I ride the train almost every day, twice a day (once in a while I sleep in and have to drive), I see some of the strangest stuff!
Here's a couple of things I shot today just for my amusement.
Saw this woman at the orange train station, she looked about 50, dressed about 15. She had platinum blond hair that reached to the bottom of her ass. Also, she was blind and had a dog. Here she looks pretty much like a blond, blind version of thing from the adams family.
This is a big wtf too.. Amish (I think, I couldn't find a Mennonite church in Fullerton) folks waiting for the train at the Fullerton station.
I swear to god this one is giving me the evil eye..
Long time no post, here's a nice lunch spot in downtown LA. You can't see it from street level, you have to get right up to the edge to see it from the top and there's no simple obvious way to get there.
Imagine there's no Heaven It's easy if you try No hell below us Above us only sky Imagine all the people Living for today
Imagine there's no countries It isn't hard to do Nothing to kill or die for And no religion too Imagine all the people Living life in peace
You may say that I'm a dreamer But I'm not the only one I hope someday you'll join us And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions I wonder if you can No need for greed or hunger A brotherhood of man Imagine all the people Sharing all the world
You may say that I'm a dreamer But I'm not the only one I hope someday you'll join us And the world will live as one
I think this is one of the most beautiful songs ever written. A lot of people have criticized Lennon saying that a millionaire should not write songs about imagining no possessions. Bullshit. He's not saying, "Let's get rid of our possessions," he's saying IMAGINE it, he says, "I'm a dreamer," there's nothing wrong about dreaming of a different world. Nothing wrong with dreaming, more people should do it, stop being afraid of their cynical rhetoric.
Anyway, I was in the subway tonight and saw this guy playing Imagine, he did a good job of it too. This grungy man with a messy beard and a dirty jacket, so unassuming without his guitar took me away from my forced march of a commute to and from union station for just a couple of minutes, he put a smile on my face and said thank you when I gave him a few bucks...
Last night I had the pleasure of seeing Former Human Beings play at a kick ass venue in Highland Park called Mr T's Bowl. Let's talk about the venue first. This place is an old bowling alley, everything is still there; the lanes, the curved seats, the projection booth, the bar/lounge, it's a freaking bowling alley.. Whats changed is that a curtain has been drawn across the lanes mid-way and a stage has been erected on one side. It's great! Sound was pleasant though the sound guy seemed really uncooperative. I asked him to add a little more light on stage left and he blew me off even though he wasn't doing jack shit else. My perception was that the band also had a problem with him.. Other than that, I LOVED the venue, definitely go see shows there!
The band, Former Human Beings was great, they're a six piece group; lead singer/guitar, lead guitar, bass, key's/synth, drummer and a guy spinning records. Their sound was very full and complex, a really good mix of rock and synth. The lead singer, using a digital delay box hooked to one of his two mic's did a great job weaving an interesting blend of vocals, becoming another instrument in the band rather than just singing. The synth player, a cutie for sure, put together a whole other layer of sound to the band, a great compliment to the effects the lead singer was using.
The only thing critique I have for the band was the guy spinning records, I was a little confused what he was providing, but to be honest, I'm pretty sure there some kind of issue that prevented him from doing his thing. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to see them again to find out what he's all about, damn. :)
In addition to The Pirate Charles, I caught probably a dozen other bands, I won't name names, but some of them were not great, fortunately some of them were AWEEESOME. Here's a few of them that caught my eye..
Shotgun Blues Guys, it's not too late to change your band name! I went looking for info on the band and had a HELL of a time, why? Well, the band's name is the same as a song by Guns (a)N(d) Roses (I hate the fucking N), it's also the name of a song recorded by the Blues Brothers on Suitcase Full of Blues, I REALLY want to believe the latter was their inspiration for the name, after seeing the band, it's possible. In either case, I really failed finding info on the band which is a damn shame, I found their myspace page but honestly had so much trouble reading it with their layout (goddamnedmyspace), I GAVE UP. Googling for anything more was useless.
OK, I'm done with that, what I REALLY want you to know, is that the lead singer of this band, Monique, FUCKING WAILED. Chick, if you read this, I'll come watch you sing anything, anytime, I was floored. When this band was setting up, I figured with their name, I was going to get a Guns AND Roses clone band, I was confused watching them because I couldn't figure out who their lead singer was, everybody else fit my expectation so when I saw this smallish girl in jeans and a silver vest helping out, I figured she was a friend or somebodies girlfriend. I was a moron. When she took the mic with a tambourine in her hand I was baffled but eager to find out what the fuck was about to happen, when the music started, honestly, I was not impressed. Maybe it was the sound quality in this tiny room, maybe it was bad equipment but I wasn't hit with impressive music, sorry guys.
I was ready to go check another stage but figured I should see what this girl in the silver vest was up to, beating her tambourine, in her silver vest. Can you tell the vest was throwing me? Then, she stepped up, banged her shit a couple of times, opened her mouth and started belting out her first song. HOLY. FUCKING. SHIT. I pay good money to watch people with this much raw talent and here she was, singing with a just-ok-band on the small stage at a show with 20 other bands. Seriously, my video doesn't do her justice, the room didn't do her justice, the mic didn't do her justice, her BAND didn't do her justice, the ONLY fucking justice in that room was that silver vest that she ABANDONED after the 3rd song, I mean, what the fuck did SHE need it for? She didn't.
Too bad, I can't find any other bookings, I can't find any of their music. I'm shit out of luck, this chick fucked me over, she nailed me with her voice and then left me wanting. Crap.
Thunder City Shout This will be quick and easy. These guys didn't have any pretension, they didn't come off as the rockers that will save the world or make a million dollars, they just rocked. Super fun band, good tunes and their cover of The Kinks song (also covered by Van Halen) was kick ass. I'd probably take a chance on a headline band I didn't know if these guys were opening.
Olmec Can I just say, hardcore isn't really my scene, it's not that I don't like it, I do, it's just not where my ear takes me. For this reason it's rare that I'll see a hardcore band that grabs my attention, Olmec did that. I didn't understand a fucking word they said, I didn't care, my only lament was that I had my camera with me and I couldn't step into the small, yet violent pit. Next time (and there will be a next time).
There are a few other bands I like to upload videos of but I'm waiting for their permission. O.H.M., Bad Fathers and a couple of bands who's names I've yet to figure out. Hopefully I can get those up too. I have to say this, nobody at this show stunk, writing this review was easy as shit, that says a lot about a show, I rarely boo at a band but if you're suck, I'll tell everybody.
Ok, in the last avast, I saw a pirate band in the subway station, everything about that was AWESOME. Based on that very brief interaction with the band, The Pirate Charles, I bought two tickets to a show a The Knitting Factory. I also talked 5 of my friends into going. I wasn't wrong.
The show there had 20ish bands lined up, MOST of them were hard-ish core, some of them were more rock in the classic 80's sense and a few were just down right hard. I had a GREAT night, it well worth the 18$ (plus 4$ fees from fucking ticketweb. each!).
I'll start with the obvious, The Pirate Charles. NOT what I expected. When I saw them in the subway, they were obviously limited by a lack of electricity and speakers, what I saw (and you too if you've seen the video) made me expect something like Flogging Molly, another Pogues-ish band (I happen to love The Pouges so loving Flogging Molly and bands like them is easy), holy crap was I wrong, these guys ROCKED. The music was way harder rock than I expected.
My favorite aspect of the show was the mob of fans in the audience ALSO dressed as pirates, they mixed wonderfully with the typical crowd of rockers, punks and fans of violent dancing. Watching the rockers react to pirate after pirate coming through the doors was fun as shit, the rockers, so used to being the social outcasts and representatives of fashion what-the-fucks were left confused by the usurpation of their place in life. When the show started, the pirate fans were eager to jump into the fun, dancing with mugs on their heads, giant boobs jiggling in corsets, typical faire, so to speak. It was easy for them, they were CLEARLY there to see The Pirate Charles, the rockers on the other hand, they had been gleefully pushing and shoving in circles just 15 minutes earlier on the smaller stage, plus, none of them had any kind Elizabethan garb on. It took them longer to get into it, but get into it they did, somewhere around the middle of the show, the hair and leather started flying, pirates and rockers together, at least, joined by the hard core pirate music they'd all secretly longed for all their lives. Nice.
So, to sum all that up, I LOVED The Pirate Charles, I recommend never missing a show if you can avoid it, hell, I'm going to keep an eye patch in my car from now on in case I a show surprises me.
I'm currently waiting for their permission to post the videos to youtube. I'll update this post when they give it (they better.....)
I decided to eat breakfast at home this morning instead of at work, this puts me on a later train than normal. Thanks to that quirk of fate, I stumbled onto something AWESOME at the pershing square red line station today!
They were in the subway promoting an AWESOME bar, The Redwood BarXGrill, or as I know, the pirate bar... Really good food, they aren't fucking around about the pirate theme.
The Pirate Charles band will be playing the knitting factory on the 22nd of Nov (2008), I'm totally going.
