Have you ever been focusing intently on something, like DJing, and then looked up for a brief moment only to realize that right in front of your eyes is a Calvin Klein-clad male crotch?
Yeah, actually, that never happened to me before either, until last night.

(Totally unrelated but thematically similar moment from last night)
Outside, after I finished my set, I was chatting it up with some old Parlour regulars and one of the girls asked if the guy behind her was still doing the "creepy dance." We nodded in the affirmative. Old Dude was standing right by the door of the hair salon next to the club, clutching to his shopping cart and groovin' to the beat that played through his Discman. He slowly moved his hips in a circular motion, only pausing for a second here or there to grab his crotch and/or attempt to reach out and touch a passerby with the crotch-grabbing hand.

I had to valet my car on account of the severe shortage of street parking in West Hollywood. Valet almost lost my car. The guy shows me all the keys he has. I told him those weren't mine. Mine has blue beads (all the better to ward off the evil eye, my dear) on it. He looked at me like he couldn't comprehend what I was saying and kept showing me the keys that weren't mine, waving the blue Albertson's discount card like I was some sort of idiot for not recognizing the chain as my own.
"No, those aren't my keys," I said.
The guy is still looking at me puzzled. Then he asks what kind of car I have.
"Silver Mustang," I answered.
He starts talking to the guy next to him about getting a Mazda.
"Mustang," I corrected.
"I understand you," he snapped.
Then why have I been standing here for ten minutes holding all my DJ crap waiting for them to find my car when everyone has left valet? At this point, I'm starting to think that my Bad Luck Schleprock moments couldn't get any worse, that my car was actually stolen from valet. Shit, how am I going to explain this one to Auto Club?
Finally, they found my car, parked in the back of the lot and with my keys inside the vehicle.

I hit the road, which was smooth sailing until the 405 exit before my own, at which point traffic came to a dead stop. There was a massive accident, most of which had been cleaned of cars and people, but car parts still spread across four lanes of freeway. As I tried to exit at Roscoe, where the CHP had set up the blockade, I saw a car stuck between two trees off to the side of the road and a guy with a shaved head and sports jersey standing next to it. Dude is in trouble. Cars only go off the side of the road when it's raining or if you fall asleep behind the wheel or you're drunk. It wasn't raining.

Anyhow, here's the setlist from last night:

Dahlia-- Burning Up
CSS-- Let's Make Love and Listen to Death from Above
The Lovemakers-- Shake that Ass
Chicks on Speed-- Eurotrash Girl
Annie-- Chewing Gum
Gorillaz-- Feels Good, Inc.
Gnarls Barkley-- Gone Daddy Gone
Tones on Tail-- Go
Siouxsie and the Banshees-- Hong Kong Garden (remix)
Delays-- Valentine
Royksopp-- What Else Is There? (Jacques Lu Cont Mix)
Depeche Mode vs. New Order-- Strange Love Triangle
Soho Dolls-- Stripper
Goldfrapp-- Ride a White Horse
Teddybears-- Cobrastyle
Lady Sovereign-- Random
MIA-- Bucky Done Gun
Dirty Sanchez-- Fucking on the Dancefloor
Vitalic-- My Friend Dario
Felix da Housecat-- Silver Screen, Shower Scene
Mylo vs. Scissor Sisters-- Drop the Numb
Murray Head-- One Night in Bangkok (remix)
Benny Benassi-- Satisfaction
Peaches-- Fuck the Pain Away
Avenue D-- Do I Look Like a Slut?
Miss Kittin and the Hacker-- Frank Sinatra
Flatpack-- Sweet Child O' Mine
Ladytron-- Playgirl
Shiny Toy Guns-- Le Disko
Depeche Mode-- Personal Jesus
Fischerspooner-- Emerge
The Knife-- Heartbeats (Rex the Dog Mix)
Madonna-- Hung Up
Stardust-- Music Sounds Better with You
Mirwais-- Miss You (Jacque Lu Cont Mix)
Goldfrapp-- Ooh La La (Tiefschwarz Mix)
Kylie Minogue-- Can't Get You Out of My Head
Gwen Stefani-- What You Waiting For? (Jacques Lu Cont Mix)

Many moons ago, when the Go Go Box Whore reigned supreme, the guy most of us refer to as Paul or sometimes Dante inspired a slew of tributes and imitations. One was this girl, maybe 18 or 19, who hung around Beat It with that whole crowd of Orange County kids that ended up promoting and DJing Moscow. She always stood at stage right and, hence, wore her Stanley emblazoned with the phrase "Right Stage Whore." My male friends loved Right Stage Whore. She was little and cute and wore a studded belt. She was also one of the first to perform the emo dance, wherein club kids embrace their suburban teen angst and twitch away, sometimes to a beat. (This girl was more on beat than most.)

Tonight at The Fonda, I was convinced that the girl from Shiny Toy Guns was the former Right Stage Whore. Then I looked up the band on MySpace and realized that girl from STG is named Carah Faye and I'm pretty sure that RSW was not named Carah Faye. I would have remembered a name like that. I would have thought "Oh, like Tammy Faye" (also, Hilary Faye for fans of Saved). The similarity in appearance and dance is striking.

When I read The Rich Girls Are Weeping today I noticed mention of a band, a goth band at that, called Blacklist. Imagine my surprise at seeing that. It's kind of like naming your goth band "Red Light" or "Black Heart" or "Stigmata Martyr" or any other song that was played at the goth clubs for years.

If my own computer were still functioning, I would use this moment as a means of sending you an MP3 of "Blacklist," released by Legendary Pink Dots in 1989 on The Golden Age. You should be able to grab an MP3 here. As you can hear, it is quite simply one of the best pieces of LPD work around with its wee spring of a beat and Edward Ka-Spel shrieking at some point in the song.

Unfortunately, although Ka-Spel sings that there are "five on the blacklist," there are only four members of Blacklist. And these guys sound nothing like LPD, although they do sound like a bunch of bands who played Coven 13 back when I DJed there in the late-1990s. Naturally, these were all the same bands that I was reamed for playing at KXLU when I DJed there at the same time. The emos in charge told me that goth was dead. I said, "And your point is?"

Sorry, I had to vent.

Anyhow, yeah, I would assume that the members of Blacklist are aware of the song, right? If not, and they happen upon this, I can point them in the proper direction.

Everyone should love Legendary Pink Dots.

I have two gigs this weekend. You will want to be there.

Friday 9/29/06
Liz O. @ Filthy

Saturday 9/30/06
Liz O. @ Bang!

Megan and I were published in the Santa Monica Mirror.

Summer Strummer Beats at Bergamot

These are my friends Mike Ill and Rivka, aka Mad Happy. You might recall having previously read about them on this page. Mike and Rivka are originally from New Jersey and New York, respectively, but now reside in Pensacola, Florida when they aren't on the road, which is most of the year. Stylistically, they are similar to folks like Gold Chains and Sue Cie and, when they play L.A., they are usually booked with aritists along the lines of Books on Tape, Totally Radd!!! and other people who play The Smell and Il Corral often. This time, my pink and green haired friends were booked at On the Rox, the first on a bill of three bands preceding a burlesque performance.

I have been to On the Rox, which is right above The Roxy, only once before, when a friend of mine got Carlos and I into a secret Fischerspooner show and after party. However, I have (kind of unfortunately) been down to Sunset Strip more times than I can count and could have told anyone with utmost certainity that this would not be your regular Mad Happy crowd. Here were two DIY art-space types dressed in colorful, hippy-punk clothes smack in the middle of the land of Juicy tank tops and Seven jeans. What if nobody got it?

Mad Happy played at 9:30 and, as one might expect for 9:30 on a Saturday night in Hollywood, the crowd was light. They played to an audience of roughly twenty people, mostly guys and mostly bros. Funny thing is, though, that people loved the set. The applause after each song was more than polite, it was actually enthusiastic.

The night before, Mad Happy appeared on KXLU's Demolisten, where they performed a few new songs. At On the Rox, the set consisted primarily of new material. Mike handed me a burned copy of a demo before I left and, thanks to the mess of traffic at the Hollywood Bowl, I was able to listen to it in its entirety on the way home. I don't even know the names of most of the songs, since the CD was unlabeled, but I do know that it is some of their best work in terms of lyrics, beats and delivery. My favorite new track, which was performed last night, is up on the band's MySpace page. It is listed as "Oozing Phranken Prop..." This is a killer dance track with a beat reminiscent of Cybotron and cries of "A-a-a-a-acid."

Hopefully, Mad Happy will be back in Los Angeles in December.