Shout it from the turrets of Medieval Times or the temple of the Egyptian-themed Muvico multiplex: In a just world, Maryland's Arundel Mills Mall would be visible from space. According to Wikipedia, it is "the first enclosed mall to feature a Medieval Times." Sounds like society's got some catching up to do, folks! You can actually enter the MT from the mall, and while you're waiting for the tournament to begin, put away a draft of mead (note: more likely Michelob Ultra or something) at the bar. MT is the mall's southern bookend; at the northern extreme, behold the Muvico Egyptian 24.
Of course, Arundel Mills isn't the largest mall in America, and for all I know, plenty of malls far exceed it. It's most notable, though, for its particularly wearying floor plan, basically a very elongated oval, divided up into five "neighborhoods." Theme-wise, it already spans continents and centuries, and walking around it two or three times gives a person the same feeling. It must take quite a few trips around to get one's memory around the place; a point you remembered on the first trip around might seem to be just in front of you once more, but is in fact a few hundred yards ahead. The trek from FYE to Dairy Queen is particularly arduous, each storefront a bayonet prodding one ahead to a destination from which he'll have to move on again soon.
Brain Lab query: "What happens when flavor imitates life?"
INGREDIENTS -3 sq. ft. richly tanned leather -10 lbs. wet stucco, preferably dyed a frosting-like shade of pink or yellow -5 lbs. Starbucks Espresso Roast ("Starbucks Coffee: Roasted over burning SUV tires!") -1 box Franzia Vintner Select White Zinfandel -Assorted Elton John, Barry Manilow, Kenny G, and NOW! compilation CDs -1 pair pleated khaki shorts
PREPARATION -Combine stucco and espresso in a large cement truck; process mixture into a viscous paste. -Shape mixture into uniform circles (1" diameter is ideal), wrap with strips of leather. -Remove CDs from cases--the cases may later be used for a creative presentation--and crush discs up into little shards. Sprinkle atop cakes to taste. -Place cakes on car roof; pick a sunny day to drive around doing errands for 9 hours, using only outdoor parking options. -Smoke over shreds of khaki shorts for extra flavor. -Serve with energy drinks, Ensure, or any of Pepsi's "Jazz"-variety colas.
A John Waters Christmas + Lavender Diamond: Turner Ballroom, Milwaukee, 12/12/07
[Sorry, no photos. Camera broke.]
Connie Marble: Oh, I love you Raymond. I love you more than anything in this whole world. I love you more than my own filthiness, more than my own hair color. Oh God, I love you more than the sound of bones breaking, the sound of death rattle--even more than the sound of my own shit do I love you, Raymond.
Raymond Marble: And I, Connie, also love you more than anything that I could ever imagine: more than my hair color, more than the sound of babies crying, of dogs dying--even more than the thought of original sin itself. I am yours, Connie, eternally united through an invisible core of finely woven filth, that even God himself could never ever break.
Howdy from Baltimore!
As I write this, I can't be too far from the sidewalk off which Divine ate dog shit for John Waters' camera (at the end of Pink Flamingos). Just a few days before flying out here, I caught one of B'more's finest on his Christmas tour. Beyond those amazing and transgressive films is a snappy showman who's up for riffing about anything. He's just a cool motherfucker, not merely a prankster behind a camera. As he mentions at that link, he's a big Ike and Tina Turner admirer, and arrived in Milwaukee just in time to announce Ike's death.
On his annual Christmas tour, he pops out for an hour of breathless rambles about the holidays and whatever else he gets around to, including his desire to land on the cover of Parade magazine. He never lets up, never seems the least bit unsure of himself. Phrase of the night: "I'm horny for presents."
Throughout Waters' performance, a scary fat drunk lady behind us kept yelling stuff, though not enough to really disrupt things. It's a John Waters thing, so a few mental defectives are bound to emerge. Most of what she said wasn't memorable, though I recall that at one point she called out for a Pink Flamingos musical. During the Q&A portion of Waters' set, she started raving about her support for Dennis Kucinich: "HIS WIFE... HE HAS A GREAT... RED-HEADED WIFE..." Waters smoothed right through a brief exchange and went onto the next questioner, though the dumbass kept it up until the end.
For some reason, Waters brought along the band Lavender Diamond for an opening set. For once, it was hard to blame people for talking through the songs. These are precious little morsels of quirky folk that probably sound great when it's late and quiet, but it clunked onstage. Wearing a billowing white dress, singer Becky Stark looked like a cloud trapped inside a K-Mart; the three dudes backing her had zero stage presence. Except for the drummer, who played his minimal beats with greatly exaggerated movements that made him look even more useless. Still, why not bring some surprises to a tour like this?
Though a great filmmaker, Waters should do more of this speaking stuff. There's a killing to be made on the corporate banquet circuit, eh?
Took me friggin' forever, but I finally got out to a Thermals show at Logan Square Auditorium in Chicago this week. My camera's screwed up, so no photos/video. Of course, the set included the single "No Culture Icons" (from the band's first album, More Parts Per Million), alongside a bunch of selections from last year's The Body, The Blood, The Machine--all of which are superior songs, but "No Culture Icons" is still one of the best music videos ever:
The Sub Pop stickers over their mouths are a nice touch.
Chin Up Chin Up opened with a fine set of zig-zagging, pretty melodies, and a rather humble stage presence--hey, not every band can have a Kathy Foster.
Today I'm in line in the grocery store, and what should I hear but a song I consider a pop classic, Elton John's "Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me." But it's not just any "DLTSGDOM." It's the Elton John-George Michael duet version of "DLTSGDOM."
A few things to note:
-My first exposure to pop music came through Elton. My dad loved his music long before I was born, and is still kind of obsessed. He's one of the suckers who bought The Captain And The Kid, Elton's sequel to his concept album Captain Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy. -Elton's main songwriting collaborator, lyricist Bernie Taupin, wrote "DLTSGDOM" about the pressures of songwriting.
-Wow, has Elton John recorded some crappy songs in his time.
-Wow, has Elton John recorded some amazing, wonderful songs in his time.
-The song was one of the few redeeming moments of Caribou, an album that sorely needed redemption (other highlights: "The Bitch Is Back," and maybe the maudlin kid-on-a-rampage ballad "Ticking").
-In his duet with George Michael, Elton doesn't fucking play piano. It clearly shows another dude playing it for him, as Elton prances about in a shitty baseball cap. Hey, Elton, your retardulous fashion choices are supposed to make you more amusing, not less, remember?
-In any context, George Michael will look like an asswipe, and the asswipery will be infinitely compounded and refracted by whatever he's wearing and whatever hand/body gestures/supplementary vocals he provides.
-George Michael keeps wagging his left arm/side around as if he is paralyzed along his right side -4:32: After many tense minutes of shared harmonies and exchanged lines, the two finally hop off their respective metal platforms and hustle toward each other across the arena's large, inhuman stage, like lovers reunited at a Hawaiian Tropic promotional event. Pause here to ready another beer/shot/bowl/syringe, as the "heavy memories" portion of tonight's post is fast approaching!
-Rewind to 5:14. What the hell kind of hat is Elton wearing? Rebar Workers' Union? Iron Cross? Knights Of Columbus? But that's nothing compared to the Crappy Elton Hat action you'll find here.
-5:30: After all this time, finally, the man-hug is consummated! Christ, I thought it'd never happen.
-When I was in fourth grade or so, one of my classmates was this total smart-ass jerk we'll call SJ. Never had any reason to talk to me, except to say something hurtful. Also, I recall that he was good at soccer, so right off the bat, fuck him. However, one day I found myself talking about "DLTSGDOM," and he overheard and snapped to life: "Oh, the one where he sings with—" "Yeah, George Michael!" Keep in mind, this was just a year or so before kids like him discovered Nirvana and kids like me started to feel pretty oblivious. So, for one fleeting, tender moment, the union of these two overripe British pop loonies brought together the little nerdy kid and the jackass. Where the hell are you, SJ, and how many Wham! singles have you since collected on vinyl?
IMDB and allmusic never fail to help me out, say, a dozen times a day. That said, both are developing an ever-more-obsessive habit of tagging, taking this concept to the ball-dangling brink of its usefulness. Maybe this will be helpful for people who need to have a Mood Customized Optimal Entertainment Experience, and now. Need a perfect tune for staying in bed? A movie with hands in it? Nothing novel about silly tags, but they're more amusing on sites that also function as serious research tools.
"What A Prick I Was Back Then": In which I rethink past remarks with the benefit of several months' hindsight, or something.
This April I wrote a calendar item on The High Strung that's still in circulation among The A.V. Club's local concert calendars:
Hooks can’t exist without repetition, as The High Strung knows almost too well. Each song on the Detroit band’s recent Get The Guests shrink-wraps a few key phrases into three-minutes-or-less packages. It can make the band’s breezy songcraft sound a little trivial, but plenty of maturity shows through even in a sound this compressed, thanks to skittering basslines, impossibly pop-perfect vocals, and charmingly dopey wordplay (“Rimbaud /Rambo” is as delirious as the title suggests).
Indeed, the hooks come pretty fucking fast and the songs are shockingly tight, thanks to THS's near-constant touring and writing. Granted, this is a kind-enough blurb, but the "almost too well" was an intended backhand. For whatever reason, I wasn't in the mood for THS frontman Josh Malerman's lean, fast tunes and subtly wanted to warn readers of the danger of hook-poisoning, or something. After a few more (voluntary) listens Get The Guests also reveals its dark humor and variety, from the frantic shuffle of "He's Got No Soul" to the badass swagger of "The Baddest Ship." "Shrink-wrapped"? "Compressed"? More accurately, it's a travel-sized artillery of solid pop.
Been noticing signs like these on public restrooms, dressing rooms, etc. lately. That's "family restroom" as in "distinct from the male and female restrooms, but absorbing the disabled bathroom while pushing the wheelchair dude to the side and making him significantly smaller in the grand scheme of bathroom symbolism."
The dad who brings his little kid into the multi-stall public restroom is one of the more unstable, insecure creatures you can observe in a public place. But I think normal bathroom-goers need to be nearby, to check his behavior—for the child's sake. Especially in places like airports, where I've most often seen this sign. Most likely, the family we're aiming for has been crammed into a single room in the Quality Inn 20 minutes from Disneyland for a week now, sharing two miserable twin beds and four shitty little plastic cups and a cracked, leaky ice bucket and a rented 1996 Tercel. This is the last group of people who should be locking themselves into a tiny room outfitted with sturdy porcelain fixtures and shiny railings. Especially if three of them have already been pushing wheelchair boy through the Space Mountain line and helping him dunk in the shitty motor-court swimming pool for several nights in a row. Yes, folks, force these people into the more-public public restrooms, where shame will restrain them from killing each other. A family that needs quality-private-bathroom time is a family that needs some fucking lithium.
Too bad I don't have $6 million to throw around. If I did, my entrepreneurship would be nigh-on on unstoppable. First, I would establish a series of concept restaurants.
Watch: Closed-circuit TV cameras and large flat-screen TVs are mounted all over the white, otherwise undecorated walls and ceiling of this very sleek restaurant. You are served generous portions of expensive gourmet food, but you can't avoid the televised sight of yourself or others eating it. People in a control booth will be able to zoom in on chosen eaters and annotate scenes with JumboTron-like humor and commentary. They can also switch on a special nutrient-imaging system that brings the most fatty parts of your meal into infrared-style relief as they dangle half-gnawed from your mouth. Think you can hide from the self-consciousness in the bathroom? Spend more than 15 minutes there, and the camera in your stall goes live. No one goes to a restaurant to watch people eat, but that's going to change, whether anyone likes it or not. If it's your birthday: You'll be served our Giant Flourless Chocolate Surveillance Cake. A small camera placed inside it exposes your hoggery—yep, looking right up into your syrup-smeared face—as you dig further and further in. One year greedier, motherfucker!
The Meat Locker: It's kind of cold inside this restaurant. You enter through a large, insulated door, which is slammed behind you from the outside. There is barely room for a table in here, because you'll be eating your massive, bloody, choice-cut steak amid swinging sides of meat. Move your plate aside for a sec—the butcher needs some workspace. If it's your birthday: PETA slaughterhouse footage will be projected on the walls/sides for free.
Drunken Derby: Live out your drunken-driving fantasy in bumper cars with realistic handling, safety reinforcements, and mandatory $10,000,000 insurance policies. Obstacles, precarious curves, amputee stuntmen you can hit, ice patches, storefronts to crash through, traffic signals to defy—this ain't no lonely suburban back road as your paper-bagged bottle of Early Times dribbles away down by the clutch. "Officers" pull you over to unload fresh servings of booze and gourmet nachos into your vehicle. "Sir, I'm gonna have to issue you a citation—of Wild Turkey 101 proof! No, sir, you haven't had enough—save it for the judge." If it's your birthday: Suck down that complimentary bottle of Andre fast, get your drunkymobile up to full-speed, and put on this NASCAR-surplus firesuit we hope still works, because you've got a Flaming Birthday Baked Alaska Wall to plow into.
This map's on the bathroom wall at a local bar, and it appears vandalism is welcome because people draw and write shit all over it. I figured I'd add to their list of Iceland-associated artists. (Just Bjork? C'mon.) This is exactly the kind of place, though, that would attract someone who knows a bunch more obscure Icelandic stuff, yet has the dignity not to go around writing it on bathroom walls. And no, the middle finger isn't mine. In retrospect, maybe I should have included "part of Fields."
Milwaukee band The Championship stopped at Mickey's Tavern in Madison on Thursday night and ended up playing to a very cool and appreciative crowd of about 15 people. I'd never seen the band before, but I've had its 2005 album, Dance Casador!, in pretty frequent rotation since Steve turned me on to it. The record filters the band's strong, baritone-voiced twang through dreamy electric guitar work. It's got the earthy tones you'd expect from a country record, but also a modern, sleek feel. The phrase that keeps coming to mind is: Cosmic American music for our times. (Perhaps I should send that down to WBC's thesaurus jockeys for a little fine-tuning.)
This time, the band brought along a multi-instrumentalist, who played steel (on the bar!), mandolin, harmonica, and some guitar leads. Bands playing Mickey's usually get tucked into this little corner near the door, and against all odds the bar's acoustics worked nicely, letting the room fill up with The Championship's rich, warm sound. Also, they're nice people. It looks like they're mostly playing within Wisconsin, with one Chicago date scheduled this month and a couple stops in Texarkana later on.
Jon Dee Graham's an amazing guitar player, a former bandmate of Alejandro Escovedo, and a strong solo artist in his own right. So, if you get a chance to see him in someone's basement, go. The set started off with "Tie A Knot," from his lastest solo album, Full. Graham's coal-gargling voice gets him a lot of Tom Waits comparisons, but that doesn't really sum the music up.
Sorry for the blurry-demon-wraith photo quality--didn't want to flash right in their faces.
Memorable banter moments: -"When someone comes up to you and says, 'It's all good,' they're either an idiot or a fuckin' liar." -To bass player Harmonie Kelly: "I'm not the one drinking wine out of a Muppets glass... did you just correct me on which Muppet it is?"
Opening: Kelly Pardekooper, a Madison-based, country-centric singer-songwriter who's attracted some international airplay and tour dates over the years. His latest, Brand New Bag, is a pretty solid set of songs, and, according to a one-sheet, includes performances from John Doe, Greg Brown, Junior Brown, and Jo Dee Messina. Here, his friend and also-reliable local singer-songwriter Josh Harty backed him on guitar.
Yes, the sun did shine upon that show, but not on our chance meeting.
ME: Early 20s writer/fan hanging out at the show, minding my own business at the bar between sets.
YOU: A 30s-ish couple couple, a tad mismatched in terms of personality and attractiveness, sitting a few seats down at the bar, looking a bit out of place.
Your male half greeted me, apropos of nothing, with "GET A HAIRCUT, HIPPIE!" even though I've been keeping it short lately. It all turned out to be in good fun, and you also went on to note that I "look like a baby," yet I couldn't help but wonder why you both continued to pursue conversation with me, or why your female half bought me a beer (which was nice). Was some sort of cult and/or kidnapping scheme afoot? After getting through the standard questions about my age and origins, she explained you were there because he'd read about the headlining band "in the paper," but so far had been disappointed. (For the record, I thought all the bands were lots of fun.) "Where'd you read it?" I asked. "In The Onion," your male half replied.
"Oh, I wrote that," I said.
"Will this band rock?" he asked.
"Yes. I have seen them rock before. I have also heard them rock on record. Believe me, you will be sufficiently rocked."
Then you left two songs into the band's set, failing to partake of the very rocking that, because of me, you had sought. But I felt like we made a real connection, especially while messing with each other and trading softball insults. We brought out each other's weird sides, and I felt fireworks in my belly. Maybe I'll run into you at a Hinder show someday, should you seek to be rocked there. Would love a chance to share with you my handmade bedroom garments, crafted entirely from Fruit Roll-Ups, and creepily observe your domestic foibles.
If this bank mailer can co-opt hip-hop through the medium of a creepy white guy, so can I.
As if I had time to keep up a respectable blog in the first place, I've now launched another, which will function as another section of (read: will be just as neglected and semi-literate as) WBC. It's called Drop A Ambulance, and it's there to motivate and collect my thoughts on hip-hop, a genre I know little about yet have enjoyed often, especially over the past couple of years. Fun times.
Parts of this sign were clearly slapped on over old parts, so perhaps his message has evolved over time, from one crazy cut-and-paste assertion to another. It is, however, an awesome piece of trashy, comic-book-inspired art, or something like it. Ideal for your own living room.
But the real question is, can you really trust a man with socks like that?
Went to bed at about 3:30 a.m., woke up around 7:30 a.m. What kept me up so late? A fine show here in Madison, whose highlight, for me, was Illinois band Inspector Owl. (I've posted about the band before.) Also there: Milwaukee's Those Royals, Madison's always tight and infectious Awesome Car Funmaker, and a newer local group, Romance Language (missed their set, unfortunately). Basically, a solid four or five hours of happy. What got me up so early? Well, perhaps a subconscious urge to start sippin' from my Inspector Owl coffee mug. The band's selling these for a thrifty $5 at its shows, and it brings some much-needed flair to my bachelor's kitchen. No idea at what point they decided it was worth having coffee mugs, but I'm glad they do. Maybe it will kick-start their marketing strategy, or something, and help their new EP and excellent shows attract the attention they're worth. Last night's show sounded a bit better than IO's last stop in Madison. Perhaps they had a better sound guy this time, but whatever it was, everything, including the violin, keys, and ocassional trumpet, came through much clearer. Appropriate, as the new EP sounds bigger and fuller than their previous records.
I've also previously mentioned Kid, You'll Move Mountains before. Corey, who sings lead and plays guitar in Inspector Owl, also plays in KYMM, and he says they're working on an actual album.
