During our freshman year of college, Kar3n and I would drive from the dorms to Hollywood with our friends, known as the Chrisses, every Friday night to go to Stigmata. Somewhere inside that packed Highland and Melrose club, as Smashing Pumpkins and Garbage intertwined with Soft Cell and Depeche Mode in the background, we developed a knack for bestowing nicknames upon unsuspecting patrons that we assumed we might never see again, but often did.
Take Moonwalk as an example. Moonwalk was something of an average guy: tall, but not towering; thin but not hipster-scrawny; good-looking but not the sort who might make someone gasp for breath on sight. As one might gather, Moonwalk earned his nickname from his style of dance: Jackson step; Jackson slide; Jackson pivot; Jackson push the invisible wall.
Moonwalk always arrived to clubs early, as we did, and had no fear of hitting an empty dancefloor, just like my three friends and I. But, as my friends and I stayed nearly huddled in one corner, Moonwalk would move across the floor at alternating speeds. On the night wherein we dubbed him Moonwalk, he slid across the dancefloor as I gradually danced further away from my friends, slowly losing myself to some new wave song that was just obscure enough to bar it from airplay after 11:00 p.m. Moonwalk approached me and I stopped, not really sure if he wanted to dance or if he just didn't realize where he was going and was about to run right into me. One of the Chrisses, the one with the Van Dyke and closet full of Depeche Mode t-shirts, grabbed me by the hand and pulled me towards him, chuckling in that weird "is he laughing at me or someone else" fashion that he had. He then dropped my had quickly and proceeded to make sound-effects in time to the song. That was his way.
I laughed and remarked, "That guy is a full-on moonwalker."
The name stuck. At least it stuck with me. I'm not sure if Kar3n remembers it or not and, since we haven't heard from the Chrisses in years, that is a moot point.
Over the course of the decade that followed, Moonwalk became a fixture at virtually every club I attended, always there early, always busting the same moves. Sometimes he would approach me, as he did on that first night, as part of a mute flirtation that involved every other girl he encountered on those dancefloors. He slides forward and stand for a moment. The girl's face drops with confusion. She takes a step back. He pivots and slides to the next in line, all without saying a word.
At the staple Friday night indie rocker, I sat with my brother, Estelle and her friend British Liz on barstools watching Mere Mortals play a fairly long set, remarkable mostly for an acoustic number played sometime during the show's midpoint (I think it's called "All the Rumors"). As the crowd danced to the hopscotch beat of British pop by way of Los Angeles, I saw a girl run up to Moonwalk and try to drag him towards the miniscule dancefloor. He pulled back, hesitant at first, but then followed her and went through that same pattern of steps inches from the microphone. He then walked away from the floor, dancing in the bar space toward a small group of typically indie girls. He inched closer to them and stopped.
"I'm watching to see what happens next," Estelle whispered to me.
"Nothing," I predicted. "He never goes in for the kill. It's not his style."
True to my words, nothing happened.
After the band finished, Moonwalk stood at the bar, crowding me into my stool so that I couldn't spin around to face Dave, who was rehashing the tale of how he was dragged to the dancefloor during Mere Mortals' set, when all he wanted to do was watch the band. I heard a voice to the side of me, a low, indistinctive male voice. Moonwalk was engaged in conversation! Moments later, he was out on the dancefloor with a willing partner. We were in shock, as if this deviation from club ritual was surely a sign of the apocalypse.
I suppose you could take this tale as a means of stating that every club story has a happy ending or that slight alterations in the scheme of the nightlife can drive an observer mad, but, in reality, it probably doesn't mean a damn thing. It's just something that happened, like any other night in Hollywood.

Saint Etienne is coming to L.A., i.e. the Avalon, 18 February 2006. Tickets are on sale at ticketmaster.com.

I sincerely hope that one fine day, Queen Courtney will contribute to this little blog as she is not only smart and witty, but she has a music collection that could put most to shame and some of the best club stories I have ever heard. In the meantime, as a testament to her wit and love of music, I ask you to kindly check out the Michael McDonald fan group that she started on My Space today.

Yesterday, I came across a mixed cd made on the occasion of my birthday a few years back by my friend Tim. While his name is not on the CD, I am quite positive it is indeed a Tim mix because it contains tracks from Psychid and Muse and, honestly, I'm not sure if I've ever met anyone as into Psychid and Muse as he is.
What struck me when I listened to the mix again was the inclusion of Kaiser Chiefs's "Oh My God." Keeping in mind that this cd is at least a year old, all I have to say is nice foresight, Tim.
Anyhow, I wanted to point out some of the tracks on this compilation that remain fairly obscure, but will most likely make your day should you choose to seek them.
If I came across a Statistics CD at the local record store, I would probably overlook it on account of the fact that the label is Jade Tree and I tend to hate just about everything that falls off those branches, or at least that was the case in college. Statistics, however, does not sound like Cap 'n Jazz. Nebraska-based Statistics is the brainchild of Denver Dalley of Desapararecidos, one of the Saddle Creek bands. "Another Day," from a self-titled EP dating back to 2003 is filled with enough Ride-like guitar washes to make you want to run to your closet and throw on a striped t-shirt and Chuck Taylors.
The Boxer Rebellion was an uprising in China in the late-19th century. It is also the name of a band that aptly fulfills the description British Rock. Think Muse without as much guitar crunch. You can check out the song "Watermelon" on the band's My Space page.
Black Eyes has college radio written all over it. They are from D.C., describe the sound as "indie/punk/jazz" and appear kind of unassuming in their photos. "Deformative" features dueling squeaky/flat vocals, guitar squiggles, death rock bassiness and keyboards.

My brother is blaring his new favorite song on his laptop in his room. When he played it the first time, I stopped and said, "Hey, I have this cd!"
"What?!" he answered. "I just spent 99 cents on it!"
"Why didn't you ask me?"
"I just figured out what it was."
"Dude, if it sounds like angst with keyboards, I have it."
The song is "Tear You Apart" by She Wants Revenge and, right now, the only song that I can think of that gets more play on LA's alternative stations is "King Without a Crown" by the Hassidic reggae guy whose name I can never recall.
It took me a few listens to warm up to She Wants Revenge, mostly because of the Interpolish quality and a quick review of the bio on the website wherein the band notes that they were *always* into the 80s bands. Yeah, the emo dorks who made fun of me for listening to Soft Cell back in 1996 are probably saying that as well right about now, I thought. But I can admit when I'm wrong and I was wrong with She Wants Revenge. Cynicism momentarily plugged my ears and I failed to realize that "Tear You Apart" is a fucking awesome song. Listen to it once and focus on the rhythm, all steady and clublike. Listen to it again and tune into the urgency of the melody. Listen to it a third time and focus on the lyrics. This guy's legs might crumble beneath him if he doesn't get you back to his place by the end of the night.
This song is like those moments when your night at the club has gone horribly awry and you really wished that you had stayed at home, playing with your copy of New Order's "Perfect Kiss." It is the story of a club night so bad that all you can do is laugh about it afterward.
I hear this song and flashback to December of 1997. It was a few days before my 21st birthday and my friends and I snuck into this party at the Opium Den. There was an open bar and we took full advantage of that fact. While at the party, we ran into another friend, upon whom I had bestowed an enormous crush, a fact that I announced in Midori Sour-slur-like fashion while we danced to Animotion. My friend laughed.
"That is so incestuous," he said.
I was not upset by his comment, but mortified that I actually said that I had a crush on him. So I turned around and ran off the dancefloor, right into a barstool. As the barstool fell from under me and I reached to grap the end of a table about two arms-length away, the snaps on my Mandarin dress popped and my completely utilitarian white bra-covered breast was now exposed to the entire club.
Before I could even think, my wonderful pal, Tony, had the sense to run over and shove a jacket over me until I could get into the bathroom and fix myself. We then decided that, before the rest of the night could get worse, we should leave and head towards Perversion.
Still drunk, I stumbled around the goth room at Perversion chatting with an acquaitance of mine who was fairly cute but shorter than me. I don't even know what I said but it must have been something pathetic because the guy, who I could have sworn was not into the ladies, just grabbed me and planted the sloppiest pity kiss ever on my lips.
"Tear You Apart" should have been the soundtrack for that night.

A good mixed CD will make you feel like you are at the party of the year, even if you are living out a mundane existence of sitting in traffic or typing away at a computer. Go Commando with James F!@#$%^Friedman (Defend Music) is one of those cds.
It starts simply with a series of handclaps giving way to the disco guitar that opens the Rapture/Hushhush remix of Annie's "Me Plus One," an ode to clubbing that, in remixed form, sounds like a chirpier rendition of Madonna's "Music." From there, the disc twists and turns through sixteen-tracks of stobelight-pulsing electro-house madness.
Friedman knows dance music. This is evidenced through his work as a writer for such periodicals as XLR8R, Fader, Vice and Urb and his knack for pulling off successful parties in New York City (Refuse! and All Wrong). Friedman also seems to know a thing or too about portions and pacing. He seems to know that too much Annie might induce Slurpee-style brainfreeze while too little of Franz & Shape's grinding disco rhythms on "This is the Way" (featuring GD Luxxe) might leave listeners completely unsatisfied. He knows that the seductive croon on Who Made Who's "Space for Rent" is the perfect way to ease out of a frenzied Franz & Shape track, that the Cure-on-E vocals of Bloc Party as remixed by Black Strobe provides a welcome respite after a series of instrumental numbers and that Tom Vek's indietronic pop is the best way to end an evening.