Rock 'n' Roll: Invasion and Repulsion

Didn't roll into until about 1:30 last night after the show.  Which I'm not going to write about.  At least not the actual playing part, which had its ups.  And downs. Namely that it started up, ended down, and left a bad fucking taste in my mouth.

The best part about the night was probably hanging with Jarret (keys) and my oldest friend and fellow East Coast transplant, Rich, who finally made the leap to Facebook, ending one of the longest holdouts going (that only leaves you, C-Love. And you will cave.  For such is the mighty, mighty power of the Facebook).

We had to load in at 6 but weren't slated to play until 11, which is what often happens.  So you have a lot of time to kill after you sound check.  And our sound check might've been the highlight of our show.  We played "Teenage Drummers" and "Down on the Farm," and sounded as good as we ever have.

Raviv met his wife, Big Tom went for Austrian food (whatever the fuck that is), which left Jarret and I to fend for ourselves.  So we grabbed sushi across the street at Sushi Rock, where they were showing on not one but two screens that fucking Twilight movie.  I'm not a big fan of the scatological, and I know at least three people who are going to get pissed if I post this.  But every time I see clips from Twilight, I can't help but think of this.

Makes it less painful.  Recently my wife, Justine, and I went to a movie, which has become increasingly rare since the birth of the kid.  They showed a preview for the latest installation, which was two of the more miserable minutes of my life (at least until the encore of "That's When I Reach for My Revolver" last night).  Justine is like a little kid at the movies, insisting on sitting like two rows from the screen, so I had to stare at that creepy-looking bastard Robert Patterson (or "R-Patz" as the kids say), like, 50 feet high.  You could see all the white make-up they pancake on the guy to make him look dead.  And the fucking soundtrack.  And that werewolf kid. Justine was so excited she was literally shaking in anticipation.  Chalk up one more phenomena I will never get.

So Jarret and I are watching Twilight, eating a light dinner of raw fish and seaweed, Jarret's crushing on the cute waitress, and then we go to meet Rich and his friend Mike, who are across the street horking back burritos and milkshakes, with Mike crushing on the cute waitress over there who is telling a fat old bald guy at the counter about her cat, Mr. Whiskers, and I'm thinking, Mike, you might have a chance here...

The funniest part about sitting in that dinner was everyone being on their respective mobile devices.  Except Rich, who like I said is new to this game.  Mike had some app that pulls up every club in every San Francisco neighborhood with clips from every band playing that night.  Except us.  ("I don't see you guys anywhere.  Are you sure you're playing?")  Jarret was checking out his Twitter and reading back these tweets from the Mystery Science 3000 guy about just how much the new Transformers movie is going to suck.  And I really hate not being able to recall any of them.  Because they were brilliant.

By the time we got to the club, which was still pretty empty, Rich, Mike, and I sat upstairs, watching the opening acts, and found the catchphrase for the night.  When Mike said, "I like these guys," I realized what he was was saying was, "this music isn't too invasive."  Which is what live music is.  It's fucking invasive.  It's why I don't want to go see a friend's band or any band, and why they don't want to see mine.  It has less to do with the music or liking/not liking it.  In these small clubs, no matter how good a band is, it's overpowering.  It's hard to latch onto something hearing it for the first time, and then you have the mix and people playing too loudly, and it's hard to listen to.  And it's harder to pull off.  Live music isn't like listening to a CD in your car; there is no volume knob.  It's a blast of obnoxious. Unless, you play quiet funk with a lot of synth, or covers on your acoustic guitar that everyone knows, are slightly ironical, and sing in hushed, easily ignored tones.

But I play rock 'n' roll.  Which I could talk about more.  But I wasn't planning on even blogging at all today, I'm so fucking tired and sore (the difference about playing rock 'n' roll now versus when I was 20?  I had to fucking stretch first.  No shit), and now Justine just called to tell me we are retarding our son because we have the TV on too much.  So I am anxious that I am going to raise a lobster boy. Think it's time to pull out the ol' acoustic and dust off that Rhianna cover...

http://www.cracked.com/article_19505_5-real-murderers-more-terrifying-than-any-horror-movie.html