Monday, April 04, 2005

thur-sun! long weekend minus an hour

Thursday I made it out to see "Maximal Schnapper" - the latest work from Suchu Dance. It was great as always. A wash of dance and sound. Really great use of video. Let me just say, "go see it!" and leave it at that.
I may try to go see it again this Thursday.
Then I went to Rudz and tried to convince people to buy me drinks on my birthday.
It was a moderate success...Then I hung out at Joe Mathlete's till I was sober enough to go home.
Friday was lunch with Mom in Deer Park, then "Sin City"...
hmmm...
"Sin City" looked great. It wasn't, but it sure looked it. If you're a fan of pretty people who can't act then this is the film for you! seriously! It looked amazing and was a literal translation of the comic as much as a film ever has been, and that's a good and bad thing. Using the graphic novels for the storyboard meant that often the shot was a character just staring directly into the camera while his poorly written voiceover played. "Whoohooo! THAT'S CINEMA!" I'm not saying don't go see it... Go see it. It looks great and is groundbreaking in some ways, it's just not a cinematic masterpiece or anything...
After "Sin City" it was a trip to Spec's and then back to the house to finish cleaning while I waited for the party to start.
The party was good...Ted and Mondro both spun, and there was a bit of some drumming (with fiddle! yay leah!) and by the time I was ready for bed we were down to 3 or 4 folks left on the porch... For the first time in a LONG time there was beer and liqour left.
Saturday during the day was spent recovering from Friday night...
then around 7 I went to see...THE JUDY'S! It was a "secret" show out in Pearland. The Mod Ceasars opened and I enojoyed some of their stuff (especially the old "reagan youth" tunes) but I didn't have the connection to their music that I have to the judy's so mostly I was just waiting for them to be done...
The show was a cancer benefit for one of the guys in The Mod Ceasar's brother and it was definitely a family affair. The place was full of kids and parents and grandparents... I got there and ended up sitting behind one of Houston's OTHER legendary defunct bands, none other than "Junior Varsity"... It's always nice running into Matt & Kim. Anyway, The Judy's were totally on. They opened with "Vacation in Tehran" and played pretty much everything you'd want to hear...
I could write a lot more about this experience, but I won't...
the only thing left to say is, "sorry you missed it..."
I was planning on heading over to INK to see Les Saucy Pants after the show, but The Judy's wore me out so I headed home, but shortly thereafter I got a call from my friend Laura who was in town and headed out to Poison Girl to meet her and her b/f Chris. It was good to see her and we had a couple of drinks at PG but then Jenni showed up and decided she didn't like PG and drug us all to rudz...where we had one more drink, and ran into Matt & Mo from Les Saucy Pants (among others). Then it was time for mexican food. Jenni and I picked up Joe and went to Andy's. I had fajita enchiladas! by the time I got home it was 5 (since we lost an hour)...and by the time I was puking up my enchiladas it must've been 7...easy come, easy go...
Sunday...ahhh...Sunday...sleep till about 2:30 - eventually make it out to the Rice Outdoor show where I confirm the death of rock. I did not see one "band" or even a drumset...had fun anyway...took a break during "Treewave" (who played an Eno cover "Needle in the Camel's Eye" before I took off) and made it back for some of Ana Oxygen, but I'm not sure a stage in a field is the best venue for her...
Went to Poison Girl. Had one drink. Went home.
and now...
I'm at work!

5 comments:

Justin said...

Why didn't anybody tell me the Judys were playing? Curses.

Anyway, I saw saw at least one drum kit at the Outdoor Show, and I suspect there was at least one other that I missed, so rock might not be completely dead.

I didn't understand Anna Oxygen at all. It just did nothing for me. I thought it might have been because I'm old, but then I asked around and everybody I talked to said the same thing. Still...there were lots of people that seemed to get it, but that could have been--as somebody described to me--the emperor's new clothes. Possibly the funniest moment of the day for me (outside of some of Austin's almost believable Rusted Shut stories) was when Kyle asked where Anna Oxygen was from and upon finding out she's from Olympia, responded with "Ooooohhhhh."

Kid Ornery said...

Charlie saw one band with a drum kit and he said they were awful.

I like Ana Oxygen on CD and I think in a small club with a couple of drinks in me at about 1 in the morning I might enjoy her live show...

Treewave needed dark, a small room, and a bigger screen.

It just seemed like a lot of the acts (well, all the acts I saw) were not at all suited to playing an outdoor festival.

You see "James Kolchaka Superstar"?
I wanted to, but was still sound aslep.

Justin said...

I did see JKS--that was the one with drums. He was sorta entertaining in a novelty band sort of way. No real complaints.

And I agree about the acts they booked not being well suited to an outdoor festival, though I do like the idea of a diversity of styles and promoting things that otherwise probably wouldn't be seen. But I think the best way to accomplish this is to book a big headliner that has a draw--somebody people can get excited about. That would overshadow what seem like lulls in the programming. Of course, you run the risk of attracting yahoos that might disrupt the others' performances, but I think the social pressure to behave might be enough to dissuade them from making too much noise.

I would like to say here and now that if people aren't performing in the show, they should leave their acoustic guitars at home. I can think of few things as annoying as trying to upstage an actual performer with mediocre emo bullshit that nobody asked for.

Kid Ornery said...

yeah, the guys with the acoustics needed to be punched...then they'd have something to whine about!
I almost wish KTRU would do one or two more smaller fest like shows indoors for the experimentally stuff...It's good that they always have someone like dave dove or john fahey or whatever, but this year it seemed like there was VERY little energy music...be it pop or fire or whatever...

hey, can the mathletes come play on the local show sometime before you (if ya do) leave town?
or is the days of bands on KTRU done?

Justin said...

Those days are not over, they are just few. I could be talked into having you come play. My next show is on 4/19, you can play then or one of the following shows (5/3, etc. I rotate weeks, you can figure it out).