Just a bit of friendly advice: If you ever find yourself in the vicinity of Liz, the brand spanking new bass player for Unfair Fight, and she's drunk, don't ever, EVER, tell her that the new singer from Turbonegro sucks, because, as Hank found out last night, she will fucking crack you one something proper and dot you hard as fuck right in the eye! hahaha Yeah, the gig last night @ the Beauty Bar was pretty cool. Lots of Friends just chilling out and having fun. I got there just as Audacity started playing, and they were good, with Mr. Bobby Franks, Esq. summing their sound up perfectly by saying 'they're the O.C. sound from 25 years ago'. He also said they usually do an Adolescents cover, but alas, tonight, they didn't. Boooooo. I wasn't really in the mood for any more covers though, as I had just escaped from that Bonfire gig @ the House of Booooo's. Bonfire is an AC/DC cover band with a spot on Bon Scott doppelganger that, for some reason, plays the entire Back In Black album after a pretty rocking opening set of songs (Sin City - Rocker - Whole Lotta Rosie - Beating Around The Bush) I was just like YES!!! and then, they play that Back In Black shit. The name of the band is Bonfire, not Brianfire. I would of never went to the gig if I would of thought even for a second that I'd be hearing some Brian Johnson shit. Boooooo. Is there not enough Bon Scott material to fill out an entire set? Yeah, exactly. Seeing the Bon Scott dude singing like Brian Johnson was just too much for me to take so I threw my $9 beer down in disgust and left. Don't fuck with my Bon Scott man. AC/DC are a band near and dear to my heart. Don't fuck with them. :-)

So yeah, where was I? Oh yeah, Beauty Bar! lol Everyone and their Mom was telling me to check out King Tuff. I had no idea of who they were, but SOMEONE who's opinion I really trust told me that I would like them. They're real Poppy - You'll dig them she said and damned if she wasn't right. They sounded like a cross between Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and oh, I dunno, Wire? Magazine? Something like that. Jingle -Jangle guitars with a catchy Pop beat with some pretty impressive falsetto vocals thrown on top for good measure. I dug 'em. They announced that some song was about being stoned or something and I liked them even more. :-) Hank told me they were on Sub Pop, which was a bit of a shock because 1) They didn't really sound like a Sub Pop type of band and 2) I didn't even know Sub Pop was still around! LOL I went to buy a record from the merch table when King Tuff were done playing, but they were selling 'em for $20 each, and Pam told me I could get it from the Sub Pop website for $12, so that's what I'm gonna do. ;-) Yeah, after Hank got punched in the eye I figured it was as good a time as any to get the fuck out of there, so I made a beeline for the back door and stumbled my way back to my car and made my way back Home. I had to get some rest. :-)

Enjoy your weekend.

I've been surrounded by Death a whole Hell of a lot lately, and it kind of disturbs me. Yeah, I know I'm the Old Guy and all that but man, in every aspect of my Life as of late I've been confronted by the realities of Death, and it just fucking sucks. Friends, Family, ex-band members, casual acquaintances, you name it, I've had people pass away left and right, and none of them in a nice, peaceful way, which is weird. Granted, some of them were no Angels and lived a Life that dictates if you play, you pay, and to not do the Crime if you can't do the Time, but still, I knew them all, some better than others, and it's kind of weird knowing that they're not gonna be there anymore to hang out with or receive random drunken texts messages from at 3 in the morning. Fuck. It's not like I haven't dealt with all this shit before, but man, all this shit happening these past few weeks has me tripping out big time. Mortality. It fucking sucks and it has me in a bad place.

Which is why something like this couldn't come along at a better time. I need to go Home. I need Cleansing. I need to reconnect with the very essence of my being. I need to be reminded of just how wonderful my Family on the Rez is and how much they still think I'm a weirdo. I didn't make it out there last year because my rental car blew up on the way down there, but that is not gonna happen this year. Nope. There's no fires in CA. blocking off the freeways this time. I will make it there. I don't give a fuck if I have to take a taxi from wherever my car breaks down from, because I'll do it - I'm stupid like that. So yeah, it's a Labor Day tradition for me, and there's a whole lotta stuff going on this weekend (Freddie McGregor... Rattus... FUCK!!!!) but I gotta get out of this place. I gotta get Home. See ya when I get back. :-)

Perfection - or Persuasion?

I'm sitting here at like 5 in the morning, drinking coffee because of the girl that inspired me to, and also because of the girl who made me need it. ;-) I'm splitting up American Buckshot MP3's from our last practice and I thought I'd ramble a bit on here. I've got over 2 hours of music to deal with here. I'm reading my emails. I'm feeling the Love. I got something to say.

The rain yesterday was sweet. I cranked open every window in the house and just luxuriated in the aural warmness of the sound of the rain falling, and it lulled me back to sleep, something that never happens to me. I finally found someone who had something good to say about that Redd Kross gig on Tuesday, but every reason he liked it was a reason why I would of hated it, i.e. the cock rock guitar solos and shitty KISS covers. Dudes, Annette's Got The Hits is not meant to be 6 minutes long - seriously. Ugh. Believe me when I say that those guys used to be the shit back in the days, and I don't know what happened to them. I was hoping that a little of that OFF! Punk Rock energy would of came through to Redd Kross, but apparently it didn't. Sad.

I've been putting off commenting on this, or even mentioning it, for various strong reasons, but since so many people I love and care for are involved with this thing, I sort of feel obligated to mention something about it, even if some people and bands are involved with this thing that I can't stand or that I want nothing to do with, but whatever. Brando was a well loved guy in this city, and after his recent murder and dismemberment after the fact, a bunch of his Friends and Family members are hosting this tribute night to him at Favorite's tomorrow, with donations being accepted and courted all night, and with a few bands playing to help the cause, including the Fat Dukes Of Fuck, who are the only band worth mentioning. The others can fuck right off. There's gonna be all sorts of stuff being sold, and a silent auction is being held as well, with a pirates treasure worth of booty being offered up to bid on. There's a couple of things being auctioned off that I'd like to get my hands on but alas, I'm not going to this thing, although I did contribute some cash to the fund someone set up to help his kid out. It's www.gofundme.com/helplilbrando if any of you would like to contribute to the cause. Every little bit helps and it's definitely worth the effort. There's really no other place you should be this Friday but Favorite's for this thing. Seriously  

Alright. It's waaaay past my bedtime. I'm gonna kipper a bit before waking up and relegating myself to re-posting lots of old stuff on the website from the year 2003, because I found an CD with a bunch of the old website files on them, Show Reviews, Pictures I lost years and years ago, Music Reviews, etc.,  and I'm fascinated with re-reading and going through all that shit and putting it back up here for posterity's sake. Not to say that I'm slacking on getting new stuff up here, because there's tons of that too, but I don't remember what any of it is right now and it doesn't matter because no one comes here to check any of that stuff out anyways, right? Right! :-)

Go to this gig tonight and beg them to play properly songs like Linda Blair, Burnout, Annette's Got The Hits, Pseudo-Intellectual, Everyday There's Someone New, Cover Band, Kill Someone You Hate, Cease To Exist, Standing In Front Of A Poseur and a few more songs I can't think of right now... heh heh Redd Kross were such a great band live - you have no idea. Starwood 1980 is probably the best I ever saw the band. Them and the Adolescents just destroyed the place that night. If this gig was somewhere else and with a different era line up, I'd be right there with ya boozing it up on free rum and rocking out until I barfed, but as it is, I'm sitting this one out. Have fun though, enjoy the gig! And when you get there tell Pitt I said to Fuck Off! ;-)

It's not that I don't have anything to say, but more like I have too MUCH to say, and I don't wanna... Bohemian Summer. LOL

Well, the one thing I do wanna mention is this Ministry Of Love show going down tonight @ the House of Boooooo's. In case you haven't heard, MOL's lead vocalist Meg recently announced that she has Cancer in her throat somewhere and she's headed off to UCLA to go through chemo and everything else you have to go through in order to beat this disease so this is going to be Ministry Of Love's last show for the unforeseeable future. Their CD release party is going to be their last show for a while. The irony of that fucking sucks ass. The Local shit wipe rags here in town posted Meg's story pretty quickly, and what they were doing, it seemed kind of exploitative to me, and I stayed away from any commenting about it in Public. Until now. So yeah, if you can you should definitely plan on coming out to this gig and filling up the place with nothing but Love and Positivity and well wishes to Meg for her speedy recovery.

The People's Whiskey are playing the Bunkhouse tonight with Three Bad Jacks. Pass. If you miss them tonight you can catch them tomorrow night @ Favorite's. They're doing an all Hank III set for some evil reason. :-) Have a great weekend - I'm gonna go before the Poison comes out.

hahahaha Since The Jew already let it out, I suppose I can tell you about the Invite Only gig with:

Redd Kross

Unfortunately, it's the Neurotica era line up, which I had the misfortune of seeing a couple of times, psychedelic overtures and all. Whatever. It's happening @ the Double Clown, and you can go to the Facebook event page by clicking here and RSVP-ing, because that's the only way you're going to be able to get in there. Yeah right. The band has a new album out called Researching The Blues, so expect to hear a few tunes from that release. It should be a fun time. Go to the band's Facebook page by clicking here to keep up on what's going on in the world of Redd Kross. It's never boring, to say the least. :-)

Happy Birthday to my little Brother Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeech. He's 1 year younger than me and probably 5 times as crazy. He's been to just as many gigs as I have, and I'm sure the sight of him and I on my moped racing through Hollywood at 1 in the morning must of been a sight to see... LOL Anyways, Happy Birthday Brother! Pizzamania is on me the next time I see ya! :-)