scene but not herd

Things sneak up on me and sometimes I like it. Friday morning at about 9:00 I switched my radio to 103.1 and I heard a familiar sound which turned out to be the Zombies doing "Care of Cell 44." I love this song and it's the kind of thing you never expect to hear on the radio so it really made my day. Thursday I turned the radio to KCRW for a second and I heard a song that I was really digging. Thankfully I was able to hear the DJ say who it was and it turned out to be Stars doing "Ageless Beauty." I'm a sucker for sweet female vocals so I was hooked as soon as I heard it. I've read quite a bit about the band, especially on the Chromewaves site, but I had never actually heard them until the other day. What's cool for me is that they are playing March 25th at the Troubadour so I think I will make it out there to check them out live. The third thing that snuck up on me quickly is that Erase Errata and the Hospitals are playing at the Echo on March 12th which is next weekend. I haven't heard too much by Erase Errata, but I've been wanting to check them out since I heard a good song on a free Mojo CD awhile back. I've seen the Hospitals before and they're pretty good so I think it will be a show worth checking out. Finally, I learned that the Undertones are playing the Galaxy Theater on April 23rd. No Feargal Sharkey so that kind of bums me out, but it will still be nice seeing the O'Neill brothers playing live again.

I haven't done much lately so it's nice that a bunch of shows are starting to approach in March and April. Yesterday I bought a magazine called Uncut and it had an article about Gang of Four and part of it dealt with their recent reformation. Actually a bunch of magazines had articles about them that I saw yesterday and this has really made me question my decision about not going to Coachella this year. I really want to see Gang of Four badly and I don't know if they will play the L.A. area again anytime soon. How can I miss the original line-up of one of my favorite bands? Well... the day they are playing there are probably only a couple of bands that I would really like to see so it is hard to justify paying $80 dollars for that. Also need I say that the traffic and crowds will no doubt be horrible. Why couldn't they be playing on Saturday when there are a lot more bands playing that I would like to see. Ah, decisions, decisions.

I received the new Dead Meadow album in the mail yesterday and it is pretty good, but I still believe that their records pale in comparison to their live shows. An example of this is the song "Let's Jump In." This song is the first song off their new record and they were opening with it on their live shows the last time I saw them. Live it was immediately one of my favorite songs that they played whereas the recorded version took me awhile to even recognize that it was the song that I loved so much. Anyway, I really look forward to seeing them live again in April.

Last night I watched a documentary called SPELLBOUND. The film focuses on a few kids as they compete in the 1999 Spelling Bee championship in Washington D.C. This may sound boring, but it was anything but. The film is really able to incite your interest in these kids and it builds quite a bit of tension as to how they will do in the competition. You get to learn a fair deal about these kids and their families and they seem to be pretty well adjusted even though some of the parents seem to push the kids a little too much. There is one kid named Harry who is so annoyingly talkative that it started making my skin crawl. Now I'd like to contrast these kids with some of the kids I've seen on an MTV show called MY SUPER SWEET SIXTEEN. I'd hang out with Harry for weeks on end before I spent any time with the kids from this show. The show is about people throwing birthday parties for these kids' sixteenth birthday. Most of these kids are really wealthy and most of them are insufferably spoiled. It is incredible how many of these kids are used to getting their way and they are really petty and they want to shove their wealth down the throat of anyone, especially anyone who has slighted them in any way. It is incredible to watch a girl cry and pout because she did not receive a Land Rover on the day of her birthday because she disobeyed her parents recently. Oh yeah, she ends up getting it anyway a few days later. Such horrible, arrogant people. Only one girl comes off as normal and she seems to be the only person that has been profiled so far that seems to be middle class. Does wealth lead to incredibly annoying kids? It seems that way based on this show, but of course not everyone deals with wealth the same way. I just wonder how these kids were raised. I suppose the parents are mainly to blame here. Don't you ever say no to your kids? Do you not teach them the value of money or the virtue of humility? I don't even know why I watch this stuff sometimes. I only end up getting pissed off. That's partly why it was so nice to see SPELLBOUND to offset the bad taste in my mouth from MY SUPER SWEET SIXTEEN.