Arts and Krafts
In weeks like this past one it's a good thing to carry around a little black notebook. Otherwise I might've forgotten, say, that Saturday night started with running into a local Ramones tribute band called One, Two, Three, Four--pageboy-wigged and all--outside the Fun House. They were checking out a Ramones cover band and clearing up the not immediately obvious distinction between "cover" and "tribute" with the explanation, "It's simple. We live the life. That's the difference." Got it. From there, it was over to the Comet to see the elders of Golden Dawn before their Grateful Dead bar-rock jams scared me down the street to the monthly Muscle night at the Eagle, where DJs El Toro and Amateur Youth were jamming the dance floor with cuts from Missy Elliott, the Pointer Sisters, LCD Soundsystem, Jay-Z, and the Rapture, while a gyrating crowd of weekend hedonists lapped up hiphop and hipster tracks with equal enthusiasm. It was a more enthusiastic reception for the Rapture than their show at the Showbox earlier in the week; one friend aptly described that live performance as having been like "watching laser Wang Chung." (And speaking of going through the motions, Electric Six were blown out of the water--not a tough feat with them, I know--on Wednesday by the Hiss, an Atlanta act that sounds like what Jet would be if those Aussies smoked more pot, dropped the ballads, and concentrated more on Sabbath than the Stones.)
Earlier in the week, seminal electronic music engineers Kraftwerk entered the stage looking like four German bank tellers and left as Tron-styled musicbots, complete with white suits glowing with green lights while their heads turned shades of green and blue. With no opening act and two encores, Kraftwerk traveled the span of their impressive career before giant video screens that showed images of the Tour de France, coinciding with themes on their newest album. Best of all was when they returned from the first encore replaced by actual robots, who typed away at laptop consoles. Fans showed their enthusiasm not by holding up lighters, but, more appropriately, by holding up glowing cell phones in support.
Although the adage "Don't believe everything you read" shouldn't go for everything I write, last week I mistakenly repeated a false rumor. No, it's not about the Girls and lap dances, but about Billboard.com's report that author Charles Cross had sold the rights to his Kurt Cobain bio, Heavier Than Heaven, to teen-TV factory the WB. The news was false, making my quoting of it doubly so, so my apologies. Says Cross, "The WB may or may not be developing a movie about Cobain, but it's not based on my book and I've got nothing to do with their project. I haven't sold my screenplay rights to anyone; I've never had any conversation with anyone from the WB; and, for what it's worth, I've never even seen the WB network in my life."
