Music
The Kills
Diane & I went to see The Kills down at the 9:30 Club in DC. What a freaking fantastic show. They’re my favorite band and this was the best concert I’d ever been seen. The energy between Alison Mosshart and Jamie Hince was palpable, as was their connection with the audience. I loved every song they played during their set, plus the three songs in the encore.
The show was opened by Tennessee band the Magic Wands, a male-female band that reminded me of the Kills in how they carried themselves. Their music was okay, and they’re definitely a band to watch develop. I loved their song Black Magic. After they finished, the British band The Horrors played. Punky with an 80s fashion sense. But, after a few songs, I really enjoyed the band and might pick up their first and second albums.
The Kills set list for their show on April 30 was:
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I’ve got a few pictures below from the concert.
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Magic Wands[/caption]
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The Horrors[/caption]
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The Kills[/caption]
My Official Komen 2008 results!
On Sunday morning (October 19th), I ran my second 5K Race for the Cure up in Hunt Valley, Maryland. This year, Diane treated me to a timed race: an extra $5 for a chip that would give me an official run time based on when I crossed the start and finish lines. The money’s for a good cause (fighting breast cancer), so the extra $5 was well worth it on many fronts. My unofficial race time, based on the clock at the finish line, was about 26:02. Today I found the official results. N.B. My chip time differed from the starter gun time by 5.7 seconds, which is about how long it took me to get from where I was standing to the starting line once the gun fired. Approximately 32,000 people walked, ran and jogged on this beautiful and crisp morning.
| Official time (min.) | 26:00.9 |
| Pace (min./mi.) | 8:23 |
| Overall rank | 448 / 2102 |
| Rank in Men 40-44 | 30 / 83 |
My iPhone playlist for this year’s run:
| Song | Band |
|---|---|
| Volcano Girl | Veruca Salt |
| Stupid Girl | Garbage |
| Pretend We're Dead | L7 |
| Hey Man Nice Shot | Filter |
| A Girl Like you | Smithereens |
| Zero | Smashing Pumpkins |
| Seether | Veruca Salt |
Pat Benatar ... Live!
Diane & I saw Pat Benatar for the second time at Rams Head Live in Baltimore last night (June 24th). It was a great show, though less powerful than when we saw her in August 2007. I really enjoyed her bassist this time around … very talented.
Her set list for our concert (the 2nd show in the 2008 tour) was:
- We Live For Love
- Shadows of the Night
- Invincible
- Painted Desert
- Every Time I Fall Back (from Young and the Restless '08 taping)
- We Belong
- Hit Me With Your Best Shot
- Hell Is For Children
- Love is a Battlefield
- All Fired Up
- Promises in the Dark
- Heartbreaker
Running update
I’ve officially been running for over a year now. I’ve been quit smoking for over a year and a half. Woohoo! And yes, the two are tied together. I was in good shape when I smoked, working out three times a week, but there’s no way I could have run 5.3 miles three times a week through trails and woods. I’m very excited. Quitting helped my running but I couldn’t have accomplished it without my tunes. Here’s today’s list that really helped me slog through this nasty humidity!
- (I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone - The Monkees
- White Room - Cream
- Pink Cadillac - Bruce Springsteen
- Block Rocking Beats - The Chemical Brothers
- Cheap and Cheerful - The Kills
- Mercy - Duffy
- Mon Opinion - Iron Sy
- Too Many MC's - Public Domain
- Fried My Little Brains - The Kills
- Wargasm - L7
- Treat Me Right - Pat Benatar
- Tales of Brave Ulysses - Cream
- Scrap - L7
TCM at Fur
The Crystal Method came back to DC Friday night, and Diane and I were front and center. It was a great show, but not as cool as when we saw them at Nation last year. We arrived at Fur around 11:30. This trendy spot used to be a fur storage facility, so it has the pedigree to become an “it” place. We went in the alley entrance, where most of the electronica acts play. We waited in the cold without jackets; however, it wasn’t too long before we were frisked and through the bouncer. I’ll have to remember to wear a slighty thicker top to avoid interesting conversations in line, though!
The club itself is pretty pretentious with private areas: platforms, sunken areas, and cordoned off areas. You can reserve (i.e. pay) for these places, so you can see and be seen. Sorry, that seems to go against much of the electronic music scene, or at least my take on it. What was ironic was a man on the main floor’s “special section” who was wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt. Nothing like the contrast of that revolutionary icon of the poor adorned on a t-shirt worn by a privileged man who had a huge bouncer to prevent “ordinary folks” from joining him and his entourage on the platform. C’est la guerre.
In contrast to its haughtiness, the club was tiny. The main area was about the size of Nation’s “waiting area”. The tiny dance floor was jammed throughout the night. The crowd had more than the usual complement of aggressive dancers, magnified by the small area. The sound system also was lacking. I didn’t feel the pressure in my lungs as bass lines played, nor did I feel my internal organs shift during a sonic run. Worse, or perhaps better, I left still being able to hear! One redeeming facet of the club was its very generous pour of drinks. We had a couple of gin and tonics that were heavy on the gin and light on the tonic. Overall, I’d give the club a grade of D and I won’t be coming back.
Anyway, Proxy & Lantern opened the show around 10 pm. They had some good driving beats, but Diane pointed out that they were horrible at transitions between songs. They waited too long to start the new song and thus the bridge collapsed due to the delay. It was cool to hear one of the DJs doing some solid mic work to complement the music. A stranger in the crowd high-fived me during their set, though I had no idea why. I think he thought I was freaked out by him but I told I just had no idea who he was or what he wanted. He just wanted to tell me that his friend was the guy on the mic. Cool.
The Crystal Method hit the stage around 12:45 am, though there was no break in the music between Proxy & Lantern and them. That was pretty cool. They opened their set and you immediately could tell the caliber of the music went up. Very cool set, though, to be honest, not as awesome as it’d been in 2006. Perhaps that was because it was all so cool to see them for the very first time. Late in the set, though, I was really happy with their work. I’m glad I went, and so was Diane.
As this was a DJ set, they weren’t focused on playing their own original pieces. But, they played “Name of the Game” and closed out the show with “Busy Child.” Those are two of my favorite pieces! They intro’d Name of the Game with a tripped up version of Guns and Roses “Welcome to the Jungle.” They played an awesome mix of Stevie Wonder’s Superstition. I was thrilled, too, when I heard the bass line opening to “Boys Wanna Be Her” by Peaches. I just bought that song on the 12th. If you haven’t heard Peaches, you’re missing out, and TCM’s mix of it was stellar. Check out the strip club scene from “Lost in Translation”, and you’ll hear another one of her songs, “F##k the Pain Away.”
We stayed until they left the floor around 3:05 am. We split after that, and while walking down the alley on our way to the car, we passed Ken Jordan, one of the two people who makes up the band. Very cool. We didn’t stop and drool, as he was with his wife/girlfriend and just chilling out the back. But, it was definitely a great way to end the evening.
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Komen 5K Race Mix
Here’s what I listened to while running my first 5K:
- Chinese Burn - Curve
- Titanium Exposé - Sonic Youth
- Blues Before and After - The Smithereens
- I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles) - The Proclaimers
- Boom (The Crystal Method Remix) - P.O.D.
- Stick 'em Up - Quarashi
- Straight Outta Compton - N.W.A.
- Though Shalt Always Kill - Dan Le Sac & Scroobius Pip
Pat Benatar!
Diane & I saw Pat Benatar last night. I’ll post other photos soon, but thought this showed an interesting hook. Pat Benatar was my first concert and she was also my most recent one. Too freaking cool! (Check out the dates, man! December 10, 1982 and August 21, 2007)
Today's workout mix
I thought this was a pretty eclectic mix, drawn from a random sampling of a playlist I put together for a friend’s party this past weekend. It was a great mix to get through a good workout this morning!
- Paranoid - Black Sabbath
- Yeah! - Usher featuring Lil' Jon & Ludacris
- Miss Lucifer - Primal Scream
- Living After Midnight - Judas Priest
- Pump It - Black Eyed Peas
- Straight Outta Compton - N.W.A.
- In the Air Tonight - Nonpoint
- Whip It - Devo
- Wild Thing - Tone-Loc
- Boom (The Crystal Method Remix) - P.O.D.
- Good Riddance - Green Day
- Truth Or Dare - N.E.R.D. featuring Kelis and Pusha T
Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes
Hip-hop is everywhere, in commercials, TV shows, the movies, on the dance floor, and online among other places. This week, the series Independent Lens (on PBS, WETA in DC) showed an episode entitled “Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes.” This documentary explores America’s culture of violence as reflected by the hyper-masculinity of contemporary hip-hop. It’s a really good commentary on what it means to be a man and how that’s fronted or twisted by some performers and viewers. It starts with gun violence and death, in lyrics and in real life then turns to the sexist lyrics and objectification of woman in videos and at various gatherings.
One factoid that caught me by surprise was that 70% of mainstream hip-hop is consumed by young white men. This was followed by a clip of a redneck white guy from Columbus, Ohio. Playing hip-hop on his dad’s SUV radio while in Florida, the filmmaker approached him to talk. In the ensuing interview, the Ohio guy says about hip-hop that “it’s my style, i mean, you guys, colored people, can say that it’s their music but I can get down to it just as much as they can.” WTF! When asked if he actually said “colored people” he responds “I don’t know, what term do you want me to use, I mean, I’m trying to be, I’m not a racist at all.” Where the hell did they dig this guy up? Then again, maybe he’s the mainstream and me, a white kid born in Philly, educated in Western NY and living b/w Baltimore & DC, is the outlier. That point was pretty much driven home by the next segment.
Cut to four white kids sitting around a table in Moline, Illinois. A young woman wearing a Ramones t-shirt says she likes hip-hop since it allows her to explore other cultures. “I’ve never had to worry about drive-by shootings… [hip-hop] appeals to our sense of learning about other cultures and wanting to know more about something that we’ll probably never experience.” Okay, how many African Americans experience drive-by shootings?!?
Her comment is surprising since the whole group replies affirmatively when asked if hip-hop reinforces stereotypes. Obviously they missed the fact that they’ve bought into the stereotypes that they say they don’t think are good. They start off saying hip-hop is their window into black culture, that’s how they learn about other cultures and peoples, then say that hip-hop reinforces stereotypes. So, who’s interpretation of culture are they getting a look at through this music?
One thing that’s missing, especially for me, is what about other types of hip-hop? The documentary at times conflates all forms of hip-hop into the one genre of misogynistic gangster rap. Groups like Public Enemy that started out talking about structural violence in the forms of economic and racist policies are mostly absent from this discussion. With the rise of politically-aware hip-hop traditions in Palestine, France, and other countries, the music hopefully will grow out of the gangster tradition. But, as the narrator/director says at the end of the film, he’s “thinking about an American culture that mythologies and mass produces hyper-masculinity… hip-hop, in that regard, is pure Americana.”
KMFDM Live!
Last night, Diane & I went out with her friend Barbara and some other folks. We went to Sonar, a club in downtown Baltimore, where we saw KMFDM. Combichrist opened up for KMFDM, so I’ll start with them. This was a four person Norwegian band, whose style is sometimes categorized as aggrotech or Terror EBM (dark electro-industrial). Good bass lines but not much else. As I texted to Diane during the show, I said it was “good music to stand to”. They played for about an hour and were followed by KMFDM, who I used to listen to all the time in the mid-to-late 90s while I worked at COS. They’ve gone through some different band members and stylings, but they’re kind of an industrial rock band, with mixes of techno/electronica thrown in here and there. They played Terror (off of NIHIL), one of my favorite songs. A picture below is from their show, which last about 90 minutes. I didn’t dance as much as when we saw the Crystal Method at Nation (in DC), so the two Red Bulls & vodka didn’t sit as well with me this time. But, I survived to write another day!
TCM @ the Nation
Diane & I saw The Crystal Method (TCM) last night at Nation, a very cool venue in southeast DC. The club is insanely cool with three different rooms, multi-floors, multi-bars, and a sound system to shake your entrails.
We got there around 10:30 pm and hung out at the bar and in the front room, where a house DJ was spinning some good tunes. After a couple of vodka tonics, they opened the main area where we went in and climbed up the stairs to the mezzanine overhang. We could watch the stage as the opening act, Len Lazee, was spinning some good tunes. After watching from above for awhile, we went downstairs to the main dance floor and grooved to the tunes. At midnight, Crystal Method started up their set and we kept on dancing. TCM is amazing! We took our sweaty bodies off the floor for a bit to get another drink and relax upstairs. Then, back down to more dancing. Glow sticks were everywhere and a few had them tied to long ropes, which they spun around, searing neon images onto our retinas. More dancing and some Red Bulls and vodka later, we continued dancing until 2:30 AM. We had to catch the last metro out of the area to get back to our car. We got home by 3:30-ish and collapsed into bed around 4 am.
This was THE BEST set and THE BEST club I’ve ever experienced. The music was amazing and TCM was hands above everyone else spinning. But, the other DJs were flat out amazing! Great club, great music, and great company!
Sadly, Nation is closing after a blowout weekend in mid-July, to make way for the new baseball stadium and gentrification project for that part of DC. So, if you can, check out a night there before they close down. I’m sure other clubs will pick up the slack and maybe even the people who run the different events now at Nation will open up a new place, but this venue is really an awesome place to be in the wee hours of the night and morning!
We took the photo below from the catwalk above the main room’s dance floor. Nation staff were also wandering the floor taking photos and I put a few of them up on a separate page. Besides the ones of TCM, you’ll see a few dance scenes, including the spinning glow sticks, that feature Diane and I on the dance floor. See if you can find the shaved head guy in black and his hot wife, in a black shell!
Palestinian Rap
Great site to check out: ArabRap.netand www.SlingshotHipHop.com. Very cool music, very current political commentary. There are some translations, but the videos and even the rhythms convey a lot of meaning on their own. Also, my friend Fatema explained that DAM (referred to as Da Arab MCs) means blood in both Hebrew and Arabic. Very intriguing use of language and imagery to convey a nuanced political landscape.