Muse, Philo and Emily RULE, Stop LOOKING at me Gary Numan!

A: There's so much to say here, I hardly know where to begin. I'm thinking I should start at the beginning.

T: A very good place to start...

A: There was life before seeing Muse and now there is life after seeing them. I can only describe their performance last week as STELLAR and powerful. The light show was perfect (Oli Metcalfe is a friggin genius) and the setlist and song selection were perfect to display the best of their abilities. Bravo Muse for making me spend $30 on a t-shirt, I just have to represent fo ya.

T: I spent $40 on a t-shirt and STILL had to pay for a friggin sticker. I am totally entitled to download their music illegally now.

A: The midnight showing of Donnie Darko was fantastic! Exactly what I hoped it would be and more: popcorn, vinyl seats, massive sound system (TFF was SO bitchin in that scene), $3 tickets, hotties and their hot friends, music peeps, screaming back at the screen, etc. The idea that they showed the Director's Cut was a bonus (though I should've expected it from people who would host a summertime DD Midniter). Yay, Trocadero! I highly recommend this as a weeknight date or something to do on a budget.

T: Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.

A: The rest of last weekend blew by and then it was time to gear up for Gary Numan. Well, to be honest, I can't BELIEVE it. I'm SO disappointed. We got there just in time to catch a glimpse of the Numanators with the lights on. It wasn't what I expected at all: no major g&i kids, didn't recognize a single nocturner, mostly guys in their 30s (I was in heaven), and FAMILIES if you can believe it! So the lights went down and the man came out and after realizing that T&A were the most attractive broads in the room, we noticed that the Numanator was singing RIGHT to us (this wasn't one of those, "he's looking right at me" optical illusions that has been getting rockstars laid for decades, this is the real deal: the lights weren't down as much as I thought they'd be and with less than 200 people in the whole place, he could find us anywhere we moved).

T: Let's not forget to mention the fact that we were the only NON mutants who had come to see him, that we were standing in a clear swatch of light with no one around us for three feet, and we were being quite loud... And I kept waving to him.

T was loving it, I was making observations like: "hey, we're wearing the same things our profile characters are wearing!" - hilarious, right down to the purple eyeshadow on me and the skirt on T! The sound was SO low and the crowd was so socially challenged, there was NO energy. I felt like I was sitting in the nosebleed seats of a bad broadway musical and we were all just straining to hear. I'm not sure if the vocals were canned, but if I wasn't so respectful of the man I might've yelled out, "Speak up Gary!" I can't understand why this went wrong. After the show I felt musically retarded. I felt like I was either too dumb to get it, trying to hard to like it, or like I'd been taken for $26. TRENT, the dark lord, counts this man among his influences but I think T put it best when she described the light show as something purchased from the NIN past tour garage sale. It's more like Numan had the idea, for dark pumping electronic music and no resources. Trent heard it, liked it and then GOT the resources or made them, and made NIN and now Gary's biting off of Trent. I'm just so bemused. I don't know whether to love him or hate him. I feel like I just watched one of my idol's heroes and failed to see the connection between them. Uggh, icky.

T: Now, see I loved it alot- but that has nothing to do with actual musical quality. I felt like I was in a haunted house of music. Me and the Numan, trapped in a creaky old mansion, with only his aging goth self to save me from the dreadful beasties. Yeah, I'd bang Gary Numan.

A: We thankfully wouldn't have to finish out the week on that musical low note. Philo was playing the Mill Hill with Marigold and we were GOING! We got there in just enough time to catch Philo's whole set and check in with Chris from the Frantic for the first time since their return from the UK (lucky bastards... I have a free Frantic EP for anyone who can email us with the name of the restaurant in England A would MOST like to visit). The pics are below:

Yay, Tim Hoh's feet!
The guys did an amazing job!


Emily Hopkins took these pics for us, since we BOTH forgot to bring a camera (duh girls). So SUPER thanks to Emily who RULES!


















Anthony was celebrating his birthday for the second night in a row (the night before included strippers).






















Someone smooched us BOTH on the mouth before we left that night, I'm not going to make any mention of who it was, but let's just say he doesn't LOOK any older than he did at the beginning of the week...



















Marigold seemed cool, but when the boys from Faction 1 showed up, I turned into the smitten kitten I can't help becoming around a certain black-clothes wearing band member...

A: Friday became little more than a vegging night in front of the computer/TV, but I felt awesome because I did something nice for someone I love.

T: Me too, I cooked and ate chicken for A so she could do the above mentioned favor.

A: Until the next adventure.

T: Which will hopefull involve the evil robot us's.

Have you ever wondered if there was more to life, other than being really, really, ridiculously good looking?

Now there is...

There will most likely be a Nirvana fight, but this time it'll be fair

What it feels like for a girl

Stop trying to make out with me

T: Wednesday, on my lunch break, I had gone (as usual) to the Salvation Army a few blocks from my work, and found that they had gotten yet ANOTHER donation from Urban Outfitters. I am a sucker for faux-vintage t-shirts with lame sayings on them and skinny pants, so I made sure to stock up. I also got a pair of shoes that will from hence forth be known as "the sexy red ones". Basically 4 inch red vinyl stilletos with a cute little bow. I decided to rock them to the club that night, which was dumb, because I can barely STAND in them let alone DANCE in them.

A: Those shoes WERE hot though. I made friends with a lot of nice girls discovering that the g/i club is NOT just for stalking fresh underage meat, but actually there's hot girls around to stalk as well.

T: Anyways, while waiting for A to show up, I get stuck talking to the same kid from before, about how he can't stop shaking since he got electrocuted. Now, I will listen to anyones story, but this guy seems like he is performing each story, and could care less who or what he was saying it to. I might as well have been a block of cheese. I saw A and Aerick across the room and excused myself.

A: Yah, I saw her talking to him and in earshot of him I said something like, "Hi, oh, is that the guy I can't stand?" Probably not the NICEST thing to say about someone, but the nail in the coffin for me with this guy was that he put the cigarette out on the carpeted floor 3 feet from a bar full of ashtrays. How lazy can you BE?

T: Stood around, chatted, stared, gawked, etc, when in he walked: My favorite Spike-look-alike, Matt. We chatted and stuff, had some fun trying to freak out his normie friend Tom, and then he and his pals left "because the smoke was bothering his eyes", which translates to "gotta go to the strip club." After that my night went quickly and thoroughly downhill. So I left, threw on my HiPod and sped home. The end.

A: Well, not quite the end for me actually. I stay until the end because I'm the weekly designated driver for my pal Aerick so we can enjoy the club in our own ways and we can both save on gas and stay alive. Yay us! I chatted with some of the staff from Delicious and a fashion designer friend of ours until we left in a hunger rage which began when I forgot to eat dinner HOURS before and ended with a fit I threw while parking Aerick's Camry between a BMW and an unruly curb on 11th St. We were walking up to House of Chen for the usual late-night chinese gorging when the ladies deemed the menu "too unvegetarian friendly" and we were ushered off to the place across the street.

A: Walking into this restaurant felt like I was standing in the world's largest interrogation room complete with family-style round tables boasting enough seats for WAY more people than the average chinese OR american family. This amounted to all of us awkwardly choosing seats in a 3/4 moon shape around one side of the massive table whose one perk was the lazy-susan turntable in the center which made service easier and more complicated all at the same time. I had sesame chicken (the old stand-by when I need to eat and can't be adventurous with a new restaurant) and was grateful and disappointed at the same time when it arrived. It was half broccoli (which I don't remember seeing printed in English on the menu as being included) and the other half was this bland, unsweetened version of sesame chicken complete with burnt sesame seeds and soupy sauce. If I'm going to stray from my diet, even slightly, I'd like it to be at least worth the slip. I ate more rice than I would have liked, drank more tea than I needed and paid for it despite my urge to have them take it off the bill because of its lack of taste and their assumption that I was just another drunk kid stumbling in for a late night snack to soak up the booze. I'll settle for not ever going there again. I can't save anyone else, but I can save myself. Thank you Dr Darwin.

Sometimes we just talk about music we like and shows we plan to see (this is one of those times)

A: As usual the Mill Hill provides quality entertaiment every week. Dave just provided us with an update via myspace bulletin, but in case you missed it, here's the necessary info:

millhillbasement
300 S Broad St.
Trenton NJ 08607

Sun Aug 6
Tugnut
Isyou
Juniper Sky
$5 10 pm

Thurs Aug 10
Marigold
Philo
Juan es the thief
Soap Opera Coma
$5 10 pm

Sat Aug 12
Baby Boy H
Pats!e
1 more TBA
$5 10 pm

Sun Aug 13
Towers Open Fire
2 more TBA
$5 10 pm

Sun Aug 20
Red Team
Capital
Gaslight Anthem
$5 10pm

Sat Aug 27
The Killing
Architect
Scars That Bind
$5 10pm


A: Lately the following bands and records haven't left my mind or my CD player:

Thom Yorke : The Eraser
Phoenix : It's Never Been Like That
Sonic Youth : Rather Ripped

T: I have been corrupted by my iPod, so I have been listeing to basically the same five songs over and over this week:

"Four Kicks" by Kings of Leon
"Try" by Run Run Run
"Killing Loneliness" by H.I.M. (I dug them before BAM did...)
"Into the Night" by The Music
"Desire" by The Raconteurs

A: And now a rant...
Kill Hannah... STOP sending out those goddamned bulletins and blogs! SHEESH! We GET it, your record is came out yesterday!

T: I actually commented them that it's getting on the nerves, and I might UN-friend them.

A: I am officially annoyed that they don't have a Best Emo Video on the VMAs. Not that I actually WATCH the VMAs, but if I have to be inundated with bands sending out bulletins to vote for them for best ROCK video, they better be a ROCK band.

T: They should have a category for best actor-turned- emo-rocker. The winner is obviously Jared Leto.

A: For the LAST time... Pixies is a band from BOSTON, not LOS ANGELES. Just because Kim Deal and Joey Santiago both relocated to L.A. after the break-up and had some success there and Kurt Cobain (a west coaster, yes kiddies, Seattle is in a west coast state) idolized them, doesn't mean they're from the west coast.

Which brings me to my next point...

If you're not FROM L.A., then you're NOT an L.A. band. If you FORMED in L.A., then you can call yourselves an L.A. band, but only if you FORMED there. Not, we all moved there and that's where we started having success. That's some bullshit.

T: Be proud of your roots! I am more impressed that a band from Madison, Wisconsin is on a national tour, than a band from the 310.

A: If you work in an office, you should know how to use the following PROFICIENTLY:
computer and ALL major programs including browsers and email
fax machine
telephone
microwave
catalog
pen
paper
brain
envelope
ears
mouth
sense of humor
clock

If you don't know how to use these things properly, do us all a favor and move on. There's something out there for you... something in the petroleum product distribution arts.

T: Whoa, that hit a little close to home, I work in the petroleum product distribution field, though not a gas station attendant, I do work with mainly petroleum based products. (I sell lube- long story, for another time dear reader).

A: Sorry, T, I meant in the gas station attendant variety. Basically any job that's 6 steps or less: 1. Take order ($30 of regular please)
2. Unscrew Cap
3. Place pump in filling position.
4. Remove pump once filling is complete.
5. Screw cap back on.
6. Collect money.

A: Musicians: you should just quit trying to make a living making records. It's not worth it. In a country where this year's Top Ten Albums So Far at the 6 month mark are:

10: Nickelback, All the Right Reasons - 1 million
9: Andrea Bocelli, Amore - 1.1 million
8: Dixie Chicks, Taking the Long Way - 1.3 million
7: T.I., King - 1.3 million
6: Various Artists, Now 21 - 1.4 million
5: Carrie Underwood, Some Hearts - 1.5 million
4: Mary J. Blige, Breakthrough - 1.5 million
3: James Blunt, Back to Bedlam - 1.7 million
2: Rascal Flatts, Me and My Gang - 2 million
1: Soundtrack, High School Musical - 2.6 million
Source: Nielson SoundScan

When a SOUNDTRACK for a fucking DISNEY musical is the number one selling record for the year, SOMETHING is wrong.

T: According to the childrens choir I taught last year, High School Musical is 'like, totally the best movie EVER." I wonder if they talk like that because of me...

That's it. Thanks.

This weekend's pics...

A: The lovely and talented Nate Bott sweats and sways with the hordes of young girls all trying to take photos. It was apparently vest night, I sent out the memo and wore my black lace vest, so naturally, Nate dogg had to rock his to let us know he knew we were watching. Too bad the diva didn't make it out to see us after the B-more show, but ah well, more reasons for him to miss us til we get to L.A.

T: I am doing my blank stare thingy...















A: Andy looked fantastic and sounded great with his sweet harmonies. Sigh...
T: Best back-up vox I've heard in a while.



A: T discovered an APALLING event at Fletcher's, the place we haunted in Baltimore on Saturday last.


T: That's me in the outfit A picked out. There is about an inch of fabric below that belt. Hell-O crotch shots.



















A: When BCR were done performing we went downstairs to have a chat with the ONLY person in Baltimore who knew where he was and where we were and where THINGS are in Baltimore. Seriously, in the span of 30 minutes, we were given the wrong directions TWICE for how to get to Fletcher's, then once we parked, we asked two different sets of people which side of the parking garage we should exit to get to Bond St. and NEITHER set was right. Finally, when we asked a walking valet if he knew which direction Bond St was, he sent us the wrong way. Hilariously, a moment later we ran into him in the front of the restuarant where he worked on the end of Bond St.! So thank you to Adam, our only Baltimore friend who not only knows where he's going, but he has cool friends like Antoine (also seen here) who can rock a New York Dolls shirt in a bar that is CLEARLY for yuppies and top 40 fans. He also likes our blog!

A: Then after my aforementioned "Y Tu Mama Tambien" sighting, I looked up to the stage to see the most adorable sweaty man ever singing his version of EMF's "Unbelievable". Who was the adorable sweaty man? Bo Rinehart, the beau-tiful guitarist of South Carolina band Need to Breathe. The others aren't too shabby either, but Bo is SO my new favourite part of the south.