Dick Dale, Brant Bjork and The Bros

Dick Dale is a bit of a celebrity, making the show expensive. Because of this, my friends were unable or unwilling to go. Many people in the audience seemed to have a similar problem; their friends would be willing to pay $400 for U2, but won't pay $20 for some good surf rock. Ah well.

Brant Bjork and The Bros

I don't like jam bands, and this was definitely a jam band. However, their drummer was a rock drummer, and he saved the band from being totally boring. I doubt I would go to a show to see them. They were all really good at their instruments, and some points of songs really rocked, but I also found myself yawning.



Dick Dale

Dick Dale and his band were an hour late, but the Dickheads next to me assured me that waiting is worth it. It turns out that they were right! If you thought Hawnay Troof had energy, you haven't seen Dick Dale. "I'm a twenty-year-old in a 56-year-old's body," he said. He'd run across the stage, pose with his bassist, run to the other end, flirt with a cute college student in the front row, grab some drum sticks and play the drums over the drummer, then bang on the bass with the drum sticks. I'm exhausted just thinking about it.



He's very friendly and appreciative of his family and fans. On stage he brought one of his school teachers from when he was younger and a friend from high school. Instead of an encore (I hate encores) he signed anything people wanted signed.



His stories are funny, his stage presence is wild, and the music is awesome. See him, it's worth $20.

Audience

The audience left much to be desired. Many were tourists to local shows, who are always vocal about their lack of knowledge about the bands or scene. "I bet he's forgotten how to sing after all these years," said one. Another guy spent all night bragging about the shows of famous bands that he's seen.

Also in the crowd was my doppleganger, spotted by my friends before at other shows. He looks identical to me but with frizzier hair and a distict lack of rhythm. Such an out-of-body experience is absolutely odd.

Summary

Even though I have much negative to say, it was an excellent time and you'd better regret missing it.



Tags: upcoming:14473, dickdale, surfrock, brantbjork.

Juliette and the Licks, The Beatings, and Parker Hill

Matt, Dan, and myself went to T.T. the Bear's Place for The Beatings, and ended up enjoying a wild show.



Parker Hill

Before the show, my friend Steve Lord found me and asked if I was here for The Beatings. "My band is on first", he said. I told him that they better not suck.

Anyway, they sucked. The drums were too loud and the music sounded not together enough. Sarah thinks they should get rid of the vocalist.



The Beatings

I'm still in lust with Erin Dalbec. In addition, they're a good band who obviously feels comfortable on the stage.



Juliette and the Licks

I had never heard of this band, but apparently many, many people have; Sarah had come to see Juliette, since she is in love with her. Juliette is Juliette Lewis, a well-known actress who decided to start a rock band instead.

They were really wild and exciting. I think they mostly played covers, but she was so enthusiastic that the audience was willing to listen to anything she sang. The Licks, her backup band, were the perfect backing band for her frenzy.

I probably wouldn't buy their album, but I would definitely see them again.



Afterwards

I met a pretty girl named Sarah at the show; she kept bumping into me during The Beatings and shared her excitement for Juliette with me. She turned out to be really cool and likes lots of good music, so I hope I bump into her at another show. (And if she finds this: hi!)



Tags: upcoming:19901, juliettelewis, julietteandthelicks, thebeatings, parkerhill

Boys In Static, Les Georges Leningrad, Hawnay Troof, Stereo Total

Tonight Matt and I saw Boy In Static, Les Georges Leningrad, Hawnay Troof, and Stereo Total. The audience grew wilder as the night went on, for no apparent reason—they just wanted to make noise and dance around constantly. Thus, the audience made a good show into a great show.

Boy In Static

Imagine a whinier Smashing Pumpkins covering a Björk song, and you have Boy In Static. The guitarist/vocalist only used two chords in each song (not including power chords), and likewise the bass lines were very simplistic. Their neat bits were their finger drummer, who played a tiny drum machine very well with his fingers, and the guy in the back who kept turning knobs. I think the guy in the back was playing the soundboard.

Les Georges Leningrad

Wild, mysterious, and totally uncomprehendible. Avant garde punk played with masks over their faces and wigs. "This song is about loneliness. Aaahh! Ahahaaa! Yaaa! ..." Do see them.

Hawnay Troof

By this point I had bumped into Sid and he was talked about past times he saw Hawnay. "Expect crotch in your face and a very fun set", he under-exagerrated. This short man took the microphone, paced frantically across the stage, and yelled to us all how he loved us and life and that we need to yell and scream and stop caring so much about updated MySpace and The Facebook and LiveJournal; then he played some tracks off a CD on the stereo system while rapping over them in as loud, excited, and entertaining way possible. There is no controlling this man.

Stereo Total

Two French people playing German industrial rock on a drum or guitar and a keyboard or guitar. She played the straight-man to his wild antics, and sometimes forgot the words or just wasn't ready to continue playing. The audience was absolutely crazy by this point, knocking myself, Sid, and everyone else in the front row onto the stage, subwoofers, and middle of the dance floor, continuously. In addition, they invited Hawnay Troof on stage to sing about being hungry, and then invited a young female from the audience named Jenine (I think) on stage to sing with Françoise. A not-so-wild band with an absurdly wild audience made for the best time I've had in quite a while.

Summary

Do see and listen to the following musicians:

• Les Georges Leningrad
• Hawnay Troof
• Stereo Total

Tags: upcoming:14383, upcoming:19363, boyinstatic, lesgeorgesleningrad, hawnaytroof, stereototal.

Introduction to Ruby

I'm about to embark on learning Ruby, so that I can implement a HTTP server that only implements the Atom API—nothing more. I've already found my HTTP framework (technically, Matt found it for me), which saves me the trouble of reading HTTP 1.1, writing the conformance suite for it, then writing the HTTP framework (this would have been done in PLT Scheme; I've switched to Ruby because of WEBrick). Now I need to:

1. Figure out unit testing in Ruby. Should be easy.
2. Learn the Atom API and Atom.
3. Find for or write the conformance suite for Atom API.
4. Write and release the program.

If anyone can point to good resources, let me know.

No Need to Click Here - I'm just claiming my feed at Feedster

More live music!

Cool bands who are playing live soon: Irepress, Wack-ass Egyptians.

Dust makes computers crash

If your computer is crashing (rebooting, freezing, what-have-you) whenever the computation becomes heavy (ripping CDs or compiling programs), clean it. Buy some canned air and clean the dust out, especially the CPU.

May means shows!

May has yet to begin and already six good concerts are scheduled for it! Join me in going to all of them, please.