Pale People.

Jack White

I'm sure this is very old news but I only realized recently that Jack White has a thing for redheads. I'd thought about his wife Karen and about Marcie Bolen. And then I remembered that he mentions red hair in some of his lyrics ("Fell in Love With a Girl"). Hm, now we know why Conan O'Brien showed up in that sub-par Gondry music video.

My Chemical Romance

I was looking at pictures of the new MCR video that's gonna come out soon and I laughed my ass off. Ummm like srsly? Qu'est-ce que c'est? What's with the whole cosplay get-up? Is this video set in an anime convention? ROFLXCORE.

Frankly, I think the new album is gonna be bad news. Conceptually, it just sounds like something Coheed & Cambria would try to pull, and I'm not happy with the marketing... it just seems very suspicious, like they're trying to create this big hoopla to make up for the fact that the music's not that great. Even more so, I hate that one of the first things that showed up on the Black Parade page was a picture of a t-shirt, which would only cost $7.99. Blatant money-sucking strategy. Plus, I would never want to buy an $8 shirt cos it was probably made by some 9-year-old girl in Bangladesh, if not by some Chinese sweatshop worker in the US. Plus, the fact that this album has some sort of concept that includes alter egos, that just sounds like the band is out of their minds, but not in a very punk rock way. More in a "I spend too much time online playing RPGs" sort of way.

I obviously take this band way too seriously. I decided if I got cast to their Fuse thing I wouldn't go. I do hope it shows up on YouTube though... sigh! At first I thought I would regret it, but it's like, c'mon. I'm 19 and have better things to do, like going to class the first day of school. What, what.

Nick Cave & PJ Harvey

This video gets me hot. Ah, such beautiful people!

"I Can't Groove When You're Playing Like This!"

ZOMG y'all? What the fuck is going on in this video? Did it blow all yo' minds like it blew mine? Holy muthafuckin'.

So, walking around work I see all these kids travelin' in packs. The freshmen have moved into NYU and taken over.

I've been all right. Highlights in the past week have included re-watching O Brother, Where Art Thou? and getting most of the historical references, talking to Rachel's Dad about Gorilla Biscuits and fucking Porcell, realizing I'm getting paid mad money for all the work I did last week, listening to the original "I'm Into Something Good" and deciding it may be one of the best and most joyous pop songs ever.



Not only that, I got to spend most of the week with Boogie-Down Nicole, got to see Claudia, and Maria, and Gabs, except I felt really sad after talking to Gabs cos she's been having a shitty time lately and I even though we're not like BFFs I wish I knew how to fix her problems. I also got to see the Walkmen for my first and probably last time ever. They sounded pretty good, but I wish the weather hadn't been so crappy. Also, there was this skinny-ass bearded dude who was like, Beckett's twin from the back and he was really distracting. LMAO.

YESTERDAY I BOUGHT OUR BAND COULD BE YOUR LIFE. AND CAN'T STOP WON'T STOP. IT COST ME A TOTAL OF $15. SWEET.

I also finally started reading Rip it Up and Start Again. Pretty good so far.

Hi Again.

I just doctored a recent Cat and Girl strip. I did a very poor job at it.



I am home. Tomorrow I will see The Walkmen. NYU Law's Early Interview Week (that is, the reason why I was missing for the past week) was awesome. Got lots of little gifts and ate a lot of snacks.

Wish Me Luck as You Wave Me Goodby!

Hey kiddies, I'm off into the Village for the next week to help law students land themselves a job or two. If you have my number, call. I think this will be the best way to reach me. You can email me, too, but I don't know if I'll have access to computers very often. I'm sure there's nothing very important to tell me. Anyways, have fun, y'all. Maybe I'll see you at the free Ted Leo show, which I think is Friday, right?

Granfalloons, Among Other Things.

When I was younger and a bit smarter, I figured I should convert to Bokononism. I've forgotten everything about it now, except for three things: it's based on lies, it involves foot sex, and it speaks about these things called granfalloons. Now, I totally agree with Bokonon on the whole granfalloon situation.

So I was a bit irked on Thursday when I showed up wearing my red Insound shirt and was met with this girl pointing out that I was one of four other people wearing red shirts that day. See, yes, I understand it's odd that the ratio of people wearing red shirts to other-colored shirts was higher than usual, but c'mon, did she seriously have to tell everyone about this? Like did wearing red shirts make us BFFs, some exclusive and impenetrable club of red-shirt wearing office workers? Seriously. I just can't believe the random and pointless shit in which some people try to find meaning.

Anyway, I'd been briefed when I started work about this girl who uses the word "irregardless" several times a day. On Thursday I was talking to this girl about something and she used the word "irregardless". I was so shocked and I was trying so hard not to crack up right in front of her, and I couldn't look her in the eye.

OMGOMGOMGOMGOMG I WAS JUST WATHICNG ACCESS HOLLYWOOD HOLY SHIT so Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner were on and they kept having eye sex and shit and it was too much! I was laughing my ass off the entire time! I was like "STFU it's your fucking fault that shit like slash exists!!!"

I watched a documentary on Edith Piaf today; which was dubbed from the French. A waste of time, really. I feel bad because I'm very easy to please, but seriously, it wasn't really revelatory and it was mostly people reminiscing about how they dealt with her death. I did learn something important, though: I don't care for her music. At the same time, the live footage showed how charming and funny she was, and obviously, she had a great voice. I think what surprised me most is that she was pretty tiny. She's so revered that I thought that, physically, she'd be as big as her personality. Huh.

Here's a video of Björk and Steve Coogan. Brilliant.

A Few Videos.

Today I watched this documentary called The Search for Robert Johnson, which was just okay, except for the part where they showed a video clip of Son House playing "Death Letter". This was totally amazing. Ahhh. Especially cos I'd only heard the White Stripes version, and I thought it was one of the best songs on De Stijl.

A couple of days ago my dad and I were watching Carter Family videos on YouTube together (I know, ROFLXCORE) and I thought this song in particular was amazing:

I'm assuming Johnny Cash was still doing drugs, cos he's pretty skinny? Anyway, Anita Carter--wow! My dad and I were like, "Holy shit, let's make a mix CD just so we can put that song!!" Well, we didn't really say that, but I definitely thought it.

I picked up Will You Miss Me When I'm Gone? again. It got really interesting with all the stuff about Johnny Cash and how he was madly in love with June Carter. Oh, boy!

Hey kids, Filter is giving away a copy of the new Kinky album! Enter here.

By the way, here's a cool interview featuring Fatrick and Trohman:


They're so cute. And geeky.

CMJ and Other Stuff.

Aha, just when I was wondering about CMJ, the first few bands have been announced. This year it's a bit later, a bit longer, and a bit more uptown. A lot of the bands as of right now I've heard of. Makes sense they'd announce those to keep the buzz going. Hope I can see The Black Keys, Blonde Redhead, maybe even the Knife though I doubt I could get into that show. And, uh, Hellogoodbye are playing, too.

If only Brand New would play. I know I need to shut up about them but GAWD! Do you know how stupid I feel for missing this most recent tour? I'm actually really looking forward to the new album, but totally nervous too!

Got my new glasses. They're pretty much the same except green! Yeah!

On Monday I started a new job, thanks to Boogie-Down Nicole who hooked me up. It's okay, I like it so far and the people are nice. I get paid to sit in front of the computer and to run errands.

Guess my number y'all!

Deerhoof.

Sunday was pretty awesome, except for the part where I went to fix my new glasses and I wanted to scratch out the eyes of the woman working there. Damn it, mujer! If I tell you the new glasses make me wanna barf, change them for me! Don't tell me to fucking get used to it!

Well, my parents drove me into Guillermoburg so that I could ch-ch-check out the latest pool party.

I waited a long time for Rachel and I reached a point where I was openly moping. This was not good because my QT former co-worker saw me and he was like, "You look so sad!" And I was like, "ZOMG YOU'RE WITH YOUR GIRLFRIEND AND SHE'S PRETTY HOT IHU CUTE DUDE!" Bee tee dubs, he totally added me on facebook. Now I can see more pictures of him with his hot girlfriend. Sigh.

It also took me about two minutes to spot Alfie again. The end.

Anyway, I did meet up with everyone eventually. I first saw Militant Vegan Emo Boy Adam who had a whole posse that included Boogie-Down Nicole, Gabs (back from OHIO!!), and uhhh this dude, Scott, from Tiny Mix Tapes!!! My first encounter with a real life Tiny Mix Tapes writer!!!!! LMAO.

I should also note it was my first encounter with the notorious ANGELA! She was ASSUM! We was like ZOMGZXCORE YOU LIKE MUSICSECRET SHUIT UP NO WAY ME TOO YO!!! And then we were like FATRICK IS A QT EVEN IF HE'S BALDING. It was great!

OMG! AND ?UESTLOVE WAS TOTALLY DJING TOTALLY NORMAL STUFF! It was great! My favorite tracks spinned: "The Whole World" by Outkast, "Crazy in Love" without Beyoncé and Jay's vocals (which is really how the song should have been in the first place, fuck them!), AAAAAND that funk song that is sampled in EEEEEEEVERY old hip-hop song and that every breakdancer knows*. That last one was really exciting, I'd been itching to hear that song, so it was a major relief.

Apollo Sunshine were meh. Maybe they were all right. I wasn't really paying attention, I was busy eating my $5 cup of Ben & Jerry's chocolate ice cream. It was almost worth it. I will probably get some more for the Walkmen pool party.

Beirut was aight. I don't think it was a good venue for him. Y'know, too many distractions and all. It was really great though, Angela was all like, "They're gonna play [laiueraoleiutawot]!" and I was like what the fuck is that? But then when they started playing the song I went apeshit and I was like YOOOOO I LOVE THAT FUCKING SONG**!!!! Angela asked me how I could not know how to pronounce the song title when it's in the lyrics? And so, Angela learned my poor lyric-learning skills. Oh yeah, I was really jealous of the tambourine dude on stage! I want that job. Getting drunk with a band and just banging on a tambourine. Yeah maaan. That's fucking rock 'n' roll!

So anyhoo, after that great finish, Rachel got some ice cream and we bid farewell to Angela and we stood a bit closer to the stage, except the sound was REAL FUCKING LOUD and I had no earplugs, so we were still a bit far. But I could see most of it. I found it a bit weird to have them as a 3-piece and a 4-piece, and I feel they sounded a bit fuller with 4 people. Satomi is so cute and tiny and she jumped around and I just wanted to hug her. And that drummer dude is fucking insane. And he towers over her. Like he'd go up to Satomi's mic to say "Thanks for coming" and stuff, but he had to bend in half hahahhaahaha I love this band so much and they played "Dog on the Sidewalk" yayayay. Shit and and and they played "Wrong Time Capsule" and I think "Flower" and they opened with "Gore in Rut" and it was so fucking adorable and I cheered "Hurrah, hurrah!" The end.

*Ah, that funk song is "It's Just Begun" by the Jimmy Castor Bunch. Shit, that song is so so good.
**"Šiki, šiki baba"!! Here, I only have the Kocani Orkestar version, from Said the Gramophone.

Say Hello To Ian "I Love Life" Curtis for Me.

Right now I am missing Todosantos. I know I kept hollerin' about how this band's hardly ever gonna get to be in NYC, blah blah, but seriously, I forgot, and when I remembered, I realized I was too tired to wait for the show to start. But I really do love Todosantos and I wish they was superpopular aquí en Nueva Yol.

Sonic Youth.

Yesterday I took a train to Guillermoburg. As soon as I got there, I felt totally uncomfortable. I just felt very disconnected from this place, the kids around here. I don't know how to explain it. Rachel had told me that YYYs were headlining and we decided that if this was the case, we weren't gonna stay. We got there too early and lined up.

Awesome Color were the opening band and they were hilarious. I think the music was aight, too, I just can't recall how it even sounded. They had this bassist who looked like an older version of Dewey from Malcolm in the Middle. They had a lot of their friends play with them... including some tall dude named Thurston. It was so cute, before Thurston got on stage to play with them, he had a camcorder, taping Awesome Color. The band also had a friend on vocals who had this crazy stage presence. He got really intense and would make a claw out of his hand, which he would wave around to the beat of the music. Hm, I'm not explaining this right. I hope a video of his performance pops up, because it made me laugh incredibly hard. The dude was wild. At one point he was screaming so hard that you could see the tightness of his neck muscles, and he was incredibly red in the face.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs were good. I liked Karen's outfit, it came with a headpiece and everything. Apparently, it's Christian Joy's wedding day, so congrats to her. The band played "Bang" and "Y-Control", so I was pretty happy. However, there was a a point when they were playing these mopier newer songs, where I was sooooo bored.

Not only that, the acoustic version of "Maps" sucked. Like beyond belief. I'd never pay to see fucking Unitard. Gawd. And I thought it totally sucked that Brian was just sitting there instead of rocking his hot longer hair. Man, he's such a Hottie Hotbergsteinowitz. He was really good on "Turn Into", as well!

SONIC MUTHAFUCKIN YOUTH WERE AMAZING. C'est tout. Got on stage and immediately played "Teenage Riot". People went apeshit. Lots of Kim doing creepy vocals and cute interpretive dancing. She danced goofily, like she was some 14-year-old in her bedroom alone listening to her favorite records. At one point she danced over to Thurston and sort of held on to him and tried to dance while he was still trying to play the guitar.

OMIGOD! AND THEY PLAYED "100%"!!!!!!! MORE APESHITTING WENT ON!!!!!!!!! ;aoima0958mqjlnds8bpa093w5n2;8nap0659q86lrq

Oh by the way, this is where I should add, Sonic Youth aren't one of my favorite bands. Tch, and the show was not without harm. My mouth hurt cos I smiled through the entire set, and my neck hurt from looking up for so long. If you can't tell, we were on Thurston's side. Sigh! What a QT. Except I feel bad for ever lusting after him. I wish we could just be BFFs and jam together!! I'd let the motherfucker bleed on my drums if he so wished...

For the most part, the crowd was cool. I'd like to send props to the boy in the *Nsync shirt and his friend. They were obnoxious but in a really funny way. Also, ALFIE STOOD RIGHT NEXT TO ME AGAIN! And he has a girlfriend now, with whom he proceeded to make out in between sets. ::GAGGING NOISES:: Hahaha. I'm such a loser, I can't bring myself up to saying hi. I've now accepted that I'm gonna keep seeing him at shows but gawd, what am I going to say? Here's scenario for y'all to consider:

"Whoa, hey, Alfie, right?"
"Um, who are you?"
"Oh, you don't remember me. I went to Bronx Science."
"Oh... hey."
"Yeah... um, I had a crush on your friend."
"?!?!?!"

GAH. AWKWARD.

But Sonic Youth we wonderful, really beautiful, technically proficient (thank the Lord), very cute. Oh, and those drums were seriously awesome. They sounded fantastic. Man, I really have to retire on this concert shit, but this once, I'm really happy I was able to witness that show. I'm totally honored.

Random Notes.

Recently I heard this album by Blind Willie McTell which included that spoken bit at the end of De Dtijl (y'know, that where someone's like, "What's the matta, willie?"). It was such a revelation, because I could pick up where Jack White had learned his moves. It wasn't that obvious, but at certain moments you'd feel, "Aha, so that's why Jack sings the way he does."

Have I ever told you about my love for Aziz Ansari? I think the greatest thing about him is that HE'S NOT THAT FUNNY. I just think he's cute. Except he's this close to not being cute anymore, because he probably realizes people dig him. We'll see how things go.

I'm totally in deep shit! I forgot to renew my books last night, and I can't go to the library today. I'm gonna owe a shitload of money when I go tomorrow!

Watched Quadrophenia. Tch. It was so fucking emo. It was like Enid Coleslaw in boy form and more British. (I liked the movie, and the music was great!) Sting was laughable. The end.

Transition Stage.

Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Live
Forever - Explosions in the Sky
The Stooges - The Stooges
The Tigers Have Spoken - Neko Case
Superwolf - Matt Sweeney and Bonnie 'Prince' Billy
The Evens - The Evens
Congotronics - Konono No. 1
Tanglewood Numbers - The Silver Jews
They Think They Are The Robocop Kraus - The Robocop Kraus
Citrus - Asobi Seksu
Dividing Island - Lansing-Dreiden
Os Mutantes - Os Mutantes

-----

Quit my job today. Pretty bummed about it. Got a cupcake with yellow frosting and all those CDs and LPs. I went to Pop Burger with this really cute guy. Too bad he's madly in love with his girlfriend. I wonder what it's like to love someone! I realized that I absolutely adore Guy Picciotto. Worried about the start of school. I hope I make new friends. I hope I'm able to go to England and maybe even to Colgate. Scared about starting work at the office. I hope I don't get fired. The point of this post: I just want to make out with someone! Someone who isn't creepy!

Everything Feels Good.

On Tuesday I bought a box set of 60s girl group music, got a free CMJ bag, ate a smushed Klondike bar, found out there's a band called Gayrilla Biscuits (too good to be true!). Holy shit, it's my last day of work, and I haven't even decided on what to get. Daaaaamn. I'm just glad I pre-ordered the TV on the Radio.

SO! I WENT TO THE LIBRARY YESTERDAY! CAN I HEAR A "CH-CHING"?!?!

I finally got Quadrophenia from the library! I also picked up a school book, and... Nothing Feels Good! I know Rachel has it and I could have asked her to borrow it, but I didn't wanna be a bother. I'm glad I got the book right now because I wanna figure out what Geoff Rickly and Chris Carrabba used to teach back when they had real jobs.

Hm, Andy Greenwald should really write an addendum to the book. Plenty to write about, right? He could dedicate an entire chapter on musicsecret!

iLose.

I did it. I officially killed my mp3 player. I guess blasting "OMG I <3 Livejournal" was too much for my thing to handle. Tragic, really. I could try to fix it, but there's no point. The thing is ancient and it's time for it to rest in peace. We've had it for like two years, if not more. My brother bought it back in the days when mp3 players were still chunky and difficult to use. People always had a hard time figuring out how to use my mp3 player. The player was handed down to me when my brother won a free iPod in one of those online things. I dropped it a couple of times in its lifetime, which led to it being quite quirky. But you know how it is, like when a new mom drops her baby on her head: the baby's never the same but you still love it anyway. It behaved fairly well. At one point I learned that the music was only coming out the right side, and it was then that I accepted my mp3 player's days were numbered. I'll probably replace it with a shiny new iPod eventually. But for now, let's celebrate everything that my antiquated, clunky mp3 player was.

In other news, my second musicsecret was posted yesterday and I already pissed off someone! How exciting!!

Also, only a few more weeks until the new Kinky album is out! YEAH!

Warped Tour '06.

I can tell I'm going to write a lot, and I never take pictures, so you've been warned. I don't want any "tl;dr" comments on this post.

Yesterday was the Warped Tour. I was a bit hesitant about this trip because the night before I had this crappy dream and Trohman was totally in it and I was being a drama queen and he looked at me like, "You are so lame". I hate how I have dreams where people I like totally hate me. Anyway...

Since it wasn't at Randall's, we had to go to Long fucking Island, but amazingly enough, Boogie-Down Nicole planned it out perfectly (pre-gaming and all, lol!) and we had the easiest time getting around. There were a lot of kids getting on the train with us, and by the time the bus arrived we pushed our way on. We started queuing up once we got there but at a certain point we all realized that the gates could go fuck themselves and we didn't need to line up all nice and pretty. They hardly checked our bags so I regretted guzzling all that water + soda before we got in. At least I'd gone to the bathroom earlier so I didn't have to use the portapotties. Anything to avoid that stuff, y'know?

The first band we went to see was The Academy Is... I was already wary of the many fangirls (and surprisingly, fanboys!), but then this girl right near me started moaning about how she didn't feel so good because of the heat, and then some dude was like "Drink some water" but she was all like, "Nah, I'd rather not", and she wouldn't even get out of the huge crowd. But eventually she relented and had some water, only to throw up seconds later. Like right in the middle of all these peoples. It must have been one of her first shows ever. Well, at first I tried to be polite about it and ignore the barf. After all, we've all had embarrassing vomit experiences, right? But she didn't seem to get it and want to get out, and I figured she'd throw up some more, and the barf started stinkin' up ridiculously bad and since the ground wasn't completely level, it sort of started puddlin' up in my general direction. There was some brief soul-searchin' involved--"Is William Beckett's delectable, skinny ass worth it?"--before I decided to GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE.

I sat against the gate right near the stage, so I heard most of it. I was shocked it wasn't too bad. At times I would crane my neck and try to get a glimpse of the stage. I could see Beckett at times. He's... quite skinny. Seemed to be getting a good reaction from the crowd, and even crooned a bit of "Crazy". Obvz, it didn't sound as amazing as Mr. Cee-Lo Green, but it was the only thing I did recognize from their set, so I'm not complaining. It was really interesting, they were one of the first bands playing and not as many people were in the parking lot by that point, so as the set went on, a shitload of people gravitated toward the stage. A girl sitting near me wore a "Feed Beckett Foundation". I think she went into the crowd afterwards.

The report from Boogie-Down and Rachel was that the crowd was crazy for the band and that they almost got killed. I think it was a bit of a shock for them to witness a crowd that was actually reacting to the band playing on stage. Spoiled little hipster girls, haha.

After The Academy Is... we reunited and ran over to see The Sounds. It was really fun! Maja had this retarded haircut and their keyboardist had massive pirate earrings that made me lol. They played "Seven Days a Week" but they didn't play "Mine For Life", which I think is my favorite Sounds song. It was mostly the new stuff, which makes sense. There was this really enthusiastic girl who literally jumped with joy when Maja announced the band would be doing a signing. I danced to the music. It was fun.

We went over to see Hellogoodbye but we got distracted when we decided to go track down The Academy Is... for a signing. It was mostly for Rachel and Boogie-Down Nicole so that they could LOL about Beckett n00dz and shit like that. I dunno. When they start talking about TAI I sort of zone out. I didn't know there was a TAI booth so I thought the signing was at the Fueled by Ramen booth but it ended up being at the fucking AP booth. The problem is that we're morons and we couldn't figure out where it was and we gave up and caught the last two minutes of Hellogoodbye. As soon as I caught a glimpse of the stage I regretted that we left in the first place. They seemed so cute and cuddly and funny and they were all wearing these crazy costumes. I appreciated the effort, you know? And the music wasn't bad at all!

After that we had a good while to wait before Thursday came on, so we just sat around people-watching and hydrating ourselves under the merciless sun. Eventually we parked our derrieres against the gate with a view to the Main Stage allll the way across where Thursday were gonna play. Unfortunately, Motion City Soundtrack were playing, and they weren't all that. Even worse, we thought they were ending their set, but they kept playing on and on and we're like, "C'mon, let Tone Geoff play already!!"

We spent a few hours during the day sort of just sitting and trying to bear the fucking heat. It sucked pretty bad. That middle part of the day was rough, but once we got through it things got a lot better.

Eventually, Thursday did get on the stage but we really had no energy to get up, so we watched from the gate. I think I would have liked them more if they hadn't played in the daytime. The stage was far away, but I detected quite a bit of flailing arms courtesy of (I assume) dear Geoff. The banter was, for the most part, awesome; I think it was the best I heard all day. I think he actually told people to go home and download their new album, and he also told this story about being on a plane and how the plane was going down and I really can't remember how the story ended, cos I could only think of that Bright Eyes song with the creepy intro.

The only thing that really annoyed me was that Geoff told all the kiddies that they were all "alternative" and fuck commercial radio and blah blah. Hello? That was not the right audience to hear this shit. These were the kids who paid $45 on their tickets, about $20 on food for the day, plus an average of like $50 worth of purchases on merch. And the merch probably wasn't CDs because all these kids probably have iPods and have already downloaded the music from all the bands at Warped. My point is, these are the kids who think that you can buy your way into being "different", but there's just as many kids who sincerely love this kind of music and couldn't make it out to see these bands because they couldn't afford the transportation and the ticket and the meal money. I don't know if his spiel was (a) because he is unaware, (b) because he is in denial, or (c) because he's a fucking dumbass. I was like, "Dude, don't encourage these kids, because they don't understand what you're talking about."

ANYWAY. The set was still pretty good. It's not necessarily my kind of music but I think if I'd been a bit closer to the stage and gotten wrapped up in all the mob mentality, I would have been perfectly content. After that we checked out Saves the Day, who were a bit of fresh air. There were so many bands with more of a metal-punk feel and lots of screamy vocals, so hearing all this straight up pop-punk stuff was a sugar rush for me. Except holy shit, Chris Conley's voice is really annoying, yeah? Wow, and we were pretty far from the stage, but Chris's hair was flaaaaamin' pink.

We left STD to catch Joan Jett, who had already started her set! Goddamn! Whatever, we caught most of it anyway. Musically speaking, I think the Blackhearts were the best. I guess it helps that Joan Jett has been playing the guitar since most of us were born. I found it odd to have her sing "Cherry Bomb". And I didn't like her newer material which was all "Fuck Bush". It's just that I've never cared for political lyrics (or any lyrics for that matter!). It was amazing to see all the older people show up for her set.

Oh, and there was this hysterical dude wearing a Spider-Man costume who crowdsurfed twice during her set. Even the security people thought it was hilarious. I think the greatest thing about the Spider-Man dude was that there was this dad in the crowd holding his kid up, and the kid was pretty stoked to meet Spider-Man! He's never been one of my favorite superheroes, but I have to admit that he was awesome yesterday. Hahaha.

She played "I Love Rock 'n' Roll". It was so dumb and so cool to see everyone spouting the lyrics right back at her, exactly like in the video!!!

Following her set we watched Gym Class Heroes. They were okay. I don't know, I think the rapper dude is really cute but the songs themselves seemed same-y. Beckett came on for a song. Also, the band totally teased everyone by playing the riff for "Dance, Dance". People got really excited about that! Including me! I wish they'd played the song. It would have been ASSUMXCORE! I liked the MySpace song, and the one where Fatrick sings was cool too.

There was this girl watching the Gym Class Heroes set whose shirt said, "SUGAR, we're deffinately going down!" I was horrified and amused to pieces.

In the stage right next to Gym Class Heroes, Saves the Day were scheduled to play again, but this was for an acoustic set. I'm so glad the stages were side-by-side, cos by that point I was tired of schlepping my ass from one corner of the parking lot to the other. Call me lazy, I don't care. The acoustic set was AMAZING. They were seriously really good, the choice of song was excellent. My favorite set of the day. Actually, I was just like wishin' and hopin' that they would play "You Vandal", and they played it first, so when it finished I turned to Boogie-Down Nicole and Rachel and said, "That's all I wanted to hear, we can vamoose from here now", but Nicole was like, "It's cool, let's stay", and I'm so glad because they did "Freakish" and I hadn't heard that song in years! It was the only time all day when I happily sang along.

Saves the Day were almost all that Warped is about: whining, angst about growing up, pure pop disguised as "emo punk". It was an absolute delight.

The Pink Spiders were the last band we checked out. We didn't stay too long, only long enough to verify that they are indeed very hot. To be more specific, as soon as they came out, I just didn't give a shit what their music sounded like (I recall it being pop-punk), I just wanted to stare at them. Sizzle, sizzle!

We were pretty pooped so we skipped out on the rest of their set, and out of the hellhole that is Long Island. But I'm telling you, the trip was almost worth it! Especially the later half of the day! I really wanna go again next year... but only if it's at Randall's and/or some big bands play. I'm looking at you, Brand New!

Some more random things about Warped:

(1) I felt really old! And pervy for checking out the little 13-year-old skater boys! Oh my god, there was the cutest boy with a Tsunami Bomb shirt on! I was like ILU!!
(2) Most indie rock t-shirt sighting: The Fall.
(3) I saw three trash bins all day, not counting a makeshift one that someone made just from an empty cardboard box. It was ridiculous. I did see two people from the recycling crew who were carrying around bags with plastic bottles and stuff, but most of the trash just went on the floor. It was an absolute pigsty by the end of the day.
(4) I considered buying a Gorilla Biscuits album from these people, who I'm only plugging for because they were kind enough to sell us water for $2 instead of $4. I decided against buying the album, but now I'm bummed because I listened to them today and they're pretty good. The good thing about it is that I almost bought the "bad" album instead of the "classic" album, so maybe it was for the best.
(5) There were a lot of kids wearing Underoath shirts and I felt bad for them.
(6) The Volcom booth had a sign that said "AFI AREN'T EVEN AT WARP [sic] TODAY! And if they weren't they wouldn't be at the Volcom table". LOL!
(7) We did find the AP booth eventually. It was about 3 or 4 hours too late for the TAI signing. They didn't even have free copies of their mag! Pout. But they did have the official program, which oddly enough, is just as shitty as AP!
(8) People, particularly the scantily-clad ones, have no sense of personal space. You fuckers need to stop bumping into every fucking person near you when there's plenty of walking room around. I don't care to touch your sweaty bodies and your kind can just choke on a cock. KTHXDIE.

Important Facts.

So! Bought my ticket for Warped. Found out DJ Shadow is white. My first musicsecret showed up--guess the number!

Quit Your Meanness!

Goddamn, this is like the third or fourth time I've wanted to buy something at work and it's been bought by someone else instead. This time it was a John Coltrane album. WTF y'all. Last time it was the new Asobi Seksu, and the time previous it was a DJ Shadow album. Sigh.

I'm nearing the end of Will You Miss Me When I'm Gone and I'm shocked by how bummed I'm feeling. It's a great book, seriously. I'm a slow reader and I just get so attached to whatever book I'm reading at the moment, so when I'm about to finish a book it pains me. But with this one, it pains me even more.

In other news, I got a new job (yay), so I'm quitting my current one and I'm sorta sad I'm leaving so early but I'm in need of some money. I have to calculate how much store credit I have. I can only hope that all the things I want haven't disappeared from the shelves by Thursday, when I quit.

G. Davis is Innocent.

At work Damian said somebody had to go make a run to the DFA offices to pick up their mailorder shit and I didn't wanna go so he's like, "Well if you don't wanna go I can send out Sasha" and then I felt bad because Sasha had the brilliant idea to wear a black shirt in this heat so I was like, "I don't think ANYONE should go outside today"... in the end, both Sasha and I went. It actually wasn't too bad. It was only five blocks of walking in the horrible heat and when we got there they were really cool, they gave us all these Hot Chip promos and we went into the office and it was a bit small but still quite charming. So I guess it was worth walking 5 blocks back and forth so I could get a free copy of the Hot Chip album (ha).

Yesterday I got some Tigerstyle CDs: James Chance, American Analog Set, and the Album Leaf. Haven't listened to them yet.

Also, I'm really shocked at how many nominations Panic! At the Disco got for the VMAs. And they haven't even hit puberty yet!

Bathroom Break.

At work yesterday, there was this one 10-minute period in the day when it seemed like everyone at work needed to use the bathroom at the same time. It was totally bizarre.

Last night I waited for NBC to show Project Runway and they showed some game show thing instead! I was so angry! Also, to NBC: not a good business decision, fuckers!