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In between fluffernutters tonight, I had time to create the literary/literal blog addendum to this here Sundae, Jukebox Dive. There you will find, to your bemusement and delight, a collection of some of my best collegiate efforts, and even some excerpts that will be in my first novel. Enjoy, critique, ponder.

The Drug War

Pictures of the Brian Jonestown Massacre will be forthcoming, pending the discovery of my camera-to-computer cord, but don't get too wet in the pants because as I recall, I had shitty angles and bad aperture settings. Arghf. In any case, perhaps the description shows a thousand pictures. I rolled up hazily to the 9:30 Club to get the tickets at Will Call, and had to practically step over the prostrated bodies of two youths gunned in the face over a bad drug deal. (Oh, U St. Corridor. When will you be perfectly gentrified?) My madman friend Neil joined me, but his so looked forward to concert experience was marred when he was excused from the premises for blowing one lone toke over the crowd during an ebullient rise in the music. Meanwhile, an old friend of mine was intent on introducing me to Joel Gion and Newcomb's lovely Welsh wife, Kate. He texted me, "Enjoy the show, do your thing. Over some weed--jesus." Indeed. I'm sure it's laughable to anyone in NYC or SFC that in D.C. you can still get busted for tokin' a smoke at a perfectly psychedelic concert. But the crowd was older--the I-Graduated-From-High-School-In-'89 crowd still haunting the Velvet Lounge and Asylums of Northwest. It was a great vibe. Everyone was totally chilled out, the bar was empty and entirely approachable. (You win this time, AA.) On the way in, the chick asked to look in my bag. My paraphernalia was well-hidden, but she asked about my small black Sephora drawstring bag which contained my bottle of legit antidepressants label intact, and unfortunately still an unlabeled bottle of Blue Dragon, stripped of its label since I lost a similarly precious prescription bottle on the ground outside a 711, and so some lucky fuck knows my name, address and phone number. But when she asked to verify the name on the bottle with the name on my ID I freaked temporarily, preparing to part with the magical purple bud. Whew, I just squeaked through.

I thought about what Newcomb would have said about the fact that two poor assholes get their faces blown off for crack or yeyo and all the cops have to do is crouch down and clean it up, while I provide government record of the various coping methods I've found to ease the anxiety of walking down a street covered in rats and crackheads. And actually, it's not even so much the crackheads and dog-sized rodents that really makes the hair stand on end, but the people who walk by and pretend to help you when you fall and break your leg, only to steal your last bottle of Vicodin to get ripped with some Grey Goose later. Or the dude who buddies up to your boyfriend to try to lock you in a bathroom. But then I remember Newcomb's miles away from all this bullshit. He's had his time, but he's sober now and crystal-clear according to a January interview for London-based webzine SUPERSWEET, in which he concludes:

A lot of clever people are completely overwhelmed. This stuff keeps happening, such as the Pakistani earthquakes. I was thinking that you could have really light, bomb shaped objects, breakable plastic, load that up and fly low and drop it, you can mobilise an insane amount to them. But I don’t like getting into the politics, because it’s bad form while I’m here, sitting in a hotel living room. My concern is that, when the fatigue sets in, when we stop worrying about it.

As Nietzsche said, politics is the prostitution of the intellect. And that's why I'm getting out of D.C. Soon. Soon.

Take me, Vice Records, my palms are moist for you.

Summer Madness

June first, D.C. hits a Code Orange index for air quality. This means you're showering three times a day, and all attempts at elegance are thwarted by sweat drenchings. Yucko. But as the crazies hit Capitol City, it seems appropriate to focus on the nature of madness. In preparation for the concert at the 9:30 Club tomorrow night, I did a bit of research on the influences of the Brian Jonestown Massacre.

BJM took me by surprise one afternoon riding shotgun with my friend and fellow writer Neil Defalco, and I immediately demanded to know who it was. It's a familiar, San Francisco sound, circular in sensibility, tortured voice and enigmatic lyrics overtop. The psychedelic sound amongst eight musicians, one of whom, the founder Anton Newcomb, seems taken with something behind the personage of one Charles Manson. But he's definitely not the first rock star to be fascinated with mass manipulators. If we recall Pink Floyd, we remember the allusions to Hitler, and Churchill, and the general distrust of those who seem to influence the air we breathe. Manson is probably part Lenin part Woody Guthrie, for his nature of common man, travelin' minstrel slash pimp slash hereditary criminal. The combination sounds crazy, and maybe that's why he's crazy. But at the same time is pretty bullshit-free.

BJM did a reworking of Manson's song "Arkansas," called "Arkansas Revisited." Maintains much of that train-hopping feel I compared to Woody Guthrie.

He was at worst a monster and at best an opportunist, but wherever his morality lies, for certain Manson is of vital importance to the twentieth century, perhaps only for the way he harnessed the dark side of the Movement, drawing in absolutely everyone including Beach Boy Dennis Wilson. He had to have been a pretty likeable or interesting character for charming so many into his cause. And yet he had no illusions about whether or not he was a "smart man." He claims he isn't in the interview, and it's true he has no education, and he grew up and kept low-brow company his whole life. (Pimping in your early twenties=low-brow). There are those (perhaps Newcomb included) who still like to argue that no one that dumb could have been that manipulative. Isn't it funny how we have a weird sense of respect or admiration for those who so deftly enrope others into one single, often selfish or destructive cause? It's learned behavior, not skilled and fulfilling the basest of instincts, often a result of severe self-doubt in the endless quest for approval. Not a skill, not a talent, just a personality flaw.

But damn, some of the nastiest people have made the coolest music.

Thank you God for auto-tune.

Two-Door Vampire Pearls

Though clearly I don't like him enough to actually attend any of his band's shows (damn my work schedule!), my friend Ryan of the DC band Typefighter showed me a great video by Two Door Cinema, a trio of shamelessly eyebrowless Irishmen. Their video showcases these bare-browed boys' creativity. (Okay, so only the ginger doesn't have eyebrows. They're still unbearably adorable).

And from the same horse's mouth comes news of some grunge resurfacing in the form of catchy, almost pop-punk (spare me the Hit the Lights, Four Year Strong, et. al.) only better because they're not still obsessed with the girls who broke their hearts ten years ago, or the roommate who shafted them out of three hundred bucks. Actually, I don't know that for sure. What I do know is that Pearl Jam's new single "The Fixer" is surprisingly awesome. Observe.

The next Showgasm undoubtedly will be Beach House opening for Vampire Weekend at Merriweather Post Pavilion on September 11. I don't even want to comment on the obvious awesomeness of this since I may not still be in the area. In fact, but for this show, I have all fingers crossed that I won't be. But tarry not, for sell-out is imminent!

Treats Treats Treats

Just the other day I was thinking, boy, I'd really like to hear a distorted synthdancepop group led by a really bangin', smooth lady singer in shiny pink leggings.

Then I saw this:

Sleigh Bells: Ring Ring from Amplified on Vimeo.

Their album Treats is sort of exactly what this very blog is all about. It's extremely sample-able, every song, one into another, and all resemble a very clashy-trashy yummy pop assembly of recklessness and cuteness.

How broad the appeal: What You Know Bout Bein' Rill? - Sleigh Bells x T.I. by Big Burd

Even better: http://www.themusicslut.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Sleigh-Bells-Tell-Em-Rodway-Mix.mp3

Also, for all you hardcore heads, there's a show at the Corpse Fortress in Silver Spring this Sunday. Sick Fix is some OG-DC straight edge, and they're playing with Sorry Excuse from Kansas and Kicked In from the Midwest. I'm trying to find someone to come with me! Six bucks, starts at six.

I forgot all about it last night when I was out, but Brian Jonestown Massacre is going to be at 9:30 June 9, and I'm trying to cop two tickets. Anyone have an extra, mayhap?

In other news, the search ensues for jobs/housing in Brooklyn! I'm looking for work copy-editing, writing for blogs or more unlikely yet, a magazine. I didn't get a degree for nothing, after all; so it's the maddening sting of entitlement for me!

Minus the Dominant Sevenths

What is it about a band that has made so many albums relying on the sound of absurdity and indecision that they have to come right out and explain what they've been thinking the whole time? Okay, let me back up. Minus the Bear just put out their new album, OMNI, and I'm all but impressed, frankly. From cheesey lines like "Running out of excuses/I'm into you," to repetitive choruses and Owl City-wannabe synth additions (oh yeah, I went there), the stink of pandering is potent. Maybe they're just trying to get on the radio.

Serious MTB fans, do yourself a favor and skip the first like five tracks and go straight to "The Thief." Yes, bands are allowed to grow and change, but to demote your own sound? Keep the dominant sevenths and clang clang for heaven's sake! Sure, add some funk and synth or whatever you feel is necessary to keep up with the postmodern 21st century sound or whatever, but keep the eyes on the shoe-prize, if you please. All's I'm saying.

Is it just me, or has Widespread Panic taken over the studio? And reamed the hell out of Daft Punk in the process? Yikezoid.

And I'm totally spooked by the song "Into the Mirror." I swear to god I've heard that loop before. And it was Battles. I'm almost completely positive. Or maybe it was a video teaser for this new album. But I don't think so. It has to be a sample. I'm researching madly, but if anyone finds it before me, I need to see it for myself. I could swear.

"Animal Backwards" and "Dayglow Vista Road" are maybe the best produced on the album. "Caught in the pull of your green-eyed glow/I wanna feel my skin on the snow." Not bad. "Dayglow" is positively transcendent. If I'd had a whole album more like this one, I'd be tempted to buy it.

Random RVAlution

Once again, my friends come through for me and decide they have a place for me backstage. Sigh, she sighed. Something happened between the time that I woke up on Tuesday and wound up in Richmond, VA, at the Hat Factory, dancing in a Hawaiian lai behind a bunch of candy raver-types in front of circa 1500 people. If you had been there, you would have been staring at a long line to get into a heavily-guarded venue. Music pumps from within. Girls are sparklier and taller than usual. Guys stand around in collared plaid, arms crossed sizing up the potential of the cattle they're about to drive. A lot of them have already dropped or rolled or somersaulted or catapulated, and this f*#$^&'n line isn't helping the fact that all the cars have turned into giant potato monsters (think evil Mr. Potato Head), and there are computer-generated lemmings marching and falling off the side of the building, forming an ominous yellow radioactive puddle on the concrete. If only the door guy could see what's eating the soles of his shoes right now he might decide you're small papitos and let you slide by the VIP.

Luckily I got to skip the linemare by virtue of my liaison with DJ Throdown and his old getup crew of track tinkerers. But this is a bigger party than the music. It's positively Dionysian. For six bucks you are offered eye candy on every level from the traditional spun cotton on paper cones to the chicks in tutus and spandex dancing on platforms. Not to mention the obligatory light-spinning hula hoops, twisting their way up and down a young female's curvy body. Which never gets old. (Young Chick in Underwear Dances to FrankMusik). And if I'm getting my full six bucks worth, there had better be an acrobat hanging from a long red rope in front of the stage, and a balloon sculpturist, and other assorted dark circus characters. I spectacled the spectacle from some pretty interesting perspectives...but my camera battery was kaput. So you'll just have to take a glimpse of the video someone posted on facebook (and look for the suddenly average six-foot blonde wearing a Hawaiian lai).

Did I mention this happens every Tuesday night?