Archive for the ‘Photos’ Category

Miss Washington DC

Thursday, June 29th, 2023

Weekend bullet points:

  • Smash! Records is great as always, and I noticed they have a Boomtown Rats photo on their beam. PUNK. Any record store that puts Shudder To Think and Nation of Ulysses CDs on the shelf is the real deal. Also PUNK.
  • W.I.T.C.H. and Death Valley Girls at the Black Cat Friday night. Exactly the tonic I needed. DVG ended their set with “Disaster (Is What We’re After)”, or one of the best modern psychedelic rock songs, during which I got to experience my first true “pit” as opposed to flinching on the periphery. My nose got bonked. Deliscious. Then W.I.T.C.H., whose name stands for “We Intend To Cause Havoc”, did exactly what they intended to do. I love getting myself lost in music, especially recently. It’s the closest I have to a religion, having never done drugs. Getting a brand new sonic prescription, not just through headphones but supplied directly through booming amplifiers, to truly lose myself in a dark room for a short while, was exactly what I needed. To let my head bang in whatever direction it wanted to and let it swell a little. A guy in a well fitting Jesus Lizard(!) shirt, tight pants, and combat boots was totally losing it right up against the amp for W.I.T.C.H.; I saw him around a few times throughout the night between bands. These are the things I like to see.
  • The Air and Space Museum is only half open for continuing renovations. What is open to the public is dazzling. I don’t really care about planes other than the uniforms of their stewardesses, but funky colored lights showcasing worldly posters about interconnection and a watch used to keep Martian time are my kind of deal.
  • The Hirshhorn reminds the public that we wouldn’t have Infinity Rooms without sixties anti-war abstraction and naked people frolicking in the street. It was great finally seeing some of Yayoi Kusama’s work in person. An exhibition of contemporary Chinese photography really enlightened me. Work under dictatorship.

Repetition, insanity, neurosis, shining stars within conformity, hum de hum de hum…

  • The Holocaust Museum is a uniquely exhausting experience. A necessary and perspective-expanding one, but still exhausting. You reach a point where you’re trying to comprehend a placard only to slowly realize that your brain can’t take any more comprehension to begin with. You experience a very unique kind of weight and gravity. Everyone should go once in their lives.
  • The U.S. Capitol needs a new drain pipe.

Jimmy Bell’s Still In Town

Monday, February 20th, 2023

I type to you from the comfort of my brand new dorm room. I’ll get into the real nitty gritty of why exactly I had to switch rooms when it’s further behind me, but I’m glad to be here. I moved in on Saturday, which involved three trips across the Stopher-Johnson bridge and resulted in veg-out levels of exhaustion. It was a worthwhile exhaustion nonetheless.

Instead of a house warming party, I did what I often do on weekend nights and indulged in music written by old men. But instead of expressing my wackjob musical taste in headphone-induced isolation, I did it in a room of other people. 15-60-75, The Numbers Band, have been playing the area for fifty three years, and this was the first time they played in Kent after I got here where I wasn’t gallivanting home on break. Besides, it was at the Kent Stage, which I’ve never been to, and it’s a much more relevant-to-me first show there than, say, Ace Frehley or Crash Test Dummies.

Knowing the Numbers’ first album, I was well aware of the group’s sound – an angsty and passionate strain of the blues-meets-jazz-meets something else entirely, with the right lick of dissonance that pinpoints their origin smack dab in the middle of the Rust Belt. There isn’t much to do in Akron, so I guess the primary solution is to make music or do drugs (or both). It’s so Pere Ubu, so “Navvy” at times, how it leaps and squelches and swells up in a big ball of noise assaulting your frail ears. I know there’s some interview where David Thomas is like, “Jimmy Bell is the ONLY GOOD SOUNDING ALBUM EVER RECORDED.” Which is a large overstatement, but it is a really good sounding album.

Their live sound reflects that to this day. The noise was crisp and loud. Every member was talented and tight. It was pretty damn stunning. Bob Kidney is a great band leader, and a hilarious one at that. Lots of great banter. A few guests came up for songs peppered throughout the night, like Chris Butler of the Waitresses and Tin Huey (seen wielding possibly the coolest bass I’ve seen since the Steinberger below)! Everyone sitting around me was older, and the woman beside me was asking me how the heck I knew who they were. (She was impressed.) Lots of name drops in the fragments of conversations that poked my head during intermission. It felt like a good ol’ time, one of many, with lots of invisible lines darting across the room like yarn strings on a bulletin board. Aside from being the youngest person in the room, I might’ve been the only person in the room who was seeing the Numbers for the first time.

It’s surreal acknowledging that there’s been this tiny scene here that’s been happening since practically the sixties but has not expanded far past its zip code, resulting in all the cool old people from back in the day being connected to everybody else and living within an approximate 50 mile radius of each other. It’s kind of fascinating, honestly, being in a vortex so rooted in its geography and persistent obscurity. My perspective as a current student definitely helps feed some fascination in it for me. In my cultural anthropology class, we’ve discussed the processes of field work – participant observation, cultural relativism, historical particularism. In Music as a World Phenomenon, I’ve read many mentions of the contributions of ethnomusicologists documenting music traditions across the globe. Does the shadow of the Goodyear Blimp fall differently than that of the steel sky birds worshiped by some remote island communities? Are all those “Punk 45” compilations less important than the “world music” CDs that hipster David Byrne fans buy to prove that they’re not only into African sounds when white guys do them? It really does feel like I’ve encountered some hidden anomaly that has somehow withstood JB’s becoming shit-kickin’ country/get crunk Brewhouse, gentrification, and things getting caught on fire. In a documentary we were shown in anthropology class, a group of linguistic historians arrived at a remote ex-Soviet village to document its language and were told, if only you’d come five years earlier, because many of that language’s most versatile speakers had died off. It’s like I’ve ended up mingling among the last great hurrah of a cultural phenom microcosm by complete accident; maybe I could’ve come at a time when the esplanade didn’t exist, but I’m here anyways with mental pen and paper. And I’m the only person of my generation who gives a crap. I’m one of the only people who gives a crap at all, really. But I guess it’s worthwhile that there’s somebody that gives a crap.

Nevertheless, 15-60-75 continue to chug away with great vigor, tucked away safe from the spotlights of the nebulous festering “classic rock” stadium blob. I do kind of love how you can see Terry Hynde, Chrissie’s brother, be extremely awesome on the saxophone for twenty dollars plus ticket fee, though. In 2023, can you beat that?

Okay, back to listening to “High Heels Are Dangerous” on repeat.

Kent Let It Go

Sunday, September 25th, 2022

In the past week, I became the subject of numerous jokes about how I was going to need four blog entries for that past weekend alone—it later multiplied to six—because of all the events that got jam-packed into three and a half weary, weary days. Three days that contained my personal favorite nerd gathering, the DEVOtional, and would go on to comprise possibly the most roller coaster-like weekend of my life thus far.

Welp, after over a week, here it comes.

The aforementioned weekend really kicked off on Thursday (though I had a class the next morning). The members of DEVOtional veteran act Fight Milk, having come in early for rehearsals, found time in their schedule to come down to good ol’ Kent State so I could show them around.

I’ve been seeing Fight Milk at DEVOtional since 2019, and it’s been wild seeing them morph and mutate into what they are now. Not only do they always bring the most extreme amounts of fun, they also really get what DEVO is all about in a way. They are dedicated, and they respect what those old fogies were doing while still maintaining a Gen Z flair. Add that all three of their performers this year were coming from such long distances—lone constant Jackson from Seattle, Tavi from Finland, and Max from San Diego—and it only felt fitting that they should get to see where DEVO all began.

The first up important locale was Governance Chambers, the site of both the “Jocko Homo” music video and DEVO’s second ever show, in the Student Center. Luckily, one of its sets of doors was unlocked and no one was in there, so we slipped in without even a whimper from anyone actually working in the building. URBAN EXPLORATION! It was a great joy seeing the guys be such nerds in there, ESPECIALLY Max, the guy who, you know, covered the entirety of that second show.

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They also did some obligatory Mark Mothersbaugh poses:

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Before heading into town, I got to show them the site of the shootings on May 4, 1970, which DEVO’s bassist witnessed and credits with being the catalyst of the band. You would figure that the place where DEVO was born, and a place so historical at that, would be at least somewhat noteworthy for people to visit when they’re coming up for the DEVOtional every year. At least we got to do our part.

It was a solemn experience walking down to the victory bell on the commons and looking down on the Taylor Hall parking lot from the perspective of the National Guardsmen who killed four and wounded nine that day. But it was a worthwhile and important one, and all three also enjoyed the visitors center inside Taylor Hall as well, with all its artifacts providing context.

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Here they were looking for coin offerings that matched up with 1970 at I believe Allison’s parking space.
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We also stalked through McGilvrey Hall, which has some May 4 related displays on its first floor and is generally an incredible time capsule of the mid century in terms of its hallways. We peeked into the auditorium in Cartwright Hall, where DEVO have performed—there was a recital going on!—as well.

After some aimless wandering, we headed down the esplanade into town, got handed some Get Out Of Hell Free cards by some old dude, and made our way towards Water Street, which contains a row of buildings that can be seen in the video for “Secret Agent Man.” More nerd behavior ensued.

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When that was all said and done, our next goal was sustenance. Taco Tontos was on the menu. On our way down, we ended up running into a poster for DEVOtional, the whole reason these three nerds were here in the first place. We still don’t know the culprit.

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We would then discuss all the secrets of the group’s set list while Tavi ate the best burrito he’d had in his life. Actually, we all ended up getting burritos. What weirdos. How deviant from the norm. Another important lesson realized by these friends: Taco Tontos never disappoints.

We made our way back to the campus one last time so the guys could get an Uber and rest up for Friday’s activities.

It was an absolute blast showing the guys around, and it felt like a natural way to kick off the weekend. For me, it was definitely more than satisfying getting to see Kent State finally get some acknowledgment—especially from some talented nerds who have been finding themselves on the forefront of…whatever this modern battleground is. After all, you can’t go forward without knowing your history.

Or an empty stomach.

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Wednesday, July 27th, 2022

In the span of three days, I

  • watched Apocalypse Now somehow not knowing beforehand it was a direct adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and being very in awe as I realized that fact as I watched.
  • stayed at a hotel that has the art from the cover of my copy of Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, which we read in tandem with Heart of Darkness in English class last year, printed on one of the walls in the lobby.
  • bought a CD that opens with a song entitled “Heart of Darkness” (Terminal Tower by Pere Ubu).

Jeez.

Fun Times With Some Rowdy Guys

Tuesday, July 5th, 2022

My first log as a legal adult. Who would’ve thought! Yeah, I’m pretty hardcore. It’s definitely an interesting time to be going through so many rites of passage, from graduating to reaching adulthood last Sunday. It’s also pretty interesting how all these rites of passage seem to coincide with similarly wonderful concerts. I got an incredible DEVO show as a graduation party, which I’m still not quite over. This time around, it was the Melvins who brought me into adulthood on Friday, two days before my gestation completion anniversary. I wanted special for my birthday, dammit, and I ended up getting much, much more than I could have ever asked for. At the very least, I can check off my list seeing the mighty King Buzzo’s hair in person.

The concert also coincided with my first time to what was once a steel capital of the world, good ol’ Bethlehem, PA. Sounds quaint, doesn’t it? The town surrounding the venue and extending across the river itself is nice and quaint. The venue is located right by the old Bethlehem Steel plant, which was operational until, somehow, the mid-nineties. It now looms over a bustling little cultural spot, towering as a series of antiquated pagodas of rust and dead industry. (The morning after the Melvins my family checked out the self guided walking tour along the plant’s old material transport trestle, which allows for some incredible up-close action. It’s truly an incredible and fascinating sight to experience.) The venue itself also houses a movie theater and boasts an orange spiral staircase adorned with intricate blown glass art where we waited to get our tickets checked. Within the ballroom, concertgoers could’ve gotten a table at the also orange balcony looking out on the crowd and stage. The steel plant loomed behind the stage through the large glass windows and would later be illuminated in neon light when the sun set. All in all, it was very atmospheric.

I was initially positioned directly stage right, up against the security gate as I’ve gotten used to at shows that feature them, for openers Harsh Mellow (excellent name). I was impressed at their energetic, intense brand of noise rock, and I’m really excited to see what they do in the future. I had drifted back slightly and more towards the front of the stage to talk with some of my dad’s friends by the time the second band, Helms Alee, took the stage and proceeded to turn everyone’s minds to sluuudge. I actually wouldn’t be surprised if their set went on for longer than the Melvins’. I had a good view of their drummer, who was a total powerhouse in her own right and also very sweet at the merch booth before and after the show. Fun times.

And then, promptly as the headliners took the stage, I was shoved—or maybe something in my consciousness pulled me a little bit—right up against the gate, just slightly off-center from Buzz Osbourne’s microphone stand. What followed was something akin to my mind being blown—or maybe it’s more like my mind being unfolded and refolded, like origami. The more I think about it, the more I’m sure the triple threat of “Oven”, “Lovely Butterflies”, and “It’s Shoved” that opened the show flipped some sort of weird, hidden, primal switch in my brain. I feel like a reformed young woman now after having seen the Melvins. As a result of the weekend’s sonic therapy, I feel respectable and healthy urges to put myself out there more, engage myself more creatively, and try different styling techniques that would increase the volume of my hair. Well, maybe the latter is just the aftershock of getting to see Buzz’s incredible hairdo in person. I am being completely serious when I say that no photograph or video can truly replicate how absolutely incredible it is to see with one’s own eyes.

But I digress.

To put it simply, the band was relentless. Songs launched into each other with the beat of Dale Crover’s pounding, primal drums with barely any time to spare, blending the night’s sequence of events together like a syrupy sweet molotov cocktail. Yet sonic blasts of pent up punk rock fury still played ping pong with sublime, smirking moments of teasing quiet throughout the night—thanks, complex and diverse song structures. “Bob” bless their current bass player, Steve McDonald, who wore what I initially thought was an ironically awful white disco suit before realizing it was some sort of fancy kung-fu jacket accented with gold, elevated from it’s previous Halloween costume status. He was clearly having the time of his life up there, hopping around, crouching, and striking many an audacious pose throughout the night. And then there was Buzz, the one perhaps most appropriately dressed up for Halloween in July in his iconic skeleton robes. I can safely say I’ve never been more intimidated by a man than I was there in my spot in front of the vicious King Buzzo himself, and that’s a good thing. I was even too intimidated to take photos when he got probably as close to my part of the audience as he could’ve gotten as he hammered on his transparent-body guitar. I was that in awe. He and Steve thrashed surprisingly precisely around the place, making good use of the stage’s expansive floor area due to Dale’s drum kit being placed so far back. Dale emerged from behind his instrument of choice at one point to use one of his sticks as a sword in a brief fencing match against the neck of Steve’s bass, which was extremely entertaining. The same goes for Buzz’s liberal use of hand gestures during breaks in songs where he didn’t play guitar, which I will always find very, very amusing no matter who is doing it (and no matter whether or not their hands should actually be strumming those strings at that place in the song). Yes. I dare say the whole band took it to twelve.

I got more used to my surroundings as the night went on. I was marked safe from the inevitable pit the entire time, though I briefly considered joining it before remembering how lucky I was to have acquired the best view of Buzz in the house. Besides which, it was really funny glancing over periodically at the antsy, stingy looking security guy at the front of the stage, who was jerking back and forth as he watched the pit with much concern. It was pretty great to glance back at, too—imagine “Honey Bucket” tearing up such a clean, modern, composed establishment! At the beginning of the show there was some sort of country band playing on one of the complex’s outdoor stages, visible through the glass wall from my initial standing position. I wonder how those guys would’ve reacted to what went on inside. In terms of my reaction, I was mesmerized, pulverized, and totally hooked even after the band left the stage. They could’ve gone on another hour and I still would’ve been wanting more.

But hey, the band is pretty well known for their tour grind, so it’ll presumably be easy to see them again down the road. I slept contently that night knowing that.

Two days later I turned eighteen. If it were 1970 I’d be old enough to kill, but not for votin’. I’ll probably be woman enough to not be able to kill or vote at all soon if this country keeps going the way it is. 246 years this week, huh? I see so many people nowadays wondering how many years it’s got left with the way things are.

Based on their hypotheses, it’s probably less than the Melvins still have in them.

(I posted some more photos here, by the way.)

Monday, June 13th, 2022

Also about last Saturday: props to the Ottobar for having a photo booth.

In Some Sci-Fi Vein

Monday, June 13th, 2022

METAL. In terms of the material, I was always a big fan of it. Shiny, industrial, dignified—METAL. It’s pretty great. In terms of the music genre, I’m not really a metal person, despite my frequent punk persuasions. Between the two genres, metal is more known for long hair and being a bro and stuff, which isn’t my scene at all. But, alas, everyone has to go through certain rites of passage in their lives, including that of one’s first metal show. I got to go through that on Saturday.

I was kind of dragged (no offense) to see Voivod in Baltimore by my father, who is a big fan. He is so much of a big fan, in fact, that we ended up getting to meet the band before the show, and I am happy to know that they are all really nice people! I spent most of that time talking to their drummer, Away, who, as someone not very familiar with the band and its members, I did not expect to be a spry little dude with a heavy French accent named Michel. He also does all of the band’s dark, dystopian artwork (which is pretty awesome, by the way). He’s great. They all are!

I actually rarely listen to Voivod, but I’ve always respected them. Their lyrics are heavily influenced by science fiction and are a lot more intelligent and conscious than your average “I wanna rock n’ roll all night” metal group (no offense times-2). They also don’t succumb to the screamy or guttural vocals that I never cared for yet always associated with the genre (no offense times-3), and they did a great version of “Astronomy Domine” at the end of the show, proving their range of influences. And most metal shows do not involve a spontaneous snippet of “Stayin’ Alive,” which is probably the only time I’d be able to take that song.

They clearly put a lot of octane into their performance, taking on sped up punk with the same intensity as their more experimental, droning numbers. Most may not call them “punk” out of metalhead instinct, but they maintain that sensibility. They’re still out there, soldering on, and the crowd was visibly very grateful. I actually spent a good amount of the show monitoring the pit, which inevitably formed. With my beloved camera in my hand, my beloved purse stuffed with all my crap, and my beloved cellphone in my back pocket, I wasn’t going to risk joining it, but it was fun to observe. Luckily I was only ran into once during the one moment during the show where I looked down at my camera away from the action. Otherwise I was able to jerk and flinch my way out of contact’s way whenever someone would get too close, though others inadvertently shielded me from the pit at various times throughout the night. The no crowd surfing rule was broken six times.

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And, all in all, despite being displaced from my comfort zone for a night, it was a fun one. I’m glad I went!

One of the most recent comments on Voivod’s last.fm page reads as follows:

voivod restored my faith in humanity, watered all my crops, paid off all my cars and mortgages, cured all my ailments, fed my family and pets, kept the heater running during winter nights, attended my wedding AND my funeral all in the same day this is amazing. love them

which I think is a much better way of summing up the group than I ever could.

Those Canadians!

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Versus Ohio

Thursday, June 9th, 2022

Over the weekend, I got my first true taste at college life. Kent State freshman orientation. Verdict: not too shabby. It was the fourth time I’d been to Kent, and it might have been the most satisfying visit there yet. Today actually marks one year since I first stepped foot in the college town, which I still find hard to believe. When four nebulous years lie ahead of me, it feels even more surreal. But that strangeness has never felt negative.

We rolled into town last Thursday afternoon, with my orientation beginning the next morning. I got to visit North Water Street, an old part of town I had never been to before. It’s the site of the old JB’s club, a regionally legendary venue that hosted the likes of 15-60-75 (The Numbers Band) and DEVO. It’s called the Brew Down now, but the outlines of its sign and door awning remain the same, albeit in a more garish KSU blue and gold. The buildings beside it, featured in DEVO’s pioneering 1976 short film The Truth About De-Evolution, are worn and boarded up, and one has been demolished. It was interesting to see that not all of the city has succumbed to the cutesy college town ‘vibes’ that seemingly define the ideal 2020s campus.

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They also sell Numbers Band shirts at one of the local school shirt shops, which are sick, though I kept myself from buying one due to my current unfamiliarity with their material. I ain’t no poser, yuh see.

In seeing the campus itself across the three days I was in town, it was probably the most gorgeous I’d ever seen it. The weather was pristine the entire weekend, and the campus was seemingly made for sunsets. Buildings such as Franklin Hall, which I’ll be spending some time in as a journalism major, looked more dignified than ever. Spring in Kent is incredible for more reasons than just the history, even as it was rolling into a sweltering summer.

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The orientation itself went down easily. There was quite a bit of sitting through informational presentations that could have just been read online, but the rest of the time let me connect with and adapt to my new surroundings and traditions hands-on. The process felt effortless. I stayed overnight in a dorm for the first time, and while honors college housing will be supplying me with much more living space than I experienced Friday night, I thought my room’s compactness was pretty charming. As long as I don’t have to bunk my bed, I’m good. The communal bathroom situation went easier than I expected, and the dining hall food wasn’t too shabby. I also did the Electric Slide for the first time. I wish I regretted doing that.

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The climax of the event was working out my fall semester schedule, which went very smoothly. Afterwards I had over an hour until my next scheduled activity, so I took the opportunity to wander around campus some more, figuring out how much time I would need to get between classes. I revisited the site of the May 4 shootings, my first time as an official student. And in knowing that my choice was official, that I had successfully taken my life into my own hands in some way, that I had my own footsteps to make both following in and alongside those who came before me—I felt more secure than I ever had before standing on those hallowed grounds.

I got my university ID card shortly afterwards in the student center, which was satisfying to say the least, even though I almost lost it by letting it fall onto the floor minutes after receiving it. I left high school with a doi; I entered college with one. Some things never change. But I expect better behavior from myself during my tenure at Kent.

Watch out, O-HI-O.

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Tuesday, June 7th, 2022

Covering the funky monkeys in Kent, Ohio last Saturday.

Wednesday, May 25th, 2022

It’s over!