Dumbek's Random Stuff

I never hung out at dc space. I remember going to a poetry reading there once. I think I saw 9353 there, but I'm not even sure about that. Being a kid from the far-reaching dc-burbs, I rarely ventured into the city for bands I wasn't familiar with. If they weren't big enough to play the old 9:30 Club, word-of-mouth rarely reached the depths of southern Maryland and I missed them.

Based on what I saw Sunday, I missed a hell of a lot. The music was great. The non-musical acts were interesting. The crowd was fun. You couldn't walk 5 feet without running into someone from an old band. It made me realize how much great stuff I missed back then, but it also reminded me how much I was lucky to see.

Before I completely forget, here are some scattered thoughts about the dc space reunion show.

Heavy Metal Picnic is no Heavy Metal Parking Lot, but it's hilarious in its own disturbing way.


The magician did the old "think of a playing card and I'll guess what it is" trick. In my head I chose the 7-of-diamonds. The girl on stage chose the 7-of-diamonds. My friend leans over to me and says "Holy Sh-t. That's the card I picked!" The magician, of course, had the 7-of-diamonds in his hand. Yikes.

I love The Beatnik Flies. I love Mark Noone. Seeing them play together was a blast. So much fun. The Beatnik Flies still play every now and then. I need to make more of an effort to catch them. One BF song. Two Slickees songs. I wish we could have heard more from both.


I don't care who you are. I don't care how good you think your band is. You never, EVER want to follow Chuck Brown. The man can do more in 10 minutes than most folks could hope for in a lifetime. A-may-zing. Everybody in this town loves Chuck. Everybody.

Rustbuckit is turning into a hot little band. Where's that record, Boyd?

Tiny Desk Unit was interesting. They're a trio, but one member is out on the west coast. They played a new song "Toast and Chalk" with the guitarist coming in via the internet and with videos of him playing behind the other two. There seemed to be a few technical difficulties, but they pulled it off. Sometimes the beauty of experimentation is that things don't always go perfectly. You can see their whole performance here. They also have a new cd out. It looks like you can download the whole thing. I haven't heard it all yet, but so far I'm digging it.

Esmirelda has quite the potty-mouth. She's a hoot though.

There was...ummm...a guy in a trash bag, slowly breaking free, wearing nothing but a thong, who eventually escaped, got dressed and left. All-righty then.



9353 was fantastic. Easily one of my favorite old DC bands. There's nothing else like them. It sounds like they may be back. I hope so. The crowd ate them up. You could tell they were the band most folks were waiting for. So good. So creepy. So perfect.

Ottley was next and was really impressive. Any time I can see Martha belt out "Put A Bullet Through The Jukebox" I'm all over it. They're playing with Rustbuckit at Velvet Lounge later this month. Don't miss it.

I think I have a small crush on Jenny Toomey. Me and everyone else.


A fantastic night. I wish I could have seen everything that happened before I got there (it ran from 4pm-almost 2am), but there's no way I could have survived that. Considering the number of acts I can't really complain about them running about an hour late. It was worth being tired most of the week.

There are a few more craptastic pictures on my flickr page. They all suck though. drunk+tired+camera rarely yields good results.