Thighs Wide Shut

Little Steven’s International Underground Garage Festival

Cast of Zillions

Randall’s Island – August 14th

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Rock and Roll is not dead. And if you weren’t aware of that fact, you would have certainly known by the end of this superphantastisch festival. And tit was not cause the bands rocked (well, they did, 461643124 Xs over!), but cause the emcees of the day’s festivities (zoot-suited Kim Fowley and some fat British dude who reminded me of the over the top producer in Marky Mark’s Rock Star) would repeatedly tell you that it was not dead in between each act. Yeah it was a bit annoying, but that was really the only fault I could find in this mini-Coachella, located on an island surrounded by the Boogie Down Bronx, Queens, and Mannyhattan. Before we proceed I juss have to give some major props de leon to Lil Steven/Silvio Dante, who pieced together this unrelievable event. Who knew the E-Street band had more connections that T-Mobile?!?

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Me the cru (Pak-man and Ceffle) arrived around 2:30pm. By that time, we had missed 22 bands (!!), James Gandolfini and Paulie Walnuts‘s guest emcee spots, and the rotating stage that had gone kaput. But the Go-Go dancers were go-going and the rocking did not stop. As for the weather, we were quite lucky. Rain clouds loomed all day long, but didn’t really produce anything until the show was over. Each band, besides the headliners, basically had anywhere from 10-15 minutes of stage time. Sure that may be a bit short, but if you got sick of a band’s performance, you knew that a fresh sound was juss right around the corner. Perfect for those with short attention spans… like anyone born from 1976 on. And who needs to hear any other song by The Romantics besides “What I Like About You”? Now I’ll be honest, I’m a crazy music lover, but I didn’t know 78.4632% of the bands on the roster. I guess I should have studied harder during my History of Rock and Roll class at good ole IU.

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The first song I recognized of the day was The Creation’s “Making Time”, and that’s only cause it was included on the Rushmore soundtrack. Otherwise, The Mooney Suzuki were so moooney. The Pete Best Band were not the breast, but it’s the closest I’ve been to a “Beatle”, and their rendition of “Twist and Shout” gave me Ferris Buller goosebumps. Nancy Sinatra made dad proud and had everyone’s boots ready for walking and rocking. Bo Jackson may not have known diddley, but Bo Diddley’s certainly well acquainted with himself and knows how to make a guitar scream. Seeing him was a real treat and probably one of the breast performances of the day. The Raveonettes raved on, but their set was cut to only two songs… udder bull sheet!!! Glad I caught them at the Bowery awhile back, and you all should catch them the next time they hit your town. The reformation of The New York Dolls made the night sincerely magical, especially after losing bassist Arthur Kane just a month ago. David Johansen and co’s comeback electrified the stage… some say “Hot, Hot, Hot”. The Strokes have never sounded bad anytime I’ve seen them, and tonight was no different. I am so over them, but I was impressed they didn’t include “Last Nite” in their set. And finally, Igby may go down, but Iggy and the Stooges, they just crank the energy up, up, and up. Sure I was a lil bummed there was no “Lust For Life” or “Passenger” love, but I’ll be his f-in dog for sho!! This was a one-of-a-kind event that shouldn’tve been missed. We’d all be lucky if Lil Stevie decides to do one next year. My hopes and dreams for 2005: The Kinks, White Stripes, Social Distortion, The Hives, The Ventures, Dick Dale, BB King, Bowie, and somehow, The Velvet Underground.

Oh, and how could I forget the food and drinks!!! Many options on the eats front, Pak-man dug the curly fries, and we all inhaled funnel cakes, but no love for chocolate-covered-frozen-bananas? What’s up wit dat? And if yer ever headed to any mega-concert, please pray that Dunkin Donuts and Pepsi-Co are the sponsors. I mean, why pay for libations when you can have free samples of Pepsi (hmmm, I’ve need tried Pepsi before!) and DD’s iced lattes, to which me and the cru gladly downed 4 throughout the day. The combo of being crazy caffeinated and my body being tired as sheet, due to hours of standing, was the ultimate battle of wills. Caffeine won out and then when I got home, passing out ruled large.

Hope you were taking notes on how to run a concert Andrew Dreskin, you King of Failed Day (I’m no longer staying tuned for your next move).

[Note: All pictures taken with camera phones, as the threat of rain made me left my digi at home. Thanks to Pak-Man for most of em]

The Hives

+ Sahara Hotnights

Irving Plaza – July 22nd

Is Sweden the innest country or what? Their red fish and meatballs are scumdeliumptious, and their English-language music output is unrelievable. ABBA were the Beatles of the 70s and the Hives are the Kinks of the Double-0 Zeroes. These guy kick so much gla$$! Last time I saw them was with the Mooney Suzuki in June of 2002 and they played for only 45 minutes. 45 minutes doesn’t sound like an awful long time, but when yer the Hives, yer songs are 2 seconds each and you can pack so much in that span of time. It was one of the best 45 minutes I had eggspeareanced since peeping the training portion of Full Metal Jacket. Anything beyond that time mark is just overkill (“me sucky sucky” not included).

Last noche, they played for a little over an hour, drawing from albums past and heavily on their latest, Tyrannosaurus Hives. The old stuff (“Main Offender”, “Hate To Say I Told You So”, “Supply and Demand”, etc) was more killer than the Son of Sam and the new stuff faired pretty darn well too… would have been better if I had more time to listenage to the album. The main draw to their performances aren’t the music, but rather the extreme-o energy that they exude. (These guys must take forkloads of IVs loaded with Red Bull, Frosted Flakes, speed, and Jolt Cola before their shows.) And they do all of this rocking and/or rolling in their fab-u-los Kentucky Colonel getups.

Here’s a qwik rundown on this Swedetastic band. Brilliant work Randy Fitzsimmons!!

Howlin Pelle Almqvist – He must think he’s Prince cause he’s constantly seeking audience approval and telling us that he loves us and that we love him. If he cut down on the chit-shat, the show would probably be 18 minutes long. Anywho, he has dreamy eyes and hair to die for. I think I’d go heteroflexible for him… if Jude Law was busy of course.

Nicholaus Arson – Looks like Mr Bean, but plays the guitar like a crackfiend with 10 cents in his pockets.

Chris Dangerous – His drumming arms must ache more after one show than Nolan Ryan’s pitching arm did after his entire career.

Vigilante Carlstroem – I feel so bad for him cause he was sweating as soon as he came out on stage.

Dr. Matt Destruction – Best mustache in all of rock?

Pee es – the Hotnights were solid like a corn poopie, cept I was a lil peeved they were half da way thru playing “On Top Of Your World” as me and the cru were walking in.

What an f-in weak end it was folks. I hadn’t walked, seen, ate, and done so much stizz in one weekend since Coachella-Hellz Yealla-So Much To Tella-Lets Spread On The Nutella!! And without further Freddy Adu, here wees go:

Friday July 16th

As I killed three hours in Times Square waiting for Curious George’s mum to arrive I must have been approached by 76 people trying to sell me some comedy show tickets. I should make a tee saying “No, I DON’T like stand-up comedy, bizatch.” Anywho, CG’s mum’s Chinatown buss took 6 friggin hours to get to NYC and I was bitting my finger nails and chain-smoking the entire time. You see, we had to get our a$$es to the Meadowlands to see the Prince do his thang. Luckily, when we got to the Continental Airlines Arena, the Purple One had yet to perform a note.

Over the next 2 and 1/2 + hours, I would not be taking in a concert, but a perfromance (same thang with Madonna, Simon & G-Funk, and Bjork concerts). Let me tell YOU folks, before you die, you should eat at all the places listed on this site AND see Prince at least once. Gawd does his Princeness be looking super mad fantastic. He ages as gracefully as Dick Clark. And whatever diet he’s on, I want to be on too. He must of gone on this tour just so he could tell if the public still loved him. Answer: we do. He would constantly make gestures for applause, sort of like the whoring that Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne does, cept the Prince-dawg hactually deserves it. The guy has got to be one of the must talented musicians of all time. He’s like Hendrix, James Brown, and Elvis all rolled into one. Sure Elvis was king, but he didn’t write any songs or make purple look so good.

The show’s stage was pretty basic, but ideal for an arena concert. It was a giant cross so not only could more people see him from all around, but he could sell more tickets to his show. I engoruage all rockstars to do the same thing. Everybody wins. Anywho, on to the music!!! Looking at other set lists from this tour, it appears that each show is pretty much the same from one to the next. It seemed like he played anything and everything… until later over the weekend, I listened to his CDs and realized he didn’t really play everything. I was kinda bummed he didn’t give us a lil “Delirous” love, but I live. The highlights were mainly in his acuostic set where he jammed “Little Red Corvette”, “Cream”, “Raspberry Beret” and “Alphabet Street.” He closed that lil sesh with my personal fav “7” and used that as a perfect transition to bring his umcredible backing band back on stage. The only thing that was missing during “7” was a tamborine, which some dumpy chick 10 rows ahead of me glady brought with her to the show. Where was that tamborine during his cover of Beyonce’s “Crazy In Love”? The only lowlights of the whole thang was when Prince would hold up his microphone in the air and let the audience fill in the blanks to the verses and choruses. We all know yer songs P-diddy, but I didn’t really drop a C-note to hear someone else sing them. Methinks it was an attempt to stop bootleggers, as the Nurple One is quite protective over his works.

And to sum things up, Prince has “got the look”, “I would die for” him, I went f-in “crazy”, and “nothing compares 2” him. Nothing.

The Streets

+ Dizzee Rascal

Irving Plaza

Hip-hop is dying of unorigniality. Jay-Z is jamming with Phish and his Black Album has been mashed-up with everything short of Soul Asylum’s Grave Dancer’s Union. But there’s a truly unique voice coming straight outta the UK, who’s breathing some new life into this fading genre. And that voice belongs to nun udder than Mike Skinner of The Streets. The dude basically talks about eating KFC and “birds, not bitches” over some of the illest na-na beats you ever did hear. Sorta like a cross between a stoned Henry Rollins and a less jaxxy Basement Jaxx. Now Mr Skinner’s music isn’t eggzactly for everyone, but then again, neither is munching on grundle-reeking foie gras.

Me and the Newbs were royally treated to a non-stop throw ya fingaz in the air-a-thon. As we both remarked, probably one of the most unrelievable hip-hop shows wees ever did peep. Mikey Skins brought along a bassist, a DJ, a drummer, and his umcredible backing vocalist, and it truly made all the difference. Every song they pounded out sounded even better than they do on the records… which is usually quite the opposite for live hip-hop shows. There were no “rhubarb and custard verses” to be found at last night’s sha-blam-a-zam-zam. Highlights included the weepy “Dry Your Eyes”, rolling “Fit But You Don’t Know It”, intense “Turn The Page”, and o course, the bouncy “Lets Push Things Forward.” How apt a song for a guy who’s eggzactly doing that. Hip-hop has 99 problems, but The Streets aint one.

The When: Thighsday Nite

The Where: El City, Webster Hall, home to many bridge and tunnel folk

The What: Franz Ferdinand knocking the balls to the wall!

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Yep, I’m afraid to admit it, but Franz Ferdie is the real deal, unlike Buster Douglas’ Knockout Boxing on Sega Genesis. They is mos def the greatest thing to be exported from Scotland since Trainspotting. Peace out Strokes, cause yo days are numbered. Hope you didn’t spend the money that your daddy saved up for you.

Long story short: me missed the boat on FF tickets so me was forced into the world of Craig’s List and eBay price gouging. Me was too busy at work to deal with this crap so me girl Megbot stepped up to the plate like she was Cecil “F-in” Fielder and scored some reasonably price gouged tickets. Too bad she must have eaten turkey burgers, cause el Megbot got food poisoning and couldn’t even go to the show!! (insert unhappy face) Enter the Thinker. His a$$ is about to be exported to the land mass known as Europe and what a killer way to send em off, eh? Ich heisse Su-per-fan-tas-tisch!

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Yesterdaze just so happened to be the very beginning of monsoon season in El City and I didn’t wear me rubbers or carry me trusty umbrella. So I got completely drenched on my way to pick up the tickey-ick-ets. To make (family) matters worse, when el Thinker and myself arrived at the venue, we realized that this wasn’t yer daddy’s Franz Fizzlnand concert. The place was packed to the gills with hipsters of all shapes and sizes. Most of them fell under these stereotypes listed on this handy Hipster Bingo board. We had to elbow our way to the bar where we set up shop for the next hour… I mean, FF only has one album of material, so wees weren’t eggspected a 3-hour Phish crap-a-thon. Now I can deal with $7+ beers, but I guess me needs some tips from Mandy Moore if I want to learn how to deal without A/C. El Paso, Tejas needs to be stripped of its newly bestowed title, Swamp-Ass Capital of the US, cause without A/C, my grundle area won that title in about 4 seconds. But hey, this is FF and if they can make all the jaded hipsters dance, then I’m going to shake my a$$ too, like I was in that “Rump Shaker” video by Wreckx-n-Effects.

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The highlights of their energetic, pitch-perfect, hour long set included: the “Hava Neglia” guitar riff in “The Dark of the Matinee”, playing my FFFT (favorite Franz Ferdinand tune) “Tell Her Tonight”, me coming and dancing to their heteroflexible ditty, “Michael” (Editor’s note: ‘Michael’ is such an awful first name, right?), and of course, amassing more swamp a$$ per minute than I did during Coachella Part I, II, or III! Long live frozen chocolate covered bananas!!!