Carlos and I headed down to the Temple Bar tonight and, at some point between the artist I was there to review and the artist that followed, we got hungry. Maybe it was a result of being trapped inside a club that looks like a Chocolate Thai lover's paradise, but damn did we have the munchies. Despite the fact that the Temple Bar does serve food and that their samosas are pretty tasty, we opted to walk around and find a restaurant. The club was way too crowded with True Religion jean-wearing chatterboxes anyhow. We needed to get out of there.
We walked west down Wilshire looking for a pie shop where we had noshed a year or so ago. After trudging down the road from 11th Street to 3rd Street (a hike for L.A. people), we realized that 1) the pie shop was gone and 2) all of the other restaurants were closed. Now, had we walked in the other direction, we would have hit Toi, but missing out on that experience is all for the better since my Toi phase ended five years ago and Carlos always hated that place.
We walked back towards the club, with yours truly stumbling along the way. You would think that someone with banana boats for feet would have enough grounding to walk in inch-and-a-half heels. Not so. After teetering over eight city blocks, we happened upon a Coffee Bean and stopped inside to grab some goodies and tea.
Now, here is the thing that gets me. West Side types love to mock the Valley for being so suburban. "Oh, everything closes at sundown over there," they say. Pshaw! Here we were in the heart of Santa Monica, walking distance from the tourist trap of 3rd Street Promenade and we had to stop at a freakin' Coffee Bean to get something to eat. Plus, it wasn't even midnight and we were the dead last customers served before they closed shop. At least in the Valley you are never more than walking distance from either a Denny's, Del Taco or Jack in the Box, all of which are 24/7.

I interviewed Faulter for the latest issue of Outburn. It was a fun interview and I am now waiting to hit a show and see if they start covering "Living in Oblivion."

In the meantime, check out this mini-doc on the band from YouTube. When I watch it, the video cuts out at the 4:45 mark. Don't know if that is the case for everyone.

Given my goth past, it's no wonder that Halloween is like Christmas for me. Every year, I agonize over where I'm going and what I'm wearing. This year, I had the most bad-ass costume idea yet. Then I found out I was going to Vegoose, meaning that I would be away from the computer for the three days that precede my Rockit deadline.
Needless to say, my plans to party it up with Justice and MSTRKRFT dressed as Peg Bundy bit the dust.
I didn't even make it up to my friend's Halloween party and she lives two miles away from me. Instead, I stayed in and edited while watching one of those inane VH1 countdowns. My buddy Melissa also happened to be home watching VH1 Classic and so we emailed each other back and forth asking how they pick this slew of quasi-celebrities to offer empty commentary on a song list that sticks the best of the bunch in the bottom half of the countdown. (And where is Bronski Beat?)
We have our own commentary, which we think is far more weighty than anything spewed from the mouths of Barenaked Ladies. First of all, "Tainted Love" is a cover! How many times do I have to point this out to the masses if even VH1 can't get it right?
Second, and this is crucial, I have found the exact moment where Bono goes from typical rock star to pompous douchebag. It is documented in the video for "With or Without You." Note the moment where the camera does that rack focus thing, highlighting Bono in his vest and ponytail. He poses for seemingly five minutes as though Michelangelo is about to sculpt him. That is it, remember this always.

At first glance, Las Vegas isn't that different from Los Angeles. Outside of The Strip, most of Vegas looks like the bulk of Southern California, a dry wasteland that is a city but doesn't really look the way that cities should. Even the housing tracks are identical to those in Southern California, painted in some variation of beige and topped with a Spanish tile roof. Culturally, though, Vegas is akin to a foreign country. Having never been to Vegas before this weekend, I didn't realize how different it was until we went to breakfast Sunday morning.
"Smoking or non?" asked the hostess at the breakfast joint inside the Hard Rock Casino.
I stared at her with confusion. Wait, I have an option?
"Either is fine," my friend and I answered.
After breakfast, we caught a cab back to the Stadium. Our driver was from San Diego. After talking to cabbies all weekend, I came to the conclusion that no one in Vegas is really from Vegas. They are all California kids who escaped.
At the stadium, I took another jolt of culture shock when we passed a vendor selling beer in the parking lot and people openly drinking in areas that weren't designated bars. For being such a supposedly liberal state, Californians are apparently extremely uptight. No wonder everyone (save for yours truly) heads up to Vegas frequently.
The one thing that doesn't seem to fly in Vegas is bringing an unconcealed three foot bong into a concert. The hippie in front of us learned this lesson after arguing with the security guard, "But, I thought I could bring it in!"
We arrived on Sunday just in time to see Band of Horses, who did dedicate a song to the pot smokers in the crowd. The girl with "Legalize it!" scrawled across her belly screamed with glee. Let's be honest here, pot smoke and rock concerts go hand-in-hand, but no rock concert brings out the weed whackers like weekend festivals featuring performances from a plethora of jam bands, including Widespread Panic and Trey & Phil (for the Phish Heads out there).
While I really enjoyed Band of Horses set, my day, nay my heart, was stolen by Jamie Lidell. Watching him sample his voice to turn it into the beats and then bust out some of the best soul vocals heard outside of a mod club soundsystem was an experience. In the back, I noticed a girl no older than five standing between her parents. She was an adorable little girl with tightly-curled pigtails and dressed in dalmation print pants, a sweater and a newsboy cap and she danced on beat to all of Lidell's set.
Here's a picture of Lidell:

Afterward, I ran over to see Matt Costa, who I was set to interview later that day. Then I tried to call his publicist so that we could arrange a meeting spot. My calls weren't connecting. I sent a text message and then tried to call my my friend, from whom I was separated. Again, I couldn't connect. I tried to reboot my phone and the battery flatlined, despite being charged that morning.
I looked around for the press area, tried to find some phones to place some calls to straighten out the interviews and then sat in the press area for the bulk of the day so that I wouldn't miss anyone. I did miss a meeting with another band, who had left a message for me when the phone died to ask if they could move up the interview.
Hours later, when I was finally able to place a call and learned that the other interview wasn't going to happen, I headed back out to the field to catch Ben Folds and then Jim James. Then my friend and I caught a cab from another friendly driver. He explained the odd smell in the cab (his previous customers, also heading back from Vegoose asked if it was cool to smoke in the car and he answered in the affirmative). He then told us about how he loved the Vegoose crowd, how it was different from the usual "suit and evening gown" crowd in Vegas that never treat the cab drivers as well as the freaky kids do. (Thanks to the dead phone, I didn't get to take pictures of the standout Halloween costumes, like the Oompa Loompa and the Double Dare Blue Team.)
After returning to hotel, we caught a shuttle down to The Strip.
No words or pictures can truly capture the garishness of The Strip. In order to truly feel it, you have to go yourself and walk across that bridge connecting Ceasar's Palace to the Bellagio while trying to brush aside the drunk college boys who slur, "Hey, babes, want to party!"
We walked into the Bellagio and I wiped the drool from my mouth while subtlely fingering the items inside Chanel, Dior and Hermes as if I could actually afford to shop inside those stores. Then we headed over to Paris, on the way collecting what will be known heretoforth as hooker trading cards (though I wish I coined that line, I didn't) from teenage boys. These are the baseball card-sized flyers that advertise Wendy's starting rate and two for one specials that are guaranteed to leave customers "satisfied."
I'm not really sure what to make of the hooker trading cards. Maybe it's supposed to give a classier, or at least cleanlier, image to prostitution. However, I can't imagine it being much different as walking the streets of Hollywood. In fact, I wonder if the potential for abuse is actually greater when you are advertised as a "2 for 1" special and then farmed out to bachelor parties.
We decided to check out Paris, which was extremely disorienting with its faux morning sky ceilings and winding maze of faux cobblestone French storefronts. Whatever restaurant we found was excellent.
We left through Bally's and tried to find the cab line. Some guy in a white SUV offered to give us a ride to our hotel for $10. Yeah, like we would spend twice the amount of fare to the hotel so that we could get into a vehicle that is not a licensed cab and run the risk of being sold off to some Las Vegas brothel.
This morning, we caught the shuttle with some guys who were still drinking their Budweisers in the van. The lines at McCarran International Airport and the wait for the flight were longer than the flight itself. I waited it out in the smoking lounge with a guy from San Antonio who was out for Vegoose and referred to my Parliaments at P-Funks and a girl from Orange County who flew out Sunday to see "The Cheese" (String Cheese Incident) play as part of the Vegoose nighttime events. We exchanged our stories of Vegas madness and I learned that even if I'm not really a Vegas sort of person (I prefer dirty streets, old buildings and warehouse parties), it is fun. I might do it again.

(I posted a brief update from the hotel lobby Saturday night, but it didn't seem to publish properly, so here's the whole story.)

In the cab, your travel weary host for this tale asked the driver point blank, "Who's Sam?"

"You mean, like the new Killers album?" he answered.

"Yeah."

"Well, Sam's Town is a casino. It's actually right over there." He pointed around a left-angled bend in the road.

"I heard that. Then, who is Sam Boyd?" I asked, referencing the name of the stadium where I was headed under the presumption that there might be just one Sam in Las Vegas that everyone knows.

"Honestly, I don't know. He must have been involved in the University." By University, he means UNLV. Though a good ten miles from UNLV's campus, Sam Boyd Stadium is home to the school football team.

"I would imagine that he's dead," the cabbie continues. "Otherwise the stadium wouldn't be named for him."

Fair enough. After all, I couldn't tell you what the Doheny family did except for pull in enough cash to get the name posted on L.A. street signs and an LMU dorm.

That I was able to get to Sam Boyd Stadium an hour after my flight landed and twenty minutes after checking into my hotel room is a worthy achievement on its own. Then I managed to inadvertently sneak inside the concert.

I was looking for the kiosk with my will call tickets. In the process, I ended up following a bunch of hippies. I hit the security gate, had my bag checked and then walked in, where I wandered about looking for the ticket booth until I realized that I was right in front of Mars Volta's stage.

I called my co-worker, who had arrived earlier in the day, so that we could meet. After several rounds of phone calls, we found each other by the Ferris wheel. Then we watched a bit of The Black Crowes, The Killers and Tom Petty.

As you know, I'm not much of a Killers fan. I think, though, that I prefer Sam's Town to Hot Fuss and I prefer the band live to anything on album. I don't know if it was just because this was a hometown show for the band, but they ripped off the head of Vegoose. I had to call my brother during "When You Were Young" and my sister during "Somebody Told Me" because I knew that they would appreciate it. There was one point in the show where I doubled-over in laughter. As you might be aware, "All These Things I've Done" ranks as one of my all-time least favorite songs put on record. This is mostly because of that whole "I've got soul, but I'm not a soldier" chant. Personally, I can't understand why anyone would release that as a single, let alone why people would fall head-over-heels for it. So, when the band played it, they did this huge guitar buildup towards that rousing yet vile line. How Brandon Flowers can actually sing that with a completely straight face is just one of many things I will spend the rest of my life, or at least the rest of the week, pondering.

After that, we caught Tom Petty, who was freakin' awesome. In between every song, he stood in a Jesus Christ pose, arms outstretched, as the crowd roared with applause. You have to hand it to Tom Petty. I'm not sure if there is another artists still living who has remained both cool and a househould name throughout his career. My personal favorite was "Free Falling," mostly because I'm from the Valley and felt some sort of connection to the line about the vampires on Ventura Boulevard. (For those of you who aren't from here, there used to be a Denny's on the corner of Ventura and Sepulveda that was a freak hangout for years. When I was in high school, it was a meeting place for goths. My friends and I spent a lot of time there.)