I like American music.
Yeah, so went to the Enmore Theatre last night. Got a bit drunk on a fine cleanskin Roche Shiraz and then had to stomach horrendous VB at the theatre. Even the service industry, uni student girl behind the bar laughed and agreed with me when I was like, “Fuckin VB? What the fuck?” I was at the Enmore to see the Violent Femmes (great photo on the home page, that is exactly what they look like). Did they rock my world? Ahuh, like they were all de-Kissed Gene Simmons singing like nerd-gods playing an extraordinary array of stringed bass instruments to produc a block of sensation like a massive tongue cleaning out my ear and tickling some erogeneous part of my brain. You know what I’m saying? Fuck yeah, that’s what.
The only other concert I have been to where I had known more songs was Offspring, and maybe Kiss, and possibly Van Halen, but none of those concerts had been events where I was encouraged, simply be my own enthusiasm, to push up my glasses, place my nerd hand on my nerd heart and sing along with the nerdest voice ever and on the whole planet (except for maybe the dude from They Might Be Giants, who I have also seen and had a nerd-off competition with one of my mates. The other nerds at the concert were pogo-ing with nerd-rage filled gusto and thought we were two of the most rocking nerds this side of the space station Babylon 5). What is it with nerd rock? Nerd rock with measures of teen-angst, middle-aged-angst, jazz, blues, blues-folk, rock-folk, folky-folk-folk, what the fuck is folk anyway? Nerd rock is for a generation, I know this because I am between the nerd rock of They Might Be Violent Femmes (or maybe just from USyd Gender Studies) and Blink one hundred and eighty two other bubblegum punk bands. Blink is so teenage angst nerd rock, but with consumptive 1970s Brit-punk overtones instead of jazz/folksy/rock/i’m-a-believer. Except to be cool you’d have to write it ‘nerrock’ and spell it with a z. A to the z. E to the 3.
Anyway, so, yeah. I had fun. Totally. Except for the VB. Fuck I hate VB. Don’t ever anyone ever buy me VB unless it is the last resort. Ever. Or you wanna piss me off and/or pay me back for some other indescression, well, so, ok, that would be cool, but I know when to hold ’em, when to fold ’em and when to walk away. I was rocking away last night. Like a drug addict withering away, I was rocked away, slowly, like a seduction, so I was totally into it. Yeah. So they played all the crowd pleasers, n3rrock angst t3as3rz, melody-rhythm squeezers, but nothing of Weezer’s, which didn’t disappoint any geezers. At least I don’t think it did.
Ok, so they look like rocking computer nerds, which is funny when rocking computer nerds look like punks or something. And this is exactly what they look like. The big dude in the middle was pretty funny hamming it up with rockstar-esque poses and shit even though he looks like a crack smoking rancher in this photo. And the little dude on the right is the singer, which explains the nerdiest nerd-nerd nature of his voice.
Yeah, so I heard The Violent Femmes when I was 14 and on some camp run by Rotary on personal leadership and leadership or some such ship. We had leaders and they were all sexy, nerded-up, wannabe-librarian mofo’s. One such snuwlm got us singing blister in the sun, ironically after I had been burnt by the sun the day before or something, so I smashed the piggy bank once back in black in the Balcatta ‘burbs to bust out Blister in the Sun on CD. SO I cranked the greatest hits or some shit like that. I remember the CD got thrashed, like totally milked, on O-Camp, at my first university experience.
Anyway, so I woke up at like 4am. What drugs am I on? Or not on? This is fucked. I have been reading some more of the After Subcultures book. Even though the articles have a terminal fascination for music and/or style subcultures it is getting better or maybe I am getting more patient with it. Fuckin VB.