Heavy Metal Saved My Life

Mastodon and Dethklok played at the Tabernacle in Atlanta last Thursday - it was an unbelievable show. My only regret was that I went to the right side of the stage so I couldn't see Brent Hinds (who was on the left) hardly at all. Nonetheless, I managed to take a few METAL pictures:





And I shot a video of Mastdon especially for my sister who was feeling a little jealous that night:

My Annual Trip to Minneapolis

What a wonderful weekend in Minneapolis with my friend Michelle! As a birthday gift, her husband Michael flew me in to surprise her (truly a gift for me too). With any surprise, there is the unveiling. Michael decided to build a "fort" out of chairs and a blanket for me to hide in (while still in his scrubs from work):



I had an incredibly difficult time being quiet and not laughing as she came down the stairs. Later Michelle told me that she had been hoping that I was her surprise but when she saw the fort she got worried that her surprise was actually this device from the SkyMall catalogue that allows you to hang from your ankles. (Apparently even after nearly 7 years of knowing each other I still have a lot to learn about my friend...) But she was really happy that it was me and not the Inversion Stretch Station.

The best thing that happened this weekend was that I got to meet Michelle and Michael's son Phoenix for the first time. He is an absolutely delightful 5 month old who smiles and chats all the time and is clearly in LOVE with his amazing parents. He even maintained his sweet disposition while having his first cold ever - (courtesy of a sick playmate at daycare named Salvatore, who I imagine to look like Maggie Simpson's arch-nemesis Baby Gerald).



Michelle and Michael's family is complete with Little Cat, also known as the Hall Monitor. She patrols the house checking on the baby, the parents and the leaves falling outside the window on her neon-colored toenails.



I am amazed at how much Michelle and Michael are able to do in addition to caring for a very young person. They whipped up all sorts of delicious food all weekend long. For dinner on Saturday we made think, savory Spanakopita, an abundance of sauteed beets and homemade pita bread with zaatar. Thankfully Michelle did the kneading with the pita bread because I can't handle the way flour feels- it's like nails on a chalkboard to me, ugh.



It was a beautiful dinner, complimented by a game of "would you still be my friend if..." (They did not want to be my friend anymore if all I ever ate ever was plain hot dogs, no bun.)

The cherry on top of the weekend (not the spoon this time guys) was stopping to get the new Guns N' Roses album Chinese Democracy. We were worried that it was going to be sold out and that we were going to have to go searching at various Best Buy stores in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area- I mean my god, we've been waiting 17 years for this! I asked one person beside us if he wanted his picture taken for posterity next to the display; Michelle asked the store manager if they brought in extra staff to deal with the crowds. (If you're not laughing right now then you just might be as lame as the snow queen manager who didn't crack a smile at our hilarity.)



I love my friend Michelle so much and am so grateful to hubby Michael for making this weekend possible. Since this is the second year in a row that I came to Minneapolis on the weekend before Thanksgiving, we decided that we should make it an annual tradition. What a wonderful trip to look forward to!

First and Last and Always: the Sisters of Mercy in Atlanta

OMG y'all. I am typing this still mired in disbelief of what I saw tonight.

Tonight, at the Variety Playhouse in my hometown of now almost 9 years, I was just three people away from Andrew Eldritch, AKA the Sisters of Mercy. The last time I saw this man was in 1991, with Gang of Four, Public Enemy, and Warrior Soul at Poplar Creek in Chicago. This means that tonight, I was inches away y'all... normally not such a big deal because I usually don't engage in such star-fuckery... but this was the Sisters of Mercy.

This is a band that has been defined by it's elusiveness. And its not just cuz of their extremely impressive fog machine that put our Carnival of the Dead fog to shame. Can you imagine that it has been 17 years since I last was in their presence? When I last saw him Andrew Eldritch had long hair! (as opposed to tonight's shaved head.) I become a teenager instantly at the memories of less than an hour ago. They skillfully and instantly make me a drama queen.

I couldn't have been more delighted to have at my side my sister Kristi who was also indulging her goth inner-child. The show we saw tonight was grounded in their Floodland album, highlights including First and Last and Always, This Corrosion, Dominion/Mother Russia, and Lucretia, My Reflection. (My inner drama queen gasps as I type these sacred names)

Can I help it if the Sisters of Mercy, the quintessential goth band, makes me smile as much as the Grateful Dead does?

Absent the women's choir that is so present in the album version (and 1991 tour version) of their songs, tonight the audience sang along with the crucial parts. The harmonies and chants rang through. Y'all, I am way too cool to sing along with bands live, but for some godforsaken reason I relished the opportunity to do so with the Sisters. It felt perfect.

It was an amazing night- complete with Something Fast and even Vision Thing. Those of you out there that are similarly gushing know what I'm talking about. But perhaps even you haven't experienced it just three people away from the source. Be still my teenage heart!

Sisters

Reliving the old hairdying days of high school- only this time it was Special Effects instead of Manic Panic and I had the foresight to wear rubber gloves and so I wouldn't have to walk around for days with bright purple hands.

Singin' a bad note; lookin' for a scapegoat- The Raconteurs in Atlanta

(Picture from New York Magazine)

The Raconteurs rocked my socks off this Wednesday at the Tabernacle. I wish I had pictures and video like I usually do but documenting the show was impossible because of a considerable douchebag problem- I had to focus on my own survival, see.

I kinda can't say enough about Jack White. My friend William had told me prior to the show that he's like Jimmy Page, raw, dirty guitar, gigantic on stage. Even though he was "suffering from a vocal chord eating disease" - ha! - he wailed. I mean WAILED. Brendan Benson sang a lot of his parts, but then Jack, almost as if he couldn't resist it, would come in at the high point and screech his song, sending lightning bolts down my spine. I'm getting chills as I type about it.

Opening with their title track Consoler of the Lonely they made it abundantly clear that they were giving everything to Atlanta, their final stop of their tour. Other highlights included Many Shades of Black and Rich Kid Blues. The encore was pretty amazing too with Allison Mosshart of the Kills singing lead on Steady as She Goes, and then the final song was a grungy delivery of Carolina Drama complete with audience singalong.

It was such a joy to see such talented, tight musicians rockin out as one giant rock star on a stage framed by impossibly large pipe organ. There were times when the band would take these long, anxious but comforting pauses and the stage lights would fade in a way that it felt like looking through a black and white lens. And then they would come in loud, crashing with eerie harmonies. They are truly incredible performers.

I was super happy and excited to also see the warm up band, The Kills. It's a two piece band that feels like a 10 piece band because the two of them have such strong presence. I was bummed to hear about their tour bus and all their shit disappearing. But I was so glad when they pulled out Cheap and Cheerful as their final song. I just love that line: "I want you to be crazy cuz you're boring baby when you're sane."

I saw a lot of folks taking pictures there - if one of y'all happen to stumble by this blog I'd love to see some! My one regret of this show is that I should have arrived early enough to get a seat in the balcony so I could have actually danced.

Rockin Like Dokken... with a little Poison too

About a week ago I saw the great hair metal band Poison in Atlanta- this is the third summer in a row that I have seen my Poison boys at Lakewood Amphitheater. Don't hate just cuz you're jealous, haters.

So I'm sad to say we missed Sebastian Bach - formerly of Skid Row of course - as the first warm up act. We did get to hear both I Remember You and Youth Gone Wild while walking up through the parking lot though. Don't you worry.

I couldn't have been more excited that the second warm up band was Dokken. Dokken who has but two songs that you might have heard once before: Dream Warriors and In My Dreams. Nevertheless, Dokken had no qualms about bragging repeatedly about their 27 year history of "rockin Atlanta". Apparently they are also living clean now- another fact they repeated throughout their 40 minute performance.

Seeing Dokken on stage was so funny - pretty much the only people standing in the whole place were those directly in front of the stage (we were on the lawn). It reminded me of when I saw L.A. Guns open for AC/DC - with cousin Laith and Amu Nabeel with his walkman - in 1991. We had the best seats I think I've ever had for a stadium show- like 9th row. I was obsessed with L.A. Guns- likely the only fan there. I had made a banner that said "Tracii Aligns the Planets" - hot pink spray paint on a white sheet. Guitarist Tracii Guns kept looking at me with confusion. It was there that I learned the classic rock n roll lesson that perhaps it isn't the best idea to put an inside joke with your high school girlfriends on a banner for a show.

Back to 2008. So there was this woman standing in front of us wearing red shorts and a purple and blue tiedye Dead shirt that knew every word to every Dokken song ever- amazing really. She was there with her teenage kids and a dude who appeared to be both one of her teenage kids' friends but also the mom's boyfriend. Yikes. She was hilarious though and definitely contributed to this being one of the classiest nights ever.

The highlight of Dokken's performance was the audience being repeatedly taunted by the band, including but not limited to such gems as "We could do something soft and mellow or we could do something loud, rockin and in your face!!" In my face indeed.

And then there was Poison. Dear, sweet Poison who have rocked my world since age 14 and have even made appearances in my dreams. Y'all know my love for these boys is never ending. And you know this current display of affection can only mean one thing- that my boys sorta sucked this time around:

1. I called every song before they played it because it was the exact same set as the last two years.

2. Bret's voice was hoarse, scratchy, totally effed up. Probably from doing 3 reality shows plus world tours at the same time over the last year.

3. Speaking of reality shows, they were clearly filming one because Bret had so many required lines that he repeated over and over. For example, if Atlanta had a dollar for every time Bret referenced "rocking Atlanta Georgia for the last 22 years," the city wouldn't have had to do those mass layoffs a couple months ago. If we had two dollars for every time he mentioned the show Rock of Love- or better yet, the new Rock of Love Tour Bus - Atlanta could build the Beltline. You get the picture.

4. They had to take a lot of breaks- like moments where just one member of the band was on stage while the others were backstage recuperating I guess. Bret did Every Rose by himself, C.C. did instrumentals of Amazing Grace (ok, so that was kinda awesome) and Georgia on My Mind. Rikki did a Grateful Dead-like Drumz/Space thing.

5. They played for barely an hour. They could hardly keep it together long enough for that short period of time and practically ran off stage.

6. Once again, the super pro-America junk before Something to Believe In. Yes, Bret, we know your former bodyguard was a traumatized Vietnam Vet who "fought a losing war on a foreign shore" and killed himself. What better reason do you need to realize that this War is shit and we need to bring the troops home now?!?

But all that said, I still love my boys and will always associate them with all things good and hairspray and spandex and fallen angels. And though this show was lackluster, I am grateful to them for once again timing their Atlanta stop for exactly when I needed some cheering up.

There's a whole after-the-show story that will have to be reserved for another time because it involves Bret Michaels' cell phone number and is on the level of mythology. And no one likes debunking myths so I'm gonna keep my mouth shut on that piece for now.

So you're not too disappointed, here's my crappy, shaky faraway footage of Poison doing their encore Talk Dirty to Me. It gets less shaky after the first few seconds I promise.

Getting Ready to Walk the Line Again

The Georgia legislative session starts tomorrow. This weekend has been all about getting ready, from some successful suit shopping to downloading new rock n roll (LOVE Thurston Moore's record) that will get me going in the mornings to getting caught up on bills and housekeeping. Freedom is fleeting this time of year for me.

My fabulous friend and lobbyist sister Shelley shared with me that she buys a case of wine at the beginning of each session to see how long it will last. It’s the small joys that get us through these trying times you know. I decided to copycat her and bought my own case yesterday. I'm deeply grateful to Governor Sonny Perdue helping me with my time management by forcing me to buy on Saturdays because of the blue laws. Thanks, man!

In honor of the beginning of the session -- and the premier tonight of Rock of Love 2 YEEAAHH!! -- here's a repost of my tongue-in-cheek pre-session blog from the beginning of the 2007 session.

What's the difference between a groupie and a lobbyist?

Whether we're putting out for justice or putting out for rock n roll… I'm realizing that there's very little that's different between being a groupie and being a lobbyist.

… we flirt with the not-so-cute guys that we're not remotely interested on the way to the guy(s) we like/need.
…we do things that that are morally suspect or cringe-worthy maybe, all in the name of getting what we want/need
…we wear outfits that might otherwise be ridiculous to get attention
… we reward attention from the guys we like/need with way too much, uh, kindness
…we trick them into thinking its their idea to begin with
…we get our way!
…we really get to be the stars we always were

That said, the outfits are better as a groupie for sure!

Never Underestimate the Power of Speed Metal

What is it about the legislative session looming that makes me listen to nothing but speed metal? I can't seem to get enough of Anthrax or Megadeth. It makes me feel like I'm 15 again and rebelling against the first day of school. It also makes me feel strong and like I'm secretly giving the finger to the jerks that I will soon be smiling and laughing politely with. God, how's that for deep-seeded angst?

If anyone has any Slayer or Helloween, holla at a girl. I also need a recording of the Anthrax/Public Enemy collaboration of "Bring Da Noize."

The Riot, Now Quiet

Kevin DuBrow, lead singer for Quiet Riot, is gone. 52 years old and gone and we don't know why. So sad! Metal Health was one of my first favorite records as a kid and helped introduce me to the harder edge of rock while making macaroni and cheese in my friend's kitchen after school.

Tonight, bang your heads a little bit harder, rock out a little bit louder and know that heaven just got a little bit crazier.