Dumbek's Random Stuff

For those of you not suffering from Pixies-overload, they're playing Sonar in Baltimore on 9/30. I've never been there, but I'm guessing it's pretty small. They seem to be booking similar bands to the 9:30 Club, so I imagine it's about the same size. Don't hold me to that though. Surprisingly, tickets don't appear to be selling that quickly.

The same thing cannot be said for the upcoming Death Cab show at 9:30, which sold-out before any official announcement by the club that they were even playing. Sheesh.

Coolfer reports hard times over at Newbury Comics. I hate when I see smaller stores failing like that. Newbury Comics is a nice, relatively cheap on-line music store. They have a good indie selection and their turnaround time is pretty impressive. I use them quite a bit. It would suck if they disappeared. I'm still lamenting the loss of several of my local brick-and-mortar stores. I'd hate to lose one of my favorite on-line stores too.

Of course, I have to admit that I went to my local Tower just yesterday and bought a handful of CDs. But after reading the blurb at Coolfer this morning, my conscience got the better of me and I ordered a few things from Newbury....including something I wasn't able to find at Tower. I guess I should have just gone to Newbury first. My bad.

Update: Wow - Turns out they're not so small afterall, with 25 or so stores. Oh well...They still serve me well.

Not much to say today, other than I screwed up getting pre-sale tickets for the Foo Fighters.

Here are a few random songs, selected only because the cds happened to be near the computer when I sat down.

Clinic - August
This always reminds me of what The Residents would sound like, if they weren't so damn weird.
Buy

The Damned - Jet Boy, Jet Girl
We've all been there.
Buy

Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers - Going Steady
I could easily mistake this for The Dolls.
Buy

The Germs - Lexicon Devil
"Gimme Gimme This, Gimme Gimme Thaaaaaaaat"
Buy

Dusty Springfield - Just A Little Lovin'
Silky smooth.
Buy


Songs are only up for about a week or so. If you like what you hear, go buy it. Or at least go buy something by the artist, even if it's something different. Show 'em a little love. blah blah blah.

I've been tagged by chrisafer:

The instructions are:
List ten songs that you are currently digging ... it doesn't matter what genre they are from, whether they have words, or even if they're no good, but they must be songs you're really enjoying right now. Post these instructions, the artists, and the ten songs in your blog. Then tag five other people to see what they're listening to.

In no particular order:

Cartel - Fleets
Amusement Parks On Fire - Venus In Cancer
Bang! Bang! - Candystop
The Hold Steady - Cattle And The Creeping Things
Bob Mould - Gauze Of Friendship
Ted Leo - Six Months In A Leaky Boat
Jerry Garcia Band - Simple Twist Of Fate ( a couple different versions, actually)
Pansy Division - Bunnies
Q And Not U - So Many Animal Calls
The Rosebuds - My Downtown Friends


I'll tag these folks: data jockey, vividblurry, Wonder Boy, Megadork and Mighty. I don't think any of them have done this yet.

Fort Reno closed up shop for the summer with a terrific show by Metropolitan. Possibly the best set I've seen them play. I'm digging their new disc more and more every time I play it. Punchy, melodic, rockin' music. Judging by the number of folks up and dancing with reckless abandon, I'd say it's quite popular with the kids too.


There are a couple of DC-related video things coming up over labor day weekend.

First up, on Sept. 5 at The Black Cat, Positive Force DC is presenting something they're billing as "Vintage DC Punk Video Night". It's a benefit for Jobs With Justice. I'm not sure what this includes, but it sounds promising. Positive Force has been putting on shows since I was a kid. There could be some killer footage here. I need to find out more about this. For $5, I'm sure it's gonna be worth it, no matter what they're showing.

One Sept. 6, AFI is giving you another chance to catch "930 F Street," the documentary that's basically 87 minutes of reminiscing about the old 9:30 Club. If nothing else, you should go to check out the AFI Silver Theater in Silver Spring. It's an awesome theater. And don't complain about it being in the 'burbs. It's walking distance from the Silver Spring Metro.


And while we're reminiscing of the DC punk of yore, Black Market Baby is slated to have a new compilation out on Dr. Strange Records sometime this fall. It's gonna be called Coulda, Shoulda, Woulda. No track listing, but it's supposed to be a mix of some of their more popular songs, along with some rare and unreleased material. BMB CDs aren't that easy to come by and if you try to pick up their Senseless Offerings LP on eBay, you'd better be ready to plunk down a cool $100 or so. Needless to say, I'm looking forward to getting my hands on this one. Check out some sound clips here.

Math via TicketBastard:

2 x $17.50 = $56.65

That's $10.82 in service charges on a $17.50 ticket. Sheesh.

For no good reason, I decided I needed to take a couple of days off work. I deserve it, dammit. I took off Friday and Monday, which means my weekend started on Thursday. Hooray for me! Not so good for you, as this has turned into a long, rambling post.

Thursday started with Olivia Mancini and the Spectacles at DC9. DC9 had them listed as "The Spectacles", but Olivia called them "The Spectaculars" during their set. Who knows. All I know is they were pretty good. Basic pop/rock, but the trumpet gave a little twist to it. Sort of an indie-miriachi sound. And "Jolene" to boot. Good to see Olivia up front, playing guitar the whole time. Rock chicks rule.

The Spectacular Spectacles were only the second band, so we got out of there pretty early. Early enough to hit The Eagle, just as the Lantern crowd started showing up. We pumped more than a few bucks into the jukebox and acted as the welcoming committee as people started rolling in. It seemed like every few minutes another friend was walking in, or I was meeting friends of friends. Nights like that are a mixed blessing, in that you get to see everyone, but don't get to spend a lot of time with anyone. Hard to complain about being surrounded by friends though.

Friday - The Knitters at The Birchmere. Fantastic. The perfect mix of down-home country and rock. More rockin' than I expected, but in a good way. I guess it's hard to keep Dave Alvin down. I was never really into The Blasters. Looks like I should have paid more attention. Once Dave got going, he was on fire. They basically played both albums, plus a couple of extra songs. I was surprised to hear "I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts." Nice.

Phranc opened to a pretty receptive crowd. Opening with Johnny Cash's "I've Been Everywhere" seemed to get everyone in a good mood right off the bat. Her set was fun, including a not-terribly-flattering song about Condoleezza and a good old-fashioned "Hokey-Pokey." What's not to love? Thanks to Phranc for the autographed poster for our friends.

Lantern afterwards, but we didn't stay all that long. The soccer match on the TV was fun to watch, although I can't recall which team won.

Saturday/Sunday - The return of D-E-V-O. I hadn't seen Devo since 1988 at Hammerjacks. To say I was excited was more than an understatement. Things started off a bit shaky, when their opening DVD didn't work. It was skipping and would progress past a certain point. After a few tries ("we must repeat...") they finally gave up and just started the show. The band itself did not disappoint. The Spuds can definitely still bring it. They only played 2 songs post-Freedom of Choice, which was fine by me (although I wouldn't have minded a few more from New Traditionalists). "Uncontrollable Urge", "Smart Patrol/Mr. DNA", "Satisfaction", "Girl U Want" and about 8 or so more early Devo classics. Terrific. The only disappointing aspect of the whole thing was that they only played for 1:05. Including the encore. $55 for a 1:05 show by a band with a sizable catalog is kind of lame. Had I known that ahead of time, I still would have gone, but I definitely wouldn't have gone to both shows. Lesson learned.

The only differences between Saturday and Sunday were the fact that they fixed the video for Sundays show and Saturday wasn't sold out. That made Saturday more comfortable, but Sunday's crowd was a lot more excited and into it.

Devo doesn't get enough credit for being a real band. When you mention Devo to most people, they just roll their eyes and mumble something about "Whip It" and flowerpot hats. (For the record, it's an "energy dome".) Devo is a real band that can f--king rock hard. They were playing bizarro-crazy-cutting-edge-rock before most bands that are now considered legendary. It's good to see they're still around and can still kick serious butt.

Most of Monday was spent in and around the pool. Very lazy day. Went to Fort Reno, but still managed to miss most of The Threads. Sometimes it's just too hard to get out of the pool. I liked what I heard though, and I'll make an effort to see them later. My current DC favorite Medications was up next. They certainly did not disappoint. They're just too damn good. The BF thought they were better here than at the Backstage show we saw a few weeks ago. I'm not sure I agree with that, but they still sounded great to me. The drummer is just amazing to watch. And, of course, I could look at Devin all day. The Mary Timony Band was good, as always, but after the Medications set it was hard to get excited for hers. I recommend Ex Hex though. Go buy it.

Both Medications and Mary Timony are at The Black Cat on 9/2. You should go.

Back to work today. Blech.

Metropolitan at Fort Reno on Thursday. It's the last Fort Reno show of the year. Should be a good one.

Are We Not Men?






I'm so excited I could just pee.

2 spud-tastic shows this weekend.

Devo @ 9:30. Sat/Sun

Tonight at The Birchmere:



The Knitters. X goes bluegrass. Check out their bio. Don't believe a word of it. Expect an X song or two. Probably a handful of country classics. See them while you can. They rarely tour and their two records were released 20 years apart.

And get to The Birchmere early. Phranc (everyone's favorite all-American-Jewish-lesbian-folksinging-Tupperware-Lady) is opening.



Update: The Knitters are also on Letterman tonight.

The Dolls were fantastic last night. Even though it was essentially the same set as the Philly show I saw, the DC show blew that one away. With such a small percentage of original members of a band that essentially imploded nearly 30 years ago, it would be easy to lump them into the "we're only in it for the money" crowd. Who knows. That may be the case. But they're not just going through the motions. They're kicking some serious ass. Songs like "Human Being", "Jet Boy", "Trash" and (of course) "Personality Crisis" had the club going nuts. There was even a bit of a mosh pit for the last half-hour or so. As I said yesterday, there's really no mind-blowing music here. Just fun, trashy rock and roll. Sometimes it's great to just get out there and rip it up. The Dolls did that in spades. If you missed it, you really missed-out.

Unwanted bit of knowledge from the evening: David was wearing pants so tight they would have embarrassed Robert Plant. He hangs to the right, if you care about that sort of thing.


Other stuff...



The second Burn To Shine dvd is going to be released on August 23. This second film features these Chicago-based bands:

Wilco, Shellac, Tortoise, Freakwater, Tight Phantomz, Pit er Pat, The Ponys, The Lonesome Organist, and the Red Eyed Legends.

I saw this a few months ago at The Warehouse. Very nice. From the Trixie site:

Burn to Shine is a film series produced by Fugazi's Brendan Canty and directed by film maker Christoph Green. ...

We travel from town to town and film bands performing in houses that are about to be demolished or burned to the ground. They document the doomed house, the bands, and the demolition, put it together in a 45 minute movie, put it out on DVD and move on to the next town. Each DVD/town has a different curator that is entrenched in the respective music scene and who can pick out what he or she considers their favorite bands. This allows us to put the bands in a geocentric context.

You can order it from the Trixie site. Go buy it.

New York Dolls

Tonight at 9:30.

So what if there are only two originals left and they're older than dirt. I guarantee a fun night of great rock and roll trash.

...and a single guitar lick can still make me cry.

Dear God,

The next time someone hits my car, please let me be there to witness it, so I can rip them from their vehicle and beat them until they're a limp, crying, bloody mess.


Amen.

WSC/Monopoli/Cartel last night at The Cat. The Black Cat is starting to get a well-deserved reputation for terrible sound. They really need to work on that. All 3 bands were good. My first time hearing Monopoli. My first impression is that they're a really good band, but not my thing. If they're opening for someone else in the future, I'd definitely head in early to see them again. Cartel was really good, except for the sound problems. I could barely hear the guitar and sometimes everything just sounded like mush. At first I thought they might be having an off night, but the other bands seemed to have the same issues, so I'll blame the sound guy.

WSC was good, as usual. Lots of new stuff. Apparently, their new record comes out in December. Not the best I've seen them, but even at their worst, they're a great time.

The Black Cat was crowded and crowded really early. That's great to see. Support your local bands. Thanks to John the bartender for setting me up all night. Be nice to your bartender and they'll take care of you.

The other night someone asked me what shows I had coming up and I drew a blank. I think I sputtered out Q and Not You in September and Devo later this month, but I just couldn't think of the others. Much to my surprise, I came home and checked my calendar, which looks like this:

8/ 8/05 City Goats Fort Reno
8/ 8/05 Del Cielo Black Cat Backstage
8/ 9/05 The Mesmers DC9
8/10/05 New York Dolls 9:30 Club
8/11/05 Olivia Mancini and the Spectacles DC9
8/12/05 The Knitters The Birchmere
8/13/05 Devo 9:30 Club
8/14/05 Devo 9:30 Club
8/15/05 Mary Timony/Medications/The Threads Fort Reno

And that's just next week. That's 9 shows in 8 days. Holy crap. Maybe if I didn't have a job and could sleep all day. Something's got to give. My guess is the City Goats and Mesmers are gonna have to wait. We'll see.

Baseball tonight. C'mon Nats - Get your stuff together.

.
.
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...I will lick your funky emotions."

from Mommy, What's A Funkadelic? - Funkadelic

Holy Crap! Why didn't anyone tell me about these? I've been waiting for someone to remaster the Funkadelic catalog for years.



I'm not exactly a sound-quality snob. I'm used to listening to Dead audience tapes that sound like they were recorded on a Walkman from the bathroom while the toilets were flushing. I can deal with less-than-perfect recordings. But the original releases of these CDs sound terrible. There are parts that just make me cringe, they were mastered so badly.

But they've apparently all been remastered. To make it even better, they've all got bonus tracks. The earlier releases have quite a few extras, but the later releases seem to only have one extra track. Oh well. I'm sure the upgraded sound quality makes them worthwhile on their own. The earlier releases (Funkadelic, Maggot Brain and Free Your Mind) should be at the top of your list anyway.

To me, Funkadelic completely epitomizes Soul music. Not R&B. Not Funk (although they are quite funky). But SOUL. You can't help but shake your ass while you listen to it. It's got a groove that gets inside you and makes you wanna move. It makes you wanna move in some not-so-werk-safe ways. It's sexy as all hell. Then it turns on a dime and starts to rock hard. Ripping guitars that turn the whole thing into a party.

Everyone should have at least one Funkadelic album. Go buy one.

It's called Funkadelic Music.....It'll blow your funky mind.

I Got A Thing, You Got A Thing, Everybody's Got A Thing
Hit In And Quit It
Good To Your Earhole


mp3s are for evaluation purposes only. They're only up for a week or so. If you like what you hear, go out and buy something by the artist.

This is going to be a great show. Not to be missed. Get there early. Cartel is really good.

C'mon - It's on a Friday. Go out and have some fun.

Washington Social Club
Monopoli
Cartel

Black Cat

I woke up cranky as hell this morning. Within 10 minutes of getting to the office, I could tell the day wasn't going to get any better. So I just said the hell with it. I'm leaving early. I told my boss I needed the afternoon off. I was out of there at 1:00pm exactly.

A spiffy new haircut, a trip to Tower , a lunch consisting of only things-that-are-fried and I'm already in a better mood. Top that off with a package from Amazon at my door, a fine episode of Match Game and an all-too-rare hour of time to myself and things are much, much better.

Things that make me happy today:

Ted Leo & The Pharmacists: Tell Balgeary, Balgury Is Dead
The Knitters: The Modern Sounds Of The Knitters
The Shangri-Las: The Best of the Shangri-Las (one of those 20th Century Masters collections)
The Grateful Dead: Truckin' Up To Buffalo
The National: Alligator
Amusement Parks On Fire: s/t


Maybe I'll take tomorrow off too.