Dumbek's Random Stuff

This is the best thing I've heard all week.

According to Billboard, the Kirkwood brothers are reuniting for a new Meat Puppets record. It's been over 10 years since they've recorded together, even though Curt toured without Cris under the Puppets' moniker since then. But nothing they did matched what they put out when both brothers were in the band. Quoting the article from Billboard, Curt describes the new songs as "... epic. It's big Meat Puppets stuff. I would say 'sonic pyramids made out of garbage.'" drool

Tour to follow.

April 22 is Earth Day.





It also happens to be my mom's birthday. Happy Birthday , Mom!

I recently remembered that I have an account over at dimeadozen - a bit-torrent-based site for sharing live music. I'm starting to fall back into the habit of downloading music faster than I can listen to it. But hey - I can think of worse habits to have. At least it's free.

One of the recent shows I downloaded was this short, early B-52's set. It's from a radio broadcast in Amsterdam, dated 2-15-80. It's interesting to hear them introduce a song as popular as "Private Idaho" and get virtually no response from the crowd.

The B's don't get enough respect. At one time they were a kick-ass party band. I have a not-so-secret crush on Cindy. Kate seems to get all the attention, but it's Cindy who has my heart. Top 10 Dumbek concert moment: Seeing the B's at the 40 Watt in Athens, standing about 5 feet from Cindy playing bongos and singing "Give Me Back My Man." swoon.


2-15-80 Amsterdam

Devil In My Car
Hero Worship (go Cindy!)
Lava
There's A Moon In The Sky
Rock Lobster
Private Idaho


photo taken from here

France's Last Call Records has recently re-released a couple of hard-to-find Slickee Boys cds. Fashionably Late and Live At Last are now available as a mid-priced 2-disc set.

Unfortunately, there's no mention of remastering, no bonus tracks, the original artwork is restricted to a less-than-1-inch square on the back and the liner notes suck. Still - it beats paying $40+ on Ebay for each of the original cds.

I don't know much about Last Call. Their website is in French, so that doesn't help. There's a lot of New Rose info there though. I wonder if they have access to New Rose's back catalog? The Slickees were on New Rose for distribution in Europe, so that could make sense.


Anyway - You can get this cd from Amazon, but they only have a few copies left. I'd suggest you pick this up while you can.

Disconnected (live) - How can you not love a song that name-checks People's Drug Store?
Jailbait Janet (live)
Sleepless Nights

A couple weeks ago, while on a vinyl binge at Joe's, I came across a DVD for this documentary called Heavy Metal Parking Lot. The concept is simple. It's a video of a bunch of people tailgating at a concert. The results are nothing short of hysterical. These 2 guys tape a bunch of teenagers outside of the Capital Centre on 5/31/86 at a Judas Priest show. Come see mid-80's Maryland's white-trash finest. Loud, f*$%ed-up and ready to ROCK! And the hair....Oh, the hair.

They used to show this video at the old 9:30 Club periodically. It had to be late 80's or very early 90's. I nearly fell over laughing the first time I saw it. Apparently, it's become quite the cult classic. It was so perfect. If you grew up in this area, you'd been in that exact setting many times. You've tailgated in that parking lot. You knew these people. You may have actually been one of these people. If my high school yearbook came to life, this is pretty much what it would look like.

On a more sentimental note, it's nice to see the old Cap Centre again. A lot of people hated it, but it was always good to me. It was nice to see the old logos, signs and entrances. So many memories there. One of the bonus features shows the old building imploding. Kinda sad.

This must be a pretty limited release - Amazon shows it as "not yet released" - although it appears to have been out for a few months. If you can track it down, it's worth picking up. But, lucky for you, it looks like you can stream the whole thing at the producer's website here (click on the "Heavy Metal Parking Lot" link on the left.) It's only 15 minutes long. Well worth your time - especially if you grew up going to shows at the Capital Centre. Trust me.

Update: A commentor says you can get the DVD from FilmBaby. The comment also points to what looks like could be an official website.

Shocking, I know, but we'll be at Blowoff tonight. Duh.

I don't know much about Ladytron. I have the new cd and it kind of bores me. I can't listen to it without thinking that they sound just like Book of Love with a bit of Kraftwerk thrown in. But a good friend of mine from college said I should go check them out, so I went to their 9:30 gig last night. Much to my surprise, I discovered Ladytron is a real band. Drums, guitar, bass and (more than several) keyboards. They sounded pretty good, but after a few songs I found myself getting bored. All the songs started to sound the same. Moody, keyboard-based upbeat song. Moody, keyboard-based mid-tempo song. Repeat. They were much better than I expected, but it was still pretty dull.

I think a big part of the problem was that there was no room to dance. A sold-out 9:30 gig doesn't really leave much room to move. I'll bet it there were a few hundred fewer people there, the place would've been rockin'. As it was, there was very little choice but to stand still and stare straight ahead while they played. And let's face it - they're not the most exciting band to watch. The crowd had thinned-out a bit by the encores and people started getting into it. The last 4 songs were easily the highlight of the night.

They were better than I expected, but they still left me a little cold. I'll have to go back and try the cd a few more times. Maybe something will click.

I thought I had another bout of food poisoning, but everyone I've talked to is saying "that's been going around." 24-hours - sick as a dog. Then next 24 just feeling drained. I'm at about 80% today - I can live with that. Back to work today.

Ugh.

Luckily, I squeezed in the Art Brut show just before things started falling apart. I ended up sitting at the bar drinking water all night. I knew something wasn't quite right. Fantastic show though. Non-stop rockin' fun. "Ready, Art Brut?" I may actually download their record (that'll be a first for me.) $15 for a cd purchased at a show is a little too steep for me. I did walk out with a few Rogers Sisters 7"s though. Vinyl rules.

God Bless YouTube.

Baltimore's Two If By Sea is playing a month of Thursdays at DC9 starting tomorrow. There's no reason these guys shouldn't be talked about as much as Editors, We Are Scientists, Bloc Party and the like. Lots of 80's post-punk/dance influences without sounding like a lame imitation. They'll rock. You'll dance. Everybody wins.

Check out their myspace page for a few tracks.

www.yesterdayandtodayrecords.com
and

www.yesterdayandtoday.com


are not the same place.

(blatantly copied from Yahoo!)

Late Grateful Dead Leader's Toilet Stolen

SONOMA, California - The long, strange trip continues for Jerry Garcia's toilet. Police say the Grateful Dead leader's commode was stolen recently from a driveway along with three other toilets and a bidet, The Press Democrat newspaper reported Saturday.

Garcia's salmon-colored toilet was the subject of a legal battle before it was finally moved to Sonoma, to await shipment to a Canadian casino. (goldenpalace.com)

It's unclear if the toilet was swiped by a wayward Deadhead or a thief remodeling a bathroom. Police have no suspects or leads.

Henry Koltys bought Garcia's Marin County home for $1.39 million in 1997 and removed the toilet and other items he planned to sell to raise money for a charity.

(follow the link above for the rest of the article)

This is the same toilet that was recently auctioned on Ebay.

Insert goldenpalace/toilet joke here.

There's this site called ValseHot that has all kinds of great live music videos. I don't really know what the focus of the site is (it's written in some Asian language), but there seems to be a heavy emphasis on DC bands.

There are lots of pics and record reviews, but more importantly there are tons of videos. Clips from the likes of Beauty Pill, del cielo, The Evens, The Factory Incident, Weird War, Travis Morrison, Medications (pictured) and a ton more. The sound quality is a bit shaky, but it's a great collection of clips.

Check it out.

The original 4-man line-up of R.E.M. reunited at a recent Minus 5 gig in Athens. Buck has been touring with the Minus 5 and Scott McCaughey has been helping R.E.M. both in the studio and on the road for years. It's not very surprising to find Michael and Mike in the crowd. I don't think a lot of people expected Bill Berry to show up though. I'll bet even fewer expected all 4 to get up on stage and play "Country Feedback".

There are some pics here and here. Note how they change the lineup for this song, with Berry playing bass and Mills on keyboards.

This isn't a recording from the reunion, but it's another nice live recording of "Country Feedback" taken from the "Later with Jools Holland" show on the BBC back in '98. Beautiful.

It's crazy what you could have had
It's crazy what you could have had
I need this
I NEED THIS


(photo from www.remhq.com)