In the words of Michael Stipe, "What the fuck, Peter Buck?"
Only one day into Buck's air rage trial, the judge discharged the jury with no damn reason given, abandoning those of us who were dying to find out exactly what happened when the R.E.M. guitarist lost his shit on that fateful British Airways flight last April. Buck pleads not guilty to the charge that he drank 15 glasses of wine, then wreaked havoc on the flight crew. According to a report from E! Online, prosecutor Edward Lewis said tour manager/It's My Party alum Bob Whitaker ("the Whitaburger") was also a part of the shenanigans, and told the court, "They acted like naughty children." The E! report also states that Buck allegedly offered the crew money after they refused to serve the band and its entourage additional booze. In terms of excellent rock star behavior, I say "good show"--but it must have been hell for everyone on the plane. Stay tuned for more details....
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Looks like I picked wrong weekend to hibernate. I thought my under-the-weather ass was covered, and that the folks who were designated to serve as my eyes and ears were up for the challenge. I finagled people onto guest lists. I lied and cheated to land tickets to impossibly sold-out shows. Short of laminating fake IDs and soliciting street urchins to do my job, I was absolutely positive I had the long weekend of shows (weekends do begin on Thursday nights, in case you didn't know) sufficiently patrolled, and that no hilarious stunt or misdeed would be conspicuously absent from this report.
Well, let's just start off by saying that a certain extra-lanky bass player who had been given tickets to the Weezer/Tenacious D/Jimmy Eat World show decided not to go after all, even though he had a job to do. All I can tell you about the concert is that neither Jack Black nor Rivers Cuomo showed up at the Cha Cha that night. Nor did they show up at Linda's. Nor did they show up at the fancy dinner paid for by the label that is courting said bass player.
As for the Give the People What We Want soirée, the Home Alive benefit celebrating the newly released disc on which several local bands pay tribute to the ever-influential Kinks, I can tell you that the Kwabs played, that Spencer Moody brought down the house with his Murder City Devil-less rendition of "Alcohol," and that a nervous Kim Warnick received the heartiest applause when she got up to sing one of the best tracks on the album, "Waterloo Sunset." After that, my people got wasted, and my report on that event ends with the speculation that a whole lot of cash was raised for Home Alive, because the Crocodile was sold out. I'm guessing that one or more of these folks showed up at the Cha Cha after the show.
Everybody's favorite guys to dress up as this past Halloween, At the Drive-In's Cedric and Omar, were in town to play two shows in two different bands. My people say both shows were packed, that not only did Mars Volta kick the shit out of the audience, but so did Defacto the very next day. How about Ugly Casanova? Excellent, I'm told--but I wonder how they know this to be a fact, because I heard from a very reliable tattletale that there was one hell of a raging dance party, complete with DJs and bartenders, going on at a certain private residence, and everyone who is anyone was in attendance (except for those of us who were hibernating).
The lesson to be learned here is that if you want something done right, you have to do it for yourself. I don't care if it's the middle of November, I declare it to be spring. Hibernating season is officially over.
