2010 - The Year in Shows

This wasn't the best year for me and live music. You get older, you have less energy, and you eventually slip off your pace. It happens.

I can't necessarily say that I did my best......In fact, I can't even come up with a list of ten shows worth noting. In 2011 I'll try to improve on that. In the meantime, here are the shows of the year.

Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros at the 9:30 Club

This show hardly deserves to make the list. But after hearing about their career-making performance at SXSW in 2009, I'd looked forward to seeing Edward Sharpe for about a year before finally catching this show. And I won't lie: they absolutely disappointed.

To start with, the band went on late, announcing to the audience that co-vocalist Jade Castrinos had gone missing prior to the show. Three songs into the set, the chick finally emerges, leaping and bounding onto the stage with an exuberance usually reserved among adults as the result of pharmaceutical enhancement.

Then, the band timidly announced that they would take an unscheduled 25 minute intermission (THREE SONGS IN!) while the people in the crowd milled about and stared at one another, none knowing exactly what the hell had just happened.

The show eventually resumed, but with such a bad start, it was more or less hopeless from there. Castrinos even botched the lyrics to the band's signature song. What on Earth could be said for them at that point?

You could say that I was dismayed by the unprofessionalism, but those words put too fine a point on it: Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros didn't have their shit together on the very most basic levels, and that's not acceptable. It's unacceptable when you're playing around the corner at the Velvet Lounge, it's unacceptable when you're playing RFK Stadium with Metallica, and its unacceptable when a record company has scored you a gig at the sold out 9:30 Club.

Free Love at the Black Cat Backstage

With their over-sized ensemble, high-energy performance, infectious positivity, and general hippie-cult sensibilities, it would be reasonable to say that Free Love was aping Edward Sharpe's schtick.

Except they did it well....to a small room, hitting on all of their cues, and actually appearing to enjoy themselves.

Free Love is what Edward Sharpe seems to have been two years ago when I first heard so many great things about them.

Los Campesinos at the 9:30 Club

As intrigued as I'd been with this hyper-pop band from Wales, they were not my first pick this evening. Now when the band of the moment, Frightened Rabbit, was playing a sold out show across the neighborhood at the Black Cat.

I was far from the only person left out of that show, but I didn't pout for long; the fact that Los Campesinos was playing on the same night seemed like a fairly equitable consolation prize. And knowing that most of the city's hipsters would be at the Black Cat, I looked forward to a more intimate evening at a larger venue.

Imagine my surprise when I walked into a nearly packed 9:30 Club!

Now, I'm far from certain how I feel about indie and punk music making to the masses the way that they have in the past five or six years. And I'm even less certain how I feel about Shaw being overrun with the types of frat boys and blond chicks that I spent so many years in the deep, dark city specifically to avoid.

But I can't deny that this evening - a weeknight evening when independent music drew not one but two full crowds to hear bands that received zero radio play - struck me as less of a turning point and more of a tipping point for Washington as a destination once again for independent UK musicians on tour.

Phosphorescent at the Black Cat Main Stage

As I mentioned earlier on, the older I get, the fewer chances I take on live music. But I have to admit that I was glad to have run out to see Phosphorescent after randomly seeing the video for "It's Hard to Be Humble When You're From Alabama" on Pitchfork.com.

While the set was far more firmly on the side of "real country" than alt-country, it was a very worthwhile divergence from more typical Black Cat fare. Moreover, the bookends of the set - the afore-mentioned "It's Hard to Be Humble..." (a contender for my song of the year, by the way) and a beautiful cover of Willie Nelson's "Reasons to Quit" were outstanding ways to open and close out a weeknight show. Excellent spur-of-the-moment decision.

Roky Erickson at the Black Cat Main Stage

Almost nothing should be appealing about the idea of putting a 60-something schizophrenic recluse (with only a small handful of very obscure hit singles from the 60s) on the road for a club tour. I had reservations; to be honest, the possibility for a disappointment -- or worse, a disaster -- wasn't far from the back of my mind.

Besides all that, I've already gone through that embarrassing phase of seeing old rock stars do reunion tours, and with very few exceptions, it's just hard to get excited about the mythology of it all anymore.

That being said, I guess I didn't know exactly how excited I was to see Roky until he shuffled out on stage and carved out the opening chords to "A Cold Night for Alligators", followed by a sandpaper bellow that has gotten rougher and stronger through the lost years.

It would not be overstating things to say that there was something legitimately awe-inspiring by his performance; having shuddered my way through the excellent documentary on Roky's struggles with the mental health system, its truly heartbreaking to know how much the guy has surrendered over the years. But because of that, it was also inspiring to see him clutching onto the one thing he can still do effortlessly.

I couldn't tell you much of what he played after the second track, an outstanding take on "Two Headed Dog". I didn't really care, either. By that time I had gotten a whole lot more than what I'd come for.

The Joy Formidable at the Black Cat Back Stage

Read the review here.

The Washington City Paper review had a line that summed this one up perfectly:

"Every once in a while, a band comes to one of Washington's smaller venues and puts on the sort of performance that ensures everyone present that they will never play in a space that small ever again."

Lamb of God at Star Live (Beijing)

Just like last year's Lamb of God show, I've been promising myself that I'd write a traditional "ticket-stub-and-a-story" entry about this show for nine months now, so I'll try and do the short version here:

In April, I happened to meet Randy Blythe and John Campbell of Lamb of God, while touring the Forbidden City in Beijing. I was on vacation; they were on a tour through Asia, and playing their first concert ever in China that week.

(I should mention in here that despite my generally being down on American metal for being sort of dumb and drunk and violent for a better part of the past fifteen years, LOG is, in fact, my favorite metal band these days. In fact, I'd seen them for the first time at the 9:30 club maybe six months earlier, for an absolutely astounding show, and it was purely a coincidence that we were in China at the same time. I swear.).

Randy and John were unbelievably friendly, posing for photos, asking questions, and generally prolonging the conversation well past the point where I felt (as a fan) that it was time for me to move on. (Best story: Randy informing us that the Chinese government had canceled their date that week in Shanghai, because it was too worrisome to have "a religious band" playing in town during the run-up to the much-ballyhooed World Expo. Awesome.)

They also went out of their way to ensure that my fiancee and I made it onto the guest list for the first of two shows that week.

The show itself was perhaps a step or two behind the complete blitzkrieg they unleashed on Washington the previous winter; Randy had admitted to me that they were only a few dates into the tour, and that the jet lag was still pretty severe. (I's believe it...the first week in Asia, its nearly impossible to stay up past 10:00 PM; mid-afternoon tends to be a little grouchy as well).

But you couldn't tell from watching the crowd. It was clearly a big deal to have an American metal band play Beijing, and the crowd demonstrated that - a mix of shaved-headed Chinese youth up front in the pit; old-skool, stringy-haired metalheads in the middle and to sides; and a whole lot of very curious music fans who seemed to simply be taking advantage of the opportunity to catch an real, live metal show.

It was kind of a big deal to me, too. Show of the year, hands down. Many thanks to Neil Yueng in Shanghai for tipping me off that LOG would be in town, to Randy and John for inviting us out, and to my fiancee for being up for the adventure and picking this as her first metal concert.

Happy New Year!

Ah, the holidays.

A time at which we put aside our petty differences to compulsively stress over meeting the conflicting deadlines of finding the perfect gifts and doing all the bullshit you promised your client by the end of the year. Somewhere in there there's the story of a child being born to humble - in fact, humiliating -- circumstances, who would grow up and literally change the world.

Enough....I was hoping to write about holiday music. In the spirit of full disclosure.....the spirit of this entire blog, I suppose... I'll tell you: I love Christmas music. Almost all of it in fact.

Some cringe when they hear "Sleigh Ride" in the mall for the ten thousandth time. Not me....that song is a goddamned American masterpiece. Particularly the low brass right around the two minute mark.

O Holy Night? Gives me a lump in my throat every time.

Johnny Matthis? Sorry, but that stuff is golden.

Hell, there's a mentally challenged street musician who plays electric guitar across the street from my apartment on most weekends. The guys drives me up the fucking wall because he only knows about nine songs and plays them on a loup for the better part of five hours most nights (Jesus Christ, enough with "All Along the Watchtower". I can't get no relief, neither, Jimi.)

I despise this guy with an uncommon passion, for his insistence on playing at a volume so loud that I can hear it clear as a bell with the windows closed, half a block away, five stories up and across one of the busiest thoroughfares in all of Washington D.C.

And yet, this evening when he busted out "Silent Night", it was the first time I didn't hate him.

But not everyone gets off the hook. No siree....If you want to hear more about the Christmas tunes I love, you can check out the blog from last year. (Proud of that one, in fact).

This year, you get to hear about the Christmas songs I hate.

Baby Its Cold Outside - Ray Charles and Betty Carter

I'm not even sure this is a Christmas song, but I hear it an awful lot this time of year.

People who know me know my feelings about Ray Charles: he was an abusive son of a bitch, never you mind the grinning and swaying Jamie Fox nonsense. You want a nice blind piano player, I can find you one. You want one who gets off on humiliating his drummers, Ray Charles is your man.

Moving our attention back to the song, let's start with Betty Carter's voice. What the fuck is that all about? She sounds like she's been drugged.

Which brings me to my next point: This song seems to be the preface to a date rape.

No means no, Ray.

(Blind motherfucker.)

Santa Baby - Eartha Kitt

There are certain members of my family who love this song, including my mom.

And this has always struck me as a little ironic, because at the time we were growing up, mom usually was teetering on the fine lines between depressed, angry and fucking crazy.

Regardless of how you want to diagnose the state of her mental well-being, an unavoidable fact is that a great deal of her depression and anger manifested itself in some very staunch and vocal opinions that were well into the realm of the puritanical. The fact that she has a soft spot for this completely trashy piece of schlock novelty makes me crazy in its inconsistency with her worldview as we once knew it.

(Think I've got mommy issues? Fine. But I'm willing to bet that an awful lot of the people who find this song to be sexy also like to use the word "daddy" in bed.)

Seriously, Santa is a married man. Try not to give him a blowjob this year, Eartha.

(You ho.)

Simply Having A Wonderful Christmas Time - Paul McCartney

Dude. You were in the Beatles. Get it the fuck together.

++++++

Happy holidays!

The Joy Formidable - Black Cat

I'm not exactly sure I'm up for this post....its been a shit day and my eyes are burning from exhaustion. But I also know that if I don't get this down now, I'll probably blow it off and give up.

As recently as yesterday, I was pretty certain that i wouldn't be doing a year-end "Best Shows of 2010" post because I just didn't get off the damned couch to see ten shows worth writing about.

But, at the very minimum, as of midnight this morning I had a very serious contender for the show of the year. Because the Joy Formidable bowled me the fuck over last night.

Now, there was a time about eight or ten years ago or whatever, when I used to see bands all the time that I thought were just poised to break out. (I miss you, the Put-Outs.....and the Hissyfits, too. And Emm Gryner. You, too, Jamie Block!). But I've never been as certain as I was last night.

Playing before a crowded (but not quite packed) back stage of the Black Cat, the Joy Formidable accomplished the astounding feat of not only replicating live, but totally enhancing an already electrically lush-sounding catalog. From the majestic "The Greatest Light is the Greatest Shade" to the rapturous "Last Drop", I was pretty must gobsmacked all night...taken in not only by the music, but also the command of the stage from diminutive Ritzy Brian, who seems to have taken her cues in equal parts from Chrissie Hynde and Bowie-era Mick Ronson.

(In particular, her aggressive, stomp-and-pace style of guitar playing reminded me completely of Ronson's performance in D.A. Pennebaker's "Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars" concert film. Meanwhile, it reminded my pal, Dan, of Joan Jett's infamous "Pussy To The Wood" approach to guitar playing).

And that's as good as its going to get tonight.

Kudos to the Joy formidable, for reminding me why I go out to see live music...

Not Dead Yet

I'm still here...just got a lot on my plate between work and wedding stress. (And an inconvenient situation with the IRS, that should be all tidied up at the exact same time that I've spent every dollar that I have. Guess I'll be sticking at this goddamned job a little longer than expected.)

I haven't given up on this blog, and I'll have a few things to report in coming weeks, including additions to the "Rock Star Encounters" series; some additions to the "Recent Distractions" series (including, I hope, thoughts on the new Keith Richards autobiography and the not-so-new Slash autobiography...as well as impressions of the seemingly-excellent new season of "That Metal Show"); and maybe even a return to the old ticket stub cache.

When I get desperate enough for content, I'll trot out the good old "Ten Songs That Make Me Cry"post, because, well....because they sure served their purpose in recent weeks.

Dokken vs. Chicken

Sometime after my 6th grade fascination with Lionel Richie and before I became obsessed with the Rolling Stones, my very favorite band in the world was Dokken.

I know how that sounds; even hard rock fans from the 80's don't get this. Sure, Dokken was a decent band. Sure they had their hits.

But, come on, no one picks Dokken as their favorite band.

Well, I did.

I was taken in by George Lynch's guitars. I was taken in by those 1980's videos - both excellent and awful. I was taken in by the tension that was a big part of their style and songcraft - most immediately linked to the Sunset Strip scene, but most definitely influenced by early 80's European hard rock and the New Wave of British Heavy Metal.

Plus, Dokken was something of a musician's band. Despite a rhythm section that never really set the world on fire, Lynch was a bona fide guitar virtuoso, and Dokken was an actual vocalist.

They weren't a party band and they weren't a delinquent band: they were musicians.

They just happened to be wearing clown suits. Or pirate costumes. Or possibly something they bought from a bunch of Puerto Rican drag queens.

And, of course, there was the feuding storyline between Don Dokken and George Lynch -- the sort of alpha-male bullshit that always builds a band's mystique that much more.

Still (and I don't retreat on my personal preferences very easily) sometimes I do wonder what I was thinking. A whole lot of those albums that I liked so much -- specifically Under Lock and Key and Back for the Attack -- just didn't age very well. I still struggle to identify the culprit, though my gut says that it had something to do with the occasionally-embarrassing dramatics of Mr. Dokken's vocals and lyrics.

(Fucking hell, "Kiss of Death" is a MOTHERFUCKER of a tune, but thanks to the vocals and lyrics, the verses of that song are a fucking drag. How could I have known, indeed...DON?).

((To some extent that's not fair....but if you've ever found yourself torn over whether or not to love or loathe the Scorpions, Dio, or even the mighty Iron Maiden, then you should know EXACTLY what I'm talking about)).

Anyway, time went on and by 1989 or so my brother had taken me to see the Rolling Stones and I fully plunged into classic rock for the next few years. Goodbye to Dokken, and hello to a bunch of...uh....a bunch of old music that helped prevent me from embracing Jane's Addiction or the Pixies when it might have actually "meant something", as they say.

Oh, well.

Dokken chugged along, but they never really could sound quite right after the 80's. Don brought in new players on top of new players, but they never struck gold again.

Until now.



Congrats, Don. You have finally upstaged George.

Recent Distractions: Heavy Metal Picnic

So, I've been slow on the updates lately, partially because I've been trying to get out of the house and get a little more active.

As part of this effort, last night I trucked on our to Silver Spring, MD to attend the premier of Jeff Krulik's "Heavy Metal Picnic" at the American Film Institute.

For those who don't know, Jeff Krulik is the co-creator of the cult masterpiece, "Heavy Metal Parking Lot". On top of being a pop culture touchstone, Krulik is a guy I've gotten to know fairly well in the past seven or eight years, and someone I consider a heck of a nice person. As such, it was kind of important to me to show up and support him.

Little did I know that much of the metro D.C. area had the same idea; it was a packed house, and easily the best attended (and most enthusiastically-attended) event I've ever seen Jeff participate in). More on that later....

Despite the fact that "Heavy Metal Picnic" follows much the same style as "Heavy Metal Parking Lot" (roaming cameraman captures extremely drunk early 80s redneck kids partying outdoors in an an unsupervised location), "Heavy Metal Picnic" wasn't actually shot by Krulik. In fact, it was shot by one of the partygoers, a big lug names Rudy Childs, who had the forethought to bring his novel-at-the-time camcorder to The Full Moon Jamboree, a massively oversold field party in ultra-posh Potomac, Maryland. In an odd moment of serendipity, Childs just happened to shoot a hell of a lot of the same kinds of kids doing the same kinds of things that Krulik would capture a year later in the parking lot of the Capital Centre before a summertime Judas Priest concert.

Krulik did, however, direct the film. And with the help of editor, Greg DeLiso, he packaged it into a far more complete (though occasionally bumpy) document.

In fact, "Heavy Metal Picnic" is a real extension of its cousin film. Krulik had little trouble tracking down the various partygoers, organizers and bands that played the Full Moon Jamboree, and gave generous amounts of time to many of them. And by incorporating the perspectives of the 40-and50-something versions of the wasted youth captured in the footage from 1985, it sends a message about the circle of friendship...about how important those seemingly fleeting moments of youth are -- especially the ones that you're so quick to dismiss as stuff you used to do when you were a dumb kid.

Part of what impresses me about Krulick's style, is that when interviewing the party-goers as adults he treats them all with a respect for their dignity and a sincere curiosity about their opinions and memories. At no point do you get the sense that he's mocking them - despite the fact that a certain kind of mean-spirited snobbery is exactly what draws so many viewers to Krulik's signature film.

That's not to say that Jeff coddles his subjects. He absolutely recognizes when a subject has drunkenly talked himself into a pile of mud, and he knows that this often means comedy gold.

As I mentioned before, the place was packed. Not only were most of the major subjects of the film in attendance, but so was a large swath of the D.C. independent filmmaker/documentarian community, a handful of musicians, some friends and fans of Krulik's, and damn near every single 1980s redneck who was in attendance at the Full Moon Jamboree -- all of whom provided a steady rotation of Bronx cheers and comments from the peanut gallery throughout the film.

(Among them was this one fucking aging hipster goofball tool that I run into at least once a year, usually with his loudmouthed wife. I have never been introduced to this nutsack, but I seem to run into him at shows, in bars, at Fort Reno, and even once at a Nationals game. Aside from just being kind of annoying and loud, I have no idea why he sets me off to the extent that he does, but I have to tell you, every single time I see this guy I want to kick him in the nuts, then go to church and pray that I don't morph into him at the age of 45).

But that doesn't matter. What matters is that Jeff Krulik has made another film that brings back memories of a forgotten time. As I look around Washington and see it changing faster than ever, I have no doubt in my mind that there may be nothing more important to the preservation of a scene (or a mini- or micro-scene, such as my own moments on 14th street in the mid-to-late-90's), than dedicated archivists......your photographers and zine writers and the like.

In an era of flip cams, digital cameras and blogs, it is now easier than ever to capture these moments in time....and that's seriously important. But it also should serve as a reminder than guys like Jeff Krulik (and Rudy Childs) were doing something equally or even arguably more important back in 85-86, when few others were doing so.

So, take a moment and check out Jeff's site if you get a chance. He's done a hell of a lot more than Heavy Metal Parking Lot and Heavy Metal Picnic, and I think he deserves a lot more credit than he tends to get.

("I Created Lancelot Link" has always been my personal favorite).

Rock Star Encounters - vol I: Dave Mustaine

Among all of the great band feuds over time, Metallica vs. Megadeth will always be my favorite.

During my formative years loving metal (87-91), this was *the* feud. Beatles vs. Stones? Simon vs. Garfunkel? Ike vs. Tina? Forget it - that was for the history books. Oasis vs. Blur was ten years into the future. But Metallica vs. Megadeth was happening in the now, and it was real.

Barrages of episodes of "Behind the Music" and awkward feature documentaries have since shed light of nearly all corners of the vendetta between Metallica and Megadeth, but back in the day, this was very much a cult war, spilled out on the pages of low-brow magazines like Hit Parader, Circus, and the perennial bottom-feeder, Metal Edge.

I never exactly picked a side, though I always knew that I liked Metallica more; at that point in time, their albums were more epic, their songs were smarter, and their entire presentation was always more confident than Megadeth's.

That said, Megadeth spoke to me in their own way. They were angry; Mustaine was emotional to the core, and his lyrics were spiteful in a way that resonated to a 15 year old like myself.

Metallica was Michael Jordan: focused, visionary, intense, intelligent, artistic, and above all else, supremely talented.

Megadeth was Isaiah Thomas: calculating, bitter, hungry, disrespectful, a little bit evil, and above all else, vengeful.

The NBA was better for having both stars, just as metal thrived under each band.

Now, the common thinking is that Metallica won that feud, based on their obvious superstar status growing from the Black Album.

Artistically, however, the question becomes more subjective: Starting in the the mid-to-late-90's, Metallica stumbled repeatedly; some (including myself) don't think they've stopped just yet - though I hope that we can all agree that they should never fall any lower than they did on St. Anger.

Meanwhile, Megadeth "quietly" produced a long list of albums that - aside from a relatively engaging foray into pop-rooted song structures - held much more true to the core tenants of thrash and metal. The result seems to be a career that has been less successful, but more principled.

Another difference between the two bands? I met one of them.

Sort of.

Back in the late 80's, the music retail gods smiled upon my hometown of Rockville, MD, and delivered upon us our very own Tower Records. The significance of this should not be understated: Tower was a West Coast chain, known at that time for being highly selective of what East Coast towns they would expand to. A flagship store did exist in Washington, D.C., but it was tucked away and somewhat hidden in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood. As for suburban locations, you could forget about it. Tower was way too cool for that.

But this new location was a game changer. Located two miles from home, it promised easy, relatively affordable access to just about anything and everything I could ever want: tapes, CDs, cassingles, music magazines, videos. I actually kind of credit the place for keeping me out of trouble as a teenager: Tower was close enough to home, open late enough, and central to enough fast food joints and movie theatres to make it a relatively obvious alternative to getting drunk in empty parking lots, like most bored teenagers do.

And it also gave me the chance to meet Megadeth.

I do not remember the year, the record they were supporting, or, how, exactly, that I'd learned Megadeth was doing a signing at the Rockville Tower Records. But I remember that I was freaked out that rock stars would be in my hometown, and I made sure that Fran the Man would drive my car-less ass out to the event that Sunday afternoon.

As always, he would, so we trucked on up to Tower to meet Megadeth, arriving ten minutes early, just to be safe.

Much to our chagrin, upon arriving we witnessed a line of at least 100 metalheads out the door of Tower, streaming down the sidewalk, past store front after store front of the Congressional Shopping Center.

This was a bummer. I'd been looking forward to this event for days and days, but it had never occurred to me that I'd actually have to wait in line.

Fran the Man, who didn't even like metal, had a disapproving look on his face. "This'll take hours," he told me. "Let's go."

I looked at him with disappointment. True, Fran the Man was always up for adventure, but he liked his adventures to be at least somewhat practical. It was hard to look at the situation and not see anything more than a gigantic waste of the afternoon, with no guarantee of meeting the band.

But giving up just seemed so half-assed.

"Let's just go in the store," I told him. "We'll watch."

Fran the Man was agreeable to that, so we walked through the front door of the store, to be immediately confronted by the store manager - an older guy with glasses and a golf shirt tucked into khakis. He bore a slight resemblance to a dorkier Stephen King. (Apparently, Tower had called in the regional brass for this event).

"You gotta be here to shop....no loitering," the Manager of the Macabre preemptively told us, his tone mimicking that of a high school vice principal.

"We're just here to shop," Fran the Man and I said (...in wholly unconvincing unison). In an attempt to recover, I put my best quizzical expression on my face and asked, "What's going on here anyway?"

The manager ignored that last part and told us to come on in, and that we'd "better buy something."

There we stood, taking in everything - the sections of the store that had been roped off, the signing table, the merch, the angry metalheads at the front of the line who clearly knew what we were doing. Trying to act natural, we worked the aisles, picking up random Aerosmith and Rolling Stones discs, and eying the doors at all times.

Truth be told, I was always an excitable kid when it came to music, and I was just about out of my skull in anticipation of seeing Megadeth. Would they play a song for us? Would they give a speech? Would girls take their tops off and ask Dave to sign their tits? This was going to be awesome, even if waiting in line for a personal audience had been vetoed.

So, there I was in the back of the store, when the storage room door swiftly opened and a beefy security guy waddled through, followed by none other than Dave Mustaine and the rest of the guys in the band. He was dressed in a black tank top, blue jeans and sneakers, his tangled shock of strawberry blond hair piled high enough to make him look even shorter than his slight frame (I was a little taken aback by how little the guy seemed - I would over time learn that this is a pretty common reaction to meeting celebs...especially when you happen to be 6'3").

It was a strange moment - here was one of the biggest guys in metal, maybe 15 feet from me, and none of the tough, dumb-looking meatheads in the store had even noticed. So, I took it upon myself to be the first one to make noise.

Raising my puny arm and making a fist, I shouted "DAAAAVE!" to him.

Immediately, I regretted it: My voice sounded totally fucking weak. The word "Dave" ended up coming out in two syllables - an over-excited and extremely loud "DAAY", followed by a self-conscious and much quieter "Aaaaavvve", which I had hoped would sound at least a little bit cooler and more familiar.

It sounded neither. I mean, my voice might as well have cracked. I sounded like a tool.

For a moment, I thought the guy was just going to walk on by and ignore me. Shit, upon hearing my own stupid voice, I half wished that he would. By this time, everyone in the whole store had heard me, and they were all yelling for him.

Never breaking his workman's trudge towards the signing table, Mustaine instead turned his head to me, lifted his chin and nodded at me. He did not speak. He did not smile. In fact, he kind of scowled, which is basically the expression Dave wore through much of the 80s.

And then the moment was gone. The store went bananas. People were screaming and yelling for his attention, cameras were going off, and the manager was doing his damnedest to keep order. The band took their place at the signing table, and we looked on for a moment, quickly realizing that a record store signing is not, in fact, a worthwhile spectator event.

"Let's go," Fran the Man said, for the second time that day.

+++++++

Strangely enough, I never did get around to seeing Megadeth live. I have no idea why; by the time I had become a more critical consumer of music, it was very much becoming clear that Megadeth had more integrity as a metal act that Metallica did. Yet, it regrettably never happened.

There's still time to change that: Tower Records may be dead, but Megadeth marches on. In the meantime, I've got YouTube.

My Last Words
if you're tight on time, just FFW to the 4:00 minute mark to truly appreciate all that Metallica gave up in sacking Mr. Mustaine.....

Smashing Pumpkins

Since sometime in early April, I've been trying to get motivated to do a post about the night I saw the Smashing Pumpkins at the Patriot Center. And its increasingly looking like I just can't get it up to give them that much attention.

Now, listen: I'm not an out-an-out hater on the Pumpkins. They have the makings of at least one fantastic greatest hits album. But so do the Eagles. And Journey. And I sure can't get my dick hard for those bands, either.

I should admit that my bad attitude about the Pumpkins comes largely from reading Jim DeRogatis' Milk It! Collected Musings on the Alternative Music Explosion of the '90s (...now THAT guy is a hater!)

His hypothesis generally is that of the top rock acts of the '90s (the Pumpkins, Nine Inch Nails, Pearl Jam and Nirvana, give or take a few other bit players), the Pumpkins were essentially the most expendable.

I tend to agree with him, despite how much I like tracks like 1974, Zero, and especially Jellybelly -- all of which appeared on the terribly pretentiously-titled and difficult-to-listen-to "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness".

Think about it: Pearl Jam took Fugazi's mission and generally brought it to the masses. Sure, it was diluted by the time it got there, but that's the price. NIN momentarily brought industrial music out of the basement, where it had been simultaneously flourishing and suffocating for more than 20 years. And there's not much I could say about Nirvana that hasn't been said before, but let's keep in mind that their legacy includes the Foo Fighters.

But the Pumpkins? Their legacy increasingly seems to be that as long as you've got a rad sounding guitar, a great drummer, and the ability to write hooks, its perfectly fine to have a shitty voice, a patronizing display of teenage angst and a totally unlikeable attitude about your own level of talent.

Is that fair? Not entirely. Corgan's most whiny and faux-angsty output is on "Mellon Collie", and that's a concept album of sorts, about an isolated teenager - ergo all the 'tude on those songs. Still, Billy has never been shy about showcasing his massive ego or his ridiculous voice, regardless of his other undeniable talents.

+++++++

This show was fine, actually. Nothing to write home about, but it was good enough. Jimmy Chamberlain was back in the band, and the beautiful Mellisa Auf der Maur had replaced D'Arcy - and anything involving Ms. Auf der Maur is a good thing in my book.

(Someday I'll write about that time I locked eyes with her in the Red Room of the old Black Cat).

((Ah, wistful...))

As for the show, the details aren't exactly vivid. I recall an acoustic performance of "1974" at the end, as well as a moment during "Zero", when someone in the crowd inflated a five foot penis and started tossing it around the crowd. Billy and James shared a laugh, and for a moment it appeared that they liked one another.

And with that, I'm totally tapped out on the Smashing Pumpkins. I mean just...whatever. They were a fine band for the 90's, and I'll always respect Billy Corgan for getting an enjoyable album out of Courtney Love (the sometimes-overlooked "Celebrity Skin", which Corgan basically wrote for her).

Then again, every single time I hear a fucking terrible screamo band break into a pussified melodic vocal hook, I can't help but to hear Corgan's influence all over the place. Oh, sure, the chasm in talent between those emo dickbags and Corgan is obvious, but still -- that shit is all over you, Billy. That's the problem with being a "genius". Remember that the next time you tell a reporter about how you basically taught James and D'Arcy how to play their instruments.

+++++++

So, that said, I *do* have a story about the Smashing Pumpkins.

I'm not exactly sure what the year was, but it was probably the Summer of 1990 or 1991. It was Fran the Man's birthday, and because we were so tremendously lame, we decided to make a rare trip into Washington, D.C. to go to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner (which was at least slightly less uncool back then -- let's not forget that these establishments were all the rage at some point in the late 80's. Cool kids knew better, but we did not).

Anyway, we went out and had dorky fun.

When dinner was over, we proceeded straight to the Metro to go home, like the good little suburban kids that we were. After all, Washington was a little rougher back then, and you didn't want to be screwing around if you didn't know your way around.

As we approached the station, a homeless man hobbled up to us.

"Three bands, three bucks! Three bands, three bucks. 9:30 Club, baby!"

Fran the Man and I looked at one another.

"Where is it," I asked.

"9:30 Club! Right THERE, man!" he responded, excitedly waving his arm down the block.

"How much?"

"Three bands, three bucks!!" he responded, his voice taking on a decidedly exasperated tone.

Its hard for me to believe that I had so little adventure in me. We certainly had $6 between us. And we both knew all about the 9:30 Club, even though neither of us had even been in it: that was a punk rock club, and we were NOT punk rock kids. We were debate team kids.

"Who's playing," I asked, knowing full well that I wouldn't recognize the name.

"Man, its them Smashing Pumpkins! Girls EVERYWHERE! Man, you got three bucks...come ON!!!"

Fran the Man and I exchanged glances once more.

"That sounds gay," I told Fran the Man, and we stepped onto the Metro escalator, missing that opportunity forever.

But, you know, for years afterwords I told people that I went to that show, and that I saw the Pumpkins back when they were on the club circuit. Years later, Fran the Man would admit to me that he had done the same thing.

But, of course, we didn't.

Because I thought it would be "gay".

So there you have it - my life at 17: Dinner at rock and roll-themed chain restaurants + homophobic slurs = bad taste and arena rock.

Hooray for me.

R.I.P. Paul Gray 1972 - 2010

Its easy to write off Slipknot as a bunch of meatheads. I admit that I was down on them for years.

Anyway, the news of Paul Gray's death hopefully rounds out what has been a tragic spring for the metal community.

If you had any doubts or preconceived notions about the guys in Slipknot, I encourage you to take a look at the following video of their press conference this week. You won't be converted to being a fan, but I know it gave me a different perception of the band: Stripped bare - without masks, music or costumes; grief-stricken and fragile -- they represent a portrait of humanity that most people never see in metal.

If you don't have time to watch the whole thing, at least try and just to the 4:40 mark for a beautiful moment.

Be at peace, Paul Gray.

RIP Ronnie James Dio: 1942 - 2010

Well, there goes another one of the greats: Ronnie James Dio died from cancer this morning.

As I mentioned in a previous post, my sadness has almost nothing to do with any liking I had for Dio's music. In point of fact, he didn't really make my type of metal.

On the other hand, I was a huge fan of Peter Steele's music, and I was nearly unfazed by his death last month.

Why?

Because Dio was one of the good guys. Whether you're scouring music forums, reading comments on Blabbermouth.net, or talking with old fans, it is universal that everyone thought Ronnie James was a good person.

Of course, you'll also find a great number of wonderful things online about the guy Pete Steele was, but the poor decisions of Pete's life certainly draw a stark contrast with how Dio went about his business, even in the years when no one was rushing to buy his records...as well as those recent years when that cokehead douche bag Jack Black was making him a punchline for all his cokehead douche bag fans.

...And don't even THINK about giving me that shit about how Jack Black really loves metal; I'm sure a lot of guys in minstrel shows really loved jazz too, but that didn't stop it from being a crime against art.

You see, Dio never would have had an outburst like that. Not in his character, God bless him.

Quick story:

A few years back I was lucky enough to attend a screening of "Metal: A Headbanger's Journey", during it's limited theatrical release. During the Q&A, director Sam Dunn was asked if Ronnie James Dio was truly the nicest guy in metal. Without blinking, Dunn grinned, raised his eyebrows and said, "Yes, he sure is."

What followed were stories about what an awesome host Dio was in him home, how generous he was with his time, and how every time he mentioned to the other subjects interviewed in the film that he was also speaking to Dio, they all gushed about how wonderful a person he is.

Farewell Ronnie. Rest in peace, brother.

Sometimes I Wish to God I Didn't Know Now...

I won't pretend that I ever loved Poison, and I won't pretend that I hated them.

They may have been a cartoon band, but they also had a knack for writing songs that stick to your memory like flies on a windshield. (Forget what a songwriter's song "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" is....try and get "Unskinny Bop" outta your head now that I've put it back in there.. I respect that kind of talent.)

I also won't pretend that Brett Michaels didn't totally annoy me as he made his transition into reality TV star. But he created a brand for himself long after the likes of Stephen Pearcy are still trying to cling to relevance, so God bless him.

Anyway, to get to the point, the news of Brett Michaels' brain hemorrhage has got me pretty sad. Not because I particularly liked Brett or Poison, but because its been two years since I lost someone from the same episode.

I hate even thinking back to that time, but I'm forced to now.

I didn't know her well.....she was the sister of a friend, and we'd only met a few times. She was always friendly, and a little bit shy. I was happy to learn that she was just about to move into the building I lived in, and I was looking forward to seeing her around and getting to know her better.

Then one day as she was getting ready for her big move, she was hospitalized. A few days later she was dead.

Just like that.

The memories of the following week were the saddest I can ever remember.

I remember running into her brother as I was on my way to work on the morning that she died -- the two of us hugging on the sidewalk, time stopping as we tried our best to keep it together and commuters hustled their way past us and down into the Metro.

I remember helping the family move her belongings into a condo in which she would never live.

I remember the horrible, horrible sound of her parents wailing as they put her coffin in the hearse after the funeral.

That entire week was heartbreaking in every single way, and I walked around in a complete daze for about three weeks afterwords, emotionally raw from the experience.

So, I guess you'll have to excuse me for having a pessimistic view of Brett Michaels' chances for a full recovery. I want him to beat the odds, because I would hate for his children to suffer the way that my friend and his family and the rest of us did.

But I guess I lost a little faith two years ago.

So, give me something to believe in.

R.I.P. Peter Steele: 1962 - 2010

Timing is a bitch.

I've done so frigging many posts about Type O Negative concerts lately, that to tell you the truth I was dreading the fact that I still had one more ticket stub for them, which would require yet another entry that would at once apologize for loving them so much back in the day, while trying to justify it all.

But then I got home after being out of the country for two weeks and learned that Pete Steele had passed away.

So let's try and do this right....

You can read my former posts about Type O Negative here, here, here and here. If you follow this blog at all ( I know there aren't many of you), you know that at a certain point in the mid-to-late 90's, I really loved that band. In fact, I was probably a little too vocal back then about how fond I was for them, but whatever; it spoke to me at the time, and I still go back to them once in a while.

To be sure, Type O did some goofy shit, and they didn't exactly pull off the second half of their career on a note befitting of their potential (Steele's last several years, in particular, were often hard to watch). But they also did some truly groundbreaking things in metal that deserve to be recognized.

I sure hope that my fan-boy adulation for them back then didn't dissuade too many folks from seeking them out and giving them a listen. At his best, Peter Steele really was one hell of a songwriter, a vocalist and a performer.

Here's a quick clip of one of my favorite performances of Steele's. I hope you enjoy:

type o negative nation

type o negative nation
Originally uploaded by tonbabydc


I can't imagine that anyone wants to read another entry about Type O Negative less than I want to write one. But you're here and I've got the stub, so what are we going to do?

Try to be patient....

My friends were accustomed to my stupid obsession with those four dicks from Brooklyn by this time.

In fact, when the band came through D.C. on the "World Coming Down" tour (the second time), my bass player, Mark, was kind enough to dial into WHFS and win a pair of tickets for us. Awfully nice thing for him to do, especially since my guitar player, Greg, and I spent a lot of our downtime hazing, mocking and otherwise abusing Mark as the odd man out in the band.

(He brought a lot of it on himself, but that's a different story altogether).

Despite Mark's kind gesture, I'd predictably bought myself a ticket as soon as the show was announced.

And this posed something of a problem, because my gigantic boner for this band had basically turned every single person I knew off from them; I knew we'd have trouble finding someone to go with us. Mark - who didn't even like metal - was along for the ride, but he sure didn't know anyone who wanted to go.

Inspiration would strike one evening as I left work.

I was working at an ad agency located in a beautiful converted granary in "old town" Gaithersburg, MD. (How can a city that's only like 75 years old have an "old town"?)

In addition to our offices, the granary conversion had yielded an auto mechanic's shop, a bar, an army recruiting station, and a hair stylist. Often, when walking to my car, I'd wave to the cute young girl who worked at the front desk of the hair salon. Every day, she'd get a great big smile on her face and wave back to me. This was often the best part of my day.

For weeks and months we never spoke....we just smiled and waved at one another. I remember one evening in particular when I was so excited to walk past her that I forgot to bring my car keys...which meant I'd have to walk past her again as I backtracked, then a third time on the way back to my car. Fighting off the mortification, I simply pulled the keys out of my pocket, pointed at them and shrugged as I walked past.

She broke into a full laugh, and I saw out of the corner of my eye that her head had turned to watch me as I continued my walk across the parking lot. This sort of thing did not happen to me very often.

She was adorable, and I was absolutely smitten... yet, I didn't even know her name.

I probably never would have, either, if she hadn't taken the initiative of scheduling her smoke breaks for the time at which I tended to leave the office. One evening as I was headed home with a stack of CD's a friend had lent me, she decided to break the ice.

"What you got there?" she asked as I was still fumbling to come up with a greeting.

It was the first time I'd heard her voice. It was playful, and vaguely impish. She reached out and grabbed Jeff Buckley's "Grace" out of my hands.

We stood in the parking lot for a few minutes, getting to know one another. Her name was Morgan, and up close she seemed much more beautiful than I'd ever noticed: She was tall, with long legs and an absolutely phenomenal smile. Together with her gigantic brown eyes, her ever so slight lisp and her upbeat manner, she was sort of like a beautiful little puppy.

Conversation naturally gravitated towards music, and lo-and-behold she told me about the metal bands she'd seen - Powerman 5000, Pantera; you know: kid's stuff.

It was settled: I'd ask her to the show the next time I saw her.

And wouldn't you know it? A few days later I had her number and we had a date: That Sunday night, after we'd wrapped up band practice, Mark and I would pick her up at her home in Germantown, and we'd all go see Type O Negative together.

"That was easy," I thought to myself. "I should do this asking-girls-out thing more often."

++++++++

I wanted to call her immediately, but I waited patiently all weekend, not calling until Sunday afternoon, right before practice started. I wanted to get directions to her place, and confirm the times with her.

There was no answer. 

With my bandmates looking at me expectantly, I shrugged it off and we started one of our marathon four hour practices; I had all afternoon to reach her. (This is how it was done before cell phones and text messages, kids).

We took a break from rehearsal, and I tried again. The woman who answered the phone sounded decidedly older than I'd expected. That's about the time I realized she was living with her fucking mom.

"Of course," I grumbled to myself. "Why did I assume she'd have her own place? In fucking Germantown?"

I left a message, and her mom sounded skeptical of who I was and what my intentions were.

Practice ended. I still had not heard from her.

I called again. Her mom answered again. I left a message. 

Again.

Mark and I looked at one another. Time was getting tight, and this had become embarrassing.

Twenty minutes passed, and I made one final attempt to call her. Her mom told me point blank that Morgan wasn't home, and that she wasn't going to be home. Her tone was firm, and I felt very foolish.

Even Mark - who was ordinarily merciless about my bad luck with women - took pity on me. It was getting late enough that we were in danger of missing the show, so the decision was made: It was time to hit the road and make the best of the evening.

++++++++

The car ride was very quiet. I was trying to be a big boy, but this one stung; it wasn't like I wasn't used to being turned down (or worse, stood up). But it was totally foreign to me to have a girl agree so enthusiastically to a date, only to bail like this.

Mark and I parked somewhere down in South East, near where Nationals Stadium currently stands. The box office was just about closed by the time we arrived, so we had to do some coaxing to find someone to get Mark his ticket.

It all worked out though, and we got into the show just as the band was getting ready to take the stage.

I don't remember the details of this one too well, but I remember that they opened with an abbreviated vamp on Pink Floyd's "On with the Show."  After a song or two, Peter Steele welcomed the crowd by announcing in near monotone, "We are Type O Negative from Brooklyn, New York. We were here a few monts ago at da Nine-Toity Club. Dat show sucked. Dis show will rule."

He was more or less correct on both counts.

(God, Nation was a great venue).

++++++++

I was so disappointed about the whole incident with Morgan that I'm pretty sure I either worked late or left out of the office's back door for a few days so that I wouldn't have to face her. I was angry and embarrassed, and, frankly, I didn't want an explanation. I just wanted to be done with her, because that was so much easier than admitting how outrageously happy it had made me that she agreed to go out with me in the first place.

Halfway into that week, I stepped out of the office for lunch with my coworker Sean - a chubby African-American guy who was convinced that he was the second coming of Billy Dee Williams.

As we stood at the front door to the office, chatting and waiting for a third coworker to join us, Sean's tone suddenly changed.

"Well, well, weeeeellllll," Sean cooed. It was his trademark phrase for when he saw a girl he liked.

I looked up to see Morgan standing halfway out of the front door of the salon, maybe twenty yards away. Her mouth was partially open, as though she had started to say something then suddenly decided against it.

She had been waiting for me.

"I'm not talking to you," I shouted to her.

I smiled to let her know that I didn't mean it, but I'm not sure she understood. In a tiny voice, just loud enough for us to hear at a distance, she said, "You have to."

Her voice cracked as she said it...She was pleading with me.

While Sean looked on, puzzled, I trotted over to her.

She explained to me that her friend had a serious illness, and had been taken to the hospital over the weekend. She told me that if I'd given her my number she would have called, but instead she was back and forth from the hospital all weekend.

I stood there, trying to determine if I should believe her, and feeling so ugly for being petty about this whole situation.

We talked for a second or two, and I told her not to worry about it. I guess I wasn't mad so much as I felt small. Her little voice made me want to try and protect her, and that urge made me uncomfortable in ways that I didn't understand.

On the spot, I chalked it up to yet another missed connection.

++++++++

For the next few weeks, Morgan and I repeated our ritual of smiling and waving, but it wasn't the same. We chatted every once in a while, but never made plans again.

At some point later that year she ran outside and stopped me to let me know that she was moving to Cleveland. Her sister would be going to college out there, and she thought it would be good to tag along and have a change in scenery.

I took a second to process that, and I guess she saw the confused look on my face.

"I'm only 19, you know."

Her voice dropped a little when she said it, her tone confessional. I should have picked up on it earlier, but her guilty voice indicated that she'd made some effort to disguise this fact from me. All of the awkwardness of the past few weeks started to make a little more sense, even if it was no less embarrassing.

Jesus, I was 26. I didn't want any part of a teenager.

I wished her well and we said our goodbyes. No hugs, no kisses, and no exchange of contact information. I guess if it had all happened ten years later, we'd still be Facebook friends, but that's not how it worked back then.

I never saw her again, and to be honest, I'm not sure when the last time I'd thought of her was, prior to coming across this ticket stub.

I do wonder what would have happened if we'd gone out on that date. I'm certain that I would have plied us both with plenty of alcohol, and from there its kind of a crap shoot. I was in a weird spot those days, slowly waking up to the fact that the nice guy routine had been an abject failure in advancing my pursuits with the fairer sex. As a result, I was on the verge of entering into a kind of reckless, mercenary point in my life, and I'm not sure either of us would have made any good decisions.

As long as she did ok for herself in Ohio, it's safe to say that she was better off without my influence.

Which is kind of a cop-out. Sure, I was making a lot of bad decisions back then, but it was fueled by the anger and frustration that comes with chronic loneliness. Truthfully, I was ready for a good girl in my life, and an awful lot of potential matches were fumbled right before my eyes. It was painful.

++++++++

What does that have to do with Type O Negative?

Everything.

I look back and I tend to remember all of the great times from my 20's. But I also easily forget that most of those moments were tied together by long bouts of loneliness and feelings of rejection and a sense of utter failure that followed me around through every single doomed romance... no matter how many ways I insisted to people that I was neither angry nor lonely.

I beat myself up a lot for being so obsessed with Type O Negative back then. But those emotions were exactly what Type O's best music was all about....feeling worthless and channeling those frustrations in stupid, macho, self-destructive ways. Songs like "Burnt Flowers Fallen" "Can't Lose You" and "...Bacchus" were, in fact, forcefully simple and romantic and honest in confronting that dreadful feeling that you may, in fact, be a failure as a man.

So, yeah, maybe I got a little silly over this band.

But its even sillier to deny that it spoke to me....especially at a time when I was truly struggling under the weight of my failures.

Or should I say....Frozen?

Ten Bands I Just Don't Get

(sorry for the double post - didn't post chronologically due to a blogger formatting issue)

It isn't a personal attack. Try not to pee yourselves, nerds.

Black Flag - Yes, I read "Our Band Could Be Your Life". No, I still don't get it. Sorry.

The Clash - I guess if I were ten years older and had been an existential pussy during the 80's, the Clash would give me as big of a boner as it does for everyone in their 40's.

But I just can't get excited for this band. "White Riot" has always struck me as a really awesome punk song, and "White Man in Hammersmith Palis" is as close to reggae as I can come without punching a hippie or a frat boy. So, I'll give them that.

But "London Calling"? Just shut up before you launch an entire generation of annoying politically-minded bands.

Anything Involving Richard Hell - Yeah, yeah, you lived in NYC in the 70's when it actually meant something. You're a part of the blank generation. Now take your "New Pleasure"-singin' ass and get the fuck outta here.

Spoon - My God, could the music critics at NPR be any more in love with these guys? Enough already.

AC/DC - Metalheads hold this band sacred, but all I have ever heard in AC/DC is a salute to being white trash. I will give you "Hells Bells" and "Ride On". I'll even throw in "Highway to Hell" if you're gonna make a fuss about it. But I gotta draw the line somewhere, and "Dirty Deeds" is the last song I'll even consider letting in.

I can't stand these fucking guys or their dumb fans.

((...Great, now I can't ever go back to Baltimore)).

Fugazi - Speaking of fans I can't stand, go ahead and lynch me. But before you do, you ought to know that I get it: Fugazi is an immensely important band for all the things they stood for and all the things they did for independent music. Not only do I get that, but I appreciate it. All of it.

But that doesn't mean I have to like their music. Because Ian MacKaye has no fucking concept of pitch and I'm tired of him getting a free pass on it!

Fuck - even Lemmy shouts halfway in key. (Sort of).

The emperor has no clothes. Get it together, MacKaye.

Nice rhythm section, though....

Radiohead - I keep waiting and waiting for the hooks, but they never come.

I mean, they NEVER fucking show up. Where are the goddamned hooks with this band?????

(And don't you tell me to be patient. I've been patiently listening to this sickly little fourth grader snivel and moan since "Creep").

Siouxsie and the Banshees - I dated two different girls who thought this chick wrote "The Passenger".

Depeche Mode - Not only do I not get what people love about Depeche Mode, but I outright resent them.

It all goes back to one moment of epiphany I experienced my senior year of high school. I was standing on the side of the stage during down time for rehearsals for "Guys and Dolls" (yes, fuck you very much, I was in the stupid drama club), listening to two fellow students discuss Depeche Mode.

One was a new girl who had transferred in only a few weeks ago. Her name was Amy. She was pretty and friendly, and the five or six straight boys in the drama club were all scoping her out pretty hard.

The other was a kid a year behind me, named Bill.....a tall, gangly, goofy, immensely intelligent and funny kid (who went on to have a fairly amazing adulthood as a writer).

They were engrossed in a conversation about Depeche Mode. I was standing perhaps five feet away, and I knew I had absolutely nothing to contribute to the conversation. I also knew that this young lady would not turn around and ask me about the Rolling Stones or WASP.

I seem to recall that Bill and Amy may have had one of those three-week romances that are all the rage in high school. They seemed like an unlikely pairing to me, to say the least.

But deep in my little brain, something clicked: I realized that there was a small number of women who would give guys like me and Bill the time of day. And I also realized that they all seemed to like Depeche Mode. And as my college and post-college life developed, this fact became indisputably true.

And because I could not bring myself to get behind that stupid band, I lost a boatload of opportunities to have something in common with them.

Meanwhile, Bill is probably still pushing drama club girls and English majors off of him.

Man, fuck those guys....

The Dead Kennedys - Gah. I guess you had to be there.

Strange Highways

Just a quick shout out to Ronnie James Dio.

I think it's more or less common knowledge by this point, but Ronnie is pretty sick. His wife has been kind enough to share some relatively encouraging updates with music fans, but it's a small comfort to anyone who has ever been through a cancer scare or loved someone who did.

Which is far, far too many of us.

You know, it's funny: My formative metal years were just after Dio's best solo work, and yet I've never been a huge fan. Still, I am compelled to pull for him, not just in the interest of beating back cancer, but also because he is perhaps the one and only guy in metal - perhaps in the entire music industry - whose character has unanimous endorsement:

Music fans, journalists, filmmakers, other musicians.....all have openly admitted that Ronnie James Dio is simply the nicest musician around.

Which makes this news all the sadder and more unfair.

So, hang in there, Ronnie. We're rooting for you. Some of us might even be praying.

Ten Bands I Just Don't Get

It isn't a personal attack. Try not to pee yourselves, nerds.

Black Flag - Yes, I read "Our Band Could Be Your Life". No, I still don't get it. Sorry.

The Clash - I guess if I were ten years older and had been an existential pussy during the 80's, the Clash would give me as big of a boner as it does for everyone in their 40's.

But I just can't get excited for this band. "White Riot" has always struck me as a really awesome punk song, and "White Man in Hammersmith Palis" is as close to reggae as I can come without punching a hippie or a frat boy. So, I'll give them that.

But "London Calling"? Just shut up before you launch an entire generation of annoying politically-minded bands.

Anything Involving Richard Hell - Yeah, yeah, you lived in NYC in the 70's when it actually meant something. You're a part of the blank generation. Now take your "New Pleasure"-singin' ass and get the fuck outta here.

Spoon - My God, could the music critics at NPR be any more in love with these guys? Enough already.

AC/DC - Metalheads hold this band sacred, but all I have ever heard in AC/DC is a salute to being white trash. I will give you "Hells Bells" and "Ride On". I'll even throw in "Highway to Hell" if you're gonna make a fuss about it. But I gotta draw the line somewhere, and "Dirty Deeds" is the last song I'll even consider letting in.

I can't stand these fucking guys or their dumb fans.

((...Great, now I can't ever go back to Baltimore)).

Fugazi - Speaking of fans I can't stand, go ahead and lynch me. But before you do, you ought to know that I get it: Fugazi is an immensely important band for all the things they stood for and all the things they did for independent music. Not only do I get that, but I appreciate it. All of it.

But that doesn't mean I have to like their music. Because Ian MacKaye has no fucking concept of pitch and I'm tired of him getting a free pass on it!

Fuck - even Lemmy shouts halfway in key. (Sort of).

The emperor has no clothes. Get it together, MacKaye.

Nice rhythm section, though....

Radiohead - I keep waiting and waiting for the hooks, but they never come.

I mean, they NEVER fucking show up. Where are the goddamned hooks with this band?????

(And don't you tell me to be patient. I've been patiently listening to this sickly little fourth grader snivel and moan since "Creep").

Siouxsie and the Banshees - I dated two different girls who thought this chick wrote "The Passenger".

Depeche Mode - Not only do I not get what people love about Depeche Mode, but I outright resent them.

It all goes back to one moment of epiphany I experienced my senior year of high school. I was standing on the side of the stage during down time for rehearsals for "Guys and Dolls" (yes, fuck you very much, I was in the stupid drama club), listening to two fellow students discuss Depeche Mode.

One was a new girl who had transferred in only a few weeks ago. Her name was Amy. She was pretty and friendly, and the five or six straight boys in the drama club were all scoping her out pretty hard.

The other was a kid a year behind me, named Bill.....a tall, gangly, goofy, immensely intelligent and funny kid (who went on to have a fairly amazing adulthood as a writer).

They were engrossed in a conversation about Depeche Mode. I was standing perhaps five feet away, and I knew I had absolutely nothing to contribute to the conversation. I also knew that this young lady would not turn around and ask me about the Rolling Stones or WASP.

I seem to recall that Bill and Amy may have had one of those three-week romances that are all the rage in high school. They seemed like an unlikely pairing to me, to say the least.

But deep in my little brain, something clicked: I realized that there was a small number of women who would give guys like me and Bill the time of day. And I also realized that they all seemed to like Depeche Mode. And as my college and post-college life developed, this fact became indisputably true.

And because I could not bring myself to get behind that stupid band, I lost a boatload of opportunities to have something in common with them.

Meanwhile, Bill is probably still pushing drama club girls and English majors off of him.

Man, fuck those guys....

The Dead Kennedys - Gah. I guess you had to be there.

Type O Negative

ton 930


A few months ago I wrote about how, during my first year out of college - lost in the new world where all my friends weren't within walking distance and unrequited love lingered at a distance of 150 miles -- I'd placed enormous emotional meaning to the words and music of Brooklyn grind-core metal "goths", Type O Negative.

Unfortunately, my infatuation with the band didn't quite end there. In fact, only about a year after my broken-hearted purchase of Type O Negative's opus "Bloody Kisses", the band would follow up with a staggeringly lush production entitled "October Rust." And it proved to be just what my tender vagina needed to get me through the watershed period to be known as my early 20's.

While "Bloody Kisses" was rooted in themes of despair, loss and death, "October Rust" provided the ultimate foil - an album loosely focused on one central theme of rebirth. And while no TON album would be complete without motifs of great sadness, this record also charged forward with a shockingly vulnerable celebration of the loves, lusts and desires that are so often just outside the grasp of all male beings. In fact, for this one moment, songwriter Peter Steele put aside the self-hate and self-effacement in lieu of self-doubt.

The results were rather spectacular.

If the rejected little drama queen in me had bought into the often ridiculous funeral stylings of "Bloody Kisses", the repressed romantic of my 22 year old self fully wished to embrace the honesty of "October Rust".

Could this possibly be the same band that once wrote songs entitled, "Too Late: Frozen", "Kill You Tonight" and the unforgettable "I Know You're Fucking Someone Else"??

It was, in fact, the same band, and I took no small amount of inspiration in their effort towards reinvention. And there was probably a good reason why:

At the time this album came out, I'd been out of school for over a year and I was still living at home with my folks. I was stuck in the mud, I was underemployed, and a rebirth was exactly what I was in need of.

I gave the disc its first listen as I was lying in the dark in my twin bed, with absolutely no idea what to expect. I say with no exaggeration whatsoever that I was floored by how beautiful and haunting the opening track, "Love You to Death" was. By the time the song had reached the coda, I was literally sitting bolt upright in bed reaching for the lamp and staring in disbelief at the stereo as Steele repeatedly sang the gorgeous extended "am I good enough" outro.

To this day, I'm not sure that I have ever been so overwhelmed by a single piece of music, or by a lyric so incredibly simple. For a kid who had never stopped struggling with his notion of self worth - probably from the time I was in first grade or so - I was just completely knocked out to have the entire question of my lifetime summed up and sang back to me in a six-word lyric, repeated for two full minutes:

"Am I good enough for you", indeed...

This is usually where I write some snarky and defensive couple of sentences about how oversensitive I used to be, but to be honest, it's pretty tough to conjure the self-deprecation right now. Every music lover has those moments when a song somehow takes on an immensely important and deeply personal resonance with him or her. I guess its too bad that the Beatles or the Clash couldn't have been that force for me. But the fact is that once again it was metal that spoke to me and spoke for me.

And that's ok.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++

In the face of such a personal confession, I would be remiss not to share the other defining story associated with this song.

I was desperate for an awful lot of things in my early 20's. And one of the items near the top of the list was for people to think that I knew what I was talking about when it came to music.

And so I tried to sell just about everyone I knew on what a tour de force "October Rust" was.

As always, no one listened. Except my friend, Joey - known in previous posts as Pornmaster-T (PMT).

I've gone into detail about PMT before, so it seems unfair to dive into all his shortcomings again. But bear with me here, because its relevant.

PMT was having an open mind one night, and he agreed to borrow my copy of October Rust and give it a spin.

He proceeded to keep it for several months.

I should also mention that PMT had moved out to West Virginia. He was living with his dad, and having a little trouble forming a social circle. This is all understandable; starting over in a small town is hard.

One of the places that PMT looked for comfort was in the many low-brown gentleman's clubs that dot the Martinsburg, WV metro area. And I can't judge him too severely, because it was not uncommmon for myself and another friend to trek out to West Virginia and sample said strip joints with PMT.

Over time, however, PMT increasingly became a regular at these establishments, and he presumably attended them by himself. With all of us well within our early 20's, this struck me and my friends as both troubling and depressing.

PMT, in fact, became such a common patron of one establishment that they allowed him to bring in his own music for the DJ to play.

Just take a moment and imagine that.

((Oh, God, I'm just remembering the one time he brought us to this joint and made the JD play Faster Pussycat's "House of Pain". In the history of modern music, I'm not sure there's anything less appropriate for a young woman to gyrate nude before strangers to, than an ode to absent fathers.

Good job, PMT.)).

Of course, you all know where this is going by now. Perhaps six months after I lent him my goddamn favorite CD, PMT finally decided to return it, and - while I'm trapped in a moving car with him - he tells me in detail all about what he's been doing with it for the past several weeks.

"You know that strip joint we always go to?"

"Well, I mean we went to it two or three times, I think. I wouldn't say we *always* go there"

"We always go there when you visit me! Anyway, yeah yeah, we always have such a great time there. We gotta go back soon."

"Uh. Well."

"So, remember how they let me bring in my own music?"

"Oh, yes, I remember."

"Well, 'Love You to Death' is the BEST. LAP DANCE. SONG. EVER!"

*silence*

"Cuz, you know it's a long song, man. And I'm paying my $20 so the way I see it, I'm getting top value."

*silence*

"But here's the best part...."

*resigned silence*

"At the end, you know that part at the end? The part where he says over and over "Am I good enough for you?"

*glowering silence*

"You know what I'm talking about??"

"yes."

"The girl stood up - and she was so hot, man - she stood up and turned around and bent down right in my face and whispered "yeeesssssss."

*disgusted silence*

"And I was all like "UUUUGHHGHGHGHHOAAAAAH," PMT said, as he rolled his eyes back in his head and made his grotesque orgasm face.

A few awkward hours later, he gave me the CD back. I promptly threw it out and bought a new copy.

PMT and I are still friends, sort of.....but I always hated him a little after that. Seriously.

Still, I choose to remember this song for the powerful moment when it first reached me, and not for the equally powerful image of my morbidly obese friend having a 32 year old mother of two gyrate on his little dogcock as she counted the $1 bills that would hopefully someday finance her way through beautician school.

Because I can't live with that.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

As for the concert itself, who the hell knows? I'm too tired and I've written too much to do a review.

But in looking over the stub, it occurs to me that this wasn't even the tour behind "October Rust"; this was the tour behind the following album "World Coming Down" (which wasn't anywhere near as good of a record).

I lost the set list, but what I can tell you is that I went to this show immediately after my punk pop-noise band played the Metro Cafe on 14th Street (on a bill with no less than minor-punk-pop royalty, the Mr. T Experience....to a packed house, at that).

We finished our set, I broke down my kit, and I ran down U Street just in time.

The show was sort of disappointing, as I remember. But they did play "Love You to Death".


Originally uploaded by tonbabydc