Massive Attack at the 9:30 Club

Last night, I went down the the 9:30 Club for a soldout show by British band Massive Attack. I've been a fan of theirs since the 90's. They are the quintessential trip-hop band. They played a lot of their hits from all their records. Despite the absence of Daddy G, 3D did most of the singing duties.
They also had along singers Elizabeth Fraser (Cocteau Twins) and reggae great Horace Andy. The music was entrancing, with the Dub bass sounds pounding all over the club. It was a pretty diverse audience, too, due to the show being in DC with people clearly from the UK, Spain, Russia, and other countries. I was really glad to have seen to band for the first time.

Stoop Storytelling - School Daze

Thursday night, I went to the Creative Alliance to see Stoop Storytelling. It's a program where local Baltimoreans from various walks of life have 7 minutes to tell a story based upon a certain theme. Turns out, I went to high school with one of the show's curators, Laura Wexler (right above).
The theme this evening was School Daze: Stories about Education and Miseducation. Featured storytellers included Montel Williams' brother Herman, NPR producer Tracy Wahl, poet-manicurist Jael Freedman, and Baltimore City teacher Cranston Dize. Some stories were funny, others were sad. Three audience members also were able to come onstage to tell stories of their own.
Opening up the show was Caleb Stine and the Brakemen- a roots/country band that did a couple of Townes Van Zandt covers. I think I saw the bassist at a Tranquil Music night.

New Veronica Mars Online!

So, I caught the first episode of the 3rd season of Veronica Mars online. It looks promising. Our girl's in college now and there are already a few interesting storylines appearing on campus. Nerd adrenaline rose with Veronica's BSG reference! The episode airs on the new CW network next week.

Battlestar Galactica: The Resistance Webisodes

It's a good fall season for TiVo! Next week starts season 3 of Battlestar Galactica, and I recently found out that Sci-fi is running a 10 part series on their website of events taking place just before the season premiere. It focuses around Tigh and Tyrol planning a resistance movement on the Cylon occupied planet.

Also check out Trey Parker and Matt Stone giving props to BSG at the Peabody awards, and Trey expressing his love for Starbuck. As Jon Stewart put it, "Somebody's blog just blew up."

The Hiro Show?

Part of being my nerd self is to check out all things genre, so I checked out NBC's new show Heroes tonight.
First off, dumb opening crawl, then an even dumber opening narration. Why both?
A lot of people have been calling the Asian character Hiro as the breakout of the show, but I still feel that his story is a little bland. I think a Japanese character trying to breakout and become an individual was already done by Gedde Watanabe in the Gung Ho TV series in the 80's. Do Americans still genuinely believe that Japanese are so homogenous and have an ant colony mentality? Come on.
I'll probably give this show a couple more episodes.

The Wire 4.3 - Home Rooms

Time for my weekly Wire gush-fest. Really interesting episode setting up a few ambitious arcs for the season: Kima and Lester going to homicide, Bunny getting another chance to make a difference but this time at the middle school, and manuevering by Prop Joe and the New Day Co-op as well as Omar to threaten Marlo.
By the way, Beatrice looked really hot!
The Baltimore connection this week was actor Doug Roberts who plays State's Attorney Demper (left below). I went to junior high and high school with his daughter.

Jackass Number Two!!

I loved this movie. It is pure ingenius hilarity. Knoxville is probably the most insane member of the group, and for most disgusting is a tie with Pontius and England - each eats something that should not be eaten.
The leech in the eyeball is what Dali and Bunuel originally intended in Un Chien Andalou.

Work Hazards

Woo hoo. I might have been exposed to Influenza type A at work, with the slim possibility of the avian strain (the identification is still pending). Look what I get to take. I hate the panic around it, but I guess better safe than miss work or worse.

Nouvelle Vague at La Maison Francaise

So I returned tonight to the French Embassy in DC for yet another show- this time it was to see Nouvelle Vague play. Oddly enough, Camille, who I saw last time here, sang "Too Drunk to Fuck", "Making Plans for Nigel" and "The Guns of Brixton" on their first record.
Opening up was LA band, The Submarines. Their music was nice pop music using laptop and guitars. It reminded me some of Postal Service. Blake, the woman, had a beautiful voice. I wasn't sure if the crowd was really getting into them unfortunately, but I plan to check out their album. On reading about them, I found they have a Threadless contest going judged by the band- cool!
I had seen Nouvelle Vague when they toured in support of their last record at the World Cafe in Philly. You can see some pics here.
This time, the same singers were there, Melanie Pain and Phoebe Killdeer, but the band had changed a little. They still had Olivier Libaux on guitar and the same drummer, but instead of Marc Collin on keyboards, they added a bass player and accordionist Wendy McNeill.
This lineup changed was nice- it made their sound more acoustic and filled out. They did songs from both albums- my favorites from the new record were "Confusion", "Sweet and Tender Hooligan", and "Human Fly". They led the crowd in a singalong to "Too Drunk to Fuck" - and yet again at this venue, I was in contact with the band as Melanie Pain touched palms with me.
Oh, and one more thing, the accordionist was sooo hot! She looked great pumping that accordion as well as just dancing around when she wasn't playing. Yowsa! Licking pants had told me about her when he saw them play in Portland on this tour.

A Guilty Pleasure Flashback

Man, after watching a great pilot for Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (where I liked Matthew Perry for the first time in years!), I was reminded of the more innocent days of the the WB network's show Jack & Jill.
The show was genuinely a guilty pleasure for me fueled primarily by lust for Amanda Peet and a less smokey Jaime Pressly.
Now look where the cast has ended up:
Simon Rex- hilarious in the Scary Movies
Sarah Paulson- short stint on Deadwood and now also on Studio 60
Amanda Peet- awesome on Studio 60
Justin Kirk- great in Showtime's Weeds
Jaime Pressly- priceless on My Name is Earl
. . . alas- where are you Ivan Sergei. . .

Roger Waters and Pigs on the Wing

All the conservative blogs are abuzz with a balloon pig that Roger Waters floated above the audience during his recent concerts.
It's pretty funny reading how people are shocked and outraged about his opinions. People are also sniping him about how he got the election day date wrong. (He's British- so what!) Others just complain that David Gilmour was the heart of Pink Floyd anyways. (which is pretty stupid to say- it's like saying Keith, not Mick was the main guy in the Stones)
Besides, if people had actually listened to Animals, The Wall, and Radio Kaos - you would know Waters' politics already. It really is no surprise at all. . . That's it- this isn't a political blog.

If you didn't care, What happened to me
And I didn't care, For you
We would zig-zag our way through the boredom and pain
Occasionally glancing up through the rain
Wondering which of the buggers to blame
And watching for pigs on the wing

The Wire 4.2 - Soft Eyes

Episode 2 of the 4th season of The Wire was pretty interesting. The political manuevering was one thing in regards to the mayoral race, but the most fascinating moment was when the teacher told Prez, "You need soft eyes."
Since this was the episode's title, I tried to look and see what she meant. The only reference I could find was an educational essay on how teachers are more effective when they teach with "soft eyes", meaning from their inner selves in order to maintain their identity and integrity in the classroom. The process approaches education as an intellectial, emotional, and spiritual method. What does this mean?
There were several scenes of "education" in this episode- Bubs and Sherrod, the boxing club, the school, the target practice- all interesting.
My familiar location of the episode was the Fells point pier where Herc met with Major Valchek. It's up the street from my fav local record store, The Sound Garden.