East Village Boys & Girls, Downtown
Charm School/The Bullitts/The Threads/Kid Casanova
@ The Delancey//1/5/07
I do this to myself every January. I wonder what shows I’m going to see in the coming year, if any, and then a panic sets in as I check every venue website. All these papers have the year-end best-ofs, and while I’ve heard of the bands, I haven’t seen them. I used to live in the Bowery Ballroom—or, at least looking back on it I think I did—and I wonder if I don’t anymore because I’m old and out of touch, music sucks nowadays, I think music sucks nowadays because I’m old and out of touch, or writing this has done something to me and/or the way I see/hear music. I even went to one of Unsteady Freddie’s websites to see if the Isotopes had another gig listed at a future shindig. I considered emailing him to request they play Otto’s again. And then panic sets in as I worry about the rest of the year and the rest of the site and the future of my life as a music fan and writer (ok, maybe music fan and diarist) and, well, we all know what happens next.
Wait a minute. Why do I say “every January?” I do this from time to time throughout the year, whenever there’s a lull in the calendar. It’s really easy to forget this train of thought when I’ve got a week of shows coming up and I decide that even thought a band sounds cool, do I really want to run to Trash for 1 band? And then I worry about why I won’t run to Williamsburg for 1 band.
But I doubt that Zak sat around and worried about whether he was too old to be in a punk band. I doubt that he sat around and worried that he never saw or heard of any of the bands that were on all the year-end best-of lists. I doubt that he ever worried that he never saw The Hold Steady. Or Sufjan Stevens. Or Gnarls Barkley. Or TV on the Radio.
So. The Delancey. Yeah. Haven’t been there in ages and now that I’ll be going I figured why not check their site to see what else could be going on there, besides stoner rock DJ nights. Hey. And I like The Bullitts and The Threads, and The Threads have a CD out and they’re giving out copies, so there you go. And now I see that Charm School was added, so it’ll be like seeing old friends again even though I’m not friends with any of them, but you know what I mean.
The doors were at 7:30 and after being warned that Charm School was going on at 8 sharp, I still felt the need to run home for the CVS coupon for the pack of pix I thought were due back Sunday but were actually in that night, even though I could’ve picked ‘em up the next day. Then I had to go back home again, look those over, drop ‘em off, and then leave. It was on the subway that I realized that someone honked up a furball on my coat and it wasn’t me. Great, now I have to pay to get the damned thing dry cleaned. My year’s gotten off to a great start. Well, at least he picked the week in January that it was in the 60s. And even though pizza’s not good for me, financially or food-wise, I planned at stopping at the pizza joint on the corner of Delancey because it’s the normal thing to do. It’s the normal thing for me to do. Even grabbing the tray and accidentally sending the one on top of it Frisbee-ing to the floor. I meant to do that. I didn’t mean, however, to get there at a quarter to 9, even though I could really take or leave Charm School. But that night, I wanted to be there for their set. I wanted to see them and I really mean it, no snark implied. I get downstairs and feel thrown off, momentarily, by the fact that the soundboard is on my right. The downstairs interior of The Delancey is all red. Yeah, it’s kinda basement-y, but its way too nice to be the CBGB Lounge. I don’t know what to do w/my coat. Charm School is in the middle of a song and I don’t want to walk in front of them to put it down on the sofa because that’s rude, so I keep it on. And I look around and the place is pretty empty. Turns out I walked in on their 2nd song, even though I got there at 8:45, so I felt a little better. What also made me feel out of place is the fact that I didn’t have my camera on me.
I’m coming down with something yet again. I feel like I’m 1 or 2 good hacks away from the TB sanitarium. Well, better the TB sanitarium than the other one. I had to head upstairs, even though the DJ was playing Complete Control. I don’t know how come I’ve never noticed this before, but there is a full-on roaring fireplace in The Delancey. Not one of those Halloween-type affairs with the blowing fabric. A fucking fireplace. In a club. Then I thought, Is this one of those douchebag clubs that sell champagne by the bottle that’s supposedly ruining Manhattan? The bar was fucking stocked. Mad Absolute Gray Stoli, but I didn’t see champagne. There were reserved signs on some of the tables and girls had Dooney & Burke handbags. And the music. It wasn’t DJing as music or art, it was more “let’s have something playing in the background as we schmooze and network.” It wasn’t like club music, whatever your opinions on that genre may be. The facilities sure ain’t CBGB, that’s for sure. Back downstairs, White Riot is on. And there’s a fireplace upstairs. Because that’s part of a normal show experience: Going to a venue, spending $7 to see 4 punk ‘n’ roll bands, hearing The Clash in between sets, and passing a fireplace on your way to the bathroom. Then again, I’d rather pass a fireplace on the way to the bathroom than strippers. (I guess this is what Blackout Shoppers meant by “don’t be afraid of the club upstairs.”)
I lay down on the couch while The Bullitts set up. The place still isn’t that packed and I was worried that the owner or the booker or whoever would tell us to take our live music that has a bad draw elsewhere. Sigh. Or take our quality live music elsewhere, when they could just put some sucktards (yeah, I was totally gonna say “douchebags” again) onstage who gets all of their friendsters to show up. Sighola. Time to stand up for The Bullitts. Their opening song is called Pathetic and I’m thinking, Word, but this is how it starts: We are pathetic/We are waste/We are the future/We are great. And then I felt much better. After their guitarist, Andy, slipped in some beer and fell on his ass and had to tune up, he tried to fill the time by getting Sammy to show us what he got as a Hanukkah present. Sammy said he was going show us his penis. I would’ve taken either. Instead, Sammy takes a dreidel out of his pants and explains that it gets “like, 600x bigger in water.” To Andy, “You wish your dick did that.” It’s January 5. Why do you still have a dreidel in your pants? Or do you just keep dreidels in your pockets in case of awkward tuning pauses? Uh, is that an expandable dreidel in your pants or are you just happy to see us?
“Tell them the name of the next song,” Sammy says.
“Shabbat Shalom,” says Andy.
After their set I went to find out which one of them was handling the email list because they asked for our addresses in order to better keep in touch w/us about the gigs because Myspace was unreliable and I emailed them, yeah, I’m not even on it but I was checking to see when the gig started and I kept getting bounced off their site. Sammy said it was Andy, but I asked him if it really got bigger in water. “I meant the dreidel. I’m not trying to be weird or anything.” So Sammy showed me the dreidel and said yeah, but it takes 3 days for it to happen. (Fill in your own joke here.)
The Threads were set and ready to go, save for Mick. The band summoned him to the stage a few times and I was expecting him to come running from the back of the room and slide to the stage on his knees like a bowling ball. ‘Course had he made his entrance in that fashion I would’ve thought he was being a total rock star.
“Where’s Mick?” asks the band.
“Upstairs.”
“He’s taking a shit.”
I looked at my watch and we were actually running behind time as the band summoned, “Mick Stitch to the stage, please,” and I speculated just what business lead singers could really be taking care of in the restroom right before the set. Jesus. Seriously. What the hell.
Mick finally took the stage wearing a suit and button-down shirt and mirrored aviator sunglasses like some leftover Libertine. What is this, the Lower East Side rocker uniform? Gone was the choke chain and safety pin, now he had a metal record spacer on a chain. And somebody got themselves a new pair of creepers. I guess getting all them big tippers and shot-special orderers into The Continental worked well for him. I had to laugh. I wish I had my camera on me so I could put up before and after pictures. Nah, who am I to make fun of the guy’s clothes? I was wearing the sweater I picked out of the donation box at college. I’m glad somebody’s all grown up. Though I found it kind of funny, I realized that if I wasn’t having a good time, I only had myself to blame and got down off my high horse and set about to rocking out. They have some cool new songs (Get Started, Cold Road), with Mick tearing it up, doing his rawk thang, and ending up shirtless. Then again, he did dedicate a song to everyone in the room, including himself, because he was the biggest asshole there. Of course once I set about rocking out, there was a photog always next to me and it was a little crowded, and I wanted to run around during East Village Boys and had no room. Of course. And the free CDs were really in those halfsie cases without liner notes, of course, but it was a “mastered demo.” Oooh. Still, first CD of 07 and it’s free. This is setting a good tone for the rest of the year.
I know I saw Kid Casanova in Aug. with LES Stitches and I know I didn’t care for them, or maybe with the state of mind I was in, I would’ve hated everyone I saw that night except for LES Stitches. I can’t remember if they had the keyboard player the last time, I don’t think so. I thought they were aspiring to be glam but not hitting it, but not so now. While not my new favorite band, not as bad as I found them in Aug. Mick and Andy jumping onstage with them knocked mic stands over. I told Andy that they were dangerous and he said, “What do you expect when 3 bands that are friends get together to do a show?”
***
There are some good, rousing rawk numbers on the “mastered demo,” but I’m so used to watching them live than sitting here cross-legged on my desk chair listening to it. I’d rather see them live. It’s a little hard for me to make that transition from band-I-see-live to band-I-have-CD-from because I have small speakers in my computer, but I’ll manage.
@ The Delancey//1/5/07
I do this to myself every January. I wonder what shows I’m going to see in the coming year, if any, and then a panic sets in as I check every venue website. All these papers have the year-end best-ofs, and while I’ve heard of the bands, I haven’t seen them. I used to live in the Bowery Ballroom—or, at least looking back on it I think I did—and I wonder if I don’t anymore because I’m old and out of touch, music sucks nowadays, I think music sucks nowadays because I’m old and out of touch, or writing this has done something to me and/or the way I see/hear music. I even went to one of Unsteady Freddie’s websites to see if the Isotopes had another gig listed at a future shindig. I considered emailing him to request they play Otto’s again. And then panic sets in as I worry about the rest of the year and the rest of the site and the future of my life as a music fan and writer (ok, maybe music fan and diarist) and, well, we all know what happens next.
Wait a minute. Why do I say “every January?” I do this from time to time throughout the year, whenever there’s a lull in the calendar. It’s really easy to forget this train of thought when I’ve got a week of shows coming up and I decide that even thought a band sounds cool, do I really want to run to Trash for 1 band? And then I worry about why I won’t run to Williamsburg for 1 band.
But I doubt that Zak sat around and worried about whether he was too old to be in a punk band. I doubt that he sat around and worried that he never saw or heard of any of the bands that were on all the year-end best-of lists. I doubt that he ever worried that he never saw The Hold Steady. Or Sufjan Stevens. Or Gnarls Barkley. Or TV on the Radio.
So. The Delancey. Yeah. Haven’t been there in ages and now that I’ll be going I figured why not check their site to see what else could be going on there, besides stoner rock DJ nights. Hey. And I like The Bullitts and The Threads, and The Threads have a CD out and they’re giving out copies, so there you go. And now I see that Charm School was added, so it’ll be like seeing old friends again even though I’m not friends with any of them, but you know what I mean.
The doors were at 7:30 and after being warned that Charm School was going on at 8 sharp, I still felt the need to run home for the CVS coupon for the pack of pix I thought were due back Sunday but were actually in that night, even though I could’ve picked ‘em up the next day. Then I had to go back home again, look those over, drop ‘em off, and then leave. It was on the subway that I realized that someone honked up a furball on my coat and it wasn’t me. Great, now I have to pay to get the damned thing dry cleaned. My year’s gotten off to a great start. Well, at least he picked the week in January that it was in the 60s. And even though pizza’s not good for me, financially or food-wise, I planned at stopping at the pizza joint on the corner of Delancey because it’s the normal thing to do. It’s the normal thing for me to do. Even grabbing the tray and accidentally sending the one on top of it Frisbee-ing to the floor. I meant to do that. I didn’t mean, however, to get there at a quarter to 9, even though I could really take or leave Charm School. But that night, I wanted to be there for their set. I wanted to see them and I really mean it, no snark implied. I get downstairs and feel thrown off, momentarily, by the fact that the soundboard is on my right. The downstairs interior of The Delancey is all red. Yeah, it’s kinda basement-y, but its way too nice to be the CBGB Lounge. I don’t know what to do w/my coat. Charm School is in the middle of a song and I don’t want to walk in front of them to put it down on the sofa because that’s rude, so I keep it on. And I look around and the place is pretty empty. Turns out I walked in on their 2nd song, even though I got there at 8:45, so I felt a little better. What also made me feel out of place is the fact that I didn’t have my camera on me.
I’m coming down with something yet again. I feel like I’m 1 or 2 good hacks away from the TB sanitarium. Well, better the TB sanitarium than the other one. I had to head upstairs, even though the DJ was playing Complete Control. I don’t know how come I’ve never noticed this before, but there is a full-on roaring fireplace in The Delancey. Not one of those Halloween-type affairs with the blowing fabric. A fucking fireplace. In a club. Then I thought, Is this one of those douchebag clubs that sell champagne by the bottle that’s supposedly ruining Manhattan? The bar was fucking stocked. Mad Absolute Gray Stoli, but I didn’t see champagne. There were reserved signs on some of the tables and girls had Dooney & Burke handbags. And the music. It wasn’t DJing as music or art, it was more “let’s have something playing in the background as we schmooze and network.” It wasn’t like club music, whatever your opinions on that genre may be. The facilities sure ain’t CBGB, that’s for sure. Back downstairs, White Riot is on. And there’s a fireplace upstairs. Because that’s part of a normal show experience: Going to a venue, spending $7 to see 4 punk ‘n’ roll bands, hearing The Clash in between sets, and passing a fireplace on your way to the bathroom. Then again, I’d rather pass a fireplace on the way to the bathroom than strippers. (I guess this is what Blackout Shoppers meant by “don’t be afraid of the club upstairs.”)
I lay down on the couch while The Bullitts set up. The place still isn’t that packed and I was worried that the owner or the booker or whoever would tell us to take our live music that has a bad draw elsewhere. Sigh. Or take our quality live music elsewhere, when they could just put some sucktards (yeah, I was totally gonna say “douchebags” again) onstage who gets all of their friendsters to show up. Sighola. Time to stand up for The Bullitts. Their opening song is called Pathetic and I’m thinking, Word, but this is how it starts: We are pathetic/We are waste/We are the future/We are great. And then I felt much better. After their guitarist, Andy, slipped in some beer and fell on his ass and had to tune up, he tried to fill the time by getting Sammy to show us what he got as a Hanukkah present. Sammy said he was going show us his penis. I would’ve taken either. Instead, Sammy takes a dreidel out of his pants and explains that it gets “like, 600x bigger in water.” To Andy, “You wish your dick did that.” It’s January 5. Why do you still have a dreidel in your pants? Or do you just keep dreidels in your pockets in case of awkward tuning pauses? Uh, is that an expandable dreidel in your pants or are you just happy to see us?
“Tell them the name of the next song,” Sammy says.
“Shabbat Shalom,” says Andy.
After their set I went to find out which one of them was handling the email list because they asked for our addresses in order to better keep in touch w/us about the gigs because Myspace was unreliable and I emailed them, yeah, I’m not even on it but I was checking to see when the gig started and I kept getting bounced off their site. Sammy said it was Andy, but I asked him if it really got bigger in water. “I meant the dreidel. I’m not trying to be weird or anything.” So Sammy showed me the dreidel and said yeah, but it takes 3 days for it to happen. (Fill in your own joke here.)
The Threads were set and ready to go, save for Mick. The band summoned him to the stage a few times and I was expecting him to come running from the back of the room and slide to the stage on his knees like a bowling ball. ‘Course had he made his entrance in that fashion I would’ve thought he was being a total rock star.
“Where’s Mick?” asks the band.
“Upstairs.”
“He’s taking a shit.”
I looked at my watch and we were actually running behind time as the band summoned, “Mick Stitch to the stage, please,” and I speculated just what business lead singers could really be taking care of in the restroom right before the set. Jesus. Seriously. What the hell.
Mick finally took the stage wearing a suit and button-down shirt and mirrored aviator sunglasses like some leftover Libertine. What is this, the Lower East Side rocker uniform? Gone was the choke chain and safety pin, now he had a metal record spacer on a chain. And somebody got themselves a new pair of creepers. I guess getting all them big tippers and shot-special orderers into The Continental worked well for him. I had to laugh. I wish I had my camera on me so I could put up before and after pictures. Nah, who am I to make fun of the guy’s clothes? I was wearing the sweater I picked out of the donation box at college. I’m glad somebody’s all grown up. Though I found it kind of funny, I realized that if I wasn’t having a good time, I only had myself to blame and got down off my high horse and set about to rocking out. They have some cool new songs (Get Started, Cold Road), with Mick tearing it up, doing his rawk thang, and ending up shirtless. Then again, he did dedicate a song to everyone in the room, including himself, because he was the biggest asshole there. Of course once I set about rocking out, there was a photog always next to me and it was a little crowded, and I wanted to run around during East Village Boys and had no room. Of course. And the free CDs were really in those halfsie cases without liner notes, of course, but it was a “mastered demo.” Oooh. Still, first CD of 07 and it’s free. This is setting a good tone for the rest of the year.
I know I saw Kid Casanova in Aug. with LES Stitches and I know I didn’t care for them, or maybe with the state of mind I was in, I would’ve hated everyone I saw that night except for LES Stitches. I can’t remember if they had the keyboard player the last time, I don’t think so. I thought they were aspiring to be glam but not hitting it, but not so now. While not my new favorite band, not as bad as I found them in Aug. Mick and Andy jumping onstage with them knocked mic stands over. I told Andy that they were dangerous and he said, “What do you expect when 3 bands that are friends get together to do a show?”
***
There are some good, rousing rawk numbers on the “mastered demo,” but I’m so used to watching them live than sitting here cross-legged on my desk chair listening to it. I’d rather see them live. It’s a little hard for me to make that transition from band-I-see-live to band-I-have-CD-from because I have small speakers in my computer, but I’ll manage.
posted by heather @ 12:24 AM
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