LAKE >> A falling leaf doesn't know where it goes

LAKE - "Don't Give Up"

(K Records, 2009)

I saw LAKE at the AllWays Lounge in April last year on a whim, after checking out their songs on iTunes and being struck by the simple, heartfelt beauty of "Don't Give Up." (Note: It's not a Peter Gabriel / Kate Bush cover.)  Why is LAKE able to pull off this kind of song when so many bands fail at it?  How does a 5-person band create enough space between notes for the song to breathe and have that elusive, magical, "breezy" feeling?  If the word LAKE were an acronym for something, what would it be?  Late August Kumbaya Echoes?  Love Always Kills Evil?  Low Altitude Kite Enjoyment?  Exactly.

It's one of those songs that you just have to love, no matter what type of music you're into.  And you'll want to tell everyone, even your parents, if only to show them that hey, you do actually listen to some "normal" music.  LAKE did indeed play this song at the show, so I was glad I went.  I got some mediocre pics, so I won't post them.  I believe they also did their haunting, autumnal, rather stunning song "Gravel".  The small crowd was very loud, and the band kept having to shush them.  They even had to stop playing a particularly quiet song, and went onto another one instead.  Mild-mannered lead singer Ashley Eriksson was really peeved when that happened.  Drummer / keyboardist / backing vocalist Lindsay Schieff coolly stepped to the mic near the end and sang a song or two.  (I believe she sings "Gravel.")  They did lots of instrument-swapping throughout their set; in fact, the only bands I've ever seen do as much swapping during a performance were ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead ('98), Indian Jewelry ('08 & '10) and Tortoise ('98).  Portland seems to be a really talented area when it comes to music, and I would in fact call it a hotbed of music.  Coincidentally, I had seen another Portland band, YACHT, earlier that same day; they played for free at Tulane's main outdoor quad.  See a synth-tastic clip here.  I mentioned this to a LAKE member and he was surprised that he hadn't known about that show, and said "We're good friends with them."  In summary, there's no logical reason why LAKE is not one of the biggest bands in indie pop.  According to K Records' website, LAKE have "recorded 12 full length albums (only 3 of which have seen proper release)."

In honor of the band's name, here's a(n uncropped) photo that I took recently right behind NOMA (New Orleans Museum of Art):

If you know my love of swans, you'll know that I immediately made this my computer's desktop image.  A similar photo of two swans taken here in City Park has been my cellphone's "desktop" pic for around 5 years.

I was actually planning on posting a song called "The Sea" by the band I'm about to talk about, but you'll see why I'm not gonna.  However, you can download it for free here.

Wed. Oct. 24: I decided to go see Brooklyn band EXITMUSIC at Circle Bar in NOLA, even though I was not blown away by them when they opened for School Of Seven Bells in April in Baton Rouge.  (I will spell their name Exitmusic from here on out, just because.)  I wanted to see them as headliners, especially since they have a new, well-received album under their belt.

Detailed chalkboard marquee outside the bar

I hadn't been to this place in two years, and it had been shut down for most of that time for renovations and for not having a valid music license.  Anyway, it now finally has air conditioning, and the ceiling has been raised, but it's still the size of a large living room.  The opening act, local singer Miss Mec, was good in an old-fashioned, laid-back, Cat Power kind of way.  Her music is often described as "Cajun reggae."  She and a guy played for a while at low volume with no drummer, and got a good response from the crowd.  They did a cover of "Moody River," and ended with a cover of "A Change Is Gonna Come."

Mec did a slight faux-pas by telling us "Exit Wounds are up next, you guys. They're awesome!"  She quickly caught her error and corrected it, and made a quip about Samuel L. Jackson.  (I just looked up that movie and he's actually not in it, meaning it's one of about 6 movies from the last two decades that he has not been in.)  So everything was just dandy so far.  I'm chilling out in NOLA at one of its coziest, coolest little bars, about to see an up and coming band (whom I generally describe as "a darker Beach House") for 5 bucks, and there's even A/C now.  Little did I know that I was about to see the biggest meltdown I had ever seen from a band...

Exitmusic tried to do a soundcheck for a good while (I found out afterwards that their van had broken down), and the guitarist was getting a bit irked.  I should mention that back in April, they had a live drummer, but this time they didn't.  The walls were rattling, and there was a problem with the vocal mic'ing.  It didn't help that there was a very enthusiastic heckler bellowing obnoxious things when the singer was trying to warm up.  He finally said loudly "This isn't a sound system, this is a shit system!"  This was after he had said something like "This place is a joke."  The bartender shot back "Thanks for choosing Circle Bar!"  The guitarist growled back "Did someone just say something?"  I don't know if he knew that it was the bartender who had said that to him.  I took a brief video clip, but didn't want him to smash my camera or something, plus I was still holding out hope for some more songs, so I stopped filming.  Here's a verbatim quote from my clip: "I don't know why we got booked here to play a fuckin' show that we can't play... It just, uh... It doesn't fuckin' work."   Anyway, the guitarist announced to his bandmates that they would try to play 2 or 3 songs and then leave.  This was apparently news to said bandmates.  After several uncomfortable minutes, they played the beginning of "The Sea," then restarted it and played it all the way through.  Everything was rattling in the building, but at least they finished it, and the crowd cheered louder than you would think such a small crowd could.

They then played "The Modern Age" and got another big cheer.  I was actually a bit irked that the crowd was cheering so loudly after the club had just been disrespected, but I was happy that the show was getting underway.  But then things took a drastic turn for the worse as the guitarist literally screamed "My wife has the most beautiful voice in the world and you can't even fucking hear it!"  (I know that's a verbatim quote from "My" up to "world," and the rest is probably verbatim too.)  The club's booker, a really nice, mild-mannered guy named Jason Songe, walked up to him in a friendly way and talked with him.  He must've thought Songe was the soundman because he argued with him about the acoustics.  The singer appeared to be on the verge of tears, and she was definitely trying to keep the show going, but her husband was clearly on the warpath.   (I did not film any of this part.) I was wearing an Unwound shirt, and the word on my shirt felt pretty appropriate for what was going on.  I mentioned to the singer that I had seen them recently, and that I liked their final song at that concert a lot ("Sparks Of Light"), and asked if they could maybe just play it acoustically or something.  She seemed agreeable with that concept, and said "Yeah, we always finish with that song."  And they started both shows with "The Sea," for what it's worth.  But it never happened, and the band slowly took down its gear.  The bartender (I talked with her afterwards but didn't get her name) eventually found the band members when they were on this side porch area and said "You guys have got to leave."  She later told me "We were really excited about this show!  We promoted the hell out of it."  She said how much she loves her club and that she was not gonna let anyone disparage it.  So yeah, Exitmusic lived up to their name.  It was easily the biggest meltdown I had ever seen.  I had been chatting with this genial older couple next to me at the bar who said it was their first time ever coming to this place.  I really doubt they'll ever come back.

If a tree falls in a small forest and no one hears it, did it make a sound?  If no one hears about what happened on this night and the band gets off scot-free, would that be right?  On the other hand, do I want their career to be destroyed because of one dismal night?  Well, no.  What I have a problem with is the fact that this incident was kind of like if you went to see Wham! and Andrew Ridgely was being a dick, while George Michael was being professional and trying to get things back on track.  What I'm saying is, a person can destroy an artist's career by giving a biased summary of what happened, but in this case, the thing that would kill this band's career would be if someone had simply filmed the entire event from start to finish, with no narration or anything else.  In other words, with no critical opinion or bias involved.  The simple, unedited footage would simply stun club bookers across the country/world.  But as far as I know, no such footage exists, so the band's career is in no jeopardy.  To play devil's advocate, imagine you are in the band Exitmusic on the night of October 24, 2012.  You have van problems, then arrive at a club with that has an admittedly non-amazing sound system and lacks a soundman, then you get accidentally introduced as Exit Wounds by the opening act, then you get heckled while warming up, and you realize only a few dozen people have even shown up.  Would you be in a bit of a bad mood?  Of course.  But the first concert I ever saw at Circle Bar was Lubricated Goat, in March '04.  Including the bartender, there were FOUR people in the building, but the band played a set for us and didn't complain one bit.  That's called being professional.

I should mention that right when Exitmusic decided not to play any more songs, the jukebox began blasting David Bowie's "Let's Dance" at a much louder volume than I had ever heard any jukebox ever play before.  I cracked up at this song choice, and assumed the bartender had selected it, but she said it was just the next song up in the queue.  But it was still great to have a dour band chased offstage by such a bouncy, kinetic song, sung by someone who is presumably one of their idols.

Anyway, I'm glad I got to see two songs, and I commiserated with Miss Mec afterwards.  She is seriously one of the nicest, realest people ever, and I predict big things for her.  She told me she was singing with a Black Keys-ish band called Strange Roux the following week at the Carousel Bar.

Look at the body language in this poster and ask yourself which band member was probably the self-absorbed one and which was probably the sweet and apologetic one:

Hint: The nice one had a side gig acting on HBO's series Boardwalk Empire.

So, I very sarcastically dedicate LAKE's "Don't Give Up" to Exitmusic on several levels:
1.) Both bands are fronted by a married couple.
2.) Both have capitalized, one-word names.
3.) Both played shows in small clubs to approximately the same size crowd (~20 people) in New Orleans.
4.) Exitmusic gave up on their show, whereas LAKE did not, even though LAKE's lead singer was sick and Exitmusic seemed to be in perfect health.
5.) LAKE don't need extreme volume to get their songs across, because they are so meticulously sculpted that they'd sound good with loud amplification, acoustically, or anywhere in between.  Perhaps Exitmusic's songs are too, but I doubt we'll ever find out.

By the way, the bartender told me that Exitmusic donated the entirety of their cut of the money to the opening act.

Thu. Oct. 25: I went to Euclid Records.  Amazingly, the only other customer in there was a girl who had been at the show last night, but I didn't say anything to her.  I got a spare copy of The Lucy Show's awesome LP ...Undone for only a dollar.

I don't want to go into too much detail on it, but that night I had to call 911 for the first time in my life after an incident of road rage was directed at me.  Maybe more on this after I decide what kind of legal action to pursue or not pursue...  Another example of a simple unedited video clip being all that is needed to settle a dispute, and in this case, I do have a video clip of the incident.  The police officer to whom I showed the clip told me he'd "tear this guy a new one" if he ever got a hold of him.  Which, considering the extreme and violent stuff that cops see in their daily line of work, should tell you something about what happened.

Sat. Oct. 27: A severe cold front moved in, dropping the temperature from about 85º to about 60º. Rather than going to the ludicrously expensive Voodoo Fest in N.O., I went to a free festival called Houmapalooza.  ("HOE-muh-pah-LOO-zuh.")  The bands played on the steps of the Terrebone Parish Courthouse.  I skipped the first 4 bands but saw the others.

The first band I saw was a Houma pop/rock band called Autumn High.  They could become sort of Cranberries-esque or Sundays-esque if they develop more dreamy melodies.  Their singer has a ridiculously pretty, operatic voice, as can be heard in their new single "Jester".  If she can rein it in a bit, she could become literally the voice of Terrebone Parish.  They closed their set with that song.  Ocean Of Storms played a riff-heavy set.  Meta The Man were the undisputed highlight, and I got several video clips of them.  They were the main reason I went.  I had never heard of them until that afternoon, and after checking out their album on Bandcamp, I decided they were worth seeing.  They seem to be influenced by the overall aesthetic of At The Drive-In, with the addition of some progressive, artsy stuff.  But don't worry, they sound nothing like The Mars Volta.  Their keyboardist even played some noise cello (really) at one or two points.  I bought their CD afterwards for $5, and found out they're from the small town of Norco.  Outpost 11 were a full-on '80s metal band from down the road in Cut Off, home of the Cajun cannon, Bobby Hebert.  They had a drum riser and an underdeveloped fog show.  After allowing myself to let go of the pretentious music snob in me, I was able to enjoy them for what they are.  In true James Hetfield fashion, the singer began each with an enthusiastic "This next song is called ___!"  An old lady next to me lent me her Saints blanket after seeing I was shivering.  She exclaimed about one of Outpost 11's songs, after the singer announced that it has been getting play on 92.3 FM: "I liked that one.  Reminded me of Nickelback."   The only New Orleans band on the bill was next.  I, Octopus played an energetic instrumental set, with the Jazzmaster-wielding guitarist introducing each track by saying "This song is about sports," "This song is about bees," This song is about flowers," and so on.  I think he was antagonizing the crowd a bit.  It was very cold, and Voodoo had sucked away most of the music fans in the region, so the turnout was low.  The final band, Chaos Of The Cosmos (yes, lots of cool band names at this event) churned out some mediocre party rock.  They had two go-go dancers in front of the stage who also did some hula-hooping, and lots of little girls from the crowd joined in on the hula-ing.  It was pretty entertaining.  I should also point out I met a tremendous lady who is directing a documentary called Art On The Bayou, about local bands and artists who exist outside the sphere of Louisiana influence.  I'll be first in line to see it whenever it comes out.  And I wandered into a new art gallery and talked to a lady there who seemed interested in showing some of my art.  I also met I, Octopus' drummer and his girlfriend (wife?).  I've long thought of them as the Brangelina of the N.O. post-rock / indie rock scene, since if you don't see them at a show, you know it's not a cool show to be at.  He also drums for some other local bands.  So it was a pretty interesting day.  I stopped in at the only cool Houma music club, The Boxer & The Barrel, but a local band that I don't like was playing, so I bailed and drove home.  I have to say I can't believe I almost missed out this crazy day just so I could go see Silversun Pickups and Justice at Voodoo... Not that it would've sucked, but it would not have surpassed the peripheral things that I experienced at Houmapalooza.

Mon. Oct. 29: "Frankenstorm" hit the New England area, and conspiracy theories abound as to whether or not it was engineered by the gov't to give Obama a boost in the polls right before the election.  (See: HAARP.)  Sorry, but a snowstorm and a hurricane intersecting in late October, one week before the election?  The gov't. allowed Pearl Harbor (this is 100% fact) and 9/11 (about 90% sure) to happen, so this Frankenstorm thing doesn't surprise me at all.

Lawrence Wilkerson, former Colin Powell aide, blasts Sununu, GOP, as 'full of racists'

Nation suddenly remembers simple comforts of having out-of-touch white man run country

Planets with similar climates: Papas Fritas - "Way You Walk" (2000), Ben Folds Five - "Smoke" (1996), Velour 100 - "Stare Into Light" (1996), The American Analog Set - "Gone To Earth" (1996).

The Universal Chrome >> I'm in full control

The Universal Chrome - "Helium"

(self-released, 2000)

This is from the band's debut and only release, the CD EP Meet The Universal Chrome.  In my opinion, and I've said this since buying it in 2002, it's the finest disc ever released by a New Orleans rock band, and nothing else comes even remotely close.  I say this because it avoids all the clichés of "New Orleans music" in favor of the musical palette used by '80s / '90s Brit bands and their U.S. counterparts.  There's nary a trace of funk, zydeco, blues, etc. on this disc, which sounds like a dumb or naïve thing to even point out, but you'd be surprised at how heavy the peer pressure is in NOLA for rock bands to include at least some native signifiers.  After two crushingly dense opening seconds, "Helium" cruises along at sort of a moderate, dream-pop-y pace, sounding like nothing too special for its first two minutes.  But at the 1:55 mark, the weather suddenly changes and it becomes a white-knuckle ride into paranoia ("Suspect the one who knows everything") and fight-or-flight aggression.  With wah pedals alfutter in dramatic fashion, singer Zac Wilson announces very bluntly: "I'm in full control, so if you're fucking with me... Don't."  It's simply one of the most amazing vocal performances ever laid to tape, in my opinion.  I often like to say that certain songs "singlehandedly make the wah pedal cool again," and this is clearly one of them.

The CD and the inside of the booklet; took me 10 years to notice the naked lady.  The CD is actually totally grayish silver, in fitting in with the "chrome" theme, but the lighting gave it a pinkish cast that I couldn't fix:

The band was originally known as Flux, and my introduction to them was hearing a live interview on corporate alt-rock station 106.7 The End on a cold, dreary night in latte December 1996 while driving around uptown New Orleans.  I made a mental note to check them out, and I wish I had a recording of that interview.  I'm sure the band does somewhere.  A year or so later, they had to change their name due to a dispute by the group Flux, which was led by James Plotkin, who would later front the hilariously lame metal act Khanate.  I still don't know what the band's name means, but I've seen it used as the finish color for certain auto parts.  I had originally thought it was an homage to Catherine Wheel's classic heavy shoegaze album Chrome.  The album cover is an image of a car engine's drive belt, so the band's name is probably indeed a car reference.  Anyway, they opened for national touring bands like At The Drive-In, the Jesus Lizard, the Starlight Mints, etc., as well as big local bands like Burnversion, Rigid, and Weedater.  And of course they opened the killer Hum / Swervedriver show I went to in '98.  It has a hidden track, "The Last Resolve," which slays just about any song, hidden or non-hidden, in the history of music, and yes, I will be posting it someday.

I was overjoyed to find this flyer a few years ago at TUC's MySpace page, since I had never seen it back in the day:

Anyone who went to that concert (see ticket here) knows how the Chromies tore shit up and just about stole the show.  I mean, jeez, they sure ate their fucking Wheaties that morning, as I like to say.  They knew this would be one of the biggest moments of their lives, and they played like their lives depended on it.  The singer was a manic ball of energy with his eyes almost bugging out of his head, like Frank Black on speed.  And Melissa played her strong, Pixies-style basslines clad in her trademark red and white candy-striped leggings.  I even bumped into my Loyola ichthyology teacher, Frank Jordan, there.  (There was later an indie rock band named Frank Jordan, but I don't know if there was any connection.)  Dr. Jordan saw Sonic Youth in Florida in the mid-'80s, so you know he knew what was up.  I even lent him my Screaming Fields Of Sonic Love VHS around this time and never got it back.  About a year later, he admitted to me that he had never gotten around to watching it.

Back on topic... The Universal Chrome were one of the best-loved local bands of the late '90s, but I only saw them that one time.  Still kicking myself.  They moved to NYC in 1999 to make it big or somewhat big, and in a less douchey world they would have.  The most tantalizing fact: They recorded an unreleased full-length album, titled Closer To Shine, around the time of this EP.  Their Facebook page said they planned on releasing it digitally in August 2010, but I guess that never happened.  God damn.  I can only take so much suspense.  Luckily Meet has been released on iTunes.  In the '00s, drummer Keith Hajjar was a member of Rock City Morgue, along with former White Zombie bassist Sean Yseult and singer Rik Slave of Rik Slave & The Phantoms.  RCM had some success and garnered international interest; they even toured Europe in 2005.  Their sound was on the glammy, proto-punky '70s NYC side (NY Dolls, Dead Boys, etc.), very different from The Universal Chrome.  In other words, RCM was dedicated to recreating a bygone era, while TUC tried to forge something new, edgy, and dangerous.  So it's no surprise that I never saw RCM live or paid much attention to them.  Like anyone who was a teenage male in the '90s, I had a crush on Sean, and I have to say that White Zombie was one of the most fun and entertaining live bands I ever saw.  (Opening for Pantera at Lakefront Arena in '96.)

Tue. Oct. 16: Went to GW Fins, it was loud as hell, got some non-seafood, tried to block out the noise, great bread, great waiter, it got noisier, I got peeved.  Seemed overpriced, and the portions were on the small side.

Thur. Oct. 18: Went to Pelican Club for my sister's birthday.  Finally met her fiancée's mom, Mary, who immediately praised my palm paintings that she had seen.  Aunt Ann flew in from Savannah and Vanessa came too, along with mom and dad.  Afterwards we went to the Carousel Bar in the Hotel Monteleone briefly; was my first time doing so.  Definitely swank city.  Missed the second Obama-Romney debate due to all this, but Obama dispatched the creepy dude easily, based on highlights I saw and according to the general consensus of political pundits.

Fri. Oct. 19: Ann, mom and I went to the NOMA Sculpture Garden, had lunch in NOMA's café, then went to the Botanical Garden.  These things are all literally yards apart from each other, making for one of the most interesting couple of blocks on the planet in which to feed your brain and pass some time.

Sat. Oct. 20: Went to Kathleen & Jay's Halloween party for the first time.  This is a big-ass deal, and they even have cops close off the block to traffic.  They were screening The Avengers on the side of the house via a video projector outside.  I went as a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle in a shirt I had found at a thrift store the previous day.  Good clean fun, as Cat Power would say.  Stuck a bony hand decal / sticker thing on Ashley's face.  On WTUL's concert listings I heard that my favorite local jazz band (since Christian Scott no longer lives here), Tarik Hassan Group, was playing at AllWays Lounge, so I headed over there.  It was Hassan's birthday.  They were great, as always, and I was amazed to see the jazz singer I had met recently (Meghan Stewart) come into the club wearing a rather provocative red outfit.  I was hoping she'd sing with them, but it turned out she was there as a bellydancer(!).  So yeah, she danced / twirled / jiggled in rather stunning fashion to a few songs and really got the crowd going.

Sun. Oct. 21: I finally joined last.fm.  My username is a Magic Dirt song that I should've already posted on here by now.  Some other possible usernames that made the final round: HighwireDays (song by the P-Furs), FiresInMotion (lyric from Simple Minds' "Speed Your Love To Me), InvisibleKnife (lyric from Sand Rubies' "Drugged"), TheNewSunrise (song by The Joy Circuit), ExitBodyExitmind (lyric from New Fast Automatic Daffodils' "Music").

You may remember a few posts ago I pointed out the fallacy of the attempts by the Tea Party / Birther faction of Republicans to convince their peers that Obama would snatch up everyone's guns upon taking office.  And how paranoia has driven gun & ammo sales to record highs in the U.S.  Well, I had assumed everyone had come to their senses on this topic, but just the other day, I saw this ad in Baton Rouge's The Advocate newspaper:

Translation: "If the black guy gets elected again, you'll need something a little more powerful than that paltry shotgun or revolver that you have."  It's kind of chilling how the phrase "We lost a game, we didn't do enough" is right above this ad in the football recap.  And to answer the question asked in this ad, my answer is: Yes, as a matter of fact I am worried what you fucking rednecks will "bring" over the next 4 years.  (A bill is about to hit the Louisiana legislature that proposes automatically granting a concealed weapon permit to anyone who buys a gun.  Think about that for a second.)  Gun sales are already up around 70% between 2008 and 2012.

Mon. Oct. 22: Obama simply eviscerated Romney in their third debate.  He did so even though the debate focused on foreign policy, which means the challenger can simply lay into the incumbent on any little thing the incumbent has done overseas in the last 4 years.  In other words, the red carpet is laid out to the challenger, and the incumbent has to be on his heels the whole time.  I've honestly never seen anything like it, and I think it will be studied by future generations.  I mean.. wow.  This was just an all-out humiliation for Romney, in which he walked right into trap after trap that he set for himself, such as the topic of the outsourcing of jobs to China (a practice which Republicans all but patented) and the size of the U.S. military.  For an average person, I would worry that he or she would have major psychological issues for the remainder of his or her life after having such a thing done to him or herself on live television, but for someone as smirky and used-car-salesman-esque as Romney, I think he'll be able to shake it off on the strength of his utter inability to have any spine or sense of self.

Sorry for all this personal diary type stuff, but it's been an eventful month, and the next few will definitely not be.  Concert-wise, this may go down as one of my best ever, along with March '98 and March '04.

R.I.P. David S. Ware.  Even if you're not an Aquarius like I am, spark up his serenely hypnotic "Aquarian Sound", one of my favorite jazz tracks ever.

Diet soda is doing these 7 awful things to your body - "Downing just two or more cans a day increased waistlines by 500%."

Planets with similar climates: Catherine Wheel - "Waydown" (1995), Pixies - "Gouge Away" (1988), Quicksand - "Dine Alone" (1992), ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead - "Prince With A Thousand Enemies" (1997), Unwound - "Stuck In The Middle Of Nowhere Again" (1992), Bailter Space - "Control" (1994).

Maria Minerva >> Northern star, what you are

Maria Minerva - "Luvcool" (a.k.a. "Lovecool")

(Not Not Fun Records, 2011)

This song is like a complex crystal built from deceptively simple molecules.  It's a perfect example of "less is more," and the importance of simply playing the right notes.  If that opening keyboard drone note was any lower or higher, it simply would not mesh with her voice the right way, and if Maria sang the opening word "Cool" differently, it would just not be as starkly beautiful.  Drea immediately remarked that this song has a real Twin Peaks feel to it, and I had to agree.

Maria Minerva was born Maria Juur in Estonia, and is now based in London.  She has written for the super-highbrow music magazine The Wire.  I had been hearing about her for the last year or so, as one of many artsy female electro-pop crooners.  After thinking about going to see her opening for Jesus & Mary Chain-esque retro fuzz-poppers Moon Duo, the evening arrived and still had not decided.  And there was a somewhat shockingly contentious Vice Presidential debate on TV.  The show was gonna start at 10 PM and I live an hour away.  I was quite sure I'd be able to see her when she returns as a headliner someday, but a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.  9:00 rolled around; listening to some of her stuff on YouTube... "I'm a dude whose main love is shoegaze & post-punk type music; why do I even feel the need to see all these solo female electronic musicians?"  Striking me as a more less-girly, more "European" version of Grimes, or a less pretentious Laurie Anderson... 9:15... Listening to some more, still also listening to the debate in the other room... I forgot to shower tonight... 9:30... Welp, after listening to "Lovecool" (how it's spelled on YT) about 5 times and having my soul / mind just turn to warm lime jello, I realized this song would be haunting me for the rest of my life, and hence I had to go see her.  So at 9:45 I headed out.

Listened to MSNBC's post-debate analysis on the radio; WTUL's DJ played my request for George McCrae's "I Get Lifted" right as I pulled up to Siberia.  I had previously only been to two shows here, and one Record Raid.  In fitting with its name, the club now serves what is billed as New Orleans' only true Russian / Slavic food, so I ordered a $4 provolone blini (Russian crepe) and $2 grilled asparagus while watching a blonde-looking lady setting up some equipment onstage in the nearly-empty building.  It turned out to be Maria, who I guess dyes her hair darker in her videos.  She began by saying "Can you guys come in closer, away from the bar?" and some people obeyed.  There were film clips projected behind her the whole time.  She had some sound problems, due to getting to the club right before 10; "This is what happens when you don't have a sound check," she said apologetically at one point after having to restart a song, and I had flashbacks to Grimes' performance at Tulane's quad last March.  She only played for 30 minutes, and did not do "Luvcool," so I was disappointed, but was still glad I had gone, since I would have always been wondering if she played it or not.  I think most of the crowd was a bit dumbfounded by her music, especially the singing.  Like many great singers her voice can admittedly sound off-key until your ears adjust to her style.  I could sense some snickering going on just based on how people were turning to their neighbors and talking while smiling.  (For example, Bob Dylan has a terrible voice but is a great singer, if that makes any sense.)  I think her voice is more suited to icy, almost-whispered songs like "Luvcool," just as Grimes' voice is better-suited to songs like "Be A Body."  She could totally become the go-to female guest vocalist in all of indiedom, not just in synth-popdom or chillwavedom.  I'm not trying to turn this site into Hipster Runoff or anything, but hopefully Maria will supplant the rather boring and pretentious Zola Jesus.

It's kind of freaky how much she resembles my dad's sister Kathleen.  I also kept thinking to myself how much she resembles Lindsey Vonn, even down to the height (probably almost 6 feet) and the frankly startling Olympic swimmer build, which was only startling because most indie dudettes & dudes tend to be so rail-thin and lacking in musculature.  Those N. Europeans are generally the most unweak on earth, which you'd know if you've ever watched those World's Strongest Man or CrossFit competitions on ESPN2.  Maria Minerva is probably Lindsey Vonn.  Maria Minerva is Lindsey Vonn.  Maria Minerva is the world's foremost female downhill skiier.  Lindsey Vonn is the most meteorically-rising composer of electronic avant-pop.  Maria Minerva was on a Wheaties box.

Pic with no flash during middle of her set, showing projected video

Pic with flash during her last song; the flash obviously killed the video

I took one flash pic as I on my way out the door to get a few moments of refreshing air; this turned out to be at the end of her last song.  Camera battery died soon after, so the existence of the pic itself is sort of a miracle.  Saw her outside a little later and gave my standard "Good show."  Her accent is quite odd, since English is probably not her main language; she sounds kind of like Marlee Matlin.  I was wearing a black shirt with 4 gold dolphins and the word "MAUI."  "Mah-oo-ee?" (or something like that) she asked, while touching the word on the shirt.  I told her I came in just to see "Luvcool" and added "and you didn't play it, or at least I don't think you did."  She confirmed she didn't, and asked if I had seen the video.  I said yeah.  She said she can't play it live because she no longer has the computer on which she composed it about 3 years ago, which had all the synth presets; I forgot if she said it had been stolen or if she just lost it.  I told her she should re-record it and should definitely keep working on it / start playing it, but I stupidly forgot to ask her what the song is about.  Also forgot to ask if she tried the club's food to see if it passed the authenticity test.  She said she was surprised at the low turnout because "Moon Duo are big," so I explained the neighborhood's new no-concert-flyers rule.  I asked if opening act Sir Stephen (misspelled on the chalkboard outside as Sir Stephan) had gone on before I got there, and she said "No, he's on next.  He's my fwend; you should come back inside and watch him."  Then she indicated that the convo was over when she reached out and shook my hand and said that she had to go back inside.  So yeah, that was my little 5-minute brush with the next Laurie Anderson or Grimes or, if she gets more into multimedia stuff, Miranda July.  Her future stardom is all but a given.  She has boundless charisma, friendliness and energy, and zero ego whatsoever, so it's weird that people probably think of her as an "ice queen" based on her music / image.

Other show tidbits: DJ Perpetual Care played Kraftwerk's "Trans Europe Express" and "Numbers," among dozens of other songs.  In fact, the vast majority of the music came from his decks, since there was only 75 mins. of live music in the 3.5 hours I spent there.  Sir Stephen, with trumpeter in tow, got bumped.  DJ PC pointed me to him, so we chit-chatted and he apologized and seemed really bummed out.  He's a local dude on 100% Silk Records, a disco-ish offshoot of Not Not Fun, hence he and Maria are basically labelmates.  He told me he and Maria had just met tonight, so I thought it was cute that Maria already thought of him as a friend.  But that's just her personality: super-friendly as fuck.

I put 2011 as the date at the top of this page, even though I mentioned that she said she recorded the song about 3 years ago, which would be around 2009 or early 2010.  If you stole her computer, please return it to me.

Staking Chinese Pistachio trees with Parkway Partners peeps, incl. Nell Howard, Tim Hurley, and two guys whose names I have temporarily forgotten.  This was the biggest and most annoying tree, so we had to rock the roots back and forth to sever some of them.  Pic by my sis, who provided moral encouragement and called this pic the "Iwo Jima moment."  I'm in the red Drew Brees jersey, as I mentioned before:

Mon. Oct. 15: Saw MONO at the Spanish Moon for the fourth time; Chris Brokaw (ex-Codeine guy) opened.  More on that show next time maybe.

Today: Tamaryn's new album drops, but they are not coming here on their tour with the equally dream-poppy Young Prisms.  Still mad at myself for skipping the Prisms last year.  Tamaryn's new single is sorta forgettable, not nearly as amazing as "Dawning" (then again, what is?), but the new album is allegedly more radio-friendly as a whole.
Probably going to eat at GW Fins tonight for my parents' anniversary, even though it's a seafood restaurant and I don't eat seafood.

Oops: Without permission, Paul Ryan and family show up washing clean dishes at Ohio soup kitchen - "The Post reports that Ryan made the unscheduled stop after an event at Youngstown State University, and was there for about 15 minutes.  But though the pictures taken show Ryan apparently doing dishes, the food had already been served and everything had already been cleaned before he got there."

Planets with similar climates: Julee Cruise & Angelo Badalamenti - "Falling" (1989), Memoryhouse - "Lately" (2009), Laurie Anderson - "Walking & Falling" (1982), Chairlift - "Cool As A Fire" (2011), Slowdive - "Losing Today" (1990), Insides - "Darling Effect" (1993).

Pharmacy Lounge >> A little insane

Pharmacy Lounge - "Building A Compound"

(Atavistic Records, 1993)

This is from the 1996 edition of the State Of The Union compilation 2xCD, which features 147 songs, all of which are about a minute long.  (I previously posted the song "Backlash" by Margot Mifflin from this compilation.)  All I know about this band is what's in the liner notes, and this might be the only song they ever recorded / released.  Here's the data:

Matt Karn - guitar & vocals; Lokke Highstein - bass; Mark Ludwig - drums.
Excerpt from "WACO: The Rock Opera."
Recorded at Moldy Basement Studio, Madison, WI. 1993.

Ween, Prince, The White Bitch, or The Make Up would've killed to have written this ditty.  Every single second of it is instrumentally amazing down to the tiniest detail, and the vocals are just nailed perfectly, down to the intro and outro chant "Jesus... loved... guns."  It's hard to think of similar songs because this one has such a fast tempo, and most funk / r&b songs are on the slow to medium side.  Overall, it's one of the ultimate songs to use to fill out the spare time on a mix CD.

I don't like most sensations that are bracing, such as riding rollercoasters, eating York Peppermint Patties, or anything involving snow.  I had braces from age 13 to 16.

Based on the band name and song title, I had assumed the lyrics would be about synthesizing molecules in a laboratory.  We made soap in organic chemistry lab once.  But it's clearly about a David Koresh-style cult leader building a compound, as in a heavily-fortified building.  "Making a stockpile, plenty of guns... Screw the feds and the coke they run."  "I'll build a compound and be the messiah."  (Note: For hilarity, Google pics of Koresh playing guitar.)  Folks, think about it: Blowtorch Baby... The inferno at Koresh's Waco compound that was set by the feds... Talk about art imitating life, hello.  This is probably the best song to listen to on the day that Obama's jack-booted henchmen come knocking at our doors to take away all our guns, as Fox News and Tea Partiers (same difference) are always reminding us...  Er, wait, Obama has received a rating of "F" (lowest possible rating) from the Brady Campaign To Prevent Gun Violence, for doing absolutely nothing to curtail gun ownership or gun violence.  ("The group, which endorsed Obama in 2008, gave him an 'F' on every issue it scored, including background checks, gun trafficking, guns in public, the federal assault weapons ban, standing up to the gun lobby and leadership.")  Nah, that was reported in a newspaper, so it can't be trusted, since Obama has complete control over the media.

If anyone can turn me on to any other songs by Pharmacy Lounge, please get in touch.  Since I have no pic of the band, let me just dump some random photos.

Me at House Of Blues in June, about to drink the only appropriate beer with which to celebrate the Flaming Lips' Guinness Record-setting performance.  This was right after we saw this obnoxiously compelling opening act named MNDR, who had replaced Grimes at the last minute:

Camera phone pic by my sister

Coconut palm etching on that black paper that scratches off to reveal glitter underneath.  Made in about 15 mins. using only a disposable plastic dinner knife; total cost: about $1.  (Paper bought at Dollar Tree.)  I highly recommend buying some of this paper and just having a blast:

One of the few times I've signed something on the front rather than on the back.  My sister made a very different etching simultaneously, but I don't have a pic of it.

We all enjoy laughing at pathetic internet commenters.  Golly, SNL even did a skit about it last season.  This comment was so beautiful that I had to take a screenshot of it.  You may remember some topless pics of Kate Middleton surfaced last month, and, as the saying goes, "broke the internet."  Well, check out the critical insight of one Eddy Chorizo on the website of the Mercury News:

(Note: To see this or any other pic on Blogspot full size, drag it into your browser's URL bar and then click on it there.)  After admiring his sentence-construction prowess, I had to wonder if "Eddy" is actually a typo, since most/all guys go by Eddie.  If anyone knows how to contact this fellow so Blowtorch Baby can interview him, let me know.  I'd love to have him review some mp3s that I've posted, particularly stuff like Karlheinz Stockhausen, Scala, and this Pharmacy Lounge song.

Mind-blowing stat of the week: Monday night's game was the 666th Monday Night Football game in history.  In it, the Houston Texans beat the New York Jets.  On the season, Jets QB Mark "Sanchise" Sanchez has a QB rating of 66.6, with 6 TDs and 6 INTs, and has averaged 6.6 yards per pass.  He wears jersey number 6.  He played for Mission Viejo High School, whose mascot was the Diablos.  I've already seen him referred to by the new nickname "Satanchez."  The Jets' backup QB is devout Christian Tim Tebow.

NRA, gun industry once again mine profit from paranoia

Alpacas with post-punk hair

The NFL's campaign against breast cancer is a total scam

Planets with similar climates: Ween - "The Goin' Gets Tough From The Getgo" (1992), !!! - "Intensify" (2000), The Make Up - "Walking On The Dune" (199?), Gil Scott-Heron - "Free Will" (1972), Union Wireless - "Come And Tell Me" (1995), Medium, Medium - "Hungry, So Angry" (1981).

Juno >> When you turn off the alarm, I turn on you

Juno - "Leave A Clean Camp And A Dead Fire"

(DeSoto Records / Pacifico Records, 1998; Modern City Records [France], 2001)

This song really has it all: A ridiculously long, atmospheric intro, cool guitar textures galore, rocket-propelled drumming, a tsunami of psychedelic axe-mangling, and of course a monster climax to end all climaxes.  And only four lines of of lyrics in ten minutes.  And three guitarists.  Do the math.  You can see by the genre tags I used that this band was not exactly easy to pigeonhole.  I've always wondered where that word came from.

Due to the stealthy escalation of tempo, there is an 85-90% chance that you'll get a speeding ticket if you listen to this on ye olde American highway, so it's better to listen to it at bingo nite or any other time you need a quick pick-me-up without caffeine.  In order to stave off insomnia, I avoid caffeine after noon.  Juno covered DJ Shadow's "High Noon" on a split EP with DeSoto labelmates The Dismemberment Plan.

I first heard about Juno in a Jade Tree Records mailorder catalog in early '98, and almost ordered a 7" by them.  I read reviews of this album, This Is The Way It Goes And Goes And Goes, around the time it came out in '99.  But I didn't buy it until spring '03, when the Wherehouse Music (formerly Blockbuster Music) on Tchoupitoulas St. had a going-out-of-business sale and I snagged dozens of used CDs.  (That's the only time I've ever seen this CD for sale in the used bins in the 13+ years since it was released, since almost no one who buys it is dumb enough to sell it.  If you ever see it used, do not hesitate to open your wallet.)  Articles about the band always mention singer Arlie Carstens' former career as a pro snowboarder, and the grisly accident he sustained which forced him to focus solely on music.  His loss, our gain.  The review of the album in CMJ by Kelso Jacks said "Juno crafts its music slowly.  However, the brilliance of this album more than compensates for Juno's less-than-prolific nature.  The band relies on the powerful interplay of three guitars to churn up an expansive whirlpool of textures.  Juno's blasting, six-string complexities mimic everything from airplanes to waterfalls to banjo plucks.  Unfettered by convention, these Northwesterners follow their sonic muse without paying mind to the clock, allowing sweeping, 10-minute epics such as 'Leave A Clean Camp And A Dead Fire' to unfold with the kind of passionate aggression that makes potentially self-indulgent duration a moot point.  The brutal rhythm section adds to and controls the thunder using carefully measured accents and punctuations.  This raucous din is topped off by guitarist Arlie Carstens' intelligent, surreal utterances, which are processed through a fuzzbox to complete Juno's wall of intensity.  Truly worth the wait."  That's basically a clinic on how to write a compact and informative review, by the way, though he should've mentioned more than just one specific song.  (I omitted one discography-related sentence near the beginning.)  It concludes: "Marketing Data: A summer tour is possible, though Carstens is currently recovering from spinal cord injuries, the result of his severely being injured in a snowboarding accident, earlier this year."

Great live clip at an unspecified venue in an unspecified year:

Also check out the sublimely haunting murder ballad "A Listening Ear", featuring co-lead vocals from Seattle chanteuse Jen Wood.  It has some of the coolest slide guitar I've ever heard.  A band called The Sea, Like Lead named itself after the album's closing song, "The Sea Looked Like Lead."

This Is The Way It Goes And Goes And Goes was not originally released on vinyl, but in 2001 a European tour edition on double LP was pressed on a French label called Modern City Records.  Juno's live shows are the stuff of legend.  They never played in New Orleans, sadly, and believe me, I sat around staring out my window for several years, pining for them to come by and Junoify my city.  I guess Europe was a lot more inviting to them.  The only other three-guitarist band that I actually listen to on a regular basis is Band Of Susans.

2001 gatefold double LP with two different colored records; pic courtesy of discogs.com

Juno's stature in the indie rock community is such that a documentary film was made about their recent comeback, but I don't know if it ever came out, and its website appears to be in mothballs.

Fri. Oct. 5: Despite having some sort of sinus infection or cold, saw Merchandise and Glish at the Big Top.  It was kickass, and each band played the songs I wanted to hear, though it was evident that Merchandise's (very charismatic) singer was wasted off his ass.  More on this show in an upcoming post!  Oh yeah, I donated a book called For The Vegetarian In You to the NOLADIY / An Idea Like No Other guys so they could add it to the Iron Rail library.  And I requested that they order me a copy of the new Possession EP by this Portland band called Arctic Flowers.  Wandered around Frenchmen St. afterwards, mainly to catch the end of a photography exhibit called Velado by Melissa Stryker at Scott Edwards Photography Studio & Gallery.  The photos had naked ppl and were printed on huge aluminum sheets, but in my opinion were not as racy or scandalous as the artist probably thought they would be.  Here's the front and back of the postcard that made me decide to trek to the exhibit:

No, that's not Stryker in the pic.  I saw a few songs by a crazy funk / party band called Yojimbo that was playing at Maison.  Their singer / trombonist is a super-energetic, bespectacled redhead, and I was stunned to see she was wearing this bootleg Sonic Youth Sister t-shirt that is commonly sold by shady sellers online.  I got mine on eBay about a decade ago; I think I gave it away to my internet girlfriend Michelle, whom I am no longer internet dating.

I took some video clips of Yojimbo, if only as proof that the singer had this shirt on.  I didn't go inside due to it being packed and me being sick, but the open door and huge glass windows made it easy to see & hear inside.  This girl, Carly Meyers, will be a superstar.  In between jumping up and down as if on a pogo stick, playing her trombone pointed up at the ceiling, and laughingly wiping sweat from her face with a towel, she guided the crowd in holding up a blanket and urged them to "Get in the love tunnel!"  I found a great Merchandise show poster (a big one, different from the small one shown above) on Frenchmen, so my night was complete.

Sat. Oct. 6: Went to the Bridge House thrift store and bought some sweet books and NIN's The Downward Spiral on CD ($1), then played hoops at that Annunciation Street court.  One of the dudes was LSU's point guard in the late '80s / early '90s.  He was a stocky redhead who could fill it up from outside.  I mentioned that I went to LSU basketball camp in 1990.  Watched some of the #4 LSU vs. #10 Florida football game with my sister, then we tried to go to the Botanical Garden.  She was impressed by the raw power of "I Lived My Life To Stand In The Shadow Of Your Heart" by A Place To Bury Strangers on the drive over there.  NOBG was due to a wedding, so we walked around City Park and did some obnoxious stuff.  Came back and watched LSU lose in pathetic fashion.  I had lost track of my The Downward Spiral CD long ago, and was blown away by how fresh and visceral it still sounds.  I still have the promo postcard that Interscope sent me when the album came out, and my friend Warren and I listened to it all the time in the mid-'90s.  I had kind of swept the album under the rug of my mind as I got into better music over the years, but songs like "Reptile" and "Mr. Self-Destruct" are just inimitable and stand up to any sort of highbrow scrutiny.

Sun. Oct. 7: This was a pretty interesting day.  A cold front blasted through, bringing the temp. down by about 20º from the previous day's high.  I helped to stake some Chinese pistachio trees on Metairie Rd. with some Parkway Partners people.  I was wearing my red Drew Brees practice jersey since he was gonna try to break Johnny Unitas' streak of 47 straight games with a TD pass that night, and the NFL wisely made sure it was against the team that let Drew go, the Chargers, a team that is so inept that it actually got the name Chargers from the fact that it was founded by a credit card ("charge card") magnate.  Then Em and mom and I went to the zoo; Em said "Oh my God" so many times that mom and I had to tell her to limit it to one time per exhibit, but she couldn't even do that.  Then we ate at this pizzeria called Slice next to Whole Foods, then went to Whole Foods, then went home to watch the first half of the Saints game.  Drew got the record early with a pass that literally hit Devery Henderson on the numbers and in stride.  That means "The ball flew through the air and hit the receiver on the chest, and the receiver did not have to alter his running motion."  Found out that the Godspeed show already started, since the dumb promo postcard and poster had the wrong start times on them.  So Em and I drove over to Tip's, knowing that we had missed the opening act, G String Orchestra.  Luckily Godspeed were in peak form, beginning with a long (10-minute?) ambient drone, the one at the beginning of "The Dead Flag Blues" but unfortunately omitting the ominous dude talking about cars on fire, a thousand lonely suicides, etc.  Minimalistic film clips (sometimes just words) were projected behind them throughout the show; they also did this when I saw then in March '03 at TwiRoPa.  I was disappointed at a few downsized elements: The band was down to only one female member, and no longer had any cello; the venue was smaller than last time; the merch table was way smaller, with only the (brand) new album for sale (and only on vinyl), plus some t-shirts.  These are minor complaints, because it was a really challenging and uncompromising concert, the kind most "post-rock" bands wouldn't even dare attempt.  Even by GYBE's standards, the buildups were extra-long and the climaxes were done with a great flair for layering.  Mom texted me to say the Saints had won; I texted back "Fuck yeah."  Near the middle of the show a dude passed out and hit the ground with a huge thud right behind us, and had to be escorted out.  (This was nowhere near as cool as when a guy slashed his wrists outside a Humpers / Neckbones show that I caught in '97 at Monaco Bob's.  That show continued after only a brief pause, by the way.)  The finale was just incredible, with two of the greatest pieces of music I've ever seen, set to a backdrop of a factory on fire.  I'm pretty sure the last thing they played was "World Police And Friendly Fires."  There was no encore, despite lots of cheering.  Efrim didn't say a word to the crowd, despite the fact that he was practically a stand-up comedian at the A Silver Mt. Zion show in Feb. at One Eyed Jacks.  To celebrate the fact that her computer had not been stolen, despite being parked with one window totally down, we went to this bar called Ms. Mae's up the street.  It was as lame as my sister told me it would be, though I played two Interpol songs and Catherine Wheel's "Black Metallic" on the internet jukebox.  Some guy in a just-bought Godspeed (or G String Orchestra) shirt juked some Pelican and Russian Circles.  Uhh... No comment, Beavis.  A charismatic 59.9 year old art teacher at Tulane sit right down at our table and hit on Emily right in front of me, and kept claiming he had met us before.  So we had to eventually make a daring exit, which prompted him to desperately ask us "Are you guys on Facebook?"  "No, sorry."  We were, as the saying goes, so done with that.

I stupidly trusted the door time on the postcard rather than the door time on the ticket, hence why we missed the opening band

Sorry for all the pics in this post.

Planets with similar climates: Plexi - "Peel / He" (1995), Catherine Wheel - "Ferment" (1992), Kitchens Of Distinction - "Blue Pedal" (1992), The Sound - "New Dark Age" (1981), "Missiles" (1979) & "Whirlpool" (1985), The Church - "Chaos" (1992), Unwound - "For Your Entertainment" (1996), Pantera - "Hollow" (1992).

Das Racist >> It's fun to do bad things like rhyme about handguns

Das Racist - "Rainbow In The Dark" [original version]

(self-released, 2010)

After two "mixtapes" which set the underground rap (sorry... "hip hop") world abuzz, Das Racist's debut album, Relax, was unleashed on a label called Greedhead Music, run by DR's own Heems, née Himanshu Kumar Suri.  Their unforgettable and extremely quotable song "hahahaha jk?" (built on a sample of the theme song of the soap opera Days Of Our Lives) was an instant classic that made me sit up and take notice, but the effortless charisma and cool of "Rainbow In The Dark" is what made me a true Das Racist convert.  Highlights: That slightly off-the-beat synth part and all the obscure, geek-friendly lyrical references.  The 2011 version on Relax is slightly spruced-up compared to the mixtape version, but is almost indistinguishable.  (The original 2010 version is about 10 seconds longer: 4:02 vs. 3:52.)  Das Racist is a group that is always one step ahead of the spider; their secret weapon is the ability to subtly parody other rappers' attempts at lampooning lame genres of hip hop.  (Think De La Soul's "Ego Trippin'" video.)  SPIN's review of Relax says "The synth-pop jam 'Booty In The Air' is essentially Das Racist spoofing Lupe Fiasco spoofing mainstream rap."  It goes on to say "Reprised early internet cut 'Rainbow In The Dark' is a welcome oasis of expertly half-assed calm amid the newfound clamor."  (The last line of this song is especially funny because my sister and I's Cuban friend Alex once exclaimed "I can't... They'd put me to work!" when he was asked if he wanted to visit a plantation.)  Here is the origin of the group's name, if you're the last person on earth who was still wondering.  In order to not embarrass yourself further, the first word is pronounced DASS, not DOSS.  I will remind you that this is a professional site, so please, no Dio jokes re: the song title.

I mentioned this concert last year, so go here to read a nano recap and see the extremely great, Wikipedia-worthy, 7-dudes-in-one-shot pic that I took near the triumphant finale.  Note: I just found out the "DJ dude" (who also did some rapping at the beginning of DR's set) is Lakutis.
Despite the band's laid-back flow on record, they were super-energetic live, almost to the point where I'd use the word "frantic" to describe their onstage antics.  They do rap about Four Loko, and I remember jokingly pointing that out to my sister as a possible explanation for their manic energy.  Amazingly, no vids from the show have been put on YouTube yet, despite it being a pretty packed show.  The bizarre film clips that were playing behind them were definitely unexpected, and I can't even begin to describe them, so I won't.  I'm still shocked that they didn't play "hahahaha jk?," but at least I have a reason to try to see them again.  Some girl was hitting on Lakutis after the show outside, and invited him to go the Saint with her.  My sister and I went over there just on the off chance that he or any Das Racist members would show up, but none of them ever did.  Opening act Danny Brown has gone on to become a pretty big star, at least in indie circles, though he has apparently stopped wearing tiger outfits onstage.  Kool A.D. of D.R. recently released two solo albums.  Sorry... two solo "mixtapes."  I guess the only difference is that a mixtape is given away free, oui?  Heems is my favorite Das-er, basically functioning as the Q-Tip of the group with his nonchalant delivery.

Fun Fact: DR's mixtape Shut Up, Dude was named after a lyric in this song.

Fri. Sep. 28: Bought a gorgeous, essentially brand-new La-Z-Boy recliner at Salvation Army for only $140.  Looked at carpet samples beforehand with my mom, but decided to just get my carpet professionally cleaned instead of getting new carpet after realizing that $2.50 a square foot sounds cheap until you extrapolate it out to the size of a living room.

Sat. Sep. 29: Went to the Mushroom and finally got to talk to Sam again for the first time since Jazz Fest.  I found out she's in a band (Trampoline Team).  She asked if I'm going to see Dinosaur Jr., but alas I ain't; tried to talk her and Mike into seeing Godspeed You Black Emperor.  She offered to burn me this Dino Jr. remix album, but I said I'd have to hear some samples first.  Was somewhat amazed to find out she had gone to the Boris concert in Baton Rouge in '07, and also had seen one of MONO's many shows there.  And she casually mentioned Magma(!) when describing some local band's sound...  We both made fun of Ben from Bipolaroid.  I dug out some used CDs (Unwound's Fake Train & Challenge For A Civilized Society; Yo La Tengo's Painful; Suzanne Vega's self-titled) from under the "blue roof" tarp for her to check out.  Picked up Cat Power's Moon Pix on vinyl and showed them the inner sleeve, boasting "This is what my front porch looks like":

Sam replied that her dad in New Jersey has lots of cacti and desert plants too, which really impressed me.  In addition to the Moon Pix LP, I scored the 2-DVD Criterion Collection edition of Paris, Texas for only $4, and a movie called Forty Shades Of Blue.  (Again, no jokes please.)  Mike said his jokey metal / grindcore band Foot was playing 3 hours away in Mississippi that night, and I took a 1-song freebie CD-R of theirs.  Sam said I'm her favorite customer, which, since she's pretty much my favorite person in the world, pretty much made my year.  Though as a Phillies fan, I was not too fond of the fact that she was wearing a Yankees shirt.  (Aren't Jerseyites supposed to be Mets fans?  I know the members of Yo La Tengo are diehard Mets fans, and their name even came from a phrase that a Mets outfielder was known for shouting.)  It was raining, so I ducked into some little place called Favori Deli on Maple St.  Got a very good grilled chicken for myself and a Philly cheese steak for my mom, who was born & raised in Philly.  It's right next door to the former digs of The Camera Shop, which I used to frequent when taking Fine Art Photography at Loyola in '97. I caught the very end of the Fall Garden Fest at City Park, but most of the vendors had already left due to the rain, so I just bought a little lily called Zephyranthes atamasca, which looks like a chive or wild onion plant.  I unfortunately skipped Glish's Come Down EP release party at Circle Bar, just because I don't really like going there and the acoustics are awful, though Sam had informed me that it finally has air conditioning now.  My sister surprisingly bought a Godspeed ticket without me having to even convince her.  I thought she'd want to go to M83, but apparently not, so I might got to that alone, despite how gleefully Hipster Runoff has mocked M83's recent efforts.

Sun. Sep. 30: Took my dad to the airport parking garage to jump the dead battery in his truck.  Went to Barnes & Noble in the rain for a few hours, getting a few things for my sister's birthday.  Hit up the second (final) day of FGF and scored three more native species: Osmanthus americanus (Devilwood or Wild Olive), Amsonia hubrichtii (Narrow Leaf Blue Star), and Hypericum densiflorum or H. frondosum (St. John's Wort).  Somewhat renowned local acoustic guitarist John Rankin gave a chillaxable performance under the glass dome of the fern / cycad / orchid house at the Botanical Garden, accompanied by a sax player and a guy on upright bass.  I used to walk by his open door at Loyola in '01 and hear him giving one-on-one guitar lessons.  I guess he still teaches there, but I don't feel like checking.  I used to have his '84 LP Something I Ate.  Anyway, it's not often you get to see a jazz concert attended by about 5 people inside a greenhouse at a botanical garden in the rain.  If this sounds appealing to you, move to New Orleans, because I really doubt you'll find that anywhere else other than maybe Amsterdam or San Francisco.  (Which reminds me... Note to self: Move back to New Orleans.)  Drew Brees torched the Packers in Green Bay for 400 yards by the end of the 3rd quarter, but the Saints still found a way to lose, falling to 0-4.

Mon. Oct. 1: The first day of the Times-Picayune's mega-controversial shift to only putting out a newspaper 3 days a week after 175 YEARS as a daily paper.  Why they couldn't have just trimmed it down to 4 or 5 days a week is beyond me.  This happened because the paper sold out to a cheapskate conglomerate based in the NE U.S. called Advance Publications, which already was notorious for killing off Ann Arbor's newspaper after buying it.  And word has it that they're giving Syracuse's paper the axe next.  N.O. is now the largest city in America without a daily newspaper.  Baton Rouge's The Advocate is making an aggressive foray into the N.O. market to try to fill this void.  As a tree fanatic, I can't say I'm too distraught, considering that lots (millions? tens of millions?) of trees will be saved by the shift to digital.  I still refuse to read novels on any format other than actual paper, though.  Extremely psyched to see Merchandise & Glish at The Big Top on Friday, and for the first Obama-Romney debate tonight.  Working on a metal / punk mix CD to bring to the dudes at the Mushroom, since that's what they mainly listen to.  But I'm miffed that the mix I painstakingly made for Sam never made it to her.  And thus ends a post that began with me talking about "mixtapes."

Speaking of Alex, here he is, valiantly holding the purse of his extremely wasted wife Tace at the Orpheus parade in February.  This girl is a doctor and can outdrink the entire U.S. Senate without even blinking, so it was quite a shock to see her practically unable to walk or form a coherent sentence:

(Camera phone pic by my sister.)  I'm in the green hoodie, just a few days before the Trayvon Martin hoodiegate incident broke.  FWIW, I wore a baby blue hoodie to see Boris the previous November, just to stand out among the black-clad metal masses.

Planets with similar climates: Special Ed - "I Got It Made" & "I'm The Magnificent" (1989), MC Paul Barman - "Make No Mistake" (2002), Poor Righteous Teachers - "Can I Start This?" (1990), Eminem - "My Name Is" (1998), Flight Of The Conchords - "I Told You I Was Freaky" (2009).