I can rock a shower stall with some tuneage. Ditto commuter solos in my Scion xB, windows rolled up. Public performances, not so much.
But I still have the mic check fantasy.
You know, it’s a couple of hours before the show and the band members are all on their instruments tuning up and stuff, and my sound man is trying to get the mix right. He gives me the nod and I make a minute adjustment to my wireless headset and give him something to work with.
What do I belt out? I give him the lead-in to Fatboy Slim’s remix of Front 2 Back (click to play).
In the fantasy, my percussion player breaks out some supportive rhythm behind me, and the keyboard chick grins and comes in right after. We start rollin’ it out and the handful of roadies left on the set bust a move or two as they finish up their work. The sound guy gets me in the mains, monitors, and gives me the thumbs up. The levels are awesome; I’m in Tha House. Everybody loves me. I am the party mistress, before whom all shall groove.
I don’t mind that this will only ever happen in my dreams; that way I can keep the fantasy pristine.
What’s your mic check song (fantasy or otherwise)?
One of my super-tough MMA chick friends (who will box with me periodically and who is helping me learn ju jitsu: fist bump Junie!) sent me a few suggestions for refreshing my quickly-getting-tiresome Shuffle playlist for training. Her main additions to my existing soup were:
Nine Inch Nails, Head Like a Hole
Alice in Chains, Again, Over Now
L7, Shove
While I was downloading, I also got the Rev Theory album “Light It Up” and some fresh Rob Zombie (Spookshow Baby). A new training playlist does wonders for me. Charges me up better than energy drinks and gives me mental edge. And new studies prove that loud rock music is really good for you! Like I needed incentive to jack up the volume.
Here are a few other tunes that are staying on the list for now:
Hoobastank, Just One
Saliva, Your Disease
Sixx:AM, Life is Beautiful
Slipknot, Vendetta (what an awesome drummer!!)
Norma Jean, Robots 3 Humans 0
Pearl Jam, Love Reign O’er Me (my sentimental concession)
Korn, Twisted Transistor
Disturbed, Avarice
Deadsy, The Key To Gramercy Park
Celldweller, Own Little World
Emery, Studying Politics
Heavy D and the Boyz, Now that We Found Love
Pillar, Frontline
The Offspring, Nitro
Feeling all refreshed, now, and ready to Kick. Some. Ass. Feel free to post your own suggestions (for music, not ass kicking. Well, you can do both, I suppose.) below. And remember: stay healthy, people. Crank it way the hell up.
A local author and podcaster friend of mine blogged recently about her daughter’s first f-bomb. It was a funny read, and I thought she parented quite well through the situation. And it got me thinking about how I felt the last time I heard the Ice happily singing the lyrics to Warrant’s (and Poison’s) “She’s My Cherry Pie,” which he most likely downloaded from my iPod.
She’s my cherry pie,
Cool drink of water, such a sweet surprise.
Tastes so good, make a grown man cry,
Sweet cherry pie, oh yeah.
Now. My boys — currently aged 9 to 14 — have grown up in a rock house. Their dad gigs 2 or 3 times a month with one of his bands which covers mostly 80’s hair metal and rock hits. The boys have been to a few of his gigs, the few that didn’t take place in a questionable bar late at night. They hear him practice these songs. They practice them on their guitars and drums upstairs. For that matter, they hear many of the same songs on Guitar Hero and Rock Band, or when they’re in my car with me.
And let’s be honest here: those songs from the 80’s weren’t nearly as explicit as some of today’s music. But it still makes my ears completely red to hear them singing Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way” or Kiss’s “Lick It Up.”
Don’t need to wait for an invitation
You gotta live like you’re on vacation
There’s something sweet you cant buy with money – lick it up, lick it up
So far, I don’t think they really know what they’re singing, although my teenager probably has a clue. For that matter, does ANYone at the Canes games think about the lyrics to the Scorpions’ “Rocked You Like a Hurricane” or do they only know that one riff?
So. What does one do when one’s 9 year old is belting out the Knack’s “My Sharona” (and doing it pretty well)? Does Doug Fieger have kids? Steven Tyler had girls, did he go through this? (They never tell you the important stuff on Wikipedia.) What would Joan Jett do, people?
Come a little closer huh, ah will ya huh. Close enough to look in my eyes, Sharona.
Keeping it a mystery gets to me Running down the length of my thigh, Sharona
If you’re me, you flush to the roots of your hair (Omg! Did my kid just sing “You ain’t seen nothin’ till you’re down on a muffin”??!!) and pretend to ignore it. It’s rock, it’s good for you, right? Hey, we turned out okay… I mean, mostly okay. Didn’t we? Didn’t we?
I might have guessed when they split the entering crowd into a men’s line and a women’s line for a full-body pat-down that Crüefest might get a little out of control. It was hot as hell, no breeze, the drinking began well before any of the featured bands hit the main stage, and the inhalables were out before the sun went down. The crowd ran the gamut, but tended toward overweight, underdressed, rock rednecks who had girlfriends eager to strip off their shirts in public. If I don’t see another beer-bellied dude with pierced nipples for a long time I’ll be okay with that. And if the crowd was unruly, the bands, when they stopped playing and started talking, were way worse. When did great music become disconnected with the ability to complete a coherent sentence without dozens of f-bombs? I could be getting old.
Nah. I’ve been to great concerts before, this just wasn’t one of them.
Charm City Devils
The first decent band to take the stage was Baltimore-based Charm City Devils, a straight-up garage-shaking classic rock band in the tradition of AC/DC and Guns n Roses, before either of those bands made it big. Their first release is being piloted by Crüe’s own Nikki Sixx through Eleven Seven Music. Their big single “Let’s Rock and Roll” seemed to go off well with the crowd, although I thought “It’s All About the Money” was much better. And high-voltage frontman John Allen, no less that many of the bigger bands at Crüefest, needs to shut up and sing. The patter is unbearably banal.
Cavo
While Drowning Pool did their screamo thing, I wandered over to a side stage and was pleased to catch Cavo in high rock mode, thrashing out earth-shattering guitar riffs and making my skin vibrate. I love standing three feet from a 16-speaker stack. Cavo is a bit more heavy metal than Charm City Devils, and they did a respectable job of rockloading that stage. Special props to grinning, bechained bass player Brian Smith, who delivered excellent frontman support and engaged the fans as well. (And he clearly works out; check out those biceps. I have such a thing for bass players. Was that a 5-string bass?) Btw, they did a nice video on YouTube thanking their fans for helping their single, Champagne climb up the charts. I didn’t hear them do Champagne, but Blame was a huge crowd pleaser during the time I was at their stage.
Theory of a Deadman
When these guys took the main stage I had high hopes, but ended up being disappointed. They had drawn a good number of followers to the venue; I saw lots of home-made fanmerch (most notably super-tight, ripped, and puffy-painted “Bad Bad Girlfriend” tees) and expected the subsequent delivery of solid rock goods. However, lead singer Tyler Connolly had continuous trouble staying on pitch. He may have just been having a bad (bad) night, but he definitely had one all night long during this performance at Crüefest. They seemed to connect with the angst-flooded teen crowd, though, especially with I Hate My Life, which had every single high-schooler in the arena (and they were legion) on their feet, screaming the lyrics with fists in the air. ToaD “gets” highschoolers, I think. And what a great acronym, huh?
Best of Show: Rev Theory
So while ToaD riled up the teens, I headed over to a side stage to catch Rev Theory, which was hands down the shock-runaway success of my entire Crüefest. This experienced band out of NYC has seen a good bit of success already, notably with World Wrestling Entertainment pushing some of their songs to the top of the charts, and leading them to a gig with Xbox LIVE. I happened to walk in on Far From Over (you MUST click through!), and got instantly pummeled by the grandeloquent, superinflated, unapologetic overload of heavy rock. These people NEED AN ARENA! And pyrotechnics! And more tight, slit-open leather, oh, yes, far far more! I was sucked in and giving them my full participation in Gimme a Hell, Gimme a Yeah, and actually got caught in a spontanteous mosh which broke my favorite pair of sunglasses and nearly got me squashed by an overzealous sweaty Hell Yeah dude, but it was all good. It was all excellent! It was a Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Queen-inspired, beyond Metallica wünderbeast. Screaming riff heaven. And the guitar player with the nose-ring and the long black hair? Torturously delicious rock crush. If you do nothing else, download Rev Theory NOW and turn it way, way up. Skip Drowning Pool, ToaD, even (gasp! I’m gonna say it!) Godsmack and Crüe, and give me more speakers, more power, and far more Rev Theory.
I don’t know if I can continue, but I’ll try.
Godsmack
Let’s begin with the “don’t talk” part. True, I was still not recovered from the Rev Theory tsunami, but Godsmack was where I began to grow intensely weary of the endless string of uncreative profanity and meaningless chatter. The music was great, even outstanding, and there were certainly plenty of fireballs belched onto the stage to engage the most Rev Theory-dazed jade. Frontman Sully Erna knows how to do a show, but this one felt a little overscripted. The dueling-drum set piece was refreshing by virtue of Erna’s set being entirely done with hand drums and cymbals, and the intrumental break he spent encouraging front-row fans to take the guitar pick from his mouth was… diverting, but I wasn’t excited by the “Show us your t*ts” plea, and I ended up feeling underwhelmed by the show, despite a solid musical performance.
Mötley Crüe
This was arena rock in the great tradition of ELO, Journey, Styx, and Queen. The eerily-greenish padded cell (for the opener, Dr. Feelgood) was creepy and beautiful, and the strobe-lit walls were slowly split and flown up to be part of the mental-hospital-operating-room big set at the end of the number. The band rocked without a hitch through the entire Dr. Feelgood album, and thrilled the crowd with Kicksteart My Heart, Without You, and Same Ol’ Situation. The two long-legged glitter girls seemed a bit unnecessary, but I understand the desire of aging rock stars to keep baby candy on hand. I have to say, though, that Vince Neil is missing absolutely NONE of his range. That was deeply satisfying, and no mean trick.
In retrospect, I’m not thrilled that I took my middle-schoolers to the show. I was proud of them, though; they listened carefully to my warnings to get clear of mosh pits as quickly as possible, and they were quiet and thoughtful when I shared my discouragement at the overall bad behavior, wretched language, and overt drug use at the concert. I think they loved the music for the music’s sake, and that’s the best way to come away from this Crüefest.
Thank you so much, friend of @ericstroud who had a wedding on the night that Cheap Trick, Poison, and Def Leppard were scheduled to play the Walnut Creek ampitheater. And thank you Eric, for tweeting out your tix when you couldn’t go, great idea!
There were a few bumps, however. In the “band drama” department, someone decided two hours before the concert that no cameras would be allowed, which caused a HUGE pile-up at the gates as people either turned around and walked back to leave them in their cars, then came and got in the line again, or else turned in their cameras to Security (our choice) and hoped for the best (we got it back by waiting in line AGAIN in order to leave). They’re not saying which of the prima donnas uttered this ridiculous “Oh dear, we can’t be caught on film!” decree, but I vote for Brett Michaels just because I can. He seems to stay hip-deep in drama; apparently he fractured his nose last month as he was exiting the stage at the Tony Awards — a descending piece of the set bashed him in the face. (Can you even picture him with Pamela Anderson? Me either, and don’t send me the link to that sex tape, people.)
The entrance Pile Up Of Thousands meant we totally missed Cheap Trick, although we could hear them a little bit over the drunken grousing as we waited in line.
Poison, Brett Michaels included, delivered the goods, and then some. After I got over the shock of paying $10 for a Yuengling (gasp — and I bought two), I went up front to see if I could get close to the stage for an iPhone photo (don’t tell the band), but the bouncers were in fine form and you can’t get past them to even enter the area with the seats at all. ‘Sokay, tho — you could hear juuuust fine, and if you can’t witness the glam up close and personal, at least you can ride the groove. And the peaceable crowd made a nice contrast with the recent insanity of Joan Jett in Moore Square.
Def Leppard can raise up some jam, too, and it was great to hear them do it. I forgave Joe Elliot‘s inability to hit the high notes all night long — it was clever of him to let the crowd carry part of the burden on a couple of their songs, and after all he HAS been doing this since 1977. Gotta cut the dude some slack, Jack.
Classic bands, great music, fabulous night. AND I scored a couple of $10 tickets to CrueFest later this month. Motley Crue will be playing with Godsmack, Theory of a Dead Man, and Drowning Pool, and I’ve already heard great things about it.
Planning to take the First, who is utterly stoked. Gotta raise up the next generation right.
Downtown Raleigh got a taste of New York City this weekend. The crowd who poured in to see Joan Jett and the Blackhearts was testy and fractious, and security had their work cut out for them escorting the faint, drunk, injured, and belligerent out of the mad crush in front of the stage.
I don’t give a damn ’bout my reputation
You’re living in the past it’s a new generation
A girl can do what she wants to do and that’s
What I’m gonna do
An’ I don’t give a damn ‘ bout my bad reputation
Bad Reputation
The band was late coming on stage (welcome to rock). I had been working hard for about an hour to hold my position, about 6 humans from the front row, stage left. The woman beside me who was being shoved and pushed with the rest of us seemed to believe the battering she was enduring was my fault. After forcing a heavy hip against me a few times, she hissed to the man (husband?) behind her that she was about sick of it, and might have to start a fight. She cut her eyes my way and I flashed her my best wide-eyed eager smile, and readied my right cross. However, she didn’t survive the delay, and when she turned, exhausted and sweating, to shove her way out of the crowd I gleefully took her vacated 8 square inches of space. Live rock can be so delicious.
After opening with “Bad Reputation,” the band delivered a pure and beautiful jolt of punk with “Cherry Bomb;” the seething ocean of punk-turned-corporate 40-somethings, lesbian vegans, goths, and young rockers lifted their x-thousand arms in cell-phone videocam tribute and screamed the chorus. Joan was in fine form, flicking sweat on the audience with an evil grin, making lascivious and rude gestures, scowling, grinning, and howling into the mic.
Hey street boy what’s your style?
Your dead-end dreams don’t make you smile.
I’ll give you something to live for
Have ya, grab ya, ’til you’re sore
Cherry Bomb
Although the sound crew had experienced difficulties all night bringing up enough volume on the lead mic, the mix was enough to deliver the visceral kind of hit that every live rock junkie craves. Standing in front of the 25-foot speaker stack during “Do You Wanna Touch Me” was a life-changing, atom-rearranging kind of experience.
Jett’s Blackhearts were utterly unfamiliar to me, but truthfully, it hardly mattered; the small-framed Joan Jett, born Joan Marie Larkin, has carried this show since she was 15 years old in the garage days of the Runaways. And she’s not only been around since the early days of rock, she started her own record label in true punk DIY fashion (reputedly the first woman rocker to do so), and she’s toured and worked with many of the greats from Sex Pistols to Aerosmith, Alice Cooper, Motörhead, Queen, and The Police. (There was even a performance in Madison Square Garden with the Trans-Siberian Orchestra in 2005.) The godmother of punk has also produced work for bands such as The Germs, Metal Church, Big Daddy Kane, and Bikini Kill. She played Columbia in the Broadway production of The Rocky Horror Picture Show (fitting, isn’t it?), and has done TV, movies, radio shows, and damn near everything else.
She didn’t disappoint the hordes at Downtown Live, barrelling full-speed through her hit cover “I Love Rock and Roll,” then “I Hate Myself for Loving You,” and a couple of newer ones, including “Androgynous” from her 2004 Naked release, and at least one from the 2006 Sinner disc.
She still has the same black shag haircut, heavy eyeliner, and leathers; she still pulls the same earth-shattering riffs out of her white Gibson melody maker. It’s hard to believe this woman is fifty years old. Word is, she’s not slowing down any time soon; a biopic is in the works, with Joan Jett as the executive producer: Twilight’s Kristen Stewart is set to play the lead and Dakota Fanning will take the role of Runaways partner-in-punk Cherie Currie (you can check out Kristen’s “Jett look” here).
I was a punk before you were a punk
You want some action? I’ll put your ass in traction baby
Just that one song, even just that one lyric, made Raleigh’s Downtown Live a huge success. How could anyone raised in the 70’s not love The Tubes? Punk was what was happening, even if it was mostly happening in California and DC and NY City, rather than where I lived in Memphis. When bass player (I have such a heart for bass players, remind me to post about that) Rick Anderson hit the stage in the black and red striped Ramones t-shirt and police-style black cap I knew we were in for the goods.
The Tubes, like many long-lived rock groups, have been through a lot of band and label drama, but the attitude is still there, along with a wry sense of humor that has come with age. Lead man Fee Waybill (real name John Waldo Waybill, I’d change it too) still brings the weird and showy costumes (he opened in a hobo get-up, which he ripped off and flung into the audience), props and a stunning amount of energy. The rest of the band members, used to Waybill’s many successes and excesses over the years, seems to be content to let Fee be the show. And so was the crowd. You can see my photo set here; I did my best to shove my way to the front.
Joey, Johnny, and Dee Dee Ramone may be dead, but punk is alive and rocking and still in your face. Some things should never change.
On Wilmington Street, just between Martin and Hargett, there’s a skinny shotgun bar which during the day will fool you into thinking it’s nothing special. If you go in you can order your vodka Red Bull and carry it through the emergency exit at the back onto a concrete pad tucked between two tall downtown buildings. You can call it a patio if you want, but that’s one of those “silk purse out of a sow’s ear” kind of things. There’s also an upstairs loft with the obligatory off-balance, beer-stained pool table and two pinball machines. From there you can gaze down at the faded and dusty 70’s and 80’s era album covers: Cher, Supertramp, Neil Diamond, Lou Reed, Elton John, and (omg!) Jim Nabors.
The only thing that gives this place away are the thousands of band stickers on the bar’s industrial coolers and the metal stairs that arc over the bar to the upper floor. Who plays there? Hell, who hasn’t? Slim’s Downtown is a sort of CBGB for indie rock, with the band member sleeping upstairs on a couch before the gig to prove it.
Apparently they were originally scheduled to play The Brewery where they might have had more room, but Tristan Clopet and the Juice packed Slim’s to the rafters. Clopet was born in Toronto but calls Raleigh home, and has at least one social media savvy marketing friend who found me on Twitter on gig day (my bio says “live music fanatic”) and invited me to catch the show. I did a little research, loved what I heard (check out this video of their recent appearance on the CBS Morning Show), and sent a tweet out to Tristan, who was quick to respond, making me even more eager to get downtown early enough to nab a seat at the bar, one of only about 11 chairs in the entire place, not counting the couch upstairs. And it was a good thing I did, because come 10 pm, the crowd came pouring in, and these people were here to see a friend.
Clopet quit school at University of Miami with two semesters to go in order to tour with his band; he says it was the best decision he ever made, and after you hear him it’s hard to disagree. Think Squirrel Nut Zippers meets Red Hot Chili Peppers, channeling a mellow James Brown. This guy has a voice like caramel creme, an easy smile, and the irrepressible and quirky sense of fun. My favorite moment was at the end of their set, when every member of the band hammered on a drum, consummately passing solos back and forth in an fabulously grin-inducing display of music geekiness. The show included all the songs on their demo disk (on sale at the merch table for five bucks — how do these people make money?? — and they throw in a free sticker which I needed for my husband’s guitar case) as well as a few covers. I have a terrible set list addiction, so naturally I shoved my way up to snap a photo of it, which you may notice is upside down so we can read it. You can see the rest of my photos from the gig here.
From here the band is headed to Virginia Beach, DC, and multiple dates in New York, and it doesn’t look like they’ll be slowing down any time soon. More power to ’em. Next time they’re in Raleigh, I bet they’ll be able to fill the Lincoln. Get there early.
Saturday Aftershock played Connolly’s in Cary, NC, and since it was an early (7 to 11) outdoor show I took all the boys to see their dad’s gig. This is a fairly rare occurrence for them since most of the Husband’s gigs are very late at night in smoky bars and not ideal for the boys. And even though I had to miss my own boxing team at a huge fight event on the fairgrounds, I was glad to give the boys this opportunity.
The hat, yeah. It got passed back and forth between the Ice (below) and his big brother, and all the tween girls loved it. The Maker (below, background) was oblivious to most of the boy/girl chemistry going on but had a blast running crazy and dancing. It cracked me up to see all three of them singing the words to every song from “Walk This Way” to “Pour Some Sugar on Me”. Of course, it’s not just that they know the words to these songs, they sing and play them too. The Ice on drums and vocals, the First on lead guitar, Dad on bass, and the Maker (who is a keyboard player) mostly just watching with shining eyes for now. It won’t be long before they learn some Journey, then the keys will have a chance to get the spotlight. Meanwhile, I’m thrilled with all my rock boys.
I started the day thinking “I can do ANYTHING for 18 minutes.” That’s nine rounds (and only 3 at a time!) in the Golden Gloves.
But my day was a lot longer than 18 minutes. I was under way too much stress, and got out of the Zone. My insulin was all over the place, and my blood pressure was down. I didn’t realize it was happening until I crashed halfway through my workout, which was a pisser because I was prepared to rock it hard.
Workout:
Precor elliptical: 15 min, at/near 75% capacity
Bosu ball crunches: 200 to front (50 with medicine ball), 100 each side
Jump rope: 6 rounds of 2 minutes each, sprinting half of each minute. 30 sec rest between rounds.
[C R A S H — also mild exercise-induced asthma attack]
Leg extension: 40 lbs, 3 sets of 12 reps
Squats: 100 lbs, 3 sets of 12 reps
Front/side deltoid flys: 5 lbs each hand, 3 sets of 12 reps
Bicep curl bar: 35 lbs, 3 sets of 12 reps
Lat pulldowns: 70 lbs, 3 sets of 10 reps
Evening recovery:
Drink oceans of water, avoid sugars, eat well, rest, ice knee. Read fluffy fiction.
Listen to Cloud Cult
Cloud Cult / No One Said It Would Be Easy
you came up from the ground from a million little pieces you’re a pretty human being yeah you’re a pretty human being,
when it all comes crashing down try to understand your meaning no one said it would be easy this living it ain’t easy
and you were sewn together with a tapestry of molecules a billion baby galaxies and wide open spaces
and every thing you need is here everything you fear is here and it’s holding you up it just keeps holding you up
you came up from the ground from a million little pieces you’re a pretty human being yeah you’re pretty human being
when it all comes crashing down try to understand your meaning no one said it would be easy this living it ain’t easy
9:00 pm, feeling much better. Some days are like that.
