Generals & Majors is the new band that my friends Jesse and Jared started after Group Sounds, their old band, disbanded. They are pretty much the most fun band in NYC to see live. Their new lead singer totally lets go on stage and...
On Friday night, I whole bunch of us went to the Mercury Lounge to welcome Posh Tony and The Five O'Clock Heroes back to New York after months and months of touring in Europe.
...is the only person I've ever seen who has "jumping and kicking" skills that rival Grant's. Check out the height he gets! (This photo was taken by Jackie Roman)
...the third and FINAL Texas is the Reason reunion show! (This was one of my most favorite bands back in the mid-90s). The show was incredible. So good to finally hear those songs live 10 years later!
Fiasco was followed by one of the worst bands I've ever seen. Normally, I wouldn't have remembered their name, but since they're drummer broke one of the cardinal rules of rock and wore his own band's t-shirt on stage, I can now happily inform you that the worst band I've ever seen play a show in NYC was called Monument.
The singer was like the poor man's Scott Stapp (from Creed). And considering that fact that the real Scott Stapp is already the poor man's version of Scott Stapp, that's saying a lot.
The concept of the video was great. It was sort of a Bradbury-esque sci-fi story about a groupie who's so in love with the Brandon (the lead singer) that she orders a robotic clone of him (er, or something).
We ended up stumbling into some bar called Carney's. There was an awesome cover band called
The Union playing. After playing a few more songs, the band took a break and I went up and asked their female singer if they'd let me sing a song with them. She was like "Sure, what song?" When I asked if they knew "Don't Stop Believing" she was like "Yup, we know it. If you can hit all the notes, it's all you." (And by the way, this was years before this song was used in the Sopranos finale! Fuck all you Johnny-come-lately Journey fans!)
Doubling up for the big outro. This was probably one of my most favorite accidental karaoke moments. (In fact, it's probably only eclipsed by the time that Seth and I ended up accidentally karaoking with Tracey Morgan back in 2003!)
When the band got back on stage, they called me up to sing! "Don't Stop" is pretty much one of the best karaoke songs of all time and one of the few times that I actually don't mind that fact that I was pretty much born with a woman's voice. Check out the singer all like "Holy shit, this guy's a eunuch!"
...so Grant walked around the room and then headed back towards the table and I took a picture of him while also managing to get a better of Captain Longbeard. (What's that you ask? Why did we play this whole stupid game instead of just walking right up to Longbeard and taking a photo? Well that's because...er, wait. Nevermind).
A band from New Jersey was setting their gear up on the stage, so we decided to stick around and check out their first song (because they had a bunch of cute girls standing around waiting to see them...so how bad could they be, right?).
...gone. (Can you see the sunset from the Southside?) Afterwards, I watch Matt's band for the first time, but it was pitch dark by then and all the pics I took on my tiny camera didn't come out very goood).
Back in their original hey-day, Lifetime was (in)famous for playing sets that were only 15-minutes long. This time around, they had a whole new record of material and played for almost a half-hour!
On Tuesday night I went to go see Nightmare of You (at the Knitting Factory?). If you're a fan - their new EP just came out last week and it's FUCKING AWESOME!!! Buy it now on iTunes or you can order the CD on smartpunk.com!
The show started out normal enough, but then halfway through the set, this wannabe Lenny Kravitz pushed his way up to the stage and started giving Grant funny looks.
Candy's bass player had a 5-string bass that had LIGHT-UP fret markers! ("Light-up" as in, yes, they were actually powered by a battery pack or something). It was the most awesomely cheesetastic thing I think I've ever seen at a rock club in NYC (and that's saying a lot!).
She was even prettier than Bret Michaels! (And that's sayin' something!) I wish I had pictures that did her justice. Anybody have any idea what band this was? I think they were local to NYC.
Then on my way out later that night, I stopped by Don Hill's to see Candy's new band (that I think was called something like "Candy and the Unlucky 13"). I got there early and caught the last two songs by a band with the prettiest lead singer I'd ever seen!
When Christina's band came on, I started laughing about how their guitar player looked like a tiny version of Scott. I was standing next to Scott who wanted to know why I was laughing. So I leaned over and was like "Look at the guitar player! He's like a tiny you!" It was really loud and Scott didn't understand me, so in an even louder voice I said, "Look at the guitar player, he's like you but a midget!" Scott heard me the second time. Unfortunately for me, me screaming the phrase "a midget" just happened to coincide with the song ending and so everyone else in the entire venue pretty much turned around to stare at me.
The final band of the night was called Particle Zoo. It was their album release party and they were the ones who so graciously invited Fiasco and Hey Tiger to play with them.
I headed home, dropped of my stuff and then went to the Mercury Lounge to see the Five O'Clock Heroes play. Then afterwards, I went to some other venue to see...
Neckerchief aside, they always managed to get the crowd going. (Jesse and Jared are in a new band called Generals & Majors that are really, really fun live - they're like a glammy version of The Misfits and they have a singer named RatBite. No shit. If you live in NYC, do yourself a favor and try to attend one of their shows).
Ugh. Contains that song that you heard in the FUCKING NESTLE CRUNCH COMMERCIAL....THIS IS REAL ROCK N' ROLL! Imagine that poor band having to try to keep a pretend-smile on their face as their label's "marketing guy" explained this to them. Ooooof.
...the bass player who looked like the illegitimate child of John Oates caught on his was to soccer practice. (Dude, are those Umbros you're wearing, dude?)
Before the show, Happy introduced me to one of her friends that was also there to see the show. The two of us sat together and after every song we'd clap and yell out things like "Yay, Happy!" and "You're awesome, Happy!" A few songs in we noticed that we were getting some strange looks from fellow audience members and then we realized that none of them probably realized that our friend's name was Happy. And then we realized that they all thought we were expressing our emotional state ("Yay, Happy!") at the end of each song. Hahahah.
Then later that night I went to some art opening in SoHo to see my friend Happy (who graciously let us all stay at her place when we took a trip from SF to LA.)! She was in town from LA because she plays the vibraphone in...
Later that night I met up with Sarah at the Delancey to see a band called What About Frank? that she was thinking about signing to her label at the time.
Then, later that night I went to the Mercury Lounge to see Tarantula play (since the show the band has had to change their name twice! For awhile they were called Tarantula A.D. and now they've settled on the (unfortunate) name Priestbird). Anyway, this band rules. If you ever get a chance to see their live show...GO!
We arrived just in time to see some band play in the basement. (I don't even remember who the band was...only that halfway through the set, James Iha, formerly of Smashing Pumpkins, took the stage to play a few songs with them).
But what I probably forgot to mention was that after covering her legs with it, she invited girls from the audience to come up and have a race to see who could "clean a leg" faster.
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