Got the Jimmy Legs

We descended on Astoria and drank wine and listened to Hatebeak and ate a bunch of food and drank mead (!) and then went into Manhattan for a show but we missed it so we went to the Parkside. Guess which one of these things I'm not in a rush to do again (hint: it involves 15 pounds of honey). Here's some pictures, mostly of the recording studio Justin recently finished.

Earlier in the weekend we celebrated Janice's birthday at Daddy's, one of those bars in the Williamsburg/Greenpoint area with the huge half-circle shaped bars that seem a little grandiose for the otherwise-small space. Do bartenders need that much space just to walk across and pour a shot? Anyway that was fun, and I learned a lot about how marketing folk come up with interesting and distinctive (yet not too discrete from existing naming conventions) names for prescription drugs. Fascinating!

Saturday we hit the Glasshouse Gallery to see Cobretti and the Teenage Prayers. I went to college with the lead guy in the latter band, they were good old-schooly rock. I didn't have the energy to talk to the guy; besides, I kind of remember him not liking me very much so perhaps I shouldn't push my luck. Anyway, Cobretti has gotten really rockin' since the last time I saw them. I don't know if that's because the guitarist now has a full Marshall stack (head and 2 separate 4-speaker cabinets). The music is morphing into something that reminds me a lot of the late Black Cat Revolver, which both pleases me and saddens me a little, as it makes me remember how much I liked them. C'est la guerre. Also, I guess it goes without saying that Cobretti is sounding lots like early Bob City, largely due to the fact that both bands had the same lead singer. I don't know if they two bands this night knew that there were Ohio boys in each outfit.

I wish I had brought the camera, if only to document what has been done to the interior of the Glasshouse. Where before it was a rather raw space in which bands set up amongst debris and a few odds and ends on the walls, the space has been transformed into a veritable forest of garbage-art. It's hard to describe but it involves a lot of bent metal strips, paint, old boom box speakers and Barbie dolls. It's pretty impressive just from a (literal) trash art perspective. But the also built a column of glass and crap in the center of the room; it's at least 3 feet wide and basically impenetrable. They moved the 'stage' are to the opposite side, so now if you stand in the middle of the room to watch the band, you have to decide if you're going to watch the guitarist or the bass player; you won't be abel to see the lead singer or the drummer or anybody in the center. Cuz there's a big friggin' tree of garbage in your way! I tend to think this was envisioned by the art mavens of the Glasshouse who haven't taken kindly to the intrusiveness of the bands who routinely knock stuff down, and are generally without sensitivities delicate enough to determine what is actual art, and what may be an ashtray. This is just a theory.

The last band of the night, The Transformers, had a clever solution to the obstructed view issue: they set up all around the room. The drummer setup in the usual spot, but the guitarist and bass player moved to opposite ends of the room, surrounding the garbagetree, which they proceed to play at for the next 40 minutes. They lost a few points with me, when their singer grabbed an open gallon of orange paint and jogged around the circle of the room, dumping the whole thing on the carpet (not to mention the guitarist's Memory Man pedal). Even if he had cleared this action with the venue, it's still sorta lame. I dunno, maybe I'm an old fogey, but I don't wanna get orange paint all over me. Yes, I am sounding fogeyish.