My kids were up at my parents for a couple days so Liz and I got to go out and enjoy an evening. After an over priced meal at Mamacitas we headed to the No Name bar to see some punk rock. The clean bar, basketball game on the TV and Independent hoodies bought at the mall didn’t bode well for the “punk” element, but it’s actually a fun low key bar.

Clearly Liz was hyped.

I was stuck with her while it looked like my friends were having fun in the back corner.

Not much effort involved in this band photo. They did kill it though. As did Have Gun, Will Travel.

Jason taking photos of the Samsonites +1.

I was unaware that it was hat night. Jason was repping an old one.

But these guys had apparently just hit up Pac Sun.

Headband and a white russian drink = The Dude.

We had a lot of fun that night. Black Dot’s are really good. So stoked they are making shows like this happen in Boulder. Keep up the good work!

Alright, first things first, if you like Broken Social Scene don’t read this. I have no idea why you would like them, but if you do, move along. I’ll also add a disclaimer that I was in a horrible mood all day leading up to the show.  I would never have gone, but Jack went through the effort of getting me on the list so I had to go.  Thanks Jack!!!! I really don’t know much about Broken Social Scene other then the main dude Kevin plays on the new J Mascis album.  I figured they must be pretty good then.  Things started looking up when we found out the No Love crew was in the house!

These dudes are rad.

Plus whenever you are hanging with Fuzz and Leslie you are pretty much guaranteed a good time.  Top it off with lots of lyrics where the band yells “NULL!” and you got the making of something sick.

We were right by the sound booth and the sound was great.

They even had a pretty cool stage, but unfortunately I knew the show was going to suck the second the main singer came out in a poofy winter jacked pumping his fist like he was in Wu Tang.  Add a couple of annoying girls jumping around like idiots and bumping into Leslie and things were looking grim.  They had four guitarists on stage and yet the guitaring wasn’t powerful.

The brief cover of U2’s “With Or Without You” put me over the edge and Leslie, Fuzz and I agreed we’d had enough of this band.  I really don’t see what people see in them.  They were boring, the lyrics were cheesy and their stage presence would be better suited for an arena rock show.

Oh, and yes, they were selling Boring Social Scene scarves.  Wow.

One night after seeing a show filled with under 20 year old hipsters I found myself going to see Sebadoh – a 90s indie rock icon.  The crew was Ric, Brian, Maria, John, Zach and I and the place was filled with other aging indie rock nerds.  Quasi opened and they were awesome.  I enjoyed them more when the singer would play guitar, but they were good when he was on piano too.  Well, what’s left of the piano after he kicked it a bunch on the last song.Sebadoh was spectacular.  Click the photo above to go to Reverb magazine for more cool photos and big words describing how radical the show was.  On top of playing great musically they also proved that they are still socially awkward when interacting with the crowd.  Especially Jason.  That guy is crazy.  I love it!  Anyways it looks like they’re basically playing the same setlist every night and I found this one from Seattle’s show:

• 1 Intro
• 2 On Fire
• 3 Dreams
• 4 Too Pure
• 5 Soul and Fire
• 6 Sister
• 7 Shit Soup
• 8 Mind Reader
• 9 Got It
• 10 I Love To Fight
• 11 Drag Down
• 12 Magnets Coil
• 13 Ocean
• 14 Skull
• 15 Rebound
• 16 License to Confuse
• 17 Drama Mine
• 18 Nothing Like You
• 19 Crystal Gypsy
• 20 Careful
• 21 Beauty of the Ride
• 22 Not a Friend
• 23 Together or Alone
• 24 Forced Love
• 25 Sixteen
• 26 Give Up
• 27 Junk Bonds
• 28 New Worship
• 29 Brand New Love
• 30 Worst Thing
• 31 Not Too Amused
• 32 Willing to Wait

John gets the nerd award having successfully guessed the first song and was able to name the most tunes after hearing only the first note of the song.  Brian and Maria left early.  Ric almost puked in my car.  Zach used to make fun of me for liking indie rock instead of just punk rock.  They were charging $20 for a one color t-shirt and Lou was proud of it.  Some dork got called out for the first Dinosaur Jr request of the tour (and no it wasn’t me come on I know they wouldn’t be able to play it good anyways ha). All in all a fun night and they must have played good because I’ve been listening to Sebadoh ever since.Looks like there is lots of youtube clips of the show.

Thanks to The Mighty LZA Valentines Day has been one of my favorite holidays over the years.  This one was no exception.  Liz likes Wavves quite a bit.  I do to some degree.  We both really like seeing live music so going to the Fox was an easy date for us.  We started things off with a good wholesome family dinner (pot roast) then Liz and I headed out and had a couple beers before the show at Abos.After walking in to the Fox I saw the ultra trendy Wavves shirt with an upside down cross.  Really?  After I asked the merch booth if Wavves was satanic (they knew it was a joke) we went in to check out the first band.The first band was called No Love.  They obviously love My Bloody Valentine.  They were good, loud and played hard.  Probably actually the best band of the night.Wavves came out with face makeup on.  I’m not sure if they were going for a Kiss or clown look, but it was sweated off pretty quickly.  Not that you can see it from the crappy cell phone picture anyway.I’m not going to lie and say I was overly impressed with Wavves.  They weren’t able to reproduce the same quality noise that’s on their albums, they messed up songs, and every song was played faster then the recorded versions (this isn’t always bad).  They did bring a lot of energy though.  I think they are the NOFX of indie noise rock.  You know, it’s a good entry level band, but once you figure out they don’t have all that much talent you move on.  But who am I to say?  I’m just old and this show made me feel old.  Good thing I’m going to Sebadoh tonight, there will be lots of old people!  Oh, and does anyone else think the chord progression in Wavves song “Idiot” is a complete rip off of Dinosaur Jr’s “Freakscene”?Last up was Best Coast.  I didn’t know much about them, but a few songs in were all I needed.  They are decent, but it’s not something I’ll ever get into.  I listened to enough Letters To Cleo back in the 90s.All in all a fun night.  Liz is the best.

On October 28th, Carleigh, Fuzz and I met up with John and Rebecca at the Bluebird for some Thermals fun. Carleigh, Fuzz and I missed the opening bands due to an extremely fun session at the Broomfield park. That band has never disappointed. Every show has been completely awesome and this one was no exception. Apparently Fuzz and I even chest pumped to show our appreciation:Or maybe Fuzz just wanted to be closer to his shop’s shirt. Either way we all had a blast, the new stuff sounded great, they even played When We Were Alive and I went over my 7 beer weekly limit for the first time in 3 months. Yippee!

It’s been awhile since this show happened, but one thing or another and it took awhile to get this online.  Anyways, the night began at Fuzz’s favorite ska venue 3 Kings Tavern.  We were there to see my friend Zach’s band Straighten The Crooked open for some ska music that we would later have to pull Fuzz away from.  I was to shoot some video for for them to put up on youtube.  Unfortunately as soon as they went on stage 3 Kings shut off most of the lights and there wasn’t much light to film.  After filming one song I snapped these photos, but they didn’t come out too well either.  The show was sick though.  They have gotten tighter and a better stage presence.  So stoked.  Did I tell you I’m friends with the singer in the band?  Whew!   Both Carleigh and Fuzz blogged about the show too.  Well, maybe not so much about the show, but at least about how you can get socks in the vending machine at 3 Kings.Zach killing it on the bass.  After Straighten The Crooked we bolted over to the Larimer Lounge because I wanted to see The Henry Clay people.  A little band I didn’t know much about other than their new album is really fun rock ‘n roll.  We got there with plenty of time and ended up seeing an opening band called The Dig.  They started out pretty good, but by the end of their set none of us were feeling them.  They’ve got some potential for sure, who knows if they’ll fulfill it.I had taken enough “professional” photos already so I left my camera in the car allowing me to take such high quality photos as the one above.  Henry Clay people came on and immediately began rocking the house.  Lots of energy, lots of fun.  I figured they’d be pretty good live, but they exceeded all expectations.  As the show progressed it became evident that once again, an opening band at the Larimer would act like idiots, pretend they owned the floor and throw ice cubes at the headliner.  I don’t know if the Larimer requires this, but either way it’s annoying.  Henry Clay People took it in stride though.  In fact I don’t think a smile ever left the singers face.  I might even say that I’ve never seen a band have that much fun on stage.  They played most of the new album and quite a few covers.  Lou Reed, Op Ivy, Bruce Springsteen and closed with Neil Young.  I loved the covers.  I loved that it annoyed the hipsters.  They played them great.  The show was awesome.  Good times Rock ‘N Roll.  Everything and more I want to see in a show.  This band is awesome.

John and I went pretty late on a Sunday night.  I stopped off at an apartment on the way and bought a Beatles Rock Band kit from a craigslist ad.  So hyped for that!  Ha, it’s one of the first times we are way ahead of the schedule on her birthday gift.Anyways, we missed a couple opening bands, but on came local band Pacific Pride.  I had listened to some tunes on myspace and thought they sounded decent.  They had some weird stage props that weren’t really even worth shooting photos of.  It seemed like all of their friends came to the show and they were all the overly hipster dancer types.Neither John or I were very impressed.   A couple song sounded ok to me, and they were clearly having fun, but for the most part it was boring and contrived.  Maybe they didn’t put much effort in because it seemed like John and I were the only ones there not in one of the bands that played.Poison Control Center came out blasting. I took pretty much all of these photos within the first two songs. It was insane. They were doing acrobatics on stage and going crazy. There was so much energy it was almost overkill.Yes, they were seriously doing shoulder stands and not losing a note.I’ll give them some credit they managed to keep it up throughout their set.I was kinda hoping at some point the drummer would play with his feet or something, but nope, he just kept it real.This dude only took breaks from doing the splits, shoulder stands or whatever this is to sing.See, the splits! Ouch!Whoa, they were all just standing there like a normal rock band!John thought this guy was an ultra hipster. I figured he was just a Iowa music dork. After seeing him dance for a whole song I’m pretty sure I was right.Some dudes from Pacific Pride jumped on stage at one point and air guitar’d while PCC did acrobatics. What is the world coming to?To sum it up, wow, what a show. Sure it made for lots of interesting photos and conversation, but did they really need to do acrobatics to sell these songs? No, they sounded pretty good as is. Sure it was exciting, I’ll give it that. And some of it was awesome, but everysong was over kill. I was also bummed on the lack of songs off the new album. Only two songs when your on tour to support a new album is whack. No one manning the merch booth is whack too.I promise to take better photos if I bring my camera again. You have no idea how shy I am when it comes to shooting photos of non skate stuff.

My third in show in little over a week. Also the third show in a row I didn’t have even a single beer. Weird. Anyways, Liz and I rolled in shortly before the opening band Free Energy. I had heard nothing about them before listening to some songs of theirs on myspace early that day. After what I heard I should have known better, but we don’t like just seeing only one band.This band was bad. Really really bad. Somehow they had a large following.Lots of them wore headbands.Or they were parents.Even some Ultimate Fighters in the house. It was seriously the weirdest crowd.Killing some time during the sucking we rolled back to the merch booth and noticed their name was wrong on their own 7 inch. That’s funny! The scary part was that the members of Titus Andronicus came out to play the Springsteen cover with Free Engery and it was also really bad. Liz and I were definitely a bit worried for Titus at that point.Titus Andronicus eventually arrived on stage. It started about as epic as one can imagine. A drunken fan recited the opening speech from The Monitor and stage dived into the crowd as the band exploded into “A More Perfect Union”. I haven’t witnessed a band get on stage and blow me away that quickly in a long time. The giant turd left in the air by Free Engery was defeated immediately. Thank god. Titus Andronicus went on to play one of the best shows I have ever seen. Tons of energy throughout, great setlist, great stage presence, it was loud, the sound was good, the crowd was very into it, everything you need for a great show. They came off more punk rock then I would have thought with lots of fist pumping anthems being yelled by the crowd. The ender “Four Score And Seven” was so intense and powerful that I actually hoped the show was done. No encore. That song burned the house down. Totally epic set.Lastly, sorry once again for the crappy cell phone photos. But if I brought my nice camera I’d feel obligated to spend my time trying to get the perfect photo instead of just enjoying the show.

Liz and I bought our Pavement tickets a long time ago when somebody thought that somehow they would sell out the 1st Bank Arena in Broomfield.  Yeah right.  Months later and the show got moved to a way better venue – The Ogden.  The same place that Liz and I had seen Pavement multiple times in the 90s.  Perfect.  After dropping off our kids at some friends we rolled to the Ogden with our neighbors and got to the venue plenty early.Jenny and Johny were up first.  Jenny Lewis is totally awesome, but Jenny and Johny aint so awesome.  Decent background opener music, but nothing as good as Jenny’s solo stuff.  Luckily they close with a Jenny Lewis song that totally killed it – The Next Messiah.(sorry for the crappy cell phone photo)The show was sold out so there was lots of hype when Pavement came out.  Looking about the same as they did back in the day they played for over two hours and pounded out a well rounded set from all their albums.  By the end of the first song No Life Signed Her the show was already worth the $30.  Here’s the whole setlist:

1. ? 
2. No Life Singed Her 
3. Shady Lane 
4. Kennel District 
5. Summer Babe (Winter Version) 
6. Frontwards 
7. Starlings of the Slipstream 
8. Cut Your Hair 
9. Father To A Sister Of Thought 
10. In The Mouth A Desert 
11. Silence Kit 
12. Trigger Cut/Wounded-Kite at :17 
13. The Hexx 
14. Stereo 
15. Date w/Ikea 
16. Gold Soundz 
17. Spit On A Stranger 
18. Unfair 
19. ? 
20. Range Life 
21. Fight This Generation 
22. Two States 
23. Stop Breathing 
24. Encore:
25. Lithium (Nirvana cover) 
26. Box Elder 
27. Fin 
28. Rattled By The Rush 
29. Our Singer

I stole this from setlist.fm and it seems accurate.  The show seriously ruled.  Everything about it was awesome.  The lights were a nice touch.  They played beyond all of our expectations.  They were funny like they used to be, and they seemed to know how to play music better.  Sorry you couldn’t make it Brian and sorry my reviews are so boring.

My groin injury was preventing me from skating so what better time to go to some concerts and enjoy a few cold ones?  The first show was High On Fire on 4/20.  Yeap.  On the hill in Boulder on 4/20.  Zach thought the metal music would keep the hippies away.  Nope.We may have missed the opening band, but the band that was on was bad enough we went to drink tall cans in the alley. Dave, Zach, Jason and PJ.Everyone went to this show.  Jason and Gordon.  I didn’t listen to much of Priestess.  What I heard reminded me of why I didn’t make an effort to hear them.High On Fire.  I’m not going to claim I was much of a fan before this show.  I thought after how much I enjoyed Tauntaun it would be worth it to see another metal band.  To say I was let down is an understatement.  I tried to enjoy them and I think during the encore I finally saw what people like about this band, but it wasn’t what I like in metal.  Not enough chords.  Not enough sludge/grunge.  A boring ass drummer.  Seriously, how can you have a boring drummer in a metal band?  Not enough big powerful riffs, etc.  Oh well, my friends that like them said the show was good so there you go.The next night Liz and I went back to the Fox to see White Rabbits.  We arrived early enough to see the opening act Here We Go Magic.  They were decent.  At times great.  They have the potential to be a really good indie rock band, but it’s not there yet.  Good opener though.White Rabbits came on and established immediately that they were gonna put on a fantastic show.  It’s funny how the drumming in a pop/indie rock band like White Rabbits could blow away the drumming from metal heads High On Fire.  It completely did though.  At times there would be 3 Rabbits beating the hell out of the drums.  It was amazing.  I’ve only mentioned the drums, but everything was on point.  The singing was perfection as well.During the encore most of Here We go Magic joined the Rabbits on stage.  Everyone was having a blast and the music was still kicking.  Yes, that is Beaver from Leave It To Beaver on the guitar.Look at all the dudes beating up the drums!  Show of the year so far!  Not only was the show so great, but it quickly established White Rabbits as a new favorite and a band I will never pass on seeing live again.A few nights later Liz, Carleigh, John and I went to see my friend Zach’s first ever show with his new band Straighten The Crooked.  I had heard some mp3s beforehand so I knew the show would be decent, but it ended up surpassing all expectations quickly.  The music is kinda like Kyuss or something.  Grungy metal or whatever you call it.  I was impressed with the bass and how it didn’t just play along with the guitar.  The whole show was more creative and impressive then I thought it would be and I went in with somewhat high expectation.  And yes I thought they were way better than High On Fire.   Kudos Zach!Liz and Carleigh thinking about the two hot dudes moshing by themselves and running into Zach’s parents.  Or maybe they were thinking about throwing their drinks at the barricade in front of the drums.Proof that Liz actually thought I was funny that night.  Unheard of.