CSS & Natalie Portman's Shaved Head at the Echoplex

The first time I went to a show, I had no idea what I was getting into: Sonic Youth at the Living Room in Providence. I walked in and stood right in the middle of the audience, with a perfect view of the stage. The moment they broke into "Mary Christ", the crowd erupted, and I found myself in the air above them. I distinctly remember being able to see the band perfectly...and stepping on someone's collarbone.

Eighteen years later, I'm off to the Echoplex to see CSS. Again, no idea what I'm getting into. I had been to the Echo before (on Election night), but never to the Echoplex. The club was painted in standard red and black, but was much bigger and cleaner than I had expected. The crowd was a sea of Members Only jackets - exactly what I expected on that front. We came in late for the opening act: Natalie Portman's Shaved Head. They were halfway through their set and loud as hell. They reminded me of Ima Robot's quirky brand of pop, but when they broke out "me plus yr daughter", Ursula and I decided to check out the sequined action. The rest of the set was great, finishing up with "Sophisticated Side Ponytail."

CSS was off to an energetic start with "Meeting Paris Hilton", complete with a masked Lovefoxx riling everyone to get moving. The crowd responded, about a dozen twenty-something girls in stilettos and legwarmers bouncing around slumber-party style. But by the time the band got to "Music is my hot, hot sex", things had slowed down. The only action really going on in the audience was six people capturing footage on their phones and cameras. I didn't really check back in until the encore - "Let's make love and listen to Death from Above" and "Alala". I'd probably see CSS again, but it would only be a sure thing if Natalie Portman's Shaved Head opened for them.

Meat Beat Manifesto at the Knitting Factory

My favorite scene in music has always been Industrial, because like Punk, there was not only a community behind the music, but an intersection with philosophy and methodology. To be specific, I'm interested in the deconstruction and reorganization of found elements in order to produce a new meaning, or the "Cut-up". This informed not only my perspective on music, but writing and visual arts as well (I started to touch on this in some entries a while back). The cut-up is still a staple of Industrial music, and although it's not completely accurate to call Meat Beat Manifesto an industrial band, they do use the cut-up technique. Hence my interest in seeing them perform at the Knitting Factory.

The last time I checked out the Knitting Factory was back in 2005 to hear Andy Khouri spin, so all the new businesses in the Galaxy complex threw me off; I almost missed the sign to the club. I had also made the mistake of not checking with friends to see when the bands came on, so I showed up early. Luckily I had my notebook, and the bar had cheap beer. A half-hour later Gabriel Dub opened. The set started off with a guy behind a macbook triggering a grating sound which eventually morphed into heavy heavy dub. Like Bauhaus Dub interludes with triple LFO. A black guy with dreads sang mutant dancehall over it. I liked it alot - at least until two more musicians came out, one of whom was a woman playing what looked like an electric violin. but sounded like a shakuhachi flute in reverse. If the Goths had shown up at that point, their pet bats would be flying into each other. Anyway, the electric violinist eventually playing something less atonal, and I enjoyed the rest of the set.

For this show, Meat Beat was comprised not only of Jack Dangers, but Mark Pistel on electronics, Lynn Farmer on live drums, and Ben Stokes on video. The set opened up with VO samples and shots of Marshall Applewhite over MBM classic techno/hip-hop/industrial beats. The highlight of the set - or my favorite - was "Radio Babylon" in front of shots of Grace Jones and flames. The encore was a barrage of beats and a obama-animation followed by "Edge of No Control". As the show wrapped up, I noticed quite a few people capturing video with their phones, probably for posterity, but hopefully some of them intended to do some remixing of their own.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

I have a tendency to collect crap - or stuff, as George Carlin put it. My house is the big pile of stuff with a cover on it that Carlin was talking about in his routine. Stuff collected from the past ten years that I intended to do something with at some point. A lot of this stuff is books. Some of the books were actually bought by friends, paperback novels leaving their houses for the Salvation Army, but somehow making a several-year pit stop at mine. One of these books is the Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Gatsby's story is told through the eyes of Nick Carraway, a young man who moves to Long Island and becomes Gatsby's neighbor in the 1920s. Nick's shallow cousin Daisy and her husband Tom also live in the area, as well as Jordan Baker, Nick's love interest. At the center of the story is Gatsby, a man of mystery and a former lover of Daisy's who wants her back.

Throughout the novel Carraway idolizes wealth. And although his perspective on morality changes, his perspective on materialism does not. While reading the novel I couldn't help but think of not only the excess of the 80s, but the alterna-yuppies, starbucks punks, & chuck basses of today. Not much has changed, and as I shop for a blu-ray dvd player to go with my HDTV, I doubt much ever will. But hopefully we can treat each other a little better (especially this holiday season), lest we suffer the consequences, like the characters in the Great Gatsby.

Coraline

Things are pretty smurfy on the fulltime freelance writing front. I just finished work on videogame dialog for Coraline, and should be finishing another draft of Destiny Men shortly.

I'll be in San Francisco from 11/12 through 11/15 with the wife to meet up with pals. At the moment we're considering a visit to the Cartoon Art Museum and some stuff Geetika suggested. I'll post photos if Ursula finds the camera.

Iron Man: Armored Adventures

Last Saturday morning, Marvel Studios treated an all-ages audience at Comic-Con International to the first two episodes of “Iron Man: Armored Adventures.” The panel consisted of head writer Chris Yost and Nickelodeon executive Keith Dawkins. Marvel Studios’ Josh Fine introduced the footage, produced by Method Animation studios in France.

Read the whole piece here.

SCLA: Stereotypecast

Second City Los Angeles will perform their final showing of Stereotypecast Friday June 27th . I checked the show out with Ursula a few weeks ago and really dug it. The show is a collection of sketches about stereotypes, ranging from everyday occurrences to surreal situations. Ticket are $10 each in cash at the door only. Show starts at 9:30 pm.

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