one of those life-affirming shows where there are only 20 people there, but you just know that your musical world will never be the same...

Ladies and Gentlemen, my new all-time favorite band, straight outta Toronto - the latest assault from Paper Bag Records on our unuspecting lucky ears - Magneta Lane!  Although I prefer the hookier poppier sounds of their Constant Lover EP over the DFA '79 produced full length Dancing With Daggers live the new songs are played with such goddamn aplomb that they had be at the first count off.  Punchier than The Like and more immediate than Giant Drag, and don't even get me started on The Donnas, Magneta Lane are going to stake their claim the closest of their contemporaries to Sleater-Kinney and The Runaways .

bon nuit stand

So I have never been prouder of a friend as I was of Audrey AKA Miss Melody Nelson - at her Le One Night Stand party themed as a tribute to her hero Serge Gainsbourg - who after an admittedly twitch-inducing opening song, absolutely ripped a lovingly blistering set of French pop ditties - an incredibly perfect and so intimately personal feat that would be akin to me dyeing my hair blonde and dreading it.  Also, les mad props to Die Romantik for setting a pitch perfect backdrop for her jaw dropping performance.

le coupe de foudre

So though it's been a year since I visited there, since I will be traveling to Prague in a month, I figured I'd finally get these photos of the European city I left my heart in, Budapest. 

It was actually a spur of the moment afterthought of an idea at the time.   I was on holiday in Vienna at the time and taking a page from Before Sunrise but in reverse. 

I didn't know too much about the place, so unlike Vienna, in which I had all the Klimt paintings and the landmarks from the aforementioned movie to look forward to, I had no expectations of Budapest, except some  vague notion of Hungarian goulash.  Though mine and my partner in travel Jenny's first experience was a dubious one (being accosted by an endless stream of shady cab drivers who promised to take us to 'cheap' hotels), after we settled into our extremely posh for the price suite, it took little time to be taken in and aback by the sheer grandeur and striking beauty of the place.  The people, the architecture, the river, - though not the water (smelled like sulfur) - was absolutely breathtaking. 

Being in the teen years so to speak of post-Communist capitalism, random retail experiences - waiting 15 minutes for a Royale with Cheese and a Mickey D's and having to explain 'absinthe' through pantomime at a liquor store - were taxing, but for the most part, much to our pleasure and surprise, the locals engaged in way above average English in the most charming of near Transylvanian accents.

budapest, hungary february 2005 

me likey

"Look
Look at them go
Thinking they know
Are they sure?
Cruel
Cruel are their ways
Numbered their days
You can't repay
Watch
Watch as they run
The race has been won
They're dying to play
You
Watching their crying
Checking their time
As slowly they die"

-  The Like, 'Mrs. Actally'

So last night at The Knitting Factory whilst watching The Like - IT happened - The IT that I'd forever wondered exactly when and how it would manifest - like a light switch or a dimmer?  Well, like a light switch it was, BANG - IT being the moment that I realized my age (32) at a show.  And contrary to appearances it this realization wasn't spurred by the incredibly talented trio of ladies on stage, it instead was the sea of middle-aged pervs older than me forming a barrier reef of lasciviousness that proved to be my catalyst.  Basically, while doing the old semi-polite get the front photographer's dance I stared into the abyss and it stared back at me and I very quickly came to the conclusion that at 32 I still had time to save myself and no way was I gonna be one of these balding bespeckeled dudes in a few years.  It's like, "Hey!  I'm here for the MUSIC, buddy!"  Although, I have to admit that as the same person who at 19 gave a understandably frightened Sarah Shannon a single rose at a show at Rutgers, I felt the strange unease of empathy when one of the aforementioned sickos gave them a box of chocolates no doubt laced with roofies (kidding, I actually have no idea what they were laced with).

Speaking of the music, for all the undeserved flak they take for whatever reason, The Like can and do flat out rip their respective instruments.  Yeah they've had great teachers and role models and their relatively short lifetimes around music, but hell, of your folks were in the biz, and you wanted to be in a band, well I'd take full advantage of their knowledge as well.  The proof is in the pudding of their live show comprised of very strong and tight pop songs chock full of hooky hooks, heavy basslines, and crisp beats that belie their ages but reflect their 5 years of existence as a band.

the like 

what a drag

"meow meow meow

MEOW"

- Giant Drag, 'Kevin Is Gay'

Over the past three years, there has been one constant in my life.  Through sea changes in career, residence, loves, and hates, it's been Annie Hardy of Giant Drag's straight yet tangent seeking insightful non-sequitious stage banter that has been a rock of dependability like Old Faithful.

I wish I had an mp3 to share with you, because these jagged little nuggets of wisdom and sexual disclosure are as good a 2 minute experience as many of you will ever have.

giant drag november 10, 2005 @ bowery ballroom, nyc, ny 

longing and love

"You poop into my butt hole and I poop into your butt hole... back and forth... forever."

- Robbie, Me and You and Everyone We Know

So the coolest thing happened as I was waiting for the stars of our stellastarr* photo shoot, and no it didn't involve the squirrel.  So I was standing on the steps across from the fountain (for those of you familiar with The Park, it's the one near the Boathouse, for those who aren't, oh well) and this English chap and his hot blonde American girlfriend amble by basking in the sun and their love before the inevitable literal and figurative blizzard to come.  And I knew they weren't married because said English chap asks me to take a photo of them and he says, "make it good 'cuz I'm gonna propose to her."  To mask my feelings of flabbergast I retort, "Well, I AM a professional."  Anyways, I was actually incredulous and in awe of witnessing an actual chance at happiness occurring 10' in front of me.  So it was a good sized rock, she said yes, and tempted as I was to ask them to stay and be the co-stars of our imminent shoot, I knew that they most surely has other places they wanted to be at the moment.  As it turned out it was a good omen for the rest of the day as you can see....

random v-day photos

downing burning dreaming...

"...waiting, hoping for a sign that what's forbidden can be mine.
I just want what I can't have 'til my dreams burn down and choke me every time.

She's effortlessly cool but circumstances can be cruel.
And sometimes you must accept that you can't get what you want.
We fill up our days and nights.  We fill up the gaps in our empty little lives.
But we know we are doomed the moment we walk out the room."

- Ride, 'Dreams Burn Down'

The above lyrics are from a gorgeously poignant and right to the goddamn point summary in song of my past year of achievements assuaged by addictions, visions distraught with delusions, obsessions heightened by compulsions, brushes with the famous haunted with ghosts from the past, and love fettered by fear (and for fuck's sake all that melodramatic prose actually took place one late summer evening with me, Mark Gardener, Evan Dando, and some mutual friends - but that's a story I can only tell you if I know you).

More than that, the singular event that has propelled and catalyzed me to for real head on crash ethan frome like back into the world of beauty that used to hurt me with the sheer magnitude of it in the music and people I was fortunate enough to be immersed in since 1999 was my (still) hero James Fuckin' Frey who while I was reading and crying and extolling the brilliance of his two works, I let down in hypocritically pursuing with aplomb the life he worked so hard to put in the early morning stumbling out of clubs at sunrise rear view mirror.  Now he's fucked and being flogged and I'm pissed the fuck off at the hypocrites doing the stoning, and though I can't bitch-slap Oprah and her millions of sheep, I can pay him homage and get back down to the real essence of things here - truth in beauty - which is exactly where his words bored a hole into by substance-addled brain but stayed there dormant and numb until now.

Lily, Leonard, She with the Arctic Eyes - whether or not they ever "were" we may never know, but I do know that the ideals they represent exist in all of our hearts, well those of us who have them - and I used to spend 20 hours a day incessantly capturing these truths in dark and loud clubs, electric city streets, and on rooftops and apartments of people I loved. 

Like I said, there was so much goddamn beauty in my everyday life, that not only did I take it for granted, but learned to deal with the pain (think runner's high) that it caused me - until I stopped and found other ways of dealing with all of the above - and none of these methods containing any shred of aesthetic appeal (though Maker's bottles each have a unique wax drip top).

Anyways, I'm back - "What would James Frey do?"  Hell he's gonna make a movie with Brad Pitt as him (yeah, huh?).  Well I'm gonna get back to doing what made me, me.  When one thinks about it, there's no better way to be true to oneself - no matter how stranger one's life is than fiction or vice-versa.

First up of my retrospective of my year of burnt dreams (hey I still took lots o' pics, just didn't do anything with them) is - hell why the fuck not - Pagoda featuring Michael Pitt from Pianos from June 15, 2005.

pagoda (michael pitt solo) june 15, 2005 @ pianos, nyc, ny