Married To The Church

For better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health I go to shows at The Church. I go when I am broke. I go when I don’t even have tickets. I go when I feel like shit. But there is nothing in those vows that says anything about enduring the ungodly sweltering hell of a church basement.

I get it. It’s punk. It’s cool. No air conditioning. Sweaty, hipster-punks moshing to Blacklisted or bopping to Passion Pit (before they got too cool and moved to the Mann Center). But sometimes I wonder if I will come out of the show alive. I think it might be a legitimate health risk to not have air conditioning in The Church. Maybe only a health risk for us elderly folks but a risk all the same.

The fact that I have yet to see someone pass out at a summer show at The Church is quite miraculous. I’ve seen fights, making out, drugs, weird dudes in weird hats and half naked girls but never heatstroke. I might be the first.

The fans, they so kindly provide, just don’t cut it. Sure, if you are lucky enough to stand directly in front of it you can catch a soft breeze but the people around you will give you dirty looks for hogging the breathable air. Otherwise, the fans just stir the oppressive air around.

Maybe I’m just not punk enough. Maybe I’m too old. But a vow is a vow, and till death do us apart. And death might just do The Church and I apart when I sweat my skin off at the next show.

Pitchfork Takes Over My World

Pitchfork, I love you. I really do. Sometimes I find myself reading you for hours on end. But you seem to have this creepy 1984-like ability to see and know about everything. You know all the bands I like, you interview all the bands I like and just when I think I am responsible for discovering a brand new band, I find you have already discovered them. A friend of a friend of a friend’s band who play in a dingy basement in the suburbs and have yet to release an album or even an EP, yup you know about them.

It is like we live in this dictatorship and Pitchfork is our Stalin. Telling us who to listen to, what music to like, and informing us of when a band is no longer cool. I tend to agree with most of Pitchfork’s rulings, but that doesn’t make it any less frustrating. I wish one day Pitchfork, you would make an enormous mistake and support a band that sucked. That would be the end of you! I could finally say to myself, I don’t agree with you Pitchfork! Take that!

I’d like to think I like the music I like because I think it’s great not because Pitchfork tells me so. Maybe it just so happens that Pitchfork likes the same music as me? Maybe I am the one dictating what is cool! Yeah, I think that’s better.

You know who else carries a pitchfork, Pitchfork? That’s right, the devil!

Filthy Mouths

I adore curse words. I really do. I think they have a certain ring to them that no other words can quite capture. The way they move your tongue, shape your lips and contort your face while belting them out is beautifully theatrical. They can express rage, jest, love, degradation, and so much more! They add a bit more umph to whatever it is they are expressing. I love you is nice and sweet but I fucking love you, now that is sincerity right there.

Of course like any other good thing in the world, it can go oh so wrong. There are those who misuse or abuse the beauty that is cursing, or cussing (I never understood the difference.) To take an effective, expressive tool and turn it into a prostitute whose pimp is bad music is a tragedy.

Songs like, “Get Low” by Lil John and Eastside Boyz are what give profanity a bad rap. With 76 curses “Get Low” might take the cake for overuse of all forms of fuck. Don’t get me wrong that song is catchy and you might even catch me trying to get low to it.

It is not just rap songs that have this addiction to bitch, shit, fuck and anything else you can think of. Plenty of artists spread these words on their songs like a fat kid spreads Fluff on his bread. But the bands that use the F-bomb and its friends artfully, sparingly are utilizing the true value of these words.

Don’t let these magnificent cusses lose their potency. It should be a crime to use too many in one song. Unless you are Eminem and it is a true disorder. “ And since birth I’ve been cursed with this curse to just curse”.  So, lets refrain from fucking that ho and bitch slapping that mother fucker. Instead lets make love to our women and show that dude who’s boss.  No wait, fuck it now you just sound like a pussy!

Philly Fanatics

I have been referred to as an obsessed fan on several occasions.  I take that with pride and valor.  I get that you can love a band’s music so much that you feel moved, inspired or even transformed.  But I have never been compelled to grope, confess my undying love, or steal from a band I like.  Those of you who know me really really well might be saying to yourselves: what about that time you told Fiona Apple you loved her?  Well, screw you because I do!  On with my point.

I just never understood fanaticism that involved crying over Elvis or fainting over the The Beatles.  What good does that do?  You’re blinded by your tears and you miss it all if you pass out.  You paid good money to see The King. Why faint and see the insides of your eyelids instead?  Does the music move you so much that your organs, circulatory system and lungs give up? PUH-LEASE.

Jump to modern day.  Still no point in crying over bands you like.  What’s worse is the “I LOVE YOU, fill in the blank”.  No, you don’t.  You don’t know them and they don’t love you back.  At least not in the same way.  You never know.  They could be republican, racist or bite their toenails, all unloveable traits.

Gets worse: How about the grabbing and touching?  That is borderline molestation last time I checked.  I think it’s safe to say the band members do not enjoy the reaching for their privates unless it’s by a wife, girlfriend or mistress.  What do you think will happen if you cop-a-feel?  Their talent will be magically transfered to you? Or maybe you think they will feel your touch and thus forth, only have eyes for you?  Not likely.

So maybe you think well, touching their nuts didn’t do it so perhaps I’ll just get myself a little keepsake.  That’s right I’ve seen it with my own eyes!  Fans stealing from the very bands they love so dearly.  Picks, drumsticks, instruments taken.  Will these things complete your shrine?

Musicians are people just like me and you.  Granted they are talented, and that makes them sexy but people just the same.  Every musician wants fans that are enthusiastic, supportive and eager.  However, I think it best to just enjoy the music, the sexy musicians, and a respectful crowd.  Be moved, inspired or transformed but please keep the tears, fainting, molestation and larceny to a bare minimum.

Save Those Pennies.

You know what I hate? Besides big venues, Uggs, meat and Live Nation?  I’ll tell you what.  I hate assholes who try to sell you tickets for a show that originally cost them $12 for $30 each!  Are you crazy? No, seriously they must be missing chunks of brain matter.  I have, on many occasions, paced outside The Church like a caged lion awaiting my prey, people with extra tickets.  I have always succeeded in scoring two or sometimes three tickets at original price or even cheaper.  But there are always those greedy poachers who want more.

When Passion Pit came to The Church I knew I would get into that show one way or another.  So sister and I did our thing. We begged and pleaded for tickets.  One guy wanted to sell us two tickets for $40!  The tickets were originally ten.  Even if they had paid the dreaded service charge, it wouldn’t be anywhere near twenty bucks.  Another couple was willing to part with their beloved, extra tickets for fifteen bucks each.  Much more reasonable yes, but still not acceptable. I was not satisfied.  Just as I began to lose hope, my angel came along. Finally, some nice and economically friendly hipsters sold us two tickets for less than original price!  I wanted to give a big SUCK IT to all the money mongers and shove my cheap ticket in their faces.

I am not sure where all this hostility came from, maybe from the fact that I make less than poverty level?  Regardless, I was thrilled that I got to see Passion Pit and that the price was right.  So, a big thanks to the reasonable people out there and a big SUCK IT to the greedy ones.

BIG VENUE little venue

BIG VENUE lIttle venue

I hate big venues.  I hate the Spectrum, the Wachovia Center and I even hate the Mann.  I hate medium sized venues too.  I hate the Troc, and the Electric Factory.  I am not a girl with a lot of hate in her with this exception.  Wait I lied there is more… I hate paying absurd amounts of money to see bands I like. Thank you Live Nation.

I get that big venues are a statement of success, big stage, more people, more money.  But what they don’t see is that mo’, money, mo’ problems, for me at least.

I can never see at big venues. Not only because I am vertically challenged but also because the band is stuck up on some huge stage and feels like I need a golf cart to get to it.

There are smoke machines, fancy lights, and rigid security.  I can do without all that luxury.  It works occasionally for bands like Genesis (yes, I went to that. No, I am not ashamed) or REM (I was there too) but I much prefer less glitz and more sweat.

I like the seedy little bars, basements of churches, deepest depths of a random house in South Philly.  It’s intimate.  I can see the band play, I can feel their sweat, and more importantly they can see me.  I would imagine seeing your fans dance and enjoy your music would be rewarding enough without the laser beams.

I am not one for violent dancing but I do like to shake it. And I really like to stage dive when the mood strikes. I hate when some big muscle-man tells me I can’t or grabs me mid surf and pulls me down.  I understand it’s dangerous, but let me surf before I get too old and frail!

I love the First Unitarian Church, Starlight Ballroom, Kung Fu Necktie and Johnny Brenda’s.  I love that I can afford shows there and that the bands I love are willing to play there.  I commend bands that are “big” enough to play those dreadfully large venues yet choose to keep it small and simple.  So, it just goes to show,

bigger is not always better.  Unless we are talking about sex, and then it is.

Dance Till You’re Dead… Or Heads Will Roll

In addition to, as a rebuttal to, or in opposition to, Andee’s Pushing and Shoving, I would like to state my claim.  Non-dancers suck just as much as violent dancers do.  Although pushers and shovers do inflict pain, bruises and much emotional distress, the non-dancers inflict a different kind of pain all their own, the pain of being boring.

It hurts me to see hipsters at a show, which would normally evoke bumping and grinding, conforming to the “hipsters rule guide”.  That is attempting to look cool and not care about anything even the music they like.  “Oh Ill just lean against this wall here, in my absurdly tight jeans and tattered shirt, and stare blankly at the stage as if I am thinking about something Sartre said once.”  Don’t get me wrong I have those jeans and that shirt but when the music moves me, THE MUSIC MOVES ME.

I am not afraid to bounce, shimmy and shake. In fact sometimes I literally can’t control my body.  Passion Pit makes me dance like I’m possessed. Be possessed people!

There are shows like, Matt and Kim and Passion Pit, where people do dance.  But I have been to shows that were painfully undanced, the poor band, standing there under the lights trying to rock out, only to see a crowd of people just standing.  DANCE god damn it!

There was lots of head bopping at Lemonheads, and toe tapping at Vampire Weekend, even whole body swaying at Margot and the Nuclear So and So’s but that is not good enough!  I want the whole enchilada minus the punching, pushing, biting, and chokeholds please.

So, next time you go to a show that is dance worthy, please for me, for the band, for your own health, DANCE!

Pushing and Shoving

Why You All up in my Grill?

So I realize that it’s taboo to complain about people pushing and shoving on the floor when you’re at a show. It’s like you’re just supposed to be a badass and pretend that it is not irritating as all hell. But, the truth is, a whole hell of a lot more goes on than a little pushing and shoving. In fact, I was once bitten on the arm by a young hipster-ette about half my age and twice my size. I’m not talking about a little nibble. It was an all out Jaws bite. It involved teeth marks, blood, and bruising that lasted weeks. I have been kicked in the head, spit on, punched, been put in a head-lock, taken numerous blows to the ribs and had chunks of hair pulled from my scalp. On the flip side, I once had a girl’s boyfriend ask me to stop dancing into his lovely lady because she was known to bruise easily (wah.)

So, I think it’s time to admit that we have a situation. Maybe some guidelines are necessary to help us know how much brutality is acceptable when losing ourselves to the music.

** Side note: These rules do not apply to death rock or hardcore. You’re on your own with that. Be prepared to take a couple punches straight to the face.

1.Getting to the Front.

I propose that it is always okay to push to the front, as long as nobody is stopping you. If someone is just giving you evil looks, or calling you a bitch, I say just keep on shoving. However, if someone decides they have some balls and want to guard their territory with a little shove back, good for them. Move to another area to fight for prime real estate.

2.Dancing or Whatever You Call That.

Bumping into people while dancing is okay. If you’re not okay with a few bruises go to the opera. Stepping on people when they are down, and using their face as boot cleaners, not okay. This one seems pretty obvious people.

Also, if some one in the crowd looks scared for their life, have the decency to let them get out safely before returning to your spastic interpretive dance.

3.“Hey, Down in Front!”

This one goes out to all you tall guys out there. Why must you always take residence directly in front of poor little 5-foot-3-inch me? You’re tall! You can see over me! If you’re acrophobic standing on the ground, move to the back please.

4.Hitting the Bottle

If you don’t know where your pants are, all of a sudden love everyone around you, and lost count of how many Pabsts you’ve pounded, go home! We’re all too busy worrying about when you’re going to hurl on us to enjoy the music.

5.Shower Before You Go Out

(This one might be too much to ask. I’ll move on.)

6.Crowd Surfing

It’s fun. Do it. But, there is no need to lose all control of your limbs. It’s a rush and all, but it’s not heroin. Use your muscles and stop kicking me in the nose.

Also, its a shame I even have to mention this, but a girl should be able to crowd surf with out having to worry that you’ll rip her new push-up-bra to shreds. Hands off guys! Your here for the music, not the tits.

I think that about covers the big ones. Just add a little thought and care to your pushing and shoving and we will have a happier, healthier crowd.

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