Dumbek's Random Stuff

The Rosebuds - Lovely, as always. Started a little slow, but had everyone dancing by the end. I picked up a tour cd, full of b-sides, covers, demos, etc. Complete with handmade cover art. Sold to me by Kelly, herself.

British Sea Power - They were ok. They sounded fine, but dreadfully boring to watch. I loved them last time I saw them in 2004. Maybe it was just me. I left early.

The Cure - Fantastic. 38 songs. Over 3 hours. Perfect mix of hits, album cuts, old and new songs, including the first-time-ever for "The Perfect Boy". "Shake Dog Shake" and "Primary" were perfect. My two favorite Cure songs back-to-back. Excellent. Check out Kyle's pictures over at Pitchfork. Congrats on the byline.

Rustbuckit - Kicked-ass, as expected. The crowd loved them. Anxiously awaiting that cd (ahem...).

The Meatmen - Always classy. Where do you go after the first song involves a 3-ft. inflatable penis? Tesco brought the power, fury and fun. We even got a cover of Fear's "I Love Livin' In The City". It's been a while since I've been to a real punk show. I think I needed that. I think I'm starting to like Baltimore shows better than DC. $3 Natty Bohs, Hon.

Tomorrow - Los Campesinos! with The Aquarium and Pash. Nice triple-bill.

Blowoff on Saturday. I missed the last one. Looking forward to this.

The mother-f*@king Meatmen are back together. Stop whining and get your pansy-ass to the show. I don't care if it's in Baltimore. I don't care if it's a Tuesday. I don't care that some moron decided it was a good idea to book 4 bands on a weeknight. I don't care that it doesn't start until 9-f*@king-30pm and they probably won't come onstage until after midnight. You haven't seen them in over 20 years. You probably won't see them ever again. Don't be such a p*ssy and get your sorry ass to the show.

Fine. Fine. I'm going. Stop yelling at me.


And get there early, because Rustbuckit doesn't suck either.


Sheesh.

I think my new favorite album (at least for this month) is Despondent Transponder by Fleeting Joys. I know it's not really new, but I just got my hands on a copy. Bob turned me on to these guys a couple years back, but their CD has been long out of print. I had all but given up on it, but I just noticed that they decided to press another limited run. Excellent. Go buy it while you can. It's available on emusic and iTunes, too, if you're one of those download people.

It's total shoegaze goodness. A loud, fuzzy, swirly, feedback-laden, massive wall-of-guitar sound, with sweet, lilting, melodic vocals on top. It's like if Book of Love was singing over top of a My Bloody Valentine record. Beautiful.

Fleeting Joys - Lovely Crawl


In a perfect world, someone would bring them to DC and book them with A Place To Bury Strangers. That wouldn't suck at all.

The Patti Smith movie was awesome. Beautifully done. Not really a documentary or biography, but more of a collection of images, thoughts and scenes from the last 10 years. Highly recommended. It's coming to AFI for Silverdocs. You should go. The Q&A was pretty lame. Patti didn't seem terribly interested and she was kind of rude to Weasel when he tried to move things along - preferring to ask the audience for gum and talk about how much she hates wireless microphones. Anyway - We got 2 songs after the Q&A. "Wing" and "People Have The Power", both featuring her son Jackson on guitar. Excellent.

The B-52's were fan-tas-tic. I ended up getting there a little later than I had hoped, but still ended up about 12 feet back, directly in front of Cindy. The highlights for me were "Give Me Back My Man", "Strobe light" ("Let me kiss your Capital Dome!") and every song that involved Cindy playing bongos. The new stuff fit in very well. My only complaint about the new stuff is that they have to push out old songs to make room for it. No "Dance This Mess Around" or "Quiche Lorraine". Oh well. Great night though. I was sore for days from dancing so much.

The Virgin Mobile Music Festival was announced this week. We're in for Sunday, but probably skipping Saturday. I don't have the patience to sit through the rest of the crap just to get to the Foos. Sunday though - Wow. Stone Temple Pilots, Bob Dylan, Iggy and The Stooges, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Shudder To Think(!), The Go! Team and more. Yowza. I've never been to a real festival before. Should be interesting.

This week....ummm....nothing. I'd like to go see Travis Morrison, but it's not gonna happen. Again.

We're opening the pool this weekend. WOOHOO!

"Don't Take Pills!"
- Fred Schneider



Update: A commenter noted that Patti Smith: Dream of Life isn't eligible to be shown at Silverdocs. I was just going on what the film's website said. So you might be SOL for that.

I'm so excited to see The B-52's tomorrow, I can't see straight. I've got their whole catalog on shuffle and I've been listening all day. I'm worthless at work today (not that anyone is here to notice). It's all I can do to not get up and start dancing around my office.

Tonight will be slightly different though. Thanks to dcist I learned that the Patti Smith documentary Patti Smith: Dream Of Life is playing tonight as part of FilmfestDC. Excellent. Know what's even better? Patti is going to be there, too. I imagine she'll just introduce the film and maybe talk about how it was made (over 10 years in the making - wow). Nice bonus though.

Check the trailer here. God I love her.


But not more than you Cindy. I'll see you tomorrow.

It's "Take Your Child To Work" Day.

It's not "Take Your Stinky-Ass Dog To Work And Let Him Run Around The Office" Day.