey I'm allowed aren't I?
Links:
Alarma
Something Fierce
The Monacles
14 Comments:
hipster! we were just talking about monocles last night and how hot mr. peanut is when you break it down.
no seriously the monocles are heavy loud and fast. and like, good. catch 'em instead of speaking to humans next time, dope.
records. let's talk about records. i just bought the three oclock and cat stevens (tea for tillman) and i love them both. any other cat stevens fans out there? paisley underground fans?
Hi Jack!
I'm with Cat Stevens. The best Cat Stevens moment in recent memory was watching one of those BBC concerts from the early 70s, on Ovation (I think) and there's Cat playing with a back up guitarrist for BBC television and in the middle of a song (maybe Moonshadow?) they apparently lost each other and Cat stopped mid song, looked at the guitar player as if to say, what happened? they exchanged a few words about what they were/were not doing, had a quick laugh and started up again, only to stop again. They did this 3 times before finishing the song. It was awesome. Almost like being at Cat Stevens band practice.
Also, On The Road to Find Out is one of my all time favorite songs.
I've seen Something Fierce at Rudz under similar circumstances Ramon, and yeah really dug it. Lots of energy and fun punk stuff. Jman called me when they played Chicago recently. I saw the gig they were on, part of a young punk scene here. I'm sure it was a big show, probably bigger than what they are used to because that scene here is just huge. Huge and young (read All Ages). I've been to one of those shows when a neighbor of mine played and that's why I knew I wasn't gonna be going to see SF. The show blew me away actually and I had a lot of fun. But for me it also felt like re-living my youth and I'm past that with no regrets.
How you took this to Cat Stevens Rosa I don't know. But speaking of being blown away, my aunt and uncle blew me away at 12 years old with Harold and Maude and I've been into Cat Stevens since then, though I haven't put a CS record on myself since I was fifteen.
I like me some Cat Stevens! I stick with the two best-of collections though, that does me just fine.
Friday night you guys all missed some fun stuff! Muzak John the noise wizard had his birthday celebration at SHFL, with Black Magic Marker (with the lead singer all dressed up like Jesus with a crown of thorns and covered in fake blood), the Last Bastions (first performance in over four years), Sad Pygmy (first performance in six years), Don Walsh (drunk off his ass and playing with a pick-up group, ranting about some story about how he almost got decapitated riding his bike as a kid), the Annoysters (doing a sort of Terry Riley-esque gamelan drone), and Muzak himself. It was quite a show. It was kind of old school too, being out on the patio while some guy passed around something like three joints at a time...
I podcasted the Sad Pygmy set, and will podcast the Last Bastions set eventually, on my podcast at http://charlienaked.podomatic.com
charlie,
wanna do the napcast in the next month or so? Anything goes.
I'm also with you on the Cat Stevens AND the paisley underground stuff, Rosa. Speaking of which, what's Dave Roback doing now. Anybody know?
i miss shiner. wish i had one sitting on my desk as i write.
HS, I think I can fit it in sometime this month, but definitely not in the next two weeks... after that, email me and we'll work it out.
CN
ha! we got to cat stevens because when i said "Hi Jack!" i wasn't waving to my friend i was hijacking the post. sorry ramon!
i wanted to talk about records because i got a little stack of vinyl recently when sound exchange (local cool record store) had a half price sale on used vinyl. so i took advandtage by "filling in the gaps" of my collection (a coupla stones records, dead kennedys, the germs) and i took some chances on other records. that would be cat stevens, the three oclocks (justin just delving into the paisley underground. where to go next?), the long ryders, UK squeeze, the flying burrito brothers.
i also picked up a couple of ramones records. i've never known much about their music (i mean other than through popular culture). i mention that because though i'm a big fan of the something fierce live show, i've tried delving into the modern poppy punk style that they get lumped into with...mm, nyeh...limited results. i thought maybe putting that music in a historical context might help tune my ears.
charlie i wished we coulda gone to the muzak show. we're big fans! did ya see the article ramon wrote about him in the current issue of the free press?
Oh yes Rosa, I saw it... good article, and he was pretty proud of it too! Showed me a copy at the Pearl Bar one night when I went down there to jam with the Friendship Bracelet. He was really pleased about that.
For more paisley underground, see the Dream Syndicate and any of the Dave Roback bands, which would include Rain Parade, Opal, and the one you've already heard--Mazzy Star.
i am so glad i am not the only person who saw greatness in alarma! those kids are gonna do some great things in the near future.
however, shame on you for missing the monocles. those guys are seriously the next great houston band.
Yeah, I loved the Alarma set and I too am glad I wasn't the only one who dug it.
Guilty as charged on missing the Monacles. I should have stuck around but after two songs I was just beat. I could tell they were cool but I had been pummeled by your set into a bloody heap so chilling downstairs was a much needed recovery. No worries I'll catch them soon enough.
we tried to hold it back but bone crushing and soul destroying can not be contained so easily.
i better see you on sunday at rudz mister.
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