It's a slow crawl out of hibernation. Having spent the past few months house-bound, save for an occasional excursion that almost always had something to do with work, I felt completely unprepared for last night's Be Yourself party, featuring Danny Tenaglia on the decks "until they make me stop." Carlos convinced me that I should go with him and the Usual Suspects. After a few moans of "Oh, I don't know. I'm DJing on Saturday and Sunday this weekend," I finally relented. Our goal: To see how long we could last at a party that was anticipated to continue until noon the following day.
8:30 p.m.
I arrive at Carlos' house and try to explain to him my utter dismay over the fact that One Life to Live ended before soon-to-be-executed Todd Manning could tell off his ex-wife while spouting his last words.
"I don't get it."
I could explain it to him, but it would take far too long.
9:00 p.m.
We head over to Juan's place, where we chill for ten minutes before he follows us into Hollywood. We're leaving much earlier than usual, as Juan had told us that when he saw Sasha at Avalon a few weeks ago, the line had wrapped around the corner of Hollywood and Vine by 10:30.
9:30 p.m.
We are simply aghast that the parking lot is charging $25. What's the deal here? Danny Tenaglia comes to town and all of a sudden people start charging Manhattan prices?
9:45 p.m.
We walk into line and see Juan's friend James. The four of us stand together for an undocumented length of time that felt like an hour. We talk mostly about "Shoes." It is our new favorite video. Then we start talking about DJs and Carlos and Juan start laughing when I say, "Hey, I kind of like Tiesto."
10:30 p.m.
We are now inside the club and stop at the bar. Vodka Red Bull for Carlos. Vodka tonic for me. We walk inside the main room. Music is playing, but the curtain is down. We stake out prime club real estate, the alcove to the side of stage right.
11:00 p.m.
The curtain moves up in a slow, dramatic fashion. The crowd screams as what we presume is Resident DJ 1 mixes the house jams. Behind him is skyscraper cutout. To each side are huge props resembling NYC subways. The one by us had Tenaglia tagged on it. I borrowed James' phone to take some pictures. Even with the flash, we couldn't get everything. The pictures remain on James' phone. Then I took my own camera and snapped the front of the DJ booth.

12:00 a.m.
Resident DJ 2 takes to the stage. Like Resident DJ 1, he is accompanied by a blonde girl. What is it with DJs and blondes?
I go to the bar to get another round of drinks. This time, it's two vodka tonics. Well, that's what it was supposed to be, but the bartender must have hit the wrong button on the fountain since we got vodka and 7 Up. Vodka and 7Up is vile. It also stains. I found this out after splashing some of the drink on my shirt while squeezing back into the alcove. Two minutes later, we are escorted out and replaced by folks who had reservations or dropped down a wad a cash or whatever it is you have to do to get a good booth at a club.
12:30 a.m.
Carlos and I sit in the lobby discussing the amount of girls dressed like Tila Tequila. The look is tragic, worse than those maternity tops that are all the rage right now. At some point, we end up on the smoking patio with Juan, James and our pal Nelson. We stay there until we hear thunder.
1:00 a.m.
The thunder means only one thing and it's not rain. We run inside to catch Tenaglia's intro, trying to scoot our way as close to the front as possible. We try to dance, but one of us inevitably backs into the trash can every time. Nelson says he found a spot. We think we're following him, but there are too many people pushing and shoving and so we get separated. Carlos, Juan and I end up on the side of the floor near the staircase. Every thirty seconds, someone pushes into me. More often than not, I can feel their drinks drip onto my hair.
2:00 a.m.
I get annoyed with the pushing and go out to the patio, where I end up hanging with James and Nelson again. Eventually, I end up back on the floor with Carlos and Juan. Tenaglia starts his acid-freakout portion of the set and I'm in heaven. I dance until I think I might pass out from the heat.
2:30 a.m.
I seek refuge in the balcony, feeling like I'm half-asleep and wondering how much longer of nightclubbing I can take tonight.
3:00 a.m.
I'm back on the floor with Carlos and Juan, dancing until Carlos starts to feel an ache in his foot.
3:30 a.m.
I'm waiting outside of the bathroom, holding Carlos' military jacket as Tenaglia spins a tweaked-out version of "Groove is in the Heart." We half-dance our way up the stairs to the balcony where we sit in the post-RAVE Act version of the chillout lounge. (In other words, there is no chillout lounge. You just sit on a bench and watch the floor below.) "Groove is in the Heart" is still going strong when we hear the keyboard hook from "Good Life" by Inner City.
"Aw, an Inner City tease," Carlos states after I jump out of my seat and crash back into it.
4:00 a.m.
Carlos is beat. I'm beat. We cannot compete with other clubbers. We had work obligations all day and little energy remains with us now. We leave, not looking around for our friends since we know that, at this point, we won't be able to find them. Outside, I text Juan to tell him that we took off.
4:10 a.m.
We're hungry, so we stop at Del Taco. Carlos parks in the lot so that we can people watch. We keep our eyes on two prostitutes and the thuggish guys who know can't possibly think that they are really chicks.
"Is that her thigh or some kind of bustle?" Carlos asks.
"It's her ass," I reply.
As we left, Carlos turned into a side street so that we could get back on Santa Monica westbound (too many cops to cross a double-yellow tonight). The prostitute was walking by herself at this point, her cohort having headed towards La Brea and the guys now hanging out in front of Benito's Tacos. From our close proximity, we could see that her skirt ended mid-cheek and her black underwear was quickly moving into a melvin, revealing lumps of olive-hued cellulite. It was almost enough to make me stop eating my french fries, but the fries were piping hot and, really, there is nothing better in the middle of the night than Del Taco grub.
5:00 a.m.
We're back in the South Bay, scraping our feet against the sidewalk as we drag ourselves up to Carlos's house. My head is killing me. I'm convinced that it's because of the vile 7Up concoction that messes with the body of people who loathe sugary drinks. This walk seems so much longer than it really is. If I could fall asleep in Carlos' driveway, I would.
Ah, the nightlife. It's good to be back.

This afternoon, I will meet with three professors and find out if I have the go-ahead on my thesis. I haven't been able to sleep and the skin on my arms is in a constant quiver, like the nicotine fit that no cigarette will kill. I'm not really sure how I ended up in graduate school. Any of my longtime friends can tell you how much I detest being in a classroom. They could probably also tell you that my notebooks were more likely to be filled with stick figure Robert Smiths and fictionalized tales about finding love against red-lit club walls. Teachers told my parents the same thing every year, "You're daughter is incredibly intelligent and well-read. Think of what kind of grades she would get if she actually did her homework." Needless to say, the only thing more terrifying than the fact that I got this far is that I could screw it up at any given moment over the next year.
I've been trying, and failing, to get school out of my mind, to make the summer come earlier. My drugs of choice are these two songs. Each of these songs are, in my mind, associated with summer vacation clubbing, of sweating out Valley afternoons while trying to find goth-appropriate, summer-at-the-clubs clothing to wear when Angel and I left the 818 to go meet up with Kar3n, Amy and the rest at Perversion.

Apotheosis "O Fortuna"
(Song Removed)

In high school, Apotheosis was not the deification of Roman heroes, but rather the name on the album that my friend Angel and I tried desperately to secure. We were told that it was damn near close to impossible to find the vinyl. Considering that I still don't have a vinyl copy of this, its safe to say that we were not mislead.
I can't recall where I first heard this song, although it was probably during Mars 103.1 FM's short-lived lifespan. The song was released in 1991 and popped up on trance compilations throughout the earlier portion of the decade. Despite its association with all sorts of raviness, "O Fortuna" crossed over into the decidedly un-PLUR goth/industrial realm and maintained some level of popularity for the bulk of the decade, until it was replaced by the "O Fortuna" sample in Apoptygma Berzerk's massive EBM hit "Love Never Dies." (Note to readers: It appears that Apop's album 7 is still available. I humbly suggest getting it.)
If you want a copy of "O Fortuna" to call your own, you can probably track down one of those older trance comps here.

Messiah "Temple of Dreams"
(Song Removed)

Like "O Fortuna," this number carried my friends and I through the bulk of our technically-underage club days. The "Did I dream/You dreamed about me" sample comes from This Mortal Coil's Liz Fraser-fronted cover of Tim Buckley's "Song to the Siren," which was a Helter Skelter staple in spite of its lack of a beat. For "Temple of Dreams," Fraser's vocals were tweaked out to the extent that she sounds to be consumed by wonder rather than sadness. Then there's that "Who loves you/And who do you love" bit that could always make us throw our hands into the air before continuing with the train conductor-stomp that one must do while invading an industrial-heavy dancefloor.
Also like "O Fortuna," I could never find a vinyl of this. If you are a cd person, however, you can find used copies Messiah's full-length album, 21st Century Jesus, released in 1994 and containing "Temple of Dreams" on Amazon.

Project Pitchfork "The Longing"
(Song no longer available.)

The year that this song was burning through goth club PAs was the year that Amy and I shared a suite on the fourth floor of a brand new dorm with two other friends. Amy and I both have this habit of becoming consumed by songs, so much so that we would drive the rest of the dorm nuts by putting her cd player on repeat and turning up the volume. Such was the case with this gem.
I had heard the song first at Helter Skelter and ran to Vinyl Fetish the following weekend to pick up a copy of Alpha Omega. It was one of those songs that made my heart drop through my stomach the first time I heard it. Apparently, Amy had the same reaction. We just couldn't get enough of it. First of all, it was called "The Longing" and, for two nineteen-year-old college girls (an English major and a Music major, no less), such a title can only lead one to think of the kind of doomed romances that you wish you could have had already, like Tristan and Isolde or George Sand and Chopin. The name alone could have done us in, but then there was the song, a sweeping synthpop number topped by gruff yet heartbroken vocals. Hmmm, wonder if I could get a Heathcliff and Catherine reference in here?
So, yes, "The Longing" encompassed every bit of melancholic beauty one could find in a seaside college dorm. On one particular weeknight, Amy and I were home in dorm doing one or all of the following: 1) Trying to figure out which Jane Austen character best suited our personalities (why isn't there a Live Journal quiz for this?); 2) Obsessing over Ian Curtis and/or boys that kind of/sort of reminded us of Ian Curtis; 3) Attempting to find the alcoholic beverage that best compliments Cheetos. We probably should have been studying our Italian, but why study when you're nineteen? That night, we listened to this song no fewer than twenty times in a row. Every time we listened to it, we heard something new, a tremor in the voice or a whimper hidden under a layer of production, that sucked us further into the song. Even after nine years, I still feel the tremble of hearing a new favorite song for the first time.
Hope you enjoy it as well.

More on Project Pitchfork here.
Buy Project Pitchfork CDs here.

If you want to see our disclamer, scroll down and click on "Who We Are." It opens in a new window.

I've been trying to get some MP3s up on here and, thanks to Kar3n's technical expertise, that will hopefully happen tomorrow after I turn in one last paper and have a chance to write about something that has nothing to do with radio stations, formats and playlists. In the meantime, Rich Girls Are Weeping, one of my fave suppliers of tunes, posted a Franz Ferdinand mix that I suggest you check out right this minute.

I caught this video courtesy of my friend Leo, who you can catch behind the turntables if you live in New York or hear online via My Space. It will amuse you endlessly.
..>

Today is Morrissey's birthday, which is sort of like a Holy Day of Obligation around these parts. I will be unable to partake in any sort of public worship service, but humbly suggest that you go to the Sweet and Tender Hooligans bash in honor of Moz's 47th birthday tonight at the House of Blues. Bring gladioli. And band-aids. And, while you're at it, why don't you use black tape to write "Vile" on your mom's straw hat. I did that once. Not sure if it impressed her or not.

In other news:

• Our friends, Mad Happy, have a CD, Renegade Geeks, no available at Amoeba Records in Hollywood. Pick up a copy.
• Razorcake #32 should be on the stands any day now. My latest column features an essay on Trashcan Sinatras.
  
• That is all.