en http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/ Thu, 1 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 Thu, 1 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 60 http://www.audioscrobbler.net/data/webservices http://www.last.fm/user/UncleGropey/journal The Last.fm journal for UncleGropey. Last.fm journals are a place to talk about all things music. http://www.last.fm/user/UncleGropey/journal/2012/12/01/5ombyp_my_first_jounal_in_over_4_years_u_must_read!!! Sat, 1 Dec 2012 04:30:54 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/UncleGropey/journal/2012/12/01/5ombyp_my_first_jounal_in_over_4_years_u_must_read!!! Suzanna Hoffs was fuckin hot.
bangles
hoffs
80s]]> http://www.last.fm/user/UncleGropey/journal/2008/07/15/22jxop__review:_morris_day_and_the_time_@_winstar_casino_ee_oh_ee_oh Tue, 15 Jul 2008 21:56:22 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/UncleGropey/journal/2008/07/15/22jxop__review:_morris_day_and_the_time_@_winstar_casino_ee_oh_ee_oh Time: 8 pm, July 12
Place: Winstar Casino, Thackerville, OK
Mission: Walk, Bird, and Oak Tree with Morris Day and The Time



Accepting this mission was no hard decision for Guirrel and me, and upon arrival in theatre, we quickly parked, procured entrance papers ($20 apiece), hit our respective port-a-potties (ewww), and staked out a base in General Admission behind all the attendees who had brought their own lawn chairs (this was pretty well everyone but us), but who needs to sit down when Morris is on stage? Nobody, that’s who.

But it turns out that after 30 minutes of a karaoke warm-up act that includes some guy who sounds like Biz Markie singing Easy Like Sunday Morning, apparently you need to sit down so badly that some event staff guy walks up and offers you free passes into the VIP area where there are chairs, because that’s when some event staff guy walked up and offered us free passes into the VIP area where there were chairs. Sweet, now instead of being back by the control board guys, we were 6 rows from the center of the stage just in time for Morris Day and The Time to take the stage…

There are few performers as cool as Morris Day, and none cooler. The man is, in fact, so cool that he even has a song titled, um, “Cool”, and this is how the show opened. During the song, to emphasize how utterly and devastatingly cool not only Morris, but the whole freaking situation is, the audience spells “cool” in sign language. What could be cooler than that?

What could be cooler than that?

Next up, the mandatory couple of songs from the new album… but they weren’t too long. They weren’t that bad. And then they were over so that the real stuff could be gotten to. Stuff like:

The Oak Tree - this song’s corresponding dance involves sticking your hands out like you are yourself an oak tree. Not a fir, not an ash. You are a god damned oak tree, motherfucker.

777-9311 - the title of the song is a phone number. I believe this predates Tommy Tutone, and if it doesn’t… fuck Tommy Tutone.

The Walk - the dance for this song is kind of hard to do in the crowd, because as you may have guessed, it involves walking (hard to do in a sea of people). Also this is the song that inspired me to get into wearing Stacy Adams shoes, and I couldn’t be more appreciative.

My Drawers - A personal favorite of mine, also one of the Jay and Silent Bob movies features Jay singing the bit that goes “Whose drawers? MY drawers!”

Gigalos Get Lonely Too - The only slow song of the set, it is a sobering look at the loneliness level of giggalos. Not to be confused with Juggalos, who are bound to be several, several times more lonely than that.

The Bird - Easily more outrageous than the Oak Tree or The Walk, this dance demands the spreading of the arms to full length and flapping them up and down like a condor, and, as I personally learned, if you are the only honkey doing this in a sea of black folks, those black folks will buckle over and laugh mightily as they grab their neighbors and point at you.

Yes, for a few magical moments, I was more entertaining than Morris.

Of course, the last song in a Morris Day And The Time show is always Jungle Love, and buildup involves getting the whole crowd chanting “O EE O EE O” over and over for quite some time before the song begins, and if you are my friend Seeth, that’s what’s going on in that voicemail I left you. Of course the song is nailed, and everyone goes wild…

As the show ended, I was left with even more admiration for Morris and the band… these guys did a live show and danced all around for an hour and a half on what had been a 100 degree day, in zoot suits! I was pretty hot just being there in a t-shirt, and these guys were wearing zoot suits!

They are probably full of freezer packs or something.]]> http://www.last.fm/user/UncleGropey/journal/2008/06/03/209tqu_fuck! Tue, 3 Jun 2008 05:19:17 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/UncleGropey/journal/2008/06/03/209tqu_fuck! Just... FUCK!]]> http://www.last.fm/user/UncleGropey/journal/2007/09/29/1c5_review:_the_warrant,_firehouse,_and_slaughter_show,_or,_where_the_downs_syndrome_boys_go Sat, 29 Sep 2007 04:13:05 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/UncleGropey/journal/2007/09/29/1c5_review:_the_warrant,_firehouse,_and_slaughter_show,_or,_where_the_downs_syndrome_boys_go So, I sat down last night in my favorite poker room for some hold'em action, and wtf happens but a floor person came up and dropped some tickets on our table for the "Metal Mania" show the following evening... they were meant to be put into the next pot to be won by some lucky hold'em player, except for that the table was full of old men... and myself.

Needless to say, I was the only one at that table (and probably in the whole damned room) that actually wanted those tickets. It was agreed therefore, that they were just mine.

Flash-forward to the next evening: Guirrel and I arrive in the Choctaw Coliseum parking lot to see... a whole hell of a lot of empty parking spots. Like, a WHOLE lot of them.

At Cirque de Sole, we had to park damned near out on the highway. For Warrant, Firehouse, and Slaughter, we got to park damned near in the handicapped spaces by the front door. This is not an exaggeration. They did not even bother turning on the spritzing fountain outside for this event.

As we stood in the lobby (as they had not yet opened the gates to enter), we could not help but notice:

(a) there were damned few people waiting to get in
(b) of those people, most of them were either fat, had a mullet, had a stupid shirt, were middle-aged, or some combination thereof
(c) I was probably the drunkest person in the whole place. In fact, I may have been the ONLY drunk person in the whole place. How lame. It's supposed to be a rock concert.

Flash forward 30 minutes: we are seated in our comp'd seats waaay in the back, I have a newly-aquired (and highly-visible) chili dog stain on my shirt, and the lights go down as we prepare for... the best band of the evening... Warrant!

We were prepared for a laugh-fest, but... damn. Warrant still brings it. Seriously!

It's not the original lineup, but the main Warrant guy is there, and there's a new 18-year-old lead guitarist... he shreds. Absolutely fucking shreds. You should see him, I can't do justice with words... and the best thing is, they do almost nothing but old hits... no trying to sell some new CD that no one wants to hear.

Warrant gets it, and they DO deliver. So, needless to say, the set lasts about 45 minutes.

YAY!

About 20 minutes into the Warrant portion of the night, it becomes apparant that no more than about 300 (yes, 300) THIS IS SPARTA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1 people are going to show up in a facility that holds probably 10,000, so the event staff filter through all the cheap (read: comp'd) seats and hand out tickets for floor-level access. This is very cool, sez I. Yarrrr.

So, here Guirrel and I find ourselves floor level for the main meat of the Warrant show, having paid $0 to get in in the first place. Is that a deal, or what?

After yelling along to the rest of the Warrant songs, the band leaves and it's time to change the stage, re-do the stuff, and get the next band on, so it was time for a quick trip, get-your-hand-stamped and go to the parking lot, for a 3 beer slamming break and then back inside, where we were back in plenty of time for...

Firehouse

Sigh.

Fucking Firehouse.

You wanna talk about a buzz-killer? I already mentioned that the next band was Firehouse.

We spent the next 45 minutes heckling these faggots from the back of the floor, garnering a couple of laughs from the drink girl who was parked back there next to us.

They had a special drapery with their logo printed on it, designed in MS Gothic Copperplate to create a layer of lameness on top of lameness, sandwiched between a slab of lameness, a slab of more lameness, and coated in a sheen of gay.

God dammit.

I'd like to finish this concert review with a glowing re-telling of how great Slaughter was, but fucking Firehouse wouldn't stop playing their sucky suck-ness. It became time to leave. Bigime.

Highlight of the evening: walking back to our respective pissers, we just happened to get about 5 paces behind the Warrant guy, who had a security guard walking him backstage... if I wasn't kind of (very) drunk at that moment, I'd have had the presence of mind to call out and get him to do a photo, which I think he'd have probably done with us, but it just didn't strike my mind to do it until it was too late.

Missed opportunities...

Bottom line: Warrant still gets the job done, Firehouse still tries hard, but just doesn't have any songs that don't suck, and Slaughter still does shows. But I don't know if they're any good becaue shit, nothing is worth sitting through a Firehouse set.

-UG]]> http://www.last.fm/user/UncleGropey/journal/2007/05/04/1c4_looks_like_the_cool_people_are_leaving... Fri, 4 May 2007 00:47:37 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/UncleGropey/journal/2007/05/04/1c4_looks_like_the_cool_people_are_leaving... So Wingus and TehEmoPhag are leaving, mbatterham is semi-gone, and Jazz13 says she needs a break...

Who, who, I ask you, is going to entertain me with their smarmy, derisive wit? deaddoglover may remain, I guess, and although he hardly fails to entertain, he eventually infuriates as well, and then I'd just wind up calling him a little bitch, and then what's left?

What's left then?

DDL will probably take off with Wingus anyway, since they are pretty well the same person, at least figuratively if not literally.

Am I to now use last.fm as a personal music chart and new music discovery site, but no longer as a supremely entertaining social networking site?

Maybe this is my excuse to stop frantically refreshing my reply tracker, 24/7, with only brief naps and restroom visits... ok I never quite did that. cough cough.

Still sucks, though.]]> http://www.last.fm/user/UncleGropey/journal/2007/03/24/1c3_cats_and_invisible_objects Sat, 24 Mar 2007 02:35:47 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/UncleGropey/journal/2007/03/24/1c3_cats_and_invisible_objects






Why do a journal dedicated to this subject on a music site?

Because I had fuck-all else to do.

Please, add your cat and invisible thing pics, because, well, how could you ever have too many of those?]]> http://www.last.fm/user/UncleGropey/journal/2007/01/21/1c2_morris_day_is_cool Sun, 21 Jan 2007 03:50:44 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/UncleGropey/journal/2007/01/21/1c2_morris_day_is_cool

Well, he is.]]> http://www.last.fm/user/UncleGropey/journal/2006/09/15/1c1_a_stolen_story_about_flock_of_seagulls Fri, 15 Sep 2006 20:33:51 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/UncleGropey/journal/2006/09/15/1c1_a_stolen_story_about_flock_of_seagulls I swiped this from my bro's myspace blog...

So I see on Wikipedia that A Flock of Seagulls has its own myspace page; It has much in common with the 2 G's From 8 page. For instance, a picture of a guy with wild ass hair.I saw AFOS a few months ago with my wife Kathleen and our friend Brent. Did we first hear about the concert months in advance, buy tickets the minute they went online, and camp out in front of the venue? Nah.

We went to Jake's in Lubbock to play music trivia on a saturday night. About halfway through the game, Brent looked up and squinted at the marquee billboard and noticed that on that very night, A Flock of Seagulls was playing at 10:00! It was a little disappointing that we were the first in line. While we were waiting, I stood there and watched a guy play asteroids on a coin-op machine just outside the back room where they were playing. That's right: we were part of a progression AFOS made from heavy rotation on MTV to playing in the back room of a sports bar in Lubbock, Texas.

After we paid our $10 cover we went in and grabbed the front row center seat. No standing room only here; in fact, everyone got to sit at a table. It must be tragic for a band to go from playing sold-out stadiums to playing in a room where everone has room to put their own laptop and check email while waiting for a song they've heard before. While we waited, we saw the barbacks bring in at least two full sized coolers full of beer to the backstage area. That reminded me that I needed to drink some beer, and since they didn't come out until 11:00 I was pretty damn wasted by the time we heard the first note.

They haven't lost their savvy: confronted with the knowledge that once they played "I Ran" half the audience was going to leave, they didn't fucking play it until the last damn song of the set. That didn't keep me from calling my brother at 12:30 in the morning so he could listen.  He even made a blog post about it as it was happening. That's how happy he was to rock with the Flock.

Unfortunately, the only original member left in the band is the singer, but reverse-unfortunately, it would have been much more disappointing if the other members were all still there but he was gone. He still had fucked up looking hair, but instead of it being teased up so much that it looked like a literal seagull, he had it slicked back and tied in a pony tail. At least he still had the miniature keyboard that achieved fame in the video. He played it with all ten fingers this time; I was a little nostalgic for the time when he only knew how to use the middle finger of his left hand while tickling those ivories. Oh well, at least we're the only ones I know of who have seen AFOS in concert.  Was it worth the $10 admission and my ears ringing for 2 days afterward? I guess.]]>