The Dead Part of You

I'm in this weird "buyers remorse" over the car this week - did I buy too much car for me to handle? I'm trying to cut down on expenses, so I dumped premium cable channels, which didn't really make a difference since I then picked up a World of Warcraft account again. I'm trying not to buy records, but this week there were 3[!] iTunes exclusives I just had to own. Lollapalooza live sets were finally released, and in a way I got lucky - most of what I wanted wasn't released, and the two things I did were pretty cheap EPs - The Polyphonic Spree [4 tracks] and Sparklehorse [3 tracks]. Even if you didn't go there may be stuff there you want.

And this past Tuesday, New Order did an exclusive in the studio thing, re-recording old songs and interviews or whatever - I bought it [duh] but haven't listened to it yet. Ooh, bonus! The trailer for Control, in English finally.

If I was buying more records, I would have bought the new Akron/Family disc - I still might, since I'm going to their show tonight. Greg Davis is playing with them and doing an opening set, which sealed the deal for my attendance. I'm guessing I'll leave there with something.

Also today, Jimmy Eat World pre-sale tickets. I'm in row A of the mezzanine at the Orpheum. That means front row up top, bitches. It's the same week as The Decemberists and Bob Mould - actually they all take place in the space of 4 days. So all the complaining I do about being all kinds of busy with life ain't nothing yet.

ALSO, I won an eBay auction for a copy of Park and Shop. Isn't eBay's new ad campaign freaking brilliant? It IS better when you win it!

After a summer hiatus, I got pulled back into World of Warcraft again this week. I started over on the Blackwing server, since apparently that's where the gays are. I started over because I wasn't paying $25 to move Durden over to that server. I started over because I was tired of Durden, the Night Elf Rogue who's an alchemist and herbalist, so now I have Durden, the HUMAN Rogue who's an alchemist and herbalist. Friend me or whatever over there. I'm only like level 6 again though.

God bless you Sally Struthers. GOD BLESS YOU.

So last Sunday I went to IKEA with Rob, randomly buying 2 cereal bowls, a pillow and only the WARMEST BLANKET EVER. However, the Sunday before that was HOMO DAY at Six Flags New England.

Playing cruise director for this every year - I'm so over it. By the time Sunday rolled around the few people that said they would go had bailed. It can be so hard getting people out of the city. Dave and I drove out, with plans to meet up with Bill when we got there.



OK, mostly, the day felt like getting raped. In the wallet. As a new car owner, these kind of financial events are more noticeable. It cost $15 to park said car. It cost $35 to get into the park, which isn't too awful, I suppose. Dave wanted to get the A++ FIRST CLASS LINE SKIPPER BOT, and all I really wanted out of the day was to ride Catapult and Superman, so we compromised, and got the A++ FIRST CLASS LINE SKIPPER BOT, which cost us each more than our park entrance fee. However, it was true, we never had to wait in line.



We went on Colossus, Catapult, Time Warp, Pandemonium and Flashback within like the space of an hour. Then I felt really really really sick. If you don't wait in lines between rides and give yourself time to re-adjust, well, it's bound to make one a little green. A $5 cup of ice cream later and a bit of walking and I was ready for Batman and Stampede Bumper Cars.



Then it was $12 chicken nuggets, and Dave wanted to ride Scream, which I won't do for love or money. Through the magic of text messaging we had managed to work out meeting up with Bill & Co. just as they were getting onto Superman. Then we all went on Batman, and waited in line for it because I want to be social more than I wanted to go on Batman again.



Dave wanted to go on Superman once more before leaving so we separated and did, and then it was time to leave. The parking lot was awful and the traffic home took almost 3 hours. As for the homos, it was OK. Every year I go hoping for platform shoes and glitter and assless chaps, and every year it's just the most suburban people ever. It's basically 8,000 young bois in Abercrombie and Fitch T-shirts and 2,000 nasty bears. And by nasty I mean the snotty cliquey kind who somehow think they're better than everyone else for being fat and hairy, not the good kind of nasty. However - added bonus this year? I'm pretty sure I saw a gay gang. FOR REALZ. They looked all thug life from a distance, but you got closer and saw they were wearing matching airbrushed rainbow pride shirts.



Plus, I don't know the story but some queen was about ready to CUT the girl behind the flash pass counter at the end of the day when we were returning ours. The trip to the amusement park is not complete until someone throws a temper tantrum!!!

So last weekend was the big Underworld show at the Bank of America Pavillion. Rob and I went, and I danced and took pictures and ran into friends.

I had bought the good GA tickets when they went on sale. Armed with glow-sticks [really], we showed up sometime during John Digweed's set I texted Lollapalooza Bob and we hung out at the back, who said that basically what we were hearing had been going on for like 40 minutes without changing, and we hadn't missed anything.

Promptly at 9, Underworld brought it. Karl was glittery, MMMSkyscraper, I Love You was swirling. The GA area was actually nice - not too crowded and most people there seemed more into the band than dancing. I was able to get up real close.


I'm normally not a fan of the blurry rock pic, but there's something about this one that I like

Teddy was there ravin' away. I had this weird moment where someone is standing next to you, and fifteen minutes later you recognize them but by then it feels too weird to say hi - that was with Aaron.

The set list was pretty good - hits [Pearl's Girl!] with a few new tracks. Crocodile sounded better live. The lights and video were good - the stage?



Halfway through the show during Two Months Off everything got all Superman's Palace inflated and lit up. It was kind of Spinal Tap at first - I thought they were supposed to be vertical columns, and nobody could see anything when they were lying on their side. The whole thing was kind of there so Karl could take a break - some random instrumentally beats went on for like ten minutes and then they were deflated, and he was back for a second half.

Also, Rob and I were on JUMBOTRON near the end of Two Month's Off, which made me feel like I needed to do goofy shit for the camera.



They played a solid 2 hours and it was way better than last time I saw them, but that's because I remember being seriously fucked up for that show. It also reminds me that with Avalon closing I should list everything I've seen there, but not today. The T-Shirts were overpriced, however after the show I followed some texting directions and got a link to pre-order the new CD and a T-shirt for $5 less than just a shirt at the venue.



Would I go see Underworld again? THE ANSWER IS MOST DEFINITELY!!!

Did you see it? It was pretty awesome. Can I tell you a secret? I fucking watched it twice. Here's a bulleted list of my 3 favorite moments:

• Of course - Tyra's entrance. She did this full-on drag queen number with feathers and boy backup dancers and everything, all as the girls screamed in horror.
• One of the hopefuls pretended to give Tyra a bikini wax. She kind of has no shame left.
• NO BUT WAIT - she pushed another girl into talking about her childhood, the one where she was molested and raped. Then she cut her.
• OK THERE WERE 4 MOMENTS but this was recycled from every cycle, as Tyra calls the names of the final 13 and as the numbers dwindle the girls not yet called get wound up into all kinds of hysterics.

It just gets freakier and freakier every cycle. Additionally, she made sure the girl with Asperger's Syndrome made the final 13.

Man, I have stories and pictures from Underworld, Six Flags Gay Day and my car getting towed. I'm keeping them to myself right now because like a freaking 6 year old, I have an ear infection. It's like someone's been stabbing a hat pin into my ear since Monday. I've been to the doc, I'm on the drops, it takes time - my days have been trying to sleep and trying not to cry out in physical pain.

For 60 relaxing seconds last week I dunked my head in the bathtub. And now this.

IN YR LNES
WAITN 4 BATMAN
DO NOT WANT!!!

WER IN YR LINEZ
WAITN FER SUPERMAN

I see Elvis

So last night was the big indie rock show over at the BU Agannis Arena. Interpol played with The Liars opening up. I think it was the most average show I've seen ever.

Rob and I got there just about on time and went through the airport security, where we saw a girl not be able to take her Mentos in. Going up the stairs I told Rob "I'm never coming here again - not even if Low play here" but he heard me say "Lohan", to which I realized I would totally go back there if Lindsay Lohan was playing anything.

The arena's basically a big hockey rink [I was counting seats and estimated something like a 6K capacity] - and when The Liars finally came on it was maybe 10% full. On most days, The Liars would have had me running from the arena screaming, but not last night! I was not expecting no-wave art noise as an opening act and it was A WONDERFUL SURPRISE!!! A++ to The Liars! Rob, and from what I could tell most of the arena, hated them. But then again, they all probably hate Confusion is Sex era Sonic Youth also.

SO, the big Interpol show. They came on later than I thought they would [9:20], to an arena that still seemed pretty empty. The seats had filled in, but since the floor was only 2/3 full of seats there were still huge aisles and awkward spaces.

At the time I enjoyed the show just fine. They played a good selection of songs well, with accompanying lights. Mostly the first two records, and the strongest material [Mammoth, No I In Threesome] from the new record. The crowd was polite and well behaved. I reflected on where I was in my life when TOTBL came out compared to when Antics came out compared to now. Even getting home wasn't a problem. But today? I have to admit that was the most average show I think I've ever seen. I may as well have just stayed home and listened to the records loud while flipping a light switch off and on.



It's kind of funny, how different the experience was at Lollapalooza - dancing in the rain in a ball field while they play instead of standing in a hockey rink makes all the difference. Also, they played the exact same set, and while it's a good set, I didn't need to see it twice in the space of a month. The order was slightly different and "C'mere" was added last night, but otherwise it was the same 16 songs.

Would I go see The Liars again? PROBABLY IF I WAS IN THE MOOD. And Interpol? I HAVE HAD MY FILL OF INTERPOL FOR THIS YEAR, THANK YOU AND GOOD NIGHT!

Also, you know what sucks? I used to post my show reviews to BostonNow and Last.fm, but keep getting shitty flame war comments from 17 year olds who don't get it, so I'm not doing that anymore. It makes me long for the day all that crap was well corralled by AOL. As much as we all chanted "AOL sucks", it really did keep a lot of idiots off the rest of the internet.

You go stabbing yourself in the neck.

You know what I forgot about last night?

1 - Even though that Animal Collective album leaked onto the internet months ago, I still haven't heard anything from it yet, since I wanted to hear it properly in it's entirety, instead of piece by piece. If you make music good enough that people wait to give you money for it, you are doing OK in the music business.

2 - That scene in Airport where Charlton Heston is on the radio trying to explain to Karen Black how to make the plane "go left"? Yeah, that was TOTALLY the world's first help desk call.

Over the weekend I started some weird 70s disaster movie kick. Tonight I'm watching Airport 75, yesterday was Airport 77 - you know, where the plane went underwater in the Bermuda Triangle.

ANYWAY, last week Animal Collective was just awesome. I had high expectations, and they were exceeded. Is it ElectroniHippie? HippieTronica? Who can say. It pulsed and bounced and hurt my ears and I loved it. They were backlit by strobes and it killed my eyes and I loved it.

Ooh - the radio just went dead on Karen Black, and the plane is too low to get over the mountains.

The crowd was much younger than I expected, more hippies than I expected. I had played a few songs for Rob, and his fresh ears completely heard why the hippies would like it, and yeah, I guess it is music to trip out to. In a Butthole Surfers kind of way. Really, I can't recommend the live Animal Collective experience enough though, which is much more energetic, and slightly less noisy, and slightly more organized than their records. I'm tempted to road trip to another show, no, not really. But I do hope they come back on this tour.



Animal Collective's Strawberry Jam comes out tomorrow [along with The Go! Team's new record], and here's a secret - if you buy it at Newbury Comics and ask for a limited edition pint glass they will give it to you for free if they have them. But you have to ask, they won't just hand it over to you, as I learned with the Interpol pint glass.

Avey Tare & Panda Bear

Something in my veins/bloodier than blood