scene but not herd

Haven't gone to too many shows lately and I don't see that really changing anytime soon. I'm thinking this year that I should see more bands that I've never seen before rather than bands that I've seen many times already. We'll see how that works out. Here's what my future looks like and hopefully other stuff will pop up to fill the gaps between these listings.

Oddly enough I've never seen Luna and now they are breaking up and their last show in L.A. is Friday at the El Rey. I loved Galaxie 500 so I don't really know why I never bothered to check out Luna or Damon and Naomi for that matter. Midnight Movies are opening so I'm kind of interested in going, but tickets are $25 which seems kind of steep. They are playing in San Diego at the Casbah on Thursday which is a much smaller club and I'm sure the ticket is cheaper as well. The only drawback is driving two hours down there and having to work the next day. What shall I do? I might skip this entirely and hop on the metro and check out a bar I've been curious about in downtown L.A. Maybe grab some dinner and then walk on down to this bar just to do something different.

February 11th is Sweet and Tender Hooligans at the Knitting Factory and I'm really looking forward to this. By the name of the band you've probably guessed that this is a Smiths/Morrissey cover band and for this show they are playing the album Meat is Murder in its entirety. That's my favorite Smiths' album so I'm sure I'll have a great time. My friend Tita is going to be there as well as some other girls I used to go to shows with all the time so I'm pretty sure this is going to be a blast.

The following night is Comets on Fire at the Echo. I enjoyed them last time they played there so this time should be good as well.

February 15th is Electric Eel Shock at the Silverlake Lounge. I've never heard them, but I may go check this out.

Things get a bit tricky here. According to the band's website they are playing the Casbah on February 24th while the Casbah website says they are playing March 24th. The band is Ambulance LTD and both shows state that Autolux is opening. I'll probably go at the very least to see Autolux which I've stated enough times that I really like. Ambulance LTD I'm not quite sure about. I do love their song called "Heavy Lifting," but I'm not certain if I like their whole album. They kind of have a shoegazer sound and I bought the album based on hearing the aforementioned song. Upon a first listen I wasn't really blown away and I thought I would trade it back in for some credit at a record shop. I gave it another chance and I found myself liking a majority of the songs so I kept it. I guess it depends on what kind of mood I'm in when I listen to it as to whether I really like it. I've missed each time they've come through town so I will probably try to see them this time. So far I haven't seen an L.A. show listed, but hopefully that wil appear because I would rather not go to San Diego on a Thursday night.

February 26th is Paul Westerberg at the Anaheim House of Blues.

March 13th is Slint at the Avalon. I'm looking forward to this. I don't think they ever played L.A. in the past. I heard in England they are playing all of the Spiderland album so hopefully that will be the case here as well although I'd like to hear stuff from the first album as well.

March 20th is Secret Machines at the Galaxy Theater in Santa Ana. Autolux is opening so I will probably be there. The same bill is playing the night before in San Diego so maybe I'll go then instead and make a day of it in that town.

April 14th is the Wedding Present at the Troubadour. I haven't seen them in a long time so I'm sure I'll be at this one.

April 30th and May 1st is the Coachella Music Festival. After last year I told myself I would never go again, but.... I still think I won't go again. I just saw the line-up and it's kind of intriguing, but I know I can't deal with all that traffic and people again. I would really like to see Gang of Four though. And Wolf Eyes. And the Cocteau Twins. And Wilco....

I've just gotten into this whole bit torrent business and I guess this is how I've been experiencing live music lately. I went to the record swap meet today and it was nice to see all the live bootlegs sitting at booths and knowing that I don't have to shell out the bucks for some questionable quality releases. More than likely I can find it on the web, even video footage. So far I've downloaded a Rolling Stones show from 1972, a Smiths show from 1985, a Pussy Galore Peel Session from 1990, and a Go Betweens show from 1987. Right now I'm interested in getting shows from L.A. as all of these are except for the Pussy Galore. I've got a feeling I'm going to be spending a lot of time doing this in the near future.

The following is filed in the unexpected occurrences file in one's life. After the swap meet today I ate at a chain restaurant called Chili's and I heard the Uncle Tupelo song "Acuff-Rose" being played over their sound system. It's nice to be surprised like that. At another chain restaurant called Claim Jumper I once heard the Pernice Brothers being played amongst other unexpected groups. Finally at a bar in Long Beach I like to frequent, I once had the pleasure of responding to the question, "Do you know what this is?" by saying, "Incense and Peppermints by the Strawberry Alarm Clock."

About a week ago I went to see Pedro Almodovar's new film called BAD EDUCATION and once again I came away very satisfied. I already wrote about the fact that Almodovar truly is a film maker. Too much criticism nowadays seems to focus on the acting or the screenplay and it often neglects to mention the purely visual. Almodovar's films have great scripts and acting, but they also revel in the visual. You might say BAD EDUCATION is a mystery movie. In quite a few ways it brought to mind Patricia Highsmiths' Ripley character whereby one character takes on the persona of another. It is also a film about love and revenge. Almodovar makes these rather commonplace themes interesting by the way he films them. There is a film within the film and memories are also depicted as purely filmic. The audience watches certain scenes as fact when they are actually depictions of a screenplay. What one imagines as a flashback is actually actors portraying the screenwriter's memory. It's actually rather complicated and fascinating as it reveals itself on the screen. I think you have to see the film to understand this, but it is almost like a type of Russian doll where you open up one doll only to find another smaller one inside. I've loved all of his movies and this one begins with the name of his production company "El Deseo," (desire) and ends with the word "pasion" (passion) filling the screen. These words are very important in his work and I think they reached their peak in two movies he made in the eighties, LAW OF DESIRE and MATADOR. His early films can be considered in the vein of John Waters, but with these two films he really came into his own. The outrageousness of John Waters is still there, but there is such a maturity in Almodovar's craft that he honestly leaves Waters in the dust. I want to bring up MATADOR because in the Sunday edition of the L.A. Times it was noted that this film would be re-released in the fall. I've never seen it on the big screen so that day can not come soon enough. I really hope they are putting out a really nice print of it because color is used so well in this film. If you've never seen it, well, then you have to. It is what BASIC INSTINCT wishes it could be. It is about "l'amour fou." It is about unbridled desire and passion and it reeks of sex and death. The opening of the film is amazing on its own. The intercutting of scenes showing a man masturbating to "snuff" films and a woman plunging a long needle into the back of the neck of the man she is having sex with are quite an eye opener. This may sound crude or offensive to some, but this film is nothing of the sort, or maybe it is, but it is so much more than just that. Make sure to pencil this one into your schedule when you see it listed playing at a theater near you.

I guess the eighties really are back. Certainly that post-punk sound is having a revival in much of the music I hear lately. What is really bugging me is the return of full on conspicuous consumption. There are so many tv shows right now that seem to wallow in showing people spending absurd amounts of money. I don't have a problem with people working hard and earning a lot of money, but I do have a problem with people who insist on letting everybody else know how much money they have. I see many cities gentrifying, but it is the gentrification of millionaires. The Sunset Strip in L.A. is abhorent to me nowadays. When I was in my teens and early twenties I could go see bands at the Whisky or Roxy and park on the street with no problem. Nowadays the parking lots charge 10 or 20 dollars and the meters run until three in the morning and you have to put in change every hour so you still end up paying a ridiculous amount to park. Now many areas are simply for the rich and famous and those who want to be around the rich and famous. It's a shame that nice, cool, and simple clubs become rare. What's wrong with cheap drinks, a good jukebox, and no cover charge? I guess in conservative times this seems to be the norm, but hopefully things will change, or not as the last elections showed.

Innocence and despair is what today brings me. I found a used copy of the Langley Schools Music Project today and it is one of the most amazing things I have ever heard. I've heard some of it before and I really don't know why I never bought this earlier. In the mid-seventies a teacher recorded some music students at an elementary school and released some private pressings of them to the students and their families. More than twenty years later those recordings were released on cd to the general public. I've tried to tell some friends about this in the past and as soon as I start I just well up with emotion and tears just start filling my eyes. In the liner notes there is a quote from John Zorn, "This is beauty. This is truth. This is music that touches the heart in a way no other music ever has, or ever could." For whatever reason it really hits me hard everytime I listen to it. Maybe it is because there is no noticeable ego involved or there is no crass commercialism at play. It is just pure. The musicianship and vocals are primitive, but there is something incredibly haunting about it which moves me to no end. On the cd the song "Good Vibrations" is followed by "God Only Knows" and the originals by the Beach Boys already have the power to make me an emotional wreck. The versions by these kids literally had me trembling with tears flowing out of my eyes. If you saw me you would have thought a family member had died. There's no logic to it and I'm sure other people upon listening to this record will feel absolutely nothing, but it just hits me like a ton of bricks. A few years ago VH1 showed a documentary about this and I hope they show it again sometime because I have to have a copy of this. Unfortunately they are usually too busy showing documentaries about how musicians spend all their millions of dollars. The program showed the teacher who started the project and some of the students that had been involved and it reunited them years after they had made those recordings. The students, now adults, telling the teacher what that had meant to them was just emotionally overpowering for me. Music just means so much to me and it truly overwhelms my heart at times. I often feel that it is all I have in life. If you read this do whatever you can to hear this and I hope you have as wonderful of a reaction as I did.

Now it is time for despair. I also found a used copy of the Whitehouse album called Bird Seed. I don't know too much about them, but I believe they are a duo who has been around since the early eighties(?) and they put out some primitive noise with keyboards. The music on this album is like being a child and having a very abusive parent yelling at you. I usually have my doubts about bands that seem to revel in negativity, but I really like this stuff. One of the songs is called "Wriggle Like a Fucking Eel" and it is just an amazing combination of yelling and monotone keyboard squeels. I love pure, unadulterated beauty as noted earlier, but this stuff is just a very different form of beauty for me.