The Second Moon of Adonis

Crossposted from Last.fm:

Thu 14 Jun – The Queers, The Methadones, The Manges

 Yesterday morning I got a shout from creativelybored [editor's note: exiledsemfiltro here] to enjoy my "blast from the past," referring to the Queers gig I'd be going to at the Bottom of the Hill here in San Francisco last night. I appreciated the sentiment, but a blast from the past? Didn't I just buy Munki Brain a few months ago? It couldn't have been that long ago; they still don't have a link for it here.

I just let the implication that I'd become old and nostalgic settle into the back of my aging skull. I'd been looking forward to this gig for too long to worry that I just might be a dinosaur.

I'd never been to a gig at the Bottom of the Hill before, and I was pleasantly surprised that, even though I arrived almost right at 9:00 when the show was slated to start, I got a parking spot right across the street from the front door. I'd heard that parking on the street was easy to find, but if you've spent any time in San Francisco you know that "easy parking" here would be anything that doesn't require at least an hour's worth of driving in circles, a GPS, and a half-ton of quarters.

I was met shortly thereafter by xanderx, who I feel the need to mention looks nothing like his LiveJournal avatar picture. Well, he looks a little like the parts that aren't squished. Anyway, he's a smart guy, friendly, has a ton of good stories about parts of the world I probably couldn't find on a map, and he doesn't scream as you almost blow through a red light at 1:00 am, which makes him pretty cool in my book. If you can ever talk him into hanging out with you, do it.

First up just after Xander's arrival and a trip to the bar was Italy's The Manges. I will confess that I was slightly disappointed. I've liked these guys for quite a while (in large part because I love a punk band with a funny accent; cf. my Nicotine fetish). I can't completely blame them -- they were the first band up, and the sound was not right. It was muddy and trebly and just generally bad. However, they had a lot of energy, and their guitarist is a gorgeous, tattooed, olive-skinned hunk of a guy, so I managed to keep from being annoyed by the bad soundboard work by studying the way his triceps moved as he changed chords.

After that was a short trip to the patio area for a smoke, another run to the bar, and by the time we got back The Methadones were starting. While they weren't bad, they did have sort of a generic modern punk-pop thing going, a bit like what you'd get if you threw Good Charlotte, Van Halen, and The Cure in a blender. While most of it was pretty "eh," I thought a couple songs were brilliant. Not many, but I did come away with a slightly higher opinion of the Methadones than I had going in.

Next up (after another patio run): The Queers. My little blast from the past. Well, Mr. Bored, you were right. The set was pulled almost entirely from their old staples, from the opener, No Tit, all the way to See Ya Later Fuckface at the end of the encore. The only song from the new album was Duke Kahanamoku, which they apparently played for the first time live. It was a long set, and included literally almost every song in their Top 50 tracks here.

They sounded great, and other than a few minor mishaps like a blown amp and a random stage-crasher singing really bad backup vocals on a cover of Sheena Is a Punk Rocker before diving back into the crowd, they were pretty consistently good all the way through. It would also like to point out to my dear friend Peter that, although these guys have been around in one form or another since around the time I graduated high school, old guys can still rock. Hard and at great length, I'd like to add.

Tagged by retaliashun

List seven songs you are into right now, no matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they're not any good, but they must be songs you're really enjoying now. Post these instructions in your livejournal along with your seven songs, then tag 7 other people.

1. June Tabor – Verdi Cries
2. Bowling for Soup - Belgium
3. Os Mutantes - Fuga No. II
4. The Queers - Duke Kahanamoku
5. Joni Mitchell - Raised on Robbery
   
6. Nina Simone - The Times They Are a-Changin'
7. Pansy Division - Political Asshole
   

Now, the seven victims (chosen semi-randomly from a short list):

kuaidoi, soulofchris, lookabanana, insanepistachio, cookiefinder22, backformystuff and shamelessbishi

I just found out that Pansy Division is playing a show at the Cafe du Nord in San Francisco on April 21st, opening for the Avengers. I think I’m slightly engorged.

Published at blog.Adonis.net. You can comment here or there.

Even the quickest glance at my charts at Last.fm will tell you that I'm a big fan of the Queers. They've been cranking out their unique brand of pop-punk for over two and a half decades now, and their latest release, Munki Brain, proves that they're still just as good as ever.

Most of Munki Brain's 13 tracks are short, clocking it at an average of around 2 1/2 minutes each. The short song durations are one sign of the Queers' heavy Ramones influence, which really stands out in tracks like the break-up song "I Don't Get It" and the smirking "Houston, We Have a Problem."

A heavy surf influence really comes through on this release as well. With backing vocals that bring to mind Jan and Dean, and guitar work reminiscent of the Ventures, "Duke Kahanamoku" extolls the virtues of a Hawaiian surfer, and "Brian Wilson" is a tribute to the Beach Boys songwriter in more than just name.

While the Queers have never been a band to make much in the way of political statements, they've never been afraid to say (in many cases, repeatedly) "fuck you." So, while the anti-George W. Bush tirade "Monkey in a Suit" may be surprising for its subject matter, its sarcastic, sample-laden sentiment is pure Queers.

Among the rest of the tracks, there isn't a dud in the bunch, making Munki Brain a must-have album if you're already a Queers fan. It's possibly some of their strongest work ever, which also makes it a great starting point for new listeners.

Even the quickest glance at my charts at Last.fm will tell you that I’m a big fan of the Queers. They’ve been cranking out their unique brand of pop-punk for over two and a half decades now, and their latest release, Munki Brain, proves that they’re still just as good as ever.

Most of Munki Brain’s 13 tracks are short, clocking it at an average of around 2 1/2 minutes each. The short song durations are one sign of the Queers’ heavy Ramones influence, which really stands out in tracks like the break-up song “I Don’t Get It” and the smirking “Houston, We Have a Problem.”

A heavy surf influence really comes through on this release as well. With backing vocals that bring to mind Jan and Dean, and guitar work reminiscent of the Ventures, “Duke Kahanamoku” extolls the virtues of a Hawaiian surfer, and “Brian Wilson” is a tribute to the Beach Boys songwriter in more than just name.

While the Queers have never been a band to make much in the way of political statements, they’ve never been afraid to say (in many cases, repeatedly) “fuck you.” So, while the anti-George W. Bush tirade “Monkey in a Suit” may be surprising for its subject matter, its sarcastic, sample-laden sentiment is pure Queers.

Among the rest of the tracks, there isn’t a dud in the bunch, making Munki Brain a must-have album if you’re already a Queers fan. It’s possibly some of their strongest work ever, which also makes it a great starting point for new listeners.

Published at blog.Adonis.net. You can comment here or there.

I’ve got tickets to go see Bowling for Soup again tomorrow at Slim’s here in San Francisco. I’ve been looking forward to it… well, since I saw them last summer.

Go ahead and laugh if you want. I realize BFS tilts a bit toward the pop end of the punk-pop scale, and that it may not do wonders for my rocker cred to listen to music so relentlessly happy that the band’s own guitarist once described it as being “like being licked by seven puppies,” but I love these guys. They’re funny, they’re out of shape, and they always look like they’re having a really good time on stage. It’s like watching a band full of your drinking buddies, except that these guys can actually play the instruments. Even drunk, I suspect.

I’ve loved them since the first time I heard Almost from A Hangover You Don’t Deserve while radio station-surfing on my way over the Bay Bridge a couple years ago. After hearing that one track, I stopped at Best Buy on my way home and bought the CD, along with Drunk Enough to Dance — the first new CDs I’d bought in a very long time. I credit BFS for reigniting the love of music I’d somehow lost track of in the years before I heard them, and for showing that there was some pretty damned music that I wasn’t hearing on the classic rock stations.

So, yeah, they’re not angry, they’re not dangerous, and they smile a lot. I’m fine with that. Everyone should be licked by a puppy once in a while.

Published at blog.Adonis.net. You can comment here or there.

The Me First and the Gimme Gimmes gig was last night at Slim’s, and I had a blast.

If you ever get a chance to take Katie out on a Friday night, I highly recommend it. She had me laughing for most of the night, she looks good shakin’ the read hair when the music gets good, she hails a cab far better than I, and she wasn’t kidding when she said she’d buy beer. However, if you do ever get her out somewhere, I do have one warning: “You don’t mess with the ta-tas.” I’m not sure I want to go into the circumstances that prompted her to tell me that.

The opener was a literally painful set by a band named The Charm School Dropouts — though I have to give a small grudging bit of respect to a band who can manage to cover both a song by Turbonegro (Good Head) and a song by Lynyrd Skynyrd (Freebird) in a roughly six-song set.

What the Charm School Dropouts lacked, though, the Gimmes more than made up for. While they did play a decent amount of stuff from the new album, Love Their Country, the set covered a range of songs from every album in their catalog. The only real disappointment was that they never played Mandy, which was a bit of a bummer for Katie.

Still, I can’t complain about the set. Any time I get to see a bunch of tough-looking young punks viciously slam-dancing to Somewhere Over the Rainbow, Danny’s Song and Tomorrow, I’m going to call it a good time.

Speaking of young punks… maybe I don’t get out as often I used to, or maybe it’s something in the water out here in San Francisco, but I’d swear they’ve gotten better-looking than I remember them. Out of respect for my date for the evening, among other factors, I restrained myself from drooling on any of them the entire night, but it took a constant exertion of self control to pull it off.

Oh, and I’m glad to say I survived a brief brush with the pit. It wasn’t as intentional thing, and it was only a brief moment on the periphery, but I made it through without breaking a hip. Hooray for me.

Published at blog.Adonis.net. You can comment here or there.

To my own surprise, I’ve actually received a few entries to my “Win a Date with Me and the Gimmes” contest. I’m going to have a hard time picking a winner, especially if I keep getting entries as good as the ones I’ve seen so far.

At this point I’m chalking it up more to the drawing power of Me First and the crew than to my own ability to get a date, but either way it’s good to know somebody will be using that second ticket.

Published at blog.Adonis.net. You can comment here or there.

I’ve just posted an offer in my Last.fm journal that I’m already wondering if I’m going to regret.

I’ve got a couple tickets for Me First and the Gimmes Gimmes show coming up in December, and I’ve been having trouble finding someone who wants to go with me. I hate to see a ticket go to waste, and I’m going, alone or not, so I’m going with Plan B: offer up myself and the second ticket to the entire Internet, and see if anyone’s interested.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens. Or maybe the offer’ll fall on deaf ears, and it’ll be completely uninteresting.

If all goes well, though, I’ll probably end up doing the same thing with the spare ticket I’ve got for the Vandals a couple weeks later.

Published at blog.Adonis.net. You can comment here or there.

Another carry-over from my page at Last.fm:

Turns out you can learn all kinds of new things by blowing away your MP3 collection and listening to other peoples’ radios.

For example, I’ve discovered that stoner rock at near-deafening levels is just about perfect for here at the office, where I have a horde of really obnoxious developers sitting in the cubes behind me. All day, I haven’t heard *one* geeky argument about whether Ubuntu is better than OSX, whether C or Java would win in a cage match, or whether Libertarians get more chicks than Democrats.

There were a few minutes with Neil Young where it all came flooding in again, but then the fuzzy guitars cranked back up and all was blissful noise again.

Thanks, ‘66. I owe you one.

Published at blog.Adonis.net. You can comment here or there.

My musical taste, schizoid though it may be, has always been very much shaped by the people I care about. When I think about who my favorite artists have been throughout the years, I almost always associate them with the person who introduced me to them.

Take, for example, the Beatles, Cat Stevens and the Rolling Stones. When I was a small child those were just names in the stack of 33’s my mother had stashed in the linen closet at the top of the stairs. Then, one day, I got brave enough to pull out a few of those albums, and got hooked. I’d imagine my parents listening to Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Tea for the Tillerman, or Sticky Fingers, and it made me feel very grown-up to actually be enjoying some of the same things they did. I still love them, and can’t help but think of my mother tapping her rings on the steering wheel of her gigantic sky-blue station wagon, driving my brother and me to school, every time I hear one of the songs from those albums.

Tom Jones is another example. Just out of high school, I got a job in the mail room of a law firm. I worked there with someone named Rock who became a very close friend. I later moved in with Rock and his wife, and while we spent most of our time playing things like the Cult and Pink Floyd, every once in a while we’d throw on some Tom Jones and talk about how one day we should become an act in Vegas. He could play guitar, I’d do the lounge lizard vocals, and we’d both go through legendary amuonts of Tanqueray between sets. We were never serious about it, but I still have a hard time not breaking out into a song and dance routine every time I hear It’s Not Unusual.

Joan Armatrading was introduced to me by an ex-boyfriend named Rob one night over a lot of wine and a little candlelight. While Rob turned out to be psychotic, that night was something special to me. I’m reminded of it, and all the things I liked about Rob, every time I hear Willow, or Love and Affection, or even I Love it When You Call Me Names. I also confess that I really started to love Me, Myself, I after we broke up, and I still consider it a theme song of mine.

The guy who turned me on to Pansy Division probably doesn’t know he did it. Charlie and I were talking, as we often did back when we were working for AOL in Culver City, about how his taste in music was almost stereotypically guy, and how strange that was considering that he was straight. I always found it a cruel twist of fate that, while all the bands I liked were full of straight guys who’d never give a guy like me a second look — or even a first one — he was constantly being sung to by gay guys. He seemed to be quite an authority on bands with guys who might want to sleep with me, and at one point mentioned Pansy Division. While I’ve never managed to actually get one into bed with me (if you’re reading this, Jon, call me), I’ve been listening to them ever since. I can’t help but associate them with Charlie, even though it might disturb him slightly to know I think of him when I hear songs like “Fuck Buddy” and “Cocksucker Club.”

When I think of Joni Mitchell I think about my former roommate Jerry’s pot-smoking former-hippy mom, who introduced me to “Court and Spark.” 10,000 Maniacs was a gift from my brother’s ex-girlfriend Jacque, who also gave me Squeeze. They Might Be Giants? I think of my friend Mark. My recent increased fascination with German punk bands like Die Ärzte and Die Toten Hosen? Those remind me of the other Patrick, even if he’d never listen to them himself.

Some of my favorites I’ve found myself, but the ones that remind me of the people who have meant a lot to me are the ones I seem to keep playing over and over, year after year.

Published at blog.Adonis.net. You can comment here or there.

Originally posted at Last.fm:

I took some time today to give a listen to the new album from New Found Glory: Coming Home. I’ve been a fan of theirs for some time now; probably since the first time I heard From the Screen to Your Stereo around 2000.

Unfortunately while A New Found Glory’s earlier releases are fun, infectious romps, their more recent efforts have slid closer and closer to totally innocuous pop, and while they’ve always had a strong emo side, they’re starting to sound whiny. Coming Home continues that slide, to the point that the attitude and energy that placed them firmly in the punk-pop category in earlier years is all but gone.

I had a hard time finding any stand-out tracks on Coming Home. Most of it sounds very much like, well, toned-down New Found Glory. I found my feet tapping a bit to Too Good To Be, but the rest of the album, frankly, did little to impress me. It’s nothing we haven’t heard from them before, but includes none of what made them a good listen.

I really wanted to like Coming Home. Their last album, Catalyst, wasn’t perfect, but it had its moments and was a fun listen overall. With Coming Home, though, A New Found Glory may be starting to showing their age.

Published at blog.Adonis.net. You can comment here or there.

I’ve been told I can be a little obsessive. I suppose there is some truth to that; when I find something I like, I tend to latch onto it pretty hard.

My latest Internet obsession is Last.fm, a site that tracks what kind of music you listen to, and recommends other music you might like. It’s also a social network, with groups that bring together people with similar interests (musical and otherwise), and allows you to do things like recommend music to other users, stream MP3s you or other users have been listening to, and a whole lot of other music-related stuff.

It’s been sucking up a lot of my time lately. I’ve been digging through the site discovering new bands that are popular with people who like the same kind of music I like. I’ve started up a group for Queer Rockers that’s just starting to gain some momentum. I’ve (virtually) met quite a few people with whom I’ve had countless conversations, about music and just about everything else.

I’m finding it really addictive. Look me up if you drop by. You’ll find me as IMTrick there. Just don’t give me any crap if you find out I’ve been listening to a lot of Tom Jones again lately.

Published at blog.Adonis.net. You can comment here or there.