Archive for September 16th, 2005

I have to admit I did not want to see this movie. Just what Autumn needs, I thought. More shamelessly pretentious Oscar-bait. It had all the hallmarks: French director? Check. Baffling storyline? Check. Matthew Modine? Double check.

Needless to say I was pleasantly surprised. Director Louis Letterier (along with screenwriters Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen) manage to take what could have been a stuffy little tale of an ex-special forces limousine driver combatting a devious plot by international drug cartels involving a bioengineered super-virus and turn it into something fun. I mean, the dude beats people up with a hose. A freakin’ hose!!!! How cool is that??

It took two people to write this movie.

So if you can get past your fear of art-house cinema and the French, I highly recommend this thought-provoking masterpiece. I mean c’mon…a freakin’ HOSE!!! Until next time, the mezzanine is closed!

Truthfully, tonight didn’t look all that promising. I called 169 Bar and they told me the Cloud Cult / Heavenly Stakes show was sold out for door tickets. Well, shit. So no review of their live show, but to sum up Cloud Cult’s recorded material: freakin’ weird but cool beats and stuff. Oh yeah and a song called “The Princess Bride” that is rife with samples from, yes, the movie The Princess Bride. No more indie rock, I mean it! Anybody wanna peanut?

Ahem.

I did however, make it over to Scenic for Insound’s afterparty which featured free PBRs and more importantly, The Constantines.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love to see shows at places like the Bowery Ballroom and Radio City Music Hall where the lights are great, the sound is perfect, and you feel part of a larger presence with the band and the crowd. I’ve seen shows at both venues that can be described with such hoity-toity words like “majestic”. But with a down and dirty, kick-in-the-junk band like the Constantines, a cramped low-ceilinged basement full of like-minded free-beer drunk maniac kids in black t-shirts is more than “majestic”… it’s fuckin’ badass. This show punched me in the head and had me begging for more. The Constantines refuse to be defined or pigeonholed in genres that could only do them harm. One minute you’re foot stomping and hollerin’ like Matthew McConaughey in Dazed and Confused on the last day of school, and the next you’re air picking the harmonics on some post-punk free jazz Chicago steez. The whole time lead singer/guitarist Bry Webb is whispering or screaming things that are simultaneously NASCAR nonsense and first love freeverse. I made three new friends in the crowd instantly, guys my age who were slamming down PBR, punching the ceiling tiles, and goin’ “FUCK YEEAAAHHH” every 60 seconds or so. Our friendship consisted of “DUDE THIS IS SO RAD!” and big smiles like getting your first BMX. After the show, we all high fived, had some smokes, shared a few more PBRs, and left happy.

Thank you lord for rock and/or roll.

The Constantines:

Friday night is looking like Clap Your Hands Say Yeah hoping for a miracle with a near sold out longshot at Mercury Lounge, or The Wilderness in an uber late night hush-hush set at Scenic. Rock on, croutons.

MP3s to listen to while waxing your Camaro and crying about your latest Instant Messenger breakup:
The Constantines - On To You
The Constantines - Nighttime Anytime It’s Allright

I’ve never heard their music before, but I was familiar with the buzz and I have to say that they were awesome. With 8 maybe 9 members in the band (depending on if the french horn was onstage) they played everything from their album Funeral (I was told by my friends that know them). The chick singer sounds like Bjork, and the set was really high energy except for one acoustic song towards the end of the set that lacked melody and was kindof masturbatory and self-indulgent. But they’re upbeat stuff is really entertaining and you can tell they’re classicaly trained cause you can hear how they orchestrate and layer. The show was sold out and hot and packed and the guy from Labrynth came on to sing the last two songs with them. It was crazy, eccentric and magnetic.

PS The guy from Labrynth is DAVID FUCKIN’ BOWIE!!! There is no need to elaborate on how amazing this was.

Many of you have probably walked by The Telephone Bar on 2nd Ave between 9th and 10th, but what you may not know is that they have a back room which features everything from free movies to poetry slams. On Thursday nights they host a night of stand-up called The $1 Room, conveniently named after the price of admission. First let me tell you about the cons: the service was sporadic, the waitress came to some people, but not to others, and the price of admission was so small that the door man didn’t have change for $10, so I had to go get some myself. Now for the pros: everything else. The space itself is charming, it’s beautifully decorated with mirrors all over the walls and a chandelier hanging above the performers heads. I had no problems finding a seat right away on a super comfy couch, that I wish I had in my apartment. The host for the evening, Peter Kassnove, was funny as hell. After asking the audience to keep an eye on his zipper, he explained that he was sad for summer to end because he had become attached to his ’summer sweat towel’. Roger Hailes came up next and told us how he’s his own boss, but he’s not very good at it because his policy on employee masturbation is too relaxed. Also performing were Pat O’Shea, Jay Bois and Issac Witty who had me in tears when he described his shitty handshaking technique. The evening ended with co-host Cassidy Hennehen, a native of New Orleans, who has taken his pain and turned it into a funny yet poignant piece about what it’s like to loose one’s home, or ’safety net’. He ends by saying that New Orleans is not great because of it’s location, but because of it’s people, and now they’re everywhere. Actually he may have ended by telling us that he named his dick after Ray Nagin, the mayor of New Orleans, and asking if anyone wanted a handshake with the mayor.
Thursday night at 9pm, The $1 Room, in the back of The Telephone Bar. Not enough people know about this night yet, so go check it out soon,and give these kids the audience they deserve.