Just like you, Matt Wild plays in a rock and roll band and is constantly broke. He has all his original hair, however, and enjoys jokes about oceanography.
I spent the night with Miss Erika Jean and her friend, DJ Red. We met up at the Landmark with Josh from IfIHadAHiFi, and Dixie from White, Wrench, Conservatory. There was also some guy named Jason (from some band or other) who inadvertently provided me with this Exchange of the Week:
I've been trying my rootin' tootin'-ist to come up with something clever, something trenchant, something downright sexy for this particular Weekend Music Report (WMR). Unfortunately, nothing seems to be sticking. Therefore, in lieu of anything remotely well-thought-out or written, let me just say that I spent Friday night at Rooters (accompanied by two friends who shall remainnameless) and really, really enjoyed a cover band called Doc Hammer. Twenty-four hours later, I was at that Video Games Live thing at the Riverside (an event both incredible and incredibly idiotic), and cried during a touching Sonic the Hedgehog medley. As always, I learned something.
Now that I've filled my quota for completelygratuitous hyperlinks, here's a completely gratuitous clip of some dudes rockin' out to a German version of the Ducktales song. Have a great week!
Have you ever had one of those months where you're tossing back shots with your brother at Polish Falcons one minute, then bailing your apartment out from an inch of standing water the next? Where you're playing Trivial Pursuit with a flat's worth of model-caliber friends on Friday, and unclogging the floor drain of your laundry room on Sunday? Where you're blowing more than $900 on a 32-inch HDTV one week, and later that month you're watching a crumbling VHS tape filled with 6 hours of HBO programming from 1993? (Ah, Tales from the Crypt and Linda Fiorentino, how I've missed you!)
Yeah, it's been one of those months. But hey, that's not why you called. Instead, you've most likely pointed and clicked your way here for one of two reasons: you're my mother (most likely), or you're just dying to watch a short clip of The Chain I shot at Mad Planet a few Saturdays ago (less likely, but let's pretend, OK?)
An instrumental group made up of Andy Noble, Didier LePlae, Peter Barrickman, and Brent Goodsell, The Chain is (are?) excellent. See/hear for yourself:
Again, please excuse the shitty video quality. Also: I'm clueless as to the song's title, even though Didier wrote it down for me at Polish Falcons the same night I was getting hammered with my brother. Sorry!
On a completely unrelated note, my current pet peeves are:
1. People who constantly use the word "blog" in their blogs (dammit!)
2. Songs in which the the sound of a tambourine immediately follows the word "shaking," or, worse yet, "tambourine."
Oh, in case you were wondering, your link of the day is right here. (Favorite quote: "90% of white people have taken a film class at some point in their life.")
I ventured to the Borg Ward Saturday night for an evening chock-full of that crazy music the kids seem to dig so much these days - how you say, rock and roll? As it turned out, it was my second evening in a row spent in the Walker's Point area - Friday night found me in the wonderful company of Amy Elliot, the two of us on assignment at Steny's Tavern. We were covering the Milwaukee Guerrilla Gay Bar, a "flash mob" kind of thing where a ravenous pack of gays descend on a straight bar in a sudden uproar of noise, hair gel, and collared shirts. The location of each monthly infiltration is revealed less than 24 hours beforehand, reminding me of early 90s raves and how you always had to do a bunch of ridiculous shit (call a certain 800 number, drive to a certain gas station, find a set of directions under a certain pack of Spree) just to find out where the damn things were being held. Of course, the information superhighway has now made that particular phenomenon obsolete. Fucking internet.
Anyway, back to the Borg Ward. I like the Borg Ward. It has a small but ample gallery space, a not-too-shabby performance space that sounds much better than it should, and the kids that run it seem like nice, laid-back dudes. The bathroom is a little disturbing, but hey, what non-profit bathroom isn't?
The first band of the night was Crappy Dracula. How these guys have escaped my attention until now is a fucking mystery. I love this band. See/hear for yourself, courtesy of YouTube. Gee, I love the internet! (Please excuse the shoddy video quality; I was working with less than ideal equipment.)
The Trusty Knife were (was?) up next, and per usual, brought the rock. Perhaps one of these days, they'll actually finish their goddamned album. Here they are:
And that was my Saturday. It was good. It made me happy.
On a related note, I've been feeling reinvigorated lately. I'm not sure why.
Is there anything more sublime/sublimely ridiculous than walking through downtown Milwaukee, smoking a cigarette in the rain?
Yes.
Walking through downtown Milwaukee, eating a hot dog in the rain.
Also: I recently came into possession of a 17-year-old Bartles & Jaymes wine cooler. In the spirit of lousy publicity stunts that go nowhere, I'm thinking about setting up an on-line donation program in which friends and strangers alike could "pledge" a small amount of money. Once a certain amount had been reached (I'm dreaming of $1000, though it would probably be more like $8), I would swallow my pride, put on my best pair of suspenders and drink the god-awful thing. Kind of like in high school when you and your friends would chip in to make some pasty, acne-scarred freak eat a piece of pizza that had been lying on the lunchroom floor since third period.
The money could be donated to charity, and the actual drinking of the near-fossilized beverage could be posted on YouTube. Nothing better exemplifies the wonders of the digital age than a poorly compressed video of a guy getting his stomach pumped.
So what do you think? If a sizeable sum could be reached, I would be forever in your debt (or not), and would, of course, thank you for your support.
Just like you, Matt Wild plays in a rock and roll band and is constantly broke. He has all his original hair, however, and enjoys jokes about oceanography.