…that someone can do, as the booker of a venue, is cancel a show.

And yet, I must do this for this Saturday because the owners of the bar had swiped the night away from me for the purpose of a private party. I would ordinarily not be so concerned about this if I had been given prior notice. But I was told about this only TWO DAYS AGO.

Feck.

This is bad because all musicians want to do is play shows and when you take that away from them they take it personally. And they have every right to take it personally; I know this from being a musician myself. And it sucks.

Welcome to the source of my greying hairs. Bitching and moaning about working in underground music.

Or did it?

My brother has recently purchased a new Nintendo Wii and so has the singer of my band. And incidentally, they both have the most recent strain of the stomach flu. I have been spending time out of the house so that I, myself, don’t get sick because I just got over my own flu. Maybe I should just not touch the Wii?

I did spit up something green this morning (too much information? too bad). Green mucous means infected, right? I hope that’s just because I’m a smoker and not because I actually have come down with something.

…

Moving on, the artists from last night at the bar were particularly nice, being all either acoustic, folk, or blues. I don’t think I’m going to go over every single band that plays there, but I do want to make it a point to mention them as I’ve pretty much given up my social life to be able to give these artists shows. And it’s worth it; Inazuma, though the one punk band in a night of acoustic acts, still fared as well as they usually do–and their new bassist is really working out for them. Darryl Blood crafts some unbelievably memorable melodies, Just Like That Bird is definitely some good intra-city driving music, the Charles Shaw Project is the second band that has brought in a double bass to our venue (and incidentally, made it really work with the music), and Darin Bennett, the closer, makes music like they just don’t do anymore and is always nice to hear.

It seems our venue is actually taken seriously since we are really into treating musicians with respect. Because we treat them right, they… well, rehearse. A lot. And it’s nice, we haven’t had any crappy bands in a while.

And speaking of music, I’ve been saving for a Mac for a while now and I’m about ready to get one to be able to work on my own music. The thing is, the last time I used a Mac was before OSX and only know how it moves thanks to learning a bit of Unix/Linux. As scared as I am to have to get used to a new GUI, I’m excited to be able to use Ableton Live on a Mac. I’m also excited to just… have an Apple. Should be fun.

Hooray! I have a half day at work today because of Thanksgiving weekend approaching, but it seems that all my clients are already out of work, so I just get to sit here and blog and catch up on emails.

I wonder what I’m going to do with my half day. I’m always so busy I don’t know what to do with myself once I get some free time. Maybe I should get back to work on the graphic novel? I’ll post some of it soon, I just have to get my domain work fixed etc. etc. Or stop neglecting it altogether.

So to keep up with themes of this blog, I’m going to talk about the bands from my last night working sound at the bar. An incredible show; really consistent in quality:

Sinister Mob is straight. up. metal. And good metal. Balls to the wall metal. And I really don’t think there’s anything left to say about them except that you should see them if you’re into loud fast music that kicks ass. Honestly.

Vagrant Vinny & The Instigators had a saxophone, an organ, crazily shaped guitars, and a drummer half-dressed in drum-line uniform. Amazingly fast paced spaz rock–if there is such a thing as spaz rock–that you can’t help but dance a little bit to. This is another band where I can’t say anything more than they’re good, because really, that’s all they are. I dare say “great.”

The Dert Merchants were a delightful surprise, because I expected there to be only one hip-hop act and this was an entire crew. Great stage presence and those guys can spit some mad rhymes. Ordinarily I can’t tell what is good or bad about the hip-hop world and just enjoy it, but I guess if you’re impressed with someone, that should say something.

Big Tone is another new artist that I would like to consider a recent family member to The Cocaine. I like how his beats are shaping up and how high energy his show is becoming. It’s no surprise that he’s completely out of breath by the end of his set, though, he jumps around like a maniac trying to avoid knocking over his friend who is shouldering a ghetto blaster* with no music blaring from it. Always a good show from Big Tone, I hope he keeps it up.

*I hope that “ghetto blaster” is not an offensive term when refering to a battery powered boombox… I came from a very Politically Correct college education…

Jews & Mexicans have been fantastic to our venue. Not only do they supply us with an entire night of bands, but their own live show is so loud, fast, and raucous that you cannot help but bang your head and throw up the horns. They’re punk, metal, and rock, but not saturated in any one direction that you can say exactly what they do. What you do know is that they rule. Oh, you will so know it.

So the weekend was widely a success thanks to the booking talents of Jews & Mexicans and their manager, Gary. A table did get broken that night, but we hope to get it welded and fixed for free so that they can have their deposit back.

And thinking about it, that’s really a testament to how our bar treats its musicians: If you break it, you pay for it, but we make you play another show so that you can make money to make up for it. It’s not like we’re a business, we’re a family. And you don’t kick a kid out of your family for breaking something, do you? No, you just ground them and have them make up for it.

Now, I realize that’s a really sappy analogy, but in all honesty that’s how we run the bar. Nobody runs a bar like that anymore, everyone is all about money these days. We fear that people don’t remember what it’s like to have a familial relationship anymore. Screw you Olive Garden, you took our motto.

Speaking of family, I’m looking forward to getting drunk with my huge extended family for Thanksgiving. That’s always eventful, if nothing else.

That’s right. Envy me. Or not, whatever.

As it turns out, ordering office supplies for my desk here at work only takes a day to ship, so now I’ve got a new chair mat, white board / cork board combination, file holder. Things are starting to come together in the new office.

I never thought I’d see the day when office supplies would excite me, but here I am. Excited. About office supplies. But they do help everything get done, I gotta say.

So much so that I have a down time in between client reports that I get to blog. Hooray! I should also consider myself luckier than most because I do enjoy my dayjob (!), because it’s very internet oriented. It’s an internet company. It’s not ISP because it’s marketing, and it’s not advertising because we don’t make popups. I hope the people that write popups go out of business.

I once had to script a popup for another job at an internet ‘zine, and that was the moment I submitted my two weeks notice. I will sell my freedom to a Columbian drug lord before I write a popup script.

…

Like a lot of bloggers who don’t have a specific intent for internet pontification, I find myself rambling.

I should probably take the time to link to all of my friends’ blogs, but nobody really keeps up on that except for Stuart, and a newbie in the blog world, Evan. Oh, I guess Ev counts, too, but he also has a new blog.

The need for being able to detail the happenings of everyday life and thoughts I guess comes and goes for some people, but I hear keeping a journal/diary helps one to keep their respective (and relative) sanity in check. As such, I believe Stuart may be one of the more sane people in my social circle because he does keep up on his blog.

And damn, man, I was supposed to finish a graphic novel (I’m 150 pages in as of this last summer, but I’m not sure at which point I left off…) but because I’ve been so busy writing a musical score and working at a bar and taking on this dayjob and freelancing web favors on the side and being in a new band alongside writing music as a solo project — I really haven’t had time. For anything. Even my friends are worried. So I got dropped from my publisher. That’s kind of embarrassing, but not as bad as if writing were my perfunctory obligation.

I still enjoy writing, but I’m really out of practice. So I guess this blog will help to alleviate that problem.

That’s what I claimed in my last blog, too; I hope I live up to the promise this time. But I guess third time’s a charm?

“No. No, man. Shit, no, man. I believe you’d get your ass kicked sayin’ something like that, man.”

But in all seriousness, this Monday is spent in recovery from a weekend I won’t soon forget.

It’s good to get back to work. Part of my day job is rifling through other people’s blogs, and it consistently reminds me why I should keep up on my own internet real-estate. Because there are people like me out there who blog-hop. And it’s good to give blog-hoppers some fodder.

So, for my sake, update your blog. My job relies on it (well, probably 30% of my job, but still, that’s a 30% we can’t do without).

In any case, good weekends tend to bog down Mondays. I saw Kid Koala at the Echo on Friday night, and I haven’t been to a concert of my own volition in a long time. When I do go, it makes me remember why I have my job at the bar.

I Live for Live Music.

And in turn, live music has kept me alive. As an unstable element unto myself, I bond well with other chemicals. I smoke cigarettes, I like coffee, anti-biotics work wonders for me, acetaminophen keeps me sane, the way females smell sedates me — and that’s why drugs, though I may enjoy them, I must keep away from. If I weren’t a musician, I’d probably be a junkie.

And if I weren’t a musician, I wouldn’t have my night job. (You like that segue?)

The Cocaine had a great night for only a 4 band bill:

You Forgot brought me back to my high school playlists. They even acknowledged that everyone could connect with straight up melodic punk as this is how a lot of kids these days are grown. Raised on Misfits, Descendants, even NOFX if you please. And yes, I did like myself and my friends in those anti-establishmentarian days. And even though punks and metalheads are of two different camps (and I learned how to play more on the metal side), it was never difficult in high school to get along with punk-rockers. If everyone in their teen years is cynical, you tend to gravitate towards those that express it best. Thus, punk rock. Oi oi, my friends, oi.

The Girl With The Violent Arms: Though Mario never explained to me why his band is called this, I still like how easy he is to work with and how easy his music is on the ears. This isn’t to say he’s easy listening; it’s just so immediately accessible. He’s a catchy, minimal, electro-dance act, but for some reason it’s not overbearing like a lot of electronic acts I see come through the venue. People can definitely hear him outside, but you don’t have to fight to talk over him. Interesting. I also wish people would get more drunk by the time he hits his set because then they would dance, but as an emcee you can only do so much prodding at the audience until it becomes confrontational. Maybe I should book him in a later slot…

The Dust Pilots played their second show at our venue, and they had vastly improved since the last time they took the stage. They have way better control of their levels, the lead channels cut through everything else cleanly and not overbearingly, and their stage presence has become exponentially more confident. Even their banter in between songs has become more clever! Quote the singer: “Hey! All of you outside! The party is inside! Are you paying attention? Wh- don’t turn around! That’s right, I see your… blonde… ponytail…” You have no idea how proud I am that I was able to give them the little push they needed in moving from “new band” to their current level of “rock band.” I sense good things from this band in the future. I’m glad they can call our venue home.

Good Friday was also a great surprise — I had actually heard their name in passing when they had played our venue long ago as a starter band and has significantly matured since, but this is another success story for us. It takes a seasoned band to be able to pull off lighting controls (which they did) and clever major-minor parallel work without “over-writing” the parts. They understand simplicity vs. complexity, they understand consonant vs. dissonant, they understand loud and soft. Hell, they even understand light and dark. And they use this knowledge well. After the show, I did notice they were kind of shaken at how their set went, but our bar staff really enjoyed them and didn’t catch their slip ups. Granted, I was able to count and catch them, but it wasn’t enough to take away from the performance. I think that because they have such high standards from practice, they would have considered it a “shitty” show, but I was still somewhat impressed. Also, on the way home a couple other staff members and I listened to their $3.00 CD, which has absolute genius for an opening track. You probably don’t know what I’m talking about, but that’s why you should get the CD for yourself.

But anyway that’s my two cents. Back to the freaking grind of daily life. Speaking of which, I should really get back to work…

To understand that lame pun of an entry header, you’ve got to understand that in June of this year, I promised a friend that I’d give up my Saturday night social life to work live sound at a bar in downtown LA’s Little Tokyo.

If you’ve cared to read any one of my two other entries, I’m (still) sick and so it comes as a shock to me to not have to be in the presence of the blaring LA indie rock of the small club in which I work every weekend.

So in light of those comments, I hope all’s going well at the club. I get antsy when the nights have to run themselves because I try to represent my venue. I do this thing we call “The Hollywood.”

Oh, that:

Hollywood /ˈhɒliˌwʊd/
Adjective (vernacular) [ex. "Who are you trying to impress? You're so Hollywood right now."]
Becoming overtly affable and obsequious in the presence of clientele. This is not the same as feigning a false personality, but it is a conscious effort to alter behavior.

I become Hollywood in order to represent the venue to the best of my ability. There is also the opposite of being Hollywood, which in my circles we know simply as being a snob. But our snobs are different from your snobs because our criteria is not based on any economic principles; they are based on that haughty taste that some people have in music.

Oh, come on, you know these hipsters. The ones that take a drag off of that Parliament light and scoff, “Yeah, that band is ok, but their earlier stuff was better.” What kind of line is that anyway?
[ASIDE: Is this some sort of foolproof line when they don't know what you're talking about? If you ever experience this line, try to bring up Radiohead. They won't be able to use it since saying early Radiohead is better is almost as much a sin as not liking Sonic Youth. Wait, was that too pretentious? And was that last line sarcasm?]

…

But anyway, you get the point. It’s strange for me to not be spending my Saturday night in the presence of live music. I wonder what it was I did on Saturdays that I didn’t have to be working at the bar? Bar/Club/Venue/what-have-you, I’m there every Saturday night. Except tonight.

So I’m watching Saturday Night Live. Which, incidentally, is also not live. It’s the best of Darrell Hammond, and I have to say, he’s one of the most impressive impressionists in existence. Nobody really does that much anymore. Or at least none come to mind immediately.

And some of these skits are actually pretty funny. That’s something SNL hasn’t done in a while. Be funny. It’s too bad.

On a better note, being home sick has afforded me the opportunity to watch VH1′s made for TV/DVD movie, Totally Awesome. And very rarely do movies live up to what they promise these days. (excepting, of course, Snakes on a Plane, which delivers *gasp* snakes on a plane. Kudos!)

Anywho, if you’ve never seen the talented Dominique Swain scream bloody murder the lines, “DANCING IS MY LIFE!” then I do recommend watching this VH1 original for at least that. Unless you’re one of those people who can’t handle teenage angst at that many decibels without getting a migraine.

I’m watching VH1 original programming.

This is how you know I have been sick and confined for

way

too

long.

I can’t believe that this is my third attempt at a blog.

Well, as mentioned in the one previous post, 50% of new blogs are abandoned. Ghost towns of internet Real Estate. With ghosts. ooooOOOOOoooOOOOOOoooOOOOOoh.

I’ve also noticed that as a freelance web-designer and debugger, that it really is a task to keep your portfolio on the ‘net and still relevant looking. And not only that, but to be quite honest with you all, I kind of suck at Flash.

But then again, there are people who make Macromedia Flash design their profession and charge up the bunghole per page for things that get put up and stay relevant for no more than ten weeks. And God bless them, because I sure as hell don’t wanna do that.

But wait, does this mean that we’re all licensed to be infinitely wasteful with how easy it is to publish on the ‘net? Is this history repeating those flyers everyone discards? What about those nice, laminated flyers for one-time only events? Is that what Macromedia Flash has become the equivalent for? And it’s not like we trash these things by deleting them — there is no universal waste bin for sites that just become façades of a day already past?

Does it matter?

The fact that we don’t have to discard any of this junk is, I think, what is so exciting about this world-wide-whatchamacallit. It is not history repeating as much as it is, actively, becoming history.

Hey, remember that website with that thing that we liked?

Yeah, I think it’s still posted. Great!

Who needs to worry about forgetting when we’ve got bookmarks?

Well, my point in ranting oh-so-bloggerly is that I hope this blog does not become one of the discarded. That is, of course, ultimately up to me.

So let’s hope that my own conviction will keep this thing afloat. Because the only reason I’ve started this thing is because I’ve succumb to the latest wave of the flu, and being bedridden only impairs me physically, not digitally.

Also, I hear that writing on a regular basis improves your writing skills. I hear that from everyone. So I need to write more often, because my skills have taken a backseat to my priorities (day job, other job, musicianship, and one more job. Yes, I have three jobs).

Also, having nearly no time to myself and spending most of that time online, I figure this is a good way to keep sane since I don’t get to spend a lot of time with my friends.

Maybe I’m just talking to myself. Out loud. To you. An audience.

Woah. Profound.

Ok, moment of clarity expired. My medication is apparently the opposite of non-drowsy. But it’s not like they would label a medecine as being “drowsy.” That’s just counter-intuitive. Not even sleep aides are labelled “drowsy.”

…

Hello, I’m your resident scatter-brain.
My name is Nico.
It’s nice to meet you.

I’ve read somewhere that 50% of new blogs are abandoned.

Will this one stay in the half of the updated?

I guess there’s only one way to find out!