The Cobra and the Mongoose

A little over a week ago, I went with the fellas in Hello Monster to see Live 105's Local Band Showcase and Battle of the Bands. The battle had something slightly more than your average "handshake and maybe some cash" at stake: the winner of the battle wins the opening spot for Live 105's Not So Silent Night, which is their big Winter concert at the Oakland Arena. The winning band gets to open for Muse, AFI, Vampire Weekend, and a few other heavy hitters.

So why the title? I was trying to come up with the classic conflict, and it seemed fitting, but the comparison I'm making is the ancient struggle that I witnessed that night at the show: the struggle between a band and a sound guy. See, it's an odd symbiotic relationship, and there is a reason that most of the major bands you see much of anywhere all bring their own sound guys with them once they can afford to. Even in my limited experience, unfortunately there tends to be an unspoken rule that bands have to pretty much bend over and take it if the sound guy at the club is being a dick. It's how it goes: it's his club and his gear as far as he (or she, of course) is concerned. Many of them are great; a lot of sound guys I've worked with have been both wonderful people and talented at their job. But when they screw you.... boy do they screw you.

So here's the long and the short of it: the band that was pretty much the front runner as far as I'm aware hit the stage with their work cut out for them. Another band from earlier in the night absolutely blew the place up and had the entire crowd eating out of the palms of their hands. As soon as they hit the stage, something was clearly off. At first I thought it was a matter of my ears - it just seemed like the vocals were off key and the mix in the house just wasn't right.

Then between songs, the lead singer/guitarist asks for more vocals in his monitors. They play another song, he asks for more vocals in his monitors again, and it is distinctly heard that the sound guy tells him that he has to turn his guitar down before he can get anything else in the monitors. This request is ignored. See, this is the dance between bands and sound guys. Guitarists especially (I am speaking as one here) know for a fact that there are "sweet spots" in amplifiers when they are pushed to a certain volume. Sound guys want a much quieter signal, usually, so they can have more control over the volume from their soundboard.

And so it goes.

So a song or two later, the sound guy comes onstage to adjust the bass drum microphone mid-song. It's not uncommon, but it wasn't so glaring that the adjustment couldn't be made between songs. So, the singer from the band makes like he's kicking the sound guy the whole time he's on stage. I personally believe he made contact at least once, but that's still open to debate. So they play, they announce two more songs. They play another song, they announce one more song. They start said song.

Something is wrong.

Something is very wrong: the guitar is about a fifth as loud as it was. Then it hits me: they got yanked. The band tries to end gracefully, which is hard to do when your lead singer is trying to sing into a microphone that isnt' making any sound. So they wrap it up, they throw down their instruments, complete with the guitar leaning up against the amp so it feeds back, the singer flips off the sound guy and storms off stage.

As they are making their way off stage, the sound guy can clearly be heard saying through the monitors "You're done. Get the fuck off the stage."

Now let me elaborate: there was apparently existing beef going all the way back to sound check. Sound guy was a dick to the drummer, and some words were apparently exchanged. Still, to his credit, the band did have to adhere to a time limit as per the schedule, and they may well have gone over. I don't know for sure. I don't know if anyone does. But either way, by being completely punk rock about it, the singer won his band the admiration of a LOT of people there that night. But then again, his band just sounded off for like half an hour plus.

So who wins? Honestly, nobody. Except the band, that is, who was announced the winner of the battle the following morning.

My Dreams in a Nutshell

This is an instant messenger between myself and a much-revered coworker. I feel it captures my interests as well as personal tastes rather well.

if anybody on the planet would appreciate this link more than you, I would probably pay a tidy cash reward

http://www.youtube.com/user/AlieandGeorgia

two cute girls

who dress up kinda like 50s housewives

and make bizarre cocktails

that usually involve meat

I want to swoop up on the two of them, steal them off to Utah, and have a good old fashioned polygamist wedding and live in alcoholic meat bliss

Though I will admit, I find it somewhat surprising how frequently polygamy factors into my life, you may recall, I recounted my desire to do a similar thing with Au Revoir Simone not too long ago.

Naturally, in a perfect world, I could join my musical brides with my alcoholic meat brides into one giant super mega-fantasy life.

The Censorship Thing

So a co-worker of mine sent me a link to this article about two weeks ago, and it raises the ever-important question about censorship. See, in lit programs the whole banned books and all that jazz comes up on a moderately regular basis. From my years of teaching and just riding the bus and all the time I spend around young-ish kids, I remain bitter and cynical, which makes me wildly liberal on the censorship thing when it comes to kids. I tend to live by the creed that if kids are reading, we are making epic strides, because they could just as easily be doing any of a million illegal or immoral things, rather than reading a book. Plus, there isn't anything in a book that they can't find on the ol' internet.

First I'll give you a chance to read or skim. Go ahead. I'll wait...

http://www.kentucky.com/latest_news/story/1011029.html?a

There. Ready? Okay, great.

Here's what I think is at the heart of these issues: the age and technology gap. That, and the whole zealotry thing of individuals who think if they don't protect children from the evils of the world. You know, kind of like what parents should theoretically do in the real world. I don't really want to get into dwelling on the article too closely. It's a deep and convoluted issue, and I don't think I could really do my opinion justice here and now. I will just say that there is one line in this article that sums up these ladies and their crazy:

People prayed over me while I was reading it because I did not want those images in my head.

I'm not saying it's strictly a religious thing. I would never go so far as to say that most religious folks would act like these ladies, but man, this is an award-winning comic book, not Penthouse Forum. Heaven help them if they happened across Watchmen or something like that. I guess they could at least find comfort in Rorschach's morality.

Technically it's Not Cheating

Some of you might gripe that I am just re-posting something from somewhere else, but seeing as how I personally wrote this blog last night, I think it's perfectly legit for me to just hit you with a link. Feel free to comment here, but you just have to read it over at Myspace (no account needed). Yes, I could have cut and paste, but come on now, will one click really kill you?

Hello Monster: What Exactly Happened at Kimo's

Enjoy!