I should still be asleep, but someone, namely my mom (followed shortly by my grandma), woke me up to wish me happiness on the day of my birth. Once I wake up, I can't fall asleep again. It's impossible. Shit, I'm tired.

Last night marked my first trip to The Palladium since that time in maybe 1999 when the security guard tried to confiscate my Gucci keychain as being a "weapon" when it was so not. Let's just say some things never change. I left my cigarettes in the car, figuring that they take those too. I heard that the only reason they let the lighters and smokes in and opened up a smoking patio was because this was a Camel event. Don't know for sure, but that was the story floating around the club.

So, I stood in line for a half-hour, thus missing all but one song from Rat Tat Tat. While in line, I noticed that the girl four people in front of me was making wretched but hysterical faces while getting frisked.

"Robbin!" I called.

"Liz! Meet me inside at the bar, Happy Birthday!"

Robbin is a really old friend of mine. She and her sister were actually amongst the few people at my first DJ gig, which was held inside an Armenian-owned Mexican restaurant in Los Feliz (after the location changed thrice that night) back in December of 1996. She's still trying to get our 15 minutes of fame (via Channel 13's Strange Universe, back in early-1997) online for all to enjoy. We worked at Coven 13 together and followed The Autumns all over town. Even though we don't get to see each other very much anymore, we have ties that bind, dude.

Anyhow, I met up with Robbin and the rest of her crew inside. Said crew also included Julian, who along with his roommate/my good friend Tony, hosted this party (actually, my 22nd birthday) eight years ago where Carlos and I ended up locked outside (thanks to another friend of ours, who I think is probably a genius and did it on purpose) and realized that we should probably be dating each other. Robbin told everyone that it was my birthday (a few hours early), so Julian got me a drink and we kicked it for a while on the smoking patio. At this point, we ran into no fewer than five people that we knew from waybackwhen, most of whom might not have recognized us save for the fact that we look almost exactly the same as we did at 19. (The difference: We both grew out our Louise Brooks bobs.)

After shooting the shit for long enough, we heard the beginnings of a Ladytron set and ran inside. Despite being an early champion of the band and having met them on a few occasions, I never actually saw Ladytron play live until last night. (One of those things where the gig is always on a night when I have to work.) I'm actually glad that I didn't see the band until now, though. My friends who saw the earliest gigs left disappointed, something that was probably result of the band being primarily a studio project at first. Last night, though, I was impressed. The band doesn't have much in the way of a show. In other words, they basically stand on stage and play. However, they do this well and managed to transform even the 604-era songs into monsterous Krautrock numbers. The Palladium's still-crappy sound lent itself to a muddy mix, but we still danced through the whole thing. Oh, and Todd Fink was watching Ladytron right next to us.

The Faint went on at almost 11 p.m., which was when I thought I would be heading down to Red Dragon for The Rockit party. In the interim between bands, we stood out on the patio, again, and talked a bunch of folks into coming down to The Rockit party. Then Robbin introduced me to her favorite local bands. Robbin is like me, when she digs a band she will tell everyone about it. In fact, we like to think we're responsible for getting every freakin' goth kid in Los Angeles obsessed with The Autumns waybackwhen. Last night, she introduced me to Lyra and Vendetta Valentine. Check them out. Oh, and speaking of The Autumns, we also decided out on the patio that everyone is going to see the band at Violaine on December 16.

When I first saw The Faint play at the Troubadour many years ago, I thought they were one of the best live bands I had seen. This remains true. Probably the best moment to sum up the night is when the band played "Paranoia Attack," which I believe was the second song. The whole club was jumping up and down and screaming "Paranoia" so loudly that went on for bars and bars longer than the album version.

After The Faint finally closed with "Agenda Suicide," I told Robbin that I would give her a ride to the party, so we ran three or four blocks to my car and drove another four blocks to Sunset and Highland, where we just happened to find street parking across from the club. Of course, right as we walked up, we saw The Pacific unloading their gear and heard Pop Noir play what sounded like the first song. Inside, I finally got to meet up with Carlos and the usual suspects. Then I looked around for a few people that I later heard left before we arrived. Finally, we met up with the rest of crew from The Faint show, including Ivan. We then proceeded to close out the joint. Good times, yeah.