Let's Have Some Goddamned Fun! And Comic Books!
Punk Rock/Comic Book Show featuring WWIX & The Yams//Bowery Poetry Club//2/11/06
Even though I was eating lemons the other nite @ Freddy's in order to stave off a cold (citrus--good for colds, not so good for ulcers, which is why my Vitamin C comes in a wrapper that says Halls) I woke up with a splitting sinus headache. Pain over my left eye and I felt nauseous. Then I found out that Blackout Shoppers had to drop out of this show at the last minute due to a medical emergency (get well soon, whichever Shopper it is), which sucks, but it makes this title work even better since WWIX and The Yams are both Let's Have Some Goddamned Funers. And after hearing about Graham and Sam's electric phlegm, I kinda don't want to know the details of the medical emergency that befell a member of a band that threatens our grandmothers with a tabasco enema if we still miss the show and promises to return later in the month to give our mothers a fucking.
The threat of a blizzard was hanging over the night and when I left it was kinda raining, the type of stuff that could turn into sleet at best. That homeless guy thinking he's selling Street News but really has a stack of Onions was back on the F, and I wonder if anyone ever has ever pointed out the truth. But probably nobody wants to go there with him. By the time we got to Bway/Laff there was a guy standing in the doorway with about 5 grocery bags from LifeThyme on the floor, blocking the door. At least he had the common sense to look inconvenienced when I dared to use that exit. The snow was coming down in earnest when I got up to the street. It's Joey with the medical emergency--a torn tendon in his arm. Look on the bright side: painkillers.
There was a big turnout @ The Bowery Poetry Club, and I found a comic book artist from Kew Gardens. His table was set up next to former Maximumrocknroll columnist and guest speaker/reader Mykal Board's table and after I got the comic book from Queens, Mykal says to me, "Have you ever been Japanese?" A question that doesn't make sense on many levels. So as I try to find out just what the hell he means, somebody there starts taking our picture repeatedly. Because, after all, he's Mykal Board and I'm me, so naturally I must be there basking in his glory. He goes on to tell me that I look just like a Japanese woman and I must get that all the time. Oh, of course. Boy, now I know how Kiku Kimonolisa feels. Then again, since she really is a Japanese woman I guess people never say that to her.
Mykal did a reading (He was writing for Maximumrocknroll when I was still shitting in my diapers! Which was only 2 years ago!--Max) about the time he went to Philly to do a reading and when he went back to where he was going to crash, there was an S&M act going on in the room as well. See, this is why I'll never get anywhere as a rock writer because I'm pretty boring and nothing interesting ever happens to me. (Then again, since memoirs tend to be exaggerated nowadays that can all change. Thank you, James Frey!) But all through his piece I kept waiting for some punchline. It just felt like we were being set up to hear something funny at the end and I was standing there thinking, Ok, now where is this going? And, Is this going to be me in the future, in baggy pants and a receding hairline doing readings at gigs? That story, of course, ended with something like, But I live up the block so unless somebody's got a surprise for me, it's going to be a boring night. The next one started off with him drinking Everclear ("You all know what that is, right?" he asks. The Shoppers present knew all about it) and Thunderbird wine and coming up with ways to end hatred in the world and waking up in his own puke. And something about how waking up in your own puke, as well as crashing in a room where there's S&M going on, gives you a new perspective on life or makes you see life in a new way. And he kept referring to The Yams as The Sweetpotatoes. Ha ha, you're so clever.
I thought the twangtastic, garagey Yams were supposed to sound that way, but there were problems with the bass amp, so what the hell do I know? Though their guitarist needs to wear sunglasses since the other Yams did. At one time Dave the Spazz, dancing way to close to the edge of the stage, totally slipped and their set ended with him throwing himself into the crowd and I was like, It's about time something happened. It's a punk show as well as a comic book show, after all.
Adding to my cabin fever reading supply is When A Good Time Turns To Shit, the comic book written and drawn by WW9 guitarist Justin Melkmann. Chronicling his misadventures in the band (3 drummers and 2 bass players before their first gig?!), the strip, which originally appeared in New York Waste, is a must-read for anyone in a band or who goes to a lot of shows. I was cracking up out loud by the 3rd panel. It reads like the cartoon version of what I wrote, complete with pix of the band and flyers. Though there were 2 other plotlines included in this collection, I'd like to see a whole comic book done about the band and the gigs.
Even though I was eating lemons the other nite @ Freddy's in order to stave off a cold (citrus--good for colds, not so good for ulcers, which is why my Vitamin C comes in a wrapper that says Halls) I woke up with a splitting sinus headache. Pain over my left eye and I felt nauseous. Then I found out that Blackout Shoppers had to drop out of this show at the last minute due to a medical emergency (get well soon, whichever Shopper it is), which sucks, but it makes this title work even better since WWIX and The Yams are both Let's Have Some Goddamned Funers. And after hearing about Graham and Sam's electric phlegm, I kinda don't want to know the details of the medical emergency that befell a member of a band that threatens our grandmothers with a tabasco enema if we still miss the show and promises to return later in the month to give our mothers a fucking.
The threat of a blizzard was hanging over the night and when I left it was kinda raining, the type of stuff that could turn into sleet at best. That homeless guy thinking he's selling Street News but really has a stack of Onions was back on the F, and I wonder if anyone ever has ever pointed out the truth. But probably nobody wants to go there with him. By the time we got to Bway/Laff there was a guy standing in the doorway with about 5 grocery bags from LifeThyme on the floor, blocking the door. At least he had the common sense to look inconvenienced when I dared to use that exit. The snow was coming down in earnest when I got up to the street. It's Joey with the medical emergency--a torn tendon in his arm. Look on the bright side: painkillers.
There was a big turnout @ The Bowery Poetry Club, and I found a comic book artist from Kew Gardens. His table was set up next to former Maximumrocknroll columnist and guest speaker/reader Mykal Board's table and after I got the comic book from Queens, Mykal says to me, "Have you ever been Japanese?" A question that doesn't make sense on many levels. So as I try to find out just what the hell he means, somebody there starts taking our picture repeatedly. Because, after all, he's Mykal Board and I'm me, so naturally I must be there basking in his glory. He goes on to tell me that I look just like a Japanese woman and I must get that all the time. Oh, of course. Boy, now I know how Kiku Kimonolisa feels. Then again, since she really is a Japanese woman I guess people never say that to her.
Mykal did a reading (He was writing for Maximumrocknroll when I was still shitting in my diapers! Which was only 2 years ago!--Max) about the time he went to Philly to do a reading and when he went back to where he was going to crash, there was an S&M act going on in the room as well. See, this is why I'll never get anywhere as a rock writer because I'm pretty boring and nothing interesting ever happens to me. (Then again, since memoirs tend to be exaggerated nowadays that can all change. Thank you, James Frey!) But all through his piece I kept waiting for some punchline. It just felt like we were being set up to hear something funny at the end and I was standing there thinking, Ok, now where is this going? And, Is this going to be me in the future, in baggy pants and a receding hairline doing readings at gigs? That story, of course, ended with something like, But I live up the block so unless somebody's got a surprise for me, it's going to be a boring night. The next one started off with him drinking Everclear ("You all know what that is, right?" he asks. The Shoppers present knew all about it) and Thunderbird wine and coming up with ways to end hatred in the world and waking up in his own puke. And something about how waking up in your own puke, as well as crashing in a room where there's S&M going on, gives you a new perspective on life or makes you see life in a new way. And he kept referring to The Yams as The Sweetpotatoes. Ha ha, you're so clever.
I thought the twangtastic, garagey Yams were supposed to sound that way, but there were problems with the bass amp, so what the hell do I know? Though their guitarist needs to wear sunglasses since the other Yams did. At one time Dave the Spazz, dancing way to close to the edge of the stage, totally slipped and their set ended with him throwing himself into the crowd and I was like, It's about time something happened. It's a punk show as well as a comic book show, after all.
Adding to my cabin fever reading supply is When A Good Time Turns To Shit, the comic book written and drawn by WW9 guitarist Justin Melkmann. Chronicling his misadventures in the band (3 drummers and 2 bass players before their first gig?!), the strip, which originally appeared in New York Waste, is a must-read for anyone in a band or who goes to a lot of shows. I was cracking up out loud by the 3rd panel. It reads like the cartoon version of what I wrote, complete with pix of the band and flyers. Though there were 2 other plotlines included in this collection, I'd like to see a whole comic book done about the band and the gigs.
posted by heather @ 2:03 PM
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