The Black Keys
I went to Pianos last night to see my friend Ivan’s band, Echolalia. I missed them, which always sucks, but saw two great performances from Johnny Society and Snowden.
Johnny Society — crappy band name notwithstanding — was amazing, most of the time. The band sounds like Joe Cocker meets The Doors meets The Pixies, kinda’ psychadelic punk pop. The bassist, apparently her name is Blueberry, was hands down the coolest bassist I’ve ever seen (bearing in mind that I never saw Kim Deal back in the day, and when I did finally see The Pixies perform at The Greek last summer, she was fairly sedentary). Blueberry (aka Gwen Snyder) was whip-thin, raven haired, and had these incredibly high cheek bones. She bobbed and popped around the stage in angular, stabbing motions. Her bass lines were insanely interesting, no basic roots in sight. Incredible.
Snowden is pretty high on the blogger buzz these days, so I was kinda’ pleased they just happened to be playing so I can form my own opinion. Their music certainly merits the buzz, though Blueberry blew them off the stage in terms of pure rock enthusiasm. They kinda’ reminded me of New Order. The frontman kept plugging snowden.info, which I was visited and where I downloaded all of their MP3s.
Funny thing happened afterwards. I’m walking towards the bar with my beautiful blonde companion and this suit walks straight up to her and says, “You have the most beautifully sparkling eyes I’ve ever seen.” After puking in my mouth, I kinda’ stepped up to him and introduced myself, primarily because I didn’t kow what else to do. It was weird. I felt all these possessive feelings, but I barely knew my beautiful blonde companion, and even if I did, I certainly don’t possess her. So what gives if some ass hat’s mackin’ on her? He kinda’ ignored me, but his sidekick, a short little dude from Dubai, was pretty hilarious so I just enjoyed his company and let my beautiful blonde companion dispatch of the other dude. Which she did, effortlessly.
Of course, by this time I’d worked a full day, downed a Corner Bistro burger (and accompanying beers), and taken in two rock shows, so I was fairly toasty. We stumbled out into the chilly night, I hailed my friend a cab, and headed west. I must’ve waited fifteen minutes at the 8th Street NR station, thinking the entire time about something I’d read: human beings are capable of waiting three times longer for something if they know how long they have to wait. Oh, and adding insult to injury, my iPod was out of power.
Anyhow, that was my Wednesday night. And it certainly had an impact on my Thursday morning in the form of a soul crushing headache. Fortunately, I have a job where fleece and a knit cap are perfectly acceptable for an executive producer. Unfortunately, nap time is not.
