Firesdie

Last night I went to a show at Fireside Bowl. The fireside is a venerable punk institution and has had shows there since I was a wee lad. I've been going there for more than ten years, now, I think. For a while recently they stopped doing shows, but I guess they're trying out thursdays.

I think the choice for a re-introduction of music there was strange. There were at least 10 bands, each getting like 15 minute slots. I was told that people would all be doing covers from the year 1988. It turned out that the word "cover" was used very loosely and the year "1988" even moreso. Most of the "bands" were experimental/noise. One in particular consisted of three guys in a girl all wearing hawaiian shirts and those cheap plastic leis (sp?). The performed "Babaloo," the old Ricky Ricardo tune and also the brazilian favorite, "The Girl From Ipanema." Basically, they played the original songs on cd players through which they processed the sound with several effects processors and "played" along with the effected music with various noise-making devices as well as by singing. The singing was rather charming and was also processed at times. At the end of the songs (there were two) the girl would be singing by herself with just a slight AM radio effect over her voice which had a somewhat haunting effect.

Another duo created a mix of an INXS song (can't remember which one) and a Whitney Houston song (also can't remember; may have been "Emotional"- I'd had a few jack and cokes at this point) which just played on the P.A. and they sort of sang along and thrashed about. Honestly, they were one of the most entertaining acts and got huge applause. Their mix bordered on abstract at times, with lots of scratching and other weird noises happening. It was awesome.

Princess performed. They played "Get out of my dreams" by Billy Ocean really really slowly and "Never Gonna Give You Up," also by Billy Ocean. Alexis came out into the crowd and I sang along. That was pretty fun.

Tri-State Area consists of Michael from Princess and his boyfriend Leidy, who's moving to New York soon to finish cosmetology school in the most fashion-forward city in the country. Go Leidy!!!

This guy known as "Lord of Yum Yum" performed. He basically uses a loop modeler pedal and his voice and creates weird beat box melanges of classical music and more recent pop songs by like Willie Nelson or some such. His energy was amazing and he was a great beat box. He'd lay loops of classic lines from Bach or Mozart and then add more on top of it with moderns songs in the same key or something. It was really entertaining to watch and I bought his CD, but I haven't listened to it yet.

This guy Dan Deacon creates films set to music. His shit was weird, but also entertaining. I wandered around the bar for a little bit during this, but he used lots of weird psychedic colors and just weird imagery.