Let's Get Known (If We Try Real Hard We Can Buy Some Matching Clothes)
Last night I saw Islands, Magic, and Street Carnage with David Blair, Hadley, Bill, and Clare. The show was most excellent although we had to leave early. However, there were some interesting events leading up to the show. At about 3 I got a call from Mike F who wanted to drop by because his house was full of relatives. We ended up discussing nationalism and religion, I can't understand his viewpoint that nationalism is a good thing because it gives people pride in themselves. I might like who I am but it has nothing to do with being an American or my heritage, my family was shipped here for being criminals and I'm not descended from any groups that have a particular sense of national pride, however we are amazing at bloody, pointless, civil wars. Mike being Ethiopian, has something to be proud of: his people never were subjugated by a European power and drove out the Italians. Being part of a culture that never bowed down to outsiders is something that really could inspire pride.
While I was hanging out with Mike, Mims called and said she couldn't make the show because she had to prepare for her SMP, something I've been laying off, I've only read 40 or so pages of Being & Nothingness this summer. Because I was originally getting a ride to the metro from her I got a ride from Mike to the metro and dropped by my job to find out next week's schedule isn't up yet so I have no idea if I can do various things next week. Because this freed up a lot of time I figured I'd get to the show a bit early because I didn't pre-order a ticket. I especially wanted to get there a bit early because the Red line SUCKS really hard and transferring to the Green/Yellow line usually takes awhile (I remember waiting upwards of 45 minutes to get home just sitting at Fort Totten when I lived in College Park). There was a minor miracle and I managed to get to U-Street/Cardoza after maybe 30 minutes tops. This made me about an 2 hours before gates were supposed to open (8:00 pm), the club wasn't open and there was no line, I was literally alone standing in front of the Black Cat.
Because everyone I knew that was going to the show was still en route I wandered in a circle and read the Onion while sitting at various bus stops. About 45 minutes before the doors were supposed to open, there were two high school scenester chicks forming a line, so I decided to get spot 3 in the line for when everyone else arrived and sat against the wall chain smoking. As the line began to fill I started to feel really out of place (I can't stand scenesters even if I vaguely kind of am one). So I sent David frantic texts such as:
"I forgot how much I hate indie kids/white people in general" and "I'm the only white belt kid? I feel defensive & want to headbutt someone." Bill and Clare then showed up and we started talking about a BBQ for Bills birthday next week. Because the onion suggested it, I talked about how we could make a frozen vodka watermelon, only since there is no room in our freezer it would be a lukewarm vodka watermelon. Then David and Hadley showed up and we all kind of talked about nothing in particular and finally 45 minutes after the door was supposed to open we all bought or picked up our tickets and got our hands stamped.
Street Carnage was the first act, which is probably the best description for them because they didn't play music at all, the first part was the guy from Street Boners showing us photos of do's and don'ts and mocking people he took pictures of around NYC and it was pretty funny (this is already way to long, so I'm not going to quote any of his stuff). TV Carnage the other half of the act, was slightly less funny, but made a pretty entertaining rant about pot and how he cuts bad TV into these weird short clips. The website for Street Carnage is http://www.streetbonersandtvcarnage.com/ and it is pretty amusing.
The next band the Magic kind of sucked and we devoted their entire set to making fun of them. When they took/filled the stage we all kind of realized that this was going to be some sort of 80s revival thing, however this snatch of conversation kind of sums it up:
Me: They sound like you put the 80s in a blender and set it to "whip it"
David: or suck
The lead singer kind of looked like Ryan Hart from an alternate universe where he didn't love A&F and claiming that Bond is metro (total lie) but instead devoted himself to band uniforms and making music that sounds like some sort of condensed 80s, or one of those 80s cd collections that you see on TV where they pair Poison's "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" with Devo, "Karma Chameleon," and other totally unrelated artists that happen to have existed in the same decade. At best I could see ironically liking them because they just seem like an elaborate hipster joke, only everyone in the band was SUPER SRS about it. We took frequent smoke breaks and so here is a sort of "best of" our mocking their band*.
Clare: "The lead singers (outside of bizzaro Ryan Hart there was some chick who kind of sang and kind of did the most lackluster stage dancing ever) should go form a synth band and hang out in the corner where no one has to see them and the rest of them should go form a real band"
David: "They sound like Television meets the Partridge Family"
Bill: "RIP OFF MONSTER BALLADS DAMNIT!"
Me**: Is this when we Wang Chung? Guys how do I Wang Chung Tonight???
We then kind of all realized that it was almost 11pm and the metro closes at 11:52 from the station nearest to us, and since no one drove there we all had to leave pretty soon even thought Islands hadn't taken the stage yet (although Bill purchased a bitchin' Islands teeshirt). Thankfully a little after 11 they took the stage and were pretty much inscrutably awesome, they had all the best elements of the Unicorns (making me wish to dance around happily, bubble-gum guitar sounds, Diamonds singing) and of the Arcade Fire (longer songs, neat rhythm section, pace changes). I sort of danced around and was really happy, even if I was going to leave. Since this was an AWESOME band I can't really bring myself to criticize anything (which means I can't write as much) and I don't really know any Islands songs (so I can't say how well they performed any). But even if I only saw about 30 minutes of their set they were awesome and made me ridiculously bubbly and happy for the rest of the evening.
After the show we all met up at Tastee Diner in Silver Spring (and grabbed an unexpected Gregor on the way). Which was uneventful but nice, although I feel horrible that I accidentally kind of faux pased like no ones business by telling Mims how great the show was even though she wanted to go but couldn't and then felt pretty awful about myself for most of the time we were eating. Also I was too broke to pay her back for lunch when we visited KT (which I will probably post about later along with my epic long post that covers everything from Rolling to Senior Week/moving in to my current digs) because I had fallen in love with Islands and just "had" to purchase an Islands shirt because I'm a sucker for band merch.
~ RH
* I'm not sure if these quotes are word-for-word accurate, but they contain the general gist of everything, also none of these people read my journal so they can't call me out on any inaccuracies.
** Yes I am a narcissist but can you blame me?
While I was hanging out with Mike, Mims called and said she couldn't make the show because she had to prepare for her SMP, something I've been laying off, I've only read 40 or so pages of Being & Nothingness this summer. Because I was originally getting a ride to the metro from her I got a ride from Mike to the metro and dropped by my job to find out next week's schedule isn't up yet so I have no idea if I can do various things next week. Because this freed up a lot of time I figured I'd get to the show a bit early because I didn't pre-order a ticket. I especially wanted to get there a bit early because the Red line SUCKS really hard and transferring to the Green/Yellow line usually takes awhile (I remember waiting upwards of 45 minutes to get home just sitting at Fort Totten when I lived in College Park). There was a minor miracle and I managed to get to U-Street/Cardoza after maybe 30 minutes tops. This made me about an 2 hours before gates were supposed to open (8:00 pm), the club wasn't open and there was no line, I was literally alone standing in front of the Black Cat.
Because everyone I knew that was going to the show was still en route I wandered in a circle and read the Onion while sitting at various bus stops. About 45 minutes before the doors were supposed to open, there were two high school scenester chicks forming a line, so I decided to get spot 3 in the line for when everyone else arrived and sat against the wall chain smoking. As the line began to fill I started to feel really out of place (I can't stand scenesters even if I vaguely kind of am one). So I sent David frantic texts such as:
"I forgot how much I hate indie kids/white people in general" and "I'm the only white belt kid? I feel defensive & want to headbutt someone." Bill and Clare then showed up and we started talking about a BBQ for Bills birthday next week. Because the onion suggested it, I talked about how we could make a frozen vodka watermelon, only since there is no room in our freezer it would be a lukewarm vodka watermelon. Then David and Hadley showed up and we all kind of talked about nothing in particular and finally 45 minutes after the door was supposed to open we all bought or picked up our tickets and got our hands stamped.
Street Carnage was the first act, which is probably the best description for them because they didn't play music at all, the first part was the guy from Street Boners showing us photos of do's and don'ts and mocking people he took pictures of around NYC and it was pretty funny (this is already way to long, so I'm not going to quote any of his stuff). TV Carnage the other half of the act, was slightly less funny, but made a pretty entertaining rant about pot and how he cuts bad TV into these weird short clips. The website for Street Carnage is http://www.streetbonersandtvcarnage.com/ and it is pretty amusing.
The next band the Magic kind of sucked and we devoted their entire set to making fun of them. When they took/filled the stage we all kind of realized that this was going to be some sort of 80s revival thing, however this snatch of conversation kind of sums it up:
Me: They sound like you put the 80s in a blender and set it to "whip it"
David: or suck
The lead singer kind of looked like Ryan Hart from an alternate universe where he didn't love A&F and claiming that Bond is metro (total lie) but instead devoted himself to band uniforms and making music that sounds like some sort of condensed 80s, or one of those 80s cd collections that you see on TV where they pair Poison's "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" with Devo, "Karma Chameleon," and other totally unrelated artists that happen to have existed in the same decade. At best I could see ironically liking them because they just seem like an elaborate hipster joke, only everyone in the band was SUPER SRS about it. We took frequent smoke breaks and so here is a sort of "best of" our mocking their band*.
Clare: "The lead singers (outside of bizzaro Ryan Hart there was some chick who kind of sang and kind of did the most lackluster stage dancing ever) should go form a synth band and hang out in the corner where no one has to see them and the rest of them should go form a real band"
David: "They sound like Television meets the Partridge Family"
Bill: "RIP OFF MONSTER BALLADS DAMNIT!"
Me**: Is this when we Wang Chung? Guys how do I Wang Chung Tonight???
We then kind of all realized that it was almost 11pm and the metro closes at 11:52 from the station nearest to us, and since no one drove there we all had to leave pretty soon even thought Islands hadn't taken the stage yet (although Bill purchased a bitchin' Islands teeshirt). Thankfully a little after 11 they took the stage and were pretty much inscrutably awesome, they had all the best elements of the Unicorns (making me wish to dance around happily, bubble-gum guitar sounds, Diamonds singing) and of the Arcade Fire (longer songs, neat rhythm section, pace changes). I sort of danced around and was really happy, even if I was going to leave. Since this was an AWESOME band I can't really bring myself to criticize anything (which means I can't write as much) and I don't really know any Islands songs (so I can't say how well they performed any). But even if I only saw about 30 minutes of their set they were awesome and made me ridiculously bubbly and happy for the rest of the evening.
After the show we all met up at Tastee Diner in Silver Spring (and grabbed an unexpected Gregor on the way). Which was uneventful but nice, although I feel horrible that I accidentally kind of faux pased like no ones business by telling Mims how great the show was even though she wanted to go but couldn't and then felt pretty awful about myself for most of the time we were eating. Also I was too broke to pay her back for lunch when we visited KT (which I will probably post about later along with my epic long post that covers everything from Rolling to Senior Week/moving in to my current digs) because I had fallen in love with Islands and just "had" to purchase an Islands shirt because I'm a sucker for band merch.
~ RH
* I'm not sure if these quotes are word-for-word accurate, but they contain the general gist of everything, also none of these people read my journal so they can't call me out on any inaccuracies.
** Yes I am a narcissist but can you blame me?