Sunday, August 28
re-entry
(...or, "i want to see the bright [northern] lights [of liberty] tonight")
"early" morning, everyone-else-is-still-asleep-(but-i'm-still-not-tired)-style from the much beloved verminhaus, 204 fairmount, on the eve (as it were) of its demise. checkin' out with the kids here for the fond final 204 party, which seems to be going more or less according to mold, and strangely not even with an empty-feeling house considering that the one person left to move out is supposedly doing so tomorrow, er, today.
the somewhat skeletonic crew of stalwarts: la, am, dwj, abram, jenny, paul and ruth (token non-swatties), eliza, ben s. and myself. (no aft, who's in the zen mountains.) so far it's gone something like this: pizza rustica, one two punch, bottlecap rebuses, elph play, zoom erp, Memories by iTunes™ rooftop interlude with pretend vomit, the simultaneous delectation of multiple b+j's pints, and then a tromp across the avenue for dancing at the 700 club.
(also there was a part where i set up a sound art installation of "Since U Been Gone" playing on loop on two computers on separate floors, initially spaced a bar apart but gradually separating further b/c i guess it took the one that was accessing it thru the shared network longer to restart. so that it sounded awesome[st] if you sat on the stairwell. for some reason, i really enjoy, maybe perversely but not just academically, listening to two or more musics at once. it might have to do with the satisfying dissonance between the perseverant intentionality of recorded pop and the aleatoric but elegant abstractness [er, abstract concrète;?] this sometimes method teases out. case in point, simultaneous things we lost in the fire and congotronics, which somehow renders the latter's freneticism supremely mellow, and vice versa, almost. that's why i'm getting a three-channel mixer, for home stereo use.)
okay, so the 700 club. best dancing in a really long time. all smiles and mariachi. we finally got this thing to work (it was the game). we were there i guess two and a half hours, and stayed to close it (specifically, ben and amelia and me. i don't really like linking to people that way, as if i had been dancing not with people but with internet entities, but i thought it might be fun, this time.) towards the end (specifically, at the precise moment "kiss" came on) my glasses flew off my sweat-slicked face and into the sudden blurriness of the dancefloor.
despite some potentially treacherous feeling around on the nearby floor, and much flashlighting of cellphones, we didn't locate them until lights-up (if by we you mean they, seeing as how i couldn't see), after a pleasantly surreal (on my part) final couple turns. they were predictably rather the worse for having been trampled by dancers for twenty minutes or so: the metal frame severely mangled, flattened, the temple joints hyper-extended, though still in one piece (though one of the nose-pieces broke off in the provisional mending attempt); lenses popped out and dramatically gouged in places. it was rather amusing, actually. and basically fine considering that i've been badly needing a new pair anyway.
in any case, it was totally worth it. i can't remember the last time i've had such a successful night of dancing in a club. (no, not that kind of success.) i guess it was evident because i got a lot of compliments and come-dance-with-me!s, from girls and boys, but most amusingly this tall dude who engaged me in post-ironic dance-offs three or four times - man, he even came at me during "the safety dance," what's up with that? - but i think the best was our impromptu roshambo to "we will rock you" (tho, wtf, dj?) the deejay was pretty good - lots of smooth clean transitions, some surprisingly effective '70s am selections ("i feel the earth move"), although he cut out too early on a lot of things ("all that she wants," "all around the world", "like a friend.") i'm so eager to get djing again! it was definitely paces-on-a-good-night hightimes.
right, i was going to say, except the previous night, which was also an awesome dancing night, at the of montreal show. kids is crazy! they totally played the all-hits set - kicking off with "alabee" "o.m.m.2" "disconnect" "the party's crashing us" and i was like, how can they possibly keep it up like this, but they did! one major dance smash after another, unrelentant and unrepentant, and also everything they played was from the last two records, except for the first song and the last one, which the comely young thing pon my right says is from aldhills. i guess that pretty much means those are two good albums. sunlandic is overdue for a reassessment - my initial plaints that a couple of brilliant pop songs do not a brilliant pop album make grows a bit too academic in the face of those particular brilliant pop songs, even if the context is wonky. which is maybe why this review does it a sort of justice despite only referring to five tracks, conveniently the best/only songs of the album. the actually keen part is where she paints "the party's crashing us" as a "summer sex anthem". the lyrics are a tiny bit obscurant (or just low-in-the-mix?) for that to totally work, but in general, yeah. g.p. "you fucked the suburbs out of me" is pretty brilliant. live, i was about ready for it to incite a church-basement orgy. maybe if it had come a little later in the set.
sort of silly to write about it, but in summa the set was a big blazing hamsterball of singalongs, handclaps, pogoing, rock fists and so forth. i know this is backwards, but the opening band, MGMT were also really fun, enough so that i bought their ep. and so was jamaican jerk hut dinner beforehand with martha and little-freshman-friend/cothren-lookalike (!) dermott and live student jazz in the gazebo (!!). and so was seeing rob cox at the concert, even though he's spost be in d.c. what hell! yeah that's right, i bought all their ep.
today i'm still here and there is another party (big ups louisa and marty birthday all-day houseweirding potluck, which seems like it's going to be huge and i'm going to probably know more people than is reasonable.) i will consider it to be the case that i have in fact already moved to northern liberties, and i just have to go pick up my stuff in a couple days. i got boxes now. and a big pink crate!
||:again and again and again and again and again....:||
the somewhat skeletonic crew of stalwarts: la, am, dwj, abram, jenny, paul and ruth (token non-swatties), eliza, ben s. and myself. (no aft, who's in the zen mountains.) so far it's gone something like this: pizza rustica, one two punch, bottlecap rebuses, elph play, zoom erp, Memories by iTunes™ rooftop interlude with pretend vomit, the simultaneous delectation of multiple b+j's pints, and then a tromp across the avenue for dancing at the 700 club.
(also there was a part where i set up a sound art installation of "Since U Been Gone" playing on loop on two computers on separate floors, initially spaced a bar apart but gradually separating further b/c i guess it took the one that was accessing it thru the shared network longer to restart. so that it sounded awesome[st] if you sat on the stairwell. for some reason, i really enjoy, maybe perversely but not just academically, listening to two or more musics at once. it might have to do with the satisfying dissonance between the perseverant intentionality of recorded pop and the aleatoric but elegant abstractness [er, abstract concrète;?] this sometimes method teases out. case in point, simultaneous things we lost in the fire and congotronics, which somehow renders the latter's freneticism supremely mellow, and vice versa, almost. that's why i'm getting a three-channel mixer, for home stereo use.)
okay, so the 700 club. best dancing in a really long time. all smiles and mariachi. we finally got this thing to work (it was the game). we were there i guess two and a half hours, and stayed to close it (specifically, ben and amelia and me. i don't really like linking to people that way, as if i had been dancing not with people but with internet entities, but i thought it might be fun, this time.) towards the end (specifically, at the precise moment "kiss" came on) my glasses flew off my sweat-slicked face and into the sudden blurriness of the dancefloor.
despite some potentially treacherous feeling around on the nearby floor, and much flashlighting of cellphones, we didn't locate them until lights-up (if by we you mean they, seeing as how i couldn't see), after a pleasantly surreal (on my part) final couple turns. they were predictably rather the worse for having been trampled by dancers for twenty minutes or so: the metal frame severely mangled, flattened, the temple joints hyper-extended, though still in one piece (though one of the nose-pieces broke off in the provisional mending attempt); lenses popped out and dramatically gouged in places. it was rather amusing, actually. and basically fine considering that i've been badly needing a new pair anyway.
in any case, it was totally worth it. i can't remember the last time i've had such a successful night of dancing in a club. (no, not that kind of success.) i guess it was evident because i got a lot of compliments and come-dance-with-me!s, from girls and boys, but most amusingly this tall dude who engaged me in post-ironic dance-offs three or four times - man, he even came at me during "the safety dance," what's up with that? - but i think the best was our impromptu roshambo to "we will rock you" (tho, wtf, dj?) the deejay was pretty good - lots of smooth clean transitions, some surprisingly effective '70s am selections ("i feel the earth move"), although he cut out too early on a lot of things ("all that she wants," "all around the world", "like a friend.") i'm so eager to get djing again! it was definitely paces-on-a-good-night hightimes.
right, i was going to say, except the previous night, which was also an awesome dancing night, at the of montreal show. kids is crazy! they totally played the all-hits set - kicking off with "alabee" "o.m.m.2" "disconnect" "the party's crashing us" and i was like, how can they possibly keep it up like this, but they did! one major dance smash after another, unrelentant and unrepentant, and also everything they played was from the last two records, except for the first song and the last one, which the comely young thing pon my right says is from aldhills. i guess that pretty much means those are two good albums. sunlandic is overdue for a reassessment - my initial plaints that a couple of brilliant pop songs do not a brilliant pop album make grows a bit too academic in the face of those particular brilliant pop songs, even if the context is wonky. which is maybe why this review does it a sort of justice despite only referring to five tracks, conveniently the best/only songs of the album. the actually keen part is where she paints "the party's crashing us" as a "summer sex anthem". the lyrics are a tiny bit obscurant (or just low-in-the-mix?) for that to totally work, but in general, yeah. g.p. "you fucked the suburbs out of me" is pretty brilliant. live, i was about ready for it to incite a church-basement orgy. maybe if it had come a little later in the set.
sort of silly to write about it, but in summa the set was a big blazing hamsterball of singalongs, handclaps, pogoing, rock fists and so forth. i know this is backwards, but the opening band, MGMT were also really fun, enough so that i bought their ep. and so was jamaican jerk hut dinner beforehand with martha and little-freshman-friend/cothren-lookalike (!) dermott and live student jazz in the gazebo (!!). and so was seeing rob cox at the concert, even though he's spost be in d.c. what hell! yeah that's right, i bought all their ep.
today i'm still here and there is another party (big ups louisa and marty birthday all-day houseweirding potluck, which seems like it's going to be huge and i'm going to probably know more people than is reasonable.) i will consider it to be the case that i have in fact already moved to northern liberties, and i just have to go pick up my stuff in a couple days. i got boxes now. and a big pink crate!
||:again and again and again and again and again....:||
