sparkrobot

There’s a Halloween Party sponsored by Tacoma’s Flat Track Roller Derby team The Dockyard Derby Dames this Saturday at Taboo at 100 S. 9th Ave in downtown Tacoma. Expect to see live music from Splendid Vengance (their spelling, not mine) and Seattle’s Boss Martians will headline the show. This is a costume party and will feature a kissing booth, arm wrestling (think you can take one of these girls?) and what is referred to on the flyer as “dance mayhem”. The flyer was created by el Resident of Jerk Mountain, who’s also been snapping tons of photos of the DDD and Seattle’s Rat City Rollergirls lately.

While I know absolutely nothing about Splendid Vengance (who self-proclaim to be “the greatest rock band in the galaxy!!”), I guarantee The Boss Martians are going to bring it. Are you?

A friend of mine this morning sent me a link an Iggy and the Stooges rider  on The Smoking Gun. TSG declares  it is “the single most entertaining concert rider TSG has ever obtained”. I couldn’t agree more. If you don’t read all 18 pages, don’t miss the last page at the very least.

 Link to Lust For Laughs – October 4, 2006

In Austin last week while I was in town for the Flash Forward Conference, I took an evening and met up with my brother-in-law and his wife. We went out and had some Cuban food and decided to tool about a bit to see what we could get into. After some deliberation, we decided to stop at the Club De Ville on Red River. When we arrived, there was only the barkeep behind the counter and another guy ordering a round. Dude mentions to bartender, “Kinda quiet around here tonight, huh?”. This overheard I jump in, “Now that we’re here it’s not.” Nothing like an empty bar room to drop a sweet ass bomb like that.

We talked for a few minutes and after clearing up some confusion about the festival(s) we each were in town for, he introduced himself as Jacob [Valenzuela] from the band Calexico, and was in town for the ACL Festival happening the next weekend. I said “Hey no shit? We’re all from Tucson.”. A bit more small talk, I mentioned a couple of their recent records I quite enjoyed but didn’t really want to hold him up in fanatical chatter. “Nice meeting you man, good luck with the shows. Enjoy Austin.” When Bloody Mary returned she goes “Who was that?”. Me and Brandon replied in stereo, “Calexico.”.

We took our beers out onto the patio and found several more members of the band and their friends/entourage were the sole inhabitants of the patio as well. When they saw us come out, they invited us to join them. (Couldn’t really argue with that.) When I went to sit down, the color splash flash unit I had (loosely obviously) attached to my Lomo fell off and broke. Totally annoying, 100% borrowed. (I ordered a replacement later from the hotel) We sat and bullshat with the group for a while, talking about Tucson, bands, the road, etc. At one point a homeless guy wandered in and started a less than stellar performance of an Al Green song, complete with beer belly-tapping, off-tempo drums. Um okay. After some serious eye-rolling and fucking total awkward silence, we kicked down some coins so he’d bail. No offense, but Cinderella wuddn’t invited to the ball. He insisted on doing one more song, though we all tried to refuse. Stones on the box, it was a duet with Mick Jagger—albeit complete shit—in a off-key mash-up style.

When we were all leaving, there was mention of tickets to see the taping of their Austin City Limits performance on Wednesday. Phone numbers were exchanged at we hit the road thinking if nothing else, that it was pretty cool just to hang out and have a few rounds. If the tickets never materialized, meh, whatevs. Wednesday afternoon I got a call from BM saying they actually had called and we had tickets on will call. Fuckinay, fantastic.

We jumped at the chance to hit the taping. I’ve watched this show on PBS for years and evidently, it’s difficult to obtain tickets in the first place. The sound was phenomenal. The lighting was outrageously cool and they also gave us free beer. And it was the cold kind. At first I thought aloud, this Zeigen Bock is awful. I was quickly reminded just how free and just how cold it was and rethunk it:

. o O ( Yeah, I should just shut the fuck up right now. )

They played a lot fo familiar material from the older records and some incredible stuff I hadn’t yet heard from their latest relase, Garden Ruin. The highlight for me being Just Like Stevie Nicks from the Feast of Wire record from 2003. The performance was right on and featured an extended dynamic bit through the middle. Crafty stuff. They’re musicianship was spot on. Hopefully they picked this song for the show that airs November 13th on PBS. Super cool.

So, I guess if this post sounds like I’m bragging a little bit, well, I am. Thanks for reading it… suckehrrrrrrh!

I was downtown a while back. I dropped by the Kulture Lab at the Catapult Gallery. There were a lot of people out and interested in the event. There was some good stuff on display. Blanco Bronco (sorry no photos), The Plastards (photos), Beat Box Fred (photos) and The Fucking Eagles (photos) played a party at the Blacksmith (Jefferson & Fawcett) later in the evening and I brought some 3200 B&W film. I missed most of Blanco Bronco, but liked the last song they played. I mentioned it to their singer later to which he replied “Oh, that one we screwed up?”. I said “Um, yeah, I think so.” The Plastards played next and call me crazy, but I think they had some new songs. Beat Box Fred was at the show, up from Olympia. Fred drops beats—mostly with his mouth and a wireless mic. I think I heard some Moby Dick in there. Hard to say. The Fucking Eagles went on last and included an impromptu “jam” with BBF.

The reason it’s taken me so long to post about this is that I shot with actual film (the horror!) and it’s taken me this long to get everything scanned and some of it up on the web (blah blah blah). I like film. I like the results. It’s a lot more work. I don’t have any photos from the gallery event, I only had black and white film and it didn’t really suit the scene.

A sidecar: evidently, a woman was murdered—shot in the head—around 2:30 AM (well after we left, but still…) near the Fawcett House at 19th & Fawcett. There were some condos going up across the street at 26th & Jefferson.

Tonight at Hell’s Kitchen. The Dockyard Derby Dames are an all-female, amateur, flat-track roller derby league kicking off in Tacoma. Following in the footsteps of teams from cities like Austin, Texas, Seattle and Tucson, Arizona to name a few, the DDD are attempting to raise money for their new league as well as AIDS reaserch. Live bands include: Devil’s Advocates, Sarah Connor, Organic Guerilla, Bell’s Theorem, I Defy. 9pm/$5/21+

Man, I had a busy Saturday. I also popped into Hell’s Kitchen on 6th Avenue to catch Vancouver, BC’s Taboo Revue and caught the Broken Oars playing their version of anthemic punk rock. The show got off to a slow start with some karaoke with made up drunken harlot lyrics, but revved up and ended up being quite entertaining. Watched some uncomfortable squirming when the boylesque started. I didn’t finish the show, Seattle’s Neutral Boy also played, but I just couldn’t hang any longer.

There are photos of Taboo Revue here and Broken Oars here.

Tranlation: Let’s go. I lived in a house next door to a guy Russ before I bought my house in South Tacoma a couple of years back. He started a band called the Vamanos. They have a bluesy rock n’ roll sound and their songs—while fun are typically—um, how you say? …long. I’ve been recording the band in a combination of spaces lately (their basement, my basement) and they’re nearly finished with about 7 songs which they intend to release independently. They dropped a last minute show tonight at O’Malley’s on 6th Avenue. O’Malley’s is weird. I wouldn’t typically think of it as a live venue. It’s just, kind of… a bar. While it wouldn’t be altogether a bad idea to host more live shows, patrons might be better served if there were a few tables moved out of the way and there was room for people to move around.

In contrast to my last post on film shooting, these shots are digital. While they’re not entirely bad shots, I can’t help but think they’re a bit flat. Err… digital. Don’t listen to what I say, take a look for yourself and let me know what you think in comparison with the previous shots of the Boss Martians. Or not.

Made a trek up to Seattle on Thursday night to see the Boss Martians play at the Sunset Tavern in Ballard. The Hot Rollers played first, but I missed the majority of their set. The Boss Martians played a strong set of songs, some of which I was familiar with and some of the newer songs I hadn’t heard. This was the first outing I had seen them play with former Midnight Thunder Express & ex-Valentine Killer Scott (the Machine) Myrene on the bass, who seemed to easily lock it in step with newer drummer Thomas Caviezel. Playing for about an hour, they blasted through their set of pop-tinged punk rock n’ roll. It was loud & fast(how it should be, duh?). Evan Foster has been a busy man lately, writing tons of material for the Martians’ forthcoming record (demos on myspace) and evidently also co-writing songs with Iggy Pop. What a job? That does NOT suck.

As far as the photography goes, I did things a little differently than usual. Recently, I’ve decided if I was really going to learn to shoot photos, I was going to have to learn how to shoot them on film. Sure digital is easier, and I’d probably get better results, but it’s akin to recording music to tape. Neither method is without merit, but learning the way everyone else did can offer some insight into the craft. Anyway, I removed the crutch. I didn’t bring my Nikon D50. I took 2 rolls of Kodak BW400CN black and white film, a roll of Kodak Ektachrome P1600, a 50mm 1.4 lens and the Nikon N80. I figured this way, I’d have to pay more attention to what I was doing and not just let the camera do the heavy lifting.

I was kind of stoked to see the depth in some of the shots. I shot 108 frames—most of them totally sucked, but I expected that. The shot in the lede of this post is the only (of 37) from the Ektachrome roll that made the cut. Enough of my blabberin’, the frames that did not suck are online. Go on, take a looksee there, punk rocker.

“Hey man, you can’t bring that in here. This is a signed band and they’re on a record label. Are you with the press?” says bouncer. “Um, no. Just a local guy with a camera. I’m here for the show.” I reply.

If I had a minute to think that through, I probably should have just said, “Yes, I’m with the _____ here to take shots for the upcoming issue.” Better yet, being a graphic designer, I should just make some legitimate cards or a “press pass” for myself and produce them on demand, but hey—this is Maggie O’Tooles, not some exclusive venue. Come on… I’m at a place that has squeezed in a Mudhoney show literally between Ladies Night with cover band x and Bikini Contest Fridays. I asked the guy, “Are you sure I can’t bring this in?” He calls over another guy—presumably management—and double checks. This guy affirms the policy and tells me they have a pro on site, and also they “pay a lot” for photographs, but I can leave a card and they might hire me to do shots in the future. A little pissed, but at least considerate of the rules of the seedy joint, I took my camera back to the car and locked it up.

Once inside, I noticed a girl from the local camera shop walking around with a Canon Digital Rebel in plain view. Out of curiosity, I stopped to ask her if she was being paid for shooting. She said she was working for the bar. Okay. Great. Good for her.

I had wanted to run a roll of B&W through my Nikon N80, and perhaps a roll of expired Ektachrome 1600 for kicks. I’m not a pro. This is not pro gear. I don’t get paid to take photographs. Nor was it my intention to sell shots of the band with ridiculous ass Bud Light banners advertising the bar’s trite promotions as a backdrop for cold hard cash. It wasn’t even friggin’ digital this time. As I said, I shoot photos for kicks. It would have been what I considered… practice. I didn’t imagine Mudhoney to be the kind of band that would be really uptight about their image, and as it turns out, I was right. Instead, all I was able to get in the door was my cell phone camera and take a few awful pictures with it. Oh well. Suck. Suckafried. Sucktastic. Suckatocious.

Mudhoney played a good set with songs from their entire catalog. Stuff from the early days and a smattering of tunes from from the recent Under a Billion Suns. Mudhoney is one of those bands that has always done things their own way, a rarity on the radar these days. The show started out with less than a bang, but picked up steam and closed pretty strong. Mark Arm broke a string on his sparkle top Gretsch on the opening song. Never the best way to start out. It wasn’t the best show I’ve seen Mudhoney play, but considering the venue and frankly, the crowd, it was good times.

The reason for the whole rant on the man preceding my brief review of the actual show is simple: Once the band started playing, not only was the pro shooter up in the front row snapping away, but there were about 15 additional asshats lined up at the stage with small point and shoot digital cameras. They were firing off tons of shots in plain view. Shots with flash that I’m absolutely certain are going to suck. Why I was forced to leave my amateur film SLR in the car is well beyond me. I thought to myself, “Sure… I’m going to leave you a card. Eff that. This is the first and last time I’m coming to your dungheap. Mudhoney or not.”

You can see my crappy photos from the show here.

Girl Trouble played live at the Commencement Bay Coffee Company in Tacoma last Friday with The Plastards and Skangst. I missed the opening act. Call me fashionably late if you will. The CBCC is in an old warehouse downtown on Jefferson. This was the first live show they’ve put on in the venue. Though the show was all ages, there were libations available for the over 21 crowd. Here are some photographs from the gig.