I was going to go see The Ivy Walls tonight, but then work beckoned, so I'll be at home researching a three-piece for a nearly spur-of-the-moment interview. (It's actually one of those things that I really wanted to do, but figured it wouldn't happen then someone contacted me out of the blue and said "Hey want to interview so-and-so" and I'm like, "Fer sure, give me a time," and they're all like "Tomorrow at noon" and I'm like "Awesome.) Point being, I won't be at Silverlake Lounge, but if you're in the area, go check out The Ivy Walls. They go on at 9 p.m.

This has been an extremely strange, dare I say even WHACK, summer. World wars, 100+ weather with humidity and electrical storms and bizarre concert happenings aside, this summer is just weird on a completely personal level. Not quite as crazy as the summer when a world renowned serial killer tried to break into our house and Homicide showed up to investigate the "crime scene" while my cousins from Cleveland were staying with us, but close. I'm not even sure it's worth going into detail, but weird things just keep happening and, like Summer 1985 (described above) for every random piece of dung thrown in this direction, something completely amazing happens. I don't want to get into the crap-end, mostly because it's incredibly boring and not worthy of a mention, but on the "pretty freakin' awesome" side of the spectrum, this Saturday night I'm playing at Bang! for the first time in three years. I imagine it will be different from when I was resident on account of times changing and a bunch of new bands that didn't exist in 2003. Plus, there's a separate '80s room, so I probably won't be playing stuff like XTC, The Jam and The Housemartins, like I did every week for three years. However, I'm pretty sure it will still be a fun-packed night. You should go.

When I was younger, I had major issues with going to the clubs solo, like I might have been broadcasting that I didn't have any friends or something like that. Now, going out by myself is no big deal because it is inevitable that I will end up meeting up with at least a small handful of friends or acquaintances.
Like tonight at Henry Fonda, I knew I would run into Annie. This was mostly because every time we have run into each other for the past three months, she has asked if I planned to go to the show and I shrugged because I honestly didn't know. Annie was by herself waiting for a friend who was running late, so we partnered up for the night. Now, if you're ever at a club alone, you want to run into Annie because she is always dancing around, which will force you to keep moving even when your back still hurts from that festival you went to over the weekend. Later on, we ran into no fewer than 10 people we knew, collectively speaking, but most of the night, it was Annie and I screaming things into the other's ears.
"Do you think they'll play two Libertines songs?" (Annie)
"Doesn't Carl look like Marc Almond?" (Me)
BTW, the band did play two Libertines songs.
Strange, kind of scary things have been happening at clubs lately. Take, for example, last Saturday's events during Tool's performance at Street Scene. Then, tonight, Annie and I were standing by the bar and this girl drops to the ground and everyone thinks she's out cold. She's not moving at all and Annie said she saw her eyes roll back. It was unnerving, even for the bartenders, who looked like they were ready to call the paramedics. Then she literally jumped up and darted off towards the crowd, as if nothing happened. I've seen seizures at clubs maybe twice before, but those happened when the stroblights were pounding (at the Fonda, in between bands, there were no lights) and the people seemed disoriented afterward. This was definitely different and it left Annie and I a bit rattled until the band went on some time later. Then, during the show, some dude just walks into the crowd and starts hitting people. At a freakin' Brit pop show of all places, that's about as random as finding a polite drunk at Ozzfest. Finally, because strange things happen in threes, it took a full hour to travel the half-mile distance between my freeway exit and the one immediately preceding it. I presume that, at some point in the evening, there was an accident, but when I passed the four lanes that were shut down, all I saw were flares and two cops.

The thing I forgot to mention yesterday was that we saw AFI as well and the thing that you need to know about AFI shows is the remarkable similarity to Morrissey shows. Both artists have the power to reduce 220-pound, football-player-like guys to teenage girl hysterics. I asked my brother, an AFI fan himself, to explain this to me today.
"They're kind of punk and they sing about their feelings," he said in that voice of his that makes me wonder if it's sarcasm or sincerity.
I'm not a big AFI fan, although I enjoy the music, but props to any band who can bring 80% of the crowd to tears (the other 20% consisting of parents) just by walking onstage.
Saturday, we started off by checking out Bedouin Soundclash, who drew quite a crowd considering that it was only 4:00 p.m. Dub-styles are big in college towns, I gather. It was the perfect music for the afternoon, kind of mellow, lots of full basslines, vocal effects and sturdy drumbeats. We left early so that Megan could shoot The Futureheads but, by the time we got to the stage, we found out that everyone had been pushed back by an hour and Yeah Yeah Yeahs were no longer listed as playing. People were seriously freaking out and when Megan learned that Yeah Yeah Yeahs were playing in My Chemical Romance's spot on another stage, she became the guru for a crowd of Karen O-bsessed teens. But, then, what happened to My Chemical Romance? No one knew.
As much as I loved The Futureheads debut record, the band is far more interesting live and the fact that they could pull off all of the vocals, particularly on the cover of "Hounds of Love," in a "car park" in heat that was obviously melting their British flesh was impressive. Afterwards, I met up with Bedouin Soundclash for an interview and then ran back to the Time Warner stage in time to catch a new song (name unknown as I walked up mid-song) from Editors. When I saw Editors at Cinespace back in January, I was floored. The only thing that kept me from that same feeling of excitement this time around was that I was too far from the stage to actually see the intensity of the band's movements. Afterward, I met up with my friends Diana and Vince, who I think saw Editors for the first time yesterday, found Megan and went to the Hot Dog on a Stick booth. For the second day in a row, I ate cheese on a stick because it's the perfect food and I don't live anywhere near a Hot Dog on a Stick, so I haven't had the chance to eat one in a few years. Then we ran off to Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Karen O. doesn't just have that Siouxsie-ish voice, but her moves are also total Siouxsie Sioux and that black leotard and tights combo she wore last night reminded me of a costume I saw at the Banshees' show at Universal Amp in 1992. Scary. Karen's voice is out of control. Megan thought she might lose her hearing in the photo pit and we both thought that Karen would probably end up hoarse the next day.
We cut out of Yeah Yeah Yeahs with enough time to check out Bloc Party. Before the set started, I ended up chatting with a very sweet teenage My Chemical Romance fan who said that she had heard from some people that the band canceled because of the new album its recording. Then she heard another, more plausible, story that Bob and Gerard were in a car accident on Friday and both were injured. The latter story was confirmed by Bloc Party, who dedicated a song to Bob, MCR's drummer, and later by the get well messages here. Bloc Party rocked the "car park" (we can't get enough of that word now) and thanked the crowd for not leaving halfway through the set for Tool.
After Bloc Party, I went to go meet up with Megan, who was then shooting Tool. Maynard was going off on one of his preacher rants and I wanted to scream about "the cries of the carrots" (hey, I was a Tool fan once, of course, that was over ten years ago, but still, I like a few albums). There was a line of stretchers and kids getting ankles and wrists wrapped at the First Aid booth (conveniently located right next to the stage). Megan told me about seeing a girl emerge from the pit in a state of shock because, apparently, she had just been pantsed. She described the girl and it sounded like the MCR fan I had spoke to earlier. Megan sounded disturbed by the sight and just hearing about it made me upset. That's just not cool.
The thing about Tool is that they have two types of fans. There is that Burning Man sort of crowd that is really into anything proggy. They are a zany bunch, but seem to be decent people. Then there are the meatheads, the ones who set up camp at the front of the stage, boo the other bands and basically make jackasses of themselves at the expense of the crowd for the length of the event. Earlier, there was a text messaging war broadcast on the screens across the stadium, er, car park. Tool fans posted shit about Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Then someone posted something to the extent of "Hey, Tool losers, back up, we want to see Yeah Yeah Yeahs." Then some seriously awesome person posted "Don't be that guy. You know, the one who wears the shirt of the band he's going to see to the show. Like Tool fans." I guess I'm not the only person obsessed with PCU.
I was wondering how Tool managed to attract such a bunch of jerks as part of its fanbase as I never really thought of them as a typical meathead-attracting metal band (see Metallica and Pantera). Then I had an epiphany.
"Megan," I said. "I know why Tool is this popular."
"Why?"
"They've been writing the same album for ten years."
In the background, the band was playing something off the new album that sounded like "Prison Sex." It's like Sonic Youth syndrome, art rock on repeat.
However, I wouldn't blame Tool for the actions of the fans in the slightest. In fact, it seemed like Maynard was getting annoyed with the crowd antics. Honestly, I kind of feel bad for metal/hard rock bands in general because they are just playing what they love and it isn't really their fault that their fans can't behave.
We ended our night with a two-minute sampling of Snoop Dogg before heading back to our host's pad. There was supposed to be an afterparty at Transport featuring Editors, but we were so sore by the end of our second day at Street Scene, that there was no way either one of us could get through the rest of the night at a club.