Dumbek's Random Stuff

Travis Morrison @ Fort Reno 7/28/05

I'm not sure why everyone dumps on Travis Morrison. Is it because Travistan doesn't sound like The Dismemberment Plan, Part II? Pitchfork totally trashed it. I'm sorry, but I find it hard to believe any record that's reasonably well made deserves that low of a rating. I've seen him post-D-Plan twice now. Both times he was really good. Everyone around me at both shows seemed like they were having fun. I sure was. He played on Thursday with a friggin' broken thumb. You gotta give him credit for that. He put on a fine show. Lots of new stuff. The crowd was digging it. That's what it's all about anyway. Lighten up a little and have some fun.

C'mon folks - Show Travis some love.

Oh yeah - Free cake always helps too.

Bloc Party Remixes.

Go to Scenestars and scroll down to the Bloc Party review. It's spot on.

This is how I spent a good part of the weekend. I'm all about the heat and humidity this summer. Bring it on.

We decided to have a small cookout on Saturday. We figured we'd have a handful of friends over to break-in the pool. Things started off a bit shaky though. Our power was out all morning. That meant no refrigerator, no music and we couldn't vacuum the pool. Then our friends started canceling, with lame excuses like "I have to take the Bar Exam on Tuesday and I'm panicking!" and "A tree fell and smashed both of our cars." OK - Those aren't exactly lame excuses. I'll forgive them for those.

In the end, it all worked out fine. We loaded-up some coolers, picked up my battery-powered boom-box from work and about half of our friends showed up. We were outside swimming and barely noticed when the power came back on mid-afternoon. Less people meant less work for us. Fun was had by all. I love it when things work out.

Sunday was our neighborhood block party. We had officially decided to blow this off. Easier said than done. Having developed a bit of a rep for skipping these things, our neighbors were determined to make us attend. They decided to have the block party in front of our house. The party was literally in our driveway. There was no escape. So we went for a while. It wasn't so bad. Most of our neighbors are actually kind of cool.

Still, we had a great excuse to head out early. Bob had invited us to the listening party for his new cd Body of Song. That was a great way to cap-off the weekend. Thanks, Bob. We picked up the cd yesterday. Very nice. I may have to breakdown and pick this up on vinyl. Can't wait for his 9:30 gig in October.

Monday took me to Fort Reno. Factory Incident/Chop Chop/The Greenline. The Greenline was really good. Peppy-punky goodness. Very cute singer. I'd check them out again, but they said it might be their last show. Oh well. Chop Chop was ok, but forgettable. Stabb mentioned something about them having members of Velocity Girl and The High-Back Chairs. Two great bands, but they just didn't grab me. Maybe I was just distracted by the things going on around me. The Factory Incident features GI's John Stabb. He's still quite the showman. Not bad at all. His band sounds more like Joy Division than Government Issue.

Last night was spent at home with the BF, a couple beers and The Dead's Truckin' Up To Buffalo dvd. I wasn't at this show (7/4/89), but I saw them 4 times the following week (7/7, 7/9, 7/12, 7/13). They were really cresting in the summer of '89. Damn they were good. It's hard to believe Brent has been gone 15 years. I've fallen behind in my Dead cd/dvd purchasing. There's a lot of interesting stuff out there. Particularly the new JGB releases. I may have to pre-order the JGB dvd so I can have it by 8/9.

The rest of the week is fairly quiet. I'll probably checkout Travis Morrison on Thursday. A couple of friends are celebrating birthdays this weekend. Tickets for the second Devo show go on sale Thursday.

I guess I need to head to work now. Drat.

The last time I saw Brent play with the Grateful Dead was 7/21/90, just outside of Chicago.
He would be dead less than a week later.




Brent Mydland (10/21/52 - 7/26/90)


Now playing: Grateful Dead - 7/21/90 - Tinley Park, IL (Scarlet -> Fire)

Random songs that I haven't heard in years.

Shonen Knife - Johnny, Johnny, Johnny

He's the cleanest boy in town
He's real good at ping pong
He's good at archery
He's good at bowling, man

Hee hee ha ha ho ho ho
He's the coolest boy! HA!

Female Japanese Pop. If this song doesn't make you smile, you need to lighten up a little.

From Rock Animals


Public Image Ltd. - Bad Life

I love the drums on this track. Dancey, driving and full of attitude. The first time I saw PiL some unknown rap act from NYC opened. People just sat there staring at them, booing occasionally. They were a mess. Turns out The Beastie Boys ended up doing ok for themselves. The marquee outside the theater read something like "Tonight: Public Image Ltd. Thurs: Menudo." I wish I had a camera for that one. I've heard rumors of a PiL reunion. I'm not holding my breath, but I'd be all over it.

From This Is What You Want....This Is What You Get


The Seen - Younger Than Yesterday

These guys were a bunch of local kids who grew up in the town I went to college in. They helped me realize you don't have to be famous to be good. 60's-ish, pop, mod, rock, whatever. I think they put out a record in the mid-80's. This comes from a CD I picked up at a reunion show I caught when I went back to State College for a weekend.

From Under The Sun - In The Rain. Good luck finding this one.


The Bongos - Barbarella

I tried to see The Bongos once at GWU. The show was scheduled to start at 9:00. We waited until about 10:45 and they still hadn't even opened the doors yet. We left. They broke up shortly after that. Too bad. They should have been huge.

From Numbers With Wings. Sadly out-of-print.


Tom Tom Club - Pleasure Of Love

It's absolutely criminal that this hasn't been released on CD. I've heard that the record company "lost" the masters. Whatever. I forget where I got this track, but it was obviously taken from an LP. This album (actually, it was a cassette I stole from my girlfriend) got me through my freshman year of college.


Joe "King" Carrasco - Let's Go

I've heard that Joe kind of regrets "Party Weekend", because it lumped him in with the new-wave crowd and he was written off as a one-hit wonder. He's got a very valid point. It's too bad he never got his due. His records are a blast and he puts on a great show. One of my favorite memories of the old 9:30 Club was Joe standing on the bar playing guitar, singing and getting everyone to dance.

From Joe's Anthology



mp3s are provided only to expose people to some music they may not be familiar with. They're only up for a week or two. If you have some sort of claim to the music, let me know and I'll gladly take it down. If you like what you hear, go buy something by the artist, so they can afford to make more music.

Q And Not U were terrific on Monday. I like them more and more each time I see them. I guess it's a little late for that though. I bought tickets to both of their final shows. I'll probably only go to one of them. If my not-so-reliable friends come in from NY that Friday, I'll have to skip the final show. Oh well.

Son of Nun were interesting. Political rap on top of a go-go beat. Not really my thing, but they weren't bad.


BF fixed the a/c. Looks like we blew a breaker in the outside unit. A quick trip to Homo Depot and it was working again. $8 is much better than $50 for an estimate.

Teenage Fanclub/The Rosebuds tonight. Should be fun. The Rosebuds are great. Check out these songs by them:

Kicks In The Schoolyard

Big Heartbreak


Last night was the big gay "Night Out" at the Nationals game. I wish we had our own section. We were spread-out all over the place. We were everywhere though. You couldn't miss us. The Nats won 4-0. Hopefully they're going to come out of their slump now.

Well...Actually, it is the heat. And the humidity. And the fact that our a/c broke sometime last night. It looks like the motor on the fan died. Ugh.

I don't mind being hot at home. The heat and humidity doesn't really bother me so much, but I sit in an air-conditioned office all day. The boyfriend, however, works from home and has to deal with it all day. Hopefully, they'll be able to fix it soon. I predict they don't come out until next week.

Silver Spring Weather

---

at: 8:51 am EDT

F° | C°

Currently: 84° Mostly Cloudy High: 93° Low: 75°

Typical DC summer. Hazy, hot and humid.


On a much cooler note, Q And Not U is playing at Fort Reno tonight. It's one of your last chances to see them. Don't miss it.

I just signed up on audioscrobbler.

user = dumbek

Now the whole world will know when I pull out that Dionne Warwick cd.

Mac Attack/Athens '83 DC9 7/14/05










I almost bailed on this show at the last minute. I hurt my back earlier this week and going out to see a couple of tribute bands probably wasn't the greatest idea. Then the mailman came. It looks like I got a record in the mail. Cool. I turn on my XM radio while I open the package. They're playing Fleetwood Mac. Coincidence? hmmm... "What record did you get?" you ask? R.E.M.'s Around The Sun on vinyl. Well that's just way too weird. There was no way I was gonna miss this show now. Too many signs telling me to go.

I fully admit I wasn't expecting much. I figured the R.E.M. tribute band would either be horrible or just way too serious. I figured the Fleetwood Mac tribute band, with their wigs and costumes, would become tiresome after about a half-hour.



Athens '83 (the R.E.M. tribute band) wasn't exactly impressive. They were sloppy as all hell. But they looked like they were having a blast and were giving it their all. So the music wasn't the best. Big deal. They were still fun to watch. They get a 6 for performance, but a 9 for the fun-factor. Bonus points for "Peter Holsapple" showing up in an elephant suit.



At first Mac Attack was just silly. It was just way too easy to laugh at that afro-like wig and Stevie's tambourine playing. But after a few songs we started to realize that they were actually pretty damn good. They kept things silly with their on-stage breakups (did I see Lindsay cry?), Christine storming off stage and Mick falling over behind the drums. I learned that "Silver Springs" was inspired by driving around the beltway. But through it all - they never stopped rockin'. It was hard not to get caught-up in it. They were just damn good.



They had the whole crowd dancing around by the end of the night. People were totally digging it. The bobbing floor caused a few concerned glances between my friends and I, but it held up. "The Chain" devolved into a spaz-fest, with lots of noise, mayhem and the guys from "R.E.M." on stage screaming into the microphone. After about 10 minutes into that, we decided it was time to head home.


Much more fun than I expected. They drew quite a crowd. I wish I had a better pic of that afro.

Can't wait for next time.

I am so all over this.

Tonight at DC9:

Mac Attack : Fleetwood Mac Tribute band (with members of Washington Social Club and the Carlsonics)

w/Athens 83 : REM cover band (with members from Beauty Pill and The Hard Tomorrows) & DJ Open Arms

There's a lot more to DC music than Minor Threat and Fugazi. There was (and still is) a lot more happening than that.

Something old:

Tru Fax and the Insaniacs - "The Twin"

I was gonna put up "Washingtron", but the tracking on my CD is messed up. This is a peppy little track though. From their LP Mental Decay. I'd post a link to buy it, but I don't think it's ever been pressed as an official cd. Even my copy is a CD-R I picked up last Christmas at a reunion show. Supposedly a real re-issue is in the works. I hope so, but I'm not holding my breath for this one. They also have a few tracks on the 9:30 compilation that came out a few years back.

Crippled Pilgrims - "Black and White"

Originally from the Head Down, Hand Out EP. Kind of psychedelic. Kind of dark. Kind of R.E.M.-ish. Kind of awesome. The exact opposite of everything else going on in DC in the ealy/mid-80's. This was recently re-released on Reaction Records. The CD is basically a CP anthology. Go buy it here. Now. I'm not kidding. Go.

Marginal Man - "Friend"

Marginal Man was one of the great DC hardcore groups. This track isn't your basic as-loud-and-fast-as-possible hardcore song. Much more melodic and bouncy. You can actually hum along, if you like. I pulled this from the CD re-issue of Double Image. Amazon reports having exactly 1 copy left. I'd suggest you go buy it. It was re-issued by the band itself, so I can't imagine there are too many copies floating around out there. The CD has the original album and a few videos. Money well spent - even if just for the videos.


Something new(ish):

Metropolitan - "Homeroom"

Why aren't these guys huge? One of my current faves. Go buy all their stuff via their website. Go see them close out the concert season at Fort Reno on 8/28. I think their drummer is in about 10 different bands.

Beauty Pill -"Rideshare"

How can you not love a song whose chorus includes the line "Walk among the dead and dying in Crystal City." This is off the Cigarette Girl From The Future EP - a split release between Dischord and DeSoto. They have to be the most un-Dischord-like band on the Dischord label. Smooth, spacy and beautifully disturbing. They amaze me more and more every time I hear them. Readily available all over the place, but I'd suggest buying it directly from Dischord.

Washington Social Club - "Let The Night Begin"

Not enough attitude to be punk, but rowdy as all heck. Just a really, really good rock band. This is taken from their self-titled EP. As much as I like their full-length (and highly recommend it), the EP blows it away. Their playing on 8/5 at the Black Cat with Cartel opening. Possibly my favorite double-bill of the summer. It's a Friday. There's no excuse for you not to go out and rock-out a little.



mp3s are provided only to expose people to some music they may not be familiar with. They're only up for a week or two. If you have some sort of claim to the music, let me know and I'll gladly take it down. If you like what you hear, go buy something by the artist, so they can afford to make more music.

I've been a bit busy and didn't know this until today (when I read it on DCist) , but Freda Wright-Sorce died in a car wreck on Sunday. Freda is Don Geronimo's wife. Don being half of the long-running "The Don and Mike Show" on WJFK. Very, very sad. My best to Don and Freda's family.

From nbc4.com:

OCEAN CITY, Md. -- Freda Wright-Sorce, the wife of radio personality Don Geronimo and a frequent contributor to the popular nationally syndicated "Don and Mike" show, died in a traffic accident Sunday.

Wright-Sorce, 50, often called in to the comedy show on Washington radio station WJFK known for its outlandish humor and pranks, said Michael Hughes, the station's general manager.

State police said her vehicle was struck head-on Sunday afternoon by a vehicle that crossed the median on Route 90 in an attempt to avoid a pile-up. She died later Sunday at the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore, hospital spokeswoman Cindy Rivers said.

The pile-up temporarily closed westbound Route 90, state police said.

Hughes said Geronimo was spending time with their son on Monday and the remaining members of the show planned to announce the death on the show.

It's Slurpee's 40th Anniversary!

According to their website, participating 7-Elevens are giving away free Slurpees today (7/11 - Get it? ). How cool is that?

Q And Not U are breaking up.

They're playing a handful of shows (including Fort Reno on 7/18) and are planning some farewell gigs in DC in September.

From www.qandnotu.org:

After seven years, hundreds of shows, thousands of miles, 46 states, four continents, three albums, only one flat-tire and countless nicknames for Shawn Brackbill, Q and Not U is disbanding.

With all of your support, we feel that we've reached all of our shared goals as Q and Not U and we're ready to move on to other projects in life. We all hope to play music together again someday, but we feel that it's a beautiful and natural time to bring this band to a close.

---------------------------------

There's more info at their website, but that's the gist of it.

Holy Crap. There's no way I can keep up with all the shows I want to see this summer. Here's my list of upcoming shows I'd like to see:

7/7 - Del Cielo @ Fort Reno*
7/8 - Wanda Jackson @ BC*
7/9 - Bluestate @ BC
7/11 - Dinosaur, Jr.*
7/11 - French Toast @ Fort Reno
7/14 - Mac Attack @ DC9
7/17 - The Dickies @ The Ottobar
7/18 - Q And Not U @ Fort Reno*
7/20 - Teenage Fanclub/Rosebuds @ 9:30*
7/22 - (Sounds of) Kaleidoscope/Measles Mumps Rubella @ BC
7/23 - Blowoff @ 9:30
7/27 - Washington Social Club @ The Ottobar*
7/28 - Travis Morrison/Federal City Five @ Fort Reno
8/1 - Garland of Hours/The Aquarium @ Fort Reno
8/5 - Washington Social Club/Cartel @ Black Cat*
8/8 - City Goats/Brandon Butler @ Fort Reno
8/9 - Mesmers @ DC9
8/10 - New York Dolls @ 9:30*
8/12 - The Knitters @ Birchmere*
8/13 - Devo @ 9:30
8/14 - Devo @ 9:30*
8/15 - Medications/Mary Timony/The Threads @ Fort Reno*
8/18 - Metropolitan @ Fort Reno*
8/24 - PS - Black Cat backstage
8/30 - Green Day @ MPP*
9/10 - Elton John @ MCI
10/3 - The Rolling Stones @ MCI
10/19-20 - U2 @ MCI (one of these)

* - I either already have tickets or absolutely plan on going.

Sheesh.

Team DC has reserved 450 seats for the Nationals game against Colorado on July 19. Get your homo butt out there. There's a Blade story here and an OutSports story here.

Send an email to nationalsnightout@yahoo.com for info on how to get tickets. C'mon - it's only $10.

I got tagged with a meme by Sean a week or so ago. I put it off for a while, saying I was going to think about it. That didn't really help me come up with anything, so now I'm just gonna wing it.

1. What were three of the stupidest things you have done in your life?

- Not moving out of the house when my ex dumped me. We had just bought a house together and had been living there for about a month and he decided he just wanted to be roommates. I was pretty strapped financially and there was no way to sell the house without taking a huge loss, and he couldn't afford to buy me out. I convinced myself it would be the best thing financially to stay there. Big mistake. It took me way too long to get over him and move on with my life. I was a bit of a wreck for about a year, until I met that boy I'm still with today.

- Yelling at the guy who was giving me a polygraph for a security clearance for my job. There was a minor discrepancy in the paper work between this clearance and my last one. The powers-that-be accused me of lying and forced me to take the lie-detector test. I took the test, completely telling the absolute truth. At the end of the test, the guy asked me why I appeared to be so nervous and I proceeded to yell at him about how insulting the whole process was, how polygraphs were a complete waste of time, that the entire agency who required this test was full of worthless, arrogant a-holes....etc. Needless to say, I failed the test and got fired from my job. Turns out to be a blessing in disguise, as I love my job now. But now every time I need to fill out any kind of security paperwork I have to check the box that say yes, I have been denied a clearance in the past.

- Breaking up with my current BF about 6 months into our relationship. After the bad experience with the last bf (see above) I decided I wasn't going to compromise about anything. It was all going to be about me now, and I was determined not to get hurt again. So we were together, having a great time, but a few things weren't going my way. I decided that was enough. Change or I'm gone. He didn't change, so I left. We broke up for about 8 months and I was pretty miserable. Even worse, I totally crushed him. I can't believe how badly I had hurt him, and that made me feel even worse. All over something not-so-important. I eventually swallowed my pride and asked him to take me back. He did. That was about 8 years ago. We're happier than ever.

2. At the current moment, who has the most influence in your life?

Predictable, but I'll say the BF. I know he would do pretty much anything for me, and always has my best interests in mind. He knows me inside and out, and I totally value what he thinks. He knows when to push me, when to let me run wild, when to protect me, and when to let me fail on my own. He totally balances me out.

3. If you were given a time machine that functioned, and you were allowed to only pick up to five people to dine with, who would you pick?

Janis Joplin, Lester Bangs, John Waters, Bill Clinton, Lenny Bruce

I'd probably pick different people tomorrow.

4. If you had three wishes that were not supernatural, what would they be?

- I'd have an insane amount of money. I know that sounds totally shallow, but it would enable me to do all kinds of things, like set my family up for life, give me unlimited music access, travel, etc.

- I'd find a cure for every health issue my sister is having, so she could enjoy life again. That's something that money doesn't seem to be able to help.

- That being gay would be a complete non-issue to everyone. Gay marriage would be accepted as being fine. The right-wing doesn't have any issues with us. No more gay-bashing, or even the threat of being harassed. Everyone's families are totally accepting. Schools aren't afraid to mention the word "homosexual" without being threatened with a lawsuit. Kids are brought up without even considering the notion that there's anything wrong with it. We could all just live our lives without hearing that our love is evil and wrong. (This might fall under the supernatural heading though.)

5. Someone is visiting your hometown/place where you live at the moment. Name two things you regret your city not having, and two things people should avoid.

Living in the same town as Sean, some of my answers are the same as his.

Regret:

- We don't have a better Metro system. I love the Metro, but it's more of a commuter train than a means to get around town. You can't get everywhere and it closes way too early. You can't even go to a concert via Metro during the week, because it closes at something like 11:30pm.

- Better gay bars. They're just embarrassing to be in sometimes. Most of them are places I would never go, if they weren't filled with gay men. Sometimes even that's not enough. It's like you have to choose between being around gay people, or going somewhere cool. Life should be more fluid than that. I will say that this is starting to get better though.

Avoid:

- Georgetown. If you're under 18 or have never gone into a mall before, I guess it's ok. Otherwise, it's just over-priced stores, terrible traffic/parking, crappy bars and people with sh-tty attitudes. Smash is a great store. Other than that, stay away at all costs.

- Cabs. They'll rip you off 9 times out of 10. They make up their own fares. There are no meters. I've lived here my whole life and I'm still not sure how the zones work. Tourists are a goldmine for cabbies.

6. Name one event that has changed your life.

It didn't happen to me directly, but when my ex (see above) was in a car accident, it opened my eyes to a lot of things. I was still totally closeted. I hadn't met his family yet. He was in a really bad car accident up in PA. They didn't know if he would make it. He was unconscious for over a week, I think. The hospital wouldn't give me any info, because I wasn't a relative. I couldn't go to friends or family for support, because that would reveal that I was gay. I had nobody to turn to and I couldn't see him. He eventually came out of it and came home (that's the very abbreviated version of the story). But that's the event that made me come out. I had never felt so alone, helpless and scared in my life and I never wanted to go through that again. I had the basic "live life while you can" epiphany that changed the way I look at things. I take some things more seriously. I take some things less seriously. It definitely affected me though.


Too much information.

The pool is 90% done. It's full of water and looks amazing. The last 2 steps include installing the gas line for the heater (which may end up costing about 3 times what we expected) and giving the pool some kind of acid treatment. The acid is going to eat away the the very top surface of the plaster, smoothing things out and bringing out the blue flakes in the finish, adding more color. That has to be done over the course of a few days, and you can't swim while that's happening. We decided to just wait and have that done next week. That way we can swim in the not-quite-finished pool this weekend. Oh yeah - They need to install the diving board too. That's primarily for aesthetic purposes only, save for the occasional cannonball.

So here's what I came home to yesterday:



How friggin' sweet is that? It should be totally finished before next weekend.

Yesterday was quite the musicfest. Started with The Evens/The Routineers at Fort Reno. The Evens had a few sound problems, but they were pretty good. Ian briefly talked about the Nike thing. He basically said you can't really beat them. He compared the situation to a soccer game. It doesn't matter who kicks the ball first or which direction you're going - Nike's goal completely encircles the field. And there's not a whole lot that can be done about it. Ian was a bit annoyed because while the Post covered the story, they actually put it in the Sports section as a skateboarding article. (Nike was promoting a skateboarding/concert-thing.) He said if you're really angry and want to protest something, go to the White House and protest the war. His record label concerns are quite insignificant compared to that.

Here's a quick snap of Amanda, from The Routineers:



I have a few more pics I haven't uploaded yet. They may be too blurry to post. I'm not very good at this photography stuff yet. I'll check them tonight. Oh - Henry Rollins was hanging out in the crowd. I'm not sure if he has moved back here yet, or if he's just visiting.

Made it to the Cat in the middle of the Bicycle Thieves set. Not bad. Straight-forward indie-pop. Cartel was terrific, as always. I kind of like this picture of Cartel, even though it was purely unintentional.




Thanks to DCist for putting the show together.

Despite seeing 4 bands in two locations, it was all over by 11:30. I ran over to The Lantern, where I hung out with the BF and a few friends for about an hour before heading home. Fun was had by all.

Looking forward to the long weekend. WOOHOO!