A Brief Reprieve: Indie Love for Danzig

Like an awful lot of other snarky music snob assholes on the Internet, I've had my share of fun at the expense of Mr. Glenn Danzig.

And maybe he's got it coming. The guy has a well-earned reputation for being a total knucklehead, and despite his prodigious talent, he's gone to some absolutely comical extents to foster and cultivate an image that........well, it practically begs mockery sometimes.

But then again, Glenn Danzig is also one of the greatest punk rock vocalists.....ever. And his brilliance is actually intrinsically tied to his image fixation: what are the Misfits without that amazingly awesome infatuation with the retro-1950's and 1960's scream queen horror aesthetic? And how can you say that this image isn't completely joined at the hip to his distinctive (and derivative) vocal style, which owes just as much to the East Coast corner-boy do-wop sound as it does to more- frequently sourced influences like Elvis (a fair comparison), Jim Morrison (a weak comparison) or Roy Orbison (the most apt comparison of them all)?

((Incidentally, has anyone out there ever tired to sing along with the Misfits? The vocal melodies sound straight-ahead enough, but they can actually be tricky as hell. AngelFuck, in particular, is one of those dastarly tunes that sounds wonderful when you sing it a capella in the shower, then suddenly becomes an absolute vocal Bataan Death March when you actually try to follow along in the key he wrote it in)).

Anyway, in the post-Misfits era, it's been relatively easy to separate the brilliance of the Misfits with the rest of Sir Danzig's catalog. The nearly-obscure Samhain stuff is wonderful for scaring small children, but you have to admit that the guy momentarily forgot how to construct a song during much of this era.

And the Danzig solo albums? Some of them are hard rock at its finest. But the Randy Savage stylings of the band concept gave a whole lot of small minded music snobs an opportunity to ignore all that lay beneath the leather and tattoos, where the soul of a legitimately talented songwriter lies to this day.

Which is why I was completely fucking stoked to come across this clip:




Its wonderful enough to have Mr. Danzig honored in what appears to be a mostly non-ironic cover, but to have it come at the hands of indie goddess, Melissa Auf Der Maur brings a smile to my face.

Almost nearly as pleasing is to have this particular cover coming from Danzig's somewhat ridiculous second album - a rocker, no doubt, but certainly the point at which Danzig fully embraced the transition in image from dark bad ass to goofy tough guy. The whole idea makes me wonder if perhaps while I was foolishly rocking out to "Long Way Back From Hell" in my bedroom in Rockville, MD, the lovely Ms. der Maur might have been doing something similar in Montreal.

Perhaps this music is worth hearing. Stripped of the baritone bellowing and the heavy guitar and drums (not to mention the gang-chant background vocals), there IS a legitimately dark and frightening song here - perhaps accentuated by this performance by two singers so utterly and completely feminine.

So, there: Hats off to you, Mr. Glenn Danzig. I, for one, am tickled to see you receive your well-deserved indie cred.

As for all you haters out there, I know that nothing may ever change your minds. And for you miserable fucks, I offer you the following cheap shot at "The Sweatiest Ballerina":

Ani DiFranco

Ani DiFranco
Originally uploaded by tonbabydc


Ok, so I'm not going to hate on Ani DiFranco.

I happen to think that she's amazingly smart and witty and honest and funny and talented and a damn good songwriter. I really enjoyed that "Little Plastic Castle" album, and "Living in Clip" has a downright amazing ratio of good songs to not-good-songs for a live album of its length. I struggle to come up with a double-live that can keep pace with this one, in fact.

*Hmm. Shame there are only 14 tracks on "No Sleep Til Hammersmith", and no I'm not linking to that one. You agree or you don't.*

Incidentally, I never bothered to listen to anything of Ani's after those two albums, but they're enough to demonstrate to me that she's an absolutely amazing talent Just pointing that out.

All of that said, I look at this stub, and I can't help to feel terribly self-conscious. Because other than going vegan, I cannot think of a more cliche way to scream out for attention as a wannabe hipster than to suddenly embrace a feminist songwriter. (Note that this is true of lesbian rock as well, but note also that this was the late 90's, and the line between political, feminist, punk and lesbian seemed to blur beyond any sort of semi-clear delineation. Damn Riot Grrls are always making me feel stupid about this kind of thing.).

((By the way, is Ani doing dudes again or what? I never did figure that out)).

Anyway, the fact that I admit to enjoying Ani DiFranco's music while expressing embarrassment over it says a heck of a lot more about my continuing sense of insecurity than it does about her music.....and that, unfortunately, can probably be said for just about every one of these damned blog entries. Except maybe that time I saw Bruce Springsteen do that fucking Ghost of Tom Joad tour. Maybe I shoulda just listened to "Born to Run" and "Nebraska" then never picked up another Springsteen album and I would remember him with the same fondness that I hold for Ms. DiFranco.

Ok, so as for the show, it was fine. Very intimate, lots of interaction with individual members of the audience. Her performance style was very cute and engaging, which I realize to a certain type of music fan completely undersells everything else that Ani brings to the table. I say to them, whatever, dude. If that chick in Sleater Kinney - not named Carrie Brownstein - was half as charming as Ani, maybe I would have gotten around to seeing them in concert, too.

(Carrie - call me. Please. We can get past it.)

Ani was seriously, a brilliantly personal performer. And I did love this show, even if it was at fucking WolfTrap, an utterly ridiculous outdoor venue in the Virginia suburbs that is completely adored by that dispicable group of 30-to-40-something, yuppie, eco-conscious, intellectual, NPR-listeneing boring-ass buttheads of which I am all but a card-carrying member these days.

The thing about WolfTrap (other than the name....WTF?) is that it gives off a sense of intimacy because it doesn't look very big....probably because the shed part of the venue is situated among lots of fields and hills and trees, making...well, everything in your immediate area look smaller by comparison. But in fact, if you sit in the field, you might just be further away from the stage than you would be at the dilapidated grass at Merriweather Post Pavilion.

I'm sure I'm not the first person to consider this, but I assume that it is simply a compromise too small for the WolfTrap crowd to honestly struggle with, as they lay down their quilts on fine tall Virginia fescue and sip overpriced chardonnay with smoked gouda as they passively listen to the music and trade stories with one another about how they used to go to DC Space and "the old 9:30 club".

((I'm sorry, did that sting? fuck you.))

I do wish that I remembered more details about the show, but I don't really. I do recall a lovely version of "As Is", which is probably still my favorite song of hers'. But the details get fuzzy over the years.

The highlight was undoubtedly her bringing the Rebirth Brass Band on tour as her opener. Simply put, Rebirth is the single greatest American band in existance at this moment. Don't believe me? Check them out for free on June 13 here in D.C. During their opening set they worked Stevie Wonder's "Part Time Lover" into the mix, and for the encore of Ani's performance, she brought them on stage to do a Louisiana-flavored "When Doves Cry". It was kind of mind blowing.

So, apologies to Ms. DiFranco that I don't remember more details of her show, but I do thank her - profoundly - for turning me on to the Rebirth Brass Band.

Shame that it took me more than ten years to see them again.........but it sure did make for a fun Halloween 2008 in New Orleans.

Tibetan Freedom Concert- Part II

Tibetan Freedom Concert
Originally uploaded by tonbabydc


(Sorry for the delay in posting part II. It turns out that when your clients have a singular focus on invalidating your existence, you just don't take the same amount of comfort in going home and writing a blog about how much of a loser you are. Funny, that.....)

Back to the show.

This Tibetan Freedom Concert thing was was technically sold out, and close to everyone I knew was going to be there – all of us had field tickets. This was going to be fun, right? Fun! Indie bands! Rock stars! Beer! Sun! Women!

Fun!

FUN!!

Fun...right?

Ok, the plan that I was going to meet my friend Brian at the Rockville metro station in the morning, and we’d head down together and meet up with our other friends outside the stadium.

However, the first misfortune of the day was for Brian and I to somehow miscommunicate; as I waited for him at the Rockville Station, he was looking for me at the Twinbrook station (also technically in Rockville, hence the confusion).

We individually gave up on one another (this was still somewhat pre-cell phone era - more on that later) and headed down to the concert on our own, both believing that we’d somehow find one another on the field.

That didn’t really happen…..

I got myself to RFK Stadium and did a few laps around the ginormous pavilion of food, craft, clothing and anti-Chinese propaganda vendors, looking for my friends. But I was doomed to miss them in the veritable sea of 17 year olds, dreadlocked white guys and shirtless, sweaty people.

Undeterred, I headed into the stadium and onto the field, continuing to look for people I knew.

But it really was pointless. I had foolishly miscalculated exactly how many people can fit on a football field. I wondered in large circles searching for my friends as some old as some old rasta dude (Mutabaruka, maybe?) did his reggae thing on stage.

After that came KRS-1. Taken in by a short but intense set, complete with Omega-style stompers performing with him, I briefly forgot that I’d lost my friends. Maybe this day was going to be ok after all. And it was only like 12:30 or 1:00 in the afternoon by this time….I had all day to find my friends.

KRS-1 finished, then someone came out and gave a speech about Tibet or something. Then Live came on.

(Ok, so right here in my first draft of this entry, I wrote NINE WHOLE PARAGRAPHS about how much I hate Live. Seriously, I went on a fearsome tear about how totally lame they were and how utterly ridiculous 90's rock was when Ed Kowalczyk was considered to be a great big rock star, and how I considered the guy to be a totally pretentious liberal arts school pansy.

But a funny thing happened in the two weeks between drafting that entry and sitting down to post it. I heard Live on the radio like three different times, and I had to force myself to listen with an open mind.....and now that I'm ten years away from the complete radio and video saturation of those guys, they, you know.......they aren't all bad. There certainly was worse music out there back then.

So, yeah - sorry, Live. I just wish you'd have put your shirt back on and stopped taking yourself so seriously. Between Jim Morrison and that fucking tool from Creed, no one really needed you to fill the "Messianic rock star" void, you know??)

Anyway, I wasn't in the mood for Live, but I stood there and took it all in because I didn't have much choice: the stadium floor was starting to fill in, and I was slowly getting pushed forward and to the center of the field as more people entered. It was a feeling that I would need to accustom myself to as the day went on.

As hundred of high school students started rocking out to Live, I was more or less becoming miserable. Mostly because of the music, but also because of the emergence of a great many crowd surfers.

As Phil had prophesied, this meant that I essentially got kicked in the head every five to six minutes, and eventually I decided to just stop watching Live do their terrible thing and instead watch for crowd surfers so that I’d be better prepared to push them away before they once again clipped me in the ear with their Doc Martens.

(On that note, it’s not that my intentions were rooted in anything other than self preservation, but I still would like to point out that it was a total accident when I grabbed that teenage crowd surfer girl in the pink tank top by her left boobie. I was totally aiming for her back and she just kind of lost balance and flipped her tit on to my hand all of a sudden. Seriously, I didn't mean to squwoosh your over-sized bosom. What the hell were you doing crowd-surfing with your mams all hanging out, anyway???).

All during this clusterfuck of headkicking, boobgrabbing and bad music, the field continued to get more and more crowded.

And it was getting hot. I mean hot as hell. At 6'3", I was at least a head taller than most of the crowd, and I could barley get any breathable air at all. I had no idea how the people standing at armpit level were coping with the situation.

The real bummer was that when Live finally finished up, things didn’t get any better. The field didn't clear out one bit, and I was pretty much stuck in the middle, about 40 yards back from the stage. Between myself and the exit, there were a couple hundred kids I'd need to wade through if I was going to get out of there before Dave Matthews started his fucking abortion of a set.

And it was ultimately hopeless. The Dave Matthews Band took the stage and I was trapped there in the middle of all the goddamned frat boys and rich kids and their 17 year old girlfriends.

(I'm not going to give you nine grafs on why Dave Matthews can blow me, but rest assured that I would gladly camp out for Live tickets before I ever again see the DMB. And that's no joke).

As lame as Dave Matthews was, he somehow became the least of my concerns before long: the entire sky became covered in storm clouds over the course of his set, and the humidity was unbearable. At least one girl fainted and had to be carried out of the field during the set, but we were jammed in there so tight that it was nearly impossible to get her evacuated. As she was finally carried out, scores of kids were pressed together and nearly dragged out with her.

This was getting scary, and no amount of extended solos, happy ass songs, and lame covers of “All Along the Watchtower” made it any better. The afternoon had become downright unpleasant.

By the time Matthews had mercifully ended his set the sky was dark in that way that happens in D.C. right before a summer storm. I watched another limp girl get carried out, and took advantage of the opportunity to inch closer to the field gate. But it was honestly impossible to move faster than baby step pace.

By this point, I had forgotten all about my friends.

I stood there – stuck – as Sean Lennon got on stage and gave a pretty thoroughly condescending speech to the crowd about some monk who was there with him. He came off like a total douche.

Then there was Herbie Hancock. Fuck.

You don’t have to tell me why Herbie Hancock is important. I know all about the stuff he did with Miles and Stevie and Wayne Shorter long, long before he did that RockIt stuff. (Which, incidentally, was all the rage with me and my friends back in grade school).

But in a deathly crowded and humid stadium field, its safe to say that no one was feeling it. It had started to rain ever so slightly, but not in any way that brought us relief. And I could have sworn that I heard thunder rolling above his music.

And then, midway through his second song, a sudden BOOMing sound ripped across the stadium floor, scaring the poop out of basically everyone.

Suddenly - almost immediately - Herbie and his band got the fuck off stage and someone got on the PA to tell us to get off the field. All several hundred of us. Right. NOW.

But we were stuck. I mean totally stuck. Must have taken ten minutes to move the fifteen yards to the gate. One again, I saw a girl pass out and get taken out more or less in a crowd surfing fashion, as there literally was no room to carry her any other way.

Rumors were circulating that someone had been struck by lightning. Someone said something about a bomb. Event workers instructed us to take cover inside while the storm passed, and explained that a girl had been struck by lighting while talking on her cell phone.

I finally got under cover and climbed to the upper level of the stadium to grab a seat to take it all in. It poured down rain for about fifteen minutes, and a bunch of hippie kids ran around in the infield in a ring-around-the-posies type of dance, despite repeated warnings from the PA that they were in danger of getting themselves struck by lightning.

I waited there in the 300 level, knowing that the storm would roll through in a matter of an hour or less, when all of a sudden the PA announcer informed us that due to the lightning, the event had been canceled, and that they would resume with a full day on Sunday.

Well, this wasn't as I'd planned. I was not going to see Sonic Youth. Or Beck. Or REM.

Nope. I'd just paid $30 to see Live and the Dave Matthews Band, which was basically everything I was trying to escape at this moment in my aspiring hipster life.

Soaking wet, exhausted and grumpy, I got up and trudged down the walkway at RFK Stadium, occasionally stopping to peer over the wall and survey the crowd of similarly bummed individuals. And lo and behind, one time I peeked out and who did I see but that singer from that band, REM.

Now, I'm not actually a big REM fan or anything....but I'm pretty sure that celebrity sightings were pretty rare for me at that time, so this was kind of the highlight of the day.

He was talking to one of the event organizers, probably saying something like "Oh, shit, the rain just stopped and the sun just came out, and somehow there isn't a cloud in the sky all of a sudden. What the fuck are we going to do now that we've told all these kids to go home??"

That's when some idiot next to me shouted out "STYYYYYYYYYYYYYPPPPE!!!!!"

Powder looked up at us, started for a moment, then scurried back in his tent to eat some baba gonoush and meditate or something. (Lest you forget, he has an innate fear of lightning).

So, yeah, suddenly it was an absolutely gorgeous summer day, and the fucking concert was canceled. God only knows where my friends were.....maybe they'd been struck by lighting while talking on their fancy cell phones.

On top of everything else, the Stadium-Armory Metro station was jam packed, so me and 80 of my new best friends dragged our wet asses up to Eastern Market to get on the Metro there.

*****************

An hour or so later, I was at home, telling my hip new roommates about the day's events. (They were so hip, in fact, that they didn't attend this concert. That's how it works, you see?)

The next morning I awoke to learn that Radiohead had played a surprise gig Saturday night at the 9:30 Club, and upon arriving at work on Monday, my friends told me all about the awesome show on Sunday, when the Chili Peppers had returned to old school form, and REM killed, and the Beastie Boys were awesome, and Wycliff Jean played and women on the field all instantaneously started taking off their tops and showing the world their breasts.

Me? I spent the rest of that weekend at home in the outskirts of Olney-fucking-MD.

God was trying to tell me something about this agenda of mine to try and become hip, and how it was ultimately a hopeless idea.

But I just wasn't listening, no matter how clear it all is now.....

Tibetan Freedom Concert - Part I

If I had to point to one moment in time when the complete irony of my attempts to become hip unfolded, it would be this day. 

My memory is just a tad cloudy, but I believe that by this time I had moved into my friend Greg’s house, which was a terrifyingly dilapidated farm house on the outskirts of Montgomery County….in some strange no man’s land between Olney and Laurel.

(If I was living at Greg's, that meant that I was quickly entering into one of the most exhilarating times in my life. Greg had defected from the Queegs and brought me with him. He then proceeded to move me into his house of horrors, where the two of us could practice all hours of the night as he wrote songs and plotted his next project: an exceptionally loud and noisy punk-pop outfit that would go on to become the Patsies....this minor act of betrayal nearly cost me the friendship of Queegs front man, Matt Reidl, and to this day I consider it to be a testament to his character that we are still close, despite my impulsive decision to ditch his band in favor of a tone-deaf song writer's odd Frankenstein of a band. Friendships have been sacrificed over less).

Anyway, it was kind of a big deal that the Tibetan Freedom concert would be in D.C. that year. Typically this event took place in San Francisco or NYC, but here it was at RFK Stadium: two full days of bands running the gamut across just about every single type of popular music from the mid-to-late 1990s.

All my friends were going to this event, and I definitely wanted to get in on the fun.

But the fact is that I’m not exactly a fan of festival concerts. I don’t like standing around in the heat with no shade to be found. I don’t like getting clipped $5 for bottled water. And I don’t like getting kicked in the head by crowd surfers (because, as my tall friend, Phil, puts it, if you’re over 6 feet tall and you’re in front of the stage, you’re just a speed bump).

The idea of two days of stadium festival madness wasn’t really my idea of fun, so I figured I’d just eyeball the line-ups for each day and decide which one was more to my liking.

I have to admit, this made for a pretty difficult choice. The event organizers had done a ridiculously wonderful job balancing each day’s performers so that there was something for everyone on each day. (Of course, this also meant that there was an awful lot of mid-90’s turd-rock on each day as well – more on that shortly).

My decision was to go with Saturday. That would allow me Sunday to recover from the intense sunburn I was undoubtedly going to experience from standing on the RFK field all afternoon.

If I remember correctly, I thought it would be cool to see Beck, and I thought it might be kind of neat to finally see REM, since I knew I’d never actually go to one of their concerts. And more than anything else, I desperately wanted to see Sonic Youth.

(See, this is key……when a kid raised on classic rock and heavy metal joins a punk band, moves into a scary group house and goes to see Sonic Youth, I like to think that he has finally emerged from his cocoon of bad taste, and arrived at the full-fledged mothdom of hipseterism).

Of course, like pretty much all of my plans to be seen as anything other than a dork, this was doomed to fail. It all started with the dumb decision to only purchase a ticket for the first day, but, of course, things got considerably worse from there.

To be continued....

Eric Clapton

Eric Clapton
Originally uploaded by tonbabydc




I'm going to try and be diplomatic about this.

Eric Clapton brought us Badge. And he brought us Layla. And he brought us Cocaine.

That alone -- not to mention all the bad-ass Cream stuff, and Bell Bottom Blues, and Can't Find My Way Home -- should be more than enough to cement him in a place above all judgment by a douche bag like myself.

That would be, unless the 1980's had never happened. And everything since then.

Simply put, there is no rock pioneer on Earth who has taken a larger and deeper plunge into irrelevancy than Eric Clapton.

Oh, sure, the Stones may have embarrassed their legacy more. And the Who may have doublecrossed themselves to the greatest degree. And Elton John and Rod Stewart may have come across as the most half-witted doofuses (sometimes I wonder if those two are the same guys who wrote "Every Picture Tells a Story" and "Honky Chateau"....seriously - is it even possible?)..

But Clapton? Clapton somehow managed to hang onto his completely bad-ass legacy without once leveraging it in any meaningful way in his "adult" career.

I challenge you: Name me ONE Eric Clapton single (not entitled "Tears in Heaven") worth remembering in the 1980's or 1990's. "She's Waiting"? No. "Running On Faith"? Close, but no. "I Can't Stand It"? Give me a break.

((I admit that I had forgotten about "Forever Man." And I admit that I really like that one. But I also admit that it sounds a whole lot more like something that would have been in the background during a car chase on Miami Vice in 1986 than on a rock legend's solo album)).

So, how did I end up at this show?

My best friend and former roommate from college was a big time Clapton disciple, and back then I wasn't the judgmental fuck that I am today.

That's not to say that I wasn't uncomfortable about going to see Eric Clapton. But Jay was in town for a conference, and Eric Clapton happened to be playing in town that same week, so I bit the bullet and made the best of things.

Little did I know what a snoozer this concert would be. Holy fuck. Boring beyond boring.

This was the "Pilgrim" tour, and it was an album probably best remembered for the decidedly adult-contemporary single "My Father's Eyes". I think it was also the opening number for the show - a telling sign of what was to come. The following several songs were of a similar fare - thoughtful but uninspiring (and uninspired) mid-tempo numbers, none of which I can remember particualrly well. (Most likely because I was fuming over the FOURTY-FUCKING-FIVE DOLLAR SEATS -- $45 to sit at the top row of stage right).

I do remember that he did a pretty great version of Cocaine that night, which had most everyone out of their seats for a minute or two. But in order to get there, we had to sit through another dozen mid-life crisis pop songs and that fucking "Wonderful Tonight" piece of dreck, which no one should ever have to listen to again after prom and/or their best friend's wedding.

I have to assume that he played "White Room" or "Sunshine of Your Love" or one of the other undeniable classics from his catalog, and I'm sure that I enjoyed them, or at least gratefully accepted them as a welcome reprieve from the rest of the evening's content.

But it didn't really make much of a difference. This evening was not about good taste or bad taste. It wasn't about my wonderment about how Mr. Clapton filled the MCI Center on the shoulders of such an unexciting album. It wasn't about the cost of the ticket or the warped value of the performance. And it wasn't about the very obvious double standard against the likes of Mr. Clapton while I gladly shelled out mountains of cash to see the Rolling Stones multiple times on each tour in the 1990s.

It was about hanging out with my best friend from college and running out to make last call at Nanny O'Brien's after the show, and perhaps relive a little college glory...which, by that time, felt like much further in our past than three years.

And even further today.

Washington Wizards vs. Seattle Supersonics

.
Washington Wizards vs. Seattle Supersonics
Originally uploaded by tonbabydc

Growing up as a sports fan in Washington, D.C. in the 1980s, there were some damn good times. The Skins could be counted upon to go to the Super Bowl every few years – and they typically raised a banner when they went. The Orioles won a World Series when I was at that perfect baseball age of 9 years old. And maybe the Capitals were perennial Patrick Division bridesmaids, but they at least were a competitive team full of colorful characters, much like my beloved Skins were.

Of course, things would change over the years. Redskins ownership has since turned the franchise into a punch line. The Orioles seem further away than ever, now that we have an NL doormat right here in town. And the Caps may be the best team in town, but honestly, I’m way too fucking smart, clean and handsome for hockey culture. That’s just a fact.

And then there were the Bullets.

Now, I know that the Bullets were a good team when I was small. But I can’t honestly remember the team being anything other than sub-average at any moment when I was growing up. The Capital Centre was dark and dingy. The players tended to look a little old and out of shape. And the television broadcasts...Oh, the humanity of watching those terribly-lit games on TV, perhaps most painfully accentuated by the complete and total lack of crowd noise (which only made every single sneaker squeak sound that much louder).

Robin Ficker was pretty much the only thing that team had going for it.

To Abe Pollin’s credit, the man’s decision to fund and build his own kick-ass stadium in downtown D.C. was just about the greatest thing the guy ever did – for the team and for the city of Washington. If you've been living here for less than 20 years, it's hard to fathom just how beat up the majority of Washington used to be; Chinatown was a pretty seedy area before the Verizon Center/MCI Center came to town, and it’s probably safe to say that Metro Center was generally considered the end of the city for a great many visitors.

You can choose to disagree, but you’d be wrong to: The House that Abe Built was THE landmark investment into the future revitalivation of Washington, D.C.

That did not stop his team from sucking. Nor did the supposedly blockbuster acquisition of Fab Five college superstars Chris Webber and Juwan Howard. Nor did the effort to change the team’s name/brand from the Bullets to the Wizards. Or the following additions of names like Mitch Richmond or Rod Strickland (Don’t get me started about that Jordan guy).

Even as the triumvirate of Pollin, Wes Unseld and Susan O'Malley did everything they possibly could to bring Washington basketball into the modern age, the team rarely became more than “competitive”. It was a real shame. After a very public blunder, the management had finally woken up from a decades long slumber but they just couldn’t get their act together.

And what that meant for ticket sales was an all too familiar phenomenon: the seats remained largely empty until a team like the Knicks or the Bulls came to town, at which point the tickets would sell, just so that people could say that they saw Patrick Ewing or Michael Jordan. It was an utterly depressing state of affairs.

With the arrival of our new downtown stadium, however, there was reason to believe that this could all change. You could now travel to games via the Metro rather than trucking it out to Landover. The building had a modern design, with appropriate lighting. There were new concessions, with vastly improved sightlines. And the team looked one hell of a lot better (on paper, at least) than any other Washington basketball team (....um, Washington **NBA** team) I’d ever seen.

Games were going to FUN, and I was glad to be there as it was happening.

That’s where the irony of this ticket comes in.

Now, for the life of me I cannot remember how I got my hands on this ticket – and I should because this was the first game ever played in the MCI Center. I think I won it in a contest, but I can’t remember at all. Maybe my little brother won them? I seriously can’t believe it, but I simply have no idea how I came into these amazingly kick-ass seats.

I know that I went with my little brother, and I know (via a web search) that the Wizards were sporting a pretty cool line up that season, including Howard, CWebb, 1997 3-Point Champ (and La Salle University standout) Tim Legler and future star BEN FREAKING WALLACE, but for the life of me, the only person on our team that I can vividly remember was God Shammgod. (and that’s just because I loved his name, particularly as sung with the “YouDaManYouDaMan” song that played before all of the home games).

But I do remember seeing the Glove play that night. And I *THINK* I remember Branford Marsallis performing the national anthem. And I do remember President Bill Clinton giving the team his trademark thumbs up after the game from Mr. Pollin’s box seat.

And I remember that the Wizards won.

But that’s it. After all that effort by the ownership and management, all I can remember is that I finally got to see Gary Payton play.

How distasteful.

type o negative

type o negative
Originally uploaded by tonbabydc

I was making so much progress in my early 20’s. I’d gotten into a band. I’d made new friends. I was hanging out in the city. I had been introduced to punk rock that extended beyond Raw Power and Fun House.

Things were really looking up for me and my legacy of loving bands that no one else could stand.

But then along came Type O Negative. I firmly believe that my 3+ year fascination with that band of meatheads may have cemented it for those who managed to look past the years and years of embarrassing musical loyalties I’d harbored.

To be fair to myself, Type O Negative had a moment when they were doing just about the most interesting thing in the mid-90’s metal scene. “Bloody Kisses” was a borderline tour de force when it came out, introducing underground goth sensibilities from influences including the Swans and the Sisters of Mercy, into a Brooklyn-styled Sabbath-core...And the production was so damned lush, with so much reverb and echo and creative synth work, to say nothing of the ultra-corpse baritone vocals.

And it was all accompanied with what certainly seemed to be a smart sense of humor. One could never be certain if the guys in the band actually subscribed to the self-hate, violent nihilism, suicidal thinking and scene-bashing that runs throughout the album, but it came across as a very potent form of satire.

Of course, I also was always a sucker for a well crafted image, be it Bowie morphing himself into a German Shepherd or Lionel Richie with his Fedora in the “Running with the Night “ video, or Judas Priest looking so totally cool in their tight leather pants and shades Elvis.

And Type O Negative was no exception. The first time I saw them opening for Danzig in support of "Bloody Kisses" I was absolutely awestruck: The guys all look like they’d rolled out of a gutter. They were filthy. They were ugly. They spit on the stage, drank and chain-smoked throughout the set.

And despite the gay porn moniker, Peter Steele - pale, muscle bound, 6'6" and dressed in a wifebeater with his hair covering most of his face - cut the image of a first rate front man for this particular type of morbid fare. From the balcony of the Tower Theatre, I hadn’t the slightest idea whether this man was hideous or beautiful, but I knew that I wanted to look at him.

This, of course, leads me to the other rather obvious reason that people were suspicious with my obsession with this band. I was a weird, screwed up individual in my early 20’s. And I don’t mind going on record as saying that I was sexually confused. I knew that I liked women. But I also knew that for a number of years I resented them on a level that makes me uncomfortable to explore to this day.

And I knew that the fact that I'd resisted all dating efforts had led no small number of people to begin questioning my sexual preference…or even all too regularly make rather insulting assumptions about me.

(I can’t really tell this story without remembering all the time when my mom – a retired librarian - went on a odd, rollicking monologue during a family dinner about what she would do to entertain herself should my father ever pass away. The conversation concluded with her thoughts about how her three sons could support her:

“Well, Joseph [a collegiate librarian] and I could attended the annual American Library Association meeting together, and Kevin [an accountant] will manage the finances, and Tom and I………can go shopping together!!”

I honestly can’t relive this conversation without experiencing that same Molotov cocktail of anger, self-loathing and shame that was probably the spark for the more foolishly dangerous moments of my young life. But it does make me chuckle just a little, too.

Sort of. A little. When I’m not crying and downing entire bottles of cheap Cabernet.)

The point is, most everyone at one point or another at least suspected that I liked men. And this didn’t make matters any less complex. I knew I wasn’t interested in men. I was positive of it. And the fact that so many people – especially women – were convinced that I was, only made me more hostile and resentful towards the ladies.

And that was not helping matters in the least.

The irony of this all was that I didn’t immediately fall in love with Type O Negative after that first seeing them my senior year of college. It wasn't some massive man-love infatuation - even though I did find them fascinating.

It would, in fact, be maybe a year before I actually bought the CD. And I bought it specifically because after months upon months upon months of watching a friend date other people, I’d finally found the courage to tell her how crazy I was about her....only to be sweetly informed (by e-mail) that it would never happen with us, and that she was suddenly very uncomfortable with our special friendship.

("Special friendship." That's a quote - straight from the e-mail. Those words still make we wince).

Seeking something I could listen to as a moped over things, I picked up my copy of "Bloody Kisses" at the old Tower Records on Rockville Pike. And THAT was were the obsession really took off.

Not because I was gay for Peter Steele (well, maybe a little....).

Actually, no.

Because of a girl. A girl I liked lot and who I desperately wanted to be with. A girl who didn’t like me back and who didn’t want to be with me. A girl - and a friend - who I never saw or spoke to again after she turned me down. Never even looked her up on Facebook.....in fact, never even considered it until this moment.

That experience - and my subsequent wussfest - made a lot of that album’s content seem a lot less ridiculous. The lyrics about watching a loved one die. The lyrics about suicide. The lyrics about freezing to death. The lyrics about hate and rage. Lyrics about it being "too late for apologies." The lyric about how "loving you was like loving the dead”. (How many ways did I chew over that phrase in the next several weeks?)

No doubt it was goofy, but it was also what I needed at that point.

Now, I know how utterly sophomoric as it all sounds for an adult male to immerse himself in over the top music in order to cope. But that is precisely was drew me to this band: I felt rotten inside. I felt utterly foolish and naked and embarrassed and angry and worthless. And having a big tall dude with lots of bad tattoos sing dirges to me about dead loved ones was comforting in a way that Michael Stipe never could have pulled off.

But it was essentially the same thing. Everybody hurts, indeed.

***sigh***

On to the show....

This was one of my first shows at the "new" 930 Club. Went alone. (Surprised?)

They were touring off "October Rust" - an album that was far more lush and beautiful than "Bloody Kisses", but which lacked the teeth that the previous albums had. It arguably made up with it with superior songcraft and texture. And far more vulnerability in the lyrics, which made it all the harder for me to man up and put the fucking band to rest.

That tour went on forever, but this was towards the beginning - part of the annual Halloween mini-tour. If I remember correctly, a big toilet paper war broke out between crew, crowd and performers at the end of the show, and Steele threw a gigantic pumpkin into the stage for the money shot.

Set list included (not in order):

Too Late: Frozen, Are You Afraid?, Gravity, My Girlfriend's Girlfriend, Cinnamon Girl, Light My Fire, Love You To Death, In Praise of Bacchus, Black # 1, medley of Aqualung, Dazed & Confused and My Sharona, followed by an encore of Pain/Prelude to Agony, Wolf Moon and Christian Woman.

I'm think I'm going to need to lie down for a sec after that one.