"I hate to tell you this, honey," Carlos said over the phone. "But you really missed out last night."
Alexander Robotnick plays Los Angeles for the first time and I was totally set on going, but then I realized how much work I had to do and how bad my back hurt and how tired I really was. So, while the Usual Suspects were out dancing to house, electro, italo, etc. from the master himself, I was home doing work, thinking about work while watching The Cosby Show and falling asleep for what proved to be a completely miserable night's worth of half-shut eye. I should have just chugged down a soda and a few cigarettes and went out to Avalon.
So, yes, from what I hear, Robotnick is freakin' awesome. Carlos thought he was using Ableton and noted that they ended up staying until 2 a.m. because the mix was so intense. Apparently, Robotnick broke out all the hits, including some Human League, and sang over "Problemes d'amour." Damn. Damn. Damn.
Things are not as bad as they seem, though. Carlos said that his set was baiscally an amalgamation of the mixes he has posted online. Tonight, since I'll be home working all night, I might just listen to every one and pretend I was there.

Catdirt posted a link to this story earlier today. Having stood at the stage while the whole mess was going on and having left Tool's performance because of said mess, I have to weigh in on this. If there is one thing that illustrates the stupidity of apparently a sizeable amount of Tool fans, it is the notion in that article that the band's need to post claymation film rather than their own image onscreen is to blame. Video footage during concerts isn't exactly out of the ordinary. I've seen that done a few hundred times out of the 1000+ bands I've seen over the past decade. It's part of the show. Now, if you're the sort of person who is going to whine that "I can't see Maynard" and push to the front of the stage, you really don't belong at a show. If you can't understand that claymation is as much a part of your supposed favorite band's performance as the band itself, then you are an idiot and really should have stayed home. The only people who really were at fault during the mess were the assholes who started it. Does personal responsibility even exist?

It just seems asinine that someone could make such a blanket statement that could potentially put Tool in the same irresponsible light at Great White under the condition of anonymity, even though claymation videos are definitely not the same as pyro. Plus, I found some of the other statements to be questionable. For example, if Tool did kick out people from backstage before the set, then why would anyone bring injured people to that area knowing that there would be no one there? Why didn't the staff go backstage once Tool was out of the area and the show started? Plus, Tool did stop playing , albeit briefly, right around the time I was looking for Megan. One of the rules of J-school is that anonymity is to be used sparingly. If you use it on any source that makes a controversial statement (particularly one that is difficult to prove), it cheapens the story, the credibility of the paper and the constitutional rights that journalists often successfully claim allows a priviledged relationship between the writer and the source.

I'm not trying to defend Tool so much as I just think that there is a major piece of the story that's missing and perhaps people should be addressing why there is a large contingent of violent music fans in Southern California than trying to place blame on the band, venue or anything else.

In my haste to post yesterday, I forgot to mention our possible cool rock person sighting at World Party on Monday.
"Carlos, see that guy behind the dude in the polo shirt?"
"Yeah."
"I think he's in Trashcan Sinatras."
"I thought he looked familiar."
Now, I'm prone to seeing people that I think are other people, like the dude at the bar who I could have sworn was in Scorpions ("not old enough," said Carlos) and the bassist for World Party who was a dead-ringer for one of our college friends. But, this I swear was Trashcan Paul, which might not mean much of anything to anyone outside of my partner in Trashcan singalongs, Balthazar Monsoon. Having read sometime in the past year that Trashcan Paul had either moved to Los Angeles or was out here for an extended stay, the spotting made total sense.
Later on, I ended up trying to sit/squat in a corner and almost tripped person I believe to be Paul Livingston at the bar. I tried to eavesdrop to see if I could detect an accent, but World Party was so on it Monday night that I couldn't get away from the music.

So this guy I met on Saturday, Ryan from New York, is playing somewhere in West Hollywood tonight (Les Deux, I think?) and I was going to go but walking for four hours up and down Sunset in wedge-heeled boots combined with standing in the Roxy for three straight hours, also in wedge-heeled boots has inflamed my already screwed back. So I'm at home tonight and will, most likely, be listening to Droidbehavior on KXLU tonight. They're playing from 10-11 p.m. I think that's Headspace (I'm wrong, it's something called The Modern Age). Anyhow, I just hope my back is okay tomorrow so that I can head out with the usual suspects to see Alexander Robotnik.

Woke up at 7 a.m., left for work at 8 stayed there until about 2 p.m., at which point I ran home and got lunch then got back into the car and headed to Hollywood.

Finally made it into a parking space at 4:25 pm., five minutes before my interview with World Party. Ran across the street, found the tour manager, found Karl Wallinger and went up to the dressing room.

The interview lasted about an hour. This is pretty damn cool considering that journalists are usually given 20 minutes for an interview, which can be easily stretched to somewhere between 30 or 40 minutes. I was actually pretty nervous about this interview because I grew up listening to World Party, so it was imperative that I not make an ass out of myself. If you want to know what transpired, you'll have to wait until October, but just know that good stories were told.

Interview ends at 5:30. I have three or four hours to kill before the show and Carlos won't be able to get down to the Strip until after 8. I head over to Tower where I see the new issue of The Rockit. I grabbed a few more copies, which is what I do whenever I see a stack, so that I can just hand it out to people. This issue looks pretty cool. I like the Ozzfest/Warped Tour split cover and the photo spread looks awesome (Nice work, Megan!).

I started getting hungry. Over the phone, Carlos suggested that I get dinner at the Rainbow Room. That said, I headed west on Sunset, not realizing that the walk is up hill and I really, really have to pee. Half-a-block up the street, I give up, duck into a place called Panini's, where I've eaten before while stuck on the Strip, and grabbed a salad.

I should have brought my laptop and just transcribed the interview while I waited around. I should have gotten in the car to go somewhere, but I have an aversion to paying $7 for parking twice in one day. So I walked to Tower Video, remembered that I never watch movies and then went to Book Soup. I was looking for a Fullmetal Alchemist manga, but, this being a posh bookstore and all, it wasn't there. I picked up Peace Kills by PJ O'Rourke, because if there is one thing that can kill the monotony of two years reading Marx, Foucault, Chomsky and the rest, it's PJ O'Rourke. I headed back to the car and read the first two chapters of the book before Carlos arrived.

Inside the club, we realize that I was mislead. World Party wasn't going on at 9:15, that's when the show was starting. We sit through a very Ani Difranco set by a girl named Gina Villalobos and a more interesting performance by Elvis Perkins. Actually, we're standing because you can't sit at the Roxy unless you're somebody. My feet kill, but my back and my head are worse. My only solace is watching one of Perkins' players work this thing that looks like a reclining accordion.

World Party was superb. The band started with "Put the Message in the Box" then did "Is It Like Today?" (file under the rarefied genre of songs inspired by Bertrand Russell) and the second song on Dumbing Up, the name of which I can't recall at the moment. At this point, I would have danced around but, really, I was far too sore, even when the band closed with a seemingly 12-minute, double-reprised version of "Way Down Now" and finished the encore with "Ship of Fools." Oh and I should mention, especially for my friend Mary, that he played "She's the One," the song made famous when Robbie Williams covered it. (And there's a long story behind that too, although I think you can actually read it on the band's website.)

So, I got home at 1 a.m., did some more work and managed to catch the last ten minutes of Fullmetal Alchemist before falling asleep and then waking up at 7 to start the day all over again.

I've always understood the concept of looking your best when you're clubbing, but I don't follow it since I stopped my tenure at Ozz in Buena Park several years ago. My partner in crime, Nathan, and I would make sure we looked out best, often smearing glitter all over ourselves. It was then that I used an Elmo backpack, not because I was a candykid, but I actually kept random items in it.

Flash forward to this past year. Daniel and I have been hitting up random clubs, usually wherever Liz is DJing. The day before or day of usually involves a shopping excursion in Daniel's quest for the perfect outfit. Yesterday was no exception.

We began our quest at the Brea Mall after a nice lunch. As we meandered the mall, we went to different stores and specifically looking for the clearance rack (mostly because you can put together an outfit for under $30). We stopped in Macy's, American Eagle Outfitters, Abercrombie & Fitch, Hollister, The Gap, and Nordstrom's. At Hot Topic, we saw a Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers shirt on the wall and debated their gothness. Then I called Liz.

Nothing.

We left the mall and ended back into the familiarity of the I.E. and our final destination: Target. Daniel found three shirts, a hat, and a part of pants. At fucking Target.

Playing at Bang! for the first time in three years was definitely strange, if only because, when I left, Interpol's "PDA" had just stopped clearing the dancefloor and I never would have played AFI. Some things never change, though, like the kids who grab the bars in front of the DJ booth window and do pull-ups to try and request a song while yours truly (who suffers from Oldest Child Syndrome and is therefore overly cautious about everything) tries to yell over the music, "Get down from there!"
The night definitely kicked ass. Lots of old regulars were in the house, including Holly and Carlos, who used to always show up early so that they could dance to stuff like The The, and Daniella, who loved Pulp album tracks. A good chunk of the PDP-posse showed up, including our elusive webmistress Kar3n.
The big hits of the night were "Cobrastyle" from Teddybears, Kill Hannah's cover of "Under the Milky Way" and "Valentine" by Delays. The old-school Bang! hit was Morrissey's classic "Sister I'm a Poet." Specifically, I played that for my friend S.P. Morrissey, who was a regularly since the club's inception. As the alias indicates, he is a major Morrissey fan and, as the story goes, back in the old days he kept bugging me to play "Sister I'm a Poet." Finally, we made an agreement (that I thought was just a joke) that I would play "Sister I'm a Poet" if S.P. showed up in a Catholic school girl uniform. The next week he showed up in complete Our Lady of Perpetual Moz garb and so I busted out the song and the whole crowd went nuts. It was a staple for sometime after that. So, S.P. was on stage at the end of the night throwing me Moz signals occasionally enhanced by a barely audible cry of "Where the fuck is my Morrissey song?" I held out on the song as long as possible, just because his pleas were so entertaining. S.P. actually didn't know that I had intended to play "Sister I'm a Poet" for him and I think I actually did hear him scream when it faded in over the speakers.
After the club had ended, My brother and I headed down to Del Taco with Kar3n in tow and met up with Balthazar Monsoon, Daniel and our friend Tony. Ten years ago, Kar3n, Daniel, Tony and I were part of a big group that inhabited Del Taco most Wednesdays after Helter Skelter and most Thursdays after Perversion. As we tried to find a booth that wasn't completely filthy, I remarked, "I don't remember it ever being this disgusting in here."
"Liz, I'm pretty sure we just didn't care back then," Tony replied.
Anyhow, here's the setlist.

Set 1: (11- Midnight)
Lady Sovereign-- Random
Franz Ferdinand-- Take Me Out (Daft Punk Edit)
Teddybears-- Cobrastyle
The Faint-- Paranoia Attack
Wolfmother-- Woman (MSTRKRFT Mix)
She Wants Revenge-- Tear You Apart
Bloc Party-- Two More Years (MSTRKRFT Mix)
The Killers-- Somebody Told Me (Mylo Mix)
Fischerspooner-- Emerge
Peaches-- Boys Want to Be Her
Shiny Toy Guns-- Don't Cry Out
Interpol-- PDA
Yeah Yeah Yeahs-- Gold Lion
Gorillaz-- Feels Good, Inc.

Set 2: (1-2)
Scissor Sisters v. Mylo-- Drop the Numb
Shiny Toy Guns-- Le Disko
MIA-- Bucky Done Gun
Soho Dolls-- Stripper
The Faint-- Your Retro Career Has Melted
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah-- By the Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth
AFI-- The Missing Frame
Delays-- Valentine
Kill Hannah-- Under the Milky Way
Pixies-- Velouria
Morrissey-- Sister I'm a Poet
Pulp-- Sorted for Es and Whizz
Scissor Sisters-- Take Me Out
Lush w/Jarvis Cocker-- Ciao!
Editors-- Laresistance

On a final note, last night was probably the only time you'll ever hear me play the same song twice ("Take Me Out") and that was only because Scissor Sisters cover is so far removed from the original that it kind of takes some time to realize that it's a Franz Ferdinand song. Plus, I had been wanting to play closing at a club for some time just so I could get it in and none of my little DJ rules could ever keep me from playing that.