Weekend Report, October 8-10, 2010
I've got it in my head that I want to blog on a more regular schedule, so I'm going to try to show up here on Mondays so I can tell the internets How I Spent My Weekend.
This weekend was a bit odd because where I usually spend Sunday recovering from what I did on Friday and Saturday, this time around I made sure to have a low-key Friday and Saturday because I knew rest would not be an option come Sunday. I've become intimately familiar with my limitations in terms of how much stimulation I can take before I burn myself out, so I paced myself accordingly.
Friday, I didn't even go out. (Gasp!) I had a few options, but instead decided to stay home and watch back episodes of Obscurus Lupa Presents. I feel a little better about this than I might otherwise because it was a deliberate choice and not some slouchy default.
Saturday didn't even have any decent bands playing that I was aware of, so instead I decided to go out and see Catfish, a movie I wanted to see before it either vanished from theaters or the internets gave away the ending. All I will say here is that I do highly recommend it and it is best if you know as little as possible about it before you see it. I may do a more spoiler-heavy post about it in a different entry.
Sunday was Drive Invasion at the Starlight Drive-In, which I haven't been able to attend for several years running because it was the same weekend as Dragon*Con. This year, they decided to move it to Columbus Day weekend (so at least folks working for banks and governments get Monday to recover) so after the usual Sunday morning family time, I headed down to the Drive-In with nothing but a 3-liter bottle of water to sustain me. I parked at roughly the first space I could find, since it was just me and soon made friends with some nice guys a few spaces away from me, who invited me to partake of the beer, grilled meat and other fine consumables they had brought.
The music was on two stages--a main stage set up by the snack bar (where bands usually play at shows like this) and a smaller stage set up just across the way. This allowed them to alternate between the stages with minimal downtime, since breakdown and setup could take place on one stage while a band played on the other. The smaller stage was known as the Trader Vic's stage and had a lovely little tiki bar set up just next to it where they were dispensing a pineappley rum punch. There was also sturdy metal outdoor furniture to lounge on and I spent quite a bit of my day there, meeting all kinds of cool people and even making a new Facebook friend.
My highly subjective impressions of the bands in order of appearance:
The Atomic Rockets - Straight-up rockabilly and a fine start to the day. Those kids were pretty lucky, if you ask me--they got their gig over with early, pulled an appreciative crowd of early arrivals and overnight campers, and had the rest of the day to enjoy the show.
Ghost Riders Car Club - Bit too country for my taste, so I overheard more than listened to. This is about the point where I wandered off to the car to put on sunscreen and got to meet my neighbors.
The Biters - Somewhere in the middle of being engrossed in a conversation with a cool guy who makes his own moonshine and works in the movies, he paused for a bit and said "hey, this band that's playing is really good" and I realized that The Biters had started playing. I promptly excused myself and went to the stage. They do rock in many rocklike ways and I'm a hopeless sucker for cute boys with cool haircuts.
The Psycho Devilles - Another round of straight-up rockabilly, with snappier dressers and OMG THAT GUY JUST SET HIS STAND-UP BASS ON FIRE!
The Booze - The last time I saw them, I thought they were Not Bad But Not Brilliant but they worked their way up Holy Crap Check These Guys Out when I wasn't looking. Very, very Stones-y, in the best possible way.
Gargantua - A little too metal for my taste, so it was a fine time to go and have lunch.
By about this point, it was late in the afternoon and the weight of the day was starting to bear down on me. I really wanted to be standing for the Forty-Fives, which basically means that the next several acts were spent either slouching at my neighbor's encampment or slouching in the Trader Vic's bar, overhearing things. So, apologies to Tiger! Tiger!, The Cynics and Grinder Nova for not paying adequate attention this time around. (No apologies to The Fleshtones, though, for reasons we'll not get into right now.)
The Forty-Fives - One of my favoritest local ass-kicking garage rock bands and I'm glad to see that they've been working on some new things instead of hashing over the same old songs.
After that, I felt that the night couldn't get any better. I'm not a particularly rabid fan of the headliner Jason and the Scorchers and I figured I could sneak out and not feel like I was missing anything. Unfortunately, the gate I'm used to exiting out of was locked, so I lingered until the end of the music and the start of the movies before I figured out that there was another way out of the theater. I felt a bit weird about leaving early until it hit me that I'd been there for TEN HOURS so I'm pretty sure I got my money's worth. I was home by ten o'clock and in bed by ten-fifteen.
Today has been devoted to recovery and housecleaning, which I should probably get back to now.
Today I took pleasure in lathering my legs in order to shave them.
Today I learned that we may be seeing quite a few renditions of Band on the Run on YouTube.
This weekend was a bit odd because where I usually spend Sunday recovering from what I did on Friday and Saturday, this time around I made sure to have a low-key Friday and Saturday because I knew rest would not be an option come Sunday. I've become intimately familiar with my limitations in terms of how much stimulation I can take before I burn myself out, so I paced myself accordingly.
Friday, I didn't even go out. (Gasp!) I had a few options, but instead decided to stay home and watch back episodes of Obscurus Lupa Presents. I feel a little better about this than I might otherwise because it was a deliberate choice and not some slouchy default.
Saturday didn't even have any decent bands playing that I was aware of, so instead I decided to go out and see Catfish, a movie I wanted to see before it either vanished from theaters or the internets gave away the ending. All I will say here is that I do highly recommend it and it is best if you know as little as possible about it before you see it. I may do a more spoiler-heavy post about it in a different entry.
Sunday was Drive Invasion at the Starlight Drive-In, which I haven't been able to attend for several years running because it was the same weekend as Dragon*Con. This year, they decided to move it to Columbus Day weekend (so at least folks working for banks and governments get Monday to recover) so after the usual Sunday morning family time, I headed down to the Drive-In with nothing but a 3-liter bottle of water to sustain me. I parked at roughly the first space I could find, since it was just me and soon made friends with some nice guys a few spaces away from me, who invited me to partake of the beer, grilled meat and other fine consumables they had brought.
The music was on two stages--a main stage set up by the snack bar (where bands usually play at shows like this) and a smaller stage set up just across the way. This allowed them to alternate between the stages with minimal downtime, since breakdown and setup could take place on one stage while a band played on the other. The smaller stage was known as the Trader Vic's stage and had a lovely little tiki bar set up just next to it where they were dispensing a pineappley rum punch. There was also sturdy metal outdoor furniture to lounge on and I spent quite a bit of my day there, meeting all kinds of cool people and even making a new Facebook friend.
My highly subjective impressions of the bands in order of appearance:
The Atomic Rockets - Straight-up rockabilly and a fine start to the day. Those kids were pretty lucky, if you ask me--they got their gig over with early, pulled an appreciative crowd of early arrivals and overnight campers, and had the rest of the day to enjoy the show.
Ghost Riders Car Club - Bit too country for my taste, so I overheard more than listened to. This is about the point where I wandered off to the car to put on sunscreen and got to meet my neighbors.
The Biters - Somewhere in the middle of being engrossed in a conversation with a cool guy who makes his own moonshine and works in the movies, he paused for a bit and said "hey, this band that's playing is really good" and I realized that The Biters had started playing. I promptly excused myself and went to the stage. They do rock in many rocklike ways and I'm a hopeless sucker for cute boys with cool haircuts.
The Psycho Devilles - Another round of straight-up rockabilly, with snappier dressers and OMG THAT GUY JUST SET HIS STAND-UP BASS ON FIRE!
The Booze - The last time I saw them, I thought they were Not Bad But Not Brilliant but they worked their way up Holy Crap Check These Guys Out when I wasn't looking. Very, very Stones-y, in the best possible way.
Gargantua - A little too metal for my taste, so it was a fine time to go and have lunch.
By about this point, it was late in the afternoon and the weight of the day was starting to bear down on me. I really wanted to be standing for the Forty-Fives, which basically means that the next several acts were spent either slouching at my neighbor's encampment or slouching in the Trader Vic's bar, overhearing things. So, apologies to Tiger! Tiger!, The Cynics and Grinder Nova for not paying adequate attention this time around. (No apologies to The Fleshtones, though, for reasons we'll not get into right now.)
The Forty-Fives - One of my favoritest local ass-kicking garage rock bands and I'm glad to see that they've been working on some new things instead of hashing over the same old songs.
After that, I felt that the night couldn't get any better. I'm not a particularly rabid fan of the headliner Jason and the Scorchers and I figured I could sneak out and not feel like I was missing anything. Unfortunately, the gate I'm used to exiting out of was locked, so I lingered until the end of the music and the start of the movies before I figured out that there was another way out of the theater. I felt a bit weird about leaving early until it hit me that I'd been there for TEN HOURS so I'm pretty sure I got my money's worth. I was home by ten o'clock and in bed by ten-fifteen.
Today has been devoted to recovery and housecleaning, which I should probably get back to now.
Today I took pleasure in lathering my legs in order to shave them.
Today I learned that we may be seeing quite a few renditions of Band on the Run on YouTube.